Apart from the fact that Wolves only played one match away at Villa in the Eighties, Jenrick was 8 years old in 1990.
His rose tinted glasses also seem to have missed pretty much all the football hooliganism of the Eighties, not least the 96 police injured when Leeds came to Villa Park.
Jenrick's audience isn't you or me.
To the people it's aimed at, this statement points to deeper truths- the boys aren't allowed to get together like this any more, and this is a loss to them.
(That it happened for a reason, that modern stadiums are better and football without the fighting is preferred by most people, isn't totally relevant here.)
Politicians of all colours do it all the time. Things that aren't truthful, but are truthy.
But a Conservative politician becoming the friend of the soccer lout is yet another thing likely to make dead Conservatives from the 80s spin in their graves.
Thatch would have quite happily closed football down and would be amazed it now provides 0.5% of our total tax revenue.
She had a good go at it. Remember Colin Moynihan and the compulsory membership scheme?
Interesting that the real boom time for football seems to be over now. Wages in the premier leaguecare actually stagnating and the real boom period in wage growth was 1992 to 2012. Premier league wages up 50% last 10 years but went up about 6 fold in the first 10 years of the premier league.
Apart from the fact that Wolves only played one match away at Villa in the Eighties, Jenrick was 8 years old in 1990.
His rose tinted glasses also seem to have missed pretty much all the football hooliganism of the Eighties, not least the 96 police injured when Leeds came to Villa Park.
Every single statement in that comment is as false as the man himself. Including his claim he went to those matches when he was a toddler.
How about this one?
The language, chants, and antics were - at times - less than well-mannered.
The "at times" makes it at best misleading.
I never went myself but could easily believe that “frequently” would be more apposite
Apart from the fact that Wolves only played one match away at Villa in the Eighties, Jenrick was 8 years old in 1990.
His rose tinted glasses also seem to have missed pretty much all the football hooliganism of the Eighties, not least the 96 police injured when Leeds came to Villa Park.
I usually agree with you on most issues but the determination of people like your good self to pretend that there is no problem with Islam in the UK is why I suspect we will be heading towards a Reform-led government.
And so is the problem the other way which is not acknowledging that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans have their own, richly deserved, thuggish reputation. And the different other problem which both sides are guilty of is conflating Jews and Israelis. Most British Jews could not find Maccabi Tel Aviv on the map. Well, actually they could but only because it has Tel Aviv in its name.
Anyway, now that the Prime Minister with his usual deft political touch has turned this into a major issue, perhaps they can simply play at a neutral stadium that is more easily policed.
And going back to Jenrick's 1980s nostalgia, West Ham had to play a European Cup-winners Cup match behind closed doors. Bloody UEFA.
Aston Villa shouldn't have to suffer here either. The match should go ahead. Police should do what they can to avoid violence but if it happens trouble makers on both sides should be dealt with harshly as we do after riots.
Is that a new opinion? As I said with the West Ham example, football matches have been played in empty stadiums owing to crowd trouble for decades. This is not the invention of an antisemitic cabal that has recently infiltrated Uefa.
But I disagree with the ban. There should be a plan to keep rival fans apart, as is commonly done. It might be that moving to a different stadium would facilitate this.
The issue isn't to do with Villa fans at all. Maccabi at Villa could be managed by the police if it weren't for people outside football. So football shouldn't suffer. That is quite different to the 80s where the domestic football fans were the problem.
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
Not with their family farm tax and NI rise on employers and bungs to train drivers and GPs and removal of hereditàry peers they don't. Labour under Starmer are basically back to Brown Labour not even Blairites.
There is a case to say Davey's LDs are Cameroon but not Labour
Starmer's political problem is he's losing his base while failing to win over those that might support Reform. He either needs to shoot Farage's fox (unlikely) or set out a compelling alternative.
This doesn't feel like a dilemma that would interest Cummings.
The bizarre mistake is to believe that only solution to X is that advocated by your opponents.
On immigration - it is quite clear that there is enormous abuse at the low end. People are paying criminals small fortunes to be boated across the Channel. Or larger fortunes to companies arranging visas for bogus jobs.
Their labour is then used to fuel employment of a kind that would upset even the most rock ribbed of Lancashire Mill Owners. And the accommodation - slum landlords, very literally.
I can’t see how much of the Left would object to cracking down on those using and abusing the undocumented. Well, after they get over the fact that, very often, the abusers come from the same ethnic group as their victims.
The canard “the jobs the British won’t deign to do” is rubbish. It’s “the jobs that are worse than being on benefits” that the British won’t do.
Go on, Reeves. Go after Deliveroo and their “layers”.
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
Starmer's political problem is that he is seen as having knifed both St Jeremy and St Boris. Which is an awful lot of mourners hating you before you have really got started.
That both of them managed to leap onto the knife that SKS happened to be holding at the time, like an accidental James Bond in a spy caper played for laughs, is too painful to process.
This is a big part of it but I'm not sure that Starmer was even holding the knife, for either self-destructive saint. Saint Boris knifed himself, repeatedly. Saint Jeremy was in the end knifed by the electorate - an electorate Starmer had asked twice to put Saint Jeremy in Number 10.
There are those of us (centre, centre-right) who dislike how intensely relaxed he appeared to be about Corbyn becoming Prime Minister (which he came near to doing in 2017). There are others (Green/Your Party left) who dislike his declaring himself (apparently lying) to be a Corbynista to win the leadership, but for the most part these are two distinct categories of haters, and each group has good reason not to take him necessarily at his word.
Apart from the fact that Wolves only played one match away at Villa in the Eighties, Jenrick was 8 years old in 1990.
His rose tinted glasses also seem to have missed pretty much all the football hooliganism of the Eighties, not least the 96 police injured when Leeds came to Villa Park.
Every single statement in that comment is as false as the man himself. Including his claim he went to those matches when he was a toddler.
How about this one?
The language, chants, and antics were - at times - less than well-mannered.
The "at times" makes it at best misleading.
I never went myself but could easily believe that “frequently” would be more apposite
I'd suggest consistently, perpetually or invariably.
Apart from the fact that Wolves only played one match away at Villa in the Eighties, Jenrick was 8 years old in 1990.
His rose tinted glasses also seem to have missed pretty much all the football hooliganism of the Eighties, not least the 96 police injured when Leeds came to Villa Park.
Jenrick's audience isn't you or me.
To the people it's aimed at, this statement points to deeper truths- the boys aren't allowed to get together like this any more, and this is a loss to them.
(That it happened for a reason, that modern stadiums are better and football without the fighting is preferred by most people, isn't totally relevant here.)
Politicians of all colours do it all the time. Things that aren't truthful, but are truthy.
But a Conservative politician becoming the friend of the soccer lout is yet another thing likely to make dead Conservatives from the 80s spin in their graves.
Thatch would have quite happily closed football down and would be amazed it now provides in 0.5% of our total tax revenue.
Thatcher had absolutely no interest in football and probably saw it as a game mainly watched by male Labour voters and supporters of the National Front. In 1990 Ken Clarke told her he was in a bad mood that day as England had lost to West Germany in the semi finals of the WC, Thatcher replied she didn't even watch the match and not to worry as we had beaten the Germans in the war when it actually mattered
Apart from the fact that Wolves only played one match away at Villa in the Eighties, Jenrick was 8 years old in 1990.
His rose tinted glasses also seem to have missed pretty much all the football hooliganism of the Eighties, not least the 96 police injured when Leeds came to Villa Park.
Football was better in almost every single respect in the 80s except hooliganism. He could have surfed a wave of nostalgia on ticket prices, British players, humour, accessibility - hooliganism is the only respect in which football has got better. None of our cities were run by sectarian cabals in the 80s (not in England, anyway). He could have focused on that.
To be fair, he didn't say he went to watch Wolves away at Villa. He could have gone to see his most-hated team lose. Football fans do that sort of thing.
Or just accept Occams Razor. Politician is lying.
More likely it is false memory syndrome, and he actually remembers going to Villa Park to see Wolves in 1996, but by then Football had very much cleaned up its act in England.
