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Will this impact Reform’s chances in the Senedd? – politicalbetting.com

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  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 53,403

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    People are sick of the "process state". That's why Farage is heading for no 10.

    People won't like it better when it is a process-free state, with Farage signing off executive orders like a down market Trump.
    The point is that the modern Process State is straight out of James Burnham.

    Its priority is the process, the people are fodder to be fed to it. It is inhumane in the deepest sense.

    The latest idea, to commoditise The Headcount and sell their lives to Peter Thiel, is more of the same.

    Reform being a shower of shit and not the answer, doesn’t change that.
    I know its a bit of an obsession of yours, but what is the alternative to a state that follows a process?

    It seems to me the alternative is a state that makes capricious decisions, without a process. It sounds like a recipie for corruption and cronyism, with politicians bunging contracts to their mates, over-riding legal objections and arbitrary actions. In short it sounds like tyranny.
    Process is important. But not as important as doing the right thing. If the process gets in the way of the right thing then it is flawed and should be amended.

    For example: the delays to paying out compensation where the state has been found to have failed (blood infections; post office).
    Sure, but that is just about adjusting the process, not getting rid of it.

    Of course process should be democratically accountable, and compliant with the law. So it is perfectly within the remit of a process state to pay out over the Post Office and blood scandals. The problem is that the government (and previous ones) haven't budgeted the funds, not that the system is unwilling.
    I think it’s a definitional issue.

    A well run state has processes. A “process state” is a state in which the process is all that matters.

    “The government hadn’t budgeted for it” is a fucking pathetic excuse. I thought better of you @Foxy. Setting aside the fact that contingency funds are included in budgets to deal with stuff like this, the state has been found guilty by courts and instructed to pay compensation to citizens that it has harmed. It should go so quickly and efficiently.
    It is a pathetic excuse, but that is why neither this government nor the last one is paying out, despite the court order.

    The court order is the process. The process state works.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 40,367
    @KennyFarq

    A phrase from the Ryder Cup commentary that I might borrow for a politics piece sometime: “a whole lot of ouch”.
  • geoffw said:

    Foss said:

    IanB2 said:

    Two million sigs within the next minute or two…..

    1988855 from the UK. Not that it'll matter in 20 minutes.
    Are the overseas petitioners ex-pats or vacationers, or can anyone add their name?
    If we had digital ID cards we would be able to tell.
    "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin, 1755.
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 11,074
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    People are sick of the "process state". That's why Farage is heading for no 10.

    People won't like it better when it is a process-free state, with Farage signing off executive orders like a down market Trump.
    The point is that the modern Process State is straight out of James Burnham.

    Its priority is the process, the people are fodder to be fed to it. It is inhumane in the deepest sense.

    The latest idea, to commoditise The Headcount and sell their lives to Peter Thiel, is more of the same.

    Reform being a shower of shit and not the answer, doesn’t change that.
    I know its a bit of an obsession of yours, but what is the alternative to a state that follows a process?

    It seems to me the alternative is a state that makes capricious decisions, without a process. It sounds like a recipie for corruption and cronyism, with politicians bunging contracts to their mates, over-riding legal objections and arbitrary actions. In short it sounds like tyranny.
    Process is important. But not as important as doing the right thing. If the process gets in the way of the right thing then it is flawed and should be amended.

    For example: the delays to paying out compensation where the state has been found to have failed (blood infections; post office).
    Sure, but that is just about adjusting the process, not getting rid of it.

    Of course process should be democratically accountable, and compliant with the law. So it is perfectly within the remit of a process state to pay out over the Post Office and blood scandals. The problem is that the government (and previous ones) haven't budgeted the funds, not that the system is unwilling.
    I think it’s a definitional issue.

    A well run state has processes. A “process state” is a state in which the process is all that matters.

    “The government hadn’t budgeted for it” is a fucking pathetic excuse. I thought better of you @Foxy. Setting aside the fact that contingency funds are included in budgets to deal with stuff like this, the state has been found guilty by courts and instructed to pay compensation to citizens that it has harmed. It should go so quickly and efficiently.
    It is a pathetic excuse, but that is why neither this government nor the last one is paying out, despite the court order.

    The court order is the process. The process state works.
    You’ve literally contradicted yourself in that post.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 65,702
    MaxPB said:

    Phil said:

    Foxy said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Good evening

    Am I reading it correct that a poll tonight makes Starmer worst PM ever

    Including Truss????

    If so that is astounding

    And I was told to "leave the site" - in much uglier terms - for being too unfair on Skyr. Halfwit Dads told me I was polling all my own friends, and deluded - "Starmer isn't that unpopular". @Gardenwalker came on here and said the anti-Starmer stuff is wildly overdone

    They were all wrong, and I was right. Starmer is uniquely loathed. You can feel it, I felt it, this is the case

    I do not see how he recovers and he will be gone next year
    It's definitely true that people don't like him. My friends who are reliably middle of the road lefties that buy into some of the woke nonsense don't like him at all. That's his only remaining support base and they're turning on him too.
    Genuinely interested. Why do you think they don't like him? His whole USP was he was boring but not the Tories and definitely wouldn't piss off / scare exactly the sort of people you are talking about. He is supposedly the embodiment of the soft lefty technocrat / managerial class.
    There's a great article in today's Guardian that explains why he is doing so badly:

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/26/labour-reform-uk-nigel-farage-immigration-voters?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

    It's pretty obvious really. People didn't vote Labour to get Reform-lite.
    Their thesis might even be true. The problem for the government is that the electorate have already decided that immigration is the most salient issue for them: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/trackers/the-most-important-issues-facing-the-country

    & that change predates the recent UK government announcements.

    (I also note in passing that this article singularly fails to mention Denmark, which did implement far reaching immigration changes & defanged the far right.)
    Indeed and every government will fall until the issue of immigration is resolved to a degree that voters think is enough. Even reform will fall of they don't propey handle immigration and deliver net zero migration or net emigration as they have promised. Labour will live and die by the same rules as the other parties and simply ignoring or welcoming immigration won't work. If anything they'll lose faster. Being pro-migration is a niche stance in this country and the PB centrists who say that Laboir are losing by being reform-lite haven't got a clue about the depth of anger in the nation about the subject.
    Quite so
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 57,299

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    People are sick of the "process state". That's why Farage is heading for no 10.

    People won't like it better when it is a process-free state, with Farage signing off executive orders like a down market Trump.
    The point is that the modern Process State is straight out of James Burnham.

    Its priority is the process, the people are fodder to be fed to it. It is inhumane in the deepest sense.

    The latest idea, to commoditise The Headcount and sell their lives to Peter Thiel, is more of the same.

    Reform being a shower of shit and not the answer, doesn’t change that.
    I know its a bit of an obsession of yours, but what is the alternative to a state that follows a process?

    It seems to me the alternative is a state that makes capricious decisions, without a process. It sounds like a recipie for corruption and cronyism, with politicians bunging contracts to their mates, over-riding legal objections and arbitrary actions. In short it sounds like tyranny.
    Process is important. But not as important as doing the right thing. If the process gets in the way of the right thing then it is flawed and should be amended.

    For example: the delays to paying out compensation where the state has been found to have failed (blood infections; post office).
    Sure, but that is just about adjusting the process, not getting rid of it.

    Of course process should be democratically accountable, and compliant with the law. So it is perfectly within the remit of a process state to pay out over the Post Office and blood scandals. The problem is that the government (and previous ones) haven't budgeted the funds, not that the system is unwilling.
    I think it’s a definitional issue.

    A well run state has processes. A “process state” is a state in which the process is all that matters.

    “The government hadn’t budgeted for it” is a fucking pathetic excuse. I thought better of you @Foxy. Setting aside the fact that contingency funds are included in budgets to deal with stuff like this, the state has been found guilty by courts and instructed to pay compensation to citizens that it has harmed. It should do so quickly and efficiently.
    @Foxy is a senior official at The Circumlocution Office, it seems.

    Fun fact - the Post Office has paid promptly all the severance packages and pension of the senior managers who resigned because they were criminals.

    They adamantly oppose the compensation payments, of course.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 40,846
    Leon said:

    I think PB is agreed that Starmer is a goner, and will go, and has to go, or Labour has no chance

    What, then, is the optimum timing? For his party? 2026 or 2027? 2028 is surely too late, there might actually be a GE. 2027 is cutting it fine to establish a new persona and a new direction (if such a thing is possible)

    2026 it is. To my mind. After the spring elex, of course - which will be suitably dire for Lab

    If he doesn't want to go he will be very hard to budge as a sitting PM. I think we're so used to the Tories and the very low bar they have to remove a leader that people are underestimating how hard it will be to remove Starmer. I think the plotters will have to force Reeves out first.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 11,986
    edited September 27
    Leon said:

    I think PB is agreed that Starmer is a goner, and will go, and has to go, or Labour has no chance

    What, then, is the optimum timing? For his party? 2026 or 2027? 2028 is surely too late, there might actually be a GE. 2027 is cutting it fine to establish a new persona and a new direction (if such a thing is possible)

    2026 it is. To my mind. After the spring elex, of course - which will be suitably dire for Lab

    It could be earlier after the budget (26/11). Reeves gets dropped, Starmer goes shortly after.

