The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
As posted earlier, Zack would have been better off on HIGNFY than switching at the last minute to Question Time. He has a good sense of humour. NOTA is not about policy.
Didn’t see the earlier post, been at Durham Xmas market, but that makes sense. He’d be better on HIGNFY
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
As posted earlier, Zack would have been better off on HIGNFY than switching at the last minute to Question Time. He has a good sense of humour. NOTA is not about policy.
Didn’t see the earlier post, been at Durham Xmas market, but that makes sense. He’d be better on HIGNFY
There once was a Tory councillor in Kendal who was VERY good at representing his ward. But come the next election the Lib Dems went around and on every doorstep where the voters expressed approval of their excellent sitting councillor they began with "You know he's a puff ?" Inevitably he lost his seat.
Roll on a few years and suddenly inclusion was the buzzword of the hard left Lib Dems. So in full council there was voted through a vomit inducing motion as to how we were to stand up for equality. And the very same councillors who had gone from door to door saying "You know he's a puff ?" were all outdoing each other in their condemnation of anything but inclusivity. I was very close to throwing up, I must admit.
All this about Farage is just the same confected indignation. And just like the "inclusive" Lib Dem councillors who were the real homophobes it takes an extra level of Racism to imbue comments made 50 years ago with a hatred they did not intend or imply at the time.
Aah so that's why you have a spiteful view if the libdems. Do you have any proof of this slur?
PB is wonderful. Reform can be abused as much as they like. reFUKKers is a standard term from the demented. Same with Labour and the Tories
But have a negative view of the piss diamonds and you’re being ‘spiteful’
Glorious.
Hmmm no. I don't abuse other parties. And that accusation wasn't exactly just using a rude word to describe an opponent. It was an accusation that required some evidence as it seemed outrageously false.
And the tone of the post and previous ones demonstrated an irrational hatred eg describing LDs as hard left is clearly delusional.
The Lib Dems are not hard left, I’d say soft left/centrist.
However I stand by my comment on double standards here.
I would say I am right of centre and I can be best described as an Orange Booker. Others of the Social Democratic leaning would be left of centre I guess.
But you reacted to people objecting to what was an outrageous slur (not by you obviously) as being somewhat precious. I think it was only reasonable that people should have reacted to it. If it were true and was known about it would likely have resulted in expulsion from the LDs. It was an outrageous story by that poster and needed some sort of citation (sometimes things like this do happen).
I don't react to you referring to the LDs as 'piss diamonds', although you feel the need to do so baffles me. I refer to Labour as Labour. I refer to the Conservatives as Tories, I refer to the Greens and Greens and I refer to Reform as Reform. I don't see the point in name calling.
Informal discussions have taken place inside No 10 on rejoining customs union as quickest way to boost growth
I know that the Labour Party is increasingly treating its already ridiculously policy-light manifesto as if it was never given, but really this is one they need to win a mandate for - they explicitly ruled this out at the election.
This is coming from someone that thinks Brexit was a mistake (but respected the vote), and who firmly believes that the Brexit relationship is not fixed in stone, and if the country feels that relationship is not working must be able to explore other possibilities.
One for their next manifesto perhaps, but I think any moves during this parliament will run the risk of backfiring and re-opening all the Brexit wounds, with an inevitable boost to Reform.
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
Show me you don't know any Remainers, without saying you don't know any Remainers.
Informal discussions have taken place inside No 10 on rejoining customs union as quickest way to boost growth
We won't rejoin THE Customs Union or THE Single Market... Not yet, anyway. But an arrangement with a Single Customs Area and/or a United Market probably would be good for growth. It will leave the UK people with less control than they had in 2015, but beggars can't be choosers.
And going back to the theme of the header, the next Labour leader won't get the job without showing quite a lot of leg on the matter.
I think it'd add something like 0.2-0.3% GDP to growth, so very marginal in the grand scheme of things.
That's not what this is about nor why he's doing it. He's doing it because VALUES: it'd deftly stimulate the internationalist erogenous zones of left-liberal progressives, and probably give Remoaners a near orgasm.
I'd pledge it, if I were him, in the next GE because there's probably no better way Starmer can harvest their votes.
Better than a kick in the teeth. Using a recent estimate of UK GDP of about 2.56 trillion pounds in 2024, 0.3% of UK GDP is roughly 7.7 billion pounds What could be done with that?
You could spend it all on even more welfare benefits for non-working people.
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
I’ve noted that among my eldest daughters friends (university age), the “politically conscious types” split between “Open Borders” vs “Mass immigration = wage suppression for The Bosses”
The later group seems to be a serious segment of the young. They are left wing with it - usual Left of Labour beliefs. Just absolutely against economic migration.
I was rather surprised. But then again, they are competing for minimum wage jobs…
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
Show me you don't know any Remainers, without saying you don't know any Remainers.
There once was a Tory councillor in Kendal who was VERY good at representing his ward. But come the next election the Lib Dems went around and on every doorstep where the voters expressed approval of their excellent sitting councillor they began with "You know he's a puff ?" Inevitably he lost his seat.
Roll on a few years and suddenly inclusion was the buzzword of the hard left Lib Dems. So in full council there was voted through a vomit inducing motion as to how we were to stand up for equality. And the very same councillors who had gone from door to door saying "You know he's a puff ?" were all outdoing each other in their condemnation of anything but inclusivity. I was very close to throwing up, I must admit.
All this about Farage is just the same confected indignation. And just like the "inclusive" Lib Dem councillors who were the real homophobes it takes an extra level of Racism to imbue comments made 50 years ago with a hatred they did not intend or imply at the time.
Aah so that's why you have a spiteful view if the libdems. Do you have any proof of this slur?
PB is wonderful. Reform can be abused as much as they like. reFUKKers is a standard term from the demented. Same with Labour and the Tories
But have a negative view of the piss diamonds and you’re being ‘spiteful’
Glorious.
Hmmm no. I don't abuse other parties. And that accusation wasn't exactly just using a rude word to describe an opponent. It was an accusation that required some evidence as it seemed outrageously false.
And the tone of the post and previous ones demonstrated an irrational hatred eg describing LDs as hard left is clearly delusional.
The Lib Dems are not hard left, I’d say soft left/centrist.
However I stand by my comment on double standards here.
I would say I am right of centre and I can be best described as an Orange Booker. Others of the Social Democratic leaning would be left of centre I guess.
But you reacted to people objecting to what was an outrageous slur (not by you obviously) as being somewhat precious. I think it was only reasonable that people should have reacted to it. If it were true and was known about it would likely have resulted in expulsion from the LDs. It was an outrageous story by that poster and needed some sort of citation (sometimes things like this do happen).
I don't react to you referring to the LDs as 'piss diamonds', although you feel the need to do so baffles me. I refer to Labour as Labour. I refer to the Conservatives as Tories, I refer to the Greens and Greens and I refer to Reform as Reform. I don't see the point in name calling.
It’s more a Twitter reference to the Lib Dem diamond some people put in their bio.
Migrated here.
I suspect most people, whatever their politics, are decent. I don’t think PB sees that.
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
As posted earlier, Zack would have been better off on HIGNFY than switching at the last minute to Question Time. He has a good sense of humour. NOTA is not about policy.
Didn’t see the earlier post, been at Durham Xmas market, but that makes sense. He’d be better on HIGNFY
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
Show me you don't know any Remainers, without saying you don't know any Remainers.
I’ve met people like that. In Wiltshire, there were some incomers to Malmesbury who fought against development on a mishmash of Green/Nimby excuses. After some wine, they would comment that if a factory got built locally, then wages would go up - which would hit them.
Strangely, the locals (pushed into the housing estate over the hill) all voted…
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
I’ve noted that among my eldest daughters friends (university age), the “politically conscious types” split between “Open Borders” vs “Mass immigration = wage suppression for The Bosses”
The later group seems to be a serious segment of the young. They are left wing with it - usual Left of Labour beliefs. Just absolutely against economic migration.
I was rather surprised. But then again, they are competing for minimum wage jobs…
Indeed. I’ve always felt views on migration are driven by economic self interest. It’s different to them when it’s working class communities or manual trades having the competition driving wages down.
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
Show me you don't know any Remainers, without saying you don't know any Remainers.
I’ve met people like that. In Wiltshire, there were some incomers to Malmesbury who fought against development on a mishmash of Green/Nimby excuses. After some wine, they would comment that if a factory got built locally, then wages would go up - which would hit them.
Strangely, the locals (pushed into the housing estate over the hill) all voted…
Maybe Wiltshire attracts that sort of person. It's not an argument I have ever heard anybody make round here.
Informal discussions have taken place inside No 10 on rejoining customs union as quickest way to boost growth
We won't rejoin THE Customs Union or THE Single Market... Not yet, anyway. But an arrangement with a Single Customs Area and/or a United Market probably would be good for growth. It will leave the UK people with less control than they had in 2015, but beggars can't be choosers.
And going back to the theme of the header, the next Labour leader won't get the job without showing quite a lot of leg on the matter.
I think it'd add something like 0.2-0.3% GDP to growth, so very marginal in the grand scheme of things.
That's not what this is about nor why he's doing it. He's doing it because VALUES: it'd deftly stimulate the internationalist erogenous zones of left-liberal progressives, and probably give Remoaners a near orgasm.
I'd pledge it, if I were him, in the next GE because there's probably no better way Starmer can harvest their votes.
Better than a kick in the teeth. Using a recent estimate of UK GDP of about 2.56 trillion pounds in 2024, 0.3% of UK GDP is roughly 7.7 billion pounds What could be done with that?
If that were it, we'd probably do it, though we'd have to make contributions of £3 billion or so per year for structural funds, so the net gain would be much less than that.
But we'd have to accept EU regulations, which are often stupid and nonsensical, without any say in how they are determined. I think we'd have essentially no say in about half of our laws and regulations. So it would be a ridiculous situation and I don't think it would even last very long. Either we'd rejoin fully, which I think is unlikely because of the currency, freedom of movement and net contributions issues, or we'd leave again.
We'd also have to abandon our CPTPP membership.
Starmer is desperate for the slightest boost to growth but can't do the one thing that is proven to work - move towards a low tax, low spending, free markets model. Just reducing the tax-spend ratio by 1% of GDP - about a third of what Labour has increased it by since taking office - would increaase GDP by 3-4 times the boost from rejoining the Single Market. So he grasps for small, stupid and probably counterproductive gimmicks like this, rather than admit that his whole party is founded on the economically illiterate lie that is socialism.
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
I’ve noted that among my eldest daughters friends (university age), the “politically conscious types” split between “Open Borders” vs “Mass immigration = wage suppression for The Bosses”
The later group seems to be a serious segment of the young. They are left wing with it - usual Left of Labour beliefs. Just absolutely against economic migration.
I was rather surprised. But then again, they are competing for minimum wage jobs…
Indeed. I’ve always felt views on migration are driven by economic self interest. It’s different to them when it’s working class communities or manual trades having the competition driving wages down.
When it affects them real life takes over.
I share the economic interests of upper middle class voters - I recognise that argument and largely oppose mass migration on socialcultural grounds.
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
Show me you don't know any Remainers, without saying you don't know any Remainers.