It's still pretty troublesome in much of Europe. I took a Greek colleague to a Leicester match last year who is a huge PAOK fan and goes to a lot of their away games. He couldn't get over how lax the security was at the ground, being used to airport like security checks, and quite major violence on the streets outside.
He has promised me a POAK game next time I am in Thessalonika.
People remember which decade they grew up in, so unless he has early onset dementia, I'm sticking with occams razor = lies.
Question is, what kind of lie?
Is it a calculated Brexit Bus lie, designed to get a pedantic response?
Or is it a "Jeffrey Archer went to Oxford" lie, which no doubt felt true to the world's greatest storyteller, even though it wasn't really.
Not that either sort is good.
Archer got a PGCE at Oxford, even if not a PPE degree but still became a politician anyway and best selling author after a brief teaching career
Apart from the fact that Wolves only played one match away at Villa in the Eighties, Jenrick was 8 years old in 1990.
His rose tinted glasses also seem to have missed pretty much all the football hooliganism of the Eighties, not least the 96 police injured when Leeds came to Villa Park.
Jenrick's audience isn't you or me.
To the people it's aimed at, this statement points to deeper truths- the boys aren't allowed to get together like this any more, and this is a loss to them.
(That it happened for a reason, that modern stadiums are better and football without the fighting is preferred by most people, isn't totally relevant here.)
Politicians of all colours do it all the time. Things that aren't truthful, but are truthy.
But a Conservative politician becoming the friend of the soccer lout is yet another thing likely to make dead Conservatives from the 80s spin in their graves.
Thatch would have quite happily closed football down and would be amazed it now provides in 0.5% of our total tax revenue.
Thatcher had absolutely no interest in football and probably saw it as a game mainly watched by male Labour voters and supporters of the National Front. In 1990 Ken Clarke told her he was in a bad mood that day as England had lost to West Germany in the semi finals of the WC, Thatcher replied she didn't even watch the match and not to worry as we had beaten the Germans in the war when it actually mattered
Lol Thatcher was such a loon. I am far from a football fan, my involvement with the beautiful game has been mostly watching my son playing every Sunday for the last eight years. But even I can see the centrality of this incredible game that we gave the world to our national life, indeed to British culture.
This is the London Banana. As long as you stay within the Banana, you'll have a great time in London. Almost everything outside the Banana is horrible these days, best avoid. Not clear why, or when this happened. But it is what it is.
Clive Lewis is who I would like to see leading the Labour party. He’s considered, has ideas which could coalesce into a vision, is a good communicator and understands the need to unite as much of the left as is possible.
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By which he presumably defines English babies as being purely white and with parents who were English born. Which is as much a result of our declining birthrate as immigration anyway
The UK is finished and there is no polite way to put it. What was once called a developed nation has become a playground for corrupt politicians, greedy corporations, and parasitic landlords feeding on people who are simply trying to survive. The working class has been gutted from the inside out. People are working full time, even taking on second jobs, and still cannot cover the basic cost of living. It is not about laziness or poor budgeting. It is that the system itself has been designed to bleed every last drop of effort, money, and dignity from the average person.
Everything that once made this country liveable has been dismantled. A home that cost £700 a month a decade ago now costs £1,500 or more, often for damp, mouldy, low quality flats. Food prices have exploded to the point where a hundred pounds barely fills two carrier bags. Council tax, gas, electricity, fuel, water, and insurance all rise year after year while wages remain frozen. It no longer feels like you are earning money. It feels like you are temporarily renting it before it gets snatched away through endless hidden charges and taxes.
The government taxes income, property, spending, savings, fuel, and even death. You are taxed to live and taxed to die. Nothing is free and nothing is fair. Meanwhile the people who create nothing and contribute nothing keep pocketing bonuses, handouts, and expense claims that could feed entire families for a year. The rich buy influence, politicians sell out, and the rest of us are left fighting over scraps while being told to “tighten our belts.”
JUST IN - Trump admin considering refugee system overhaul granting priority to English speakers, White South Africans and Europeans who oppose migration or support "populist" political parties — NYT 8:45 PM · Oct 15, 2025 · 2.5M
By which he presumably defines English babies as being purely white and with parents who were English born. Which is as much a result of our declining birthrate as immigration anyway
Immigration pushes house prices up which reduces the birth rate. Still if you want our future to be Birmingham.
JUST IN - Trump admin considering refugee system overhaul granting priority to English speakers, White South Africans and Europeans who oppose migration or support "populist" political parties — NYT 8:45 PM · Oct 15, 2025 · 2.5M
JUST IN - Trump admin considering refugee system overhaul granting priority to English speakers, White South Africans and Europeans who oppose migration or support "populist" political parties — NYT 8:45 PM · Oct 15, 2025 · 2.5M
This is the London Banana. As long as you stay within the Banana, you'll have a great time in London. Almost everything outside the Banana is horrible these days, best avoid. Not clear why, or when this happened. But it is what it is.
I've seen that concept. It's a big claim that, say, Pinner is horrible.
It's interesting, but not shocking. Those who remember GCSE geography will remember the Burgess and Hoyt models of where the nice bits of cities are: Burgess had them as concentric circles, with the nice bits at the edge; Hoyt had them as wedges. Most cities are a mixture of both. Most cities have wedges of nice bits going most of the way in (usually but not always in the west, the direction of the prevailing wind: see Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow), most cities (not all, Glasgow) have nice bits most of the way around the edge. London ghas two wedges, but even that isn't unusual. Manchester has a T.
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
It seems like every other Labour government of my lifetime.
For a certain section of the left, West-hating, wanting full-fat socialism, that is a betrayal. And now, they have other parties to vote for.
This is the London Banana. As long as you stay within the Banana, you'll have a great time in London. Almost everything outside the Banana is horrible these days, best avoid. Not clear why, or when this happened. But it is what it is.
I've seen that concept. It's a big claim that, say, Pinner is horrible.
It's interesting, but not shocking. Those who remember GCSE geography will remember the Burgess and Hoyt models of where the nice bits of cities are: Burgess had them as concentric circles, with the nice bits at the edge; Hoyt had them as wedges. Most cities are a mixture of both. Most cities have wedges of nice bits going most of the way in (usually but not always in the west, the direction of the prevailing wind: see Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow), most cities (not all, Glasgow) have nice bits most of the way around the edge. London ghas two wedges, but even that isn't unusual. Manchester has a T.
This is the London Banana. As long as you stay within the Banana, you'll have a great time in London. Almost everything outside the Banana is horrible these days, best avoid. Not clear why, or when this happened. But it is what it is.
I've seen that concept. It's a big claim that, say, Pinner is horrible.
It's interesting, but not shocking. Those who remember GCSE geography will remember the Burgess and Hoyt models of where the nice bits of cities are: Burgess had them as concentric circles, with the nice bits at the edge; Hoyt had them as wedges. Most cities are a mixture of both. Most cities have wedges of nice bits going most of the way in (usually but not always in the west, the direction of the prevailing wind: see Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow), most cities (not all, Glasgow) have nice bits most of the way around the edge. London ghas two wedges, but even that isn't unusual. Manchester has a T.
Though again, these are far from the ONLY nice bits.
Note of course that this is not confined to UK cities. Every city in the world has its better and worse areas. Moscow and St Petersburg and Shanghai are the same. From a geographical point of view, where these are is very interesting, but it shouldn't be surprising tbat some areas are nicer than others.
Apart from the fact that Wolves only played one match away at Villa in the Eighties, Jenrick was 8 years old in 1990.
His rose tinted glasses also seem to have missed pretty much all the football hooliganism of the Eighties, not least the 96 police injured when Leeds came to Villa Park.
I’m not sure this is a silver bullet. I’ve been to matches at Villa in the away end a few times. Not with Blues either.
The UK is finished and there is no polite way to put it. What was once called a developed nation has become a playground for corrupt politicians, greedy corporations, and parasitic landlords feeding on people who are simply trying to survive. The working class has been gutted from the inside out. People are working full time, even taking on second jobs, and still cannot cover the basic cost of living. It is not about laziness or poor budgeting. It is that the system itself has been designed to bleed every last drop of effort, money, and dignity from the average person.