    A spring reset in the run up to Wales/Scotland would make sense. I think Starmer will know this and therefore the budget could be quite radical in order to fend it off - though this might be wishcasting by me.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 88,054
    edited September 27
    Foxy said:

    I mean there's no denying that Starmer is absolutely wank

    I disagree. Wanking is quite popular.
    I think we have got to the core issue...forget the political science bloke in the Guardian about immigration, a PM that makes wanking more difficult by having to produce you digital ID card to access helpful material.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 20,996
    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    I think PB is agreed that Starmer is a goner, and will go, and has to go, or Labour has no chance

    What, then, is the optimum timing? For his party? 2026 or 2027? 2028 is surely too late, there might actually be a GE. 2027 is cutting it fine to establish a new persona and a new direction (if such a thing is possible)

    2026 it is. To my mind. After the spring elex, of course - which will be suitably dire for Lab

    It could be earlier after the budget (26/11). Reeves gets dropped, Starmer goes shortly after.

    A spring reset in the run up to Wales/Scotland would make sense. I think Starmer will know this and therefore the budget could be quite radical - though this might be wishcasting by me.
    Starmer doesn't do radical. It will be boringly shit.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 53,403

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    People are sick of the "process state". That's why Farage is heading for no 10.

    People won't like it better when it is a process-free state, with Farage signing off executive orders like a down market Trump.
    The point is that the modern Process State is straight out of James Burnham.

    Its priority is the process, the people are fodder to be fed to it. It is inhumane in the deepest sense.

    The latest idea, to commoditise The Headcount and sell their lives to Peter Thiel, is more of the same.

    Reform being a shower of shit and not the answer, doesn’t change that.
    I know its a bit of an obsession of yours, but what is the alternative to a state that follows a process?

    It seems to me the alternative is a state that makes capricious decisions, without a process. It sounds like a recipie for corruption and cronyism, with politicians bunging contracts to their mates, over-riding legal objections and arbitrary actions. In short it sounds like tyranny.
    Process is important. But not as important as doing the right thing. If the process gets in the way of the right thing then it is flawed and should be amended.

    For example: the delays to paying out compensation where the state has been found to have failed (blood infections; post office).
    Sure, but that is just about adjusting the process, not getting rid of it.

    Of course process should be democratically accountable, and compliant with the law. So it is perfectly within the remit of a process state to pay out over the Post Office and blood scandals. The problem is that the government (and previous ones) haven't budgeted the funds, not that the system is unwilling.
    I think it’s a definitional issue.

    A well run state has processes. A “process state” is a state in which the process is all that matters.

    “The government hadn’t budgeted for it” is a fucking pathetic excuse. I thought better of you @Foxy. Setting aside the fact that contingency funds are included in budgets to deal with stuff like this, the state has been found guilty by courts and instructed to pay compensation to citizens that it has harmed. It should do so quickly and efficiently.
    @Foxy is a senior official at The Circumlocution Office, it seems.

    Fun fact - the Post Office has paid promptly all the severance packages and pension of the senior managers who resigned because they were criminals.

    They adamantly oppose the compensation payments, of course.
    So far a billion pounds has been paid out to postmasters. Obviously more is due, as it is with the blood scandal, but the money has to be found first.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 11,986

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    I think PB is agreed that Starmer is a goner, and will go, and has to go, or Labour has no chance

    What, then, is the optimum timing? For his party? 2026 or 2027? 2028 is surely too late, there might actually be a GE. 2027 is cutting it fine to establish a new persona and a new direction (if such a thing is possible)

    2026 it is. To my mind. After the spring elex, of course - which will be suitably dire for Lab

    It could be earlier after the budget (26/11). Reeves gets dropped, Starmer goes shortly after.

    A spring reset in the run up to Wales/Scotland would make sense. I think Starmer will know this and therefore the budget could be quite radical - though this might be wishcasting by me.
    Starmer doesn't do radical. It will be boringly shit.
    Wishcasting then. Sigh.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 40,846

    Eabhal said:

    Leon said:

    I think PB is agreed that Starmer is a goner, and will go, and has to go, or Labour has no chance

    What, then, is the optimum timing? For his party? 2026 or 2027? 2028 is surely too late, there might actually be a GE. 2027 is cutting it fine to establish a new persona and a new direction (if such a thing is possible)

    2026 it is. To my mind. After the spring elex, of course - which will be suitably dire for Lab

    It could be earlier after the budget (26/11). Reeves gets dropped, Starmer goes shortly after.

    A spring reset in the run up to Wales/Scotland would make sense. I think Starmer will know this and therefore the budget could be quite radical - though this might be wishcasting by me.
    Starmer doesn't do radical. It will be boringly shit.
    The sum total will be to shuffle around £5bn between departments and maybe raise £5bn in tax to keep bond markets happy.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 65,702
    Flat refurb part 9,387

    My black magic Siwa Egyptian Berber witch’s poppet, dancing on her circular dais of sliced ayahuasca, has a new stage. And a £28 Habitat lamp

    Quite frankly, if I don’t win the next British interior design Nobel Prize it will be a travesty. Look at her as she whirls! Hurling the curses of the Sahara


  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 9,268
    The 2 million petition is good news for Starmer-Reeves because it tells them how large is the demand not to have digital id – so they should introduce it as the default but with an option to buy your way out of it. That'll make a dent in the black hole. Every little helps
  • numbertwelvenumbertwelve Posts: 8,164
    edited September 27
    Leon said:

    Sir Keir Starmer is the least popular prime minister on record, a poll has shown. Rachel Reeves is now also the least popular chancellor since records began, it found.

    Double Whammy.

    I still find it quite incredible how much the public dislike them.

    It's a unique collision involving

    1. Total incompetence

    2. Gross hypocrisy

    and

    3. (in Starmer's case) Outright treachery - he dislikes native Britons and does things that pointlessly hurt Britain - Chagos

    He's a dead man walking
    Correction to point 3 - it’s worse than that. He tries desperately to hide all of these decisions by wrapping himself in the flag in cringeworthy ways and telling everyone he is renewing us all patriotically (whatever that means) and making speeches about how awful mass migration is, only to then tell everyone how much he regretted saying it weeks later.

    He is shockingly insincere, and he can’t land that type of doublethink that skilled politicians can. He doesn’t come close. He just makes people think he’s an idiot.

  • LeonLeon Posts: 65,702

    Leon said:

    Sir Keir Starmer is the least popular prime minister on record, a poll has shown. Rachel Reeves is now also the least popular chancellor since records began, it found.

    Double Whammy.

    I still find it quite incredible how much the public dislike them.

    It's a unique collision involving

    1. Total incompetence

    2. Gross hypocrisy

    and

    3. (in Starmer's case) Outright treachery - he dislikes native Britons and does things that pointlessly hurt Britain - Chagos

    He's a dead man walking
    Correction to point 3 - it’s worse than that. He tries desperately to hide all of these decisions by wrapping himself in the flag in cringeworthy ways and telling everyone he is renewing us all patriotically (whatever that means) and making speeches about how awful mass migration is, only to then tell everyone how much he regretted saying it weeks later.

    He is shockingly insincere, and he can’t land that type of doublethink that skilled politicians can. He doesn’t come close. He just makes people think he’s an idiot.

    All true. The flag shagging stuff is particularly cringe. We all know it is a lie. He cannot carry it off. And then there is his "close friendship" with Attorney General Hermer, who actively seeks to oppose the interests of the UK and its citizens, at any and every opportunity, AFIACS
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 124,004
    edited September 27

    geoffw said:

    Foss said:

    IanB2 said:

    Two million sigs within the next minute or two…..

    1988855 from the UK. Not that it'll matter in 20 minutes.
    Are the overseas petitioners ex-pats or vacationers, or can anyone add their name?
    If we had digital ID cards we would be able to tell.
    "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin, 1755.
    Ben Franklin owned slaves, he can pipe down when it comes to the liberty of human beings.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 57,299

    Leon said:

    Sir Keir Starmer is the least popular prime minister on record, a poll has shown. Rachel Reeves is now also the least popular chancellor since records began, it found.

    Double Whammy.

    I still find it quite incredible how much the public dislike them.

    It's a unique collision involving

    1. Total incompetence

    2. Gross hypocrisy

    and

    3. (in Starmer's case) Outright treachery - he dislikes native Britons and does things that pointlessly hurt Britain - Chagos

    He's a dead man walking
    Correction to point 3 - it’s worse than that. He tries desperately to hide all of these decisions by wrapping himself in the flag in cringeworthy ways and telling everyone he is renewing us all patriotically (whatever that means) and making speeches about how awful mass migration is, only to then tell everyone how much he regretted saying it weeks later.

    He is shockingly insincere, and he can’t land that type of doublethink that skilled politicians can. He doesn’t come close. He just makes people think he’s an idiot.