I’ve met people like that. In Wiltshire, there were some incomers to Malmesbury who fought against development on a mishmash of Green/Nimby excuses. After some wine, they would comment that if a factory got built locally, then wages would go up - which would hit them.
Strangely, the locals (pushed into the housing estate over the hill) all voted…
Maybe Wiltshire attracts that sort of person. It's not an argument I have ever heard anybody make round here.
They tended to be people who’d cashed in a house in London for a lovely stone house with land.
I found it interesting that they’d acquired the attitude of the Squirearchy with it - what they want is economic & social stasis. At least locally, for them.
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
As posted earlier, Zack would have been better off on HIGNFY than switching at the last minute to Question Time. He has a good sense of humour. NOTA is not about policy.
Didn’t see the earlier post, been at Durham Xmas market, but that makes sense. He’d be better on HIGNFY
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
Show me you don't know any Remainers, without saying you don't know any Remainers.
I’ve met people like that. In Wiltshire, there were some incomers to Malmesbury who fought against development on a mishmash of Green/Nimby excuses. After some wine, they would comment that if a factory got built locally, then wages would go up - which would hit them.
Strangely, the locals (pushed into the housing estate over the hill) all voted…
Maybe Wiltshire attracts that sort of person. It's not an argument I have ever heard anybody make round here.
They tended to be people who’d cashed in a house in London for a lovely stone house with land.
I found it interesting that they’d acquired the attitude of the Squirearchy with it - what they want is economic & social stasis. At least locally, for them.
Right, they've bought into a certain idea of the countryside, that they don't want disrupted. And they're insecure because they aren't rooted in their community. And they might have left London because "it's changed so much". They might not actually be that well off either - they have accumulated wealth through the happy accident of buying a terraced house in London at the right time. So they're economically insecure too. It makes sense. But among the left liberal denizens of my bit of London - the absolutely most tofu eating of the Remainer wokerati, seriously - this is not an argument I have ever heard. Ironically at the time of Brexit our cleaner was not from the EU. Whereas now our cleaner is from the EU. And our child minder was from the PB Tory saintly caste of "white British", although we don't employ her any more as our kids are too old. We still see her and her family from time to time, though. We pay our cleaner £17/hour. Nobody I know saw EU membership as a source of cheap domestic labour, we certainly didn't.
There’s a difference between the Customs Union of the EU and a Customs Union more like Turkey has with the EU .
Indeed. The Turkish style would be a disaster for the UK. Any third party country with a trade deal with the EU would be able to export to the UK tariff free but we would not have reciprocal rights to export to them. This is why Turkey said that if the EU did a trade deal with the US then Turkey would be forced to pull out of their customs union withbthe EU.
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
Show me you don't know any Remainers, without saying you don't know any Remainers.
I’ve met people like that. In Wiltshire, there were some incomers to Malmesbury who fought against development on a mishmash of Green/Nimby excuses. After some wine, they would comment that if a factory got built locally, then wages would go up - which would hit them.
Strangely, the locals (pushed into the housing estate over the hill) all voted…
Maybe Wiltshire attracts that sort of person. It's not an argument I have ever heard anybody make round here.
They tended to be people who’d cashed in a house in London for a lovely stone house with land.
I found it interesting that they’d acquired the attitude of the Squirearchy with it - what they want is economic & social stasis. At least locally, for them.
Right, they've bought into a certain idea of the countryside, that they don't want disrupted. And they're insecure because they aren't rooted in their community. And they might have left London because "it's changed so much". They might not actually be that well off either - they have accumulated wealth through the happy accident of buying a terraced house in London at the right time. So they're economically insecure too. It makes sense. But among the left liberal denizens of my bit of London - the absolutely most tofu eating of the Remainer wokerati, seriously - this is not an argument I have ever heard. Ironically at the time of Brexit our cleaner was not from the EU. Whereas now our cleaner is from the EU. And our child minder was from the PB Tory saintly caste of "white British", although we don't employ her any more as our kids are too old. We still see her and her family from time to time, though. We pay our cleaner £17/hour. Nobody I know saw EU membership as a source of cheap domestic labour, we certainly didn't.
Well, all the companies employing them saw migrants as people who would work for less.
And there are plenty of people in the Tofu Militia who whine about the price of everything having gone up.
In just 5 days,December 2025 has broken more [temperature] records than ANY FULL MONTH in history except November 2025.
Next week we will see >160/170 countries and dozens of thousands of stations smashing records in every Continent and November 2025 will be surpassed and wiped out big time.
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
Show me you don't know any Remainers, without saying you don't know any Remainers.
I’ve met people like that. In Wiltshire, there were some incomers to Malmesbury who fought against development on a mishmash of Green/Nimby excuses. After some wine, they would comment that if a factory got built locally, then wages would go up - which would hit them.
Strangely, the locals (pushed into the housing estate over the hill) all voted…
Maybe Wiltshire attracts that sort of person. It's not an argument I have ever heard anybody make round here.
They tended to be people who’d cashed in a house in London for a lovely stone house with land.
I found it interesting that they’d acquired the attitude of the Squirearchy with it - what they want is economic & social stasis. At least locally, for them.
Right, they've bought into a certain idea of the countryside, that they don't want disrupted. And they're insecure because they aren't rooted in their community. And they might have left London because "it's changed so much". They might not actually be that well off either - they have accumulated wealth through the happy accident of buying a terraced house in London at the right time. So they're economically insecure too. It makes sense. But among the left liberal denizens of my bit of London - the absolutely most tofu eating of the Remainer wokerati, seriously - this is not an argument I have ever heard. Ironically at the time of Brexit our cleaner was not from the EU. Whereas now our cleaner is from the EU. And our child minder was from the PB Tory saintly caste of "white British", although we don't employ her any more as our kids are too old. We still see her and her family from time to time, though. We pay our cleaner £17/hour. Nobody I know saw EU membership as a source of cheap domestic labour, we certainly didn't.
Well, all the companies employing them saw migrants as people who would work for less.
And there are plenty of people in the Tofu Militia who whine about the price of everything having gone up.
The price of everything has gone up, you must be remarkably comfortably off if you haven't noticed!
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
Show me you don't know any Remainers, without saying you don't know any Remainers.
I’ve met people like that. In Wiltshire, there were some incomers to Malmesbury who fought against development on a mishmash of Green/Nimby excuses. After some wine, they would comment that if a factory got built locally, then wages would go up - which would hit them.
Strangely, the locals (pushed into the housing estate over the hill) all voted…
Maybe Wiltshire attracts that sort of person. It's not an argument I have ever heard anybody make round here.
They tended to be people who’d cashed in a house in London for a lovely stone house with land.
I found it interesting that they’d acquired the attitude of the Squirearchy with it - what they want is economic & social stasis. At least locally, for them.
Right, they've bought into a certain idea of the countryside, that they don't want disrupted. And they're insecure because they aren't rooted in their community. And they might have left London because "it's changed so much". They might not actually be that well off either - they have accumulated wealth through the happy accident of buying a terraced house in London at the right time. So they're economically insecure too. It makes sense. But among the left liberal denizens of my bit of London - the absolutely most tofu eating of the Remainer wokerati, seriously - this is not an argument I have ever heard. Ironically at the time of Brexit our cleaner was not from the EU. Whereas now our cleaner is from the EU. And our child minder was from the PB Tory saintly caste of "white British", although we don't employ her any more as our kids are too old. We still see her and her family from time to time, though. We pay our cleaner £17/hour. Nobody I know saw EU membership as a source of cheap domestic labour, we certainly didn't.
Polanski made a big mistake with that comment as it not only highlighted migrants for jobs that Brits don't want to do but also denigrated an entire profession to the business of 'wiping bums'.
I know far more about social care than I would like due to family situation and this kind of labelling is appalling frankly.
But we all make mistakes and it was live TV and he is a newbie. The best bet for him is to explain himself more and apologise.
Or, knowing how he operates, do a tic tock of him being a carer for a day on the front line etc.
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
Show me you don't know any Remainers, without saying you don't know any Remainers.
I’ve met people like that. In Wiltshire, there were some incomers to Malmesbury who fought against development on a mishmash of Green/Nimby excuses. After some wine, they would comment that if a factory got built locally, then wages would go up - which would hit them.
Strangely, the locals (pushed into the housing estate over the hill) all voted…
Maybe Wiltshire attracts that sort of person. It's not an argument I have ever heard anybody make round here.
They tended to be people who’d cashed in a house in London for a lovely stone house with land.
I found it interesting that they’d acquired the attitude of the Squirearchy with it - what they want is economic & social stasis. At least locally, for them.
Right, they've bought into a certain idea of the countryside, that they don't want disrupted. And they're insecure because they aren't rooted in their community. And they might have left London because "it's changed so much". They might not actually be that well off either - they have accumulated wealth through the happy accident of buying a terraced house in London at the right time. So they're economically insecure too. It makes sense. But among the left liberal denizens of my bit of London - the absolutely most tofu eating of the Remainer wokerati, seriously - this is not an argument I have ever heard. Ironically at the time of Brexit our cleaner was not from the EU. Whereas now our cleaner is from the EU. And our child minder was from the PB Tory saintly caste of "white British", although we don't employ her any more as our kids are too old. We still see her and her family from time to time, though. We pay our cleaner £17/hour. Nobody I know saw EU membership as a source of cheap domestic labour, we certainly didn't.
Polanski made a big mistake with that comment as it not only highlighted migrants for jobs that Brits don't want to do but also denigrated an entire profession to the business of 'wiping bums'.
I know far more about social care than I would like due to family situation and this kind of labelling is appalling frankly.
But we all make mistakes and it was live TV and he is a newbie. The best bet for him is to explain himself more and apologise.
Or, knowing how he operates, do a tic tock of him being a carer for a day on the front line etc.
Polanski made a major error there. Migrants come here to do the jobs we don’t want to do.
Reminiscent of Kelly Osborne in the US on The Voice. But at least she was challenged for her supremacy.
I think if Rayner goes for the leadership she would likely win.
All that would stop her is if the soft Left feel she's not up to the job and they coalesce behind Ed Miliband instead - on the basis he's a past Leader, he has experience, and he is just far more credible as a PM. If so, Ed gets the 80 MP nominations and Rayner probably doesn't.
However I wonder if Rayner might be influenced by what happened with Liz Truss - ie whether she just feels deep down that she isn't up to the job. She's seen what's happened with Truss and is worried the same might happen with her.
The only decent thing MTG have ever done is telling her to fuck off.
A bit unkind. I think she and Sopel think it's a serious piece of news and one with far reaching consequences. I can't see what but I'm not a prurient journalist
There’s a difference between the Customs Union of the EU and a Customs Union more like Turkey has with the EU .
Only the latter is (or might be) available on its own. Can't add a country to the former without reopening the foundational treaties of the EU, which ain't happening.
I criticise the shit BBC for its reporting but this, on top of the reporting last month on shops in the U.K. is good reporting and something that needs clamping down on and th8s govt have pledged to do that.
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
I’ve noted that among my eldest daughters friends (university age), the “politically conscious types” split between “Open Borders” vs “Mass immigration = wage suppression for The Bosses”
The later group seems to be a serious segment of the young. They are left wing with it - usual Left of Labour beliefs. Just absolutely against economic migration.