Everything that once made this country liveable has been dismantled. A home that cost £700 a month a decade ago now costs £1,500 or more, often for damp, mouldy, low quality flats. Food prices have exploded to the point where a hundred pounds barely fills two carrier bags. Council tax, gas, electricity, fuel, water, and insurance all rise year after year while wages remain frozen. It no longer feels like you are earning money. It feels like you are temporarily renting it before it gets snatched away through endless hidden charges and taxes.
The government taxes income, property, spending, savings, fuel, and even death. You are taxed to live and taxed to die. Nothing is free and nothing is fair. Meanwhile the people who create nothing and contribute nothing keep pocketing bonuses, handouts, and expense claims that could feed entire families for a year. The rich buy influence, politicians sell out, and the rest of us are left fighting over scraps while being told to “tighten our belts.”
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
I know a lot of people on the left who have said this and I think it's another symptom of our deranged politics.
Labour have put up tax (Employers NI) by a chunky amount to fund a hefty increase in NHS spending. That puts them firmly on the centre-left.
There is a lot of rhetoric in terms of the flags and whatever that the Left is uncomfortable with, but isn't incompatible with the centre-left. Immigration policy as being implemented is in accordance with the law, negotiation with neighbouring countries, etc.
They are constrained by the taxation promises they felt they had to make to win the election, and by fiscal reality, but you can see numerous signs of what their instincts are, and they're not of the centre-right.
I'd obviously prefer them to be acting further to the left, but I think it's crazy to label Starmer as being on the centre-right.
This is the London Banana. As long as you stay within the Banana, you'll have a great time in London. Almost everything outside the Banana is horrible these days, best avoid. Not clear why, or when this happened. But it is what it is.
I've seen that concept. It's a big claim that, say, Pinner is horrible.
It's interesting, but not shocking. Those who remember GCSE geography will remember the Burgess and Hoyt models of where the nice bits of cities are: Burgess had them as concentric circles, with the nice bits at the edge; Hoyt had them as wedges. Most cities are a mixture of both. Most cities have wedges of nice bits going most of the way in (usually but not always in the west, the direction of the prevailing wind: see Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow), most cities (not all, Glasgow) have nice bits most of the way around the edge. London ghas two wedges, but even that isn't unusual. Manchester has a T.
Though again, these are far from the ONLY nice bits.
Oh its oversimplified sure. Dulwich is ok. Butvits good as a general rule. London is indeed very nice within the banana.
Yes. But the 'shit outside it' is hyperbole. It's not literally true. Most outside the banana is also nice, if you like big cities. If you've only ever known Russia and what you see through your Twitter algorithms I can see why you might think that. But the poster was using wild exaggeration to make a point which he doesn't expect anyone who knows London to take literally. It's just how the British use language.
Apart from the fact that Wolves only played one match away at Villa in the Eighties, Jenrick was 8 years old in 1990.
His rose tinted glasses also seem to have missed pretty much all the football hooliganism of the Eighties, not least the 96 police injured when Leeds came to Villa Park.
I usually agree with you on most issues but the determination of people like your good self to pretend that there is no problem with Islam in the UK is why I suspect we will be heading towards a Reform-led government.
I dont think that I have ever said that.
My attitude to Islam is much more nuanced than that. I dislike Islamist politics, and loathe Islamist terrorists like Hamas and ISIS. I think Islamic traditions are often misogynistic and patriarchal. On the other hand a lot of Muslim cultural values very positive, particularly the family and kinship networks, emphasis on charity and personal piety etc. I have many observant Muslim friends and colleagues and in many ways we have a similar world view.
I am a liberal and am perfectly happy for people to live their lives and dress as they choose, and see that perfectly compatible with being English. What I don't approve of is people enforcing their values on the rest of society, but this is as true of MAGA as much as any Islamist. Indeed such enforcement of values is not limited to Religion, as we will shortly see when the Poppy Police swing into action.
Fair enough, I accept that your views on Islam are more nuanced and accept that many muslims just want to get on with their lives.
However there is militant minority that has no intention of integrating and has every intention of imposing its values if it gets the opportunity. These are the ones causing problems and feeding the right and the anti-immigration debate not just in the UK but in every European country that has undergone substantial muslim immigration.
It affects us all and is probably going to land us with populist right wing governments in the near future. It will get worse unless the mosques and community leaders really take a meaningful stand - but for every Imam making the right noises there is another one spewing hatred and urging young men on to violence (often funded by the Saudis) . It's been going on since the Fatwah on Salman Rushdie and I believe it is getting worse not better. Time will tell
This is the London Banana. As long as you stay within the Banana, you'll have a great time in London. Almost everything outside the Banana is horrible these days, best avoid. Not clear why, or when this happened. But it is what it is.
I've seen that concept. It's a big claim that, say, Pinner is horrible.
It's interesting, but not shocking. Those who remember GCSE geography will remember the Burgess and Hoyt models of where the nice bits of cities are: Burgess had them as concentric circles, with the nice bits at the edge; Hoyt had them as wedges. Most cities are a mixture of both. Most cities have wedges of nice bits going most of the way in (usually but not always in the west, the direction of the prevailing wind: see Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow), most cities (not all, Glasgow) have nice bits most of the way around the edge. London ghas two wedges, but even that isn't unusual. Manchester has a T.
This is the London Banana. As long as you stay within the Banana, you'll have a great time in London. Almost everything outside the Banana is horrible these days, best avoid. Not clear why, or when this happened. But it is what it is.
I've seen that concept. It's a big claim that, say, Pinner is horrible.
It's interesting, but not shocking. Those who remember GCSE geography will remember the Burgess and Hoyt models of where the nice bits of cities are: Burgess had them as concentric circles, with the nice bits at the edge; Hoyt had them as wedges. Most cities are a mixture of both. Most cities have wedges of nice bits going most of the way in (usually but not always in the west, the direction of the prevailing wind: see Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow), most cities (not all, Glasgow) have nice bits most of the way around the edge. London ghas two wedges, but even that isn't unusual. Manchester has a T.
This is the London Banana. As long as you stay within the Banana, you'll have a great time in London. Almost everything outside the Banana is horrible these days, best avoid. Not clear why, or when this happened. But it is what it is.
I've seen that concept. It's a big claim that, say, Pinner is horrible.
It's interesting, but not shocking. Those who remember GCSE geography will remember the Burgess and Hoyt models of where the nice bits of cities are: Burgess had them as concentric circles, with the nice bits at the edge; Hoyt had them as wedges. Most cities are a mixture of both. Most cities have wedges of nice bits going most of the way in (usually but not always in the west, the direction of the prevailing wind: see Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow), most cities (not all, Glasgow) have nice bits most of the way around the edge. London ghas two wedges, but even that isn't unusual. Manchester has a T.
Meanwhile the people who create nothing and contribute nothing keep pocketing bonuses, handouts, and expense claims that could feed entire families for a year. The rich buy influence, politicians sell out, and the rest of us are left fighting over scraps .”
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
I know a lot of people on the left who have said this and I think it's another symptom of our deranged politics.
Labour have put up tax (Employers NI) by a chunky amount to fund a hefty increase in NHS spending. That puts them firmly on the centre-left.
There is a lot of rhetoric in terms of the flags and whatever that the Left is uncomfortable with, but isn't incompatible with the centre-left. Immigration policy as being implemented is in accordance with the law, negotiation with neighbouring countries, etc.
They are constrained by the taxation promises they felt they had to make to win the election, and by fiscal reality, but you can see numerous signs of what their instincts are, and they're not of the centre-right.
I'd obviously prefer them to be acting further to the left, but I think it's crazy to label Starmer as being on the centre-right.
For the 20% I mentioned upthread, a centre-left government is always going to be a huge disappointment. The thing is, that the kind of government which they want could never hope to get elected in a Western democracy.
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
I know a lot of people on the left who have said this and I think it's another symptom of our deranged politics.
Labour have put up tax (Employers NI) by a chunky amount to fund a hefty increase in NHS spending. That puts them firmly on the centre-left.
There is a lot of rhetoric in terms of the flags and whatever that the Left is uncomfortable with, but isn't incompatible with the centre-left. Immigration policy as being implemented is in accordance with the law, negotiation with neighbouring countries, etc.
