When it comes down to it, the owm at the top of the Democratic Party would do anything rather than deal with anyone with brown or darker skin.
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When it comes down to it, the owm at the top of the Democratic Party would do anything rather than deal with anyone with brown or darker skin.
I remember a time when we gladly extended the visas of those taking high paid jobs or going into research because they contributed. Today, we performatively do everything we can to reject people because of a minority who contribute nothing to the UK except hatemongering www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Opportunistic nimbyism - see also the party's dreadful position on HS2. Hopefully Polanski will steer us away from it, helped by Labour doing its usual and taking its base, now the metropolitan multiculturals, for granted.
Totally agree on this. The tax system is a hot mess and squeezing any more revenue out of it without reform is practically impossible. As the old joke goes, you don't want to be starting from here.
Congratulations to @zackpolanski.bsky.social on his resounding victory. Tbh I would have rather the party continued pursuing a more collective leadership (it's in our genes) but his values and policy direction are right, and I hope we can move beyond opportunistic nimbyism.
Disagree. Given how much of the debt is index-linked, inflation hammers debt service costs. And it is electoral poison. No easy answers, but broad-based tax rises are going to be needed. Which means tax reform.
A single nationwide ticketing app is urgently needed. Not the Trainline either.
Yes. I still think that settling internal Labour issues was what diverted attention for too long. And the result is that his allies are all from the far right of the party.
Lads will start getting lairy after 3 pints of 4%, and I like the harder to find these days 3.5% or less bitters. Having lower strength beers for teens (and lightweight pensioners like me) would be a good way of reviving pubs. But also, rents are too high!
Everything before the election was about squishing the nystas. Starmer probably expected to have another Parliament in opposition to sort out policy, but the Truss/Sunak collapse caught him by surprise.
on.ft.com/4mI9P3L
The materials to build it in the first place (and the tons of coal a week it would have needed for heating and cooking) would have been brought over by a fleet of Clyde puffers...
The only way he's going in to the next election is if his techbro boyz manage to create an immortal AI avatar of him to rule forever.
Only really practical as a spring and autumn residence and if you can also afford a helicopter. Way too cold and dark in the winter, way too midgy in July and August.
Was it you who also posted this one?Which is almost in the view of today's. The bungalow is much more accessible and manageable. www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/8...
Britain has been multicultural for the last 2000 years. That's why we have the Roman alphabet, a Middle East religion, Arabic numerals, a Syrian patron saint, an aristocracy with French ancestry and a German royal family.
Yes. Political agreements are subject to political pressures that commercial negotiators don't have.
Certainly no one who has had to negotiate that Croydon office has ever found them particularly welcoming...
Although... I think there is circumstantial evidence that the HO, in particular, is institutionally anti-immigrant.
Partly because no one at the time thought it was remotely conceivable that either party would even think about resiliation of the Convention. Poor drafting though: it should have provided for even the most unlikely of eventualities.
bet they are just overstock after the Lionesses' triumph
I'm thinking back over past elections I've known and re-election seems to be more defined by whether a government set the political agenda rather than what was delivered. Right now, Labour follows that set by others.
Reform UK, the right leaning think tank Policy Exchange, and some Labour grandees, are all pushing for us to either leave the ECHR, or disapply parts of it temporarily or permanently. This puts me, you and everyone at risk, not just those seeking sanctuary.
It is not just being negligent, it is complicit. "legitmate concerns" = acknowledging many voters are quietly racist is top down policy.
Elon Musk is a radicalised extremist openly championing the most racist faction who would deport the Foreign Secretary, the Leader of the Opposition, the Justice Secretary and the last Prime Minister The govt silence about such a level of extremism is craven: infinite tolerance of racial hatred
Pretty clear that every minister has been instructed to appease racism wherever it appears. ftfy
Where has this ludicrous ECHR "debate" even come from. I've never once met an ordinary member of the public who's said to me, "Do you know what? We REALLY need to leave the ECHR." It's just a new right wing talking point because every other shit idea they've foisted on us has run out of steam.
Shitshow waiting to happen on.ft.com/41sHC8D
Not particularly out of the ordinary for this particular President. The mundane explanation is that he knows he's only got days or weeks max....
Just need to make a factual correction: he lives in Mississippi, not Texas. Anyway, he'll be right at home there.
Correction, Jackson Mississippi not Texas. Anyway, a part of the US where his racism will barely show.
From Texas though. Even today I don't think he could get away with that stuff in the UK.
He's certainly become openly so since leaving Parliament and going to live in Texas. Had he come up with any of that stuff while a Tory MP he'd have been unwhipped and expelled in seconds. Plod would be on to him in Britain for that tweet.
