Three confirmed reports from family and friends suggesting he was far to the left and becoming more political. Even the Guardian have this story from a primary source. You can live in your bluecry bubble and deny it all you want but it's clear that he was is hard left and if you think that the gaming sphere is all right wing then you're showing how little you know, the third largest streamer on Twitch is Hasan Piker who is a hard leftist and known terrorist sympathiser and advocates violence against his political opponents.
Again, just take the L and move on. As more facts come out it will just get worse. I mean you posted that he was so far right that he assassinated Kirk for not being right wing enough earlier which we know to be false. You're spinning a narrative that doesn't is objectively incorrect and now you just need to take a step back from bluecry and the radical leftists on there who have been popping champagne corks today.
According to Utah officials + police interviews with his family, Tyler Robinson hated Charlie Kirk because Kirk wasn't conservative enough. (Robinson reportedly admired Nick Fuentes). GOPer's now scrubbing X posts about dems faster than DOJ erases Trump name in Epstein files.
He's not the only one. There are quite a few people making the argument that this some weird beef between Kirk's people and followers of Nick Fuentes. There are some damned strange people out there.
Regardless of ideology, the radicalisation of young people through global online forums and social media is a scary prospect as a parent, admittedly of children currently too young to be at risk.
The combination of this with easy access to powerful guns in the US makes it much worse there.
For context, London homicide rate would put it around 170th in the list of US cities. Just below Honolulu in Hawaii.
Three confirmed reports from family and friends suggesting he was far to the left and becoming more political. Even the Guardian have this story from a primary source. You can live in your bluecry bubble and deny it all you want but it's clear that he was is hard left and if you think that the gaming sphere is all right wing then you're showing how little you know, the third largest streamer on Twitch is Hasan Piker who is a hard leftist and known terrorist sympathiser and advocates violence against his political opponents.
Again, just take the L and move on. As more facts come out it will just get worse. I mean you posted that he was so far right that he assassinated Kirk for not being right wing enough earlier which we know to be false. You're spinning a narrative that doesn't is objectively incorrect and now you just need to take a step back from bluecry and the radical leftists on there who have been popping champagne corks today.
You're not one to lecture Max. Still waiting on those insider sources.
He is alive, so will stand trial. I guess that we will find out then.
I think probably more like more school-shooters. A dead end kid, angry at the world, too much time on the Internet gaming, hates his course and wanted his 15 minutes of fame. Combine it with access to guns and there you go.
Jesus. Even PB has succumbed to the Black is White, War is Peace, Burnham isn't popular, Utah gun nut families are a hive of radical leftism bollocks. Haven't you guys heard of Occam's Razor. Or karma?
Jesus. Even PB has succumbed to the Black is White, War is Peace, Burnham isn't popular, Utah gun nut families are a hive of radical leftism bollocks. Haven't you guys heard of Occam's Razor. Or karma?
What is your problem? He’s a rebel leftist son of a conservative Mormon family. There are now multiple verifying reports of this. Not just the Guardian
The telegraph AND guardian are accurately reporting maneuvers against starmer
It’s not exactly surprising. Indeed it would be surprising if there were NOT plots. Starmer is a catastrophically bad prime minister with unprecedentedly bad polling. No other PM in history has achieved polling this negative after a year in office
Of course ambitious rivals are conspiring. It’s politics
Regardless of ideology, the radicalisation of young people through global online forums and social media is a scary prospect as a parent, admittedly of children currently too young to be at risk.
The combination of this with easy access to powerful guns in the US makes it much worse there.
For context, London homicide rate would put it around 170th in the list of US cities. Just below Honolulu in Hawaii.
It's just a different world over there.
Third most popular streamer on Twitch, second most popular political streamer on Twitch
This got no ban by Twitch, millions of young people across America (and the world) watch this guy. He has previously expressed support for Houthi terrorists, had live interviews with a Houthi terrorist, he's openly supported Hezbollah and Hamas, not just in conjunction with Israel but even against other Middle Eastern nations, he has called for literal violence against people on the right constantly.
This is the world of online streaming and constantly it's these leftists and associates that are calling for violence against people who disagree with them. For example, one of this guys associates put a $40k bounty on another Twitch streamer who she disagreed with. Even jokingly, that kind of rhetoric is extremely dangerous.
Regardless of ideology, the radicalisation of young people through global online forums and social media is a scary prospect as a parent, admittedly of children currently too young to be at risk.
Even as someone who has read a lot about this sort of stuff, who had heard of Kirk before, who knows internet culture quite well going back a long time now, this is damn near impenetrable to me. Whether the politics is left or right one of the things that is becoming common is that solo mass or spree killers, or political assasins, quite often now have links to weird internet subcultures that are off-the-radar of almost everyone else.
Even if there was an imminent by-election what seat could Labour actually be guaranteed to win given their current polling.
I just find him grating , he seems to think he’s the chosen one who will save Labour .
He would win a Greater Manchester labour seat
Would he?
Honestly, I think this question is now the $64m UK political question of the next year.
Certainly if May elections are as dire as it looks for Labour then the question becomes top issue.
Will Burnham take the risk? If he loses Gorton by-election then the march on Rome is over.
I wonder if 'Rome' is even worth the bother, in his position. As a politician who wants to get things done(TM) he's in a pretty sweet spot. See early-ish post-indyref SNP. Maybe his ambition is bigger - no idea. But it's certainly a throw of the dice career and reputation-wise at his age and stature within the party.
Three confirmed reports from family and friends suggesting he was far to the left and becoming more political. Even the Guardian have this story from a primary source. You can live in your bluecry bubble and deny it all you want but it's clear that he was is hard left and if you think that the gaming sphere is all right wing then you're showing how little you know, the third largest streamer on Twitch is Hasan Piker who is a hard leftist and known terrorist sympathiser and advocates violence against his political opponents.
Again, just take the L and move on. As more facts come out it will just get worse. I mean you posted that he was so far right that he assassinated Kirk for not being right wing enough earlier which we know to be false. You're spinning a narrative that doesn't is objectively incorrect and now you just need to take a step back from bluecry and the radical leftists on there who have been popping champagne corks today.
rich coming from you after all your bullshit about the minnesota democrat shootings
Regardless of ideology, the radicalisation of young people through global online forums and social media is a scary prospect as a parent, admittedly of children currently too young to be at risk.
Even as someone who has read a lot about this sort of stuff, who had heard of Kirk before, who knows internet culture quite well going back a long time now, this is damn near impenetrable to me. Whether the politics is left or right one of the things that is becoming common is that solo mass or spree killers, or political assasins, quite often now have links to weird internet subcultures that are off-the-radar of almost everyone else.
Yup, as someone who also has had a very online life both as a gamer in competitive Halo lobbies 20 years ago and too much time spent on /b/ and /pol/ as a teenager I've got a better understanding of it that probably anyone else on pb and even now there's parts of it that are impenetrable to me.
Even if there was an imminent by-election what seat could Labour actually be guaranteed to win given their current polling.
I just find him grating , he seems to think he’s the chosen one who will save Labour .
He would win a Greater Manchester labour seat
Would he?
Honestly, I think this question is now the $64m UK political question of the next year.
Certainly if May elections are as dire as it looks for Labour then the question becomes top issue.
Will Burnham take the risk? If he loses Gorton by-election then the march on Rome is over.
I wonder if 'Rome' is even worth the bother, in his position. As a politician who wants to get things done(TM) he's in a pretty sweet spot. See early-ish post-indyref SNP. Maybe his ambition is bigger - no idea. But it's certainly a throw of the dice career and reputation-wise at his age and stature within the party.
The challenge is that if there is a by-election Lab central office might impose a candidate and block out Burnham. If Burnham can't win the seat, then he wouldn't be able to turn things around nationally anyway.
Labour find it really difficult to remove their leaders. Corbyn was astonishingly useless (at least for those who had understandably not paid any attention to his career) and lost an election and they still couldn't get rid of him. Starmer is a sitting PM and he's not going anywhere unless he chooses to do so.