I was rather surprised. But then again, they are competing for minimum wage jobs…
This post, and the ensuing conversation, has encouraged me to de-lurk for the first time in a couple of years and offer my £0.02.
While the migration argument is generally seen as a cultural issue by most of the older end of the electorate, I've always thought migration policy has been dictated from an economic perspective at Government level, albeit aided by a civil service that sympathises with the cultural open borders argument.
From a government perspective, the big parties appear boxed in by a combination of the organisations to which they owe money, who will ask why we want to reduce our GDP by refusing entry to anyone, and the mega rich, mostly corporate donors, who love the low wages that mass migration brings.
Which I guess partly explains why the politicians and the public seem to be largely talking past each other on this matter... your post just turned on a light bulb in my limited brain... back to lurking!
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
I’ve noted that among my eldest daughters friends (university age), the “politically conscious types” split between “Open Borders” vs “Mass immigration = wage suppression for The Bosses”
The later group seems to be a serious segment of the young. They are left wing with it - usual Left of Labour beliefs. Just absolutely against economic migration.
I was rather surprised. But then again, they are competing for minimum wage jobs…
This post, and the ensuing conversation, has encouraged me to de-lurk for the first time in a couple of years and offer my £0.02.
While the migration argument is generally seen as a cultural issue by most of the older end of the electorate, I've always thought migration policy has been dictated from an economic perspective at Government level, albeit aided by a civil service that sympathises with the cultural open borders argument.
From a government perspective, the big parties appear boxed in by a combination of the organisations to which they owe money, who will ask why we want to reduce our GDP by refusing entry to anyone, and the mega rich, mostly corporate donors, who love the low wages that mass migration brings.
Which I guess partly explains why the politicians and the public seem to be largely talking past each other on this matter... your post just turned on a light bulb in my limited brain... back to lurking!
Glad you delurked. That’s a really worthwhile contribution
I think if Rayner goes for the leadership she would likely win.
All that would stop her is if the soft Left feel she's not up to the job and they coalesce behind Ed Miliband instead - on the basis he's a past Leader, he has experience, and he is just far more credible as a PM. If so, Ed gets the 80 MP nominations and Rayner probably doesn't.
However I wonder if Rayner might be influenced by what happened with Liz Truss - ie whether she just feels deep down that she isn't up to the job. She's seen what's happened with Truss and is worried the same might happen with her.
Rayner performs a useful role in the Labour Party who have always had that senior figure "of the left" to add a bit of feel-good factor for their membership - Prescott did the same for Blair. I'm not convinced that stepping up to the leadership would be a good move for her.
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
I’ve noted that among my eldest daughters friends (university age), the “politically conscious types” split between “Open Borders” vs “Mass immigration = wage suppression for The Bosses”
The later group seems to be a serious segment of the young. They are left wing with it - usual Left of Labour beliefs. Just absolutely against economic migration.
I was rather surprised. But then again, they are competing for minimum wage jobs…
Indeed. I’ve always felt views on migration are driven by economic self interest. It’s different to them when it’s working class communities or manual trades having the competition driving wages down.
When it affects them real life takes over.
It was noticeable how outraged many PBers were about private sector working class wages increasing in 2021-2.
Compared to how relaxed the same people had been about middle class working from home.
Informal discussions have taken place inside No 10 on rejoining customs union as quickest way to boost growth
Would that include free movement ?
A Customs Union would just mean a Common External Tariff. The issue is that such a union would make it unclear whether Britain was covered by EU FTAs, or alternatively, could strike its own.
It would be a big simplifier for businesses in the UK export to the EU, because it would eliminate a bunch of paperwork.
Personally, I think its a bit of a red herring. There are many easier -domestic- things you could do to get UK growth moving, starting with property/land taxation and planning reform.
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
Show me you don't know any Remainers, without saying you don't know any Remainers.
Quite. It was extremely generous of Taz to assume that anyone hated Brexit because of an actual real world emcumbrance. Though Roger was forced to queue to have his passport checked with some Somalians once. Thoughts and prayers.
Informal discussions have taken place inside No 10 on rejoining customs union as quickest way to boost growth
Would that include free movement ?
A Customs Union would just mean a Common External Tariff. The issue is that such a union would make it unclear whether Britain was covered by EU FTAs, or alternatively, could strike its own.
It would be a big simplifier for businesses in the UK export to the EU, because it would eliminate a bunch of paperwork.
Personally, I think its a bit of a red herring. There are many easier -domestic- things you could do to get UK growth moving, starting with property/land taxation and planning reform.
The Turkish example - which is the only other one going - is clear. Turkey 'could' strike other trade deals but no country would be bothered if they already have a trade deal with the EU. They get automatic access to the Turkish market whilst still be able to keep Turkish goods out.
Does anyone seriously think the EU wouldn't insist on the same arrangements?
Former Labour councillor Julie MacDougall speaking at Reform's Falkirk rally impressed me. Could have been the subject matter, which was deindustrialisation. Hope we see more of her.
In just 5 days,December 2025 has broken more [temperature] records than ANY FULL MONTH in history except November 2025.
Next week we will see >160/170 countries and dozens of thousands of stations smashing records in every Continent and November 2025 will be surpassed and wiped out big time.
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
Show me you don't know any Remainers, without saying you don't know any Remainers.
I’ve met people like that. In Wiltshire, there were some incomers to Malmesbury who fought against development on a mishmash of Green/Nimby excuses. After some wine, they would comment that if a factory got built locally, then wages would go up - which would hit them.
Strangely, the locals (pushed into the housing estate over the hill) all voted…
Maybe Wiltshire attracts that sort of person. It's not an argument I have ever heard anybody make round here.
They tended to be people who’d cashed in a house in London for a lovely stone house with land.
I found it interesting that they’d acquired the attitude of the Squirearchy with it - what they want is economic & social stasis. At least locally, for them.
Right, they've bought into a certain idea of the countryside, that they don't want disrupted. And they're insecure because they aren't rooted in their community. And they might have left London because "it's changed so much". They might not actually be that well off either - they have accumulated wealth through the happy accident of buying a terraced house in London at the right time. So they're economically insecure too. It makes sense. But among the left liberal denizens of my bit of London - the absolutely most tofu eating of the Remainer wokerati, seriously - this is not an argument I have ever heard. Ironically at the time of Brexit our cleaner was not from the EU. Whereas now our cleaner is from the EU. And our child minder was from the PB Tory saintly caste of "white British", although we don't employ her any more as our kids are too old. We still see her and her family from time to time, though. We pay our cleaner £17/hour. Nobody I know saw EU membership as a source of cheap domestic labour, we certainly didn't.
Polanski made a big mistake with that comment as it not only highlighted migrants for jobs that Brits don't want to do but also denigrated an entire profession to the business of 'wiping bums'.
I know far more about social care than I would like due to family situation and this kind of labelling is appalling frankly.
But we all make mistakes and it was live TV and he is a newbie. The best bet for him is to explain himself more and apologise.
Or, knowing how he operates, do a tic tock of him being a carer for a day on the front line etc.
"Vote Green and get a foreigner to wipe your arse for you."
Informal discussions have taken place inside No 10 on rejoining customs union as quickest way to boost growth
We won't rejoin THE Customs Union or THE Single Market... Not yet, anyway. But an arrangement with a Single Customs Area and/or a United Market probably would be good for growth. It will leave the UK people with less control than they had in 2015, but beggars can't be choosers.
And going back to the theme of the header, the next Labour leader won't get the job without showing quite a lot of leg on the matter.
I think it'd add something like 0.2-0.3% GDP to growth, so very marginal in the grand scheme of things.
That's not what this is about nor why he's doing it. He's doing it because VALUES: it'd deftly stimulate the internationalist erogenous zones of left-liberal progressives, and probably give Remoaners a near orgasm.
I'd pledge it, if I were him, in the next GE because there's probably no better way Starmer can harvest their votes.
Better than a kick in the teeth. Using a recent estimate of UK GDP of about 2.56 trillion pounds in 2024, 0.3% of UK GDP is roughly 7.7 billion pounds What could be done with that?
If that were it, we'd probably do it, though we'd have to make contributions of £3 billion or so per year for structural funds, so the net gain would be much less than that.
But we'd have to accept EU regulations, which are often stupid and nonsensical, without any say in how they are determined. I think we'd have essentially no say in about half of our laws and regulations. So it would be a ridiculous situation and I don't think it would even last very long. Either we'd rejoin fully, which I think is unlikely because of the currency, freedom of movement and net contributions issues, or we'd leave again.
We'd also have to abandon our CPTPP membership.
Starmer is desperate for the slightest boost to growth but can't do the one thing that is proven to work - move towards a low tax, low spending, free markets model. Just reducing the tax-spend ratio by 1% of GDP - about a third of what Labour has increased it by since taking office - would increaase GDP by 3-4 times the boost from rejoining the Single Market. So he grasps for small, stupid and probably counterproductive gimmicks like this, rather than admit that his whole party is founded on the economically illiterate lie that is socialism.
But we are perfectly capable of producing our own stupid and nonsensical regulations. I was listening to something earlier (forget what, might have been about the nuclear power review), and it was pointed out that quite a few of the regulations came from us, and now we have the same number but they are no longer aligned and we have effectively put up a whole load of trade barriers as a result.
Of course I don't agree with the rest of the post, which as ever ignores the experience of many other countries with higher tax burdens, higher growth, higher GDP per capita, higher HDI, higher happiness etc etc. You might be right about the best strategy about the UK, but don't pretend it's a certainty. What we tax and on what we spend is a far bigger issue IMO, rather than an arbitrary percentage.
Informal discussions have taken place inside No 10 on rejoining customs union as quickest way to boost growth
Would that include free movement ?
A Customs Union would just mean a Common External Tariff. The issue is that such a union would make it unclear whether Britain was covered by EU FTAs, or alternatively, could strike its own.
It would be a big simplifier for businesses in the UK export to the EU, because it would eliminate a bunch of paperwork.
Personally, I think its a bit of a red herring. There are many easier -domestic- things you could do to get UK growth moving, starting with property/land taxation and planning reform.
That would require some planning and work.
Those advocating joining a customs union with the EU are looking for a magic wand in line with their political views.
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
I’ve noted that among my eldest daughters friends (university age), the “politically conscious types” split between “Open Borders” vs “Mass immigration = wage suppression for The Bosses”
The later group seems to be a serious segment of the young. They are left wing with it - usual Left of Labour beliefs. Just absolutely against economic migration.
I was rather surprised. But then again, they are competing for minimum wage jobs…
Indeed. I’ve always felt views on migration are driven by economic self interest. It’s different to them when it’s working class communities or manual trades having the competition driving wages down.
When it affects them real life takes over.
It was noticeable how outraged many PBers were about private sector working class wages increasing in 2021-2.
Compared to how relaxed the same people had been about middle class working from home.
i thought the PBers were just outraged about public sector workers getting pay increases.
Anyone else fed up with "scanning a QR-code" and "downloading our app" ?
I'm fed up being obligated to interface with the world around me though my phone.
I don't mind scanning the code and heading to a website, but downloading the app is incredibly annoying. Uniqlo's automatic scan/email receipt system is the perfect balance IMO.