    Bernard Woolley: About ends and means. I mean, will I end up as a moral vacuum too?
    Sir Humphrey Appleby: Oh, I hope so, Bernard. If you work hard enough.
  • nico67nico67 Posts: 6,446
    Those in power never want to let it go . So I don’t think Starmer will go quietly .
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 56,495
    So, the Europeans need 14 points to keep the Ryder Cup and they just might be on 12.5 tonight, lets say 11.5. This is all over isn't it?
  • RogerRoger Posts: 21,192
    edited September 27

    IanB2 said:

    Two million sigs within the next minute or two…..

    It's a good job Starmer is very popular in general and built up a lot of good will for such a controversial policy.
    Why do so many on the right spend such a tedious amount of time competing with each other to say how much they loathe Keir Starmer? Only someone coming onto the site for the first time will have avoided the same posters saying the same thing using the same words dozens of times before. Most just log out as I do. Life is too short to be dragged down into your rabbit holes reading the same tedium day after day after day after day

    My question is this. Is it just a lack of creativity and imagination or do you think you are influencing people?...
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 57,299
    Roger said:

    IanB2 said:

    Two million sigs within the next minute or two…..

    It's a good job Starmer is very popular in general and built up a lot of good will for such a controversial policy.
    Why do so many on the right spend such a tedious amount of time competing with each other to say how much they loathe Keir Starmer? Only someone coming onto the site for the first time will have avoided the same posters saying the same thing using the same words literally dozens of times before. Most just log out as I do. Life is too short to be dragged down your rabbit holes reading the same tedium day after day after day after day

    My question is this. Is it just a lack of creativity and imagination or do you think you are iactually nfluencing people?...
    I recall your homilies on the negative reviews of May, Boris, Truss & Sunak, here.

    Actually, I don’t.

  • spudgfshspudgfsh Posts: 1,581
    DavidL said:

    So, the Europeans need 14 points to keep the Ryder Cup and they just might be on 12.5 tonight, lets say 11.5. This is all over isn't it?

    It's not over but it'd take a miracle for the yanks to win if we get 11+ points
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 7,313
    nico67 said:

    Those in power never want to let it go . So I don’t think Starmer will go quietly .

    If this leads to the Labour Party learning how to fire leaders, it will be a good thing long term.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 65,702
    Roger said:

    IanB2 said:

    Two million sigs within the next minute or two…..

    It's a good job Starmer is very popular in general and built up a lot of good will for such a controversial policy.
    Why do so many on the right spend such a tedious amount of time competing with each other to say how much they loathe Keir Starmer? Only someone coming onto the site for the first time will have avoided the same posters saying the same thing using the same words literally dozens of times before. Most just log out as I do. Life is too short to be dragged down your rabbit holes reading the same tedium day after day after day after day

    My question is this. Is it just a lack of creativity and imagination or do you think you are iactually nfluencing people?...
    We are trying to shove Starmer down the toilet, so he has the worst polling of any prime minister in British history

    Oh look, so he does! Well I never. Cor blimey. Etc
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 88,054
    edited September 27
    Roger said:

    IanB2 said:

    Two million sigs within the next minute or two…..

    It's a good job Starmer is very popular in general and built up a lot of good will for such a controversial policy.
    Why do so many on the right spend such a tedious amount of time competing with each other to say how much they loathe Keir Starmer? Only someone coming onto the site for the first time will have avoided the same posters saying the same thing using the same words literally dozens of times before. Most just log out as I do. Life is too short to be dragged down your rabbit holes reading the same tedium day after day after day after day

    My question is this. Is it just a lack of creativity and imagination or do you think you are iactually nfluencing people?...
    This might come as a shock to you, but I don't actually loathe Starmer. I loathed Brown, I loathed Boris, I don't loathe Starmer. There is a difference between thinking somebody is useless at the job* and loathing them. It is why I find just how unpopular Starmer is , and he is really unpopular with the public, in such a short space of time quite surprising.

    * and I have repeatedly said I think he has done pretty well handling Trump.
  • AnthonyTAnthonyT Posts: 221
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    People are sick of the "process state". That's why Farage is heading for no 10.

    People won't like it better when it is a process-free state, with Farage signing off executive orders like a down market Trump.
    The point is that the modern Process State is straight out of James Burnham.

    Its priority is the process, the people are fodder to be fed to it. It is inhumane in the deepest sense.

    The latest idea, to commoditise The Headcount and sell their lives to Peter Thiel, is more of the same.

    Reform being a shower of shit and not the answer, doesn’t change that.
    I know its a bit of an obsession of yours, but what is the alternative to a state that follows a process?

    It seems to me the alternative is a state that makes capricious decisions, without a process. It sounds like a recipie for corruption and cronyism, with politicians bunging contracts to their mates, over-riding legal objections and arbitrary actions. In short it sounds like tyranny.
    Process is important. But not as important as doing the right thing. If the process gets in the way of the right thing then it is flawed and should be amended.

    For example: the delays to paying out compensation where the state has been found to have failed (blood infections; post office).
    Sure, but that is just about adjusting the process, not getting rid of it.

    Of course process should be democratically accountable, and compliant with the law. So it is perfectly within the remit of a process state to pay out over the Post Office and blood scandals. The problem is that the government (and previous ones) haven't budgeted the funds, not that the system is unwilling.
    I think it’s a definitional issue.

    A well run state has processes. A “process state” is a state in which the process is all that matters.

    “The government hadn’t budgeted for it” is a fucking pathetic excuse. I thought better of you @Foxy. Setting aside the fact that contingency funds are included in budgets to deal with stuff like this, the state has been found guilty by courts and instructed to pay compensation to citizens that it has harmed. It should do so quickly and efficiently.
    @Foxy is a senior official at The Circumlocution Office, it seems.

    Fun fact - the Post Office has paid promptly all the severance packages and pension of the senior managers who resigned because they were criminals.

    They adamantly oppose the compensation payments, of course.
    So far a billion pounds has been paid out to postmasters. Obviously more is due, as it is with the blood scandal, but the money has to be found first.
    The Post Office has the money since they stole it from the subpostmasters in the first place.
  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 3,134
    My worry is who takes over after Starmer. There’s a whole plethora of left wing loons in the party and the crop of Labour MPs are proving to be pretty poor.

    The next couple of days will be the “scrapping of the two child benefit” cap as well, and I think that will be recieved poorly 1. Because Reeves has no money and 2. It’ll feed the reform narrative as there’s certainly a demographic that has more than the average number of children anyway
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 99,455

    geoffw said:

    Foss said:

    IanB2 said:

    Two million sigs within the next minute or two…..

    1988855 from the UK. Not that it'll matter in 20 minutes.
    Are the overseas petitioners ex-pats or vacationers, or can anyone add their name?
    If we had digital ID cards we would be able to tell.
    "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin, 1755.
    Ben Franklin owned slaves, he can pipe down when it comes to the liberty of human beings.
    Everyone has a little bit of hypocrisy in them, but the Founding Fathers did have some rather glaring blindspots.
  • My worry is who takes over after Starmer. There’s a whole plethora of left wing loons in the party and the crop of Labour MPs are proving to be pretty poor.

    The next couple of days will be the “scrapping of the two child benefit” cap as well, and I think that will be recieved poorly 1. Because Reeves has no money and 2. It’ll feed the reform narrative as there’s certainly a demographic that has more than the average number of children anyway

    Bit harsh on Ed Miliband...
  • geoffw said:

    Foss said:

    IanB2 said:

    Two million sigs within the next minute or two…..

    1988855 from the UK. Not that it'll matter in 20 minutes.
    Are the overseas petitioners ex-pats or vacationers, or can anyone add their name?
    If we had digital ID cards we would be able to tell.
    "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin, 1755.
    Ben Franklin owned slaves, he can pipe down when it comes to the liberty of human beings.
    Anyhow:


  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 32,781
    edited September 27

    The New Statesman has some very interesting infirmation on the influence of Larry Ellison on the Blair Institute's push for digital I.D., of which more a bit later.

    It's looking more and more obvious that the entire digital I.D. scheme is the fruit of the combined influence of Ellison on Blair, and Thiel on Starmer.

    Here's Larry Ellison, speaking just today in Dubai :

    :"Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison today proposed unifying citizen data including health records, finances, and voting history into databases to enable AI applications in public services like fraud detection and resource allocation."


    There's something very toxic at the heart of modern Labour. They are far bigger corporate kiss-arses than Boris with his paid-for wedding reception will ever be.

    They must meet electoral oblivion, then never get into power again.
  • geoffw said:

    Foss said:

    IanB2 said:

    Two million sigs within the next minute or two…..