His judgement is shite. This is not news. Everyone knew this when they chose him. But he is PM and will not want to stand down on any terms other than his own.
His judgement is poor and his news management is poor. Adds up to shite, but I don't mind the latter element.
I’m sorry, but Starmer’s political judgment is way beyond “poor”. Sunak was “poor”. Starmer is in a different league
There are so many examples but let’s focus on Lord Yum Yum. He didn’t have to do any of this. He didn’t have to appoint him. He didn’t have to rush out and express confidence in him as the scandal kicked off. He didn’t have to do that AGAIN in the commons even as everyone else in the universe knew Mandy was toast
All unforced. All howlingly stupid. He is so bad at politics people semi-seriously wonder if he is a spy paid by China
He is the worst “politician” we’ve seen in number 10 in my lifetime. He has no political sense. Zero
He’s a dull witted public sector lawyer and that’s where he should have stayed
I can't disagree with you on any point. What it adds up to though is a PM as good as many in recent years. Nobody can be worse than Truss - I think we all agree on that. I have a personal hate of Gordon Brown. I liked Cameron, Boris is sort of an exception, and I'd feel poorly of myself if I went after Mrs May. So it boils down to Sunak vs Starmer. Now I'm a lifelong Tory, but I have to tell you that I think Starmer has been the better PM.
Why exactly? Rishi comes in and gets inflation under control. he does not give the unions massive pay rises we can not afford. he does not give away the chagos islands and cost us 30 billion in the process. he restores a level of market confidence after the trusterfuck. He also does some stupid stuff to be sure, but the only good thing I can honestly think Starmer has done well is suck up to Trump. Freebies, WFA, union pay rises, poor appointments, fails to cut welfare, why is he better? genuinely interested in how you see it.
If you read the media that explains Chagos at 30 billion, some even go at 100 billion, and cover each government action with similar hyperbole, then sure, on those "facts" Starmer is worse than Rishi, but the fact base is pretty "alternative".
If you prefer Chagos at 3 billion that's fine by me. I am asking why Starmer is better than Rishi to some people, what are the big plusses for starmer, or big minus for Rishi? Rwanda? his attempted election give away?
Seriousness. Most of the problems Starmer et al are facing are down to unserious nature of the last few Tory governments, particularly from Boris onwards. Labour aren't very good and Sunak was an improvement on Johnson and Truss but Starmer is still ahead imo.
Rwanda is a good example, not because I am overly offended by the civil rights implications, I am a bit, but far more offended by the contempt he held the nation in. He made the asylum problem worse for both claimants and locals for political gain, and was too stupid and naive to realise that the beneficiaries of that politics would be Refukkers not the Tories.
Thank you, very interesting. I find them very similar TBH. Capable people in a way but terrible politicians. Still better then a capable politician who is not able or interested in doing the job like Boris mind.
Thing is, Sunak had the opportunity to be the one to break the logjam.
Deep down, we all know that there's a mismatch between the things we want the state to provide and the amount we are happy to pay for them. We know there is a deep hypocricy in our approach to immigration. It's been going on for most of my lifetime, and it's there because we, as voters, vote for it.
Sunak could have thought "sod it, I'm going to lose, but I'm going to hand over a good legacy" by adressing those mismatches. He might have struggled to get it past his MPs, but seriously... who else were they going to put in place? And Truss had set herself up to be the fall gal. Instead, he decided to go deeper into the madness- partly with Rwanda, partly with his "we can cut tax rates because of spending cuts I'm not going to describe".
The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one, as the saying goes. Sunak and Hunt could have been brave, everything was set up for them to be brave, in the way that Major and Clarke were in the runup to 1997. But their actions were those of cowards. And it didn't really save any seats.
Starmer is not good- though I wonder if he is a good as the system lets anyone be, as good as our society deserves. He's certainly better than Sunak.
I feel this boilerplate ‘Things are bad, Starmer is useless… but he’s the best we’ve got’ template must surely run out of steam soon
Regardless of ideology, the radicalisation of young people through global online forums and social media is a scary prospect as a parent, admittedly of children currently too young to be at risk.
Even as someone who has read a lot about this sort of stuff, who had heard of Kirk before, who knows internet culture quite well going back a long time now, this is damn near impenetrable to me. Whether the politics is left or right one of the things that is becoming common is that solo mass or spree killers, or political assasins, quite often now have links to weird internet subcultures that are off-the-radar of almost everyone else.
Yup, as someone who also has had a very online life both as a gamer in competitive Halo lobbies 20 years ago and too much time spent on /b/ and /pol/ as a teenager I've got a better understanding of it that probably anyone else on pb and even now there's parts of it that are impenetrable to me.
My MI5 adjacent friend who does this for a living (and is very senior) says this is the big new worry. Ultra online nihilists who have almost no ideology at all, but just want to cause mayhem and be a meme, and they will do incredibly horrific things. For the bantz amongst a tiny niche
However it seems to me Tyler Robinson is not one of these (despite having some traits). He’s much more classically hard left mad antifa, in rebellion against a conservative Mormon family
Regardless of ideology, the radicalisation of young people through global online forums and social media is a scary prospect as a parent, admittedly of children currently too young to be at risk.
Even as someone who has read a lot about this sort of stuff, who had heard of Kirk before, who knows internet culture quite well going back a long time now, this is damn near impenetrable to me. Whether the politics is left or right one of the things that is becoming common is that solo mass or spree killers, or political assasins, quite often now have links to weird internet subcultures that are off-the-radar of almost everyone else.
Yup, as someone who also has had a very online life both as a gamer in competitive Halo lobbies 20 years ago and too much time spent on /b/ and /pol/ as a teenager I've got a better understanding of it that probably anyone else on pb and even now there's parts of it that are impenetrable to me.
It is grimly fascinating to read about, it's a bit like a lost city or new uncontacted people being found.
The right can spin it as much as they like but the deep polarisation and glorification of political violence accelerated when Trump won in 2016 .
The Trump factor and huge increase in social media have delivered a perfect storm . No one’s ignoring that this problem only exists on the right. As the right became more extreme the counterweight will happen so some on the left have gone down that road .
In a country awash with guns this inevitably leads to tragedy but it’s nauseating to see the right play the victims when their poster boy Trump is a huge factor in all of this .
The right can spin it as much as they like but the deep polarisation and glorification of political violence accelerated when Trump won in 2016 .
The Trump factor and huge increase in social media have delivered a perfect storm . No one’s ignoring that this problem only exists on the right. As the right became more extreme the counterweight will happen so some on the left have gone down that road .
In a country awash with guns this inevitably leads to tragedy but it’s nauseating to see the right play the victims when their poster boy Trump is a huge factor in all of this .
You could just as easily say the left created the conditions that led to Trump being able to win an election in 2016, and also Brexit.
Regardless of ideology, the radicalisation of young people through global online forums and social media is a scary prospect as a parent, admittedly of children currently too young to be at risk.
Even as someone who has read a lot about this sort of stuff, who had heard of Kirk before, who knows internet culture quite well going back a long time now, this is damn near impenetrable to me. Whether the politics is left or right one of the things that is becoming common is that solo mass or spree killers, or political assasins, quite often now have links to weird internet subcultures that are off-the-radar of almost everyone else.
Is there any evidence that there are more solo/mass/spree killers since the internet started than before?
Regardless of ideology, the radicalisation of young people through global online forums and social media is a scary prospect as a parent, admittedly of children currently too young to be at risk.
Even as someone who has read a lot about this sort of stuff, who had heard of Kirk before, who knows internet culture quite well going back a long time now, this is damn near impenetrable to me. Whether the politics is left or right one of the things that is becoming common is that solo mass or spree killers, or political assasins, quite often now have links to weird internet subcultures that are off-the-radar of almost everyone else.
Is there any evidence that there are more solo/mass/spree killers since the internet started than before?