In just 5 days,December 2025 has broken more [temperature] records than ANY FULL MONTH in history except November 2025.
Next week we will see >160/170 countries and dozens of thousands of stations smashing records in every Continent and November 2025 will be surpassed and wiped out big time.
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
Show me you don't know any Remainers, without saying you don't know any Remainers.
I’ve met people like that. In Wiltshire, there were some incomers to Malmesbury who fought against development on a mishmash of Green/Nimby excuses. After some wine, they would comment that if a factory got built locally, then wages would go up - which would hit them.
Strangely, the locals (pushed into the housing estate over the hill) all voted…
Maybe Wiltshire attracts that sort of person. It's not an argument I have ever heard anybody make round here.
They tended to be people who’d cashed in a house in London for a lovely stone house with land.
I found it interesting that they’d acquired the attitude of the Squirearchy with it - what they want is economic & social stasis. At least locally, for them.
Right, they've bought into a certain idea of the countryside, that they don't want disrupted. And they're insecure because they aren't rooted in their community. And they might have left London because "it's changed so much". They might not actually be that well off either - they have accumulated wealth through the happy accident of buying a terraced house in London at the right time. So they're economically insecure too. It makes sense. But among the left liberal denizens of my bit of London - the absolutely most tofu eating of the Remainer wokerati, seriously - this is not an argument I have ever heard. Ironically at the time of Brexit our cleaner was not from the EU. Whereas now our cleaner is from the EU. And our child minder was from the PB Tory saintly caste of "white British", although we don't employ her any more as our kids are too old. We still see her and her family from time to time, though. We pay our cleaner £17/hour. Nobody I know saw EU membership as a source of cheap domestic labour, we certainly didn't.
Polanski made a big mistake with that comment as it not only highlighted migrants for jobs that Brits don't want to do but also denigrated an entire profession to the business of 'wiping bums'.
I know far more about social care than I would like due to family situation and this kind of labelling is appalling frankly.
But we all make mistakes and it was live TV and he is a newbie. The best bet for him is to explain himself more and apologise.
Or, knowing how he operates, do a tic tock of him being a carer for a day on the front line etc.
Polanski made a major error there. Migrants come here to do the jobs we don’t want to do.
Reminiscent of Kelly Osborne in the US on The Voice. But at least she was challenged for her supremacy.
I don't think so. Polanski isn't going for the Reform vote.
Being pro-immigration doesn't have a plurality on PB but has significant support and puts clear green water between the Greens and the overcrowded anti-immigrant vote of Mahmood/Jenrick/Farage.
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
Show me you don't know any Remainers, without saying you don't know any Remainers.
I’ve met people like that. In Wiltshire, there were some incomers to Malmesbury who fought against development on a mishmash of Green/Nimby excuses. After some wine, they would comment that if a factory got built locally, then wages would go up - which would hit them.
Strangely, the locals (pushed into the housing estate over the hill) all voted…
Maybe Wiltshire attracts that sort of person. It's not an argument I have ever heard anybody make round here.
They tended to be people who’d cashed in a house in London for a lovely stone house with land.
I found it interesting that they’d acquired the attitude of the Squirearchy with it - what they want is economic & social stasis. At least locally, for them.
Right, they've bought into a certain idea of the countryside, that they don't want disrupted. And they're insecure because they aren't rooted in their community. And they might have left London because "it's changed so much". They might not actually be that well off either - they have accumulated wealth through the happy accident of buying a terraced house in London at the right time. So they're economically insecure too. It makes sense. But among the left liberal denizens of my bit of London - the absolutely most tofu eating of the Remainer wokerati, seriously - this is not an argument I have ever heard. Ironically at the time of Brexit our cleaner was not from the EU. Whereas now our cleaner is from the EU. And our child minder was from the PB Tory saintly caste of "white British", although we don't employ her any more as our kids are too old. We still see her and her family from time to time, though. We pay our cleaner £17/hour. Nobody I know saw EU membership as a source of cheap domestic labour, we certainly didn't.
Polanski made a big mistake with that comment as it not only highlighted migrants for jobs that Brits don't want to do but also denigrated an entire profession to the business of 'wiping bums'.
I know far more about social care than I would like due to family situation and this kind of labelling is appalling frankly.
But we all make mistakes and it was live TV and he is a newbie. The best bet for him is to explain himself more and apologise.
Or, knowing how he operates, do a tic tock of him being a carer for a day on the front line etc.
Polanski made a major error there. Migrants come here to do the jobs we don’t want to do.
Reminiscent of Kelly Osborne in the US on The Voice. But at least she was challenged for her supremacy.
I don't think so. Polanski isn't going for the Reform vote.
Being pro-immigration doesn't have a plurality on PB but has significant support and puts clear green water between the Greens and the overcrowded anti-immigrant vote of Mahmood/Jenrick/Farage.
The unrestricted immigration and extreme nimbyism puts Polanski in competition with the LibDems though.
I suppose Polanski isn't even pretending he wants economic growth though.
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
Show me you don't know any Remainers, without saying you don't know any Remainers.
I’ve met people like that. In Wiltshire, there were some incomers to Malmesbury who fought against development on a mishmash of Green/Nimby excuses. After some wine, they would comment that if a factory got built locally, then wages would go up - which would hit them.
Strangely, the locals (pushed into the housing estate over the hill) all voted…
Maybe Wiltshire attracts that sort of person. It's not an argument I have ever heard anybody make round here.
They tended to be people who’d cashed in a house in London for a lovely stone house with land.
I found it interesting that they’d acquired the attitude of the Squirearchy with it - what they want is economic & social stasis. At least locally, for them.
Right, they've bought into a certain idea of the countryside, that they don't want disrupted. And they're insecure because they aren't rooted in their community. And they might have left London because "it's changed so much". They might not actually be that well off either - they have accumulated wealth through the happy accident of buying a terraced house in London at the right time. So they're economically insecure too. It makes sense. But among the left liberal denizens of my bit of London - the absolutely most tofu eating of the Remainer wokerati, seriously - this is not an argument I have ever heard. Ironically at the time of Brexit our cleaner was not from the EU. Whereas now our cleaner is from the EU. And our child minder was from the PB Tory saintly caste of "white British", although we don't employ her any more as our kids are too old. We still see her and her family from time to time, though. We pay our cleaner £17/hour. Nobody I know saw EU membership as a source of cheap domestic labour, we certainly didn't.
Polanski made a big mistake with that comment as it not only highlighted migrants for jobs that Brits don't want to do but also denigrated an entire profession to the business of 'wiping bums'.
I know far more about social care than I would like due to family situation and this kind of labelling is appalling frankly.
But we all make mistakes and it was live TV and he is a newbie. The best bet for him is to explain himself more and apologise.
Or, knowing how he operates, do a tic tock of him being a carer for a day on the front line etc.
Polanski made a major error there. Migrants come here to do the jobs we don’t want to do.
Reminiscent of Kelly Osborne in the US on The Voice. But at least she was challenged for her supremacy.
I don't think so. Polanski isn't going for the Reform vote.
Being pro-immigration doesn't have a plurality on PB but has significant support and puts clear green water between the Greens and the overcrowded anti-immigrant vote of Mahmood/Jenrick/Farage.
The unrestricted immigration and extreme nimbyism puts Polanski in competition with the LibDems though.
I suppose Polanski isn't even pretending he wants economic growth though.
There's a lot of difference between 'migrants come here to do jobs' and 'migrants come here to wipe bums because I don't want to'
Polanski specifically said 'I don't want to wipe bums".
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
I’ve noted that among my eldest daughters friends (university age), the “politically conscious types” split between “Open Borders” vs “Mass immigration = wage suppression for The Bosses”
The later group seems to be a serious segment of the young. They are left wing with it - usual Left of Labour beliefs. Just absolutely against economic migration.
I was rather surprised. But then again, they are competing for minimum wage jobs…
Indeed. I’ve always felt views on migration are driven by economic self interest. It’s different to them when it’s working class communities or manual trades having the competition driving wages down.
When it affects them real life takes over.
It was noticeable how outraged many PBers were about private sector working class wages increasing in 2021-2.
Compared to how relaxed the same people had been about middle class working from home.
Who was outraged about that? Genuine question, I don't remember anyone complaining about that.
In just 5 days,December 2025 has broken more [temperature] records than ANY FULL MONTH in history except November 2025.
Next week we will see >160/170 countries and dozens of thousands of stations smashing records in every Continent and November 2025 will be surpassed and wiped out big time.
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
I’ve noted that among my eldest daughters friends (university age), the “politically conscious types” split between “Open Borders” vs “Mass immigration = wage suppression for The Bosses”
The later group seems to be a serious segment of the young. They are left wing with it - usual Left of Labour beliefs. Just absolutely against economic migration.
I was rather surprised. But then again, they are competing for minimum wage jobs…
Indeed. I’ve always felt views on migration are driven by economic self interest. It’s different to them when it’s working class communities or manual trades having the competition driving wages down.
When it affects them real life takes over.
It was noticeable how outraged many PBers were about private sector working class wages increasing in 2021-2.
Compared to how relaxed the same people had been about middle class working from home.
Who was outraged about that? Genuine question, I don't remember anyone complaining about that.
Well they certainly did.
The thought of delivery drivers, supermarket shelf stackers, agricultural workers etc getting pay rises without matching productivity increases - as they were doing as covid ended - really annoyed various PBers and also some 'real world' people I knew.
It wasn't really a political thing more of a 'people like them' getting paid more with 'people like us' having to bear the cost.
It was quite the contrast to how various 'smug haves' reacted to the covid restrictions which often benefitted themselves.
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
I’ve noted that among my eldest daughters friends (university age), the “politically conscious types” split between “Open Borders” vs “Mass immigration = wage suppression for The Bosses”
The later group seems to be a serious segment of the young. They are left wing with it - usual Left of Labour beliefs. Just absolutely against economic migration.
I was rather surprised. But then again, they are competing for minimum wage jobs…
Indeed. I’ve always felt views on migration are driven by economic self interest. It’s different to them when it’s working class communities or manual trades having the competition driving wages down.
When it affects them real life takes over.
It was noticeable how outraged many PBers were about private sector working class wages increasing in 2021-2.
Compared to how relaxed the same people had been about middle class working from home.
Who was outraged about that? Genuine question, I don't remember anyone complaining about that.
Well they certainly did.
The thought of delivery drivers, supermarket shelf stackers, agricultural workers etc getting pay rises without matching productivity increases - as they were doing as covid ended - really annoyed various PBers and also some 'real world' people I knew.
It wasn't really a political thing more of a 'people like them' getting paid more with 'people like us' having to bear the cost.
It was quite the contrast to how various 'smug haves' reacted to the covid restrictions which often benefitted themselves.
Everyone wants to be paid more themselves and to pay less to others.
It's not dignified, but it's where we are as a species.
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
Show me you don't know any Remainers, without saying you don't know any Remainers.
I’ve met people like that. In Wiltshire, there were some incomers to Malmesbury who fought against development on a mishmash of Green/Nimby excuses. After some wine, they would comment that if a factory got built locally, then wages would go up - which would hit them.
Strangely, the locals (pushed into the housing estate over the hill) all voted…
Maybe Wiltshire attracts that sort of person. It's not an argument I have ever heard anybody make round here.
