Chatter that free bus passes may also go as well as single person council tax discount.
If this is going to happen may as well do it now and hope it’s all a distant memory in 2029.
Even if these things don't all happen the speculation isn't helpful for Starmer.
It means no-one will end up trusting him, even if they aren't targeted this time.
"First they came for the pensioners..."
Its your fault
Free bus doesn't really cost the state anything. The buses would run anyway. In almost no cases is the freely-bussed pensioner depriving a fare-paying 16-65 year old of a seat. And some pensioners would pay a bus fare if they had to. But my bet is the majority would drive, taxi or not travel.
I believe that “free bus travel” is really “prepaid bus travel” with the government paying free bus companies for it
New John Gray article in the New Statesman, about JG Ballard.
"11 September 2024
JG Ballard’s apocalyptic art In Empire of the Sun, published 40 years ago, the great novelist turned his childhood experiences in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp into a form of personal liberation.
I’m driving up beautiful Myra Canyon and a sudden conundrum has struck me. Why do we LIKE being scared? Being scared is not obviously fun. Your heart pounds, you perspire, you cower away and shriek
And yet we seek it out. We love roller coasters and off piste skiing and ghost stories and horror movies
But WHY?
Not everyone likes being scared. Loads don't. Those who do seem to fall into two unequal groups: the distanced scared - roller coasters carefully conformed to safety standards, horror films, war films, ghost stories. These are a sort of substitution activity and is a form of entertainment. The much smaller group likes real unfiltered scary danger, the sort where you clearly may or may not die.
I think I saw polling that showed potential Libertarian voters breaking for Harris in forced Harris-Trump choice. I guess they are difficult to poll though. Trump got a hostile reception at their convention I think.
I’m driving up beautiful Myra Canyon and a sudden conundrum has struck me. Why do we LIKE being scared? Being scared is not obviously fun. Your heart pounds, you perspire, you cower away and shriek
And yet we seek it out. We love roller coasters and off piste skiing and ghost stories and horror movies
But WHY?
Not everyone likes being scared. Loads don't. Those who do seem to fall into two unequal groups: the distanced scared - roller coasters carefully conformed to safety standards, horror films, war films, ghost stories. These are a sort of substitution activity and is a form of entertainment. The much smaller group likes real unfiltered scary danger, the sort where you clearly may or may not die.
But….. WHY?
I’m in both groups so this is personal. I like scary movies and roller coasters but I also like warzones and scuba
I’m trying to map out some ev psych explanation but it is not obvious
So three months in and nobody's talking about how competent Starmer's government is.
Unbelievably Sunak is starting to look good
Now hang on, that's going a bit far.
Is it ?
I mean for months on PB Starmer was praised for his quiet competence, w were going to have better government etc.
So far we have had a mega lie on £22 billion, the unions are rubbing their hands om inflationary pay increases, Miliband is merrily screwing up energy and killiing 100000+ jobs in the North Sea, , WFA fiasco, riots, growth at a stand still for the last 2 months and big tax rises on the horizon.
And all of that in 10 week as just today the sleaze accusations start to circle round Starmer.
It is permissible to think Starmer is no good after several weeks of mistakes.
It is hardly permissible to say Sunak after two years of extraordinary bungling where he got practically every major decision wrong looks good by comparison.
FWIW I believe the WFA issue is a massive misstep, and one Starmer and Reeves appear to be disinclined to walk back from, which is bizarre.
Most of the other criticisms on here and in the Tory client media, that the haven't stopped the boats because they jettisoned the "fantastic" Rwanda plan, although flights of failed asylum seekers have left the country to no fanfare. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpe388jy2n3o.amp The accusation that Reeves has squandered the "golden legacy" and they have lost control over the NHS and prison management which was in Trumpian terms "great" under the Tories is all nonsense. The remaining Jenrick-smoothing Tories on here seem to believe if they can talk up a Starmer failure their boy is a shoo in in 2029. Of course Labour probably will be useless, and after ten weeks we have little evidence bto suggest otherwise, but will the Conservatives romp home unopposed in five years time? Our faithful friends on here, on the BBC and in the Telegraph don't seem to have twigged just how despised the Johnson and post- Johnson Tories are.
As to Mrs Starmer's clothing gift, whilst unwise, it's not (yet) on the scale of Lulu Lytle's wallpaper, the PPE fast lane scandal and of course Robert Jenrick's outrageous planning intervention on behalf of the pornographer and Tory donor Richard Desmond.
I am not surprised they are holding firm on WFA. If a new government backtracks on one of its very first tax and spend announcements, then it sets a precedent that they’ll roll over every time.
The issue for Starmer and Reeves is that this particular policy is the hill they’ve chosen (or had chosen for them) to take a stand on. It’s not a policy that wins them votes elsewhere, it doesn’t save tremendous sums of money, it annoys one of the most politically-engaged segments of society, it was announced before winter at a time the energy cap is going up and at the same time as public sector pay deals, it seems to have been announced as a throwaway policy, outside of a budget, because Reeves wanted something to sound “tough” on.
Their first big policy battle should have been the tax rises and spending cuts in the budget, with public sector reform the absolute next item on that list. As it is, they’ve allowed their hasty WFA announcement to set the scene and to spend all their political capital on, for no discernible political benefit.
"doesn't save tremendous amounts of money"
This is everything that's wrong with this country. It saves £1.5 billion per annum, so about £7.5 billion over this Parliament.
And you don't think that's a tremendous amount of money?
Yes. It's a tremendous amount. And £300 is a tremendous amount of money to lose if you are a single pensioner living on £13K. It's not complicated. Labour should have waited until it could target effectively, and filled the gap with a Rich Person Tax of some sort.
Why?
Most pensioners aren't paying any rent or mortgage and have no expenses to travel to work either.
£13k is not a terrible income then compared to those who are paying to go to work and paying rent or mortgage too.
So why should we be giving £300 of unearned income to them just because they're pensioners?
Also in the context of an 8.5% increase in April 2024, or £900 per year
I can't get over the simplicity and elegance of extending NI to pensioners as a way of squeezing the rich ones and leaving the poor alone. I don't think it was ruled out by the pledge not to increase NI because it's a broadening of scope not an increase.
Better to position it as a first step to merge income tax and NI in the interests of cutting administrative costs
Absolutely not, NI funds should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA and some NHS funds and social care costs
Pensioners are big users of the NHS and Social Care.
The contrast fo £19 grand on frocks and thongs versus £300 to help a pensioner get through the winter just int a good look.
It’s incredible. And it’s not like the Starmers are poor. They are multi millionaires with groaning huge pensions and earning maybe £300k a year as a household? £400k?
And the wife accepts pretty dresses as a gift??? Right at the start of their first term?
WTAF
It screams: meet the new boss same as the old boss, only the new boss is a fucking hypocrite who wants to make you miserable and stop you eating pies, whereas the old boss was just a greedy shit and didn’t care what you do
Most governments end in sleaze.
Starmer's government has started in sleaze.
Something it shares in common with labour in 97 and cash for fags
What’s the quid pro quo? This is nothing like “cash for fags”.
Keir seems to have been careless. The optics are not great but this is not a government that has “started in sleaze”.
“Careless”???
He knowingly accepted tens of thousands in freebies not only for himself. But for his wife, also
In return the donor was given a free pass to the commons - completely against the rules
Whoops! Butter fingers!
If I was about to become PM, I feel like Mrs Walker might also need a telegenic spruce up. Suddenly, she is in the public eye.
The British state affords no such largesse, and I don’t think the Starmers are personally wealthy.
It therefore seems that this rather shabby compromise has developed whereby PMs get some kind of image support from well placed donors.
Starmer’s sin is administrative. He should have declared it all. It’s not obvious why and how he overlooked it.
They are both high earners and have been for a long time - many many people manage to look good each day without a state bung for their clothes. If you don’t want to deal with that then you could just not run for leadership of a party where you might end up as PM.
Its not as if it’s a lifetime problem - they can blow a bit of cash because he will more than make up for it afterwards on the speaking circuit, books, whatever. It just looks grasping.
It stinks of corruption. After what's gone on with the previous government, this Labour government is showing it's not any better. And the stink is coming from the very top.
Why, Starmer, why? What the **** were you thinking? You're supposed to be the sensible adult in the room. And then you accept this sort of 'deal', and 'forget' to declare it.
You're no better than the last lot.
I’m not sure it’s corruption just stupidity. He probably thought that it was such small beer and had justified it to himself that it wasn’t a problem. His problem is he’s such a twatty puritanical preachy knob. If Boris and Carrie did it then everyone would raise an eyebrow or shrug but Sir Keir Cromwell was such a pious prick that he needed to be whiter than white.
I heard Ed Davey on News Agents earlier this week. Total drivel.
It’s sad, but the Lib Dems seem to have mutated from a gang of liberal policy wonks to somethin akin to a Waitrose users group.
Presume the Liberal Democrat magazine now comes with recipe ideas sponsored by Charlie Bigham.
Anything you want to complain about specifically or are you just having a Sunday afternoon whinge?
I just told you. Davey came across well-meaning but having no actual conception of challenges faced by the country.
And in theory, I’m a Davey supporter (and in practice a Lib Dem voter).
As I wrote this I thought to myself, the Lib Dems are now the sort of party that supports the WASPI women cause.
I checked, and of course they do.
Not serious.
The weird thing is, the LDs had an open goal and an obvious role: become the Rejoin Now party
Promise an instant return to the SM and CU and a new referendum within a year
Yet they refused to take the chance and waffled vaguely, instead
They should have been the Remainer version of the SNP. Make Rejoin their one big profound policy, their raison d’etre
In a weird volatile election, with lots of Remainers looking warily (and with justification) at Starmer, that could have been explosive. But no
No, wasting time and effort on "Rejoining" is an elephant trap of epic proportions.
The first problem is we have no idea under what terms the EU would consider the UK (re)joining. Would we have to accept the Euro and Schengen for example? I'm sure plenty would object to that.
Even if the EU offered status quo ante referendum, we'd still have issues over QMV and the rebates.
We had to leave because our half-hearted mean-spirited rebate-obsessed membership wasn't doing either us or the EU any good and we took a democratic vote deciding to leave.
There would also be huge resistance to any attempt to reintroduce Freedom of Movement which I believe is a prerequisite for membership of the Single Market - indeed, it would be a huge gift for Reform if anyone were to try.
We were never honest as to why we wanted to join in the first place. Because of that our membership was always false, incomplete, unsatisfying.
Why did we want to join ? Well the Empire was finished but of course we had superb management experience, in our own eyes. This European thing was all very well but well, Johnny Foreigner had had a century and a half to sort things out since 1815 and what had he done, 2 1/2 world wars and the possibility of another. The truth is we ASSUMED that if we joined the Common Market we would not just be primus inter pares, but like the Empire, we alone would be the leader. To some extent they even played up to that my making Henry Plumb first elected leader of the European Parliament.
The saddest part of it is sometimes the Rejoiners STILL think they would let us lead if we went back. Sorry lads, ain't gonna happen.
Other way round. Britain sought salvation, and Europe feared we would take over. In the 1950s and 60s the Establishment saw Britain as in terminal decline, and viewed entry to the Common Market as our last hope, only for us to be denied repeatedly, until Ted Heath finally got us in.
What ‘got us in’ was the death of Charles de Gaulle.
I've never quite understood why he disliked us so, given all the help we gave him personally. (Open to biography suggestions - in English)
He was trying to rebuild France as a great power. He saw the U.K. as attempting to turn France into a satellite.
I’m driving up beautiful Myra Canyon and a sudden conundrum has struck me. Why do we LIKE being scared? Being scared is not obviously fun. Your heart pounds, you perspire, you cower away and shriek
And yet we seek it out. We love roller coasters and off piste skiing and ghost stories and horror movies
But WHY?
Not everyone likes being scared. Loads don't. Those who do seem to fall into two unequal groups: the distanced scared - roller coasters carefully conformed to safety standards, horror films, war films, ghost stories. These are a sort of substitution activity and is a form of entertainment. The much smaller group likes real unfiltered scary danger, the sort where you clearly may or may not die.
But….. WHY?
I’m in both groups so this is personal. I like scary movies and roller coasters but I also like warzones and scuba
I’m trying to map out some ev psych explanation but it is not obvious
I strangely find I’m not scared of anything anymore except for dying alone naked in bed and being found a while later. Otherwise ghosts, fights, operations, not so much.
I think I saw polling that showed potential Libertarian voters breaking for Harris in forced Harris-Trump choice. I guess they are difficult to poll though. Trump got a hostile reception at their convention I think.
I heard Ed Davey on News Agents earlier this week. Total drivel.
It’s sad, but the Lib Dems seem to have mutated from a gang of liberal policy wonks to somethin akin to a Waitrose users group.
Presume the Liberal Democrat magazine now comes with recipe ideas sponsored by Charlie Bigham.
Anything you want to complain about specifically or are you just having a Sunday afternoon whinge?
I just told you. Davey came across well-meaning but having no actual conception of challenges faced by the country.
And in theory, I’m a Davey supporter (and in practice a Lib Dem voter).
As I wrote this I thought to myself, the Lib Dems are now the sort of party that supports the WASPI women cause.
I checked, and of course they do.
Not serious.
The weird thing is, the LDs had an open goal and an obvious role: become the Rejoin Now party
Promise an instant return to the SM and CU and a new referendum within a year
Yet they refused to take the chance and waffled vaguely, instead
They should have been the Remainer version of the SNP. Make Rejoin their one big profound policy, their raison d’etre
In a weird volatile election, with lots of Remainers looking warily (and with justification) at Starmer, that could have been explosive. But no
No, wasting time and effort on "Rejoining" is an elephant trap of epic proportions.
The first problem is we have no idea under what terms the EU would consider the UK (re)joining. Would we have to accept the Euro and Schengen for example? I'm sure plenty would object to that.
Even if the EU offered status quo ante referendum, we'd still have issues over QMV and the rebates.
We had to leave because our half-hearted mean-spirited rebate-obsessed membership wasn't doing either us or the EU any good and we took a democratic vote deciding to leave.
There would also be huge resistance to any attempt to reintroduce Freedom of Movement which I believe is a prerequisite for membership of the Single Market - indeed, it would be a huge gift for Reform if anyone were to try.
We were never honest as to why we wanted to join in the first place. Because of that our membership was always false, incomplete, unsatisfying.
Why did we want to join ? Well the Empire was finished but of course we had superb management experience, in our own eyes. This European thing was all very well but well, Johnny Foreigner had had a century and a half to sort things out since 1815 and what had he done, 2 1/2 world wars and the possibility of another. The truth is we ASSUMED that if we joined the Common Market we would not just be primus inter pares, but like the Empire, we alone would be the leader. To some extent they even played up to that my making Henry Plumb first elected leader of the European Parliament.
The saddest part of it is sometimes the Rejoiners STILL think they would let us lead if we went back. Sorry lads, ain't gonna happen.
Other way round. Britain sought salvation, and Europe feared we would take over. In the 1950s and 60s the Establishment saw Britain as in terminal decline, and viewed entry to the Common Market as our last hope, only for us to be denied repeatedly, until Ted Heath finally got us in.
What ‘got us in’ was the death of Charles de Gaulle.
I've never quite understood why he disliked us so, given all the help we gave him personally. (Open to biography suggestions - in English)
He was trying to rebuild France as a great power. He saw the U.K. as attempting to turn France into a satellite.
More simply, he though Britain would never be a good partner. Something that Brexiteers agree on.
The contrast fo £19 grand on frocks and thongs versus £300 to help a pensioner get through the winter just int a good look.
It’s incredible. And it’s not like the Starmers are poor. They are multi millionaires with groaning huge pensions and earning maybe £300k a year as a household? £400k?
And the wife accepts pretty dresses as a gift??? Right at the start of their first term?
WTAF
It screams: meet the new boss same as the old boss, only the new boss is a fucking hypocrite who wants to make you miserable and stop you eating pies, whereas the old boss was just a greedy shit and didn’t care what you do
Most governments end in sleaze.
Starmer's government has started in sleaze.
Something it shares in common with labour in 97 and cash for fags
What’s the quid pro quo? This is nothing like “cash for fags”.
Keir seems to have been careless. The optics are not great but this is not a government that has “started in sleaze”.
“Careless”???
He knowingly accepted tens of thousands in freebies not only for himself. But for his wife, also
In return the donor was given a free pass to the commons - completely against the rules
Whoops! Butter fingers!
If I was about to become PM, I feel like Mrs Walker might also need a telegenic spruce up. Suddenly, she is in the public eye.
The British state affords no such largesse, and I don’t think the Starmers are personally wealthy.
It therefore seems that this rather shabby compromise has developed whereby PMs get some kind of image support from well placed donors.
Starmer’s sin is administrative. He should have declared it all. It’s not obvious why and how he overlooked it.
They are both high earners and have been for a long time - many many people manage to look good each day without a state bung for their clothes. If you don’t want to deal with that then you could just not run for leadership of a party where you might end up as PM.
Its not as if it’s a lifetime problem - they can blow a bit of cash because he will more than make up for it afterwards on the speaking circuit, books, whatever. It just looks grasping.
It stinks of corruption. After what's gone on with the previous government, this Labour government is showing it's not any better. And the stink is coming from the very top.
Why, Starmer, why? What the **** were you thinking? You're supposed to be the sensible adult in the room. And then you accept this sort of 'deal', and 'forget' to declare it.
You're no better than the last lot.
I’m not sure it’s corruption just stupidity. He probably thought that it was such small beer and had justified it to himself that it wasn’t a problem. His problem is he’s such a twatty puritanical preachy knob. If Boris and Carrie did it then everyone would raise an eyebrow or shrug but Sir Keir Cromwell was such a pious prick that he needed to be whiter than white.
If this was a Conservative MP, let alone Conservative leader, Starmer would not be saying "It's just stupidity, not corruption".
This all interrelates as well: it's not the first time he's forgotten to declare free gifts; and AIUI this time it's connected with the donor getting a No. 10 pass.
One of his few selling points was that he was an adult in the room; someone who could get things done properly without fuss, as he apparently did during his time as DPP.
It stinks. And the amounts make it worse.
Boris was (rightly) brought down by a cake. SKS will get away with this, but he should not.
I heard Ed Davey on News Agents earlier this week. Total drivel.
It’s sad, but the Lib Dems seem to have mutated from a gang of liberal policy wonks to somethin akin to a Waitrose users group.
Presume the Liberal Democrat magazine now comes with recipe ideas sponsored by Charlie Bigham.
Anything you want to complain about specifically or are you just having a Sunday afternoon whinge?
I just told you. Davey came across well-meaning but having no actual conception of challenges faced by the country.
And in theory, I’m a Davey supporter (and in practice a Lib Dem voter).
As I wrote this I thought to myself, the Lib Dems are now the sort of party that supports the WASPI women cause.
I checked, and of course they do.
Not serious.
The weird thing is, the LDs had an open goal and an obvious role: become the Rejoin Now party
Promise an instant return to the SM and CU and a new referendum within a year
Yet they refused to take the chance and waffled vaguely, instead
They should have been the Remainer version of the SNP. Make Rejoin their one big profound policy, their raison d’etre
In a weird volatile election, with lots of Remainers looking warily (and with justification) at Starmer, that could have been explosive. But no
No, wasting time and effort on "Rejoining" is an elephant trap of epic proportions.
The first problem is we have no idea under what terms the EU would consider the UK (re)joining. Would we have to accept the Euro and Schengen for example? I'm sure plenty would object to that.
Even if the EU offered status quo ante referendum, we'd still have issues over QMV and the rebates.
We had to leave because our half-hearted mean-spirited rebate-obsessed membership wasn't doing either us or the EU any good and we took a democratic vote deciding to leave.
There would also be huge resistance to any attempt to reintroduce Freedom of Movement which I believe is a prerequisite for membership of the Single Market - indeed, it would be a huge gift for Reform if anyone were to try.
We were never honest as to why we wanted to join in the first place. Because of that our membership was always false, incomplete, unsatisfying.
Why did we want to join ? Well the Empire was finished but of course we had superb management experience, in our own eyes. This European thing was all very well but well, Johnny Foreigner had had a century and a half to sort things out since 1815 and what had he done, 2 1/2 world wars and the possibility of another. The truth is we ASSUMED that if we joined the Common Market we would not just be primus inter pares, but like the Empire, we alone would be the leader. To some extent they even played up to that my making Henry Plumb first elected leader of the European Parliament.
The saddest part of it is sometimes the Rejoiners STILL think they would let us lead if we went back. Sorry lads, ain't gonna happen.
Other way round. Britain sought salvation, and Europe feared we would take over. In the 1950s and 60s the Establishment saw Britain as in terminal decline, and viewed entry to the Common Market as our last hope, only for us to be denied repeatedly, until Ted Heath finally got us in.
What ‘got us in’ was the death of Charles de Gaulle.
I've never quite understood why he disliked us so, given all the help we gave him personally. (Open to biography suggestions - in English)
He was trying to rebuild France as a great power. He saw the U.K. as attempting to turn France into a satellite.
The allies should never have let French forces “liberate” Paris. They should have made it clear who had done the heavy lifting. I think they were so worried about a communist streak in France that they didn’t want a humiliated France. De Gaulle was an absolute truly chauvinistic French man but probably what the French needed to avoid turmoil after the war.
I heard Ed Davey on News Agents earlier this week. Total drivel.
It’s sad, but the Lib Dems seem to have mutated from a gang of liberal policy wonks to somethin akin to a Waitrose users group.
Presume the Liberal Democrat magazine now comes with recipe ideas sponsored by Charlie Bigham.
Anything you want to complain about specifically or are you just having a Sunday afternoon whinge?
I just told you. Davey came across well-meaning but having no actual conception of challenges faced by the country.
And in theory, I’m a Davey supporter (and in practice a Lib Dem voter).
As I wrote this I thought to myself, the Lib Dems are now the sort of party that supports the WASPI women cause.
I checked, and of course they do.
Not serious.
The weird thing is, the LDs had an open goal and an obvious role: become the Rejoin Now party
Promise an instant return to the SM and CU and a new referendum within a year
Yet they refused to take the chance and waffled vaguely, instead
They should have been the Remainer version of the SNP. Make Rejoin their one big profound policy, their raison d’etre
In a weird volatile election, with lots of Remainers looking warily (and with justification) at Starmer, that could have been explosive. But no
No, wasting time and effort on "Rejoining" is an elephant trap of epic proportions.
The first problem is we have no idea under what terms the EU would consider the UK (re)joining. Would we have to accept the Euro and Schengen for example? I'm sure plenty would object to that.
Even if the EU offered status quo ante referendum, we'd still have issues over QMV and the rebates.
We had to leave because our half-hearted mean-spirited rebate-obsessed membership wasn't doing either us or the EU any good and we took a democratic vote deciding to leave.