That's a fair point, especially on the political side. Let's not forget Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma bombing were before the internet was widely available.
However, I do believe there is evidence that the number of mass school shootings has increased significantly in the period since Columbine. Whether that's due to the internet, social media, or anything else is open to debate.
Even if there was an imminent by-election what seat could Labour actually be guaranteed to win given their current polling.
I just find him grating , he seems to think he’s the chosen one who will save Labour .
I couldn't agree more, but whilst Starmer is somewhere between treading water and drowning I can't really see a more appropriate alternative. Although the path to Number 10 is not clear and certainly not jeopardy-free.
Regardless of ideology, the radicalisation of young people through global online forums and social media is a scary prospect as a parent, admittedly of children currently too young to be at risk.
Even as someone who has read a lot about this sort of stuff, who had heard of Kirk before, who knows internet culture quite well going back a long time now, this is damn near impenetrable to me. Whether the politics is left or right one of the things that is becoming common is that solo mass or spree killers, or political assasins, quite often now have links to weird internet subcultures that are off-the-radar of almost everyone else.
Is there any evidence that there are more solo/mass/spree killers since the internet started than before?
That's a fair point, especially on the political side. Let's not forget Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma bombing were before the internet was widely available.
However, I do believe there is evidence that the number of mass school shootings has increased significantly in the period since Columbine. Whether that's due to the internet, social media, or anything else is open to debate.
The closure of mental asylums is a factor IMO. Previously the killer of that Ukrainian girl would have been locked away in a padded room somewhere, so would that man who killed those school kids attending church a couple of weeks ago. Society seems to have normalised being batshit crazy and that's a factor in there being more unsafe people in public than there should be.
Jo White MP had an absolute pile up on R5 a little while ago. Sent on to.defend Starmer in 15 minutes she managed to claim with no evidence that the civil service are blocking things Labour want to do, in attempting to reverse ferret she then claimed civil service full of morons not up to the job and then to finish it all off while trying to support Starmer and say give him time instead said the clock is ticking...
The right can spin it as much as they like but the deep polarisation and glorification of political violence accelerated when Trump won in 2016 .
The Trump factor and huge increase in social media have delivered a perfect storm . No one’s ignoring that this problem only exists on the right. As the right became more extreme the counterweight will happen so some on the left have gone down that road .
In a country awash with guns this inevitably leads to tragedy but it’s nauseating to see the right play the victims when their poster boy Trump is a huge factor in all of this .
You could just as easily say the left created the conditions that led to Trump being able to win an election in 2016, and also Brexit.
You can argue that . But ask yourself honestly would the USA be this polarised if Trump had lost in 2016 . And even if the left was partly to blame for Trump winning those in power have a responsibility . What seems unfathomable to most people in Europe is Trump showed them who he really was and half of the USA liked it . Whatever the problems we have in the UK would the country elect then re-elect someone like Trump ?
For Andy Burnham to succeed SKS, he would need to enter parliament. That would require a byelection in a constituency where Reform stood exactly no chance.
What's the odds of that happening on a time horizon that makes him a runner for next Labour leader?
FWIW, I think Burnham would be an improvement over SKS. He's the man to see to it that Labour does not get completely destroyed. But his path to the Leadership is an extremely narrow one. 12% seems about right.
Regardless of ideology, the radicalisation of young people through global online forums and social media is a scary prospect as a parent, admittedly of children currently too young to be at risk.
Even as someone who has read a lot about this sort of stuff, who had heard of Kirk before, who knows internet culture quite well going back a long time now, this is damn near impenetrable to me. Whether the politics is left or right one of the things that is becoming common is that solo mass or spree killers, or political assasins, quite often now have links to weird internet subcultures that are off-the-radar of almost everyone else.
Is there any evidence that there are more solo/mass/spree killers since the internet started than before?
That's a fair point, especially on the political side. Let's not forget Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma bombing were before the internet was widely available.
However, I do believe there is evidence that the number of mass school shootings has increased significantly in the period since Columbine. Whether that's due to the internet, social media, or anything else is open to debate.
McVeigh's concern was the impact of modern mass communication on society, though, right? So a prefuguring...
The telegraph AND guardian are accurately reporting maneuvers against starmer
It’s not exactly surprising. Indeed it would be surprising if there were NOT plots. Starmer is a catastrophically bad prime minister with unprecedentedly bad polling. No other PM in history has achieved polling this negative after a year in office
Of course ambitious rivals are conspiring. It’s politics
Manoeuvres.
Don't you also object to the abject failure to capitalise proper nouns and finish paragraphs with full stops?
JLR is thought to have lost at least £50m so far as a result of the stoppage. But experts say the most serious damage is being done to its network of suppliers, many of whom are small and medium sized businesses.
The government is now facing calls for a furlough scheme to be set up, to prevent widespread job losses
I’m already okay with socialism, mmt, and the fourth international. I will also perform a hammed up eye roll at a Farragist. If they are looking the other way.
The telegraph AND guardian are accurately reporting maneuvers against starmer
It’s not exactly surprising. Indeed it would be surprising if there were NOT plots. Starmer is a catastrophically bad prime minister with unprecedentedly bad polling. No other PM in history has achieved polling this negative after a year in office
Of course ambitious rivals are conspiring. It’s politics
Manoeuvres.
Don't you also object to the abject failure to capitalise proper nouns and finish paragraphs with full stops?
I was just offering a comment, not tearing the poor man apart.
MaxPB - Recently, the WaPo argued, in an editorial, that the US had gone too far in closing asylums.
There are also the interesting cases where mentally ill people will refuse to take their medicines, prefering insanity to the side effects. For those, I suppose, we need some kind of intermediate treatment.
Regardless of ideology, the radicalisation of young people through global online forums and social media is a scary prospect as a parent, admittedly of children currently too young to be at risk.
Even as someone who has read a lot about this sort of stuff, who had heard of Kirk before, who knows internet culture quite well going back a long time now, this is damn near impenetrable to me. Whether the politics is left or right one of the things that is becoming common is that solo mass or spree killers, or political assasins, quite often now have links to weird internet subcultures that are off-the-radar of almost everyone else.
Is there any evidence that there are more solo/mass/spree killers since the internet started than before?
That's a fair point, especially on the political side. Let's not forget Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma bombing were before the internet was widely available.
However, I do believe there is evidence that the number of mass school shootings has increased significantly in the period since Columbine. Whether that's due to the internet, social media, or anything else is open to debate.
The closure of mental asylums is a factor IMO. Previously the killer of that Ukrainian girl would have been locked away in a padded room somewhere, so would that man who killed those school kids attending church a couple of weeks ago. Society seems to have normalised being batshit crazy and that's a factor in there being more unsafe people in public than there should be.
That's hardly a factor in this shooting, though, and there doesn't seem to be a huge amount of evidence it's a major factor in most mass shootings either.
But of course it's a factor in the kind of unplanned murders like that of the poor Ukrainian girl.
A quick search suggests that states have been closing long term mental health facilities since the 1950s. Medicare doesn't fund placement in such institutions.
In terms of general access to mental health care, access to funding was increased significantly under Obama's Affordable Care Act. But it's still limited or unavailable to many - and this administration is in the process of massively cutting federal health spending.
The right can spin it as much as they like but the deep polarisation and glorification of political violence accelerated when Trump won in 2016 .
The Trump factor and huge increase in social media have delivered a perfect storm . No one’s ignoring that this problem only exists on the right. As the right became more extreme the counterweight will happen so some on the left have gone down that road .
In a country awash with guns this inevitably leads to tragedy but it’s nauseating to see the right play the victims when their poster boy Trump is a huge factor in all of this .
You could just as easily say the left created the conditions that led to Trump being able to win an election in 2016, and also Brexit.
You can argue that . But ask yourself honestly would the USA be this polarised if Trump had lost in 2016 . And even if the left was partly to blame for Trump winning those in power have a responsibility . What seems unfathomable to most people in Europe is Trump showed them who he really was and half of the USA liked it . Whatever the problems we have in the UK would the country elect then re-elect someone like Trump ?