They tended to be people who’d cashed in a house in London for a lovely stone house with land.
I found it interesting that they’d acquired the attitude of the Squirearchy with it - what they want is economic & social stasis. At least locally, for them.
Right, they've bought into a certain idea of the countryside, that they don't want disrupted. And they're insecure because they aren't rooted in their community. And they might have left London because "it's changed so much". They might not actually be that well off either - they have accumulated wealth through the happy accident of buying a terraced house in London at the right time. So they're economically insecure too. It makes sense. But among the left liberal denizens of my bit of London - the absolutely most tofu eating of the Remainer wokerati, seriously - this is not an argument I have ever heard. Ironically at the time of Brexit our cleaner was not from the EU. Whereas now our cleaner is from the EU. And our child minder was from the PB Tory saintly caste of "white British", although we don't employ her any more as our kids are too old. We still see her and her family from time to time, though. We pay our cleaner £17/hour. Nobody I know saw EU membership as a source of cheap domestic labour, we certainly didn't.
Polanski made a big mistake with that comment as it not only highlighted migrants for jobs that Brits don't want to do but also denigrated an entire profession to the business of 'wiping bums'.
I know far more about social care than I would like due to family situation and this kind of labelling is appalling frankly.
But we all make mistakes and it was live TV and he is a newbie. The best bet for him is to explain himself more and apologise.
Or, knowing how he operates, do a tic tock of him being a carer for a day on the front line etc.
Polanski made a major error there. Migrants come here to do the jobs we don’t want to do.
Reminiscent of Kelly Osborne in the US on The Voice. But at least she was challenged for her supremacy.
I don't think so. Polanski isn't going for the Reform vote.
Being pro-immigration doesn't have a plurality on PB but has significant support and puts clear green water between the Greens and the overcrowded anti-immigrant vote of Mahmood/Jenrick/Farage.
The unrestricted immigration and extreme nimbyism puts Polanski in competition with the LibDems though.
I suppose Polanski isn't even pretending he wants economic growth though.
If you are genuinely pro growth you will argue for immigration. People who don't like immigration will accept the trade off of less growth, which is essentially Starmer's position. Coincidentally, and I think it is coincidental, Polanski's suggestion of immigration for menial jobs was the unspoken policy of previous governments because it's one of the few levers they can pull to improve the economy.
My recent trip to Brussels for the @NATO Ministerial meeting left me with one overriding impression: the US has long failed to address the glaring inconsistency between its relations with NATO and the EU. These are almost all the same countries in both organizations. When these countries wear their NATO hats, they insist that Transatlantic cooperation is the cornerstone of our mutual security. But when these countries wear their EU hats, they pursue all sorts of agendas that are often utterly adverse to US interests and security—including censorship, economic suicide/climate fanaticism, open borders, disdain for national sovereignty/promotion of multilateral governance and taxation, support for Communist Cuba, etc etc. This inconsistency cannot continue. Either the great nations of Europe are our partners in protecting the Western civilization that we inherited from them or they are not. But we cannot pretend that we are partners while those nations allow the EU’s unelected, undemocratic, and unrepresentative bureaucracy in Brussels to pursue policies of civilizational suicide.
Yes, they can't pretend that they are partners.
The blazing irony of that statement fails to penetrate his thick skull.
I think it will be Wes. He is just the strongest candidate and I think will win over the membership when he goes up against the rest of the field. I don't think it makes sense to choose someone like Ed Miliband who has already lost an election. The only worry with Wes is over his own seat, but if he can turn Labour's fortunes around then he should be able to save his own seat in the process.
He is probably the one who could best sell a Labour message to the wider electorate. But to members won't it be easy for a rival candidate to pitch to his left without going full Corbynite?
Maybe I am projecting, but don't other Labour members also want someone who can appeal to the electorate as a whole and win an election? I just think Wes is so far ahead of the other candidates as a political communicator that it will become obvious that he is the best choice.
I think we need to pick a shortllist who we're basically OK with before considering electoral appeal, which is elusive and often transitory, and leads to embarrassment even when it works in electoral terms. Essentially a Labour leader needs to both command at least broad acceptance in the party and in the public, and there's no point in choosing a leader who goes out of his way to pick fights with much of the membership. That's why I would struggle to accept Streeting as leader, whether he won an election or not, whereas I'd accept a moderate centrist even if I often disagreed with them. My basic requirement is a broadly acceptable medium-term strategy, and my main criticism of Starmer, who seems pleasant enough, is that he doesn't seem to have a medium-term strategy at all, evem one I'd personally disagree with.
Doesn't that just make you part of Labour's problems ? (TBF, I note you are anyway considering joining a different party.)
Perhaps (part of the problems), though I've decided against changing party for the forseeable future. I think however that it's generally true that party leaders need both acceptance by the membership and acceptance by the electorate. It doesn't need to be wild enthusiasm by either, but if either is turned off then the project isn't going to work. Nor should it - if the electorate doesn't like you, basic democracy requires that you don't win, and if the membership doesn't like you, you're not suited to lead it. I think that British political problems are partly caused by over-emphasis on winning at all costs, with actual ambitions to achieve anything in particular seen as secondary. You can't achieve anything unless you win, but you shouldn't even stand if you don't know what you're trying to achieve.
That’s fair - but what I think is missing from this is any kind of appreciation that parties of government (or that aspire to government) under a two party system are necessarily coalitions. if you’re insisting on ideological purity, then you’re wanting something that’s essentially undemocratic- seeking majority rule for a set of views which don’t have majority approval.
I’m happy to recognise that you can make similar criticisms of those holding other particular political views, but your “whether he won an election or not” comment is what struck me.
Yes, and I've been a member of Labour for over 50 years as a result of accepting that people will have varying views in detail - insisting on purity ultimately comes down to only accepting yourself. It's a balance, but leadership needs to include some acceptable medium- to longterm perspectives of what we're trying to achieve, as otherwise it's at best negative ("stop maniac X") and at worst a waste of time.
I suspect we're now at a point in politics where the only way to achieve real coalitions between very divided interest groups is through PR.
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
Show me you don't know any Remainers, without saying you don't know any Remainers.
I’ve met people like that. In Wiltshire, there were some incomers to Malmesbury who fought against development on a mishmash of Green/Nimby excuses. After some wine, they would comment that if a factory got built locally, then wages would go up - which would hit them.
Strangely, the locals (pushed into the housing estate over the hill) all voted…
Maybe Wiltshire attracts that sort of person. It's not an argument I have ever heard anybody make round here.
They tended to be people who’d cashed in a house in London for a lovely stone house with land.
I found it interesting that they’d acquired the attitude of the Squirearchy with it - what they want is economic & social stasis. At least locally, for them.
Right, they've bought into a certain idea of the countryside, that they don't want disrupted. And they're insecure because they aren't rooted in their community. And they might have left London because "it's changed so much". They might not actually be that well off either - they have accumulated wealth through the happy accident of buying a terraced house in London at the right time. So they're economically insecure too. It makes sense. But among the left liberal denizens of my bit of London - the absolutely most tofu eating of the Remainer wokerati, seriously - this is not an argument I have ever heard. Ironically at the time of Brexit our cleaner was not from the EU. Whereas now our cleaner is from the EU. And our child minder was from the PB Tory saintly caste of "white British", although we don't employ her any more as our kids are too old. We still see her and her family from time to time, though. We pay our cleaner £17/hour. Nobody I know saw EU membership as a source of cheap domestic labour, we certainly didn't.
Polanski made a big mistake with that comment as it not only highlighted migrants for jobs that Brits don't want to do but also denigrated an entire profession to the business of 'wiping bums'.
I know far more about social care than I would like due to family situation and this kind of labelling is appalling frankly.
But we all make mistakes and it was live TV and he is a newbie. The best bet for him is to explain himself more and apologise.
Or, knowing how he operates, do a tic tock of him being a carer for a day on the front line etc.
Polanski made a major error there. Migrants come here to do the jobs we don’t want to do.
Reminiscent of Kelly Osborne in the US on The Voice. But at least she was challenged for her supremacy.
I don't think so. Polanski isn't going for the Reform vote.
Being pro-immigration doesn't have a plurality on PB but has significant support and puts clear green water between the Greens and the overcrowded anti-immigrant vote of Mahmood/Jenrick/Farage.
The unrestricted immigration and extreme nimbyism puts Polanski in competition with the LibDems though.
I suppose Polanski isn't even pretending he wants economic growth though.
If you are genuinely pro growth you will argue for immigration. People who don't like immigration will accept the trade off of less growth, which is essentially Starmer's position. Coincidentally, and I think it is coincidental, Polanski's suggestion of immigration for menial jobs was the unspoken policy of previous governments because it's one of the few levers they can pull to improve the economy.
Which is why per-capita GDP would be a more useful headline measure, and therefore target.
Informal discussions have taken place inside No 10 on rejoining customs union as quickest way to boost growth
What do they know about growth? They spent the best part of a year talking down the economy and were surprised that confidence collapsed.
If they do it, the aim wouldn't really be "to boost growth" but to polarise the electorate and try to build a coalition based winning as many of the 48% as possible.
They probably will. As I've said before, many times, Starmer was a Tedious Tactical Triangulator in opposition and he's now a Tedious Tactical Triangulator in office.
He will end up neither trusted nor respected, so it might not even work no matter what he does.
Spare us the insulting language, Casino.
It's time you recognised that Brexiteers and their project are deeply unpopular. You shat the bed for all of us. Time to be a little less dismissive of those who want to change the sheets.
Any PBers with media business brains know what happens to CNN after the Netflix-Warner buy-out?
My reading is CNN and other cable assets are to be spun out of the deal.
And then what??....
They were chatting on Today this morning with a US media top dog and he made an interesting point that Netflix doesn’t do news but then they didn’t do studios and the implication was that maybe, just maybe, there could be a world where Netflix keeps CNN.
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
Show me you don't know any Remainers, without saying you don't know any Remainers.
I’ve met people like that. In Wiltshire, there were some incomers to Malmesbury who fought against development on a mishmash of Green/Nimby excuses. After some wine, they would comment that if a factory got built locally, then wages would go up - which would hit them.
Strangely, the locals (pushed into the housing estate over the hill) all voted…
Maybe Wiltshire attracts that sort of person. It's not an argument I have ever heard anybody make round here.
They tended to be people who’d cashed in a house in London for a lovely stone house with land.
I found it interesting that they’d acquired the attitude of the Squirearchy with it - what they want is economic & social stasis. At least locally, for them.
Right, they've bought into a certain idea of the countryside, that they don't want disrupted. And they're insecure because they aren't rooted in their community. And they might have left London because "it's changed so much". They might not actually be that well off either - they have accumulated wealth through the happy accident of buying a terraced house in London at the right time. So they're economically insecure too. It makes sense. But among the left liberal denizens of my bit of London - the absolutely most tofu eating of the Remainer wokerati, seriously - this is not an argument I have ever heard. Ironically at the time of Brexit our cleaner was not from the EU. Whereas now our cleaner is from the EU. And our child minder was from the PB Tory saintly caste of "white British", although we don't employ her any more as our kids are too old. We still see her and her family from time to time, though. We pay our cleaner £17/hour. Nobody I know saw EU membership as a source of cheap domestic labour, we certainly didn't.