There would also be huge resistance to any attempt to reintroduce Freedom of Movement which I believe is a prerequisite for membership of the Single Market - indeed, it would be a huge gift for Reform if anyone were to try.
We were never honest as to why we wanted to join in the first place. Because of that our membership was always false, incomplete, unsatisfying.
Why did we want to join ? Well the Empire was finished but of course we had superb management experience, in our own eyes. This European thing was all very well but well, Johnny Foreigner had had a century and a half to sort things out since 1815 and what had he done, 2 1/2 world wars and the possibility of another. The truth is we ASSUMED that if we joined the Common Market we would not just be primus inter pares, but like the Empire, we alone would be the leader. To some extent they even played up to that my making Henry Plumb first elected leader of the European Parliament.
The saddest part of it is sometimes the Rejoiners STILL think they would let us lead if we went back. Sorry lads, ain't gonna happen.
Other way round. Britain sought salvation, and Europe feared we would take over. In the 1950s and 60s the Establishment saw Britain as in terminal decline, and viewed entry to the Common Market as our last hope, only for us to be denied repeatedly, until Ted Heath finally got us in.
What ‘got us in’ was the death of Charles de Gaulle.
I've never quite understood why he disliked us so, given all the help we gave him personally. (Open to biography suggestions - in English)
He was trying to rebuild France as a great power. He saw the U.K. as attempting to turn France into a satellite.
More simply, he though Britain would never be a good partner. Something that Brexiteers agree on.
Even simpler. France was The Great Power in Europe. West Germany was far behind France, and still occupied.
De Gaulle’s vision was that Europe would be run by France, which would therefore increase French power.
If the U.K. joined Europe the. France would have a rival/equal in Europe.
The contrast fo £19 grand on frocks and thongs versus £300 to help a pensioner get through the winter just int a good look.
It’s incredible. And it’s not like the Starmers are poor. They are multi millionaires with groaning huge pensions and earning maybe £300k a year as a household? £400k?
And the wife accepts pretty dresses as a gift??? Right at the start of their first term?
WTAF
It screams: meet the new boss same as the old boss, only the new boss is a fucking hypocrite who wants to make you miserable and stop you eating pies, whereas the old boss was just a greedy shit and didn’t care what you do
Most governments end in sleaze.
Starmer's government has started in sleaze.
Something it shares in common with labour in 97 and cash for fags
What’s the quid pro quo? This is nothing like “cash for fags”.
Keir seems to have been careless. The optics are not great but this is not a government that has “started in sleaze”.
“Careless”???
He knowingly accepted tens of thousands in freebies not only for himself. But for his wife, also
In return the donor was given a free pass to the commons - completely against the rules
Whoops! Butter fingers!
If I was about to become PM, I feel like Mrs Walker might also need a telegenic spruce up. Suddenly, she is in the public eye.
The British state affords no such largesse, and I don’t think the Starmers are personally wealthy.
It therefore seems that this rather shabby compromise has developed whereby PMs get some kind of image support from well placed donors.
Starmer’s sin is administrative. He should have declared it all. It’s not obvious why and how he overlooked it.
They are both high earners and have been for a long time - many many people manage to look good each day without a state bung for their clothes. If you don’t want to deal with that then you could just not run for leadership of a party where you might end up as PM.
Its not as if it’s a lifetime problem - they can blow a bit of cash because he will more than make up for it afterwards on the speaking circuit, books, whatever. It just looks grasping.
It stinks of corruption. After what's gone on with the previous government, this Labour government is showing it's not any better. And the stink is coming from the very top.
Why, Starmer, why? What the **** were you thinking? You're supposed to be the sensible adult in the room. And then you accept this sort of 'deal', and 'forget' to declare it.
You're no better than the last lot.
I’m not sure it’s corruption just stupidity. He probably thought that it was such small beer and had justified it to himself that it wasn’t a problem. His problem is he’s such a twatty puritanical preachy knob. If Boris and Carrie did it then everyone would raise an eyebrow or shrug but Sir Keir Cromwell was such a pious prick that he needed to be whiter than white.
If this was a Conservative MP, let alone Conservative leader, Starmer would not be saying "It's just stupidity, not corruption".
This all interrelates as well: it's not the first time he's forgotten to declare free gifts; and AIUI this time it's connected with the donor getting a No. 10 pass.
One of his few selling points was that he was an adult in the room; someone who could get things done properly without fuss, as he apparently did during his time as DPP.
It stinks. And the amounts make it worse.
Boris was (rightly) brought down by a cake. SKS will get away with this, but he should not.
To be fair if we don’t have to see this dreadful suit again it might be good for the country.
I heard Ed Davey on News Agents earlier this week. Total drivel.
It’s sad, but the Lib Dems seem to have mutated from a gang of liberal policy wonks to somethin akin to a Waitrose users group.
Presume the Liberal Democrat magazine now comes with recipe ideas sponsored by Charlie Bigham.
Anything you want to complain about specifically or are you just having a Sunday afternoon whinge?
I just told you. Davey came across well-meaning but having no actual conception of challenges faced by the country.
And in theory, I’m a Davey supporter (and in practice a Lib Dem voter).
As I wrote this I thought to myself, the Lib Dems are now the sort of party that supports the WASPI women cause.
I checked, and of course they do.
Not serious.
The weird thing is, the LDs had an open goal and an obvious role: become the Rejoin Now party
Promise an instant return to the SM and CU and a new referendum within a year
Yet they refused to take the chance and waffled vaguely, instead
They should have been the Remainer version of the SNP. Make Rejoin their one big profound policy, their raison d’etre
In a weird volatile election, with lots of Remainers looking warily (and with justification) at Starmer, that could have been explosive. But no
No, wasting time and effort on "Rejoining" is an elephant trap of epic proportions.
The first problem is we have no idea under what terms the EU would consider the UK (re)joining. Would we have to accept the Euro and Schengen for example? I'm sure plenty would object to that.
Even if the EU offered status quo ante referendum, we'd still have issues over QMV and the rebates.
We had to leave because our half-hearted mean-spirited rebate-obsessed membership wasn't doing either us or the EU any good and we took a democratic vote deciding to leave.
There would also be huge resistance to any attempt to reintroduce Freedom of Movement which I believe is a prerequisite for membership of the Single Market - indeed, it would be a huge gift for Reform if anyone were to try.
We were never honest as to why we wanted to join in the first place. Because of that our membership was always false, incomplete, unsatisfying.
Why did we want to join ? Well the Empire was finished but of course we had superb management experience, in our own eyes. This European thing was all very well but well, Johnny Foreigner had had a century and a half to sort things out since 1815 and what had he done, 2 1/2 world wars and the possibility of another. The truth is we ASSUMED that if we joined the Common Market we would not just be primus inter pares, but like the Empire, we alone would be the leader. To some extent they even played up to that my making Henry Plumb first elected leader of the European Parliament.
The saddest part of it is sometimes the Rejoiners STILL think they would let us lead if we went back. Sorry lads, ain't gonna happen.
Other way round. Britain sought salvation, and Europe feared we would take over. In the 1950s and 60s the Establishment saw Britain as in terminal decline, and viewed entry to the Common Market as our last hope, only for us to be denied repeatedly, until Ted Heath finally got us in.
What ‘got us in’ was the death of Charles de Gaulle.
I've never quite understood why he disliked us so, given all the help we gave him personally. (Open to biography suggestions - in English)
He was trying to rebuild France as a great power. He saw the U.K. as attempting to turn France into a satellite.
More simply, he though Britain would never be a good partner. Something that Brexiteers agree on.
He thought we'd ultimately favour America over Europe, and he was right.
I heard Ed Davey on News Agents earlier this week. Total drivel.
It’s sad, but the Lib Dems seem to have mutated from a gang of liberal policy wonks to somethin akin to a Waitrose users group.
Presume the Liberal Democrat magazine now comes with recipe ideas sponsored by Charlie Bigham.
Anything you want to complain about specifically or are you just having a Sunday afternoon whinge?
I just told you. Davey came across well-meaning but having no actual conception of challenges faced by the country.
And in theory, I’m a Davey supporter (and in practice a Lib Dem voter).
As I wrote this I thought to myself, the Lib Dems are now the sort of party that supports the WASPI women cause.
I checked, and of course they do.
Not serious.
The weird thing is, the LDs had an open goal and an obvious role: become the Rejoin Now party
Promise an instant return to the SM and CU and a new referendum within a year
Yet they refused to take the chance and waffled vaguely, instead
They should have been the Remainer version of the SNP. Make Rejoin their one big profound policy, their raison d’etre
In a weird volatile election, with lots of Remainers looking warily (and with justification) at Starmer, that could have been explosive. But no
No, wasting time and effort on "Rejoining" is an elephant trap of epic proportions.
The first problem is we have no idea under what terms the EU would consider the UK (re)joining. Would we have to accept the Euro and Schengen for example? I'm sure plenty would object to that.
Even if the EU offered status quo ante referendum, we'd still have issues over QMV and the rebates.
We had to leave because our half-hearted mean-spirited rebate-obsessed membership wasn't doing either us or the EU any good and we took a democratic vote deciding to leave.
There would also be huge resistance to any attempt to reintroduce Freedom of Movement which I believe is a prerequisite for membership of the Single Market - indeed, it would be a huge gift for Reform if anyone were to try.
We were never honest as to why we wanted to join in the first place. Because of that our membership was always false, incomplete, unsatisfying.
Why did we want to join ? Well the Empire was finished but of course we had superb management experience, in our own eyes. This European thing was all very well but well, Johnny Foreigner had had a century and a half to sort things out since 1815 and what had he done, 2 1/2 world wars and the possibility of another. The truth is we ASSUMED that if we joined the Common Market we would not just be primus inter pares, but like the Empire, we alone would be the leader. To some extent they even played up to that my making Henry Plumb first elected leader of the European Parliament.
The saddest part of it is sometimes the Rejoiners STILL think they would let us lead if we went back. Sorry lads, ain't gonna happen.
Other way round. Britain sought salvation, and Europe feared we would take over. In the 1950s and 60s the Establishment saw Britain as in terminal decline, and viewed entry to the Common Market as our last hope, only for us to be denied repeatedly, until Ted Heath finally got us in.
What ‘got us in’ was the death of Charles de Gaulle.
I've never quite understood why he disliked us so, given all the help we gave him personally. (Open to biography suggestions - in English)
Because he was a vain, arrogant nationalist fucker who never got over the humiliation of France's defeat and Britain's survival.
Ted Heath's longest fit of pique had nothing on De Gaulle.
I’m driving up beautiful Myra Canyon and a sudden conundrum has struck me. Why do we LIKE being scared? Being scared is not obviously fun. Your heart pounds, you perspire, you cower away and shriek
And yet we seek it out. We love roller coasters and off piste skiing and ghost stories and horror movies
But WHY?
Not everyone likes being scared. Loads don't. Those who do seem to fall into two unequal groups: the distanced scared - roller coasters carefully conformed to safety standards, horror films, war films, ghost stories. These are a sort of substitution activity and is a form of entertainment. The much smaller group likes real unfiltered scary danger, the sort where you clearly may or may not die.
But….. WHY?
I’m in both groups so this is personal. I like scary movies and roller coasters but I also like warzones and scuba
I’m trying to map out some ev psych explanation but it is not obvious
We're probably programmed to want to habituate ourselves to fear. Just as animals play hunting. There's an obvious evolutionary survival advantage in that.
So three months in and nobody's talking about how competent Starmer's government is.
Unbelievably Sunak is starting to look good
Now hang on, that's going a bit far.
Is it ?
I mean for months on PB Starmer was praised for his quiet competence, w were going to have better government etc.
So far we have had a mega lie on £22 billion, the unions are rubbing their hands om inflationary pay increases, Miliband is merrily screwing up energy and killiing 100000+ jobs in the North Sea, , WFA fiasco, riots, growth at a stand still for the last 2 months and big tax rises on the horizon.
And all of that in 10 week as just today the sleaze accusations start to circle round Starmer.
It is permissible to think Starmer is no good after several weeks of mistakes.
It is hardly permissible to say Sunak after two years of extraordinary bungling where he got practically every major decision wrong looks good by comparison.
FWIW I believe the WFA issue is a massive misstep, and one Starmer and Reeves appear to be disinclined to walk back from, which is bizarre.
Most of the other criticisms on here and in the Tory client media, that the haven't stopped the boats because they jettisoned the "fantastic" Rwanda plan, although flights of failed asylum seekers have left the country to no fanfare. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpe388jy2n3o.amp The accusation that Reeves has squandered the "golden legacy" and they have lost control over the NHS and prison management which was in Trumpian terms "great" under the Tories is all nonsense. The remaining Jenrick-smoothing Tories on here seem to believe if they can talk up a Starmer failure their boy is a shoo in in 2029. Of course Labour probably will be useless, and after ten weeks we have little evidence bto suggest otherwise, but will the Conservatives romp home unopposed in five years time? Our faithful friends on here, on the BBC and in the Telegraph don't seem to have twigged just how despised the Johnson and post- Johnson Tories are.
As to Mrs Starmer's clothing gift, whilst unwise, it's not (yet) on the scale of Lulu Lytle's wallpaper, the PPE fast lane scandal and of course Robert Jenrick's outrageous planning intervention on behalf of the pornographer and Tory donor Richard Desmond.
I am not surprised they are holding firm on WFA. If a new government backtracks on one of its very first tax and spend announcements, then it sets a precedent that they’ll roll over every time.
The issue for Starmer and Reeves is that this particular policy is the hill they’ve chosen (or had chosen for them) to take a stand on. It’s not a policy that wins them votes elsewhere, it doesn’t save tremendous sums of money, it annoys one of the most politically-engaged segments of society, it was announced before winter at a time the energy cap is going up and at the same time as public sector pay deals, it seems to have been announced as a throwaway policy, outside of a budget, because Reeves wanted something to sound “tough” on.
Their first big policy battle should have been the tax rises and spending cuts in the budget, with public sector reform the absolute next item on that list. As it is, they’ve allowed their hasty WFA announcement to set the scene and to spend all their political capital on, for no discernible political benefit.
"doesn't save tremendous amounts of money"
This is everything that's wrong with this country. It saves £1.5 billion per annum, so about £7.5 billion over this Parliament.
And you don't think that's a tremendous amount of money?
Yes. It's a tremendous amount. And £300 is a tremendous amount of money to lose if you are a single pensioner living on £13K. It's not complicated. Labour should have waited until it could target effectively, and filled the gap with a Rich Person Tax of some sort.
Why?
Most pensioners aren't paying any rent or mortgage and have no expenses to travel to work either.
£13k is not a terrible income then compared to those who are paying to go to work and paying rent or mortgage too.
So why should we be giving £300 of unearned income to them just because they're pensioners?
Also in the context of an 8.5% increase in April 2024, or £900 per year
I can't get over the simplicity and elegance of extending NI to pensioners as a way of squeezing the rich ones and leaving the poor alone. I don't think it was ruled out by the pledge not to increase NI because it's a broadening of scope not an increase.
Better to position it as a first step to merge income tax and NI in the interests of cutting administrative costs
Absolutely not, NI funds should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA and some NHS funds and social care costs
The sensible thing to do would be to apply a 25% standard rate tax band with comparative increases in the higher rates and abolish NI altogether
At the same time increase the tax threshold to £15,000 and then fairness applies to all parts of the electorate
The contrast fo £19 grand on frocks and thongs versus £300 to help a pensioner get through the winter just int a good look.
It’s incredible. And it’s not like the Starmers are poor. They are multi millionaires with groaning huge pensions and earning maybe £300k a year as a household? £400k?
And the wife accepts pretty dresses as a gift??? Right at the start of their first term?
WTAF
It screams: meet the new boss same as the old boss, only the new boss is a fucking hypocrite who wants to make you miserable and stop you eating pies, whereas the old boss was just a greedy shit and didn’t care what you do
Most governments end in sleaze.
Starmer's government has started in sleaze.
Something it shares in common with labour in 97 and cash for fags
What’s the quid pro quo? This is nothing like “cash for fags”.
Keir seems to have been careless. The optics are not great but this is not a government that has “started in sleaze”.
“Careless”???
He knowingly accepted tens of thousands in freebies not only for himself. But for his wife, also
In return the donor was given a free pass to the commons - completely against the rules
Whoops! Butter fingers!
If I was about to become PM, I feel like Mrs Walker might also need a telegenic spruce up. Suddenly, she is in the public eye.
The British state affords no such largesse, and I don’t think the Starmers are personally wealthy.
It therefore seems that this rather shabby compromise has developed whereby PMs get some kind of image support from well placed donors.
Starmer’s sin is administrative. He should have declared it all. It’s not obvious why and how he overlooked it.
They are both high earners and have been for a long time - many many people manage to look good each day without a state bung for their clothes. If you don’t want to deal with that then you could just not run for leadership of a party where you might end up as PM.
Its not as if it’s a lifetime problem - they can blow a bit of cash because he will more than make up for it afterwards on the speaking circuit, books, whatever. It just looks grasping.
It stinks of corruption. After what's gone on with the previous government, this Labour government is showing it's not any better. And the stink is coming from the very top.
Why, Starmer, why? What the **** were you thinking? You're supposed to be the sensible adult in the room. And then you accept this sort of 'deal', and 'forget' to declare it.
You're no better than the last lot.
I’m not sure it’s corruption just stupidity. He probably thought that it was such small beer and had justified it to himself that it wasn’t a problem. His problem is he’s such a twatty puritanical preachy knob. If Boris and Carrie did it then everyone would raise an eyebrow or shrug but Sir Keir Cromwell was such a pious prick that he needed to be whiter than white.
If this was a Conservative MP, let alone Conservative leader, Starmer would not be saying "It's just stupidity, not corruption".
This all interrelates as well: it's not the first time he's forgotten to declare free gifts; and AIUI this time it's connected with the donor getting a No. 10 pass.
One of his few selling points was that he was an adult in the room; someone who could get things done properly without fuss, as he apparently did during his time as DPP.
It stinks. And the amounts make it worse.
Boris was (rightly) brought down by a cake. SKS will get away with this, but he should not.
To be fair if we don’t have to see this dreadful suit again it might be good for the country.
And the “son of a toolmaker” shoes.
Lammy apparently met Biden with Starmer wearing trainers
I’m driving up beautiful Myra Canyon and a sudden conundrum has struck me. Why do we LIKE being scared? Being scared is not obviously fun. Your heart pounds, you perspire, you cower away and shriek
And yet we seek it out. We love roller coasters and off piste skiing and ghost stories and horror movies
But WHY?
Not everyone likes being scared. Loads don't. Those who do seem to fall into two unequal groups: the distanced scared - roller coasters carefully conformed to safety standards, horror films, war films, ghost stories. These are a sort of substitution activity and is a form of entertainment. The much smaller group likes real unfiltered scary danger, the sort where you clearly may or may not die.
But….. WHY?
I’m in both groups so this is personal. I like scary movies and roller coasters but I also like warzones and scuba
I’m trying to map out some ev psych explanation but it is not obvious
Good cure for boredom and depression
Exhilaration at survival
Peer pressure (shame at not participating/kudos for success)
Sense of mastery
There's a dreadful fascination for those who do this sort of shit in the writing of the likes of Melanie Reid (horses) or this guy https://www.2arms1head.com/ (motorbike) or this guy https://diaryofapunter.substack.com/about (rock climbing) who are alive but tetraplegic as a result of their sport. We tell ourselves all the risks are worth it. I think they are trying to tell us the opposite.
2arms1head is literally a suicide note btw. Trigger warning.
I trust everyone's watching the Last Night of the Proms. 😊
Yep. I try and watch and listen to all the Prom concerts though the summer and The Last Night for me marks the start of autumn and my Sacred Season.
What's with the EU flags? During Elgar?
There have always been flags of many different nations there although the Union Flag was usually the most prominent. After the Referendum the Remainer clique tried to flood the Last Night with EU flags as a protest and I think hoping to provoke some outrage. The Daily Mail crowd were predictably outraged but everyone else just shrugged and got on with it.
Weirdly it has become a new tradition now and it would be strange to be offended by it - well except for the Daily Mail readers.
One thing I did notice once again was how many Ukraine flags were being waved
Nah, that's a bit of an inspid establishment view. It's not a "bring your own flag" competition and to say that robs of its meaning, and why people started going in the first place.
I'm with @Luckyguy1983 on this - it was a musical carnival, an unabashed, celebration of being British - all glorious and bombastic - and to enjoy it amongst everyone else doing it. The fewer doing it the less of a collective and special communal experience it is.
You get "unofficial" battleproms/last nights around the country now that have sprung up where ordinary people can enjoy themselves as it should be. Either the Albert Hall event needs resetting or it should be relocated or debroadcast now.
It has been totally sullied and spoiled.
I think you are being a bit of a spoilsport here. It is a great event that hasn't really changed. I can understand people not liking the EU flags, but they don't spoil the event and there are still plenty of Union flags and I'm sure with time it will revert when the fuss finally dies down. And the fun and music are the important thing which are very patriotic and nobody has suggested changing that.
It is one of the events that makes Britain British, like pubs, bonfire night and pantomime.
PS re @Big_G_NorthWales he has mentioned his child in Canada a few times.
I disagree with you here (which doesn’t happen that often).
It’s not the waving of EU flags that irritates me - if it happened organically (as it did in the past as @Richard_Tyndall noted). It’s the fact that there is a campaign to make a political point out of something that is harmless fun and a bit of silliness and flag waving
(And there are regular attempts to change the music for what it is worth)
@StillWaters Thank you for your kind comment (even if you are disagreeing with me). Kind of you.
if they did try and change the usual songs I would be annoyed as that spoils the tradition and I am aware that their have been attempts.
Re the difference between organic and organised I agree with you, but to ban it would be Stalinist. I get frustrated when people from the right claim they want freedom of speech then want to ban stuff they don't like. Credit to @Luckyguy1983 on the last thread for not going along with that.
There, there, there, there......... Aggghhhh
There, there.
Don’t worry about it. Autocorrect gets us all in the end
All autocorrects are infuriating.
They're very annoying to their users, especially when you go back over a page and see so many homophones have been wrongly added there.
My phone has reversed its policy. It used to clean messages up so you got Ducking hell, Donald Trump is a shot etc. These days I have to revert it from me talking about fucking my responsibilities.
My new phone arrived yesterday, so I don't know yet.
My keyboard goes the other way, and turns a typo into a typoo.
We shall see .
My phone has the unfortunate habit of changing a particular word so whenever I’m firing off a message about a “new bank” it sends as “Jew bank” which is really quite unfortunate.
I heard Ed Davey on News Agents earlier this week. Total drivel.
It’s sad, but the Lib Dems seem to have mutated from a gang of liberal policy wonks to somethin akin to a Waitrose users group.