They are constrained by the taxation promises they felt they had to make to win the election, and by fiscal reality, but you can see numerous signs of what their instincts are, and they're not of the centre-right.
I'd obviously prefer them to be acting further to the left, but I think it's crazy to label Starmer as being on the centre-right.
Mmm. But the Government has taken on the left with some consistency and enthusiasm, and when they do something to appease left-wingers it's an explicit concession rather than any kind of coherent philosophy. They seem to WANT to be seen as centre-right with some occasional concessions to left-wingers. Whether that's because of genuine conviction or a sense that it's the way to combat Reform and the Tories and nobody else is a threat I'm not sure, but the sense I get is of calculation rather than conviction (in any direction). You can say exactly the same - indeed more so - about the Tories and LibDems. That's why I'm listening to Your Party and polite about the Greens (who don't seem to me to be aiming for Government and hard choices, but at least seem to pursue their policies from enthusiasm). Partly I just think it'd be healthy for Labour to have a serious left-wing challenge to worry about.
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
Not with their family farm tax and NI rise on employers and bungs to train drivers and GPs and removal of hereditàry peers they don't. Labour under Starmer are basically back to Brown Labour not even Blairites.
There is a case to say Davey's LDs are Cameroon but not Labour
I don't know how to break this to you, but the Tories did a whole stack of things - including big tax rises - that they now decry Labour copying. Watching Coutinho slag off the policies she herself was doing as SofS is particularly amusing.
This cloth-eared tendency may be a good part of why you are so low in the polls...
This is the London Banana. As long as you stay within the Banana, you'll have a great time in London. Almost everything outside the Banana is horrible these days, best avoid. Not clear why, or when this happened. But it is what it is.
I've seen that concept. It's a big claim that, say, Pinner is horrible.
It's interesting, but not shocking. Those who remember GCSE geography will remember the Burgess and Hoyt models of where the nice bits of cities are: Burgess had them as concentric circles, with the nice bits at the edge; Hoyt had them as wedges. Most cities are a mixture of both. Most cities have wedges of nice bits going most of the way in (usually but not always in the west, the direction of the prevailing wind: see Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow), most cities (not all, Glasgow) have nice bits most of the way around the edge. London ghas two wedges, but even that isn't unusual. Manchester has a T.
The UK is finished and there is no polite way to put it. What was once called a developed nation has become a playground for corrupt politicians, greedy corporations, and parasitic landlords feeding on people who are simply trying to survive. The working class has been gutted from the inside out. People are working full time, even taking on second jobs, and still cannot cover the basic cost of living. It is not about laziness or poor budgeting. It is that the system itself has been designed to bleed every last drop of effort, money, and dignity from the average person.
Everything that once made this country liveable has been dismantled. A home that cost £700 a month a decade ago now costs £1,500 or more, often for damp, mouldy, low quality flats. Food prices have exploded to the point where a hundred pounds barely fills two carrier bags. Council tax, gas, electricity, fuel, water, and insurance all rise year after year while wages remain frozen. It no longer feels like you are earning money. It feels like you are temporarily renting it before it gets snatched away through endless hidden charges and taxes.
The government taxes income, property, spending, savings, fuel, and even death. You are taxed to live and taxed to die. Nothing is free and nothing is fair. Meanwhile the people who create nothing and contribute nothing keep pocketing bonuses, handouts, and expense claims that could feed entire families for a year. The rich buy influence, politicians sell out, and the rest of us are left fighting over scraps while being told to “tighten our belts.”
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
I know a lot of people on the left who have said this and I think it's another symptom of our deranged politics.
Labour have put up tax (Employers NI) by a chunky amount to fund a hefty increase in NHS spending. That puts them firmly on the centre-left.
There is a lot of rhetoric in terms of the flags and whatever that the Left is uncomfortable with, but isn't incompatible with the centre-left. Immigration policy as being implemented is in accordance with the law, negotiation with neighbouring countries, etc.
They are constrained by the taxation promises they felt they had to make to win the election, and by fiscal reality, but you can see numerous signs of what their instincts are, and they're not of the centre-right.
I'd obviously prefer them to be acting further to the left, but I think it's crazy to label Starmer as being on the centre-right.
Question - was it also on the left when the Tories put up taxes to record peacetime levels to (amongst other things) fund record spending in the NHS?
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
I know a lot of people on the left who have said this and I think it's another symptom of our deranged politics.
Labour have put up tax (Employers NI) by a chunky amount to fund a hefty increase in NHS spending. That puts them firmly on the centre-left.
There is a lot of rhetoric in terms of the flags and whatever that the Left is uncomfortable with, but isn't incompatible with the centre-left. Immigration policy as being implemented is in accordance with the law, negotiation with neighbouring countries, etc.
They are constrained by the taxation promises they felt they had to make to win the election, and by fiscal reality, but you can see numerous signs of what their instincts are, and they're not of the centre-right.
I'd obviously prefer them to be acting further to the left, but I think it's crazy to label Starmer as being on the centre-right.
Mmm. But the Government has taken on the left with some consistency and enthusiasm, and when they do something to appease left-wingers it's an explicit concession rather than any kind of coherent philosophy. They seem to WANT to be seen as centre-right with some occasional concessions to left-wingers. Whether that's because of genuine conviction or a sense that it's the way to combat Reform and the Tories and nobody else is a threat I'm not sure, but the sense I get is of calculation rather than conviction (in any direction). You can say exactly the same - indeed more so - about the Tories and LibDems. That's why I'm listening to Your Party and polite about the Greens (who don't seem to me to be aiming for Government and hard choices, but at least seem to pursue their policies from enthusiasm). Partly I just think it'd be healthy for Labour to have a serious left-wing challenge to worry about.
It is not healthy for the left of centre vote to be split, letting in the Tories and Reform.
This is the London Banana. As long as you stay within the Banana, you'll have a great time in London. Almost everything outside the Banana is horrible these days, best avoid. Not clear why, or when this happened. But it is what it is.
I've seen that concept. It's a big claim that, say, Pinner is horrible.
It's interesting, but not shocking. Those who remember GCSE geography will remember the Burgess and Hoyt models of where the nice bits of cities are: Burgess had them as concentric circles, with the nice bits at the edge; Hoyt had them as wedges. Most cities are a mixture of both. Most cities have wedges of nice bits going most of the way in (usually but not always in the west, the direction of the prevailing wind: see Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow), most cities (not all, Glasgow) have nice bits most of the way around the edge. London ghas two wedges, but even that isn't unusual. Manchester has a T.
Though again, these are far from the ONLY nice bits.
Wasn’t Birds of a Feather set in Pinner ?
Birds of a Feather was set in Chigwell in Essex.
Scooped by Sunil.
May to December was set in Pinner.
Correct about BoaF. One of the killing lines was 'Oh no, you weren't happy just living in Chigwell, you had to be in the same Close as Bobby Moore.' Classic.
You have to be from those parts to know just how Essex that is.
Starmer isn't that rubbish at politics, after all he led Labour from landslide defeat to landslide victory five years later. He is more of a lawyer than natural politician though hence his current unpopularity and often self inflicted errors he and Reeves have made.
TSE is right though and Cummings is wrong, he is unlikely to be replaced anytime soon. Rayner has been forced to resign after a scandal, Nandy is not up to the job of being PM and was even beaten by Long Bailey last time and Ed Miliband led Labour to defeat in 2015. Labour leadership rules also do not allow a no confidence vote in the party leader by party MPs unlike Conservative rules. A leader has to be nominated by MPs, be an MP themselves and beat the incumbent in a membership vote.
If Burnham returned as an MP polls show Labour members would vote for him over Starmer and a recent MiC poll showed a Burnham led Labour would narrowly beat Reform. However unless Burnham returns to Parliament then Starmer is likely safe
I think that Burnham would prefer to remain Mayor of Manchester. Much more rewarding. But he wants Labour to succeed nationally and is trying to influence policy wrt PR, Europe, Israel which means challenging Starmer on these issues, and hoping other Labour MPs will join him. He's putting pressure on Starmer, not in the hope of succeeding him as PM but to influence policy.