Polanski made a big mistake with that comment as it not only highlighted migrants for jobs that Brits don't want to do but also denigrated an entire profession to the business of 'wiping bums'.
I know far more about social care than I would like due to family situation and this kind of labelling is appalling frankly.
But we all make mistakes and it was live TV and he is a newbie. The best bet for him is to explain himself more and apologise.
Or, knowing how he operates, do a tic tock of him being a carer for a day on the front line etc.
Polanski made a major error there. Migrants come here to do the jobs we don’t want to do.
Reminiscent of Kelly Osborne in the US on The Voice. But at least she was challenged for her supremacy.
I don't think so. Polanski isn't going for the Reform vote.
Being pro-immigration doesn't have a plurality on PB but has significant support and puts clear green water between the Greens and the overcrowded anti-immigrant vote of Mahmood/Jenrick/Farage.
The unrestricted immigration and extreme nimbyism puts Polanski in competition with the LibDems though.
I suppose Polanski isn't even pretending he wants economic growth though.
If you are genuinely pro growth you will argue for immigration. People who don't like immigration will accept the trade off of less growth, which is essentially Starmer's position. Coincidentally, and I think it is coincidental, Polanski's suggestion of immigration for menial jobs was the unspoken policy of previous governments because it's one of the few levers they can pull to improve the economy.
Which is why per-capita GDP would be a more useful headline measure, and therefore target.
Per capita GDP also increases with immigration, albeit not by much, because immigrants are doing the menial jobs and allowing people already here to go up the food chain. Immigration also improves productivity which eventually translates into higher GDP both per capita and total. Total GDP matters because that's how we afford public services etc
The crumble and custard warriors are from Take Back Power:
"Take Back Power is demanding that the UK government establish a permanent House of the People- a citizen’s assembly chosen by democratic lottery, that has the power to tax extreme wealth and fix Britain."
I think it would be an interesting thought experiment. Imagine we really did have a democratic lottery of, say, random 650 people on the electoral roll and asked them to assembly and pass laws.
I suspect hanging people for kid fiddling followed by death for police killers would be the first two out of the gate and not tax King Charles as these activist imagine.
Any PBers with media business brains know what happens to CNN after the Netflix-Warner buy-out?
My reading is CNN and other cable assets are to be spun out of the deal.
And then what??....
They were chatting on Today this morning with a US media top dog and he made an interesting point that Netflix doesn’t do news but then they didn’t do studios and the implication was that maybe, just maybe, there could be a world where Netflix keeps CNN.
Unlikely but would be interesting.
As long as anyone from Trump's extended family or associated cronies is no where near the deal frankly.
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
Show me you don't know any Remainers, without saying you don't know any Remainers.
I’ve met people like that. In Wiltshire, there were some incomers to Malmesbury who fought against development on a mishmash of Green/Nimby excuses. After some wine, they would comment that if a factory got built locally, then wages would go up - which would hit them.
Strangely, the locals (pushed into the housing estate over the hill) all voted…
Maybe Wiltshire attracts that sort of person. It's not an argument I have ever heard anybody make round here.
They tended to be people who’d cashed in a house in London for a lovely stone house with land.
I found it interesting that they’d acquired the attitude of the Squirearchy with it - what they want is economic & social stasis. At least locally, for them.
Right, they've bought into a certain idea of the countryside, that they don't want disrupted. And they're insecure because they aren't rooted in their community. And they might have left London because "it's changed so much". They might not actually be that well off either - they have accumulated wealth through the happy accident of buying a terraced house in London at the right time. So they're economically insecure too. It makes sense. But among the left liberal denizens of my bit of London - the absolutely most tofu eating of the Remainer wokerati, seriously - this is not an argument I have ever heard. Ironically at the time of Brexit our cleaner was not from the EU. Whereas now our cleaner is from the EU. And our child minder was from the PB Tory saintly caste of "white British", although we don't employ her any more as our kids are too old. We still see her and her family from time to time, though. We pay our cleaner £17/hour. Nobody I know saw EU membership as a source of cheap domestic labour, we certainly didn't.
Polanski made a big mistake with that comment as it not only highlighted migrants for jobs that Brits don't want to do but also denigrated an entire profession to the business of 'wiping bums'.
I know far more about social care than I would like due to family situation and this kind of labelling is appalling frankly.
But we all make mistakes and it was live TV and he is a newbie. The best bet for him is to explain himself more and apologise.
Or, knowing how he operates, do a tic tock of him being a carer for a day on the front line etc.
Polanski made a major error there. Migrants come here to do the jobs we don’t want to do.
Reminiscent of Kelly Osborne in the US on The Voice. But at least she was challenged for her supremacy.
I don't think so. Polanski isn't going for the Reform vote.
Being pro-immigration doesn't have a plurality on PB but has significant support and puts clear green water between the Greens and the overcrowded anti-immigrant vote of Mahmood/Jenrick/Farage.
The unrestricted immigration and extreme nimbyism puts Polanski in competition with the LibDems though.
I suppose Polanski isn't even pretending he wants economic growth though.
There's a lot of difference between 'migrants come here to do jobs' and 'migrants come here to wipe bums because I don't want to'
Polanski specifically said 'I don't want to wipe bums".
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
Show me you don't know any Remainers, without saying you don't know any Remainers.
I’ve met people like that. In Wiltshire, there were some incomers to Malmesbury who fought against development on a mishmash of Green/Nimby excuses. After some wine, they would comment that if a factory got built locally, then wages would go up - which would hit them.
Strangely, the locals (pushed into the housing estate over the hill) all voted…
Maybe Wiltshire attracts that sort of person. It's not an argument I have ever heard anybody make round here.
They tended to be people who’d cashed in a house in London for a lovely stone house with land.
I found it interesting that they’d acquired the attitude of the Squirearchy with it - what they want is economic & social stasis. At least locally, for them.
Right, they've bought into a certain idea of the countryside, that they don't want disrupted. And they're insecure because they aren't rooted in their community. And they might have left London because "it's changed so much". They might not actually be that well off either - they have accumulated wealth through the happy accident of buying a terraced house in London at the right time. So they're economically insecure too. It makes sense. But among the left liberal denizens of my bit of London - the absolutely most tofu eating of the Remainer wokerati, seriously - this is not an argument I have ever heard. Ironically at the time of Brexit our cleaner was not from the EU. Whereas now our cleaner is from the EU. And our child minder was from the PB Tory saintly caste of "white British", although we don't employ her any more as our kids are too old. We still see her and her family from time to time, though. We pay our cleaner £17/hour. Nobody I know saw EU membership as a source of cheap domestic labour, we certainly didn't.
Polanski made a big mistake with that comment as it not only highlighted migrants for jobs that Brits don't want to do but also denigrated an entire profession to the business of 'wiping bums'.
I know far more about social care than I would like due to family situation and this kind of labelling is appalling frankly.
But we all make mistakes and it was live TV and he is a newbie. The best bet for him is to explain himself more and apologise.
Or, knowing how he operates, do a tic tock of him being a carer for a day on the front line etc.
Polanski made a major error there. Migrants come here to do the jobs we don’t want to do.
Reminiscent of Kelly Osborne in the US on The Voice. But at least she was challenged for her supremacy.
I don't think so. Polanski isn't going for the Reform vote.
Being pro-immigration doesn't have a plurality on PB but has significant support and puts clear green water between the Greens and the overcrowded anti-immigrant vote of Mahmood/Jenrick/Farage.
The unrestricted immigration and extreme nimbyism puts Polanski in competition with the LibDems though.
I suppose Polanski isn't even pretending he wants economic growth though.
If you are genuinely pro growth you will argue for immigration. People who don't like immigration will accept the trade off of less growth, which is essentially Starmer's position. Coincidentally, and I think it is coincidental, Polanski's suggestion of immigration for menial jobs was the unspoken policy of previous governments because it's one of the few levers they can pull to improve the economy.
Which is why per-capita GDP would be a more useful headline measure, and therefore target.
Per capita GDP also increases with immigration, albeit not by much, because immigrants are doing the menial jobs and allowing people already here to go up the food chain. Immigration also improves productivity which eventually translates into higher GDP both per capita and total. Total GDP matters because that's how we afford public services etc
Even more simple - only 34 million out of 69 million people in the UK are in work. Immigrants are much more likely to be working age, so they will almost certainly make a significant contribution to GDP per capita. However, immigration tends not to improve labour productivity, which is output per hour worked, and tends to to be suppressed when business/government can depend on cheap labour rather than investment (including training/education). It improves output only.*
GDP only matters to the fiscal position if you are taxing that output. Indeed, the complicated reason that Labour ended up with more cash than expected is because the bits of the economy we tax are expected to grow faster than expected - overall GDP was revised downward over the medium-term.
*there are edge cases where a minimum-wage carer might allow a higher productivity worker to go back into work rather than care for a relative.
In just 5 days,December 2025 has broken more [temperature] records than ANY FULL MONTH in history except November 2025.
Next week we will see >160/170 countries and dozens of thousands of stations smashing records in every Continent and November 2025 will be surpassed and wiped out big time.
Informal discussions have taken place inside No 10 on rejoining customs union as quickest way to boost growth
I know that the Labour Party is increasingly treating its already ridiculously policy-light manifesto as if it was never given, but really this is one they need to win a mandate for - they explicitly ruled this out at the election.
This is coming from someone that thinks Brexit was a mistake (but respected the vote), and who firmly believes that the Brexit relationship is not fixed in stone, and if the country feels that relationship is not working must be able to explore other possibilities.
One for their next manifesto perhaps, but I think any moves during this parliament will run the risk of backfiring and re-opening all the Brexit wounds, with an inevitable boost to Reform.
I remember the Leave campaign saying we’d stay in the Customs Union, ergo re-joining it would still be respecting the Brexit vote.
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
Show me you don't know any Remainers, without saying you don't know any Remainers.
I’ve met people like that. In Wiltshire, there were some incomers to Malmesbury who fought against development on a mishmash of Green/Nimby excuses. After some wine, they would comment that if a factory got built locally, then wages would go up - which would hit them.
Strangely, the locals (pushed into the housing estate over the hill) all voted…
Maybe Wiltshire attracts that sort of person. It's not an argument I have ever heard anybody make round here.
They tended to be people who’d cashed in a house in London for a lovely stone house with land.
I found it interesting that they’d acquired the attitude of the Squirearchy with it - what they want is economic & social stasis. At least locally, for them.
Right, they've bought into a certain idea of the countryside, that they don't want disrupted. And they're insecure because they aren't rooted in their community. And they might have left London because "it's changed so much". They might not actually be that well off either - they have accumulated wealth through the happy accident of buying a terraced house in London at the right time. So they're economically insecure too. It makes sense. But among the left liberal denizens of my bit of London - the absolutely most tofu eating of the Remainer wokerati, seriously - this is not an argument I have ever heard. Ironically at the time of Brexit our cleaner was not from the EU. Whereas now our cleaner is from the EU. And our child minder was from the PB Tory saintly caste of "white British", although we don't employ her any more as our kids are too old. We still see her and her family from time to time, though. We pay our cleaner £17/hour. Nobody I know saw EU membership as a source of cheap domestic labour, we certainly didn't.