The firmer ones are not for eating. They are for sitting forlornly in the fruit-bowl until they shrivel, still firm, and then for throwing away.
Petroligarchy capture of UK right-wing politics is complete then (goes without saying they’re the paymasters at Reform.)
A year ago, they started quite well after Southport. What's happened since?
stupidity/cupidity the degree to which it has been bought by big money donors, especially since Citizen's United.
Exactly the same happened in Scotland. Loyal voters hate being taken for granted. And it will happen in the multicultural metropolises too.
Got a fine crop of them ripening up in my garden this year.
When Murdoch bought it back in t 80s he had to give undertakings about editorial independence. Johnson agreed they were no longer relevant. Since then you can see Murdoch's grubby fingerprints everywhere.
Once upon a time, it wasn't bad. Then Whitbread plc bought it and it is shit. Bitter, burned, watery espresso. On a motorway drive I get an energy drink for caffeine rather than endure service-station Costa.
The hat at the emergency state opening was deliberate
Also the Labour and Conservative parties doing Reform's work for them
They're all being pumped into Trump to keep him looking alive
As a ch'ti, it's got to be Vico en direct de Picardie
It is already working on that. It is ethnically cleansing them. There is a shorter word.
The NRA buys off Congress. No action on guns. The oil industry buys off Congress. No action on climate. Insurance companies buy off Congress. No action on health care. The list goes on and on. Money in politics is the root of our dysfunction.
The only political battle that matters in the world right now is the one against authoritarian nationalism (the word 'fascist' is succinct). Very simply: if *any aspect* of your political platform aids authoritarian nationalism, we must oppose you with everything. *Any* aspect. Reflect on that.
And as codicil, anyone engaging in the “we must stop immigration” debate is accepting the racist premise. There are other ways to talk about the issues.
It is time for hotel accommodation to end with a proper PLAN and FUNDING from Govt. which INCLUDES asylum-seekers as part of our communities and not some "other" that doesn't belong here. They are here, they do belong, they are the public. Treat them that way.
The billionaire-owned media got us here. Helped by the BBC, which was captured under Johnson.
We are underpricing the probability of an obviously unhealthy old man popping his clogs sooner rather than later. Vance, though....
He went on to run the official Remain campaign, so good they named it after a brain disease of cattle.
Began under Cheney-Bush. The looting of the US treasury for the benefit of Cheney-Halliburton and allies under the guise of funding the destruction and reconstruction of Iraq was off the scale.
Best thing they could do to make the place feel even more welcoming. Be better done by a well-funded City Hall paying union rates to the ones doing the cleaning of course.
It is very unlikely to happen because it doesn't take much to imagine that there will be jurisdiction shopping, depending on whose human rights or not are most important to you. There will be a proliferation of unintended consequences, most of them bad.
Were it me you were debating the first 'dumbass' would have got an instablock. It's completely unnecessary and devalues your argument to nothing.
The first time they called you dumbass should have been instablock imo.
You really don't have to be quite so insulting to make a valid point. Of course, if the point is invalid, people will resort to the ad hominem instead.
This is true, also, I think of America (observing from afar). What we are seeing on both sides ofthe pond is a spasm, a violent reaction by a now-threatened, decaying and decadent dominant class.
Let's call it what it is, the billionaire-owned media. Championing ethnic cleansing. And our pathetic, captured BBC following along.
Seeing some politicians competing for just how brutal and dehumanising they can be to vulnerable minorities - I can’t help comparing that to 16th and 17th witch trials. It’s so depressing.
It's not dark money if you know who it is. By definition.
I don't think we should be worried about a third term. I don't think he'll last this one. Plenty of other things to worry about though.
I like to remind people that Enoch Powell got fired by his Tory PM Ted Heath in 1968 and never had a cabinet position again, and the Times called it an “evil speech”. Now we get great replacement theory in the Times and politicians including Labour advocating for ethnic cleansing on a daily basis
Far too many 'luxury' flats built along Nine Elms Lane between the power station and Vauxhall Bridge. These are very much part of the London Laundromat. John Prescott gave the go-ahead, some building is still going on.
No, not directly. One worked in TV, the other in a local authority dealing with hard-to-reach families.
Immigrant families, even two or three generations in, always keep the (often metaphorical) suitcase packed. The morning after the referendum gave many of them reason to check it.
A number of my black and brown friends decided not to go on them, not because they disagreed with the premise, but because they feared the consequences for their careers had they been identified. By the helicopters.
Or a French road...