Presume the Liberal Democrat magazine now comes with recipe ideas sponsored by Charlie Bigham.
Anything you want to complain about specifically or are you just having a Sunday afternoon whinge?
I just told you. Davey came across well-meaning but having no actual conception of challenges faced by the country.
And in theory, I’m a Davey supporter (and in practice a Lib Dem voter).
As I wrote this I thought to myself, the Lib Dems are now the sort of party that supports the WASPI women cause.
I checked, and of course they do.
Not serious.
The weird thing is, the LDs had an open goal and an obvious role: become the Rejoin Now party
Promise an instant return to the SM and CU and a new referendum within a year
Yet they refused to take the chance and waffled vaguely, instead
They should have been the Remainer version of the SNP. Make Rejoin their one big profound policy, their raison d’etre
In a weird volatile election, with lots of Remainers looking warily (and with justification) at Starmer, that could have been explosive. But no
It must be PTSD from Jo Swinson and 2019 when the timing was wrong.
I don’t agree with Leon on this.
There’s no electoral advantage in being a single cause party, at least within the English electoral system where Lib Dem fortunes are won and lost.
Their current policy is relatively sensible - move toward single market membership this parliament. They perhaps should make more of it, but I don’t think it ought to be their sole focus.
Over the long term, you’re right
But for this one weird election - GE 2024 now gone - I’m right. REJOIN NOW could have electrified everything. Angry Remainers might have stampeded towards them. Lots of pissed off people might have thought: Sod it. Lib Dems. Fuck Brexit. Fuck wishy washy Starmer. Rejoin with the Libs!!
They might have won enough seats to become the Opposition - a game changer
In 2019 the country wanted Brexit done and they had Boris to do it. So they chose Boris. Also STOP BREXIT was mad. It was treasonous. It was Revoke. It was FUCK DEMOCRACY
In 2024 you had a massively unpopular government but also a dislikeable opposition and a unique chance to surge through the middle with one radical, profound, democratic policy: REJOIN
You blew it. The dim witted commentary on here shows why. Too stupid and too timid
I know too many Remainers who are sick of Brexit as a topic of discussion that they certainly wouldn't vote for a party that wanted to spend years reopening that can of worms, to think that it would have helped the Lib Dems at the last election.
Rejoin doesn't build any houses. It doesn't build any hospitals, or train any doctors. The Tory government just past forgot how to get anything done, because it spent at least five years or so transfixed with the process of leaving the EU. By the time it got to the other side it had forgotten what else it was supposed to be doing and how to do it.
If Britain could rejoin at the stroke of a pen then I'd do it in a flash, but the thought of spending the rest of the decade doing nothing other than negotiating and implementing British re-entry makes me recoil.
I think you've badly misjudged the mood of Remainers.
I heard Ed Davey on News Agents earlier this week. Total drivel.
It’s sad, but the Lib Dems seem to have mutated from a gang of liberal policy wonks to somethin akin to a Waitrose users group.
Presume the Liberal Democrat magazine now comes with recipe ideas sponsored by Charlie Bigham.
Anything you want to complain about specifically or are you just having a Sunday afternoon whinge?
I just told you. Davey came across well-meaning but having no actual conception of challenges faced by the country.
And in theory, I’m a Davey supporter (and in practice a Lib Dem voter).
As I wrote this I thought to myself, the Lib Dems are now the sort of party that supports the WASPI women cause.
I checked, and of course they do.
Not serious.
The weird thing is, the LDs had an open goal and an obvious role: become the Rejoin Now party
Promise an instant return to the SM and CU and a new referendum within a year
Yet they refused to take the chance and waffled vaguely, instead
They should have been the Remainer version of the SNP. Make Rejoin their one big profound policy, their raison d’etre
In a weird volatile election, with lots of Remainers looking warily (and with justification) at Starmer, that could have been explosive. But no
It must be PTSD from Jo Swinson and 2019 when the timing was wrong.
I don’t agree with Leon on this.
There’s no electoral advantage in being a single cause party, at least within the English electoral system where Lib Dem fortunes are won and lost.
Their current policy is relatively sensible - move toward single market membership this parliament. They perhaps should make more of it, but I don’t think it ought to be their sole focus.
Over the long term, you’re right
But for this one weird election - GE 2024 now gone - I’m right. REJOIN NOW could have electrified everything. Angry Remainers might have stampeded towards them. Lots of pissed off people might have thought: Sod it. Lib Dems. Fuck Brexit. Fuck wishy washy Starmer. Rejoin with the Libs!!
They might have won enough seats to become the Opposition - a game changer
The opportunity is highly unlikely to arise again
11 (15 with by-elections) to 72 is better than my wildest dreams -! expected 30 seats, hoped for 40, went to bed at 50, and woke at 70!! They have played a blinder. With Reform still there, Labour's pensioner £300 (the Labour party's University fees) and the Tories broke and still in a mess goodness knows what will happen next time!
No, you fucked it up
And your comment shows why. You can’t imagine being the actual Opposition, you’re content in your tiny little role
The Tories will return in 2029 (perhaps doing a deal with Reform, but not merging) and you will go back down to 30 seats. You missed your chance
The Tories will return? Without a popular or charismatic leader - which of the current lot would you suggest? - not a hope. Members are dropping like flies, who under 60 would vote Tory?
You can feel the energy returning to the Tories already. They expected to be killed. Instead they’ve woken up in hospital with broken bones, and the doc just told them they might be out and about in weeks
They genuinely hate Starmer, he’s also a flailing clown making errors everywhere. More pointedly, the Tories have noticed his massive majority is built on ice. Under 34% of the vote on a pitiful turnout
They can win next time, much to their own surprise
I agree mostly. I very much doubt they can win next time, but they can certainly create a meaningful contest.
I think the Tories can win easily. Not because they are about to elect a brilliant leader but because I predict Labour are gonna fuck up on multiple fronts and people will want to punish them severely
The way to do that is to vote Tory again
However, there are several caveats, and top of the list is Reform. How to neutralise that threat without alienating centrists? Not easy but has to be done
Farage is 60 today. He will be 65 by the next election. He will also have been front and centre in politics for 20 years. I’m not sure I see Reform having the same energy and appeal next time
The contrast fo £19 grand on frocks and thongs versus £300 to help a pensioner get through the winter just int a good look.
It’s incredible. And it’s not like the Starmers are poor. They are multi millionaires with groaning huge pensions and earning maybe £300k a year as a household? £400k?
And the wife accepts pretty dresses as a gift??? Right at the start of their first term?
WTAF
It screams: meet the new boss same as the old boss, only the new boss is a fucking hypocrite who wants to make you miserable and stop you eating pies, whereas the old boss was just a greedy shit and didn’t care what you do
Most governments end in sleaze.
Starmer's government has started in sleaze.
Something it shares in common with labour in 97 and cash for fags
What’s the quid pro quo? This is nothing like “cash for fags”.
Keir seems to have been careless. The optics are not great but this is not a government that has “started in sleaze”.
“Careless”???
He knowingly accepted tens of thousands in freebies not only for himself. But for his wife, also
In return the donor was given a free pass to the commons - completely against the rules
Whoops! Butter fingers!
If I was about to become PM, I feel like Mrs Walker might also need a telegenic spruce up. Suddenly, she is in the public eye.
The British state affords no such largesse, and I don’t think the Starmers are personally wealthy.
It therefore seems that this rather shabby compromise has developed whereby PMs get some kind of image support from well placed donors.
Starmer’s sin is administrative. He should have declared it all. It’s not obvious why and how he overlooked it.
They are both high earners and have been for a long time - many many people manage to look good each day without a state bung for their clothes. If you don’t want to deal with that then you could just not run for leadership of a party where you might end up as PM.
Its not as if it’s a lifetime problem - they can blow a bit of cash because he will more than make up for it afterwards on the speaking circuit, books, whatever. It just looks grasping.
It stinks of corruption. After what's gone on with the previous government, this Labour government is showing it's not any better. And the stink is coming from the very top.
Why, Starmer, why? What the **** were you thinking? You're supposed to be the sensible adult in the room. And then you accept this sort of 'deal', and 'forget' to declare it.
You're no better than the last lot.
I’m not sure it’s corruption just stupidity. He probably thought that it was such small beer and had justified it to himself that it wasn’t a problem. His problem is he’s such a twatty puritanical preachy knob. If Boris and Carrie did it then everyone would raise an eyebrow or shrug but Sir Keir Cromwell was such a pious prick that he needed to be whiter than white.
If this was a Conservative MP, let alone Conservative leader, Starmer would not be saying "It's just stupidity, not corruption".
This all interrelates as well: it's not the first time he's forgotten to declare free gifts; and AIUI this time it's connected with the donor getting a No. 10 pass.
One of his few selling points was that he was an adult in the room; someone who could get things done properly without fuss, as he apparently did during his time as DPP.
It stinks. And the amounts make it worse.
Boris was (rightly) brought down by a cake. SKS will get away with this, but he should not.
To be fair if we don’t have to see this dreadful suit again it might be good for the country.
And the “son of a toolmaker” shoes.
It's the 'lights off' thinking that worries me. He's doing ok, but if he does anything like this as PM the game is over.
I’m driving up beautiful Myra Canyon and a sudden conundrum has struck me. Why do we LIKE being scared? Being scared is not obviously fun. Your heart pounds, you perspire, you cower away and shriek
And yet we seek it out. We love roller coasters and off piste skiing and ghost stories and horror movies
But WHY?
We also enjoy watching people suffer hugely painful, cruel and brutal deaths that are as imaginative and nasty as possible. Because we can imagine it being done to us as well.
The contrast fo £19 grand on frocks and thongs versus £300 to help a pensioner get through the winter just int a good look.
It’s incredible. And it’s not like the Starmers are poor. They are multi millionaires with groaning huge pensions and earning maybe £300k a year as a household? £400k?
And the wife accepts pretty dresses as a gift??? Right at the start of their first term?
WTAF
It screams: meet the new boss same as the old boss, only the new boss is a fucking hypocrite who wants to make you miserable and stop you eating pies, whereas the old boss was just a greedy shit and didn’t care what you do
Most governments end in sleaze.
Starmer's government has started in sleaze.
Something it shares in common with labour in 97 and cash for fags
What’s the quid pro quo? This is nothing like “cash for fags”.
Keir seems to have been careless. The optics are not great but this is not a government that has “started in sleaze”.
“Careless”???
He knowingly accepted tens of thousands in freebies not only for himself. But for his wife, also
In return the donor was given a free pass to the commons - completely against the rules
Whoops! Butter fingers!
If I was about to become PM, I feel like Mrs Walker might also need a telegenic spruce up. Suddenly, she is in the public eye.
The British state affords no such largesse, and I don’t think the Starmers are personally wealthy.
It therefore seems that this rather shabby compromise has developed whereby PMs get some kind of image support from well placed donors.
Starmer’s sin is administrative. He should have declared it all. It’s not obvious why and how he overlooked it.
They are both high earners and have been for a long time - many many people manage to look good each day without a state bung for their clothes. If you don’t want to deal with that then you could just not run for leadership of a party where you might end up as PM.
Its not as if it’s a lifetime problem - they can blow a bit of cash because he will more than make up for it afterwards on the speaking circuit, books, whatever. It just looks grasping.
It stinks of corruption. After what's gone on with the previous government, this Labour government is showing it's not any better. And the stink is coming from the very top.
Why, Starmer, why? What the **** were you thinking? You're supposed to be the sensible adult in the room. And then you accept this sort of 'deal', and 'forget' to declare it.
You're no better than the last lot.
I’m not sure it’s corruption just stupidity. He probably thought that it was such small beer and had justified it to himself that it wasn’t a problem. His problem is he’s such a twatty puritanical preachy knob. If Boris and Carrie did it then everyone would raise an eyebrow or shrug but Sir Keir Cromwell was such a pious prick that he needed to be whiter than white.
If this was a Conservative MP, let alone Conservative leader, Starmer would not be saying "It's just stupidity, not corruption".
This all interrelates as well: it's not the first time he's forgotten to declare free gifts; and AIUI this time it's connected with the donor getting a No. 10 pass.
One of his few selling points was that he was an adult in the room; someone who could get things done properly without fuss, as he apparently did during his time as DPP.
It stinks. And the amounts make it worse.
Boris was (rightly) brought down by a cake. SKS will get away with this, but he should not.
To be fair if we don’t have to see this dreadful suit again it might be good for the country.
And the “son of a toolmaker” shoes.
Lammy apparently met Biden with Starmer wearing trainers
The contrast fo £19 grand on frocks and thongs versus £300 to help a pensioner get through the winter just int a good look.
It’s incredible. And it’s not like the Starmers are poor. They are multi millionaires with groaning huge pensions and earning maybe £300k a year as a household? £400k?
And the wife accepts pretty dresses as a gift??? Right at the start of their first term?
WTAF
It screams: meet the new boss same as the old boss, only the new boss is a fucking hypocrite who wants to make you miserable and stop you eating pies, whereas the old boss was just a greedy shit and didn’t care what you do
Most governments end in sleaze.
Starmer's government has started in sleaze.
Something it shares in common with labour in 97 and cash for fags
What’s the quid pro quo? This is nothing like “cash for fags”.
Keir seems to have been careless. The optics are not great but this is not a government that has “started in sleaze”.
“Careless”???
He knowingly accepted tens of thousands in freebies not only for himself. But for his wife, also
In return the donor was given a free pass to the commons - completely against the rules
Whoops! Butter fingers!
If I was about to become PM, I feel like Mrs Walker might also need a telegenic spruce up. Suddenly, she is in the public eye.
The British state affords no such largesse, and I don’t think the Starmers are personally wealthy.
It therefore seems that this rather shabby compromise has developed whereby PMs get some kind of image support from well placed donors.
Starmer’s sin is administrative. He should have declared it all. It’s not obvious why and how he overlooked it.
They are both high earners and have been for a long time - many many people manage to look good each day without a state bung for their clothes. If you don’t want to deal with that then you could just not run for leadership of a party where you might end up as PM.
Its not as if it’s a lifetime problem - they can blow a bit of cash because he will more than make up for it afterwards on the speaking circuit, books, whatever. It just looks grasping.
It stinks of corruption. After what's gone on with the previous government, this Labour government is showing it's not any better. And the stink is coming from the very top.
Why, Starmer, why? What the **** were you thinking? You're supposed to be the sensible adult in the room. And then you accept this sort of 'deal', and 'forget' to declare it.
You're no better than the last lot.
I’m not sure it’s corruption just stupidity. He probably thought that it was such small beer and had justified it to himself that it wasn’t a problem. His problem is he’s such a twatty puritanical preachy knob. If Boris and Carrie did it then everyone would raise an eyebrow or shrug but Sir Keir Cromwell was such a pious prick that he needed to be whiter than white.
If this was a Conservative MP, let alone Conservative leader, Starmer would not be saying "It's just stupidity, not corruption".
This all interrelates as well: it's not the first time he's forgotten to declare free gifts; and AIUI this time it's connected with the donor getting a No. 10 pass.
One of his few selling points was that he was an adult in the room; someone who could get things done properly without fuss, as he apparently did during his time as DPP.
It stinks. And the amounts make it worse.
Boris was (rightly) brought down by a cake. SKS will get away with this, but he should not.
To be fair if we don’t have to see this dreadful suit again it might be good for the country.
And the “son of a toolmaker” shoes.
Lammy apparently met Biden with Starmer wearing trainers
It’s just tragic wankery. Grown adults thinking they are edgy by dressing badly. You have people praising Angela Rayner for dressing like a student - she’s a sodding cabinet member, Deputy PM of the UK. Scruffy politicians for a scruffy country.
I heard Ed Davey on News Agents earlier this week. Total drivel.
It’s sad, but the Lib Dems seem to have mutated from a gang of liberal policy wonks to somethin akin to a Waitrose users group.
Presume the Liberal Democrat magazine now comes with recipe ideas sponsored by Charlie Bigham.
Anything you want to complain about specifically or are you just having a Sunday afternoon whinge?
I just told you. Davey came across well-meaning but having no actual conception of challenges faced by the country.
And in theory, I’m a Davey supporter (and in practice a Lib Dem voter).
As I wrote this I thought to myself, the Lib Dems are now the sort of party that supports the WASPI women cause.
I checked, and of course they do.
Not serious.
The weird thing is, the LDs had an open goal and an obvious role: become the Rejoin Now party
Promise an instant return to the SM and CU and a new referendum within a year
Yet they refused to take the chance and waffled vaguely, instead
They should have been the Remainer version of the SNP. Make Rejoin their one big profound policy, their raison d’etre
In a weird volatile election, with lots of Remainers looking warily (and with justification) at Starmer, that could have been explosive. But no
No, wasting time and effort on "Rejoining" is an elephant trap of epic proportions.
The first problem is we have no idea under what terms the EU would consider the UK (re)joining. Would we have to accept the Euro and Schengen for example? I'm sure plenty would object to that.
Even if the EU offered status quo ante referendum, we'd still have issues over QMV and the rebates.
We had to leave because our half-hearted mean-spirited rebate-obsessed membership wasn't doing either us or the EU any good and we took a democratic vote deciding to leave.
There would also be huge resistance to any attempt to reintroduce Freedom of Movement which I believe is a prerequisite for membership of the Single Market - indeed, it would be a huge gift for Reform if anyone were to try.
We were never honest as to why we wanted to join in the first place. Because of that our membership was always false, incomplete, unsatisfying.
Why did we want to join ? Well the Empire was finished but of course we had superb management experience, in our own eyes. This European thing was all very well but well, Johnny Foreigner had had a century and a half to sort things out since 1815 and what had he done, 2 1/2 world wars and the possibility of another. The truth is we ASSUMED that if we joined the Common Market we would not just be primus inter pares, but like the Empire, we alone would be the leader. To some extent they even played up to that my making Henry Plumb first elected leader of the European Parliament.
The saddest part of it is sometimes the Rejoiners STILL think they would let us lead if we went back. Sorry lads, ain't gonna happen.
Other way round. Britain sought salvation, and Europe feared we would take over. In the 1950s and 60s the Establishment saw Britain as in terminal decline, and viewed entry to the Common Market as our last hope, only for us to be denied repeatedly, until Ted Heath finally got us in.
What ‘got us in’ was the death of Charles de Gaulle.
I've never quite understood why he disliked us so, given all the help we gave him personally. (Open to biography suggestions - in English)
Because he was a vain, arrogant nationalist fucker who never got over the humiliation of France's defeat and Britain's survival.
Ted Heath's longest fit of pique had nothing on De Gaulle.
Still, at least he didn't collaborate.
Didn't deGaulle take umbrage at being snubbed by Churchill?
I’m driving up beautiful Myra Canyon and a sudden conundrum has struck me. Why do we LIKE being scared? Being scared is not obviously fun. Your heart pounds, you perspire, you cower away and shriek
And yet we seek it out. We love roller coasters and off piste skiing and ghost stories and horror movies
But WHY?
We also enjoy watching people suffer hugely painful, cruel and brutal deaths that are as imaginative and nasty as possible. Because we can imagine it being done to us as well.
Which is even more weird.
I'm entirely sure that at least some of us don't. Really?
The contrast fo £19 grand on frocks and thongs versus £300 to help a pensioner get through the winter just int a good look.
It’s incredible. And it’s not like the Starmers are poor. They are multi millionaires with groaning huge pensions and earning maybe £300k a year as a household? £400k?
And the wife accepts pretty dresses as a gift??? Right at the start of their first term?
WTAF
It screams: meet the new boss same as the old boss, only the new boss is a fucking hypocrite who wants to make you miserable and stop you eating pies, whereas the old boss was just a greedy shit and didn’t care what you do
Most governments end in sleaze.
Starmer's government has started in sleaze.
Something it shares in common with labour in 97 and cash for fags
What’s the quid pro quo? This is nothing like “cash for fags”.
Keir seems to have been careless. The optics are not great but this is not a government that has “started in sleaze”.
“Careless”???
He knowingly accepted tens of thousands in freebies not only for himself. But for his wife, also
In return the donor was given a free pass to the commons - completely against the rules
Whoops! Butter fingers!
If I was about to become PM, I feel like Mrs Walker might also need a telegenic spruce up. Suddenly, she is in the public eye.
The British state affords no such largesse, and I don’t think the Starmers are personally wealthy.
It therefore seems that this rather shabby compromise has developed whereby PMs get some kind of image support from well placed donors.
Starmer’s sin is administrative. He should have declared it all. It’s not obvious why and how he overlooked it.
They are both high earners and have been for a long time - many many people manage to look good each day without a state bung for their clothes. If you don’t want to deal with that then you could just not run for leadership of a party where you might end up as PM.
Its not as if it’s a lifetime problem - they can blow a bit of cash because he will more than make up for it afterwards on the speaking circuit, books, whatever. It just looks grasping.
It stinks of corruption. After what's gone on with the previous government, this Labour government is showing it's not any better. And the stink is coming from the very top.
Why, Starmer, why? What the **** were you thinking? You're supposed to be the sensible adult in the room. And then you accept this sort of 'deal', and 'forget' to declare it.
You're no better than the last lot.
I’m not sure it’s corruption just stupidity. He probably thought that it was such small beer and had justified it to himself that it wasn’t a problem. His problem is he’s such a twatty puritanical preachy knob. If Boris and Carrie did it then everyone would raise an eyebrow or shrug but Sir Keir Cromwell was such a pious prick that he needed to be whiter than white.
If this was a Conservative MP, let alone Conservative leader, Starmer would not be saying "It's just stupidity, not corruption".
This all interrelates as well: it's not the first time he's forgotten to declare free gifts; and AIUI this time it's connected with the donor getting a No. 10 pass.
One of his few selling points was that he was an adult in the room; someone who could get things done properly without fuss, as he apparently did during his time as DPP.
It stinks. And the amounts make it worse.
Boris was (rightly) brought down by a cake. SKS will get away with this, but he should not.
To be fair if we don’t have to see this dreadful suit again it might be good for the country.
And the “son of a toolmaker” shoes.
Lammy apparently met Biden with Starmer wearing trainers
Grammatically fascinating. Any one of the 3 could be the trainer wearer. If it's Biden I doubt he makes the choice these days
I've been around to see a lot of violent and hateful episodes in American life. Eg the widespread unrest, crackdowns, killings, bombings, etc of late 1960s - early 1970s.
But for me this has a parallel only in early/mid 1960s — Bull Connor, Philadelphia Mississippi, Lester Maddox, the Selma Bridge. And this time it is egged on by *national* candidates and "leaders" (Trump and Vance), rather than die-hard regional resisters.
I heard Ed Davey on News Agents earlier this week. Total drivel.
It’s sad, but the Lib Dems seem to have mutated from a gang of liberal policy wonks to somethin akin to a Waitrose users group.