In short people are expecting Reform to win and if they don't it's most likely due to Nathan Gill who Reform candidate Llyr Powell once worked for. Farage may have been too dismissive of the issue.
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
I know a lot of people on the left who have said this and I think it's another symptom of our deranged politics.
Labour have put up tax (Employers NI) by a chunky amount to fund a hefty increase in NHS spending. That puts them firmly on the centre-left.
There is a lot of rhetoric in terms of the flags and whatever that the Left is uncomfortable with, but isn't incompatible with the centre-left. Immigration policy as being implemented is in accordance with the law, negotiation with neighbouring countries, etc.
They are constrained by the taxation promises they felt they had to make to win the election, and by fiscal reality, but you can see numerous signs of what their instincts are, and they're not of the centre-right.
I'd obviously prefer them to be acting further to the left, but I think it's crazy to label Starmer as being on the centre-right.
Question - was it also on the left when the Tories put up taxes to record peacetime levels to (amongst other things) fund record spending in the NHS?
Starmer is continuity Sunak.
That was a left wing measure, yes. Sunak’s government was, overall, slightly right of centre.
In short people are expecting Reform to win and if they don't it's most likely due to Nathan Gill who Reform candidate Llyr Powell once worked for. Farage may have been too dismissive of the issue.
I'd advise anyone betting on this to consider it carefully.
The thing that makes me hesitate about these forecasts of Starmer's imminent departure is that list of his likely successors. I mean, jeez. Every time you think Starmer is really not up to the job, just look at that list and reflect.
The thing that makes me hesitate about these forecasts of Starmer's imminent departure is that list of his likely successors. I mean, jeez. Every time you think Starmer is really not up to the job, just look at that list and reflect.
I can’t see what the appeal of Burnham is supposed to be.
Apart from the fact that Wolves only played one match away at Villa in the Eighties, Jenrick was 8 years old in 1990.
His rose tinted glasses also seem to have missed pretty much all the football hooliganism of the Eighties, not least the 96 police injured when Leeds came to Villa Park.
I usually agree with you on most issues but the determination of people like your good self to pretend that there is no problem with Islam in the UK is why I suspect we will be heading towards a Reform-led government.
I dont think that I have ever said that.
My attitude to Islam is much more nuanced than that. I dislike Islamist politics, and loathe Islamist terrorists like Hamas and ISIS. I think Islamic traditions are often misogynistic and patriarchal. On the other hand a lot of Muslim cultural values very positive, particularly the family and kinship networks, emphasis on charity and personal piety etc. I have many observant Muslim friends and colleagues and in many ways we have a similar world view.
I am a liberal and am perfectly happy for people to live their lives and dress as they choose, and see that perfectly compatible with being English. What I don't approve of is people enforcing their values on the rest of society, but this is as true of MAGA as much as any Islamist. Indeed such enforcement of values is not limited to Religion, as we will shortly see when the Poppy Police swing into action.
Fair enough, I accept that your views on Islam are more nuanced and accept that many muslims just want to get on with their lives.
However there is militant minority that has no intention of integrating and has every intention of imposing its values if it gets the opportunity. These are the ones causing problems and feeding the right and the anti-immigration debate not just in the UK but in every European country that has undergone substantial muslim immigration.
It affects us all and is probably going to land us with populist right wing governments in the near future. It will get worse unless the mosques and community leaders really take a meaningful stand - but for every Imam making the right noises there is another one spewing hatred and urging young men on to violence (often funded by the Saudis) . It's been going on since the Fatwah on Salman Rushdie and I believe it is getting worse not better. Time will tell
I dont disagree entirely.
In all communities it seems to be the extremists that have the microphone. Such is the clickbait nature of Social Media, and there can be amplification of anti-semitism and homophobia as a result.
The answer is not the Islamophobia of Yaxley-Lennon, Farage and Jenrick. It is the recognition that the problems driving that politics is much the same in the Muslim communities of Bradford, Rotherham and East London as it is for the white population inclined to Reform. Rundown public spaces and services, limited educational and employment opportunities and a feeling of being neglected by the major parties. Ironically the Reform and Gaza Independent voters have more in common than either does with Liberal Democrats like me.
The thing that makes me hesitate about these forecasts of Starmer's imminent departure is that list of his likely successors. I mean, jeez. Every time you think Starmer is really not up to the job, just look at that list and reflect.
I can’t see what the appeal of Burnham is supposed to be.
Me neither but the dearth of talent on both front benches of the "main" parties is a real problem for this country going forward. Who is going to take the necessary steps to address this unholy mess we are in? And, even if they exist, how the hell do they get elected in a world where the Chancellor claims to be "responsible" when restricting borrowing to £150bn a year?
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
It seems like every other Labour government of my lifetime.
For a certain section of the left, West-hating, wanting full-fat socialism, that is a betrayal. And now, they have other parties to vote for.
It's more than that now though. The stagnant economic situation so many experience inclines people to radical solutions.
The thing that makes me hesitate about these forecasts of Starmer's imminent departure is that list of his likely successors. I mean, jeez. Every time you think Starmer is really not up to the job, just look at that list and reflect.
I can’t see what the appeal of Burnham is supposed to be.
Manchester doesn’t seem to be completely FUBARed, speaks human, sounds like he means what he says at any given moment (even if Burnham may say the complete opposite at some point in the future). These are fairly exceptional attributes in the current landscape.
Apart from the fact that Wolves only played one match away at Villa in the Eighties, Jenrick was 8 years old in 1990.
His rose tinted glasses also seem to have missed pretty much all the football hooliganism of the Eighties, not least the 96 police injured when Leeds came to Villa Park.
I usually agree with you on most issues but the determination of people like your good self to pretend that there is no problem with Islam in the UK is why I suspect we will be heading towards a Reform-led government.
I dont think that I have ever said that.
My attitude to Islam is much more nuanced than that. I dislike Islamist politics, and loathe Islamist terrorists like Hamas and ISIS. I think Islamic traditions are often misogynistic and patriarchal. On the other hand a lot of Muslim cultural values very positive, particularly the family and kinship networks, emphasis on charity and personal piety etc. I have many observant Muslim friends and colleagues and in many ways we have a similar world view.
I am a liberal and am perfectly happy for people to live their lives and dress as they choose, and see that perfectly compatible with being English. What I don't approve of is people enforcing their values on the rest of society, but this is as true of MAGA as much as any Islamist. Indeed such enforcement of values is not limited to Religion, as we will shortly see when the Poppy Police swing into action.
Fair enough, I accept that your views on Islam are more nuanced and accept that many muslims just want to get on with their lives.
However there is militant minority that has no intention of integrating and has every intention of imposing its values if it gets the opportunity. These are the ones causing problems and feeding the right and the anti-immigration debate not just in the UK but in every European country that has undergone substantial muslim immigration.
It affects us all and is probably going to land us with populist right wing governments in the near future. It will get worse unless the mosques and community leaders really take a meaningful stand - but for every Imam making the right noises there is another one spewing hatred and urging young men on to violence (often funded by the Saudis) . It's been going on since the Fatwah on Salman Rushdie and I believe it is getting worse not better. Time will tell
I dont disagree entirely.
The answer is not the Islamophobia of Yaxley-Lennon, Farage and Jenrick.
That one sentence sums up why I could never vote for a Jenrick led Tory party. I fear a parting of the ways is coming.
This is the London Banana. As long as you stay within the Banana, you'll have a great time in London. Almost everything outside the Banana is horrible these days, best avoid. Not clear why, or when this happened. But it is what it is.
I've seen that concept. It's a big claim that, say, Pinner is horrible.
It's interesting, but not shocking. Those who remember GCSE geography will remember the Burgess and Hoyt models of where the nice bits of cities are: Burgess had them as concentric circles, with the nice bits at the edge; Hoyt had them as wedges. Most cities are a mixture of both. Most cities have wedges of nice bits going most of the way in (usually but not always in the west, the direction of the prevailing wind: see Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow), most cities (not all, Glasgow) have nice bits most of the way around the edge. London ghas two wedges, but even that isn't unusual. Manchester has a T.
Apart from the fact that Wolves only played one match away at Villa in the Eighties, Jenrick was 8 years old in 1990.