    1988855 from the UK. Not that it'll matter in 20 minutes.
    Are the overseas petitioners ex-pats or vacationers, or can anyone add their name?
    If we had digital ID cards we would be able to tell.
    "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin, 1755.
    Ben Franklin owned slaves, he can pipe down when it comes to the liberty of human beings.
    Yebbut that was the fault of African chiefs and Arab slave traders.
    Or so I have read.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 88,054
    edited September 27
    Somebody has been leaking again,

    Tories demand Commons sleaze investigation after leaked texts suggested secret slush fund to propel Starmer to Labour leadership

    The WhatsApp messages, which were exchanged between senior Labour MPs and workers on the 2019/20 leadership campaigns, appear to directly contradict the party's denials last week that embattled Chief of Staff, Morgan McSweeney, used his Labour Together think tank to back Sir Keir.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15140495/starmer-sleaze-investigation-slush-fund-texts.html
  • geoffw said:

    Foss said:

    IanB2 said:

    Two million sigs within the next minute or two…..

    1988855 from the UK. Not that it'll matter in 20 minutes.
    Are the overseas petitioners ex-pats or vacationers, or can anyone add their name?
    If we had digital ID cards we would be able to tell.
    "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin, 1755.
    Ben Franklin owned slaves, he can pipe down when it comes to the liberty of human beings.
    Anyhow:


    So the majority of Brits haven't signed it.
  • AnthonyTAnthonyT Posts: 221

    CatMan said:
    I've no idea if it will cause gridlock but the number of people who oppose ID cards but are happy to give up fingerprints, mugshots and their firstborn child in exchange for a trip to Disneyland Paris or Disney World Florida would make an interesting Venn diagram.
    An even more interesting Venn diagram would be of those on here claiming that Reform is fascism, being appalled at Reform's proposals to deport those living here legally while being unbothered by a digital ID proposal which will make it very much easier for a Reform or fascist government to carry out such deportations.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 9,268

    geoffw said:

    Foss said:

    IanB2 said:

    Two million sigs within the next minute or two…..

    1988855 from the UK. Not that it'll matter in 20 minutes.
    Are the overseas petitioners ex-pats or vacationers, or can anyone add their name?
    If we had digital ID cards we would be able to tell.
    "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin, 1755.
    Ben Franklin owned slaves, he can pipe down when it comes to the liberty of human beings.
    Anyhow:


    What odds a u-turn at 'Conference ?
  • DeChambeau acting like a complete douchebag.
  • geoffw said:

    geoffw said:

    Foss said:

    IanB2 said:

    Two million sigs within the next minute or two…..

    1988855 from the UK. Not that it'll matter in 20 minutes.
    Are the overseas petitioners ex-pats or vacationers, or can anyone add their name?
    If we had digital ID cards we would be able to tell.
    "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin, 1755.
    Ben Franklin owned slaves, he can pipe down when it comes to the liberty of human beings.
    Anyhow:


    What odds a u-turn at 'Conference ?
    You obviously didn't follow his approach to the WFA and benefits cuts....
  • spudgfshspudgfsh Posts: 1,581

    geoffw said:

    Foss said:

    IanB2 said:

    Two million sigs within the next minute or two…..

    1988855 from the UK. Not that it'll matter in 20 minutes.
    Are the overseas petitioners ex-pats or vacationers, or can anyone add their name?
    If we had digital ID cards we would be able to tell.
    "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin, 1755.
    Ben Franklin owned slaves, he can pipe down when it comes to the liberty of human beings.
    Anyhow:


    I know people like to virtue signal with these petitions, but has any of them ever changed government policy?
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 56,495
    edited September 27
    I don't loathe Starmer either. I am really disappointed. The last years of the Tory government were poor. Sunak was a reasonable technocrat but his party was a complete and utter shambles and he did not have the strength to address our serious problems.

    So, I was hoping for something better, something coherent, something more purposeful. The election campaign and the Ming vase strategy were worries but it has been so disappointing. Over a year on and, if anything, things have got worse. Where do we go next?
  • DeChambeau acting like a complete douchebag.

    Does the day end in a y?
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 88,054
    edited September 27
    This just isn't cricket golf....I reckon Shane Lowry would fill all the American pussies in if it came to it.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 40,367

    DeChambeau acting like a complete douchebag.

    It is entertaining that of all the US players, he has kinda sucked the hardest
  • AnthonyTAnthonyT Posts: 221
    algarkirk said:

    Andy_JS said:

    This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.

    "Rupert Lowe MP
    @RupertLowe10
    British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.

    In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.

    That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?

    Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.

    Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.

    Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.

    I’m not even going to discuss that.

    It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.

    It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.

    Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.

    Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?

    It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.

    And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?

    When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.

    We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.

    As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."

    https://x.com/RupertLowe10/status/1971816994316984476

    Thats a very good summary from Lowe
    If I thought that these words were a typical example of what the new right stood for and how they would govern and represented the traditional decency and moderation of it members and supporters I would cheerfully vote for them.

    I don't.

    And the new right (Reform, Loweists, UKIP, Restore Britain, Lozza Fox, flag raisers, 'extreme', 'far', Robinsonists etc) show no sign whatsoever of being, in reality, these sorts of people.

    BTW, the single greatest objection to ID is the real doubt there is over government's competence to run it without endangering the public.
    Peter Kyle is already on record saying that our privacy will be compromised with digital ID but that's a risk we should be prepared to run.

    Err ..... no.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 20,996
    spudgfsh said:

    geoffw said:

    Foss said:

    IanB2 said:

    Two million sigs within the next minute or two…..

    1988855 from the UK. Not that it'll matter in 20 minutes.
    Are the overseas petitioners ex-pats or vacationers, or can anyone add their name?
    If we had digital ID cards we would be able to tell.
    "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin, 1755.
    Ben Franklin owned slaves, he can pipe down when it comes to the liberty of human beings.
    Anyhow:


    I know people like to virtue signal with these petitions, but has any of them ever changed government policy?
    I'm still waiting for Article 50 to be revoked
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 124,004
    edited September 27

    This just isn't cricket golf....I reckon Shane Lowry would fill all the American pussies in if it came to it.

    The 2025 Ryder Cup is on course to be the biggest humiliation inflicted on America in America since we burned down the White House.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 23,508
    Will sending troops to Portland cement Trump's authority?
  • The golf is of the highest standard though tempers getting a bit frayed
  • This just isn't cricket golf....I reckon Shane Lowry would fill all the American pussies in if it came to it.

    The 2024 Ryder Cup is on course to be the biggest humiliation inflicted on America in America since we burned down the White House.
    2025 ?
  • To be fair to the Americans, I would be pissed if a beer cost $20 after spending $750 for a ticket....
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 56,495

    To be fair to the Americans, I would be pissed if a beer cost $20 after spending $750 for a ticket....

    I probably wouldn't be but then I am a mean old git.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 34,668
    edited September 27

    Roger said:

    IanB2 said:

    Two million sigs within the next minute or two…..

    It's a good job Starmer is very popular in general and built up a lot of good will for such a controversial policy.
    Why do so many on the right spend such a tedious amount of time competing with each other to say how much they loathe Keir Starmer? Only someone coming onto the site for the first time will have avoided the same posters saying the same thing using the same words literally dozens of times before. Most just log out as I do. Life is too short to be dragged down your rabbit holes reading the same tedium day after day after day after day

    My question is this. Is it just a lack of creativity and imagination or do you think you are iactually nfluencing people?...
    I recall your homilies on the negative reviews of May, Boris, Truss & Sunak, here.

    Actually, I don’t.

    Starmer isn't doing very well. He has been a grave disappointment. He is continuity Sunak and the inertia is frustrating. Nonetheless there is a breed of Conservative commentator both on here and in the wider media (particularly from the Daily Telegraph) that cannot fathom they lost the last election and the treachery of the man who beat them, and who called out the great Boris Johnson for the Charlatan he is, deserves to be vilified.

    Many of those on here beating up on Starmer are the very same posters who were convinced Boris Johnson "got all the big calls right" and Liz Truss delivered the "most Conservative budget since 1986".

    So on Ryder Cup weekend, Labour voter and interior designer Leon tees Starmer up for certain PB posters to slice, shank and hook into the rough.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 68,227

    This just isn't cricket golf....I reckon Shane Lowry would fill all the American pussies in if it came to it.

    The 2025 Ryder Cup is on course to be the biggest humiliation inflicted on America in America since we burned down the White House.
    You know Trump will take this well and calmly though?
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 23,508

    To be fair to the Americans, I would be pissed if a beer cost $20 after spending $750 for a ticket....

    If beer cost $20 I'd be sober, rather than pissed.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 9,268

    Roger said:

    IanB2 said:

    Two million sigs within the next minute or two…..

    It's a good job Starmer is very popular in general and built up a lot of good will for such a controversial policy.
    Why do so many on the right spend such a tedious amount of time competing with each other to say how much they loathe Keir Starmer? Only someone coming onto the site for the first time will have avoided the same posters saying the same thing using the same words literally dozens of times before. Most just log out as I do. Life is too short to be dragged down your rabbit holes reading the same tedium day after day after day after day

    My question is this. Is it just a lack of creativity and imagination or do you think you are iactually nfluencing people?...
    I recall your homilies on the negative reviews of May, Boris, Truss & Sunak, here.

    Actually, I don’t.