Presume the Liberal Democrat magazine now comes with recipe ideas sponsored by Charlie Bigham.
Anything you want to complain about specifically or are you just having a Sunday afternoon whinge?
I just told you. Davey came across well-meaning but having no actual conception of challenges faced by the country.
And in theory, I’m a Davey supporter (and in practice a Lib Dem voter).
As I wrote this I thought to myself, the Lib Dems are now the sort of party that supports the WASPI women cause.
I checked, and of course they do.
Not serious.
The weird thing is, the LDs had an open goal and an obvious role: become the Rejoin Now party
Promise an instant return to the SM and CU and a new referendum within a year
Yet they refused to take the chance and waffled vaguely, instead
They should have been the Remainer version of the SNP. Make Rejoin their one big profound policy, their raison d’etre
In a weird volatile election, with lots of Remainers looking warily (and with justification) at Starmer, that could have been explosive. But no
No, wasting time and effort on "Rejoining" is an elephant trap of epic proportions.
The first problem is we have no idea under what terms the EU would consider the UK (re)joining. Would we have to accept the Euro and Schengen for example? I'm sure plenty would object to that.
Even if the EU offered status quo ante referendum, we'd still have issues over QMV and the rebates.
We had to leave because our half-hearted mean-spirited rebate-obsessed membership wasn't doing either us or the EU any good and we took a democratic vote deciding to leave.
There would also be huge resistance to any attempt to reintroduce Freedom of Movement which I believe is a prerequisite for membership of the Single Market - indeed, it would be a huge gift for Reform if anyone were to try.
We were never honest as to why we wanted to join in the first place. Because of that our membership was always false, incomplete, unsatisfying.
Why did we want to join ? Well the Empire was finished but of course we had superb management experience, in our own eyes. This European thing was all very well but well, Johnny Foreigner had had a century and a half to sort things out since 1815 and what had he done, 2 1/2 world wars and the possibility of another. The truth is we ASSUMED that if we joined the Common Market we would not just be primus inter pares, but like the Empire, we alone would be the leader. To some extent they even played up to that my making Henry Plumb first elected leader of the European Parliament.
The saddest part of it is sometimes the Rejoiners STILL think they would let us lead if we went back. Sorry lads, ain't gonna happen.
Other way round. Britain sought salvation, and Europe feared we would take over. In the 1950s and 60s the Establishment saw Britain as in terminal decline, and viewed entry to the Common Market as our last hope, only for us to be denied repeatedly, until Ted Heath finally got us in.
What ‘got us in’ was the death of Charles de Gaulle.
I've never quite understood why he disliked us so, given all the help we gave him personally. (Open to biography suggestions - in English)
He was trying to rebuild France as a great power. He saw the U.K. as attempting to turn France into a satellite.
The allies should never have let French forces “liberate” Paris. They should have made it clear who had done the heavy lifting. I think they were so worried about a communist streak in France that they didn’t want a humiliated France. De Gaulle was an absolute truly chauvinistic French man but probably what the French needed to avoid turmoil after the war.
Depends what you mean by heavy lifting, the UK suffered c.450k deaths in total during WWII, France c.600k. Of course a shitload of French civvy deaths were caused by the Allies, but I think that could still be described fairly as a sacrifice to the cause.
I heard Ed Davey on News Agents earlier this week. Total drivel.
It’s sad, but the Lib Dems seem to have mutated from a gang of liberal policy wonks to somethin akin to a Waitrose users group.
Presume the Liberal Democrat magazine now comes with recipe ideas sponsored by Charlie Bigham.
Anything you want to complain about specifically or are you just having a Sunday afternoon whinge?
I just told you. Davey came across well-meaning but having no actual conception of challenges faced by the country.
And in theory, I’m a Davey supporter (and in practice a Lib Dem voter).
As I wrote this I thought to myself, the Lib Dems are now the sort of party that supports the WASPI women cause.
I checked, and of course they do.
Not serious.
The weird thing is, the LDs had an open goal and an obvious role: become the Rejoin Now party
Promise an instant return to the SM and CU and a new referendum within a year
Yet they refused to take the chance and waffled vaguely, instead
They should have been the Remainer version of the SNP. Make Rejoin their one big profound policy, their raison d’etre
In a weird volatile election, with lots of Remainers looking warily (and with justification) at Starmer, that could have been explosive. But no
No, wasting time and effort on "Rejoining" is an elephant trap of epic proportions.
The first problem is we have no idea under what terms the EU would consider the UK (re)joining. Would we have to accept the Euro and Schengen for example? I'm sure plenty would object to that.
Even if the EU offered status quo ante referendum, we'd still have issues over QMV and the rebates.
We had to leave because our half-hearted mean-spirited rebate-obsessed membership wasn't doing either us or the EU any good and we took a democratic vote deciding to leave.
There would also be huge resistance to any attempt to reintroduce Freedom of Movement which I believe is a prerequisite for membership of the Single Market - indeed, it would be a huge gift for Reform if anyone were to try.
We were never honest as to why we wanted to join in the first place. Because of that our membership was always false, incomplete, unsatisfying.
Why did we want to join ? Well the Empire was finished but of course we had superb management experience, in our own eyes. This European thing was all very well but well, Johnny Foreigner had had a century and a half to sort things out since 1815 and what had he done, 2 1/2 world wars and the possibility of another. The truth is we ASSUMED that if we joined the Common Market we would not just be primus inter pares, but like the Empire, we alone would be the leader. To some extent they even played up to that my making Henry Plumb first elected leader of the European Parliament.
The saddest part of it is sometimes the Rejoiners STILL think they would let us lead if we went back. Sorry lads, ain't gonna happen.
Other way round. Britain sought salvation, and Europe feared we would take over. In the 1950s and 60s the Establishment saw Britain as in terminal decline, and viewed entry to the Common Market as our last hope, only for us to be denied repeatedly, until Ted Heath finally got us in.
What ‘got us in’ was the death of Charles de Gaulle.
I've never quite understood why he disliked us so, given all the help we gave him personally. (Open to biography suggestions - in English)
Because he was a vain, arrogant nationalist fucker who never got over the humiliation of France's defeat and Britain's survival.
Ted Heath's longest fit of pique had nothing on De Gaulle.
Still, at least he didn't collaborate.
Didn't deGaulle take umbrage at being snubbed by Churchill?
He was rightly snubbed as he was an obstructive and vain arsehole. He’s very lucky there was no better French leader to coalesce the free French around. The Americans were also exasperated by his posturing and positioning.
Only a barter economy would work. Possibly you'd get to a point where gold could act as a store of value/status symbol again, due to shinyness and rarety, but not initially.
I’m driving up beautiful Myra Canyon and a sudden conundrum has struck me. Why do we LIKE being scared? Being scared is not obviously fun. Your heart pounds, you perspire, you cower away and shriek
And yet we seek it out. We love roller coasters and off piste skiing and ghost stories and horror movies
But WHY?
Not everyone likes being scared. Loads don't. Those who do seem to fall into two unequal groups: the distanced scared - roller coasters carefully conformed to safety standards, horror films, war films, ghost stories. These are a sort of substitution activity and is a form of entertainment. The much smaller group likes real unfiltered scary danger, the sort where you clearly may or may not die.
I enjoy roller coasters, but just for the speed and the cheap thrill - I don't find them scary.
I don't enjoy horror films (or, actually, most non-comedy fiction) at all - because they're scary.
I quite like overcoming something scary. Like when I went coasteering last year. That was quite satisfying. Oh,and snowboarding at the limit of my capabilities. I suppose I like the moment after the fear goes away.
I heard Ed Davey on News Agents earlier this week. Total drivel.
It’s sad, but the Lib Dems seem to have mutated from a gang of liberal policy wonks to somethin akin to a Waitrose users group.
Presume the Liberal Democrat magazine now comes with recipe ideas sponsored by Charlie Bigham.
Anything you want to complain about specifically or are you just having a Sunday afternoon whinge?
I just told you. Davey came across well-meaning but having no actual conception of challenges faced by the country.
And in theory, I’m a Davey supporter (and in practice a Lib Dem voter).
As I wrote this I thought to myself, the Lib Dems are now the sort of party that supports the WASPI women cause.
I checked, and of course they do.
Not serious.
The weird thing is, the LDs had an open goal and an obvious role: become the Rejoin Now party
Promise an instant return to the SM and CU and a new referendum within a year
Yet they refused to take the chance and waffled vaguely, instead
They should have been the Remainer version of the SNP. Make Rejoin their one big profound policy, their raison d’etre
In a weird volatile election, with lots of Remainers looking warily (and with justification) at Starmer, that could have been explosive. But no
No, wasting time and effort on "Rejoining" is an elephant trap of epic proportions.
The first problem is we have no idea under what terms the EU would consider the UK (re)joining. Would we have to accept the Euro and Schengen for example? I'm sure plenty would object to that.
Even if the EU offered status quo ante referendum, we'd still have issues over QMV and the rebates.
We had to leave because our half-hearted mean-spirited rebate-obsessed membership wasn't doing either us or the EU any good and we took a democratic vote deciding to leave.
There would also be huge resistance to any attempt to reintroduce Freedom of Movement which I believe is a prerequisite for membership of the Single Market - indeed, it would be a huge gift for Reform if anyone were to try.
We were never honest as to why we wanted to join in the first place. Because of that our membership was always false, incomplete, unsatisfying.
Why did we want to join ? Well the Empire was finished but of course we had superb management experience, in our own eyes. This European thing was all very well but well, Johnny Foreigner had had a century and a half to sort things out since 1815 and what had he done, 2 1/2 world wars and the possibility of another. The truth is we ASSUMED that if we joined the Common Market we would not just be primus inter pares, but like the Empire, we alone would be the leader. To some extent they even played up to that my making Henry Plumb first elected leader of the European Parliament.
The saddest part of it is sometimes the Rejoiners STILL think they would let us lead if we went back. Sorry lads, ain't gonna happen.
Other way round. Britain sought salvation, and Europe feared we would take over. In the 1950s and 60s the Establishment saw Britain as in terminal decline, and viewed entry to the Common Market as our last hope, only for us to be denied repeatedly, until Ted Heath finally got us in.
What ‘got us in’ was the death of Charles de Gaulle.
I've never quite understood why he disliked us so, given all the help we gave him personally. (Open to biography suggestions - in English)
Because he was a vain, arrogant nationalist fucker who never got over the humiliation of France's defeat and Britain's survival.
Ted Heath's longest fit of pique had nothing on De Gaulle.
Still, at least he didn't collaborate.
Didn't deGaulle take umbrage at being snubbed by Churchill?
It stems from Vichy.
Even up to a few days before D-Day de Gaulle kept on denying Jews were being rounded up
It also stems from the fact that Churchill and de Gaulle were both captured in earlier wars but Churchill was fine with it and de Gaulle was sensitive to the accusations he surrendered.
I heard Ed Davey on News Agents earlier this week. Total drivel.
It’s sad, but the Lib Dems seem to have mutated from a gang of liberal policy wonks to somethin akin to a Waitrose users group.
Presume the Liberal Democrat magazine now comes with recipe ideas sponsored by Charlie Bigham.
Anything you want to complain about specifically or are you just having a Sunday afternoon whinge?
I just told you. Davey came across well-meaning but having no actual conception of challenges faced by the country.
And in theory, I’m a Davey supporter (and in practice a Lib Dem voter).
As I wrote this I thought to myself, the Lib Dems are now the sort of party that supports the WASPI women cause.
I checked, and of course they do.
Not serious.
The weird thing is, the LDs had an open goal and an obvious role: become the Rejoin Now party
Promise an instant return to the SM and CU and a new referendum within a year
Yet they refused to take the chance and waffled vaguely, instead
They should have been the Remainer version of the SNP. Make Rejoin their one big profound policy, their raison d’etre
In a weird volatile election, with lots of Remainers looking warily (and with justification) at Starmer, that could have been explosive. But no
No, wasting time and effort on "Rejoining" is an elephant trap of epic proportions.
The first problem is we have no idea under what terms the EU would consider the UK (re)joining. Would we have to accept the Euro and Schengen for example? I'm sure plenty would object to that.
Even if the EU offered status quo ante referendum, we'd still have issues over QMV and the rebates.
We had to leave because our half-hearted mean-spirited rebate-obsessed membership wasn't doing either us or the EU any good and we took a democratic vote deciding to leave.
There would also be huge resistance to any attempt to reintroduce Freedom of Movement which I believe is a prerequisite for membership of the Single Market - indeed, it would be a huge gift for Reform if anyone were to try.
We were never honest as to why we wanted to join in the first place. Because of that our membership was always false, incomplete, unsatisfying.
Why did we want to join ? Well the Empire was finished but of course we had superb management experience, in our own eyes. This European thing was all very well but well, Johnny Foreigner had had a century and a half to sort things out since 1815 and what had he done, 2 1/2 world wars and the possibility of another. The truth is we ASSUMED that if we joined the Common Market we would not just be primus inter pares, but like the Empire, we alone would be the leader. To some extent they even played up to that my making Henry Plumb first elected leader of the European Parliament.
The saddest part of it is sometimes the Rejoiners STILL think they would let us lead if we went back. Sorry lads, ain't gonna happen.
Other way round. Britain sought salvation, and Europe feared we would take over. In the 1950s and 60s the Establishment saw Britain as in terminal decline, and viewed entry to the Common Market as our last hope, only for us to be denied repeatedly, until Ted Heath finally got us in.
What ‘got us in’ was the death of Charles de Gaulle.
I've never quite understood why he disliked us so, given all the help we gave him personally. (Open to biography suggestions - in English)
He was trying to rebuild France as a great power. He saw the U.K. as attempting to turn France into a satellite.
The allies should never have let French forces “liberate” Paris. They should have made it clear who had done the heavy lifting. I think they were so worried about a communist streak in France that they didn’t want a humiliated France. De Gaulle was an absolute truly chauvinistic French man but probably what the French needed to avoid turmoil after the war.
Depends what you mean by heavy lifting, the UK suffered c.450k deaths in total during WWII, France c.600k. Of course a shitload of French civvy deaths were caused by the Allies, but I think that could still be described fairly as a sacrifice to the cause.
Absolutely - Normandy suffered in particular but the point remains that it was largely the US, the UK, Canada and other allies who got France out from Nazi control and by allowing the French forces and De Gaulle to have such a prominent and symbolic role in liberating Paris allowed the French self delusion legs. Anyway, lovely country so alls well that ends well.
I heard Ed Davey on News Agents earlier this week. Total drivel.
It’s sad, but the Lib Dems seem to have mutated from a gang of liberal policy wonks to somethin akin to a Waitrose users group.
Presume the Liberal Democrat magazine now comes with recipe ideas sponsored by Charlie Bigham.
Anything you want to complain about specifically or are you just having a Sunday afternoon whinge?
I just told you. Davey came across well-meaning but having no actual conception of challenges faced by the country.
And in theory, I’m a Davey supporter (and in practice a Lib Dem voter).
As I wrote this I thought to myself, the Lib Dems are now the sort of party that supports the WASPI women cause.
I checked, and of course they do.
Not serious.
The weird thing is, the LDs had an open goal and an obvious role: become the Rejoin Now party
Promise an instant return to the SM and CU and a new referendum within a year
Yet they refused to take the chance and waffled vaguely, instead
They should have been the Remainer version of the SNP. Make Rejoin their one big profound policy, their raison d’etre
In a weird volatile election, with lots of Remainers looking warily (and with justification) at Starmer, that could have been explosive. But no
It must be PTSD from Jo Swinson and 2019 when the timing was wrong.
I don’t agree with Leon on this.
There’s no electoral advantage in being a single cause party, at least within the English electoral system where Lib Dem fortunes are won and lost.
Their current policy is relatively sensible - move toward single market membership this parliament. They perhaps should make more of it, but I don’t think it ought to be their sole focus.
Over the long term, you’re right
But for this one weird election - GE 2024 now gone - I’m right. REJOIN NOW could have electrified everything. Angry Remainers might have stampeded towards them. Lots of pissed off people might have thought: Sod it. Lib Dems. Fuck Brexit. Fuck wishy washy Starmer. Rejoin with the Libs!!
They might have won enough seats to become the Opposition - a game changer
In 2019 the country wanted Brexit done and they had Boris to do it. So they chose Boris. Also STOP BREXIT was mad. It was treasonous. It was Revoke. It was FUCK DEMOCRACY
In 2024 you had a massively unpopular government but also a dislikeable opposition and a unique chance to surge through the middle with one radical, profound, democratic policy: REJOIN
You blew it. The dim witted commentary on here shows why. Too stupid and too timid
I know too many Remainers who are sick of Brexit as a topic of discussion that they certainly wouldn't vote for a party that wanted to spend years reopening that can of worms, to think that it would have helped the Lib Dems at the last election.
Rejoin doesn't build any houses. It doesn't build any hospitals, or train any doctors. The Tory government just past forgot how to get anything done, because it spent at least five years or so transfixed with the process of leaving the EU. By the time it got to the other side it had forgotten what else it was supposed to be doing and how to do it.
If Britain could rejoin at the stroke of a pen then I'd do it in a flash, but the thought of spending the rest of the decade doing nothing other than negotiating and implementing British re-entry makes me recoil.
I think you've badly misjudged the mood of Remainers.
Most Remainers I know don’t want more years of drama and division and certainly don’t want another EU referendum . I would of course though want closer links with the EU and I’d like to see a youth mobility scheme set up and going back into Erasmus . If there’s a huge increase in support for re-joining then a new vote might happen but it’s for future generations and many years away if it ever happens .
The contrast fo £19 grand on frocks and thongs versus £300 to help a pensioner get through the winter just int a good look.
It’s incredible. And it’s not like the Starmers are poor. They are multi millionaires with groaning huge pensions and earning maybe £300k a year as a household? £400k?
And the wife accepts pretty dresses as a gift??? Right at the start of their first term?
WTAF
It screams: meet the new boss same as the old boss, only the new boss is a fucking hypocrite who wants to make you miserable and stop you eating pies, whereas the old boss was just a greedy shit and didn’t care what you do
Most governments end in sleaze.
Starmer's government has started in sleaze.
Something it shares in common with labour in 97 and cash for fags
What’s the quid pro quo? This is nothing like “cash for fags”.
Keir seems to have been careless. The optics are not great but this is not a government that has “started in sleaze”.
“Careless”???
He knowingly accepted tens of thousands in freebies not only for himself. But for his wife, also
In return the donor was given a free pass to the commons - completely against the rules
Whoops! Butter fingers!
If I was about to become PM, I feel like Mrs Walker might also need a telegenic spruce up. Suddenly, she is in the public eye.
The British state affords no such largesse, and I don’t think the Starmers are personally wealthy.
It therefore seems that this rather shabby compromise has developed whereby PMs get some kind of image support from well placed donors.
Starmer’s sin is administrative. He should have declared it all. It’s not obvious why and how he overlooked it.
They are both high earners and have been for a long time - many many people manage to look good each day without a state bung for their clothes. If you don’t want to deal with that then you could just not run for leadership of a party where you might end up as PM.
Its not as if it’s a lifetime problem - they can blow a bit of cash because he will more than make up for it afterwards on the speaking circuit, books, whatever. It just looks grasping.
It stinks of corruption. After what's gone on with the previous government, this Labour government is showing it's not any better. And the stink is coming from the very top.
Why, Starmer, why? What the **** were you thinking? You're supposed to be the sensible adult in the room. And then you accept this sort of 'deal', and 'forget' to declare it.
You're no better than the last lot.
I’m not sure it’s corruption just stupidity. He probably thought that it was such small beer and had justified it to himself that it wasn’t a problem. His problem is he’s such a twatty puritanical preachy knob. If Boris and Carrie did it then everyone would raise an eyebrow or shrug but Sir Keir Cromwell was such a pious prick that he needed to be whiter than white.
If this was a Conservative MP, let alone Conservative leader, Starmer would not be saying "It's just stupidity, not corruption".
This all interrelates as well: it's not the first time he's forgotten to declare free gifts; and AIUI this time it's connected with the donor getting a No. 10 pass.
One of his few selling points was that he was an adult in the room; someone who could get things done properly without fuss, as he apparently did during his time as DPP.
It stinks. And the amounts make it worse.
Boris was (rightly) brought down by a cake. SKS will get away with this, but he should not.
To be fair if we don’t have to see this dreadful suit again it might be good for the country.
And the “son of a toolmaker” shoes.
Lammy apparently met Biden with Starmer wearing trainers
It’s just tragic wankery. Grown adults thinking they are edgy by dressing badly. You have people praising Angela Rayner for dressing like a student - she’s a sodding cabinet member, Deputy PM of the UK. Scruffy politicians for a scruffy country.
The country's gone to the dogs ever since PMs stopped wearing morning suits as standard.
If I ever became PM I would insist on morning suits to be worn during all official events/meetings.
The contrast fo £19 grand on frocks and thongs versus £300 to help a pensioner get through the winter just int a good look.
It’s incredible. And it’s not like the Starmers are poor. They are multi millionaires with groaning huge pensions and earning maybe £300k a year as a household? £400k?
And the wife accepts pretty dresses as a gift??? Right at the start of their first term?
WTAF
It screams: meet the new boss same as the old boss, only the new boss is a fucking hypocrite who wants to make you miserable and stop you eating pies, whereas the old boss was just a greedy shit and didn’t care what you do
Most governments end in sleaze.
Starmer's government has started in sleaze.
Something it shares in common with labour in 97 and cash for fags
What’s the quid pro quo? This is nothing like “cash for fags”.
Keir seems to have been careless. The optics are not great but this is not a government that has “started in sleaze”.
“Careless”???
He knowingly accepted tens of thousands in freebies not only for himself. But for his wife, also
In return the donor was given a free pass to the commons - completely against the rules
Whoops! Butter fingers!
If I was about to become PM, I feel like Mrs Walker might also need a telegenic spruce up. Suddenly, she is in the public eye.
The British state affords no such largesse, and I don’t think the Starmers are personally wealthy.
It therefore seems that this rather shabby compromise has developed whereby PMs get some kind of image support from well placed donors.
Starmer’s sin is administrative. He should have declared it all. It’s not obvious why and how he overlooked it.
They are both high earners and have been for a long time - many many people manage to look good each day without a state bung for their clothes. If you don’t want to deal with that then you could just not run for leadership of a party where you might end up as PM.
Its not as if it’s a lifetime problem - they can blow a bit of cash because he will more than make up for it afterwards on the speaking circuit, books, whatever. It just looks grasping.
It stinks of corruption. After what's gone on with the previous government, this Labour government is showing it's not any better. And the stink is coming from the very top.
Why, Starmer, why? What the **** were you thinking? You're supposed to be the sensible adult in the room. And then you accept this sort of 'deal', and 'forget' to declare it.