Trump specifically addressed that point yesterday.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/12/trump-fox-friends-charlie-kirk-shooting .. In an interview on Fox & Friends on Friday morning, the US president was asked what he intended to do to heal the wounds of Kirk’s shooting in Utah. “How do we fix this country? How do we come back together?” he was asked by the show’s co-host Ainsley Earhardt, who commented that there were radicals operating on the left and right of US politics.
Less than 48 hours after Kirk was shot in broad daylight on the campus of Utah Valley University, Trump replied: “I tell you something that is going to get me in trouble, but I couldn’t care less.”..
Today we're announcing Gauss, our first autoformalization agent that just completed Terry Tao & Alex Kontorovich's Strong Prime Number Theorem project in 3 weeks—an effort that took human experts 18+ months of partial progress. https://x.com/mathematics_inc/status/1966194751847461309
Come on - we had reports like this frequently during the Thatcher years, the Major years, the Blair years etc.
It's what parties do when they are in power and it's not going well - complain and grumble about the leader.
This is where pundits often get cause and effect the wrong way round. It is not that divided parties are unpopular with voters, it is that unpopular parties divide on why they are unpopular and how (and who) to fix it.
Come on - we had reports like this frequently during the Thatcher years, the Major years, the Blair years etc.
It's what parties do when they are in power and it's not going well - complain and grumble about the leader.
This is where pundits often get cause and effect the wrong way round. It is not that divided parties are unpopular with voters, it is that unpopular parties divide on why they are unpopular and how (and who) to fix it.
Good point, but I think both can be true - cause and effect play off each other and parties go into a downward spiral.
My life is going badly so I get depressed, I am depressed so I stay at home and my life goes worse, so I get more depressed so my life goes worse, etc.
We saw that perhaps most clearly with the Conservatives in the 90s - everything was going badly so they turned on each other so everything went even worse so they turned on each other even more. Despite a flourishing economy and no significant external threats.
"This is a debate conducted by ideologues throwing up chaff in support of their own prejudices."
In relation to the Lords debate on Assisted Dying.
It is a quite disgraceful statement, frankly. First, because speeches have been deliberately curtailed with Falconer trying to push it through as quickly as possible with little scrutiny. Second, because the Lords Committee and a number of institutions closely involved in this should the Bill passes have come out in detail with all the problems with the Bill, the safeguards that are missing and the ones that are needed.
Lord Barker, one of the Bill's supporters, argued in the Lords today that there should be assisted suicide because palliative care is too expensive and no government will properly fund it. Not so much an argument as the grim reality revealed by ideologues who seek to hide their own selfishness under the guise of "choice" and "autonomy".
As someone with Stage 4 cancer who one day - probably sooner than I would like - will likely need such care, if this Bill passes, I fear that I will be put in the "too expensive to care for pile" and pressured or neglected into death.
That genuine fear is not prejudice and a society that tries to pretend that this is autonomous choice rather than deliberate neglect of and contempt for the vulnerable is one that has chosen to go down a very dark road indeed.
Lord Baker, I think. Kenneth Baker, Education Secretary under Mrs Thatcher and later Home Secretary.
What safeguards would you like to see added in order to make the assisted dying bill acceptable? My criticism was of those parliamentarians for whom the prospect of assisted dying is in itself unthinkable, and whose aim is not to improve the bill but to end it, yet who speak as if it is only the details that are of concern and that with a bit of tinkering they would support the bill.
My feed is full of fellow middle aged people declaring with certainty they know the shooters ideology. And yet if you showed any of them this picture they would not even understand what you are referencing.
if you do not know what oWo is or uWu then stop posting about this shooter like Bryant Gumbel in 1994 trying to explain the world wide web on the Today Show
What America needs now is TV panels of 60 year olds arguing over whose language was the most inciting to violence when the shooter has never heard of Meet the Press and spends all day playing Helldivers 2, building video game maps, looking at hentai porn, and posting in discord.
He wrote “hey fascist! Catch!” on the ammo he used to kill Charlie Kirk, a man the antifa left has demonised as a fascist for ten years
Not quite. That is what he wrote on the ammunition he did not use to kill Charlie Kirk. The ammunition he did shoot Kirk with was engraved, “Notices bulges OWO what’s this?”.
For years now, I've not really watched much news. I think the insanely highly level of Kirk coverage compared to (going by the BBC website) the Poland/Russia story being well down the order is one of the reasons why. A fixation on the US when a close ally is having incursions by Russia is dumb as hell.
We need (both UK and Poland) to be learning from Ukraine about drone warfare, both offensively and defensively.
For years now, I've not really watched much news. I think the insanely highly level of Kirk coverage compared to (going by the BBC website) the Poland/Russia story being well down the order is one of the reasons why. A fixation on the US when a close ally is having incursions by Russia is dumb as hell.
We need (both UK and Poland) to be learning from Ukraine about drone warfare, both offensively and defensively.
Indeed. And look at this forum too. Common language making people forget the USA is a (very) foreign country.
Poland is arguably our closest natural ally in Europe and it’s just been attacked by our no.1 geopolitical enemy.
My feed is full of fellow middle aged people declaring with certainty they know the shooters ideology. And yet if you showed any of them this picture they would not even understand what you are referencing.
if you do not know what oWo is or uWu then stop posting about this shooter like Bryant Gumbel in 1994 trying to explain the world wide web on the Today Show
What America needs now is TV panels of 60 year olds arguing over whose language was the most inciting to violence when the shooter has never heard of Meet the Press and spends all day playing Helldivers 2, building video game maps, looking at hentai porn, and posting in discord.
He wrote “hey fascist! Catch!” on the ammo he used to kill Charlie Kirk, a man the antifa left has demonised as a fascist for ten years
Not quite. That is what he wrote on the ammunition he did not use to kill Charlie Kirk. The ammunition he did shoot Kirk with was engraved, “Notices bulges OWO what’s this?”.
My feed is full of fellow middle aged people declaring with certainty they know the shooters ideology. And yet if you showed any of them this picture they would not even understand what you are referencing.
if you do not know what oWo is or uWu then stop posting about this shooter like Bryant Gumbel in 1994 trying to explain the world wide web on the Today Show
What America needs now is TV panels of 60 year olds arguing over whose language was the most inciting to violence when the shooter has never heard of Meet the Press and spends all day playing Helldivers 2, building video game maps, looking at hentai porn, and posting in discord.
He wrote “hey fascist! Catch!” on the ammo he used to kill Charlie Kirk, a man the antifa left has demonised as a fascist for ten years
Not quite. That is what he wrote on the ammunition he did not use to kill Charlie Kirk. The ammunition he did shoot Kirk with was engraved, “Notices bulges OWO what’s this?”.
"Killing of Charlie Kirk being used to bolster the UK's biggest far right rally in decades.".
Just as discussed yesterday, a prime result ( and use, in outlets like the Mail and Telegraph's case) of the absurd level of Charlie Kirk coverage is the importation of an even more extreme conservative political culture.
An Irish Grandma, 47 years in the USA on a Green Card and married to a US citizen, detained when returning from a visit to Ireland for a funeral with husband, is now facing deportation for a "crime of moral turpitude", because she bounced a $25 cheque in 2015 - which she subsequently made good. From the Indy:
An Irish grandmother of five, who is married to an American citizen and who has lived in the U.S. on a green card for 47 years, is facing deportation.
Donna Hughes-Brown, 58, was arrested by ICE over a bad check for $25 she passed a decade ago, according to her husband. Born in England the grandmother holds Irish citizenship and first came to the U.S. with her parents and brother aged 11.
She visited the Republic of Ireland earlier this summer for a family funeral, only to be arrested when she returned to Chicago O’Hare International Airport on July 29.