His rose tinted glasses also seem to have missed pretty much all the football hooliganism of the Eighties, not least the 96 police injured when Leeds came to Villa Park.
Every single statement in that comment is as false as the man himself. Including his claim he went to those matches when he was a toddler.
How about this one?
The language, chants, and antics were - at times - less than well-mannered.
Parsing off hooliganism and outright racism as ill mannered antics is false too. Yes.
Part of me feels I ought to re-read J G Ballard's last two novels written in the 2000s. Millenium People features middle class Londoners attempting a pathetic revolution and Kingdom Come the white working class re-tribalising themselves marching around wearing St George's shirts.
The thing that makes me hesitate about these forecasts of Starmer's imminent departure is that list of his likely successors. I mean, jeez. Every time you think Starmer is really not up to the job, just look at that list and reflect.
I can’t see what the appeal of Burnham is supposed to be.
Me neither but the dearth of talent on both front benches of the "main" parties is a real problem for this country going forward. Who is going to take the necessary steps to address this unholy mess we are in? And, even if they exist, how the hell do they get elected in a world where the Chancellor claims to be "responsible" when restricting borrowing to £150bn a year?
Maybe we need a rule that anyone with a PPE degree is disqualified from standing for parliament.
This is the London Banana. As long as you stay within the Banana, you'll have a great time in London. Almost everything outside the Banana is horrible these days, best avoid. Not clear why, or when this happened. But it is what it is.
I've seen that concept. It's a big claim that, say, Pinner is horrible.
It's interesting, but not shocking. Those who remember GCSE geography will remember the Burgess and Hoyt models of where the nice bits of cities are: Burgess had them as concentric circles, with the nice bits at the edge; Hoyt had them as wedges. Most cities are a mixture of both. Most cities have wedges of nice bits going most of the way in (usually but not always in the west, the direction of the prevailing wind: see Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow), most cities (not all, Glasgow) have nice bits most of the way around the edge. London ghas two wedges, but even that isn't unusual. Manchester has a T.
The thing that makes me hesitate about these forecasts of Starmer's imminent departure is that list of his likely successors. I mean, jeez. Every time you think Starmer is really not up to the job, just look at that list and reflect.
I can’t see what the appeal of Burnham is supposed to be.
Me neither but the dearth of talent on both front benches of the "main" parties is a real problem for this country going forward. Who is going to take the necessary steps to address this unholy mess we are in? And, even if they exist, how the hell do they get elected in a world where the Chancellor claims to be "responsible" when restricting borrowing to £150bn a year?
Maybe we need a rule that anyone with a PPE degree is disqualified from standing for parliament.
Although Jenrick and Starmer both have law degrees, and TSE will get sarcastic with us if we threaten to ban lawyers from Parliament.
Apart from the fact that Wolves only played one match away at Villa in the Eighties, Jenrick was 8 years old in 1990.
His rose tinted glasses also seem to have missed pretty much all the football hooliganism of the Eighties, not least the 96 police injured when Leeds came to Villa Park.
I usually agree with you on most issues but the determination of people like your good self to pretend that there is no problem with Islam in the UK is why I suspect we will be heading towards a Reform-led government.
I dont think that I have ever said that.
My attitude to Islam is much more nuanced than that. I dislike Islamist politics, and loathe Islamist terrorists like Hamas and ISIS. I think Islamic traditions are often misogynistic and patriarchal. On the other hand a lot of Muslim cultural values very positive, particularly the family and kinship networks, emphasis on charity and personal piety etc. I have many observant Muslim friends and colleagues and in many ways we have a similar world view.
I am a liberal and am perfectly happy for people to live their lives and dress as they choose, and see that perfectly compatible with being English. What I don't approve of is people enforcing their values on the rest of society, but this is as true of MAGA as much as any Islamist. Indeed such enforcement of values is not limited to Religion, as we will shortly see when the Poppy Police swing into action.
Fair enough, I accept that your views on Islam are more nuanced and accept that many muslims just want to get on with their lives.
However there is militant minority that has no intention of integrating and has every intention of imposing its values if it gets the opportunity. These are the ones causing problems and feeding the right and the anti-immigration debate not just in the UK but in every European country that has undergone substantial muslim immigration.
It affects us all and is probably going to land us with populist right wing governments in the near future. It will get worse unless the mosques and community leaders really take a meaningful stand - but for every Imam making the right noises there is another one spewing hatred and urging young men on to violence (often funded by the Saudis) . It's been going on since the Fatwah on Salman Rushdie and I believe it is getting worse not better. Time will tell
I dont disagree entirely.
The answer is not the Islamophobia of Yaxley-Lennon, Farage and Jenrick.
That one sentence sums up why I could never vote for a Jenrick led Tory party. I fear a parting of the ways is coming.
A Jenrick led Tory Party may as well merge with Reform anyway at the moment, Farage all but anointed Jenrick his heir the other day and spot the difference on policy between them? If anything Jenrick is now positioning himself as right of Farage.
If Kemi went the best option for Conservatives to take on Farage and Starmer and to get Labour and LD tactical votes in Conservative held seats Reform are targeting is Cleverly.
Jenrick is an option to reunite the right if Farage and Kemi or Cleverly both lose the next general election, he isn't the man to take on Farage
Apart from the fact that Wolves only played one match away at Villa in the Eighties, Jenrick was 8 years old in 1990.
His rose tinted glasses also seem to have missed pretty much all the football hooliganism of the Eighties, not least the 96 police injured when Leeds came to Villa Park.
I usually agree with you on most issues but the determination of people like your good self to pretend that there is no problem with Islam in the UK is why I suspect we will be heading towards a Reform-led government.
I dont think that I have ever said that.
My attitude to Islam is much more nuanced than that. I dislike Islamist politics, and loathe Islamist terrorists like Hamas and ISIS. I think Islamic traditions are often misogynistic and patriarchal. On the other hand a lot of Muslim cultural values very positive, particularly the family and kinship networks, emphasis on charity and personal piety etc. I have many observant Muslim friends and colleagues and in many ways we have a similar world view.
I am a liberal and am perfectly happy for people to live their lives and dress as they choose, and see that perfectly compatible with being English. What I don't approve of is people enforcing their values on the rest of society, but this is as true of MAGA as much as any Islamist. Indeed such enforcement of values is not limited to Religion, as we will shortly see when the Poppy Police swing into action.
Fair enough, I accept that your views on Islam are more nuanced and accept that many muslims just want to get on with their lives.
However there is militant minority that has no intention of integrating and has every intention of imposing its values if it gets the opportunity. These are the ones causing problems and feeding the right and the anti-immigration debate not just in the UK but in every European country that has undergone substantial muslim immigration.
It affects us all and is probably going to land us with populist right wing governments in the near future. It will get worse unless the mosques and community leaders really take a meaningful stand - but for every Imam making the right noises there is another one spewing hatred and urging young men on to violence (often funded by the Saudis) . It's been going on since the Fatwah on Salman Rushdie and I believe it is getting worse not better. Time will tell
I dont disagree entirely.
In all communities it seems to be the extremists that have the microphone. Such is the clickbait nature of Social Media, and there can be amplification of anti-semitism and homophobia as a result.
The answer is not the Islamophobia of Yaxley-Lennon, Farage and Jenrick. It is the recognition that the problems driving that politics is much the same in the Muslim communities of Bradford, Rotherham and East London as it is for the white population inclined to Reform. Rundown public spaces and services, limited educational and employment opportunities and a feeling of being neglected by the major parties. Ironically the Reform and Gaza Independent voters have more in common than either does with Liberal Democrats like me.
As a footnote, Housing is also an issue, and cultural change. Cultural change both communities too, with the old ways and traditions under threat in a world where new ideas, technology and shifting cultural mores seem a threat to old values. Hence the over reaction and retreat into a reactionary mythic past golden age, whether an 1950s Ealing comedy England, or the cultural heyday of Islam.
The thing that makes me hesitate about these forecasts of Starmer's imminent departure is that list of his likely successors. I mean, jeez. Every time you think Starmer is really not up to the job, just look at that list and reflect.
I can’t see what the appeal of Burnham is supposed to be.