You're no better than the last lot.
I’m not sure it’s corruption just stupidity. He probably thought that it was such small beer and had justified it to himself that it wasn’t a problem. His problem is he’s such a twatty puritanical preachy knob. If Boris and Carrie did it then everyone would raise an eyebrow or shrug but Sir Keir Cromwell was such a pious prick that he needed to be whiter than white.
If this was a Conservative MP, let alone Conservative leader, Starmer would not be saying "It's just stupidity, not corruption".
This all interrelates as well: it's not the first time he's forgotten to declare free gifts; and AIUI this time it's connected with the donor getting a No. 10 pass.
One of his few selling points was that he was an adult in the room; someone who could get things done properly without fuss, as he apparently did during his time as DPP.
It stinks. And the amounts make it worse.
Boris was (rightly) brought down by a cake. SKS will get away with this, but he should not.
This is probably a disgraceful piece of snobbery, but my revulsion is for the underlying transaction - hey Mr Rich Guy, please dress up my wife. I don't give a toss about late notification to anyone. It's extraordinary. A possible theory: the world of PMs and billionaires is as high above the world of DPPs as the world of DPPs is above me. He is out of his social depth and thought it would be unacceptably gauche to decline a frock offer.
I heard Ed Davey on News Agents earlier this week. Total drivel.
It’s sad, but the Lib Dems seem to have mutated from a gang of liberal policy wonks to somethin akin to a Waitrose users group.
Presume the Liberal Democrat magazine now comes with recipe ideas sponsored by Charlie Bigham.
Anything you want to complain about specifically or are you just having a Sunday afternoon whinge?
I just told you. Davey came across well-meaning but having no actual conception of challenges faced by the country.
And in theory, I’m a Davey supporter (and in practice a Lib Dem voter).
As I wrote this I thought to myself, the Lib Dems are now the sort of party that supports the WASPI women cause.
I checked, and of course they do.
Not serious.
The weird thing is, the LDs had an open goal and an obvious role: become the Rejoin Now party
Promise an instant return to the SM and CU and a new referendum within a year
Yet they refused to take the chance and waffled vaguely, instead
They should have been the Remainer version of the SNP. Make Rejoin their one big profound policy, their raison d’etre
In a weird volatile election, with lots of Remainers looking warily (and with justification) at Starmer, that could have been explosive. But no
No, wasting time and effort on "Rejoining" is an elephant trap of epic proportions.
The first problem is we have no idea under what terms the EU would consider the UK (re)joining. Would we have to accept the Euro and Schengen for example? I'm sure plenty would object to that.
Even if the EU offered status quo ante referendum, we'd still have issues over QMV and the rebates.
We had to leave because our half-hearted mean-spirited rebate-obsessed membership wasn't doing either us or the EU any good and we took a democratic vote deciding to leave.
There would also be huge resistance to any attempt to reintroduce Freedom of Movement which I believe is a prerequisite for membership of the Single Market - indeed, it would be a huge gift for Reform if anyone were to try.
We were never honest as to why we wanted to join in the first place. Because of that our membership was always false, incomplete, unsatisfying.
Why did we want to join ? Well the Empire was finished but of course we had superb management experience, in our own eyes. This European thing was all very well but well, Johnny Foreigner had had a century and a half to sort things out since 1815 and what had he done, 2 1/2 world wars and the possibility of another. The truth is we ASSUMED that if we joined the Common Market we would not just be primus inter pares, but like the Empire, we alone would be the leader. To some extent they even played up to that my making Henry Plumb first elected leader of the European Parliament.
The saddest part of it is sometimes the Rejoiners STILL think they would let us lead if we went back. Sorry lads, ain't gonna happen.
Other way round. Britain sought salvation, and Europe feared we would take over. In the 1950s and 60s the Establishment saw Britain as in terminal decline, and viewed entry to the Common Market as our last hope, only for us to be denied repeatedly, until Ted Heath finally got us in.
What ‘got us in’ was the death of Charles de Gaulle.
I've never quite understood why he disliked us so, given all the help we gave him personally. (Open to biography suggestions - in English)
Because he was a vain, arrogant nationalist fucker who never got over the humiliation of France's defeat and Britain's survival.
Ted Heath's longest fit of pique had nothing on De Gaulle.
Still, at least he didn't collaborate.
Didn't deGaulle take umbrage at being snubbed by Churchill?
It stems from Vichy.
Even up to a few days before D-Day de Gaulle kept on denying Jews were being rounded up
It also stems from the fact that Churchill and de Gaulle were both captured in earlier wars but Churchill was fine with it and de Gaulle was sensitive to the accusations he surrendered.
I don't really believe any of the explanations. However maybe your 'it stems from Vichy' is a big factor.
I’m driving up beautiful Myra Canyon and a sudden conundrum has struck me. Why do we LIKE being scared? Being scared is not obviously fun. Your heart pounds, you perspire, you cower away and shriek
And yet we seek it out. We love roller coasters and off piste skiing and ghost stories and horror movies
But WHY?
Not everyone likes being scared. Loads don't. Those who do seem to fall into two unequal groups: the distanced scared - roller coasters carefully conformed to safety standards, horror films, war films, ghost stories. These are a sort of substitution activity and is a form of entertainment. The much smaller group likes real unfiltered scary danger, the sort where you clearly may or may not die.
But….. WHY?
I’m in both groups so this is personal. I like scary movies and roller coasters but I also like warzones and scuba
I’m trying to map out some ev psych explanation but it is not obvious
We're probably programmed to want to habituate ourselves to fear. Just as animals play hunting. There's an obvious evolutionary survival advantage in that.
My cat behaves like a jungle predator when he spots a squirrel in the garden. Low crouch, slow motion creep forward, then LEAP. Never catches one, not even close, so it's not rational behaviour. Nor is it driven by fear or hunger. It is, yes, play. He's playing hunting.
I heard Ed Davey on News Agents earlier this week. Total drivel.
It’s sad, but the Lib Dems seem to have mutated from a gang of liberal policy wonks to somethin akin to a Waitrose users group.
Presume the Liberal Democrat magazine now comes with recipe ideas sponsored by Charlie Bigham.
Anything you want to complain about specifically or are you just having a Sunday afternoon whinge?
I just told you. Davey came across well-meaning but having no actual conception of challenges faced by the country.
And in theory, I’m a Davey supporter (and in practice a Lib Dem voter).
As I wrote this I thought to myself, the Lib Dems are now the sort of party that supports the WASPI women cause.
I checked, and of course they do.
Not serious.
The weird thing is, the LDs had an open goal and an obvious role: become the Rejoin Now party
Promise an instant return to the SM and CU and a new referendum within a year
Yet they refused to take the chance and waffled vaguely, instead
They should have been the Remainer version of the SNP. Make Rejoin their one big profound policy, their raison d’etre
In a weird volatile election, with lots of Remainers looking warily (and with justification) at Starmer, that could have been explosive. But no
No, wasting time and effort on "Rejoining" is an elephant trap of epic proportions.
The first problem is we have no idea under what terms the EU would consider the UK (re)joining. Would we have to accept the Euro and Schengen for example? I'm sure plenty would object to that.
Even if the EU offered status quo ante referendum, we'd still have issues over QMV and the rebates.
We had to leave because our half-hearted mean-spirited rebate-obsessed membership wasn't doing either us or the EU any good and we took a democratic vote deciding to leave.
There would also be huge resistance to any attempt to reintroduce Freedom of Movement which I believe is a prerequisite for membership of the Single Market - indeed, it would be a huge gift for Reform if anyone were to try.
We were never honest as to why we wanted to join in the first place. Because of that our membership was always false, incomplete, unsatisfying.
Why did we want to join ? Well the Empire was finished but of course we had superb management experience, in our own eyes. This European thing was all very well but well, Johnny Foreigner had had a century and a half to sort things out since 1815 and what had he done, 2 1/2 world wars and the possibility of another. The truth is we ASSUMED that if we joined the Common Market we would not just be primus inter pares, but like the Empire, we alone would be the leader. To some extent they even played up to that my making Henry Plumb first elected leader of the European Parliament.
The saddest part of it is sometimes the Rejoiners STILL think they would let us lead if we went back. Sorry lads, ain't gonna happen.
Other way round. Britain sought salvation, and Europe feared we would take over. In the 1950s and 60s the Establishment saw Britain as in terminal decline, and viewed entry to the Common Market as our last hope, only for us to be denied repeatedly, until Ted Heath finally got us in.
What ‘got us in’ was the death of Charles de Gaulle.
I've never quite understood why he disliked us so, given all the help we gave him personally. (Open to biography suggestions - in English)
Because he was a vain, arrogant nationalist fucker who never got over the humiliation of France's defeat and Britain's survival.
Ted Heath's longest fit of pique had nothing on De Gaulle.
Still, at least he didn't collaborate.
Didn't deGaulle take umbrage at being snubbed by Churchill?
It stems from Vichy.
Even up to a few days before D-Day de Gaulle kept on denying Jews were being rounded up
It also stems from the fact that Churchill and de Gaulle were both captured in earlier wars but Churchill was fine with it and de Gaulle was sensitive to the accusations he surrendered.
I don't really believe any of the explanations. However maybe your 'it stems from Vichy' is a big factor.
I’m driving up beautiful Myra Canyon and a sudden conundrum has struck me. Why do we LIKE being scared? Being scared is not obviously fun. Your heart pounds, you perspire, you cower away and shriek
And yet we seek it out. We love roller coasters and off piste skiing and ghost stories and horror movies
But WHY?
Not everyone likes being scared. Loads don't. Those who do seem to fall into two unequal groups: the distanced scared - roller coasters carefully conformed to safety standards, horror films, war films, ghost stories. These are a sort of substitution activity and is a form of entertainment. The much smaller group likes real unfiltered scary danger, the sort where you clearly may or may not die.
But….. WHY?
I’m in both groups so this is personal. I like scary movies and roller coasters but I also like warzones and scuba
I’m trying to map out some ev psych explanation but it is not obvious
I strangely find I’m not scared of anything anymore except for dying alone naked in bed and being found a while later. Otherwise ghosts, fights, operations, not so much.
Wear pyjamas then. Take that last one off the table.
The contrast fo £19 grand on frocks and thongs versus £300 to help a pensioner get through the winter just int a good look.
It’s incredible. And it’s not like the Starmers are poor. They are multi millionaires with groaning huge pensions and earning maybe £300k a year as a household? £400k?
And the wife accepts pretty dresses as a gift??? Right at the start of their first term?
WTAF
It screams: meet the new boss same as the old boss, only the new boss is a fucking hypocrite who wants to make you miserable and stop you eating pies, whereas the old boss was just a greedy shit and didn’t care what you do
Most governments end in sleaze.
Starmer's government has started in sleaze.
Something it shares in common with labour in 97 and cash for fags
What’s the quid pro quo? This is nothing like “cash for fags”.
Keir seems to have been careless. The optics are not great but this is not a government that has “started in sleaze”.
“Careless”???
He knowingly accepted tens of thousands in freebies not only for himself. But for his wife, also
In return the donor was given a free pass to the commons - completely against the rules
Whoops! Butter fingers!
If I was about to become PM, I feel like Mrs Walker might also need a telegenic spruce up. Suddenly, she is in the public eye.
The British state affords no such largesse, and I don’t think the Starmers are personally wealthy.
It therefore seems that this rather shabby compromise has developed whereby PMs get some kind of image support from well placed donors.
Starmer’s sin is administrative. He should have declared it all. It’s not obvious why and how he overlooked it.
They are both high earners and have been for a long time - many many people manage to look good each day without a state bung for their clothes. If you don’t want to deal with that then you could just not run for leadership of a party where you might end up as PM.
Its not as if it’s a lifetime problem - they can blow a bit of cash because he will more than make up for it afterwards on the speaking circuit, books, whatever. It just looks grasping.
It stinks of corruption. After what's gone on with the previous government, this Labour government is showing it's not any better. And the stink is coming from the very top.
Why, Starmer, why? What the **** were you thinking? You're supposed to be the sensible adult in the room. And then you accept this sort of 'deal', and 'forget' to declare it.
You're no better than the last lot.
I’m not sure it’s corruption just stupidity. He probably thought that it was such small beer and had justified it to himself that it wasn’t a problem. His problem is he’s such a twatty puritanical preachy knob. If Boris and Carrie did it then everyone would raise an eyebrow or shrug but Sir Keir Cromwell was such a pious prick that he needed to be whiter than white.
If this was a Conservative MP, let alone Conservative leader, Starmer would not be saying "It's just stupidity, not corruption".
This all interrelates as well: it's not the first time he's forgotten to declare free gifts; and AIUI this time it's connected with the donor getting a No. 10 pass.
One of his few selling points was that he was an adult in the room; someone who could get things done properly without fuss, as he apparently did during his time as DPP.
It stinks. And the amounts make it worse.
Boris was (rightly) brought down by a cake. SKS will get away with this, but he should not.
This is probably a disgraceful piece of snobbery, but my revulsion is for the underlying transaction - hey Mr Rich Guy, please dress up my wife. I don't give a toss about late notification to anyone. It's extraordinary. A possible theory: the world of PMs and billionaires is as high above the world of DPPs as the world of DPPs is above me. He is out of his social depth and thought it would be unacceptably gauche to decline a frock offer.
I think there is a huge social chip on Starmer’s shoulders. He thinks he’s special because he did well but can’t escape the fear that he doesn’t quite fit in. You can see it in his shoes. Neither correct nor stylish. Dull.
I heard Ed Davey on News Agents earlier this week. Total drivel.
It’s sad, but the Lib Dems seem to have mutated from a gang of liberal policy wonks to somethin akin to a Waitrose users group.
Presume the Liberal Democrat magazine now comes with recipe ideas sponsored by Charlie Bigham.
Anything you want to complain about specifically or are you just having a Sunday afternoon whinge?
I just told you. Davey came across well-meaning but having no actual conception of challenges faced by the country.
And in theory, I’m a Davey supporter (and in practice a Lib Dem voter).
As I wrote this I thought to myself, the Lib Dems are now the sort of party that supports the WASPI women cause.
I checked, and of course they do.
Not serious.
The weird thing is, the LDs had an open goal and an obvious role: become the Rejoin Now party
Promise an instant return to the SM and CU and a new referendum within a year
Yet they refused to take the chance and waffled vaguely, instead
They should have been the Remainer version of the SNP. Make Rejoin their one big profound policy, their raison d’etre
In a weird volatile election, with lots of Remainers looking warily (and with justification) at Starmer, that could have been explosive. But no
No, wasting time and effort on "Rejoining" is an elephant trap of epic proportions.
The first problem is we have no idea under what terms the EU would consider the UK (re)joining. Would we have to accept the Euro and Schengen for example? I'm sure plenty would object to that.
Even if the EU offered status quo ante referendum, we'd still have issues over QMV and the rebates.
We had to leave because our half-hearted mean-spirited rebate-obsessed membership wasn't doing either us or the EU any good and we took a democratic vote deciding to leave.
There would also be huge resistance to any attempt to reintroduce Freedom of Movement which I believe is a prerequisite for membership of the Single Market - indeed, it would be a huge gift for Reform if anyone were to try.
We were never honest as to why we wanted to join in the first place. Because of that our membership was always false, incomplete, unsatisfying.
Why did we want to join ? Well the Empire was finished but of course we had superb management experience, in our own eyes. This European thing was all very well but well, Johnny Foreigner had had a century and a half to sort things out since 1815 and what had he done, 2 1/2 world wars and the possibility of another. The truth is we ASSUMED that if we joined the Common Market we would not just be primus inter pares, but like the Empire, we alone would be the leader. To some extent they even played up to that my making Henry Plumb first elected leader of the European Parliament.
The saddest part of it is sometimes the Rejoiners STILL think they would let us lead if we went back. Sorry lads, ain't gonna happen.
Other way round. Britain sought salvation, and Europe feared we would take over. In the 1950s and 60s the Establishment saw Britain as in terminal decline, and viewed entry to the Common Market as our last hope, only for us to be denied repeatedly, until Ted Heath finally got us in.
What ‘got us in’ was the death of Charles de Gaulle.
I've never quite understood why he disliked us so, given all the help we gave him personally. (Open to biography suggestions - in English)
Because he was a vain, arrogant nationalist fucker who never got over the humiliation of France's defeat and Britain's survival.
Ted Heath's longest fit of pique had nothing on De Gaulle.
Still, at least he didn't collaborate.
Didn't deGaulle take umbrage at being snubbed by Churchill?
It stems from Vichy.
Even up to a few days before D-Day de Gaulle kept on denying Jews were being rounded up
It also stems from the fact that Churchill and de Gaulle were both captured in earlier wars but Churchill was fine with it and de Gaulle was sensitive to the accusations he surrendered.
I don't really believe any of the explanations. However maybe your 'it stems from Vichy' is a big factor.
I heard Ed Davey on News Agents earlier this week. Total drivel.
It’s sad, but the Lib Dems seem to have mutated from a gang of liberal policy wonks to somethin akin to a Waitrose users group.
Presume the Liberal Democrat magazine now comes with recipe ideas sponsored by Charlie Bigham.
Anything you want to complain about specifically or are you just having a Sunday afternoon whinge?
I just told you. Davey came across well-meaning but having no actual conception of challenges faced by the country.
And in theory, I’m a Davey supporter (and in practice a Lib Dem voter).
As I wrote this I thought to myself, the Lib Dems are now the sort of party that supports the WASPI women cause.
I checked, and of course they do.
Not serious.
The weird thing is, the LDs had an open goal and an obvious role: become the Rejoin Now party
Promise an instant return to the SM and CU and a new referendum within a year
Yet they refused to take the chance and waffled vaguely, instead
They should have been the Remainer version of the SNP. Make Rejoin their one big profound policy, their raison d’etre
In a weird volatile election, with lots of Remainers looking warily (and with justification) at Starmer, that could have been explosive. But no
No, wasting time and effort on "Rejoining" is an elephant trap of epic proportions.
The first problem is we have no idea under what terms the EU would consider the UK (re)joining. Would we have to accept the Euro and Schengen for example? I'm sure plenty would object to that.
Even if the EU offered status quo ante referendum, we'd still have issues over QMV and the rebates.
We had to leave because our half-hearted mean-spirited rebate-obsessed membership wasn't doing either us or the EU any good and we took a democratic vote deciding to leave.
There would also be huge resistance to any attempt to reintroduce Freedom of Movement which I believe is a prerequisite for membership of the Single Market - indeed, it would be a huge gift for Reform if anyone were to try.
We were never honest as to why we wanted to join in the first place. Because of that our membership was always false, incomplete, unsatisfying.
Why did we want to join ? Well the Empire was finished but of course we had superb management experience, in our own eyes. This European thing was all very well but well, Johnny Foreigner had had a century and a half to sort things out since 1815 and what had he done, 2 1/2 world wars and the possibility of another. The truth is we ASSUMED that if we joined the Common Market we would not just be primus inter pares, but like the Empire, we alone would be the leader. To some extent they even played up to that my making Henry Plumb first elected leader of the European Parliament.
The saddest part of it is sometimes the Rejoiners STILL think they would let us lead if we went back. Sorry lads, ain't gonna happen.
Other way round. Britain sought salvation, and Europe feared we would take over. In the 1950s and 60s the Establishment saw Britain as in terminal decline, and viewed entry to the Common Market as our last hope, only for us to be denied repeatedly, until Ted Heath finally got us in.
What ‘got us in’ was the death of Charles de Gaulle.
I've never quite understood why he disliked us so, given all the help we gave him personally. (Open to biography suggestions - in English)
Because he was a vain, arrogant nationalist fucker who never got over the humiliation of France's defeat and Britain's survival.
Ted Heath's longest fit of pique had nothing on De Gaulle.
Still, at least he didn't collaborate.
Didn't deGaulle take umbrage at being snubbed by Churchill?
He was rightly snubbed as he was an obstructive and vain arsehole. He’s very lucky there was no better French leader to coalesce the free French around. The Americans were also exasperated by his posturing and positioning.
There is a lovely anecdote about Churchill insisting that on his death, after the funeral ceremony, his coffin should be taken on its journey to Blenheim by train from Waterloo. This was to ensure that de Gaulle and his French entourage would have to pass through the station named after the battle of 1815 where Napoleon got second prize.
I heard Ed Davey on News Agents earlier this week. Total drivel.
It’s sad, but the Lib Dems seem to have mutated from a gang of liberal policy wonks to somethin akin to a Waitrose users group.
Presume the Liberal Democrat magazine now comes with recipe ideas sponsored by Charlie Bigham.
Anything you want to complain about specifically or are you just having a Sunday afternoon whinge?
I just told you. Davey came across well-meaning but having no actual conception of challenges faced by the country.
And in theory, I’m a Davey supporter (and in practice a Lib Dem voter).
As I wrote this I thought to myself, the Lib Dems are now the sort of party that supports the WASPI women cause.
I checked, and of course they do.
Not serious.
The weird thing is, the LDs had an open goal and an obvious role: become the Rejoin Now party
Promise an instant return to the SM and CU and a new referendum within a year
Yet they refused to take the chance and waffled vaguely, instead
They should have been the Remainer version of the SNP. Make Rejoin their one big profound policy, their raison d’etre
In a weird volatile election, with lots of Remainers looking warily (and with justification) at Starmer, that could have been explosive. But no
It must be PTSD from Jo Swinson and 2019 when the timing was wrong.
I don’t agree with Leon on this.
There’s no electoral advantage in being a single cause party, at least within the English electoral system where Lib Dem fortunes are won and lost.
Their current policy is relatively sensible - move toward single market membership this parliament. They perhaps should make more of it, but I don’t think it ought to be their sole focus.
Over the long term, you’re right
But for this one weird election - GE 2024 now gone - I’m right. REJOIN NOW could have electrified everything. Angry Remainers might have stampeded towards them. Lots of pissed off people might have thought: Sod it. Lib Dems. Fuck Brexit. Fuck wishy washy Starmer. Rejoin with the Libs!!
They might have won enough seats to become the Opposition - a game changer
In 2019 the country wanted Brexit done and they had Boris to do it. So they chose Boris. Also STOP BREXIT was mad. It was treasonous. It was Revoke. It was FUCK DEMOCRACY
In 2024 you had a massively unpopular government but also a dislikeable opposition and a unique chance to surge through the middle with one radical, profound, democratic policy: REJOIN
You blew it. The dim witted commentary on here shows why. Too stupid and too timid
I know too many Remainers who are sick of Brexit as a topic of discussion that they certainly wouldn't vote for a party that wanted to spend years reopening that can of worms, to think that it would have helped the Lib Dems at the last election.
Rejoin doesn't build any houses. It doesn't build any hospitals, or train any doctors. The Tory government just past forgot how to get anything done, because it spent at least five years or so transfixed with the process of leaving the EU. By the time it got to the other side it had forgotten what else it was supposed to be doing and how to do it.