Polanski made a big mistake with that comment as it not only highlighted migrants for jobs that Brits don't want to do but also denigrated an entire profession to the business of 'wiping bums'.
I know far more about social care than I would like due to family situation and this kind of labelling is appalling frankly.
But we all make mistakes and it was live TV and he is a newbie. The best bet for him is to explain himself more and apologise.
Or, knowing how he operates, do a tic tock of him being a carer for a day on the front line etc.
Polanski made a major error there. Migrants come here to do the jobs we don’t want to do.
Reminiscent of Kelly Osborne in the US on The Voice. But at least she was challenged for her supremacy.
I don't think so. Polanski isn't going for the Reform vote.
Being pro-immigration doesn't have a plurality on PB but has significant support and puts clear green water between the Greens and the overcrowded anti-immigrant vote of Mahmood/Jenrick/Farage.
The unrestricted immigration and extreme nimbyism puts Polanski in competition with the LibDems though.
I suppose Polanski isn't even pretending he wants economic growth though.
There's a lot of difference between 'migrants come here to do jobs' and 'migrants come here to wipe bums because I don't want to'
Polanski specifically said 'I don't want to wipe bums".
Is anyone asking him to ?
The Greens want him to be PM and clear up a lot of shit.
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
Show me you don't know any Remainers, without saying you don't know any Remainers.
I’ve met people like that. In Wiltshire, there were some incomers to Malmesbury who fought against development on a mishmash of Green/Nimby excuses. After some wine, they would comment that if a factory got built locally, then wages would go up - which would hit them.
Strangely, the locals (pushed into the housing estate over the hill) all voted…
Maybe Wiltshire attracts that sort of person. It's not an argument I have ever heard anybody make round here.
They tended to be people who’d cashed in a house in London for a lovely stone house with land.
I found it interesting that they’d acquired the attitude of the Squirearchy with it - what they want is economic & social stasis. At least locally, for them.
Right, they've bought into a certain idea of the countryside, that they don't want disrupted. And they're insecure because they aren't rooted in their community. And they might have left London because "it's changed so much". They might not actually be that well off either - they have accumulated wealth through the happy accident of buying a terraced house in London at the right time. So they're economically insecure too. It makes sense. But among the left liberal denizens of my bit of London - the absolutely most tofu eating of the Remainer wokerati, seriously - this is not an argument I have ever heard. Ironically at the time of Brexit our cleaner was not from the EU. Whereas now our cleaner is from the EU. And our child minder was from the PB Tory saintly caste of "white British", although we don't employ her any more as our kids are too old. We still see her and her family from time to time, though. We pay our cleaner £17/hour. Nobody I know saw EU membership as a source of cheap domestic labour, we certainly didn't.
Polanski made a big mistake with that comment as it not only highlighted migrants for jobs that Brits don't want to do but also denigrated an entire profession to the business of 'wiping bums'.
I know far more about social care than I would like due to family situation and this kind of labelling is appalling frankly.
But we all make mistakes and it was live TV and he is a newbie. The best bet for him is to explain himself more and apologise.
Or, knowing how he operates, do a tic tock of him being a carer for a day on the front line etc.
Polanski made a major error there. Migrants come here to do the jobs we don’t want to do.
Reminiscent of Kelly Osborne in the US on The Voice. But at least she was challenged for her supremacy.
I don't think so. Polanski isn't going for the Reform vote.
Being pro-immigration doesn't have a plurality on PB but has significant support and puts clear green water between the Greens and the overcrowded anti-immigrant vote of Mahmood/Jenrick/Farage.
The unrestricted immigration and extreme nimbyism puts Polanski in competition with the LibDems though.
I suppose Polanski isn't even pretending he wants economic growth though.
If you are genuinely pro growth you will argue for immigration. People who don't like immigration will accept the trade off of less growth, which is essentially Starmer's position. Coincidentally, and I think it is coincidental, Polanski's suggestion of immigration for menial jobs was the unspoken policy of previous governments because it's one of the few levers they can pull to improve the economy.
Which is why per-capita GDP would be a more useful headline measure, and therefore target.
Per capita GDP also increases with immigration, albeit not by much, because immigrants are doing the menial jobs and allowing people already here to go up the food chain. Immigration also improves productivity which eventually translates into higher GDP both per capita and total. Total GDP matters because that's how we afford public services etc
Even more simple - only 34 million out of 69 million people in the UK are in work. Immigrants are much more likely to be working age, so they will almost certainly make a significant contribution to GDP per capita. However, immigration tends not to improve labour productivity, which is output per hour worked, and tends to to be suppressed when business/government can depend on cheap labour rather than investment (including training/education). It improves output only.*
GDP only matters to the fiscal position if you are taxing that output. Indeed, the complicated reason that Labour ended up with more cash than expected is because the bits of the economy we tax are expected to grow faster than expected - overall GDP was revised downward over the medium-term.
*there are edge cases where a minimum-wage carer might allow a higher productivity worker to go back into work rather than care for a relative.
Excellent points. It's a pretty stark choice. If you want more growth, better lifestyles, better healthcare etc, managed immigration is the practical way to achieve it. If you don't like immigration because of societal cohesion and so on, you are are in practice committing to relative decline.
My recent trip to Brussels for the @NATO Ministerial meeting left me with one overriding impression: the US has long failed to address the glaring inconsistency between its relations with NATO and the EU. These are almost all the same countries in both organizations. When these countries wear their NATO hats, they insist that Transatlantic cooperation is the cornerstone of our mutual security. But when these countries wear their EU hats, they pursue all sorts of agendas that are often utterly adverse to US interests and security—including censorship, economic suicide/climate fanaticism, open borders, disdain for national sovereignty/promotion of multilateral governance and taxation, support for Communist Cuba, etc etc. This inconsistency cannot continue. Either the great nations of Europe are our partners in protecting the Western civilization that we inherited from them or they are not. But we cannot pretend that we are partners while those nations allow the EU’s unelected, undemocratic, and unrepresentative bureaucracy in Brussels to pursue policies of civilizational suicide.
Yes, they can't pretend that they are partners.
The blazing irony of that statement fails to penetrate his thick skull.
They’re anti the EU because the EU can challenge the US in a way individual European countries can’t.
My recent trip to Brussels for the @NATO Ministerial meeting left me with one overriding impression: the US has long failed to address the glaring inconsistency between its relations with NATO and the EU. These are almost all the same countries in both organizations. When these countries wear their NATO hats, they insist that Transatlantic cooperation is the cornerstone of our mutual security. But when these countries wear their EU hats, they pursue all sorts of agendas that are often utterly adverse to US interests and security—including censorship, economic suicide/climate fanaticism, open borders, disdain for national sovereignty/promotion of multilateral governance and taxation, support for Communist Cuba, etc etc. This inconsistency cannot continue. Either the great nations of Europe are our partners in protecting the Western civilization that we inherited from them or they are not. But we cannot pretend that we are partners while those nations allow the EU’s unelected, undemocratic, and unrepresentative bureaucracy in Brussels to pursue policies of civilizational suicide.
Yes, they can't pretend that they are partners.
The blazing irony of that statement fails to penetrate his thick skull.
They’re anti the EU because the EU can challenge the US in a way individual European countries can’t.
The problem is that the EU wants to have it both ways as a peer of the US when it suits them, but a protectorate of the US when it doesn’t. It’s not unreasonable for the US to turn around and say, “If you’re a peer, then you can handle Russia without our help.”
The objective here is to consolidate the left-wing vote in an environment where Labour is bleeding heavily to the Greens and Lib Dems, and in the next election its base alone might put it in contention in a 4-way fight. It isn't to win over "floating voters" to Reform/Tories, and non-Labour voters rooting for Wes Streeting are like non-Tory voters rooting for Rory Stewart.
So, I'd say Ed Miliband has a real chance.
Labour would be better served by worrying about the Greens and piss diamonds than Reform.
Polanski was not good on QT. His ‘let’s get migrants over to do the jobs we don’t want to do’ is not the winning line he thought it was. As Kelly Osborne found out in the USA.
It shows his privilege and comfortable middle-class position, though.
Which is where most Greens now come from.
The sort of people who hated Brexit because they lost their minimum wage cleaners and babysitters.
Show me you don't know any Remainers, without saying you don't know any Remainers.
I’ve met people like that. In Wiltshire, there were some incomers to Malmesbury who fought against development on a mishmash of Green/Nimby excuses. After some wine, they would comment that if a factory got built locally, then wages would go up - which would hit them.
Strangely, the locals (pushed into the housing estate over the hill) all voted…
Maybe Wiltshire attracts that sort of person. It's not an argument I have ever heard anybody make round here.
They tended to be people who’d cashed in a house in London for a lovely stone house with land.
I found it interesting that they’d acquired the attitude of the Squirearchy with it - what they want is economic & social stasis. At least locally, for them.
Right, they've bought into a certain idea of the countryside, that they don't want disrupted. And they're insecure because they aren't rooted in their community. And they might have left London because "it's changed so much". They might not actually be that well off either - they have accumulated wealth through the happy accident of buying a terraced house in London at the right time. So they're economically insecure too. It makes sense. But among the left liberal denizens of my bit of London - the absolutely most tofu eating of the Remainer wokerati, seriously - this is not an argument I have ever heard. Ironically at the time of Brexit our cleaner was not from the EU. Whereas now our cleaner is from the EU. And our child minder was from the PB Tory saintly caste of "white British", although we don't employ her any more as our kids are too old. We still see her and her family from time to time, though. We pay our cleaner £17/hour. Nobody I know saw EU membership as a source of cheap domestic labour, we certainly didn't.
Polanski made a big mistake with that comment as it not only highlighted migrants for jobs that Brits don't want to do but also denigrated an entire profession to the business of 'wiping bums'.
I know far more about social care than I would like due to family situation and this kind of labelling is appalling frankly.
But we all make mistakes and it was live TV and he is a newbie. The best bet for him is to explain himself more and apologise.
Or, knowing how he operates, do a tic tock of him being a carer for a day on the front line etc.
Polanski made a major error there. Migrants come here to do the jobs we don’t want to do.
Reminiscent of Kelly Osborne in the US on The Voice. But at least she was challenged for her supremacy.
I don't think so. Polanski isn't going for the Reform vote.
Being pro-immigration doesn't have a plurality on PB but has significant support and puts clear green water between the Greens and the overcrowded anti-immigrant vote of Mahmood/Jenrick/Farage.
The unrestricted immigration and extreme nimbyism puts Polanski in competition with the LibDems though.
I suppose Polanski isn't even pretending he wants economic growth though.
If you are genuinely pro growth you will argue for immigration. People who don't like immigration will accept the trade off of less growth, which is essentially Starmer's position. Coincidentally, and I think it is coincidental, Polanski's suggestion of immigration for menial jobs was the unspoken policy of previous governments because it's one of the few levers they can pull to improve the economy.
Which is why per-capita GDP would be a more useful headline measure, and therefore target.