A short vid analysing this, and suggesting where it is going - with an aim of instilling fear. Phil Moorehouse, and I mainly agree with the analysis this time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArXFp-CnswU
I am so glad that we decided not to go to the USA this year, or indeed any other year that moron is in the White House.
I’m toddling off there in November. Houston then LA.
So far no short term business travellers seem to have been caught up. (I think).
Hope you have been more discreet here on PB than I have.
I’m off to California in October. I am not afeared
Ah, but if you get locked up or kicked out you'll make decent money out of the story.
Look forward to hearing from you by Christmas !
Have they required you to pay the extra Trump fees?
(Seriously, I honestly can't tell where they will be by the end of the year; it all just seems random.)
I am not going. It is @Leon that is going. We chickened out.
Photo of a very young Tyler with his first computer
It's funny how generous the responses are now it's been found he's demographically uncooperative. A bit like the Liverpool incident where the driver was suddenly a typical family man who panicked.
Regardless of ideology, the radicalisation of young people through global online forums and social media is a scary prospect as a parent, admittedly of children currently too young to be at risk.
Even as someone who has read a lot about this sort of stuff, who had heard of Kirk before, who knows internet culture quite well going back a long time now, this is damn near impenetrable to me. Whether the politics is left or right one of the things that is becoming common is that solo mass or spree killers, or political assasins, quite often now have links to weird internet subcultures that are off-the-radar of almost everyone else.
Is there any evidence that there are more solo/mass/spree killers since the internet started than before?
That's a fair point, especially on the political side. Let's not forget Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma bombing were before the internet was widely available.
However, I do believe there is evidence that the number of mass school shootings has increased significantly in the period since Columbine. Whether that's due to the internet, social media, or anything else is open to debate.
The closure of mental asylums is a factor IMO. Previously the killer of that Ukrainian girl would have been locked away in a padded room somewhere, so would that man who killed those school kids attending church a couple of weeks ago. Society seems to have normalised being batshit crazy and that's a factor in there being more unsafe people in public than there should be.
That's hardly a factor in this shooting, though, and there doesn't seem to be a huge amount of evidence it's a major factor in most mass shootings either.
But of course it's a factor in the kind of unplanned murders like that of the poor Ukrainian girl.
A quick search suggests that states have been closing long term mental health facilities since the 1950s. Medicare doesn't fund placement in such institutions.
In terms of general access to mental health care, access to funding was increased significantly under Obama's Affordable Care Act. But it's still limited or unavailable to many - and this administration is in the process of massively cutting federal health spending.
It's a convenient scapegoat though. Putting the blame on an identifiable People Like Them shifts it away from People Like Us.
(Incidentally, American MH care for the extremely troubled is something I don't know about, but I have a suspicion that their organisational and finding model would handle that sort of thing really badly in most cases. Anyone know?)
The enormous cosmic irony is that Charlie Kirk was factually right in what he said- if you have mass gun ownership, these sort of evens will happen from time to time. He just drew the wrong conclusion from that.
Photo of a very young Tyler with his first computer
It's funny how generous the responses are now it's been found he's demographically uncooperative. A bit like the Liverpool incident where the driver was suddenly a typical family man who panicked.
It’s either too early or I’m too stupid to understand what point you’re trying to make
Regardless of ideology, the radicalisation of young people through global online forums and social media is a scary prospect as a parent, admittedly of children currently too young to be at risk.
Even as someone who has read a lot about this sort of stuff, who had heard of Kirk before, who knows internet culture quite well going back a long time now, this is damn near impenetrable to me. Whether the politics is left or right one of the things that is becoming common is that solo mass or spree killers, or political assasins, quite often now have links to weird internet subcultures that are off-the-radar of almost everyone else.
Is there any evidence that there are more solo/mass/spree killers since the internet started than before?
That's a fair point, especially on the political side. Let's not forget Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma bombing were before the internet was widely available.
However, I do believe there is evidence that the number of mass school shootings has increased significantly in the period since Columbine. Whether that's due to the internet, social media, or anything else is open to debate.
The closure of mental asylums is a factor IMO. Previously the killer of that Ukrainian girl would have been locked away in a padded room somewhere, so would that man who killed those school kids attending church a couple of weeks ago. Society seems to have normalised being batshit crazy and that's a factor in there being more unsafe people in public than there should be.
That's hardly a factor in this shooting, though, and there doesn't seem to be a huge amount of evidence it's a major factor in most mass shootings either.
But of course it's a factor in the kind of unplanned murders like that of the poor Ukrainian girl.
A quick search suggests that states have been closing long term mental health facilities since the 1950s. Medicare doesn't fund placement in such institutions.
In terms of general access to mental health care, access to funding was increased significantly under Obama's Affordable Care Act. But it's still limited or unavailable to many - and this administration is in the process of massively cutting federal health spending.
It's a convenient scapegoat though. Putting the blame on an identifiable People Like Them shifts it away from People Like Us.
(Incidentally, American MH care for the extremely troubled is something I don't know about, but I have a suspicion that their organisational and finding model would handle that sort of thing really badly in most cases. Anyone know?)
The enormous cosmic irony is that Charlie Kirk was factually right in what he said- if you have mass gun ownership, these sort of evens will happen from time to time. He just drew the wrong conclusion from that.
His death and the behaviour of those celebrating it are both things that Kirk would have considered acceptable costs to preserve the right to bear arms and free speech.
Some on the right in the US can't come to terms with it being one of their own this time, rather than some kids in a primary school or jokes about Pelosi being nearly killed.
"Killing of Charlie Kirk being used to bolster the UK's biggest far right rally in decades.".
Just as discussed yesterday, a prime result ( and use, in outlets like the Mail and Telegraph's case) of the absurd level of Charlie Kirk coverage is the importation of an even more extreme conservative political culture.
"Killing of Charlie Kirk being used to bolster the UK's biggest far right rally in decades.".
Just as discussed yesterday, a prime result ( and use, in outlets like the Mail and Telegraph's case) of the absurd level of Charlie Kirk coverage is the importation of an even more extreme conservative political culture.
Photo of a very young Tyler with his first computer
It's funny how generous the responses are now it's been found he's demographically uncooperative. A bit like the Liverpool incident where the driver was suddenly a typical family man who panicked.
It’s either too early or I’m too stupid to understand what point you’re trying to make
Far be it for me to comment, but isn't there a saying "if the cap fits, wear it"?
I can offer an interpretation for you however. I suspect the point is in the Kirk case when social media determined the killer was trans there was a clamour to punish the trans community. Conversely when it appears the perp was white and middle class there was no demand to chase down white middle class people.
In Liverpool, early reports of the assailant being Muslim or an asylum seeker led social media to demand a clamp down on Muslims and asylum seekers, when it turned out he was none of those things, but instead a Scouser there was no call to punish Scousers.
Photo of a very young Tyler with his first computer
It's funny how generous the responses are now it's been found he's demographically uncooperative. A bit like the Liverpool incident where the driver was suddenly a typical family man who panicked.
It’s either too early or I’m too stupid to understand what point you’re trying to make
Far be it for me to comment, but isn't there a saying "if the cap fits, wear it"?
I can offer an interpretation for you however. I suspect the point is in the Kirk case when social media determined the killer was trans there was a clamour to punish the trans community. Conversely when it appears the perp was white and middle class there was no demand to chase down white middle class people.
In Liverpool, early reports of the assailant being Muslim or an asylum seeker led social media to demand a clamp down on Muslims and asylum seekers, when it turned out he was none of those things, but instead a Scouser there was no call to punish Scousers.
I must have missed whatever brief convulsion there was about trans in this case, they arrested this guy about a day after I heard of the murder.
My takeaway from that photo - it’s not stopping your kids having access to the internet, it’s stopping the internet having access to your kid.
For years now, I've not really watched much news. I think the insanely highly level of Kirk coverage compared to (going by the BBC website) the Poland/Russia story being well down the order is one of the reasons why. A fixation on the US when a close ally is having incursions by Russia is dumb as hell.