If Britain could rejoin at the stroke of a pen then I'd do it in a flash, but the thought of spending the rest of the decade doing nothing other than negotiating and implementing British re-entry makes me recoil.
I think you've badly misjudged the mood of Remainers.
Yep.
To expand upon that - a very important (and, IMHO opinion, completely correct) lesson that the LDs took away from the entire Brexit/Remain debacle was this: any Rejoin can only happen and be sustained with widespread public support. You have to bring the public with you first. And that's where their Europe stance now comes from: to work towards closer co-operation, show the benefits of closer co-operation, and get people to want to rejoin. Single Market membership being a good first step. But NOT a big pendulum swing to "Rejoin!"
But we can interpret Leon's suggestion not as a policy for the LDs to believe in but as pure electoral calculation, I suppose. And in that case - no, it wouldn't have worked. Which seats would have fallen due to this siren call that didn't fall before? And would they more than offset the seats that wouldn't have been taken due to it? After all, the South West is the least Remainery area, and that's one reason the LDs evaporated there. St Ives would have fallen back into the LD fold in 2019 without the massive focus on Europe, and there were others like it.
Best guess, maybe 10-20 of the 72 wouldn't be orange now if the LDs had done that. Maybe more (maybe fewer), but that's where I'm leaning. And maybe 4-5 more would have fallen - if that. I mean, I can't really see Cotswolds North, or Shropshire South screaming out so loudly for Rejoin that they'd have romped into the fold. And, of course, it would have diverted the message from social care, water state, the NHS, the environment, and so on, and given the impression that the LDs were nothing more than Europe-obsessives. After 2019 and 2017 were so big on Europe (especially 2019); this was an opportunity to demonstrate that the LDs weren't just a pro-EU pressure group.
I’m driving up beautiful Myra Canyon and a sudden conundrum has struck me. Why do we LIKE being scared? Being scared is not obviously fun. Your heart pounds, you perspire, you cower away and shriek
And yet we seek it out. We love roller coasters and off piste skiing and ghost stories and horror movies
But WHY?
Not everyone likes being scared. Loads don't. Those who do seem to fall into two unequal groups: the distanced scared - roller coasters carefully conformed to safety standards, horror films, war films, ghost stories. These are a sort of substitution activity and is a form of entertainment. The much smaller group likes real unfiltered scary danger, the sort where you clearly may or may not die.
But….. WHY?
I’m in both groups so this is personal. I like scary movies and roller coasters but I also like warzones and scuba
I’m trying to map out some ev psych explanation but it is not obvious
I strangely find I’m not scared of anything anymore except for dying alone naked in bed and being found a while later. Otherwise ghosts, fights, operations, not so much.
Wear pyjamas then. Take that last one off the table.
Grim - pyjamas are what you throw on that first morning with a new girl when you get up to make her tea and it’s all a bit awks. And even then it’s just the bottoms you wear. Terrible for a comfortable sleep.
On fear: it's because adrenaline is a hell of a drug. And there's good evolutionary arguments that can be made for that.
"Fear" and "thrill" are very close together because of that. It's why we have adrenaline junkies, and many of us are on that spectrum to one degree or another. Ways to trigger off the adrenaline without putting ourselves into actual danger are therefore attractive.
Talking of scary, I am right now cycling the Kettle Valley Railway Trail
Sounds a bit humdrum. Something you’d do on a weekend in Evesham. Or Newent
It is incredible. It’s the great Canadian railway that linked east to west Canada right through the Manashee mountains via a sequence of remarkable trestle bridges and blasted tunnels. It’s now disused so they’ve turned it into a cycle path
But what a cycle path. It’s dead flat (railway) so it’s easy but often you are one foot from a 4000 foot drop. No fences. They give you a helmet but I don’t think that would help much
One skid and over you’d go. And there are parents with 5 year old kids on wobbly bikes
I heard Ed Davey on News Agents earlier this week. Total drivel.
It’s sad, but the Lib Dems seem to have mutated from a gang of liberal policy wonks to somethin akin to a Waitrose users group.
Presume the Liberal Democrat magazine now comes with recipe ideas sponsored by Charlie Bigham.
Anything you want to complain about specifically or are you just having a Sunday afternoon whinge?
I just told you. Davey came across well-meaning but having no actual conception of challenges faced by the country.
And in theory, I’m a Davey supporter (and in practice a Lib Dem voter).
As I wrote this I thought to myself, the Lib Dems are now the sort of party that supports the WASPI women cause.
I checked, and of course they do.
Not serious.
The weird thing is, the LDs had an open goal and an obvious role: become the Rejoin Now party
Promise an instant return to the SM and CU and a new referendum within a year
Yet they refused to take the chance and waffled vaguely, instead
They should have been the Remainer version of the SNP. Make Rejoin their one big profound policy, their raison d’etre
In a weird volatile election, with lots of Remainers looking warily (and with justification) at Starmer, that could have been explosive. But no
No, wasting time and effort on "Rejoining" is an elephant trap of epic proportions.
The first problem is we have no idea under what terms the EU would consider the UK (re)joining. Would we have to accept the Euro and Schengen for example? I'm sure plenty would object to that.
Even if the EU offered status quo ante referendum, we'd still have issues over QMV and the rebates.
We had to leave because our half-hearted mean-spirited rebate-obsessed membership wasn't doing either us or the EU any good and we took a democratic vote deciding to leave.
There would also be huge resistance to any attempt to reintroduce Freedom of Movement which I believe is a prerequisite for membership of the Single Market - indeed, it would be a huge gift for Reform if anyone were to try.
We were never honest as to why we wanted to join in the first place. Because of that our membership was always false, incomplete, unsatisfying.
Why did we want to join ? Well the Empire was finished but of course we had superb management experience, in our own eyes. This European thing was all very well but well, Johnny Foreigner had had a century and a half to sort things out since 1815 and what had he done, 2 1/2 world wars and the possibility of another. The truth is we ASSUMED that if we joined the Common Market we would not just be primus inter pares, but like the Empire, we alone would be the leader. To some extent they even played up to that my making Henry Plumb first elected leader of the European Parliament.
The saddest part of it is sometimes the Rejoiners STILL think they would let us lead if we went back. Sorry lads, ain't gonna happen.
Other way round. Britain sought salvation, and Europe feared we would take over. In the 1950s and 60s the Establishment saw Britain as in terminal decline, and viewed entry to the Common Market as our last hope, only for us to be denied repeatedly, until Ted Heath finally got us in.
What ‘got us in’ was the death of Charles de Gaulle.
I've never quite understood why he disliked us so, given all the help we gave him personally. (Open to biography suggestions - in English)
Because he was a vain, arrogant nationalist fucker who never got over the humiliation of France's defeat and Britain's survival.
Ted Heath's longest fit of pique had nothing on De Gaulle.
Still, at least he didn't collaborate.
Didn't deGaulle take umbrage at being snubbed by Churchill?
It stems from Vichy.
Even up to a few days before D-Day de Gaulle kept on denying Jews were being rounded up
It also stems from the fact that Churchill and de Gaulle were both captured in earlier wars but Churchill was fine with it and de Gaulle was sensitive to the accusations he surrendered.
I don't really believe any of the explanations. However maybe your 'it stems from Vichy' is a big factor.
I heard Ed Davey on News Agents earlier this week. Total drivel.
It’s sad, but the Lib Dems seem to have mutated from a gang of liberal policy wonks to somethin akin to a Waitrose users group.
Presume the Liberal Democrat magazine now comes with recipe ideas sponsored by Charlie Bigham.
Anything you want to complain about specifically or are you just having a Sunday afternoon whinge?
I just told you. Davey came across well-meaning but having no actual conception of challenges faced by the country.
And in theory, I’m a Davey supporter (and in practice a Lib Dem voter).
As I wrote this I thought to myself, the Lib Dems are now the sort of party that supports the WASPI women cause.
I checked, and of course they do.
Not serious.
The weird thing is, the LDs had an open goal and an obvious role: become the Rejoin Now party
Promise an instant return to the SM and CU and a new referendum within a year
Yet they refused to take the chance and waffled vaguely, instead
They should have been the Remainer version of the SNP. Make Rejoin their one big profound policy, their raison d’etre
In a weird volatile election, with lots of Remainers looking warily (and with justification) at Starmer, that could have been explosive. But no
No, wasting time and effort on "Rejoining" is an elephant trap of epic proportions.
The first problem is we have no idea under what terms the EU would consider the UK (re)joining. Would we have to accept the Euro and Schengen for example? I'm sure plenty would object to that.
Even if the EU offered status quo ante referendum, we'd still have issues over QMV and the rebates.
We had to leave because our half-hearted mean-spirited rebate-obsessed membership wasn't doing either us or the EU any good and we took a democratic vote deciding to leave.
There would also be huge resistance to any attempt to reintroduce Freedom of Movement which I believe is a prerequisite for membership of the Single Market - indeed, it would be a huge gift for Reform if anyone were to try.
We were never honest as to why we wanted to join in the first place. Because of that our membership was always false, incomplete, unsatisfying.
Why did we want to join ? Well the Empire was finished but of course we had superb management experience, in our own eyes. This European thing was all very well but well, Johnny Foreigner had had a century and a half to sort things out since 1815 and what had he done, 2 1/2 world wars and the possibility of another. The truth is we ASSUMED that if we joined the Common Market we would not just be primus inter pares, but like the Empire, we alone would be the leader. To some extent they even played up to that my making Henry Plumb first elected leader of the European Parliament.
The saddest part of it is sometimes the Rejoiners STILL think they would let us lead if we went back. Sorry lads, ain't gonna happen.
Other way round. Britain sought salvation, and Europe feared we would take over. In the 1950s and 60s the Establishment saw Britain as in terminal decline, and viewed entry to the Common Market as our last hope, only for us to be denied repeatedly, until Ted Heath finally got us in.
What ‘got us in’ was the death of Charles de Gaulle.
I've never quite understood why he disliked us so, given all the help we gave him personally. (Open to biography suggestions - in English)
Because he was a vain, arrogant nationalist fucker who never got over the humiliation of France's defeat and Britain's survival.
Ted Heath's longest fit of pique had nothing on De Gaulle.
Still, at least he didn't collaborate.
Didn't deGaulle take umbrage at being snubbed by Churchill?
It stems from Vichy.
Even up to a few days before D-Day de Gaulle kept on denying Jews were being rounded up
It also stems from the fact that Churchill and de Gaulle were both captured in earlier wars but Churchill was fine with it and de Gaulle was sensitive to the accusations he surrendered.
I don't really believe any of the explanations. However maybe your 'it stems from Vichy' is a big factor.
Further to JG Ballard. I read Super Cannes, his novel set in a business park in Cannes, when I was working in a business park in Cannes. In the year it was published too.
I heard Ed Davey on News Agents earlier this week. Total drivel.
It’s sad, but the Lib Dems seem to have mutated from a gang of liberal policy wonks to somethin akin to a Waitrose users group.
Presume the Liberal Democrat magazine now comes with recipe ideas sponsored by Charlie Bigham.
Anything you want to complain about specifically or are you just having a Sunday afternoon whinge?
I just told you. Davey came across well-meaning but having no actual conception of challenges faced by the country.
And in theory, I’m a Davey supporter (and in practice a Lib Dem voter).
As I wrote this I thought to myself, the Lib Dems are now the sort of party that supports the WASPI women cause.
I checked, and of course they do.
Not serious.
The weird thing is, the LDs had an open goal and an obvious role: become the Rejoin Now party
Promise an instant return to the SM and CU and a new referendum within a year
Yet they refused to take the chance and waffled vaguely, instead
They should have been the Remainer version of the SNP. Make Rejoin their one big profound policy, their raison d’etre
In a weird volatile election, with lots of Remainers looking warily (and with justification) at Starmer, that could have been explosive. But no
No, wasting time and effort on "Rejoining" is an elephant trap of epic proportions.
The first problem is we have no idea under what terms the EU would consider the UK (re)joining. Would we have to accept the Euro and Schengen for example? I'm sure plenty would object to that.
Even if the EU offered status quo ante referendum, we'd still have issues over QMV and the rebates.
We had to leave because our half-hearted mean-spirited rebate-obsessed membership wasn't doing either us or the EU any good and we took a democratic vote deciding to leave.
There would also be huge resistance to any attempt to reintroduce Freedom of Movement which I believe is a prerequisite for membership of the Single Market - indeed, it would be a huge gift for Reform if anyone were to try.
We were never honest as to why we wanted to join in the first place. Because of that our membership was always false, incomplete, unsatisfying.
Why did we want to join ? Well the Empire was finished but of course we had superb management experience, in our own eyes. This European thing was all very well but well, Johnny Foreigner had had a century and a half to sort things out since 1815 and what had he done, 2 1/2 world wars and the possibility of another. The truth is we ASSUMED that if we joined the Common Market we would not just be primus inter pares, but like the Empire, we alone would be the leader. To some extent they even played up to that my making Henry Plumb first elected leader of the European Parliament.
The saddest part of it is sometimes the Rejoiners STILL think they would let us lead if we went back. Sorry lads, ain't gonna happen.
Other way round. Britain sought salvation, and Europe feared we would take over. In the 1950s and 60s the Establishment saw Britain as in terminal decline, and viewed entry to the Common Market as our last hope, only for us to be denied repeatedly, until Ted Heath finally got us in.
What ‘got us in’ was the death of Charles de Gaulle.
I've never quite understood why he disliked us so, given all the help we gave him personally. (Open to biography suggestions - in English)
Because he was a vain, arrogant nationalist fucker who never got over the humiliation of France's defeat and Britain's survival.
Ted Heath's longest fit of pique had nothing on De Gaulle.
Still, at least he didn't collaborate.
Didn't deGaulle take umbrage at being snubbed by Churchill?
Only a barter economy would work. Possibly you'd get to a point where gold could act as a store of value/status symbol again, due to shinyness and rarety, but not initially.
Would gold be that rare? A lot of gold has been mined since it was a principal store of value.
I heard Ed Davey on News Agents earlier this week. Total drivel.
It’s sad, but the Lib Dems seem to have mutated from a gang of liberal policy wonks to somethin akin to a Waitrose users group.
Presume the Liberal Democrat magazine now comes with recipe ideas sponsored by Charlie Bigham.
Anything you want to complain about specifically or are you just having a Sunday afternoon whinge?
I just told you. Davey came across well-meaning but having no actual conception of challenges faced by the country.
And in theory, I’m a Davey supporter (and in practice a Lib Dem voter).
As I wrote this I thought to myself, the Lib Dems are now the sort of party that supports the WASPI women cause.
I checked, and of course they do.
Not serious.
The weird thing is, the LDs had an open goal and an obvious role: become the Rejoin Now party
Promise an instant return to the SM and CU and a new referendum within a year
Yet they refused to take the chance and waffled vaguely, instead
They should have been the Remainer version of the SNP. Make Rejoin their one big profound policy, their raison d’etre
In a weird volatile election, with lots of Remainers looking warily (and with justification) at Starmer, that could have been explosive. But no
No, wasting time and effort on "Rejoining" is an elephant trap of epic proportions.
The first problem is we have no idea under what terms the EU would consider the UK (re)joining. Would we have to accept the Euro and Schengen for example? I'm sure plenty would object to that.
Even if the EU offered status quo ante referendum, we'd still have issues over QMV and the rebates.
We had to leave because our half-hearted mean-spirited rebate-obsessed membership wasn't doing either us or the EU any good and we took a democratic vote deciding to leave.
There would also be huge resistance to any attempt to reintroduce Freedom of Movement which I believe is a prerequisite for membership of the Single Market - indeed, it would be a huge gift for Reform if anyone were to try.
We were never honest as to why we wanted to join in the first place. Because of that our membership was always false, incomplete, unsatisfying.
Why did we want to join ? Well the Empire was finished but of course we had superb management experience, in our own eyes. This European thing was all very well but well, Johnny Foreigner had had a century and a half to sort things out since 1815 and what had he done, 2 1/2 world wars and the possibility of another. The truth is we ASSUMED that if we joined the Common Market we would not just be primus inter pares, but like the Empire, we alone would be the leader. To some extent they even played up to that my making Henry Plumb first elected leader of the European Parliament.
The saddest part of it is sometimes the Rejoiners STILL think they would let us lead if we went back. Sorry lads, ain't gonna happen.
Other way round. Britain sought salvation, and Europe feared we would take over. In the 1950s and 60s the Establishment saw Britain as in terminal decline, and viewed entry to the Common Market as our last hope, only for us to be denied repeatedly, until Ted Heath finally got us in.
What ‘got us in’ was the death of Charles de Gaulle.
I've never quite understood why he disliked us so, given all the help we gave him personally. (Open to biography suggestions - in English)
Because he was a vain, arrogant nationalist fucker who never got over the humiliation of France's defeat and Britain's survival.
Ted Heath's longest fit of pique had nothing on De Gaulle.
Still, at least he didn't collaborate.
Didn't deGaulle take umbrage at being snubbed by Churchill?
He was rightly snubbed as he was an obstructive and vain arsehole. He’s very lucky there was no better French leader to coalesce the free French around. The Americans were also exasperated by his posturing and positioning.
There is a lovely anecdote about Churchill insisting that on his death, after the funeral ceremony, his coffin should be taken on its journey to Blenheim by train from Waterloo. This was to ensure that de Gaulle and his French entourage would have to pass through the station named after the battle of 1815 where Napoleon got second prize.
Lovely stuff, although being a pedant Waterloo station isn’t named after the Battle but after Waterloo Bridge, so it works as cocking a snook. Also Blenheim is named after the battle of Blenheim where we also joined a few euro mates to slap the French which is nice.
Only a barter economy would work. Possibly you'd get to a point where gold could act as a store of value/status symbol again, due to shinyness and rarety, but not initially.
Would gold be that rare? A lot of gold has been mined since it was a principal store of value.
I’m always slightly sceptical that the amount of gold that’s available on the market and owned matches the amount that’s ever been mined. Tried to work it out once when I wasn’t so lazy but gave up but it’s a close run thing. Is there really the gold in storage that matches the amount “held” in gold funds etc.
The contrast fo £19 grand on frocks and thongs versus £300 to help a pensioner get through the winter just int a good look.
It’s incredible. And it’s not like the Starmers are poor. They are multi millionaires with groaning huge pensions and earning maybe £300k a year as a household? £400k?
And the wife accepts pretty dresses as a gift??? Right at the start of their first term?
WTAF
It screams: meet the new boss same as the old boss, only the new boss is a fucking hypocrite who wants to make you miserable and stop you eating pies, whereas the old boss was just a greedy shit and didn’t care what you do
Most governments end in sleaze.
Starmer's government has started in sleaze.
Something it shares in common with labour in 97 and cash for fags
What’s the quid pro quo? This is nothing like “cash for fags”.
Keir seems to have been careless. The optics are not great but this is not a government that has “started in sleaze”.
“Careless”???
He knowingly accepted tens of thousands in freebies not only for himself. But for his wife, also
In return the donor was given a free pass to the commons - completely against the rules
Whoops! Butter fingers!
If I was about to become PM, I feel like Mrs Walker might also need a telegenic spruce up. Suddenly, she is in the public eye.
The British state affords no such largesse, and I don’t think the Starmers are personally wealthy.
It therefore seems that this rather shabby compromise has developed whereby PMs get some kind of image support from well placed donors.
Starmer’s sin is administrative. He should have declared it all. It’s not obvious why and how he overlooked it.
They are both high earners and have been for a long time - many many people manage to look good each day without a state bung for their clothes. If you don’t want to deal with that then you could just not run for leadership of a party where you might end up as PM.
Its not as if it’s a lifetime problem - they can blow a bit of cash because he will more than make up for it afterwards on the speaking circuit, books, whatever. It just looks grasping.
It stinks of corruption. After what's gone on with the previous government, this Labour government is showing it's not any better. And the stink is coming from the very top.
Why, Starmer, why? What the **** were you thinking? You're supposed to be the sensible adult in the room. And then you accept this sort of 'deal', and 'forget' to declare it.
You're no better than the last lot.
I’m not sure it’s corruption just stupidity. He probably thought that it was such small beer and had justified it to himself that it wasn’t a problem. His problem is he’s such a twatty puritanical preachy knob. If Boris and Carrie did it then everyone would raise an eyebrow or shrug but Sir Keir Cromwell was such a pious prick that he needed to be whiter than white.
If this was a Conservative MP, let alone Conservative leader, Starmer would not be saying "It's just stupidity, not corruption".
This all interrelates as well: it's not the first time he's forgotten to declare free gifts; and AIUI this time it's connected with the donor getting a No. 10 pass.
One of his few selling points was that he was an adult in the room; someone who could get things done properly without fuss, as he apparently did during his time as DPP.
It stinks. And the amounts make it worse.
Boris was (rightly) brought down by a cake. SKS will get away with this, but he should not.
This is probably a disgraceful piece of snobbery, but my revulsion is for the underlying transaction - hey Mr Rich Guy, please dress up my wife. I don't give a toss about late notification to anyone. It's extraordinary. A possible theory: the world of PMs and billionaires is as high above the world of DPPs as the world of DPPs is above me. He is out of his social depth and thought it would be unacceptably gauche to decline a frock offer.
I think there is a huge social chip on Starmer’s shoulders. He thinks he’s special because he did well but can’t escape the fear that he doesn’t quite fit in. You can see it in his shoes. Neither correct nor stylish. Dull.
Ah the 'chip on the shoulder'. A favoured slight amongst those on the right side of class privilege seeking to wield it.
The EU isn’t as toxic now as many people realize the problems of the country are down to governments here . Even with the alleged taking back control of the border immigration went up .
Those who voted Leave thinking it would solve a lot of problems realize they have been duped . So suggesting closer ties with the EU shouldn’t be controversial now .
Labour shouldn’t fear the right wing media hysteria about getting closer to the EU.
I heard Ed Davey on News Agents earlier this week. Total drivel.
It’s sad, but the Lib Dems seem to have mutated from a gang of liberal policy wonks to somethin akin to a Waitrose users group.
Presume the Liberal Democrat magazine now comes with recipe ideas sponsored by Charlie Bigham.
Anything you want to complain about specifically or are you just having a Sunday afternoon whinge?
I just told you. Davey came across well-meaning but having no actual conception of challenges faced by the country.
And in theory, I’m a Davey supporter (and in practice a Lib Dem voter).
As I wrote this I thought to myself, the Lib Dems are now the sort of party that supports the WASPI women cause.
I checked, and of course they do.
Not serious.