Per capita GDP also increases with immigration, albeit not by much, because immigrants are doing the menial jobs and allowing people already here to go up the food chain. Immigration also improves productivity which eventually translates into higher GDP both per capita and total. Total GDP matters because that's how we afford public services etc
Even more simple - only 34 million out of 69 million people in the UK are in work. Immigrants are much more likely to be working age, so they will almost certainly make a significant contribution to GDP per capita. However, immigration tends not to improve labour productivity, which is output per hour worked, and tends to to be suppressed when business/government can depend on cheap labour rather than investment (including training/education). It improves output only.*
GDP only matters to the fiscal position if you are taxing that output. Indeed, the complicated reason that Labour ended up with more cash than expected is because the bits of the economy we tax are expected to grow faster than expected - overall GDP was revised downward over the medium-term.
*there are edge cases where a minimum-wage carer might allow a higher productivity worker to go back into work rather than care for a relative.
Excellent points. It's a pretty stark choice. If you want more growth, better lifestyles, better healthcare etc, managed immigration is the practical way to achieve it. If you don't like immigration because of societal cohesion and so on, you are are in practice committing to relative decline.
The alternative to make a pretty significant investment in the people who already live here. More spending on education and early years, government capital spending in areas with low productivity (or tax rates that make business investment in those areas more attractive), signal to business that the era of cheap labour is over (minimum wage is one, assuming low immigration allows you sustain full employment), measures to increase the fertility rate to 2.1 for a self-sustaining population.
You'll note that this is a lot of spending/tax cuts not for pensioners in the SE of England. So immigration it is.
Anyone else fed up with "scanning a QR-code" and "downloading our app" ?
I'm fed up being obligated to interface with the world around me though my phone.
No, it makes my life so much easier.
It makes my life considerably harder. Particularly if I don't have my phone. Or I do have my phone but it has no battery.
Honestly, the tech of 2007 was entirely fine.
Agreed. Being forced to download apps just to buy something is a complete no-no for me as a basic security issue. (Quite apart from the possibility of the QR code or the website in question being fake, like those put on stickers over car-parking site notice QR codes.)
Informal discussions have taken place inside No 10 on rejoining customs union as quickest way to boost growth
What do they know about growth? They spent the best part of a year talking down the economy and were surprised that confidence collapsed.
If they do it, the aim wouldn't really be "to boost growth" but to polarise the electorate and try to build a coalition based winning as many of the 48% as possible.
They probably will. As I've said before, many times, Starmer was a Tedious Tactical Triangulator in opposition and he's now a Tedious Tactical Triangulator in office.
He will end up neither trusted nor respected, so it might not even work no matter what he does.
Spare us the insulting language, Casino.
It's time you recognised that Brexiteers and their project are deeply unpopular. You shat the bed for all of us. Time to be a little less dismissive of those who want to change the sheets.
I don't read any insulting language in Casino's post - am I missing something?
I read his post simply as a rather cynical one that Starmer may well benefit from a tack towards the EU, despite being rather disliked, but that he might be so disliked by that point that people won't be willing to hold their noses.
I for one would put up with a pretty crap next few years policy-wise if a closer economic and security relationship with the EU was on the ballot next election.
Comments
https://youtu.be/ypDCe1dmXu0?si=wsNwyCSaDyQVIC7_
But you reacted to people objecting to what was an outrageous slur (not by you obviously) as being somewhat precious. I think it was only reasonable that people should have reacted to it. If it were true and was known about it would likely have resulted in expulsion from the LDs. It was an outrageous story by that poster and needed some sort of citation (sometimes things like this do happen).
I don't react to you referring to the LDs as 'piss diamonds', although you feel the need to do so baffles me. I refer to Labour as Labour. I refer to the Conservatives as Tories, I refer to the Greens and Greens and I refer to Reform as Reform. I don't see the point in name calling.
This is coming from someone that thinks Brexit was a mistake (but respected the vote), and who firmly believes that the Brexit relationship is not fixed in stone, and if the country feels that relationship is not working must be able to explore other possibilities.
One for their next manifesto perhaps, but I think any moves during this parliament will run the risk of backfiring and re-opening all the Brexit wounds, with an inevitable boost to Reform.
The later group seems to be a serious segment of the young. They are left wing with it - usual Left of Labour beliefs. Just absolutely against economic migration.
I was rather surprised. But then again, they are competing for minimum wage jobs…
Migrated here.
I suspect most people, whatever their politics, are decent. I don’t think PB sees that.
Strangely, the locals (pushed into the housing estate over the hill) all voted…
When it affects them real life takes over.
But we'd have to accept EU regulations, which are often stupid and nonsensical, without any say in how they are determined. I think we'd have essentially no say in about half of our laws and regulations. So it would be a ridiculous situation and I don't think it would even last very long. Either we'd rejoin fully, which I think is unlikely because of the currency, freedom of movement and net contributions issues, or we'd leave again.
We'd also have to abandon our CPTPP membership.
Starmer is desperate for the slightest boost to growth but can't do the one thing that is proven to work - move towards a low tax, low spending, free markets model. Just reducing the tax-spend ratio by 1% of GDP - about a third of what Labour has increased it by since taking office - would increaase GDP by 3-4 times the boost from rejoining the Single Market. So he grasps for small, stupid and probably counterproductive gimmicks like this, rather than admit that his whole party is founded on the economically illiterate lie that is socialism.
I found it interesting that they’d acquired the attitude of the Squirearchy with it - what they want is economic & social stasis. At least locally, for them.
👍
Ironically at the time of Brexit our cleaner was not from the EU. Whereas now our cleaner is from the EU. And our child minder was from the PB Tory saintly caste of "white British", although we don't employ her any more as our kids are too old. We still see her and her family from time to time, though. We pay our cleaner £17/hour. Nobody I know saw EU membership as a source of cheap domestic labour, we certainly didn't.
And there are plenty of people in the Tofu Militia who whine about the price of everything having gone up.
Emily Maitliss on Sex near the White House
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVoJLgMNyj4
Extreme Temperatures Around The World
@extremetemps
In just 5 days,December 2025 has broken more [temperature] records than ANY FULL MONTH in history except November 2025.
Next week we will see >160/170 countries and dozens of thousands of stations smashing records in every Continent and November 2025 will be surpassed and wiped out big time.
https://x.com/extremetemps/status/1997148658614390992
That wizened centrist old prune.
The only decent thing MTG have ever done is telling her to fuck off.
I know far more about social care than I would like due to family situation and this kind of labelling is appalling frankly.
But we all make mistakes and it was live TV and he is a newbie. The best bet for him is to explain himself more and apologise.
Or, knowing how he operates, do a tic tock of him being a carer for a day on the front line etc.
Reminiscent of Kelly Osborne in the US on The Voice. But at least she was challenged for her supremacy.
All that would stop her is if the soft Left feel she's not up to the job and they coalesce behind Ed Miliband instead - on the basis he's a past Leader, he has experience, and he is just far more credible as a PM. If so, Ed gets the 80 MP nominations and Rayner probably doesn't.
However I wonder if Rayner might be influenced by what happened with Liz Truss - ie whether she just feels deep down that she isn't up to the job. She's seen what's happened with Truss and is worried the same might happen with her.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn0k2858jj1o
While the migration argument is generally seen as a cultural issue by most of the older end of the electorate, I've always thought migration policy has been dictated from an economic perspective at Government level, albeit aided by a civil service that sympathises with the cultural open borders argument.
From a government perspective, the big parties appear boxed in by a combination of the organisations to which they owe money, who will ask why we want to reduce our GDP by refusing entry to anyone, and the mega rich, mostly corporate donors, who love the low wages that mass migration brings.
Which I guess partly explains why the politicians and the public seem to be largely talking past each other on this matter... your post just turned on a light bulb in my limited brain... back to lurking!
Scotland v Brazil is a 11pm kick of time
Compared to how relaxed the same people had been about middle class working from home.
“The wax in Zack’s wings is melting”
It would be a big simplifier for businesses in the UK export to the EU, because it would eliminate a bunch of paperwork.
Personally, I think its a bit of a red herring. There are many easier -domestic- things you could do to get UK growth moving, starting with property/land taxation and planning reform.
Does anyone seriously think the EU wouldn't insist on the same arrangements?
What's wrong with tens of thousands?
Of course I don't agree with the rest of the post, which as ever ignores the experience of many other countries with higher tax burdens, higher growth, higher GDP per capita, higher HDI, higher happiness etc etc. You might be right about the best strategy about the UK, but don't pretend it's a certainty. What we tax and on what we spend is a far bigger issue IMO, rather than an arbitrary percentage.
I'm fed up being obligated to interface with the world around me though my phone.
Those advocating joining a customs union with the EU are looking for a magic wand in line with their political views.
Being pro-immigration doesn't have a plurality on PB but has significant support and puts clear green water between the Greens and the overcrowded anti-immigrant vote of Mahmood/Jenrick/Farage.
I suppose Polanski isn't even pretending he wants economic growth though.
Polanski specifically said 'I don't want to wipe bums".
The thought of delivery drivers, supermarket shelf stackers, agricultural workers etc getting pay rises without matching productivity increases - as they were doing as covid ended - really annoyed various PBers and also some 'real world' people I knew.
It wasn't really a political thing more of a 'people like them' getting paid more with 'people like us' having to bear the cost.
It was quite the contrast to how various 'smug haves' reacted to the covid restrictions which often benefitted themselves.
It's not dignified, but it's where we are as a species.
My reading is CNN and other cable assets are to be spun out of the deal.
And then what??....
The blazing irony of that statement fails to penetrate his thick skull.
It's time you recognised that Brexiteers and their project are deeply unpopular. You shat the bed for all of us. Time to be a little less dismissive of those who want to change the sheets.
Unlikely but would be interesting.
"Take Back Power is demanding that the UK government establish a permanent House of the People- a citizen’s assembly chosen by democratic lottery, that has the power to tax extreme wealth and fix Britain."
https://x.com/takeback_power/status/1997346222936379769
https://takebackpower.net/
I think it would be an interesting thought experiment. Imagine we really did have a democratic lottery of, say, random 650 people on the electoral roll and asked them to assembly and pass laws.
I suspect hanging people for kid fiddling followed by death for police killers would be the first two out of the gate and not tax King Charles as these activist imagine.
Honestly, the tech of 2007 was entirely fine.
GDP only matters to the fiscal position if you are taxing that output. Indeed, the complicated reason that Labour ended up with more cash than expected is because the bits of the economy we tax are expected to grow faster than expected - overall GDP was revised downward over the medium-term.
*there are edge cases where a minimum-wage carer might allow a higher productivity worker to go back into work rather than care for a relative.
Republicans against Trump
@RpsAgainstTrump
37% of Republicans say the Holocaust was exaggerated or didn’t happen, 36% say the moon landing was fake, and 41% believe 9/11 was an inside job.
Houston, we have a problem.
https://x.com/RpsAgainstTrump/status/1996778281396219999
Leeds 3 Liverpool 3 after being 2 up
You'll note that this is a lot of spending/tax cuts not for pensioners in the SE of England. So immigration it is.
I read his post simply as a rather cynical one that Starmer may well benefit from a tack towards the EU, despite being rather disliked, but that he might be so disliked by that point that people won't be willing to hold their noses.
I for one would put up with a pretty crap next few years policy-wise if a closer economic and security relationship with the EU was on the ballot next election.