More charisma than Starmer, more northern and redwall and a bit more left on tax and spend for the Labour core vote and votes Labour has lost to the Greens
Apart from the fact that Wolves only played one match away at Villa in the Eighties, Jenrick was 8 years old in 1990.
His rose tinted glasses also seem to have missed pretty much all the football hooliganism of the Eighties, not least the 96 police injured when Leeds came to Villa Park.
I usually agree with you on most issues but the determination of people like your good self to pretend that there is no problem with Islam in the UK is why I suspect we will be heading towards a Reform-led government.
I dont think that I have ever said that.
My attitude to Islam is much more nuanced than that. I dislike Islamist politics, and loathe Islamist terrorists like Hamas and ISIS. I think Islamic traditions are often misogynistic and patriarchal. On the other hand a lot of Muslim cultural values very positive, particularly the family and kinship networks, emphasis on charity and personal piety etc. I have many observant Muslim friends and colleagues and in many ways we have a similar world view.
I am a liberal and am perfectly happy for people to live their lives and dress as they choose, and see that perfectly compatible with being English. What I don't approve of is people enforcing their values on the rest of society, but this is as true of MAGA as much as any Islamist. Indeed such enforcement of values is not limited to Religion, as we will shortly see when the Poppy Police swing into action.
Fair enough, I accept that your views on Islam are more nuanced and accept that many muslims just want to get on with their lives.
However there is militant minority that has no intention of integrating and has every intention of imposing its values if it gets the opportunity. These are the ones causing problems and feeding the right and the anti-immigration debate not just in the UK but in every European country that has undergone substantial muslim immigration.
It affects us all and is probably going to land us with populist right wing governments in the near future. It will get worse unless the mosques and community leaders really take a meaningful stand - but for every Imam making the right noises there is another one spewing hatred and urging young men on to violence (often funded by the Saudis) . It's been going on since the Fatwah on Salman Rushdie and I believe it is getting worse not better. Time will tell
I dont disagree entirely.
The answer is not the Islamophobia of Yaxley-Lennon, Farage and Jenrick.
That one sentence sums up why I could never vote for a Jenrick led Tory party. I fear a parting of the ways is coming.
A Jenrick led Tory Party may as well merge with Reform anyway at the moment, Farage all but anointed Jenrick his heir the other day and spot the difference on policy between them? If anything Jenrick is now positioning himself as right of Farage.
If Kemi went the best option for Conservatives to take on Farage and Starmer and to get Labour and LD tactical votes in Conservative held seats Reform are targeting is Cleverly.
Jenrick is an option to reunite the right if Farage and Kemi or Cleverly both lose the next general election, he isn't the man to take on Farage
Agreed, and I am not saying such a grouping led in that way might not do well in these febrile times. I am simply saying I will not vote for it.
Starmer isn't that rubbish at politics, after all he led Labour from landslide defeat to landslide victory five years later. He is more of a lawyer than natural politician though hence his current unpopularity and often self inflicted errors he and Reeves have made.
TSE is right though and Cummings is wrong, he is unlikely to be replaced anytime soon. Rayner has been forced to resign after a scandal, Nandy is not up to the job of being PM and was even beaten by Long Bailey last time and Ed Miliband led Labour to defeat in 2015. Labour leadership rules also do not allow a no confidence vote in the party leader by party MPs unlike Conservative rules. A leader has to be nominated by MPs, be an MP themselves and beat the incumbent in a membership vote.
If Burnham returned as an MP polls show Labour members would vote for him over Starmer and a recent MiC poll showed a Burnham led Labour would narrowly beat Reform. However unless Burnham returns to Parliament then Starmer is likely safe
I think that Burnham would prefer to remain Mayor of Manchester. Much more rewarding. But he wants Labour to succeed nationally and is trying to influence policy wrt PR, Europe, Israel which means challenging Starmer on these issues, and hoping other Labour MPs will join him. He's putting pressure on Starmer, not in the hope of succeeding him as PM but to influence policy.
For now, if polls still show only a Burnham led Labour can beat Reform he will try and put his hat in the ring by the next GE
As someone fairly ambivalent about Starmer and Reeves, I'm interested to see whether the antipathy toward them is personal or just the usual antipathy toward Labour Prime Ministers from those on the conservative side of the fence. I suspect, were Starmer to leave and another Labour PM to be in office, the antipathy would readily transfer to the new individual.
Ho hum...in any case, short of an outright Cabinet mutiny, the only two reasonable and legal ways Starmer leaves office are either a) voluntarily or b) democratically in an election. The latter isn't on the horizon and the former will only happen once a rubicon of sorts is crossed and he simply doesn't want to do the job any longer. He's been in the job 15 months not 15 years so I suspect for all the crap, he may went on to go on a little while yet.
We know the Budget is going to be horrible - it's the reckoning at the end of the party or the meal - the bill is on the table and we have to pay up. Reeves is going to raise taxes and cut spending - we know that as well. How imaginative she will be remains to be seen but it's going to be unpleasant - we all know that.
It’s not just the right who dislike this government. Not by a long way.
It’s that part of the left (nearly a fifth of the voters), that supports the Greens/Your Party. They see Israel/Gaza as the defining issue of our times, and can’t understand why that country is not subject to comprehensive economic, and even military, sanctions.
Domestically, they want a government that imposes punitive taxes on “the rich” (anyone earning £50 k +,) drives landlords out of business, rejoins the EU, and overturns the Supreme Court’s ruling on sex/gender discrimination.
They do, bizarrely but sincerely, see Starmer as a disguised right winger.
On any traditional definition of political sides, Labour occupy the Centre Right position formerly taken by Cameroon and One Nation Tories.
Not with their family farm tax and NI rise on employers and bungs to train drivers and GPs and removal of hereditàry peers they don't. Labour under Starmer are basically back to Brown Labour not even Blairites.
There is a case to say Davey's LDs are Cameroon but not Labour
I don't know how to break this to you, but the Tories did a whole stack of things - including big tax rises - that they now decry Labour copying. Watching Coutinho slag off the policies she herself was doing as SofS is particularly amusing.
This cloth-eared tendency may be a good part of why you are so low in the polls...
The Tories cut inheritance tax and took the lowest earners out of income tax.
The thing that makes me hesitate about these forecasts of Starmer's imminent departure is that list of his likely successors. I mean, jeez. Every time you think Starmer is really not up to the job, just look at that list and reflect.
I can’t see what the appeal of Burnham is supposed to be.
Me neither but the dearth of talent on both front benches of the "main" parties is a real problem for this country going forward. Who is going to take the necessary steps to address this unholy mess we are in? And, even if they exist, how the hell do they get elected in a world where the Chancellor claims to be "responsible" when restricting borrowing to £150bn a year?
Maybe we need a rule that anyone with a PPE degree is disqualified from standing for parliament.
I think my son would make a better PM than any of the options at the moment and he got a first in PPE. I don't think that is the root of the problem.
The thing that makes me hesitate about these forecasts of Starmer's imminent departure is that list of his likely successors. I mean, jeez. Every time you think Starmer is really not up to the job, just look at that list and reflect.
I can’t see what the appeal of Burnham is supposed to be.
Me neither but the dearth of talent on both front benches of the "main" parties is a real problem for this country going forward. Who is going to take the necessary steps to address this unholy mess we are in? And, even if they exist, how the hell do they get elected in a world where the Chancellor claims to be "responsible" when restricting borrowing to £150bn a year?
Maybe we need a rule that anyone with a PPE degree is disqualified from standing for parliament.
Although Jenrick and Starmer both have law degrees, and TSE will get sarcastic with us if we threaten to ban lawyers from Parliament.
We need to thole TSE’s sarcasm for the good of the country.
By which he presumably defines English babies as being purely white and with parents who were English born. Which is as much a result of our declining birthrate as immigration anyway
Immigration pushes house prices up which reduces the birth rate. Still if you want our future to be Birmingham.
100 years ago most people had 3 children or more and rented their entire lives, low birthrates is the impact of more women in the workplace and more going to university and social media and fewer religious as much as house prices
This is the London Banana. As long as you stay within the Banana, you'll have a great time in London. Almost everything outside the Banana is horrible these days, best avoid. Not clear why, or when this happened. But it is what it is.