The weird thing is, the LDs had an open goal and an obvious role: become the Rejoin Now party
Promise an instant return to the SM and CU and a new referendum within a year
Yet they refused to take the chance and waffled vaguely, instead
They should have been the Remainer version of the SNP. Make Rejoin their one big profound policy, their raison d’etre
In a weird volatile election, with lots of Remainers looking warily (and with justification) at Starmer, that could have been explosive. But no
No, wasting time and effort on "Rejoining" is an elephant trap of epic proportions.
The first problem is we have no idea under what terms the EU would consider the UK (re)joining. Would we have to accept the Euro and Schengen for example? I'm sure plenty would object to that.
Even if the EU offered status quo ante referendum, we'd still have issues over QMV and the rebates.
We had to leave because our half-hearted mean-spirited rebate-obsessed membership wasn't doing either us or the EU any good and we took a democratic vote deciding to leave.
There would also be huge resistance to any attempt to reintroduce Freedom of Movement which I believe is a prerequisite for membership of the Single Market - indeed, it would be a huge gift for Reform if anyone were to try.
We were never honest as to why we wanted to join in the first place. Because of that our membership was always false, incomplete, unsatisfying.
Why did we want to join ? Well the Empire was finished but of course we had superb management experience, in our own eyes. This European thing was all very well but well, Johnny Foreigner had had a century and a half to sort things out since 1815 and what had he done, 2 1/2 world wars and the possibility of another. The truth is we ASSUMED that if we joined the Common Market we would not just be primus inter pares, but like the Empire, we alone would be the leader. To some extent they even played up to that my making Henry Plumb first elected leader of the European Parliament.
The saddest part of it is sometimes the Rejoiners STILL think they would let us lead if we went back. Sorry lads, ain't gonna happen.
Other way round. Britain sought salvation, and Europe feared we would take over. In the 1950s and 60s the Establishment saw Britain as in terminal decline, and viewed entry to the Common Market as our last hope, only for us to be denied repeatedly, until Ted Heath finally got us in.
What ‘got us in’ was the death of Charles de Gaulle.
I've never quite understood why he disliked us so, given all the help we gave him personally. (Open to biography suggestions - in English)
Because he was a vain, arrogant nationalist fucker who never got over the humiliation of France's defeat and Britain's survival.
Ted Heath's longest fit of pique had nothing on De Gaulle.
Still, at least he didn't collaborate.
Didn't deGaulle take umbrage at being snubbed by Churchill?
It stems from Vichy.
Even up to a few days before D-Day de Gaulle kept on denying Jews were being rounded up
It also stems from the fact that Churchill and de Gaulle were both captured in earlier wars but Churchill was fine with it and de Gaulle was sensitive to the accusations he surrendered.
I don't really believe any of the explanations. However maybe your 'it stems from Vichy' is a big factor.
I’m driving up beautiful Myra Canyon and a sudden conundrum has struck me. Why do we LIKE being scared? Being scared is not obviously fun. Your heart pounds, you perspire, you cower away and shriek
And yet we seek it out. We love roller coasters and off piste skiing and ghost stories and horror movies
But WHY?
Not everyone likes being scared. Loads don't. Those who do seem to fall into two unequal groups: the distanced scared - roller coasters carefully conformed to safety standards, horror films, war films, ghost stories. These are a sort of substitution activity and is a form of entertainment. The much smaller group likes real unfiltered scary danger, the sort where you clearly may or may not die.
But….. WHY?
I’m in both groups so this is personal. I like scary movies and roller coasters but I also like warzones and scuba
I’m trying to map out some ev psych explanation but it is not obvious
I strangely find I’m not scared of anything anymore except for dying alone naked in bed and being found a while later. Otherwise ghosts, fights, operations, not so much.
Wear pyjamas then. Take that last one off the table.
Grim - pyjamas are what you throw on that first morning with a new girl when you get up to make her tea and it’s all a bit awks. And even then it’s just the bottoms you wear. Terrible for a comfortable sleep.
Agreed. But naked is too cold, for me - and I must be at least a bit dressed in case I need to get anywhere in a hurry. My solution os boxers and an ancient t-shirt which has been retired from regular circulation but is still comfortable. The one currently under my pillow was bought in a low cost clothing store on The Moor, Sheffield, in 1993. I'm obscurely proud to still be getting use out of it.
The contrast fo £19 grand on frocks and thongs versus £300 to help a pensioner get through the winter just int a good look.
It’s incredible. And it’s not like the Starmers are poor. They are multi millionaires with groaning huge pensions and earning maybe £300k a year as a household? £400k?
And the wife accepts pretty dresses as a gift??? Right at the start of their first term?
WTAF
It screams: meet the new boss same as the old boss, only the new boss is a fucking hypocrite who wants to make you miserable and stop you eating pies, whereas the old boss was just a greedy shit and didn’t care what you do
Most governments end in sleaze.
Starmer's government has started in sleaze.
Something it shares in common with labour in 97 and cash for fags
What’s the quid pro quo? This is nothing like “cash for fags”.
Keir seems to have been careless. The optics are not great but this is not a government that has “started in sleaze”.
“Careless”???
He knowingly accepted tens of thousands in freebies not only for himself. But for his wife, also
In return the donor was given a free pass to the commons - completely against the rules
Whoops! Butter fingers!
If I was about to become PM, I feel like Mrs Walker might also need a telegenic spruce up. Suddenly, she is in the public eye.
The British state affords no such largesse, and I don’t think the Starmers are personally wealthy.
It therefore seems that this rather shabby compromise has developed whereby PMs get some kind of image support from well placed donors.
Starmer’s sin is administrative. He should have declared it all. It’s not obvious why and how he overlooked it.
They are both high earners and have been for a long time - many many people manage to look good each day without a state bung for their clothes. If you don’t want to deal with that then you could just not run for leadership of a party where you might end up as PM.
Its not as if it’s a lifetime problem - they can blow a bit of cash because he will more than make up for it afterwards on the speaking circuit, books, whatever. It just looks grasping.
It stinks of corruption. After what's gone on with the previous government, this Labour government is showing it's not any better. And the stink is coming from the very top.
Why, Starmer, why? What the **** were you thinking? You're supposed to be the sensible adult in the room. And then you accept this sort of 'deal', and 'forget' to declare it.
You're no better than the last lot.
I’m not sure it’s corruption just stupidity. He probably thought that it was such small beer and had justified it to himself that it wasn’t a problem. His problem is he’s such a twatty puritanical preachy knob. If Boris and Carrie did it then everyone would raise an eyebrow or shrug but Sir Keir Cromwell was such a pious prick that he needed to be whiter than white.
If this was a Conservative MP, let alone Conservative leader, Starmer would not be saying "It's just stupidity, not corruption".
This all interrelates as well: it's not the first time he's forgotten to declare free gifts; and AIUI this time it's connected with the donor getting a No. 10 pass.
One of his few selling points was that he was an adult in the room; someone who could get things done properly without fuss, as he apparently did during his time as DPP.
It stinks. And the amounts make it worse.
Boris was (rightly) brought down by a cake. SKS will get away with this, but he should not.
This is probably a disgraceful piece of snobbery, but my revulsion is for the underlying transaction - hey Mr Rich Guy, please dress up my wife. I don't give a toss about late notification to anyone. It's extraordinary. A possible theory: the world of PMs and billionaires is as high above the world of DPPs as the world of DPPs is above me. He is out of his social depth and thought it would be unacceptably gauche to decline a frock offer.
I think there is a huge social chip on Starmer’s shoulders. He thinks he’s special because he did well but can’t escape the fear that he doesn’t quite fit in. You can see it in his shoes. Neither correct nor stylish. Dull.
Ah the 'chip on the shoulder'. A favoured slight amongst those on the right side of class privilege seeking to wield it.
Having a chip on the shoulder isn’t a right/class thing, people have chips about many things. I think he is a classic chap who thinks he is better than those who had what he considers privileged backgrounds, and justifiably so in most cases, but instead of being at one with his ability he carries it like a weight on him. He doesn’t need to. Would make him a better PM if he chilled.
I’m driving up beautiful Myra Canyon and a sudden conundrum has struck me. Why do we LIKE being scared? Being scared is not obviously fun. Your heart pounds, you perspire, you cower away and shriek
And yet we seek it out. We love roller coasters and off piste skiing and ghost stories and horror movies
But WHY?
Not everyone likes being scared. Loads don't. Those who do seem to fall into two unequal groups: the distanced scared - roller coasters carefully conformed to safety standards, horror films, war films, ghost stories. These are a sort of substitution activity and is a form of entertainment. The much smaller group likes real unfiltered scary danger, the sort where you clearly may or may not die.
But….. WHY?
I’m in both groups so this is personal. I like scary movies and roller coasters but I also like warzones and scuba
I’m trying to map out some ev psych explanation but it is not obvious
I strangely find I’m not scared of anything anymore except for dying alone naked in bed and being found a while later. Otherwise ghosts, fights, operations, not so much.
Wear pyjamas then. Take that last one off the table.
Grim - pyjamas are what you throw on that first morning with a new girl when you get up to make her tea and it’s all a bit awks. And even then it’s just the bottoms you wear. Terrible for a comfortable sleep.
I don't find that actually. It's more loosies and tee shirt with me but I'd wear peejays if I was less lazy.
The contrast fo £19 grand on frocks and thongs versus £300 to help a pensioner get through the winter just int a good look.
It’s incredible. And it’s not like the Starmers are poor. They are multi millionaires with groaning huge pensions and earning maybe £300k a year as a household? £400k?
And the wife accepts pretty dresses as a gift??? Right at the start of their first term?
WTAF
It screams: meet the new boss same as the old boss, only the new boss is a fucking hypocrite who wants to make you miserable and stop you eating pies, whereas the old boss was just a greedy shit and didn’t care what you do
Most governments end in sleaze.
Starmer's government has started in sleaze.
Something it shares in common with labour in 97 and cash for fags
What’s the quid pro quo? This is nothing like “cash for fags”.
Keir seems to have been careless. The optics are not great but this is not a government that has “started in sleaze”.
“Careless”???
He knowingly accepted tens of thousands in freebies not only for himself. But for his wife, also
In return the donor was given a free pass to the commons - completely against the rules
Whoops! Butter fingers!
If I was about to become PM, I feel like Mrs Walker might also need a telegenic spruce up. Suddenly, she is in the public eye.
The British state affords no such largesse, and I don’t think the Starmers are personally wealthy.
It therefore seems that this rather shabby compromise has developed whereby PMs get some kind of image support from well placed donors.
Starmer’s sin is administrative. He should have declared it all. It’s not obvious why and how he overlooked it.
They are both high earners and have been for a long time - many many people manage to look good each day without a state bung for their clothes. If you don’t want to deal with that then you could just not run for leadership of a party where you might end up as PM.
Its not as if it’s a lifetime problem - they can blow a bit of cash because he will more than make up for it afterwards on the speaking circuit, books, whatever. It just looks grasping.
It stinks of corruption. After what's gone on with the previous government, this Labour government is showing it's not any better. And the stink is coming from the very top.
Why, Starmer, why? What the **** were you thinking? You're supposed to be the sensible adult in the room. And then you accept this sort of 'deal', and 'forget' to declare it.
You're no better than the last lot.
I’m not sure it’s corruption just stupidity. He probably thought that it was such small beer and had justified it to himself that it wasn’t a problem. His problem is he’s such a twatty puritanical preachy knob. If Boris and Carrie did it then everyone would raise an eyebrow or shrug but Sir Keir Cromwell was such a pious prick that he needed to be whiter than white.
If this was a Conservative MP, let alone Conservative leader, Starmer would not be saying "It's just stupidity, not corruption".
This all interrelates as well: it's not the first time he's forgotten to declare free gifts; and AIUI this time it's connected with the donor getting a No. 10 pass.
One of his few selling points was that he was an adult in the room; someone who could get things done properly without fuss, as he apparently did during his time as DPP.
It stinks. And the amounts make it worse.
Boris was (rightly) brought down by a cake. SKS will get away with this, but he should not.
To be fair if we don’t have to see this dreadful suit again it might be good for the country.
And the “son of a toolmaker” shoes.
Lammy apparently met Biden with Starmer wearing trainers
It’s just tragic wankery. Grown adults thinking they are edgy by dressing badly. You have people praising Angela Rayner for dressing like a student - she’s a sodding cabinet member, Deputy PM of the UK. Scruffy politicians for a scruffy country.
Only a barter economy would work. Possibly you'd get to a point where gold could act as a store of value/status symbol again, due to shinyness and rarety, but not initially.
Would gold be that rare? A lot of gold has been mined since it was a principal store of value.
I wear an exorl (anagram) watch partly because James Bond did, but also as a barterable item when the balloon goes up.
I trust everyone's watching the Last Night of the Proms. 😊
Yep. I try and watch and listen to all the Prom concerts though the summer and The Last Night for me marks the start of autumn and my Sacred Season.
What's with the EU flags? During Elgar?
There have always been flags of many different nations there although the Union Flag was usually the most prominent. After the Referendum the Remainer clique tried to flood the Last Night with EU flags as a protest and I think hoping to provoke some outrage. The Daily Mail crowd were predictably outraged but everyone else just shrugged and got on with it.
Weirdly it has become a new tradition now and it would be strange to be offended by it - well except for the Daily Mail readers.
One thing I did notice once again was how many Ukraine flags were being waved
Nah, that's a bit of an inspid establishment view. It's not a "bring your own flag" competition and to say that robs of its meaning, and why people started going in the first place.
I'm with @Luckyguy1983 on this - it was a musical carnival, an unabashed, celebration of being British - all glorious and bombastic - and to enjoy it amongst everyone else doing it. The fewer doing it the less of a collective and special communal experience it is.
You get "unofficial" battleproms/last nights around the country now that have sprung up where ordinary people can enjoy themselves as it should be. Either the Albert Hall event needs resetting or it should be relocated or debroadcast now.
It has been totally sullied and spoiled.
I think you are being a bit of a spoilsport here. It is a great event that hasn't really changed. I can understand people not liking the EU flags, but they don't spoil the event and there are still plenty of Union flags and I'm sure with time it will revert when the fuss finally dies down. And the fun and music are the important thing which are very patriotic and nobody has suggested changing that.
It is one of the events that makes Britain British, like pubs, bonfire night and pantomime.
PS re @Big_G_NorthWales he has mentioned his child in Canada a few times.
I disagree with you here (which doesn’t happen that often).
It’s not the waving of EU flags that irritates me - if it happened organically (as it did in the past as @Richard_Tyndall noted). It’s the fact that there is a campaign to make a political point out of something that is harmless fun and a bit of silliness and flag waving
(And there are regular attempts to change the music for what it is worth)
@StillWaters Thank you for your kind comment (even if you are disagreeing with me). Kind of you.
if they did try and change the usual songs I would be annoyed as that spoils the tradition and I am aware that their have been attempts.
Re the difference between organic and organised I agree with you, but to ban it would be Stalinist. I get frustrated when people from the right claim they want freedom of speech then want to ban stuff they don't like. Credit to @Luckyguy1983 on the last thread for not going along with that.
Yes, well done LuckyG. The solution for Casino ought to be obvious - offer free Union flags on the other side of the door.
My guess is they did and the audience made their choice.
This is the best cycle path in the world. Completely flat but magnificently exhilarating
Sounds splendid, if alarming. You ought to have a go at the Monsal Trail in Derbyshire, which is Britain's answer to that trail. Implausibly pleasant, on a sunny day. Not so precipitous, but a similar idea.
Only a barter economy would work. Possibly you'd get to a point where gold could act as a store of value/status symbol again, due to shinyness and rarety, but not initially.
Would gold be that rare? A lot of gold has been mined since it was a principal store of value.
I’m always slightly sceptical that the amount of gold that’s available on the market and owned matches the amount that’s ever been mined. Tried to work it out once when I wasn’t so lazy but gave up but it’s a close run thing. Is there really the gold in storage that matches the amount “held” in gold funds etc.
That's a slightly different issue to do with the way current gold markets operate, and makes me a little bit nervous about the small percentage of my pension supposedly invested in physical gold.
But, according to one estimate I've seen, 86% of all the gold that's ever been mined has been mined in the last 200 years. And, post-apocalypse, I'd expect economic activity to be much below the level of 200 years ago. So, relatively speaking, if we compare to, say, the economy of 1000AD, a post-apocalypse world would be awash with gold, absolutely swimming in the stuff.
This also has some implications, though relatively long-term ones, if the global population does soon start to decline, and that decline gathers pace and becomes entrenched. Lots of assets lose a lot of value in a world with a lower population. On the one hand that's great - land and so much else is no longer scarce - but the current capitalist economy that sits on huge piles of debt is not going to function in such a future.
I heard Ed Davey on News Agents earlier this week. Total drivel.
It’s sad, but the Lib Dems seem to have mutated from a gang of liberal policy wonks to somethin akin to a Waitrose users group.
Presume the Liberal Democrat magazine now comes with recipe ideas sponsored by Charlie Bigham.
Anything you want to complain about specifically or are you just having a Sunday afternoon whinge?
I just told you. Davey came across well-meaning but having no actual conception of challenges faced by the country.
And in theory, I’m a Davey supporter (and in practice a Lib Dem voter).
As I wrote this I thought to myself, the Lib Dems are now the sort of party that supports the WASPI women cause.
I checked, and of course they do.
Not serious.
The weird thing is, the LDs had an open goal and an obvious role: become the Rejoin Now party
Promise an instant return to the SM and CU and a new referendum within a year
Yet they refused to take the chance and waffled vaguely, instead
They should have been the Remainer version of the SNP. Make Rejoin their one big profound policy, their raison d’etre
In a weird volatile election, with lots of Remainers looking warily (and with justification) at Starmer, that could have been explosive. But no
No, wasting time and effort on "Rejoining" is an elephant trap of epic proportions.
The first problem is we have no idea under what terms the EU would consider the UK (re)joining. Would we have to accept the Euro and Schengen for example? I'm sure plenty would object to that.
Even if the EU offered status quo ante referendum, we'd still have issues over QMV and the rebates.
We had to leave because our half-hearted mean-spirited rebate-obsessed membership wasn't doing either us or the EU any good and we took a democratic vote deciding to leave.
There would also be huge resistance to any attempt to reintroduce Freedom of Movement which I believe is a prerequisite for membership of the Single Market - indeed, it would be a huge gift for Reform if anyone were to try.
I’m a brexiteer and I would vote Leave again tomorrow (indeed I think events are now beginning to show Leave was the right choice, belatedly)
I’m talking about the raw politics. The Lib Dems had a ginormous open goal in GE 2024. Rejoin could have propelled them to triple digit MPs and who knows what, after that
Instead they are indeed content to be a sad little pressure group as @Gardenwalker says. Waspi and Waitrose
In fairness, the LibDems achieved their highest MP count since 1923, achieved an improvement in seats from 12 to 72(!) (3 taxis to 18 taxis) and piloted a revolutionary new campaigning technique that I think Harris/Walz are copying. I think they'll be happy with that...
The EU isn’t as toxic now as many people realize the problems of the country are down to governments here . Even with the alleged taking back control of the border immigration went up .
Those who voted Leave thinking it would solve a lot of problems realize they have been duped . So suggesting closer ties with the EU shouldn’t be controversial now .
Labour shouldn’t fear the right wing media hysteria about getting closer to the EU.
For the next few years, Brapprochment and Brejoin look exactly the same. The Frost/Cummings/Johnson model of Brexit pinged us so far away, and burnt through so much trust, that baby steps are all that can be taken for now.
Now there may come a point where we, as a nation, conclude "this close and no closer", but I'm not quite sure where that is. Each incremental step seems to make sense on its own terms as a something-for-something.
And I can't help noticing that those urging something faster tend to not wish non-Conservative politicians well.
This is the best cycle path in the world. Completely flat but magnificently exhilarating
Sounds splendid, if alarming. You ought to have a go at the Monsal Trail in Derbyshire, which is Britain's answer to that trail. Implausibly pleasant, on a sunny day. Not so precipitous, but a similar idea.
In the Peaks? I love the Peak District. It’s so peculiar - that wildness tucked away amidst urban/industrial Britain
I’ve now decided this is actually the SECOND best cycle path in the world. There is an even more stimulating one - also completely flat - in the Everglades National Park, where you are expected to calmly cycle around all the wild alligators (that like to bask on the tarmac)
It was terrifying but the rangers at the gates assured me it was safe. I still wonder if they were hoping I would get eaten
I’m driving up beautiful Myra Canyon and a sudden conundrum has struck me. Why do we LIKE being scared? Being scared is not obviously fun. Your heart pounds, you perspire, you cower away and shriek
And yet we seek it out. We love roller coasters and off piste skiing and ghost stories and horror movies
But WHY?
Not everyone likes being scared. Loads don't. Those who do seem to fall into two unequal groups: the distanced scared - roller coasters carefully conformed to safety standards, horror films, war films, ghost stories. These are a sort of substitution activity and is a form of entertainment. The much smaller group likes real unfiltered scary danger, the sort where you clearly may or may not die.
But….. WHY?
I’m in both groups so this is personal. I like scary movies and roller coasters but I also like warzones and scuba
I’m trying to map out some ev psych explanation but it is not obvious
I strangely find I’m not scared of anything anymore except for dying alone naked in bed and being found a while later. Otherwise ghosts, fights, operations, not so much.
Wear pyjamas then. Take that last one off the table.
Grim - pyjamas are what you throw on that first morning with a new girl when you get up to make her tea and it’s all a bit awks. And even then it’s just the bottoms you wear. Terrible for a comfortable sleep.
Agreed. But naked is too cold, for me - and I must be at least a bit dressed in case I need to get anywhere in a hurry. My solution os boxers and an ancient t-shirt which has been retired from regular circulation but is still comfortable. The one currently under my pillow was bought in a low cost clothing store on The Moor, Sheffield, in 1993. I'm obscurely proud to still be getting use out of it.
The third way. Same as me. But if pushed on the binary extremes which do you opt for?
Pyjamas? Or butt raw naked? Don't wish to polarise but that, I think, is the question.
Are you with boulay, naked? Or with me in pyjamas?
I heard Ed Davey on News Agents earlier this week. Total drivel.
It’s sad, but the Lib Dems seem to have mutated from a gang of liberal policy wonks to somethin akin to a Waitrose users group.
Presume the Liberal Democrat magazine now comes with recipe ideas sponsored by Charlie Bigham.
Anything you want to complain about specifically or are you just having a Sunday afternoon whinge?
I just told you. Davey came across well-meaning but having no actual conception of challenges faced by the country.
And in theory, I’m a Davey supporter (and in practice a Lib Dem voter).
As I wrote this I thought to myself, the Lib Dems are now the sort of party that supports the WASPI women cause.
I checked, and of course they do.
Not serious.