We need (both UK and Poland) to be learning from Ukraine about drone warfare, both offensively and defensively.
Agreed. It hasn’t taken me long to read through PB recently as I scroll past all the Kirk comments.
It was straightforward for Labour to unite around Starmer, the burning desire to return to government after 4 defeats kept everyone (well nearly everyone) pulling in the same direction. But very tricky indeed to keep such a large parliamentary party placated with only so many jobs to go around.
Is there a unifying leader hiding in plain sight in there somewhere?
It was straightforward for Labour to unite around Starmer, the burning desire to return to government after 4 defeats kept everyone (well nearly everyone) pulling in the same direction. But very tricky indeed to keep such a large parliamentary party placated with only so many jobs to go around.
Is there a unifying leader hiding in plain sight in there somewhere?
AstraZeneca pauses £200m investment in Cambridge research site Decision means none of drugmaker’s much-trumpeted £650m UK investment package is currently proceeding
Last one out please remember to turn the lights off...
Don't worry we still have the City and lawyers to earn a crust or two. The rest of us can dress up in Tudor costumes for the Chinese and Usonians visitors. Trump's visit is not for a political realignment but a boost for the tourist industry.
AstraZeneca pauses £200m investment in Cambridge research site Decision means none of drugmaker’s much-trumpeted £650m UK investment package is currently proceeding
Last one out please remember to turn the lights off...
Don't worry we still have the City and lawyers to earn a crust or two. The rest of us can dress up in Tudor costumes for the Chinese and Usonians visitors. Trump's visit is not for a political realignment but a boost for the tourist industry.
Photo of a very young Tyler with his first computer
It's funny how generous the responses are now it's been found he's demographically uncooperative. A bit like the Liverpool incident where the driver was suddenly a typical family man who panicked.
It’s either too early or I’m too stupid to understand what point you’re trying to make
Far be it for me to comment, but isn't there a saying "if the cap fits, wear it"?
I can offer an interpretation for you however. I suspect the point is in the Kirk case when social media determined the killer was trans there was a clamour to punish the trans community. Conversely when it appears the perp was white and middle class there was no demand to chase down white middle class people.
In Liverpool, early reports of the assailant being Muslim or an asylum seeker led social media to demand a clamp down on Muslims and asylum seekers, when it turned out he was none of those things, but instead a Scouser there was no call to punish Scousers.
I must have missed whatever brief convulsion there was about trans in this case, they arrested this guy about a day after I heard of the murder.
My takeaway from that photo - it’s not stopping your kids having access to the internet, it’s stopping the internet having access to your kid.
Did you just make up that line or is it a quotation from someone? Because it’s an excellent one.
It's quite funny how right-wing Americans who normally screech about "free speech!" are trying to get asshats who celebrated Kirk's death sacked, or worse.
It's clearly about their free speech, not the free speech of others.
This is one area where I don't want American 'culture' coming into the UK.
Even if there was an imminent by-election what seat could Labour actually be guaranteed to win given their current polling.
I just find him grating , he seems to think he’s the chosen one who will save Labour .
If Powell loses the leadership election she could spend more time with her family and he'd win Manc Central very easily
Living in North Wales we receive a lot of North West news and their is palpable anger towards Starmer for his treatment of Lucy Powell and other North West Labour mps resulting in Burnham being very much in the news
He certainly is on manoeuvers and is one to watch at Labour's conference
Maybe by that time Starmer will have emerged from his bunker as he is been AWOL since PMQs
It's quite funny how right-wing Americans who normally screech about "free speech!" are trying to get asshats who celebrated Kirk's death sacked, or worse.
It's clearly about their free speech, not the free speech of others.
This is one area where I don't want American 'culture' coming into the UK.
It’s coming, whether you like it or not. Britain slaps on at best factor 20 to protect us from the UV rays of the US civil war, but we don’t have the full spf 50 that a different language offers.
My feed is full of fellow middle aged people declaring with certainty they know the shooters ideology. And yet if you showed any of them this picture they would not even understand what you are referencing.
if you do not know what oWo is or uWu then stop posting about this shooter like Bryant Gumbel in 1994 trying to explain the world wide web on the Today Show
What America needs now is TV panels of 60 year olds arguing over whose language was the most inciting to violence when the shooter has never heard of Meet the Press and spends all day playing Helldivers 2, building video game maps, looking at hentai porn, and posting in discord.
He wrote “hey fascist! Catch!” on the ammo he used to kill Charlie Kirk, a man the antifa left has demonised as a fascist for ten years
Not quite. That is what he wrote on the ammunition he did not use to kill Charlie Kirk. The ammunition he did shoot Kirk with was engraved, “Notices bulges OWO what’s this?”.
Also the ammunition on which he wrote the phrase contained other markings that are important parts of the context, without which you can't interpret the words.
Leon seems to be arguing that Shakespeare's best line is "To be"
"Killing of Charlie Kirk being used to bolster the UK's biggest far right rally in decades.".
Just as discussed yesterday, a prime result ( and use, in outlets like the Mail and Telegraph's case) of the absurd level of Charlie Kirk coverage is the importation of an even more extreme conservative political culture.
AstraZeneca pauses £200m investment in Cambridge research site Decision means none of drugmaker’s much-trumpeted £650m UK investment package is currently proceeding
Even if there was an imminent by-election what seat could Labour actually be guaranteed to win given their current polling.
I just find him grating , he seems to think he’s the chosen one who will save Labour .
If Powell loses the leadership election she could spend more time with her family and he'd win Manc Central very easily
REALLY ? An unprovoking Labour Candidate would have trouble coming second in a by-election. Burnham would struggle to come third even if the full resources of the Labour Party nationally were deployed to help him - which I suspect they wouldn't be. Any Labour triggered by-election would, depending upon where it was result in either a Reform, Green or Palestinian victory, or even in some seats which had been Tory a Conservative one.
You do begin to wonder if the Starmer regime will survive while next May's council elections, or even the budget. Like Steven Reed at Defra, none of them will be missed.
John Podhoretz, whom I don't usually have much time for, had a very good thread on the malign effects of social media, which is quite persuasive.
https://x.com/jpodhoretz/status/1966474548762607694 Here's the danger of social media. It allows people to publish their internal monologues. Our internal monologues and fantasies are often incredibly ugly. People go to therapists because they feel so guilty about them, and one of the tasks of a therapist is to explain that 1/
2/ thoughts are not actions. You can rage in your thoughts about your brother, or someone at work, even fantasize about them dying--but you have done nothing and are guilty of nothing, and you need to forgive yourself and learn how to calm yourself down.
3/ This is, I imagine, what Catholic confession is for, though you are, I gather, obliged to do penance for your evil thoughts. But remember--they are still inside you. They are between you and you. Since 2007, people have a means of externalizing that interior monologue ->
4/ and this means something. A researcher at MIT saying, rather than thinking, "I really want to see that video of Charlie Kirk dying again because it works better than my anti-depressant" has become a public act. I see it. I am affected by it. The public discourse is too.
My sense of how the world works and what people are really like undergoes a change. I become rageful, and believe people who think this way are evil. It's likely they are not. They just have a means of externalizing the parts of them that no one ever saw. ->
6/ But another human tendency, the tendency to extrapolate from individual samples to the whole, kicks in then as well. I will assume that anyone and everyone like that MIT researcher is an enemy of everything good and is unsalvageable. In that way my world shrinks. ->
7/ The part of him that dehumanizes Charlie Kirk and turns his assassination into a joke then threatens to dehumanize me in a way. And seriously, before social media, I would never even know he existed, or that he thought what he thought, and that was better for him and me ->
8/ "Use every man after his desert," Hamlet says, "and who should 'scape whipping?" Meaning: if the world knew what was going on inside us, we would all be punished viscerally for it. Until 2007, for the most part, the world would not, could not, know. ->
9/ The question is, and I mean this literally: Can civilization survive now that we have been made witness to the interior lives of others? ..