    Starmer isn't doing very well. He has been a grave disappointment. He is continuity Sunak and the inertia is frustrating. Nonetheless there is a breed of Conservative commentator both on here and in the wider media (particularly from the Daily Telegraph) that cannot fathom they lost the last election and the treachery of the man who beat them, and who called out the great Boris Johnson for the Charlatan he is, deserves to be vilified.

    Many of those on here beating up on Starmer are the very same posters who were convinced Boris Johnson "got all the big calls right" and Liz Truss delivered the "most Conservative budget since 1986".

    So on Ryder Cup weekend, Labour voter Leon tees Starmer up for certain PB posters to slice, shank and hook into the rough.
    Well Boris and Keir have one thing in common – they both make me laugh

  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 124,004
    edited September 27

    To be fair to the Americans, I would be pissed if a beer cost $20 after spending $750 for a ticket....

    As a non drinker I feel like a nun in a whorehouse but as I understand it American beer is a bit weak, would the American behaviour be much worse if their booze was a bit stronger.
  • AnthonyTAnthonyT Posts: 221
    edited September 27
    boulay said:

    Andy_JS said:

    CatMan said:
    I've no idea if it will cause gridlock but the number of people who oppose ID cards but are happy to give up fingerprints, mugshots and their firstborn child in exchange for a trip to Disneyland Paris or Disney World Florida would make an interesting Venn diagram.
    Why do you think that? I'm guessing people opposed to ID cards would also be opposed to fingerprints to visit countries.
    People who are opposed to ID cards will largely still go through the EU process as they won’t give up their holidays on points of principle. They will cry that the UK gov can’t be trusted with our data but hand it over to an authority that that have no say in and manage to work out some justification for why one is ok and not the other.

    Unless of course all the people signing the petition are going to refuse to go to Schengen countries anymore.
    This must be one of the stupidest arguments used by those claiming that ID cards are fine if you go on holiday and comply with that country's laws or have a Tesco loyalty card.

    Neither your holiday destination nor Tesco are in charge of the courts, police, army or intelligence services of Britain and neither of them have the power to arrest or imprison you in this country or to throw you out of a job you legally have.

    Starmer is effectively telling people who are lawfully working now in this country that they will lose their job if they don't get a digital ID he's dreamt up with Blair and his mates in Palantir which he never bothered to tell anyone about in his manifesto. A PM threatening citizens. Well he can feck right off. He's there to serve us not boss us around.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 88,054
    edited September 27

    To be fair to the Americans, I would be pissed if a beer cost $20 after spending $750 for a ticket....

    As a non drinker I feel like a nun in a whorehouse but as I understand American beer is a bit weak, would the American behaviour be much worse if their was a bit stronger.
    "a bit weak".....I remember going to the US for the first time at 21 and drinking 24 cans of their domestic beer (I think Pabst Blue Ribbon), trapped in a hotel due to a storm finished the case in a single night and thought I might have been conned into buying non-alcoholic stuff.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 45,388
    edited September 27

    To be fair to the Americans, I would be pissed if a beer cost $20 after spending $750 for a ticket....

    If beer cost $20 I'd be sober, rather than pissed.
    You will be sober if it's an average US brew.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 65,702
    It gets worse. Times tonight


    “Scottish voters overwhelmingly support the mass detention and deportation of illegal immigrants as a poll suggests that widespread concerns over the issue have helped Reform overtake Labour as the country’s second most popular party.

    In findings that will heap further misery on Sir Keir Starmer and Anas Sarwar as Labour’s annual conference gets under way in Liverpool, a Norstat poll for The Sunday Times found that Nigel Farage’s party is now within touching distance of becoming the main opposition at Holyrood.”

    Reform are overtaking Labour in Scotland
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 57,299
    edited September 27

    geoffw said:

    Foss said:

    IanB2 said:

    Two million sigs within the next minute or two…..

    1988855 from the UK. Not that it'll matter in 20 minutes.
    Are the overseas petitioners ex-pats or vacationers, or can anyone add their name?
    If we had digital ID cards we would be able to tell.
    "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin, 1755.
    Ben Franklin owned slaves, he can pipe down when it comes to the liberty of human beings.
    Yebbut that was the fault of African chiefs and Arab slave traders.
    Or so I have read.
    Ben Franklin was forced by The Process of his society to be a slave owner. He had no moral or social agency in the matter. The Law was all. And it said being a slave owner was The Proper Process.

    If he’d freed his slaves that would have been - tyranny!
  • To be fair to the Americans, I would be pissed if a beer cost $20 after spending $750 for a ticket....

    As a non drinker I feel like a nun in a whorehouse but as I understand American beer is a bit weak, would the American behaviour be much worse if their was a bit stronger.
    "a bit weak".....I remember going to the US for the first time at 21 and drinking 24 cans of their domestic beer (I think Pabst Blue Ribbon), trapped in a hotel due to a storm finished the case in a single night and thought I might have been conned into buying non-alcoholic stuff.
    The Trump crowd will be drinking Bud Lite to pwn the Libs.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 68,227
    Leon said:

    It gets worse. Times tonight


    “Scottish voters overwhelmingly support the mass detention and deportation of illegal immigrants as a poll suggests that widespread concerns over the issue have helped Reform overtake Labour as the country’s second most popular party.

    In findings that will heap further misery on Sir Keir Starmer and Anas Sarwar as Labour’s annual conference gets under way in Liverpool, a Norstat poll for The Sunday Times found that Nigel Farage’s party is now within touching distance of becoming the main opposition at Holyrood.”

    Reform are overtaking Labour in Scotland

    Scotland ICE. Kicking a tenement door down near you shortly.

  • To be fair to the Americans, I would be pissed if a beer cost $20 after spending $750 for a ticket....

    As a non drinker I feel like a nun in a whorehouse but as I understand American beer is a bit weak, would the American behaviour be much worse if their was a bit stronger.
    "a bit weak".....I remember going to the US for the first time at 21 and drinking 24 cans of their domestic beer (I think Pabst Blue Ribbon), trapped in a hotel due to a storm finished the case in a single night and thought I might have been conned into buying non-alcoholic stuff.
    A friend compared American beer to performing cunnilingus on your sister.

    It tastes the same but deep down you know it is just wrong.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 99,455
    spudgfsh said:

    geoffw said:

    Foss said:

    IanB2 said:

    Two million sigs within the next minute or two…..

    1988855 from the UK. Not that it'll matter in 20 minutes.
    Are the overseas petitioners ex-pats or vacationers, or can anyone add their name?
    If we had digital ID cards we would be able to tell.
    "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Benjamin Franklin, 1755.
    Ben Franklin owned slaves, he can pipe down when it comes to the liberty of human beings.
    Anyhow:


    I know people like to virtue signal with these petitions, but has any of them ever changed government policy?
    Probably not, but then what is a petition's primary purpose if not virtue signalling?

    I think the policy is one of those things that will get a lot of hate but once it is in place it will be in for good and people will get used to it (which is not to recommend it personally, people get used to all sorts of crap).

    Whitehall has wanted to introduce ID cards for decades now, it's a solution looking for a problem, and I think we're probably at the moment where enough will agree on the stated problem to see it happen, but I don't think the stated reason really matters.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 34,668
    edited September 27
    geoffw said:

    Roger said:

    IanB2 said:

    Two million sigs within the next minute or two…..

    It's a good job Starmer is very popular in general and built up a lot of good will for such a controversial policy.
    Why do so many on the right spend such a tedious amount of time competing with each other to say how much they loathe Keir Starmer? Only someone coming onto the site for the first time will have avoided the same posters saying the same thing using the same words literally dozens of times before. Most just log out as I do. Life is too short to be dragged down your rabbit holes reading the same tedium day after day after day after day

    My question is this. Is it just a lack of creativity and imagination or do you think you are iactually nfluencing people?...
    I recall your homilies on the negative reviews of May, Boris, Truss & Sunak, here.

    Actually, I don’t.

    Starmer isn't doing very well. He has been a grave disappointment. He is continuity Sunak and the inertia is frustrating. Nonetheless there is a breed of Conservative commentator both on here and in the wider media (particularly from the Daily Telegraph) that cannot fathom they lost the last election and the treachery of the man who beat them, and who called out the great Boris Johnson for the Charlatan he is, deserves to be vilified.

    Many of those on here beating up on Starmer are the very same posters who were convinced Boris Johnson "got all the big calls right" and Liz Truss delivered the "most Conservative budget since 1986".

    So on Ryder Cup weekend, Labour voter Leon tees Starmer up for certain PB posters to slice, shank and hook into the rough.
    Well Boris and Keir have one thing in common – they both make me laugh

    I never really got the "Boris is so funny" narrative. Clearly I laughed my c*** off at Peppa Pig, but the "clever" stuff like the satire about Blair the Colonialist (topical this week) came across to me as unfunny racial stereotyping, likewise letterboxes etc. " I have as much chance of becoming Prime Minister as a baked bean" really is trying too hard and not remotely funny. But hey, you are all allowed to guffaw with gusto whilst I think "why are they laughing with this tw*t?"
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 88,054
    edited September 27

    To be fair to the Americans, I would be pissed if a beer cost $20 after spending $750 for a ticket....