I've seen that concept. It's a big claim that, say, Pinner is horrible.
It's interesting, but not shocking. Those who remember GCSE geography will remember the Burgess and Hoyt models of where the nice bits of cities are: Burgess had them as concentric circles, with the nice bits at the edge; Hoyt had them as wedges. Most cities are a mixture of both. Most cities have wedges of nice bits going most of the way in (usually but not always in the west, the direction of the prevailing wind: see Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow), most cities (not all, Glasgow) have nice bits most of the way around the edge. London ghas two wedges, but even that isn't unusual. Manchester has a T.
Though again, these are far from the ONLY nice bits.
Wasn’t Birds of a Feather set in Pinner ?
Birds of a Feather was set in Chigwell in Essex.
Scooped by Sunil.
May to December was set in Pinner.
Correct about BoaF. One of the killing lines was 'Oh no, you weren't happy just living in Chigwell, you had to be in the same Close as Bobby Moore.' Classic.
You have to be from those parts to know just how Essex that is.
Bobby Moore had also lived in Gants Hill, just a stone's throw from Wes Streeting's constituency office, and also where Grandma's House was set (the short-lived Simon Amstell sitcom).
Comments
50% isn’t “stagnating”!
and NI rise on employers and bungs to train drivers and GPs and removal of hereditàry peers they don't. Labour under Starmer are basically back to Brown Labour not even Blairites.
There is a case to say Davey's LDs are Cameroon but not Labour
On immigration - it is quite clear that there is enormous abuse at the low end. People are paying criminals small fortunes to be boated across the Channel. Or larger fortunes to companies arranging visas for bogus jobs.
Their labour is then used to fuel employment of a kind that would upset even the most rock ribbed of Lancashire Mill Owners. And the accommodation - slum landlords, very literally.
I can’t see how much of the Left would object to cracking down on those using and abusing the undocumented. Well, after they get over the fact that, very often, the abusers come from the same ethnic group as their victims.
The canard “the jobs the British won’t deign to do” is rubbish. It’s “the jobs that are worse than being on benefits” that the British won’t do.
Go on, Reeves. Go after Deliveroo and their “layers”.
There are those of us (centre, centre-right) who dislike how intensely relaxed he appeared to be about Corbyn becoming Prime Minister (which he came near to doing in 2017). There are others (Green/Your Party left) who dislike his declaring himself (apparently lying) to be a Corbynista to win the leadership, but for the most part these are two distinct categories of haters, and each group has good reason not to take him necessarily at his word.
So I'd best stay quiet.
The English are being ethnically cleansed. It’s a crime against humanity. But none of our leaders, and I mean none, have the balls to say it.
We are a year or two from the first generation of English babies to be a minority.
https://x.com/WorldByWolf/status/1978776989239537735
This is the London Banana. As long as you stay within the Banana, you'll have a great time in London. Almost everything outside the Banana is horrible these days, best avoid. Not clear why, or when this happened. But it is what it is.
https://x.com/Saul_Sadka/status/1959609109939892706
JUST IN - Trump admin considering refugee system overhaul granting priority to English speakers, White South Africans and Europeans who oppose migration or support "populist" political parties — NYT
8:45 PM · Oct 15, 2025
·
2.5M
https://x.com/disclosetv/status/1978547829426602402
I hear they are getting a hostile reception from the natives.
Everything that once made this country liveable has been dismantled. A home that cost £700 a month a decade ago now costs £1,500 or more, often for damp, mouldy, low quality flats. Food prices have exploded to the point where a hundred pounds barely fills two carrier bags. Council tax, gas, electricity, fuel, water, and insurance all rise year after year while wages remain frozen. It no longer feels like you are earning money. It feels like you are temporarily renting it before it gets snatched away through endless hidden charges and taxes.
The government taxes income, property, spending, savings, fuel, and even death. You are taxed to live and taxed to die. Nothing is free and nothing is fair. Meanwhile the people who create nothing and contribute nothing keep pocketing bonuses, handouts, and expense claims that could feed entire families for a year. The rich buy influence, politicians sell out, and the rest of us are left fighting over scraps while being told to “tighten our belts.”
https://x.com/zthoupaul/status/1976892490247503997
We could do a reciprocal deal here, we could take Americans who dislike fascism in exchange on a 1 in 1 out basis?
It's interesting, but not shocking. Those who remember GCSE geography will remember the Burgess and Hoyt models of where the nice bits of cities are: Burgess had them as concentric circles, with the nice bits at the edge; Hoyt had them as wedges. Most cities are a mixture of both. Most cities have wedges of nice bits going most of the way in (usually but not always in the west, the direction of the prevailing wind: see Sheffield, Bristol, Glasgow), most cities (not all, Glasgow) have nice bits most of the way around the edge. London ghas two wedges, but even that isn't unusual.
Manchester has a T.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/greater-manchesters-most-desirable-neighbourhoods-32644782
Though again, these are far from the ONLY nice bits.
For a certain section of the left, West-hating, wanting full-fat socialism, that is a betrayal. And now, they have other parties to vote for.
Before you are formally ejected can I ask you to go fuck yourself?
The Sun has come out.
All this talk of weekend snacks is making me peckish.
Labour have put up tax (Employers NI) by a chunky amount to fund a hefty increase in NHS spending. That puts them firmly on the centre-left.
There is a lot of rhetoric in terms of the flags and whatever that the Left is uncomfortable with, but isn't incompatible with the centre-left. Immigration policy as being implemented is in accordance with the law, negotiation with neighbouring countries, etc.
They are constrained by the taxation promises they felt they had to make to win the election, and by fiscal reality, but you can see numerous signs of what their instincts are, and they're not of the centre-right.
I'd obviously prefer them to be acting further to the left, but I think it's crazy to label Starmer as being on the centre-right.
If you've only ever known Russia and what you see through your Twitter algorithms I can see why you might think that. But the poster was using wild exaggeration to make a point which he doesn't expect anyone who knows London to take literally. It's just how the British use language.
However there is militant minority that has no intention of integrating and has every intention of imposing its values if it gets the opportunity. These are the ones causing problems and feeding the right and the anti-immigration debate not just in the UK but in every European country that has undergone substantial muslim immigration.
It affects us all and is probably going to land us with populist right wing governments in the near future. It will get worse unless the mosques and community leaders really take a meaningful stand - but for every Imam making the right noises there is another one spewing hatred and urging young men on to violence (often funded by the Saudis) . It's been going on since the Fatwah on Salman Rushdie and I believe it is getting worse not better. Time will tell
Scooped by Sunil.
May to December was set in Pinner.
This cloth-eared tendency may be a good part of why you are so low in the polls...
Starmer is continuity Sunak.
You have to be from those parts to know just how Essex that is.
But he wants Labour to succeed nationally and is trying to influence policy wrt PR, Europe, Israel which means challenging Starmer on these issues, and hoping other Labour MPs will join him. He's putting pressure on Starmer, not in the hope of succeeding him as PM but to influence policy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zmtTy8_l14
In short people are expecting Reform to win and if they don't it's most likely due to Nathan Gill who Reform candidate Llyr Powell once worked for. Farage may have been too dismissive of the issue.
In all communities it seems to be the extremists that have the microphone. Such is the clickbait nature of Social Media, and there can be amplification of anti-semitism and homophobia as a result.
The answer is not the Islamophobia of Yaxley-Lennon, Farage and Jenrick. It is the recognition that the problems driving that politics is much the same in the Muslim communities of Bradford, Rotherham and East London as it is for the white population inclined to Reform. Rundown public spaces and services, limited educational and employment opportunities and a feeling of being neglected by the major parties. Ironically the Reform and Gaza Independent voters have more in common than either does with Liberal Democrats like me.
(Am I unfair to troll our Saturday morning visitor after the ban hammer has been swung?)
If Kemi went the best option for Conservatives to take on Farage and Starmer and to get Labour and LD tactical votes in Conservative held seats Reform are targeting is Cleverly.
Jenrick is an option to reunite the right if Farage and Kemi or Cleverly both lose the next general election, he isn't the man to take on Farage