It was straightforward for Labour to unite around Starmer, the burning desire to return to government after 4 defeats kept everyone (well nearly everyone) pulling in the same direction. But very tricky indeed to keep such a large parliamentary party placated with only so many jobs to go around.
Is there a unifying leader hiding in plain sight in there somewhere?
A good question and I cannot see one
Agreed. There doesn't seem to be one.
And the nature of the times makes me suspect that there can't be one. A truly great national leader would need to get everyone to accept quite a bit of pain- all of us paying more tax to get less stuff from the state. Accepting that being a NIMBY, or stopping serious contribution to society because you have made your pile just aren't on. Acknowledging that by living in Britain on the 21st century, we've all done pretty well in the lottery of life- maybe not the jackpot, but a solid bonus ball prize. And that comes with responsibilities to other human beings and to the future.
But in the culture we're in, I simply don't think that's possible. We want it all, we want it for us and we want it now. Do the nasty bits to them over there.
I'd love to think that someone is out there to save us. But I don't see how anyone can stand against the torrent of attack all politicians now get.
All political careers end in failure, as someone once said. Inevitable, really, given the politician's psyche. But when every PM fails as rapidly as this, I have to think that it's the pitch at fault, not the batsmen.
Does anyone really think that Burnham, Badenoch, Farage, Polanski or Davey would survive any better, as opposed to placating a different minority slice of the electorate?
AstraZeneca pauses £200m investment in Cambridge research site Decision means none of drugmaker’s much-trumpeted £650m UK investment package is currently proceeding
Last one out please remember to turn the lights off...
Life sciences are in trouble everywhere thanks to Trump. ~50% of global pharma revenue comes from US.
That's not true. Life sciences are booming in China. And the US pharma is starting to outsource a significant portion of its research there.
In the last five years or so China has gone from copying the west's biological research (which no doubt they still do) to producing their own original stuff.
Another threat to one of the UK's remaining significant industries.
It was straightforward for Labour to unite around Starmer, the burning desire to return to government after 4 defeats kept everyone (well nearly everyone) pulling in the same direction. But very tricky indeed to keep such a large parliamentary party placated with only so many jobs to go around.
Is there a unifying leader hiding in plain sight in there somewhere?
A good question and I cannot see one
Agreed. There doesn't seem to be one.
And the nature of the times makes me suspect that there can't be one. A truly great national leader would need to get everyone to accept quite a bit of pain- all of us paying more tax to get less stuff from the state. Accepting that being a NIMBY, or stopping serious contribution to society because you have made your pile just aren't on. Acknowledging that by living in Britain on the 21st century, we've all done pretty well in the lottery of life- maybe not the jackpot, but a solid bonus ball prize. And that comes with responsibilities to other human beings and to the future.
But in the culture we're in, I simply don't think that's possible. We want it all, we want it for us and we want it now. Do the nasty bits to them over there.
I'd love to think that someone is out there to save us. But I don't see how anyone can stand against the torrent of attack all politicians now get.
All political careers end in failure, as someone once said. Inevitable, really, given the politician's psyche. But when every PM fails as rapidly as this, I have to think that it's the pitch at fault, not the batsmen.
Does anyone really think that Burnham, Badenoch, Farage, Polanski or Davey would survive any better, as opposed to placating a different minority slice of the electorate?
Really?
"We're all in this together" has to be more than a slogan.
Taxes must rise for everyone, spending must fall for everyone.
AstraZeneca pauses £200m investment in Cambridge research site Decision means none of drugmaker’s much-trumpeted £650m UK investment package is currently proceeding
Last one out please remember to turn the lights off...
Life sciences are in trouble everywhere thanks to Trump. ~50% of global pharma revenue comes from US.
Not really. It's the mucked up way that the US runs it's healthcare industry. Family member worked in pharma and drugs pricing. It was accepted that the US had allowed profit margins to be loaded on drugs cost whereas outside the US prices were closer (or below) market prices.
This is more about the centre of gravity for pharma moving eastwards towards the emerging middle classes in China and India. The richer you become, the more pills you can pop.
Comments
He’s on the left, you got it wrong, move on, it happens
Honestly, I think this question is now the $64m UK political question of the next year.
Certainly if May elections are as dire as it looks for Labour then the question becomes top issue.
Will Burnham take the risk? If he loses Gorton by-election then the march on Rome is over.
Again, just take the L and move on. As more facts come out it will just get worse. I mean you posted that he was so far right that he assassinated Kirk for not being right wing enough earlier which we know to be false. You're spinning a narrative that doesn't is objectively incorrect and now you just need to take a step back from bluecry and the radical leftists on there who have been popping champagne corks today.
They seem to intuit that it's partly to import an even more extreme conservative political culture than here.
The combination of this with easy access to powerful guns in the US makes it much worse there.
For context, London homicide rate would put it around 170th in the list of US cities. Just below Honolulu in Hawaii.
It's just a different world over there.
Alfie Tobutt
@AlfieTobutt
·
1h
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Burnham prepares challenge to Starmer
https://x.com/AlfieTobutt/status/1966608414286454835
I think probably more like more school-shooters. A dead end kid, angry at the world, too much time on the Internet gaming, hates his course and wanted his 15 minutes of fame. Combine it with access to guns and there you go.
Even PB has succumbed to the Black is White, War is Peace, Burnham isn't popular, Utah gun nut families are a hive of radical leftism bollocks.
Haven't you guys heard of Occam's Razor. Or karma?
You’re the mad one, here
https://x.com/Rightanglenews/status/1966264506486853810
This got no ban by Twitch, millions of young people across America (and the world) watch this guy. He has previously expressed support for Houthi terrorists, had live interviews with a Houthi terrorist, he's openly supported Hezbollah and Hamas, not just in conjunction with Israel but even against other Middle Eastern nations, he has called for literal violence against people on the right constantly.
This is the world of online streaming and constantly it's these leftists and associates that are calling for violence against people who disagree with them. For example, one of this guys associates put a $40k bounty on another Twitch streamer who she disagreed with. Even jokingly, that kind of rhetoric is extremely dangerous.
However it seems to me Tyler Robinson is not one of these (despite having some traits). He’s much more classically hard left mad antifa, in rebellion against a conservative Mormon family
The Trump factor and huge increase in social media have delivered a perfect storm . No one’s ignoring that this problem only exists on the right. As the right became more extreme the counterweight will happen so some on the left have gone down that road .
In a country awash with guns this inevitably leads to tragedy but it’s nauseating to see the right play the victims when their poster boy Trump is a huge factor in all of this .
However, I do believe there is evidence that the number of mass school shootings has increased significantly in the period since Columbine. Whether that's due to the internet, social media, or anything else is open to debate.
Although even BJO returns to the fold.
It was absolute classic Nicola Murray.
The government is now facing calls for a furlough scheme to be set up, to prevent widespread job losses
BBC News - Jaguar Land Rover suppliers 'face bankruptcy' due to hack crisis - BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czdjn0lv64ro
I’m already okay with socialism, mmt, and the fourth international. I will also perform a hammed up eye roll at a Farragist. If they are looking the other way.
Am I in danger of holding up a placard?
There are also the interesting cases where mentally ill people will refuse to take their medicines, prefering insanity to the side effects. For those, I suppose, we need some kind of intermediate treatment.
But of course it's a factor in the kind of unplanned murders like that of the poor Ukrainian girl.
A quick search suggests that states have been closing long term mental health facilities since the 1950s. Medicare doesn't fund placement in such institutions.
In terms of general access to mental health care, access to funding was increased significantly under Obama's Affordable Care Act. But it's still limited or unavailable to many - and this administration is in the process of massively cutting federal health spending.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/12/trump-fox-friends-charlie-kirk-shooting
.. In an interview on Fox & Friends on Friday morning, the US president was asked what he intended to do to heal the wounds of Kirk’s shooting in Utah. “How do we fix this country? How do we come back together?” he was asked by the show’s co-host Ainsley Earhardt, who commented that there were radicals operating on the left and right of US politics.