    As a non drinker I feel like a nun in a whorehouse but as I understand American beer is a bit weak, would the American behaviour be much worse if their was a bit stronger.
    "a bit weak".....I remember going to the US for the first time at 21 and drinking 24 cans of their domestic beer (I think Pabst Blue Ribbon), trapped in a hotel due to a storm finished the case in a single night and thought I might have been conned into buying non-alcoholic stuff.
    A friend compared American beer to performing cunnilingus on your sister.

    It tastes the same but deep down you know it is just wrong.
    To be fair, these days there is lots of very good American beer, its just those German's / Poles / Czechs that went to the US 150 years ago were clearly brewers who were too shit to make in Europe and that is what became the established brands.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 65,702
    More:

    “Scottish Labour, meanwhile, is on course to record its worst result in the history of devolution, with the embattled prime minister by far the most unpopular political leader among Scots, recording a lower approval rating than even Donald Trump.”

    Yes. Among Scots, Skyr is even more unpopular than… Trump
  • Leon said:

    It gets worse. Times tonight


    “Scottish voters overwhelmingly support the mass detention and deportation of illegal immigrants as a poll suggests that widespread concerns over the issue have helped Reform overtake Labour as the country’s second most popular party.

    In findings that will heap further misery on Sir Keir Starmer and Anas Sarwar as Labour’s annual conference gets under way in Liverpool, a Norstat poll for The Sunday Times found that Nigel Farage’s party is now within touching distance of becoming the main opposition at Holyrood.”

    Reform are overtaking Labour in Scotland

    Scotland ICE. Kicking a tenement door down near you shortly.

    UK Ice in charge of door kicking, for now.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 99,455
    Leon said:

    More:

    “Scottish Labour, meanwhile, is on course to record its worst result in the history of devolution, with the embattled prime minister by far the most unpopular political leader among Scots, recording a lower approval rating than even Donald Trump.”

    Yes. Among Scots, Skyr is even more unpopular than… Trump

    After the positive of seeing the SNP go backwards in 2024 the dismal (and incredibly fractured) state of the unionist parties seeing them presumably going back to strong wins is a little annoying, but it is what it is.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 57,299

    Roger said:

    IanB2 said:

    Two million sigs within the next minute or two…..

    It's a good job Starmer is very popular in general and built up a lot of good will for such a controversial policy.
    Why do so many on the right spend such a tedious amount of time competing with each other to say how much they loathe Keir Starmer? Only someone coming onto the site for the first time will have avoided the same posters saying the same thing using the same words literally dozens of times before. Most just log out as I do. Life is too short to be dragged down your rabbit holes reading the same tedium day after day after day after day

    My question is this. Is it just a lack of creativity and imagination or do you think you are iactually nfluencing people?...
    I recall your homilies on the negative reviews of May, Boris, Truss & Sunak, here.

    Actually, I don’t.

    Starmer isn't doing very well. He has been a grave disappointment. He is continuity Sunak and the inertia is frustrating. Nonetheless there is a breed of Conservative commentator both on here and in the wider media (particularly from the Daily Telegraph) that cannot fathom they lost the last election and the treachery of the man who beat them, and who called out the great Boris Johnson for the Charlatan he is, deserves to be vilified.

    Many of those on here beating up on Starmer are the very same posters who were convinced Boris Johnson "got all the big calls right" and Liz Truss delivered the "most Conservative budget since 1986".

    So on Ryder Cup weekend, Labour voter and interior designer Leon tees Starmer up for certain PB posters to slice, shank and hook into the rough.
    Starmer has plumbed Liz Trussian depths. Therefore finding people to defend him is a bit hard.

    And don’t give me the “it’s all a conspiracy by x against the titan Starmer”. It just sounds like channeling Liz Truss.

    And that is a very bad idea. Channeling Liz Truss, I mean.

    Even the Lizard Men shake their heads when this comes up.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 65,702

    To be fair to the Americans, I would be pissed if a beer cost $20 after spending $750 for a ticket....

    As a non drinker I feel like a nun in a whorehouse but as I understand American beer is a bit weak, would the American behaviour be much worse if their was a bit stronger.
    "a bit weak".....I remember going to the US for the first time at 21 and drinking 24 cans of their domestic beer (I think Pabst Blue Ribbon), trapped in a hotel due to a storm finished the case in a single night and thought I might have been conned into buying non-alcoholic stuff.
    A friend compared American beer to performing cunnilingus on your sister.

    It tastes the same but deep down you know it is just wrong.
    You’re a teetotaller, and it shows

    These days, America probably boasts the best and most varied beer in the world. You can walk into any shop, gas station, supermarket - and find quality beer - with a diversity you just don’t get in Europe
  • Jim_MillerJim_Miller Posts: 3,527
    edited September 27
    "Ben Franklin owned slaves, he can pipe down when it comes to the liberty of human beings."
    But he changed his mind on the subject, before he said that:
    At some points in his life, he owned slaves and ran "for sale" ads for slaves in his newspaper, but by the late 1750s, he began arguing against slavery, became an active abolitionist, and promoted the education and integration of African Americans into U.S. society.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin

    (Many in the West condemn Western slavery -- in the past -- but are indifferent to non-Western slavery in the present. I suppose many feel that, if they condemned modern slavery in, for example, the Laogai or Mauritania, they would have to do something about it.)
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 57,299

    To be fair to the Americans, I would be pissed if a beer cost $20 after spending $750 for a ticket....

    As a non drinker I feel like a nun in a whorehouse but as I understand American beer is a bit weak, would the American behaviour be much worse if their was a bit stronger.
    "a bit weak".....I remember going to the US for the first time at 21 and drinking 24 cans of their domestic beer (I think Pabst Blue Ribbon), trapped in a hotel due to a storm finished the case in a single night and thought I might have been conned into buying non-alcoholic stuff.
    A friend compared American beer to performing cunnilingus on your sister.

    It tastes the same but deep down you know it is just wrong.
    To be fair, these days there is lots of very good American beer, its just those German's / Poles / Czechs that went to the US 150 years ago were clearly brewers who were too shit to make in Europe and that is what became the established brands.
    American beer is much like American food ingredients.

    The mass market stuff is hideous. There is good quality stuff, but it is hard to find and rather expensive.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 56,060
    edited September 27

    "Ben Franklin owned slaves, he can pipe down when it comes to the liberty of human beings."
    But he changed his mind on the subject, before he said that:
    At some points in his life, he owned slaves and ran "for sale" ads for slaves in his newspaper, but by the late 1750s, he began arguing against slavery, became an active abolitionist, and promoted the education and integration of African Americans into U.S. society.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin

    (Many in the West condemn Western slavery -- in the past -- but are indifferent to non-Western slavery in the present. I suppose many feel that, if they condemned modern slavery in, for example, the Laogai or Mauretania, they would have to do something about it.)

    Mauretania was the last country to abolish slavery, as recently as 1981.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 88,054
    edited September 27
    Leon said:

    To be fair to the Americans, I would be pissed if a beer cost $20 after spending $750 for a ticket....

    As a non drinker I feel like a nun in a whorehouse but as I understand American beer is a bit weak, would the American behaviour be much worse if their was a bit stronger.
    "a bit weak".....I remember going to the US for the first time at 21 and drinking 24 cans of their domestic beer (I think Pabst Blue Ribbon), trapped in a hotel due to a storm finished the case in a single night and thought I might have been conned into buying non-alcoholic stuff.
    A friend compared American beer to performing cunnilingus on your sister.

    It tastes the same but deep down you know it is just wrong.
    You’re a teetotaller, and it shows

    These days, America probably boasts the best and most varied beer in the world. You can walk into any shop, gas station, supermarket - and find quality beer - with a diversity you just don’t get in Europe
    A combination of AB InBev and Heineken now owning basically all the main brands in Europe, plus UK government taxation policy, most similar big brand UK beers are now also gnats piss. All those continental lagers don't taste anything like the ones actually brewed in their home country.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 40,367
    Leon said:

    You can walk into any shop, gas station, supermarket - and find quality beer

    No you can't

    In some States you can only beer from specific beer stores
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 34,668
    edited September 27
    Leon said:

    I think PB is agreed that Starmer is a goner...

    Your spelling is terrible!

    Write out a hundred times; "Starmer is a Gooner".
  • LeonLeon Posts: 65,702

    To be fair to the Americans, I would be pissed if a beer cost $20 after spending $750 for a ticket....

    As a non drinker I feel like a nun in a whorehouse but as I understand American beer is a bit weak, would the American behaviour be much worse if their was a bit stronger.
    "a bit weak".....I remember going to the US for the first time at 21 and drinking 24 cans of their domestic beer (I think Pabst Blue Ribbon), trapped in a hotel due to a storm finished the case in a single night and thought I might have been conned into buying non-alcoholic stuff.
    A friend compared American beer to performing cunnilingus on your sister.