I think they'd also struggle to get a majority under FPTP/tactical voting. Either way we end up with Refcon the largest party facing a fractured, and fractious opposition.
Wishful thinking, I'm afraid.
On current polling, that would lead to Reform being the largest party in Parliament and therefore given first dibs at forming a government. Could the disparate progressives get their act together to form a coalition? At least the result would be more predictable, so they could pre-plan.
It's a total absence of political leadership. It's what Starmer/McFadden are doing in the UK - follow the polls and the focus groups, but whatever you do don't try to make the political weather.
Actual human communication is dramatically more complicated that. Democrats have, without exaggeration, driven American democracy into a wall by outsourcing their brains to this class of hucksters, who pretend to insight but who have never successfully changed the public narrative on anything.
That still leaves open the possibility, nay likelihood, that Reform will be the largest party in Parliament and the others - LDs, Greens, Lab and Nystas a disparate, but blocking, opposition.
Under FPTP, #GE2029 with five relatively-evenly spaced parties and tactical voting as you've never seen it is going to be an utterly absurd lottery.
Vaccine deniers bringing back contagious diseases and causing everyone to drive instead of taking public transportation thereby making us miss our climate goals is a link I hadn’t made before.
If you hadn't fessed up in the alt text that could easily be fried bread under the eggs. Also beans are not compulsory.
Faites attention à tous ces VPN qui capturent vos écrans. 🚩
Mostly, yes. Other things being equal, taking cash is a total PITA compared to cards these days. Big security/safety risk for staff, who are also permanently suspected of stealing it.
Yes. The current generation of them - GenX ers mostly just want feudal dominance, without any of its redeeming features such as reciprocal loyalty. Philanthropy is alien (Boomer Gates the last billionaire philanthropist?) . They think space dildos a more fitting legacy than libraries .
Propaganda works Censorship works The premium for truth in the marketplace of ideas is very low Sad facts but we need to internalize them
1776: Swallows abound, & congregate. Young swallows continue to come forth.
I think this is probably McFadden's doing. A general reminder has gone out to loyalist MPs not to offend the faragist rabble. She is a melt though, regardless.
indeed. My own MP at the time, DUP with a red rosette now Baroness Hoey was one.
By many accounts, the civil war in Labour hq under Corbyn was between anti-Semites on the one side and anti-black racists on the other. Starmer has backed the latter side.
I knew Frank Crichlow, of the Mangrove, back in the '80s: he told me he could never support Labour/the unions. On arriving in the UK in 1952, he turned up to work on the railways with his appointment letter. Was told, 'Lads need to vote if they want to work with a d....."
the labour movement has always had a racist core. It's also been in the vanguard at confronting it in others, but it has never managed to eliminate it in its own ranks.
A lot of people resist using the term genocide because it would mean a lot more things should be called genocide too. But the reality is that it's true, a lot more events were genocide than people would like to think
Would be good to try and work out a system that rescued all those hobby websites, forums and bulletin boards about steam trains, butterflies etc that are being screwed by OSA while at the same time made FB, X etc take some responsibility.
that really would gum up the housing market and stop people downsizing. (you're not wrong that we need to tax all that value gained, but CGT is the wrong way to do it)
I love a rijsttafel, but can't eat one every day. For other days in AMS, erwtensoep and bitterballen in a brown bar with a beer, and no NL visit is complete without a raw herring. The stalls selling them seemed to be fewer in number on my last visit.
If a political hit has to be taken, it should be for something worthwhile. Property taxes (& LG finance) need real reform not a refudge. The opportunity is there to do it properly and introduce land value tax.
You're in Paris though, aren't you? I expect you have neighbours who aren't dairy farmers and therefore have time for a life. Healthcare in les bleds is a big problem too, give me the inner city NHS any day.
I live in a remote hamlet in rural N. France and it's lovely in summer: birdsong, bees, butterflies and lots of fresh garden produce. But we've kept a foot in Brixton and we'll go back as soon as this place starts getting too much for us. Never stopped being Londoners.
Strong 'Vickers down on fears of peace' energy here www.ft.com/content/d548...
Possibly. Another, in London at least, was schools - people left as soon as they had kids because the schools were dreadful. Now they're the best in the country. Boomer racism driving white flight was a factor too; millenials moving back are more multicultural.
Transport, pollution and fun are factors. The rural idyll turned out to be the suburban traffic nightmare. Cities got cleaned up. Immigrants had moved in for cheap housing and opened cheap restaurants - they're now being gentrified out.
People left cities when they were smoky, dirty, places, as soon as transport options made it possible. And then since cities got cleaner and people realised how tedious the burbs are they started moving back in. From late-'80s, probably.