Less than 48 hours after Kirk was shot in broad daylight on the campus of Utah Valley University, Trump replied: “I tell you something that is going to get me in trouble, but I couldn’t care less.”..
Today we're announcing Gauss, our first autoformalization agent that just completed Terry Tao & Alex Kontorovich's Strong Prime Number Theorem project in 3 weeks—an effort that took human experts 18+ months of partial progress.
https://x.com/mathematics_inc/status/1966194751847461309
My life is going badly so I get depressed, I am depressed so I stay at home and my life goes worse, so I get more depressed so my life goes worse, etc.
We saw that perhaps most clearly with the Conservatives in the 90s - everything was going badly so they turned on each other so everything went even worse so they turned on each other even more. Despite a flourishing economy and no significant external threats.
What safeguards would you like to see added in order to make the assisted dying bill acceptable? My criticism was of those parliamentarians for whom the prospect of assisted dying is in itself unthinkable, and whose aim is not to improve the bill but to end it, yet who speak as if it is only the details that are of concern and that with a bit of tinkering they would support the bill.
Lord Falconer: If the patient wants to take control of the time of their own death, they are, under the current law, legally entitled to take their own life, but they must do so without any assistance, often horribly...
Others go to Dignitas, often alone, because those who accompany them from England fear the consequences of the criminal law.
https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2025-09-12/debates/F2CE6BA1-3CA1-4032-9398-E07D35A35F95/TerminallyIllAdults(EndOfLife)Bill
Meanwhile:-
Esther Rantzen says she will go to Dignitas to die alone
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09/12/lords-debate-assisted-dying-bill/ (£££)
For years now, I've not really watched much news. I think the insanely highly level of Kirk coverage compared to (going by the BBC website) the Poland/Russia story being well down the order is one of the reasons why. A fixation on the US when a close ally is having incursions by Russia is dumb as hell.
We need (both UK and Poland) to be learning from Ukraine about drone warfare, both offensively and defensively.
Common language making people forget the USA is a (very) foreign country.
Poland is arguably our closest natural ally in Europe and it’s just been attacked by our no.1 geopolitical enemy.
Photo of a very young Tyler with his first computer
(it may be an acted clip, but still...)
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lDm3F3G0nHs
"Killing of Charlie Kirk being used to bolster the UK's biggest far right rally in decades.".
Just as discussed yesterday, a prime result ( and use, in outlets like the Mail and Telegraph's case) of the absurd level of Charlie Kirk coverage is the importation of an even more extreme conservative political culture.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/sep/13/charlie-kirk-killing-invoked-bolster-uk-largest-far-right-rally-decades
(Incidentally, American MH care for the extremely troubled is something I don't know about, but I have a suspicion that their organisational and finding model would handle that sort of thing really badly in most cases. Anyone know?)
The enormous cosmic irony is that Charlie Kirk was factually right in what he said- if you have mass gun ownership, these sort of evens will happen from time to time. He just drew the wrong conclusion from that.
Some on the right in the US can't come to terms with it being one of their own this time, rather than some kids in a primary school or jokes about Pelosi being nearly killed.
And it's all in English.
I can offer an interpretation for you however. I suspect the point is in the Kirk case when social media determined the killer was trans there was a clamour to punish the trans community. Conversely when it appears the perp was white and middle class there was no demand to chase down white middle class people.
In Liverpool, early reports of the assailant being Muslim or an asylum seeker led social media to demand a clamp down on Muslims and asylum seekers, when it turned out he was none of those things, but instead a Scouser there was no call to punish Scousers.
My takeaway from that photo - it’s not stopping your kids having access to the internet, it’s stopping the internet having access to your kid.
Interesting take on Lucy Powell by Sky
https://news.sky.com/story/why-sacking-lucy-powell-might-come-back-to-haunt-starmer-13428131
As Americans would say enough already .
Is there a unifying leader hiding in plain sight in there somewhere?
For me they need to concentrate on more domestic news
The Kirk coverage is insane
It's clearly about their free speech, not the free speech of others.
This is one area where I don't want American 'culture' coming into the UK.
He certainly is on manoeuvers and is one to watch at Labour's conference
Maybe by that time Starmer will have emerged from his bunker as he is been AWOL since PMQs
NEW THREAD
Leon seems to be arguing that Shakespeare's best line is "To be"
Einstein stopped at "E="
The EU Parliament had a bitter (albeit fairly short) debate over a motion to hold a minute's silence for him.
You do begin to wonder if the Starmer regime will survive while next May's council elections, or even the budget. Like Steven Reed at Defra, none of them will be missed.
https://x.com/jpodhoretz/status/1966474548762607694
Here's the danger of social media. It allows people to publish their internal monologues. Our internal monologues and fantasies are often incredibly ugly. People go to therapists because they feel so guilty about them, and one of the tasks of a therapist is to explain that 1/
2/ thoughts are not actions. You can rage in your thoughts about your brother, or someone at work, even fantasize about them dying--but you have done nothing and are guilty of nothing, and you need to forgive yourself and learn how to calm yourself down.
3/ This is, I imagine, what Catholic confession is for, though you are, I gather, obliged to do penance for your evil thoughts. But remember--they are still inside you. They are between you and you. Since 2007, people have a means of externalizing that interior monologue ->
4/ and this means something. A researcher at MIT saying, rather than thinking, "I really want to see that video of Charlie Kirk dying again because it works better than my anti-depressant" has become a public act. I see it. I am affected by it. The public discourse is too.
My sense of how the world works and what people are really like undergoes a change. I become rageful, and believe people who think this way are evil. It's likely they are not. They just have a means of externalizing the parts of them that no one ever saw. ->
6/ But another human tendency, the tendency to extrapolate from individual samples to the whole, kicks in then as well. I will assume that anyone and everyone like that MIT researcher is an enemy of everything good and is unsalvageable. In that way my world shrinks. ->
7/ The part of him that dehumanizes Charlie Kirk and turns his assassination into a joke then threatens to dehumanize me in a way. And seriously, before social media, I would never even know he existed, or that he thought what he thought, and that was better for him and me ->
8/ "Use every man after his desert," Hamlet says, "and who should 'scape whipping?" Meaning: if the world knew what was going on inside us, we would all be punished viscerally for it. Until 2007, for the most part, the world would not, could not, know. ->
9/ The question is, and I mean this literally: Can civilization survive now that we have been made witness to the interior lives of others? ..
And the nature of the times makes me suspect that there can't be one. A truly great national leader would need to get everyone to accept quite a bit of pain- all of us paying more tax to get less stuff from the state. Accepting that being a NIMBY, or stopping serious contribution to society because you have made your pile just aren't on. Acknowledging that by living in Britain on the 21st century, we've all done pretty well in the lottery of life- maybe not the jackpot, but a solid bonus ball prize. And that comes with responsibilities to other human beings and to the future.
But in the culture we're in, I simply don't think that's possible. We want it all, we want it for us and we want it now. Do the nasty bits to them over there.
I'd love to think that someone is out there to save us. But I don't see how anyone can stand against the torrent of attack all politicians now get.
All political careers end in failure, as someone once said. Inevitable, really, given the politician's psyche. But when every PM fails as rapidly as this, I have to think that it's the pitch at fault, not the batsmen.
Does anyone really think that Burnham, Badenoch, Farage, Polanski or Davey would survive any better, as opposed to placating a different minority slice of the electorate?
Really?
Life sciences are booming in China. And the US pharma is starting to outsource a significant portion of its research there.
In the last five years or so China has gone from copying the west's biological research (which no doubt they still do) to producing their own original stuff.
Another threat to one of the UK's remaining significant industries.
Taxes must rise for everyone, spending must fall for everyone.
No exemptions.
This is more about the centre of gravity for pharma moving eastwards towards the emerging middle classes in China and India. The richer you become, the more pills you can pop.