The weird thing is, the LDs had an open goal and an obvious role: become the Rejoin Now party
Promise an instant return to the SM and CU and a new referendum within a year
Yet they refused to take the chance and waffled vaguely, instead
They should have been the Remainer version of the SNP. Make Rejoin their one big profound policy, their raison d’etre
In a weird volatile election, with lots of Remainers looking warily (and with justification) at Starmer, that could have been explosive. But no
No, wasting time and effort on "Rejoining" is an elephant trap of epic proportions.
The first problem is we have no idea under what terms the EU would consider the UK (re)joining. Would we have to accept the Euro and Schengen for example? I'm sure plenty would object to that.
Even if the EU offered status quo ante referendum, we'd still have issues over QMV and the rebates.
We had to leave because our half-hearted mean-spirited rebate-obsessed membership wasn't doing either us or the EU any good and we took a democratic vote deciding to leave.
There would also be huge resistance to any attempt to reintroduce Freedom of Movement which I believe is a prerequisite for membership of the Single Market - indeed, it would be a huge gift for Reform if anyone were to try.
I’m a brexiteer and I would vote Leave again tomorrow (indeed I think events are now beginning to show Leave was the right choice, belatedly)
I’m talking about the raw politics. The Lib Dems had a ginormous open goal in GE 2024. Rejoin could have propelled them to triple digit MPs and who knows what, after that
Instead they are indeed content to be a sad little pressure group as @Gardenwalker says. Waspi and Waitrose
In fairness, the LibDems achieved their highest MP count since 1923, achieved an improvement in seats from 12 to 72(!) (3 taxis to 18 taxis) and piloted a revolutionary new campaigning technique that I think Harris/Walz are copying. I think they'll be happy with that...
The EU isn’t as toxic now as many people realize the problems of the country are down to governments here . Even with the alleged taking back control of the border immigration went up .
Those who voted Leave thinking it would solve a lot of problems realize they have been duped . So suggesting closer ties with the EU shouldn’t be controversial now .
Labour shouldn’t fear the right wing media hysteria about getting closer to the EU.
For the next few years, Brapprochment and Brejoin look exactly the same. The Frost/Cummings/Johnson model of Brexit pinged us so far away, and burnt through so much trust, that baby steps are all that can be taken for now.
Now there may come a point where we, as a nation, conclude "this close and no closer", but I'm not quite sure where that is. Each incremental step seems to make sense on its own terms as a something-for-something.
And I can't help noticing that those urging something faster tend to not wish non-Conservative politicians well.
"Hard Brexit" is really a myth. Our relationship is qualitatively about as close as is possible without being part of the SM/CU.
This is the best cycle path in the world. Completely flat but magnificently exhilarating
Sounds splendid, if alarming. You ought to have a go at the Monsal Trail in Derbyshire, which is Britain's answer to that trail. Implausibly pleasant, on a sunny day. Not so precipitous, but a similar idea.
In the Peaks? I love the Peak District. It’s so peculiar - that wildness tucked away amidst urban/industrial Britain
I’ve now decided this is actually the SECOND best cycle path in the world. There is an even more stimulating one - also completely flat - in the Everglades National Park, where you are expected to calmly cycle around all the wild alligators (that like to bask on the tarmac)
It was terrifying but the rangers at the gates assured me it was safe. I still wonder if they were hoping I would get eaten
Yes - ISTR the Monsal Trail is actually in the top two of Peak District visitor attractions (vying with Chatsworth). It's well worth a visit - with an early start you can do there-and-back in a morning before a late lunch at the Blind Bull in Great Hucklow. Or else stop in Bakewell for a Bakewell-pudding-based elevenses.
I'm pleased you like the Peaks. For me, it's one of those situations where we don't value highly enough what's right on our doorstep; I enjoy the Peaks, but I can see them from the motorway bridge at the end of the road, so are a bit unexotic - I get much more excited about the Lakes and the Yorkshire Dales.
But I remember a night away at a hotel in the Peaks a couple of years back, at which there was a wedding the next day, and lots of 20 somethings from London were turning up - I very much enjoyed the genuine awe they were expressing at the scenery in what I kind of consider my back yard.
The EU isn’t as toxic now as many people realize the problems of the country are down to governments here . Even with the alleged taking back control of the border immigration went up .
Those who voted Leave thinking it would solve a lot of problems realize they have been duped . So suggesting closer ties with the EU shouldn’t be controversial now .
Labour shouldn’t fear the right wing media hysteria about getting closer to the EU.
For the next few years, Brapprochment and Brejoin look exactly the same. The Frost/Cummings/Johnson model of Brexit pinged us so far away, and burnt through so much trust, that baby steps are all that can be taken for now.
Now there may come a point where we, as a nation, conclude "this close and no closer", but I'm not quite sure where that is. Each incremental step seems to make sense on its own terms as a something-for-something.
And I can't help noticing that those urging something faster tend to not wish non-Conservative politicians well.
Yes the salami treatment is the way, and LDs are quite open about our intentions. Join the various programmes, agricultural agreements then Single Market. By the time we apply to Rejoin there will barely be a stub of Brexit left.
The EU isn’t as toxic now as many people realize the problems of the country are down to governments here . Even with the alleged taking back control of the border immigration went up .
Those who voted Leave thinking it would solve a lot of problems realize they have been duped . So suggesting closer ties with the EU shouldn’t be controversial now .
Labour shouldn’t fear the right wing media hysteria about getting closer to the EU.
For the next few years, Brapprochment and Brejoin look exactly the same. The Frost/Cummings/Johnson model of Brexit pinged us so far away, and burnt through so much trust, that baby steps are all that can be taken for now.
Now there may come a point where we, as a nation, conclude "this close and no closer", but I'm not quite sure where that is. Each incremental step seems to make sense on its own terms as a something-for-something.
And I can't help noticing that those urging something faster tend to not wish non-Conservative politicians well.
Yes the salami treatment is the way, and LDs are quite open about our intentions. Join the various programmes, agricultural agreements then Single Market. By the time we apply to Rejoin there will barely be a stub of Brexit left.
You've glossed over the improbability of stage one: the election of a Lib Dem government.
The contrast fo £19 grand on frocks and thongs versus £300 to help a pensioner get through the winter just int a good look.
It’s incredible. And it’s not like the Starmers are poor. They are multi millionaires with groaning huge pensions and earning maybe £300k a year as a household? £400k?
And the wife accepts pretty dresses as a gift??? Right at the start of their first term?
WTAF
It screams: meet the new boss same as the old boss, only the new boss is a fucking hypocrite who wants to make you miserable and stop you eating pies, whereas the old boss was just a greedy shit and didn’t care what you do
Most governments end in sleaze.
Starmer's government has started in sleaze.
Something it shares in common with labour in 97 and cash for fags
What’s the quid pro quo? This is nothing like “cash for fags”.
Keir seems to have been careless. The optics are not great but this is not a government that has “started in sleaze”.
“Careless”???
He knowingly accepted tens of thousands in freebies not only for himself. But for his wife, also
In return the donor was given a free pass to the commons - completely against the rules
Whoops! Butter fingers!
If I was about to become PM, I feel like Mrs Walker might also need a telegenic spruce up. Suddenly, she is in the public eye.
The British state affords no such largesse, and I don’t think the Starmers are personally wealthy.
It therefore seems that this rather shabby compromise has developed whereby PMs get some kind of image support from well placed donors.
Starmer’s sin is administrative. He should have declared it all. It’s not obvious why and how he overlooked it.
They are both high earners and have been for a long time - many many people manage to look good each day without a state bung for their clothes. If you don’t want to deal with that then you could just not run for leadership of a party where you might end up as PM.
Its not as if it’s a lifetime problem - they can blow a bit of cash because he will more than make up for it afterwards on the speaking circuit, books, whatever. It just looks grasping.
It stinks of corruption. After what's gone on with the previous government, this Labour government is showing it's not any better. And the stink is coming from the very top.
Why, Starmer, why? What the **** were you thinking? You're supposed to be the sensible adult in the room. And then you accept this sort of 'deal', and 'forget' to declare it.
You're no better than the last lot.
I’m not sure it’s corruption just stupidity. He probably thought that it was such small beer and had justified it to himself that it wasn’t a problem. His problem is he’s such a twatty puritanical preachy knob. If Boris and Carrie did it then everyone would raise an eyebrow or shrug but Sir Keir Cromwell was such a pious prick that he needed to be whiter than white.
If this was a Conservative MP, let alone Conservative leader, Starmer would not be saying "It's just stupidity, not corruption".
This all interrelates as well: it's not the first time he's forgotten to declare free gifts; and AIUI this time it's connected with the donor getting a No. 10 pass.
One of his few selling points was that he was an adult in the room; someone who could get things done properly without fuss, as he apparently did during his time as DPP.
It stinks. And the amounts make it worse.
Boris was (rightly) brought down by a cake. SKS will get away with this, but he should not.
To be fair if we don’t have to see this dreadful suit again it might be good for the country.
And the “son of a toolmaker” shoes.
Lammy apparently met Biden with Starmer wearing trainers
It’s just tragic wankery. Grown adults thinking they are edgy by dressing badly. You have people praising Angela Rayner for dressing like a student - she’s a sodding cabinet member, Deputy PM of the UK. Scruffy politicians for a scruffy country.
The country's gone to the dogs ever since PMs stopped wearing morning suits as standard.
If I ever became PM I would insist on morning suits to be worn during all official events/meetings.
I heard Ed Davey on News Agents earlier this week. Total drivel.
It’s sad, but the Lib Dems seem to have mutated from a gang of liberal policy wonks to somethin akin to a Waitrose users group.
Presume the Liberal Democrat magazine now comes with recipe ideas sponsored by Charlie Bigham.
Anything you want to complain about specifically or are you just having a Sunday afternoon whinge?
I just told you. Davey came across well-meaning but having no actual conception of challenges faced by the country.
And in theory, I’m a Davey supporter (and in practice a Lib Dem voter).
As I wrote this I thought to myself, the Lib Dems are now the sort of party that supports the WASPI women cause.
I checked, and of course they do.
Not serious.
The weird thing is, the LDs had an open goal and an obvious role: become the Rejoin Now party
Promise an instant return to the SM and CU and a new referendum within a year
Yet they refused to take the chance and waffled vaguely, instead
They should have been the Remainer version of the SNP. Make Rejoin their one big profound policy, their raison d’etre
In a weird volatile election, with lots of Remainers looking warily (and with justification) at Starmer, that could have been explosive. But no
No, wasting time and effort on "Rejoining" is an elephant trap of epic proportions.
The first problem is we have no idea under what terms the EU would consider the UK (re)joining. Would we have to accept the Euro and Schengen for example? I'm sure plenty would object to that.
Even if the EU offered status quo ante referendum, we'd still have issues over QMV and the rebates.
We had to leave because our half-hearted mean-spirited rebate-obsessed membership wasn't doing either us or the EU any good and we took a democratic vote deciding to leave.
There would also be huge resistance to any attempt to reintroduce Freedom of Movement which I believe is a prerequisite for membership of the Single Market - indeed, it would be a huge gift for Reform if anyone were to try.
We were never honest as to why we wanted to join in the first place. Because of that our membership was always false, incomplete, unsatisfying.
Why did we want to join ? Well the Empire was finished but of course we had superb management experience, in our own eyes. This European thing was all very well but well, Johnny Foreigner had had a century and a half to sort things out since 1815 and what had he done, 2 1/2 world wars and the possibility of another. The truth is we ASSUMED that if we joined the Common Market we would not just be primus inter pares, but like the Empire, we alone would be the leader. To some extent they even played up to that my making Henry Plumb first elected leader of the European Parliament.
The saddest part of it is sometimes the Rejoiners STILL think they would let us lead if we went back. Sorry lads, ain't gonna happen.
Other way round. Britain sought salvation, and Europe feared we would take over. In the 1950s and 60s the Establishment saw Britain as in terminal decline, and viewed entry to the Common Market as our last hope, only for us to be denied repeatedly, until Ted Heath finally got us in.
What ‘got us in’ was the death of Charles de Gaulle.
I've never quite understood why he disliked us so, given all the help we gave him personally. (Open to biography suggestions - in English)
Because he was a vain, arrogant nationalist fucker who never got over the humiliation of France's defeat and Britain's survival.
Ted Heath's longest fit of pique had nothing on De Gaulle.
Still, at least he didn't collaborate.
Didn't deGaulle take umbrage at being snubbed by Churchill?
He was rightly snubbed as he was an obstructive and vain arsehole. He’s very lucky there was no better French leader to coalesce the free French around. The Americans were also exasperated by his posturing and positioning.
There is a lovely anecdote about Churchill insisting that on his death, after the funeral ceremony, his coffin should be taken on its journey to Blenheim by train from Waterloo. This was to ensure that de Gaulle and his French entourage would have to pass through the station named after the battle of 1815 where Napoleon got second prize.
Lovely stuff, although being a pedant Waterloo station isn’t named after the Battle but after Waterloo Bridge, so it works as cocking a snook. Also Blenheim is named after the battle of Blenheim where we also joined a few euro mates to slap the French which is nice.
Blenheim Palace is a magnificent testimony to some of the most egotistical people to have ever lived.
Imagine building a place where you have a state room with a tapestry covering a vast wall - showing yourself winning battle. You move to the next state room with a giant tapestry showing you winning another battle…. You proceed thus to the front of your house to look up a driveway to a triumphal column dedicated to yourself…
It makes the Kardassians appear entirely uninterested in themselves….
Comments
Ballard, I mean, not so much John Gray.
"'Very scary territory': Libertarian Party president fears what Harris could do to American Dream | Fox News" https://www.foxnews.com/politics/very-scary-territory-libertarian-party-president-fears-what-harris-could-do-american-dream.amp
I’m in both groups so this is personal. I like scary movies and roller coasters but I also like warzones and scuba
I’m trying to map out some ev psych explanation but it is not obvious
This all interrelates as well: it's not the first time he's forgotten to declare free gifts; and AIUI this time it's connected with the donor getting a No. 10 pass.
One of his few selling points was that he was an adult in the room; someone who could get things done properly without fuss, as he apparently did during his time as DPP.
It stinks. And the amounts make it worse.
Boris was (rightly) brought down by a cake. SKS will get away with this, but he should not.
De Gaulle’s vision was that Europe would be run by France, which would therefore increase French power.
If the U.K. joined Europe the. France would have a rival/equal in Europe.
And the “son of a toolmaker” shoes.
Ted Heath's longest fit of pique had nothing on De Gaulle.
Still, at least he didn't collaborate.
There's an obvious evolutionary survival advantage in that.
At the same time increase the tax threshold to £15,000 and then fairness applies to all parts of the electorate
Exhilaration at survival
Peer pressure (shame at not participating/kudos for success)
Sense of mastery
There's a dreadful fascination for those who do this sort of shit in the writing of the likes of Melanie Reid (horses) or this guy https://www.2arms1head.com/ (motorbike) or this guy https://diaryofapunter.substack.com/about (rock climbing) who are alive but tetraplegic as a result of their sport. We tell ourselves all the risks are worth it. I think they are trying to tell us the opposite.
2arms1head is literally a suicide note btw. Trigger warning.
Rejoin doesn't build any houses. It doesn't build any hospitals, or train any doctors. The Tory government just past forgot how to get anything done, because it spent at least five years or so transfixed with the process of leaving the EU. By the time it got to the other side it had forgotten what else it was supposed to be doing and how to do it.
If Britain could rejoin at the stroke of a pen then I'd do it in a flash, but the thought of spending the rest of the decade doing nothing other than negotiating and implementing British re-entry makes me recoil.
I think you've badly misjudged the mood of Remainers.
Which is even more weird.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-13214321/joe-biden-hoka-trainers-pippa-middleton-harry-styles-reese-witherspoon.html
But for me this has a parallel only in early/mid 1960s — Bull Connor, Philadelphia Mississippi, Lester Maddox, the Selma Bridge. And this time it is egged on by *national* candidates and "leaders" (Trump and Vance), rather than die-hard regional resisters.
And the national GOP stands behind them.
https://x.com/JamesFallows/status/1835084099645850017
I don't enjoy horror films (or, actually, most non-comedy fiction) at all - because they're scary.
I quite like overcoming something scary. Like when I went coasteering last year. That was quite satisfying. Oh,and snowboarding at the limit of my capabilities. I suppose I like the moment after the fear goes away.
Even up to a few days before D-Day de Gaulle kept on denying Jews were being rounded up
It also stems from the fact that Churchill and de Gaulle were both captured in earlier wars but Churchill was fine with it and de Gaulle was sensitive to the accusations he surrendered.
If I ever became PM I would insist on morning suits to be worn during all official events/meetings.
The French never wanted us in the first place and wanted us to leave, so like all patriotic Brits I voted Remain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Mers-el-Kébir
To expand upon that - a very important (and, IMHO opinion, completely correct) lesson that the LDs took away from the entire Brexit/Remain debacle was this: any Rejoin can only happen and be sustained with widespread public support. You have to bring the public with you first. And that's where their Europe stance now comes from: to work towards closer co-operation, show the benefits of closer co-operation, and get people to want to rejoin. Single Market membership being a good first step. But NOT a big pendulum swing to "Rejoin!"
But we can interpret Leon's suggestion not as a policy for the LDs to believe in but as pure electoral calculation, I suppose. And in that case - no, it wouldn't have worked. Which seats would have fallen due to this siren call that didn't fall before? And would they more than offset the seats that wouldn't have been taken due to it? After all, the South West is the least Remainery area, and that's one reason the LDs evaporated there. St Ives would have fallen back into the LD fold in 2019 without the massive focus on Europe, and there were others like it.
Best guess, maybe 10-20 of the 72 wouldn't be orange now if the LDs had done that. Maybe more (maybe fewer), but that's where I'm leaning. And maybe 4-5 more would have fallen - if that. I mean, I can't really see Cotswolds North, or Shropshire South screaming out so loudly for Rejoin that they'd have romped into the fold. And, of course, it would have diverted the message from social care, water state, the NHS, the environment, and so on, and given the impression that the LDs were nothing more than Europe-obsessives. After 2019 and 2017 were so big on Europe (especially 2019); this was an opportunity to demonstrate that the LDs weren't just a pro-EU pressure group.
"Fear" and "thrill" are very close together because of that. It's why we have adrenaline junkies, and many of us are on that spectrum to one degree or another. Ways to trigger off the adrenaline without putting ourselves into actual danger are therefore attractive.
Sounds a bit humdrum. Something you’d do on a weekend in Evesham. Or Newent
It is incredible. It’s the great Canadian railway that linked east to west Canada right through the Manashee mountains via a sequence of remarkable trestle bridges and blasted tunnels. It’s now disused so they’ve turned it into a cycle path
But what a cycle path. It’s dead flat (railway) so it’s easy but often you are one foot from a 4000 foot drop. No fences. They give you a helmet but I don’t think that would help much
One skid and over you’d go. And there are parents with 5 year old kids on wobbly bikes
Doubt anybody can beat that.
Those who voted Leave thinking it would solve a lot of problems realize they have been duped . So suggesting closer ties with the EU shouldn’t be controversial now .
Labour shouldn’t fear the right wing media hysteria about getting closer to the EU.
You ought to have a go at the Monsal Trail in Derbyshire, which is Britain's answer to that trail. Implausibly pleasant, on a sunny day. Not so precipitous, but a similar idea.
I’m on Trestle 6
https://www.hellobc.com/stories/5-places-to-experience-bcs-kettle-valley-rail-trail/
But, according to one estimate I've seen, 86% of all the gold that's ever been mined has been mined in the last 200 years. And, post-apocalypse, I'd expect economic activity to be much below the level of 200 years ago. So, relatively speaking, if we compare to, say, the economy of 1000AD, a post-apocalypse world would be awash with gold, absolutely swimming in the stuff.
This also has some implications, though relatively long-term ones, if the global population does soon start to decline, and that decline gathers pace and becomes entrenched. Lots of assets lose a lot of value in a world with a lower population. On the one hand that's great - land and so much else is no longer scarce - but the current capitalist economy that sits on huge piles of debt is not going to function in such a future.
Now there may come a point where we, as a nation, conclude "this close and no closer", but I'm not quite sure where that is. Each incremental step seems to make sense on its own terms as a something-for-something.
And I can't help noticing that those urging something faster tend to not wish non-Conservative politicians well.
In the USA aren’t you always hearing gunshots ! Looks like a concocted attempt to elicit some sympathy after Trumps bad week.
Sorry to be so cynical ....
I’ve now decided this is actually the SECOND best cycle path in the world. There is an even more stimulating one - also completely flat - in the Everglades National Park, where you are expected to calmly cycle around all the wild alligators (that like to bask on the tarmac)
It was terrifying but the rangers at the gates assured me it was safe. I still wonder if they were hoping I would get eaten
As I quasi-recollect, "Alf" preferred HIS cats plump and well-aged . . . NOT small and/or scrawny . . .
Pyjamas? Or butt raw naked? Don't wish to polarise but that, I think, is the question.
Are you with boulay, naked? Or with me in pyjamas?
I'm pleased you like the Peaks. For me, it's one of those situations where we don't value highly enough what's right on our doorstep; I enjoy the Peaks, but I can see them from the motorway bridge at the end of the road, so are a bit unexotic - I get much more excited about the Lakes and the Yorkshire Dales.
But I remember a night away at a hotel in the Peaks a couple of years back, at which there was a wedding the next day, and lots of 20 somethings from London were turning up - I very much enjoyed the genuine awe they were expressing at the scenery in what I kind of consider my back yard.
Indeed
Imagine building a place where you have a state room with a tapestry covering a vast wall - showing yourself winning battle. You move to the next state room with a giant tapestry showing you winning another battle…. You proceed thus to the front of your house to look up a driveway to a triumphal column dedicated to yourself…
It makes the Kardassians appear entirely uninterested in themselves….
It was done by J L Partners and it used "River Sampling for British Muslims, Online panel sample for General Public"
Why?
And why different sample sizes? And the fieldwork is 4 weeks for British muslims vs 2 days for the general public.
It doesn't appear to have been part of a series on, for example, British Hindus and British Jews.
And the question framing is very... odd.
And what did their "river sampling" actually look like, in reality?
They say they're registered with the BPC, so, presumably they are transparent about this stuff?
Was it actually a random sample, or did they seek out British muslims with extreme views?
Surely the BPC haven't allowed themselves to be so manipulated? And JL Partners is reputable, no?
For many fed-up landlords, the Renters’ Rights Bill is the final straw
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/property/buy-to-let/selling-35-rental-homes-labour-not-only-one/
Perhaps now all the others will be going after him as well.
🎻🎻 🎻 🎻🎻🎻 🎻 🎻🎻 🎻 🎻🎻🎻 🎻 🎻🎻 🎻 🎻🎻🎻 🎻 🎻🎻 🎻 🎻🎻🎻 🎻 🎻🎻 🎻 🎻🎻🎻 🎻