    It tastes the same but deep down you know it is just wrong.
    To be fair, these days there is lots of very good American beer, its just those German's / Poles / Czechs that went to the US 150 years ago were clearly brewers who were too shit to make in Europe and that is what became the established brands.
    American beer is much like American food ingredients.

    The mass market stuff is hideous. There is good quality stuff, but it is hard to find and rather expensive.
    This is utter fucking nonsense. When were you last in America? Even a small town wal mart, even a rural gas station, will - in the USA - have a better choice of beer than the equivalent anywhere else in the world
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 88,054
    edited September 27

    To be fair to the Americans, I would be pissed if a beer cost $20 after spending $750 for a ticket....

    As a non drinker I feel like a nun in a whorehouse but as I understand American beer is a bit weak, would the American behaviour be much worse if their was a bit stronger.
    "a bit weak".....I remember going to the US for the first time at 21 and drinking 24 cans of their domestic beer (I think Pabst Blue Ribbon), trapped in a hotel due to a storm finished the case in a single night and thought I might have been conned into buying non-alcoholic stuff.
    A friend compared American beer to performing cunnilingus on your sister.

    It tastes the same but deep down you know it is just wrong.
    To be fair, these days there is lots of very good American beer, its just those German's / Poles / Czechs that went to the US 150 years ago were clearly brewers who were too shit to make in Europe and that is what became the established brands.
    American beer is much like American food ingredients.

    The mass market stuff is hideous. There is good quality stuff, but it is hard to find and rather expensive.
    Its really not hard to find good beer now in the US, it is everywhere. But yes it is more expensive. But that is also true in the UK now.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 65,702
    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    You can walk into any shop, gas station, supermarket - and find quality beer

    No you can't

    In some States you can only beer from specific beer stores
    You’re a moron
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 40,367
    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    You can walk into any shop, gas station, supermarket - and find quality beer

    No you can't

    In some States you can only beer from specific beer stores
    You’re a moron
    I fucking lived there. Twat.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 34,668

    Roger said:

    IanB2 said:

    Two million sigs within the next minute or two…..

    It's a good job Starmer is very popular in general and built up a lot of good will for such a controversial policy.
    Why do so many on the right spend such a tedious amount of time competing with each other to say how much they loathe Keir Starmer? Only someone coming onto the site for the first time will have avoided the same posters saying the same thing using the same words literally dozens of times before. Most just log out as I do. Life is too short to be dragged down your rabbit holes reading the same tedium day after day after day after day

    My question is this. Is it just a lack of creativity and imagination or do you think you are iactually nfluencing people?...
    I recall your homilies on the negative reviews of May, Boris, Truss & Sunak, here.

    Actually, I don’t.

    Starmer isn't doing very well. He has been a grave disappointment. He is continuity Sunak and the inertia is frustrating. Nonetheless there is a breed of Conservative commentator both on here and in the wider media (particularly from the Daily Telegraph) that cannot fathom they lost the last election and the treachery of the man who beat them, and who called out the great Boris Johnson for the Charlatan he is, deserves to be vilified.

    Many of those on here beating up on Starmer are the very same posters who were convinced Boris Johnson "got all the big calls right" and Liz Truss delivered the "most Conservative budget since 1986".

    So on Ryder Cup weekend, Labour voter and interior designer Leon tees Starmer up for certain PB posters to slice, shank and hook into the rough.
    Starmer has plumbed Liz Trussian depths. Therefore finding people to defend him is a bit hard.

    And don’t give me the “it’s all a conspiracy by x against the titan Starmer”. It just sounds like channeling Liz Truss.

    And that is a very bad idea. Channeling Liz Truss, I mean.

    Even the Lizard Men shake their heads when this comes up.
    Next time you comment on one of my posts would you do me the courtesy of reading it first please. Thank you.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 99,455

    "Ben Franklin owned slaves, he can pipe down when it comes to the liberty of human beings."
    But he changed his mind on the subject, before he said that:
    At some points in his life, he owned slaves and ran "for sale" ads for slaves in his newspaper, but by the late 1750s, he began arguing against slavery, became an active abolitionist, and promoted the education and integration of African Americans into U.S. society.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin

    (Many in the West condemn Western slavery -- in the past -- but are indifferent to non-Western slavery in the present. I suppose many feel that, if they condemned modern slavery in, for example, the Laogai or Mauretania, they would have to do something about it.)

    Mauretania was the last country to abolish slavery, as recently as 1981.
    Of course, as has been noted, plenty of slavery still goes on, but at least it is usually stated to be wrong.

    A bit like how even today most authoritarian dictatorships still put in some effort pretending to be democratic (though whether they go for opposition suppression, flat out rigging elections, or laughable statements of democratic support depends on the regime), accepting the premise that democratic consent is important at least in theory.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 88,054
    edited September 27
    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    You can walk into any shop, gas station, supermarket - and find quality beer

    No you can't

    In some States you can only beer from specific beer stores
    You’re a moron
    I fucking lived there. Twat.
    The number of totally dry counties these days is much reduced e.g Mississippi changed a few years ago from default dry everywhere to default everywhere being wet and locals vote to be dry.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 40,846
    Leon said:

    To be fair to the Americans, I would be pissed if a beer cost $20 after spending $750 for a ticket....

    As a non drinker I feel like a nun in a whorehouse but as I understand American beer is a bit weak, would the American behaviour be much worse if their was a bit stronger.
    "a bit weak".....I remember going to the US for the first time at 21 and drinking 24 cans of their domestic beer (I think Pabst Blue Ribbon), trapped in a hotel due to a storm finished the case in a single night and thought I might have been conned into buying non-alcoholic stuff.
    A friend compared American beer to performing cunnilingus on your sister.

    It tastes the same but deep down you know it is just wrong.
    You’re a teetotaller, and it shows

    These days, America probably boasts the best and most varied beer in the world. You can walk into any shop, gas station, supermarket - and find quality beer - with a diversity you just don’t get in Europe
    The American beer revolution started precisely because of the shit mass market beers like Bud Lite and Coors etc... I'd say only the UK comes close to the US in terms of quality and variety for beer, Europe has been left in the dust because they can't move beyond the old German definition of what beer should be and the traditional breweries have a chokehold on the market across continental Europe. German beer is uniformly dull, drink one and you've sampled the rest too.
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 5,815
    I think to estimate the Ryder Cup probabilities, I'd start by taking the singles as 12 coin tosses, which with evenly matched golfers is the best you can start with.

    If America can turn round 3 of the fourballs ties, it would leave them needing 8 victories / heads - just under a 20% change at an increasingly improbable best. (This now gone)

    If America can turn around one of the ties, more likely, they'd need 10 heads - a 2% chance.

    If Europe stay ahead in all 4, the US chance reduces to 0.3%.

    However, then the possibility of halving a tie actually pulls the distribution a little more central and reduces the extremes, a halved match is around a 15% chance historically - the chances of the US getting 10 victories at 42.5% victory chance is 0.4%, but then odd halves might get them over the line, so the exact answer would be somewhere between 0.4% and 2%.

    Looks at odds checker: USA at 45/1. No great value, as you'd imagine.

    More precise three outcome probability calcs will be available, but I've just gone finger in the air.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 65,702

    To be fair to the Americans, I would be pissed if a beer cost $20 after spending $750 for a ticket....

    As a non drinker I feel like a nun in a whorehouse but as I understand American beer is a bit weak, would the American behaviour be much worse if their was a bit stronger.
    "a bit weak".....I remember going to the US for the first time at 21 and drinking 24 cans of their domestic beer (I think Pabst Blue Ribbon), trapped in a hotel due to a storm finished the case in a single night and thought I might have been conned into buying non-alcoholic stuff.
    A friend compared American beer to performing cunnilingus on your sister.

    It tastes the same but deep down you know it is just wrong.
    To be fair, these days there is lots of very good American beer, its just those German's / Poles / Czechs that went to the US 150 years ago were clearly brewers who were too shit to make in Europe and that is what became the established brands.
    American beer is much like American food ingredients.

    The mass market stuff is hideous. There is good quality stuff, but it is hard to find and rather expensive.
    Its really not hard to find good beer now in the US, it is everywhere. But yes it is more expensive. But that is also true in the UK now.
    It’s not even that pricey. In the last two years - 23 and 24 - I’ve done two long American road trips. One through the Deep South from Nashville to Nawlins, one from Cincinnati to DC and back. A magnificent loop

    On both trips I went off the beaten track yet also went to major cities. There was great beer everywhere. It became my go-to in the heat (I’m not normally a massive beer drinker, but the quality was so high)

    And I didn’t find it pricey. I found everything ELSE pricey. From wine to burgers to hotels (when I was paying). America is frickin expensive for a European
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 40,367

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    You can walk into any shop, gas station, supermarket - and find quality beer

    No you can't

    In some States you can only beer from specific beer stores
    You’re a moron
    I fucking lived there. Twat.
    The number of totally dry counties these days is much reduced.
    Indeed, but that is not the issue.

    Some States regulate where alcohol is sold, which clearly Sean, the International travel expert has no fucking clue about.

    Like many, many other things...
  • LeonLeon Posts: 65,702
    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Leon said:

    You can walk into any shop, gas station, supermarket - and find quality beer

    No you can't

    In some States you can only beer from specific beer stores
    You’re a moron
    I fucking lived there. Twat.
    About fifty years ago, is my guess
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 40,846

    To be fair to the Americans, I would be pissed if a beer cost $20 after spending $750 for a ticket....

    As a non drinker I feel like a nun in a whorehouse but as I understand American beer is a bit weak, would the American behaviour be much worse if their was a bit stronger.
    "a bit weak".....I remember going to the US for the first time at 21 and drinking 24 cans of their domestic beer (I think Pabst Blue Ribbon), trapped in a hotel due to a storm finished the case in a single night and thought I might have been conned into buying non-alcoholic stuff.
    A friend compared American beer to performing cunnilingus on your sister.

    It tastes the same but deep down you know it is just wrong.
    To be fair, these days there is lots of very good American beer, its just those German's / Poles / Czechs that went to the US 150 years ago were clearly brewers who were too shit to make in Europe and that is what became the established brands.
    American beer is much like American food ingredients.

    The mass market stuff is hideous. There is good quality stuff, but it is hard to find and rather expensive.
    It's not hard to find or expensive, the US is littered with microbreweries that sell to local shops. The craft beer revolution started in America a solid ten years before it came here and twenty before it got to the rest of Europe.
  • Jim_MillerJim_Miller Posts: 3,527
    Despite the official abolition of slavery, the 2018 Global Slavery Index estimated the number of slaves as 90,000 (or 2.1% of the population),[7][8] a reduction from the 155,600 reported in the 2014 index in which Mauritania ranked 31st of 167 countries by total number of slaves and first by prevalence, with 4% of the population. The Mauritanian government ranks 121st of 167 in its response to all forms of modern slavery.[9] In 2017, the BBC claimed that a total of 600,000 were living in slavery.
    (Links omitted.)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Mauritania

    https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/global-slavery-index-by-country
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 88,054
    edited September 27
    Always made me chuckle that in several provinces in Canada where state regulates alcohol sales, you have to get your beer from.....The Beer Store.....must have taken them ages to come up with that name.
  • Roger said:

    IanB2 said:

    Two million sigs within the next minute or two…..

    It's a good job Starmer is very popular in general and built up a lot of good will for such a controversial policy.
    Why do so many on the right spend such a tedious amount of time competing with each other to say how much they loathe Keir Starmer? Only someone coming onto the site for the first time will have avoided the same posters saying the same thing using the same words literally dozens of times before. Most just log out as I do. Life is too short to be dragged down your rabbit holes reading the same tedium day after day after day after day

    My question is this. Is it just a lack of creativity and imagination or do you think you are iactually nfluencing people?...
    I recall your homilies on the negative reviews of May, Boris, Truss & Sunak, here.

    Actually, I don’t.

    Starmer isn't doing very well. He has been a grave disappointment. He is continuity Sunak and the inertia is frustrating. Nonetheless there is a breed of Conservative commentator both on here and in the wider media (particularly from the Daily Telegraph) that cannot fathom they lost the last election and the treachery of the man who beat them, and who called out the great Boris Johnson for the Charlatan he is, deserves to be vilified.

    Many of those on here beating up on Starmer are the very same posters who were convinced Boris Johnson "got all the big calls right" and Liz Truss delivered the "most Conservative budget since 1986".

    So on Ryder Cup weekend, Labour voter and interior designer Leon tees Starmer up for certain PB posters to slice, shank and hook into the rough.
    You aren't taking this very well but the reality is Starmer and Reeves are tanking in the polls and across all the media including those you would expect to be more loyal

    It is not a far right conspiracy that sees Starmer as worst PM, even losing to Truss, and the polls are terrible

    Add in the civil war breaking out in labour, it is difficult to understand how far and fast they have fallen since Juiy 2024

    Starmer may hang on, but he is approaching the point of no return
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 88,054
    edited September 27
    Now if only Americans could sort out literally everything other than beer and wine e.g. cheese and chocolate....
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 40,846
    Leon said:

    To be fair to the Americans, I would be pissed if a beer cost $20 after spending $750 for a ticket....

    As a non drinker I feel like a nun in a whorehouse but as I understand American beer is a bit weak, would the American behaviour be much worse if their was a bit stronger.
    "a bit weak".....I remember going to the US for the first time at 21 and drinking 24 cans of their domestic beer (I think Pabst Blue Ribbon), trapped in a hotel due to a storm finished the case in a single night and thought I might have been conned into buying non-alcoholic stuff.
    A friend compared American beer to performing cunnilingus on your sister.

    It tastes the same but deep down you know it is just wrong.
    To be fair, these days there is lots of very good American beer, its just those German's / Poles / Czechs that went to the US 150 years ago were clearly brewers who were too shit to make in Europe and that is what became the established brands.
    American beer is much like American food ingredients.

    The mass market stuff is hideous. There is good quality stuff, but it is hard to find and rather expensive.
    Its really not hard to find good beer now in the US, it is everywhere. But yes it is more expensive. But that is also true in the UK now.
    It’s not even that pricey. In the last two years - 23 and 24 - I’ve done two long American road trips. One through the Deep South from Nashville to Nawlins, one from Cincinnati to DC and back. A magnificent loop

    On both trips I went off the beaten track yet also went to major cities. There was great beer everywhere. It became my go-to in the heat (I’m not normally a massive beer drinker, but the quality was so high)

    And I didn’t find it pricey. I found everything ELSE pricey. From wine to burgers to hotels (when I was paying). America is frickin expensive for a European
    It's because the US has a huge number of microbreweries that sell small batches locally. It's very rare to find a place that doesn't have three or four breweries that are selling within the locale. America really was at the forefront of the beer revolution.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 65,702
    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    To be fair to the Americans, I would be pissed if a beer cost $20 after spending $750 for a ticket....

    As a non drinker I feel like a nun in a whorehouse but as I understand American beer is a bit weak, would the American behaviour be much worse if their was a bit stronger.
    "a bit weak".....I remember going to the US for the first time at 21 and drinking 24 cans of their domestic beer (I think Pabst Blue Ribbon), trapped in a hotel due to a storm finished the case in a single night and thought I might have been conned into buying non-alcoholic stuff.
    A friend compared American beer to performing cunnilingus on your sister.

    It tastes the same but deep down you know it is just wrong.
    You’re a teetotaller, and it shows

    These days, America probably boasts the best and most varied beer in the world. You can walk into any shop, gas station, supermarket - and find quality beer - with a diversity you just don’t get in Europe
    The American beer revolution started precisely because of the shit mass market beers like Bud Lite and Coors etc... I'd say only the UK comes close to the US in terms of quality and variety for beer, Europe has been left in the dust because they can't move beyond the old German definition of what beer should be and the traditional breweries have a chokehold on the market across continental Europe. German beer is uniformly dull, drink one and you've sampled the rest too.
    That seems to be changing. On recent visits to France and Spain - very recent - I’ve noticed more craft beers in bars and supermarkets

    But yes Europe still has a lot of catching up to do, compared to America
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 34,668

    Roger said:

    IanB2 said:

    Two million sigs within the next minute or two…..

    It's a good job Starmer is very popular in general and built up a lot of good will for such a controversial policy.
    Why do so many on the right spend such a tedious amount of time competing with each other to say how much they loathe Keir Starmer? Only someone coming onto the site for the first time will have avoided the same posters saying the same thing using the same words literally dozens of times before. Most just log out as I do. Life is too short to be dragged down your rabbit holes reading the same tedium day after day after day after day

    My question is this. Is it just a lack of creativity and imagination or do you think you are iactually nfluencing people?...
    I recall your homilies on the negative reviews of May, Boris, Truss & Sunak, here.

    Actually, I don’t.

    Starmer isn't doing very well. He has been a grave disappointment. He is continuity Sunak and the inertia is frustrating. Nonetheless there is a breed of Conservative commentator both on here and in the wider media (particularly from the Daily Telegraph) that cannot fathom they lost the last election and the treachery of the man who beat them, and who called out the great Boris Johnson for the Charlatan he is, deserves to be vilified.

    Many of those on here beating up on Starmer are the very same posters who were convinced Boris Johnson "got all the big calls right" and Liz Truss delivered the "most Conservative budget since 1986".

    So on Ryder Cup weekend, Labour voter and interior designer Leon tees Starmer up for certain PB posters to slice, shank and hook into the rough.
    You aren't taking this very well but the reality is Starmer and Reeves are tanking in the polls and across all the media including those you would expect to be more loyal

    It is not a far right conspiracy that sees Starmer as worst PM, even losing to Truss, and the polls are terrible

    Add in the civil war breaking out in labour, it is difficult to understand how far and fast they have fallen since Juiy 2024

    Starmer may hang on, but he is approaching the point of no return
    Someone else who commented on my post without reading it.
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