Snap General Election called

[Son of Mathonwy]

lol, I wouldn’t put it that way. I think everyone else would consider my economic ideas as extremely radical… just different from yours. Less…traditional.

But I don’t think you can compare. Sure, a leader with the press on side would be incredible. But you can’t transport Blair to today and expect him to have that. The press are not what they were in 1997. Outside of the likes of the granuaid, NYT, Der Spiegel, and Le Monde, nearly every publication has a right wing tinge, while the popularity of alternative media sources whose only purpose is clicks to make money, meaning that the political landscape has been fractured.

No, Blair would not have the same impact, he was of his time. And as we’ve seen, 2020s Blair wouldn’t look out of place as leader of the Tory party…

Blair would always have been a good fit for the Tory party. The tragedy for the UK is that he was in the Labour party. Instead of keeping the Tories on the centre-right/right he ruined the Labour party, making it centre-right, destroyed the UK's hopes for any left-wing government and cemented neoliberalism here.

I don't see how it's possible to say that Blair moved the Labour party to the centre-right, while saying the Tory party were centre-right...let's be fair here: economically, the Tories have been far right since Thatcher. I don't think there's any further right it's possible to go. Blair's Labour were pretty left of centre economically (well, they did have Brown in charge, who is definitely old Labour).

I just feel like there is a level of political illiteracy in the world, and it's understandable.

On Starmer, I feel like he's needed to make some decisions he would have wanted to leave alone in an ideal world, while he's been naive with the press and with comms. And unless he manages to make drastic changes to the balance of work in the UK, he's going to be struggling. Luckily the Tories have Karen Badandyuck...so it's not like he's going to lose.

Well, I said the Tories were centre-right/right - admittedly more right than centre-right, but they definitely had both elements in the 90s. Centre-right has been thoroughly purged now of course.

I think it's a sign of how far the Overton window has moved that you can think New Labour was left of centre or that Brown was definitely old labour(!). New Labour made no big changes from Thatcher's neo liberalism, just softened it a little. Taxes stayed low, spending increased just a bit, privatised companies remained privatised, in fact they even privatised British Rail. Brown presided over the very light-touch regulation of the FSA, which led to the Credit Crunch hitting the UK much harder than it would otherwise have.

Labour is polling pretty much level with the Tories, so although Badenoch certainly has the capacity to crash and burn, I wouldn't bet against her beating Starmer next time. Anyway, it's all really down to how the Reform/Tory nightmare resolves itself in the next five years. If the right join forces they'll probably win.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Gen X here, sitting in the middle, confused by both sides, but trying to make allowances

Same here, trying to wrack my brain to recall those pre-Thatcher times. And prog rock.

[Banquo]

Gen X here, sitting in the middle, confused by both sides, but trying to make allowances

Same here, trying to wrack my brain to recall those pre-Thatcher times. And prog rock.

I wouldn’t try and remember pre Thatcher times or prog rock. Both were shit

[Son of Mathonwy]

Gen X here, sitting in the middle, confused by both sides, but trying to make allowances

Same here, trying to wrack my brain to recall those pre-Thatcher times. And prog rock.

I wouldn’t try and remember pre Thatcher times or prog rock. Both were shit

Your memory of pre-Thatcher times is a bit shaky.

Your memory of prog is self-evidently fucked.

[Banquo]

Same here, trying to wrack my brain to recall those pre-Thatcher times. And prog rock.

I wouldn’t try and remember pre Thatcher times or prog rock. Both were shit

Your memory of pre-Thatcher times is a bit shaky.

Your memory of prog is self-evidently fucked.

Nah mate, the mid to late 60's were ok because of the Beatles; 70-79 was absolutely sh8t- the country was disintegrating even more rapidly than 65-70, all progressive ideas were scuppered by the trade unions and by three godawful governments, we had to borrow a load of money from the IMF, oil prices sky rocketed, NI 'Troubles'......but more especially, England had a lot of good rugby players but no idea what to do with them. Prog Rock is shit, with the exception of King Crimson possibly. The Clash were great though at the other end of the spectrum. I quite enjoyed the 70's in fairness, apart from 74/75 when my father died, having been effectively forced to leave the country by Healey's tax regime; came back in 75, discovered booze and fags etc so all ok for me, whilst the country around was dying, then punk, then winter of discontent which lead to Thatch. Then I was at university so happy days

How old were you in 1978 btw?

[Sandydragon]

Gods I hate the taste of avocado. Have to eat it though - for the branding.

Puja

Avocado on toast is a great recipe. Nice to be able to agree with the kids on something.

[Sandydragon]

I don't see how it's possible to say that Blair moved the Labour party to the centre-right, while saying the Tory party were centre-right...let's be fair here: economically, the Tories have been far right since Thatcher. I don't think there's any further right it's possible to go. Blair's Labour were pretty left of centre economically (well, they did have Brown in charge, who is definitely old Labour).

I just feel like there is a level of political illiteracy in the world, and it's understandable.

On Starmer, I feel like he's needed to make some decisions he would have wanted to leave alone in an ideal world, while he's been naive with the press and with comms. And unless he manages to make drastic changes to the balance of work in the UK, he's going to be struggling. Luckily the Tories have Karen Badandyuck...so it's not like he's going to lose.

At present, I'm not worried about him losing to the Tories.

The Telegraph are currently flying a kite of outright support of Reform. They're very close as a party to a genuine inflection point where enough people believe they're a viable option that they become a viable option.

Puja

Meh. Again, not bothered at this stage of the election cycle, and with the potential for major changes in world politics over the coming 3 years. I, for one, feel like there's a change brewing, as the workplace has turned toxic in many, many countries, and as these 17-20 year old kids enter the workplace in the coming years, we're going to see some big changes.

We're (because not all of us are boomers like Banquo , most of us are millennial, right?) going to be shown up badly in our work ethic by these zoomer kids who have grown up in a very different world culture to us, or to the Gen Xers who are starting to find themselves in upper management positions.

I'd be more worried about young people being influenced by some very unsavoury bastards. Large numbers of under 25s voted for Trump. I don't think that's a fluke

[Son of Mathonwy]

I wouldn’t try and remember pre Thatcher times or prog rock. Both were shit

Your memory of pre-Thatcher times is a bit shaky.

Your memory of prog is self-evidently fucked.

Nah mate, the mid to late 60's were ok because of the Beatles; 70-79 was absolutely sh8t- the country was disintegrating even more rapidly than 65-70, all progressive ideas were scuppered by the trade unions and by three godawful governments, we had to borrow a load of money from the IMF, oil prices sky rocketed, NI 'Troubles'......but more especially, England had a lot of good rugby players but no idea what to do with them. Prog Rock is shit, with the exception of King Crimson possibly. The Clash were great though at the other end of the spectrum. I quite enjoyed the 70's in fairness, apart from 74/75 when my father died, having been effectively forced to leave the country by Healey's tax regime; came back in 75, discovered booze and fags etc so all ok for me, whilst the country around was dying, then punk, then winter of discontent which lead to Thatch. Then I was at university so happy days

How old were you in 1978 btw?

I was born at the end of the 60s so don't remember and of that or the early 70s. Prog rock had already finished long before I got into Genesis and Yes. I didn't pay any attention to politics till the 90s and was still pretty clueless about it for most of that decade. It's taken me a long time to get to the 100% flawless political views I hold now .

But I do remember Wales kicking ass in the 70s, which explains my eternally unreasonable expectations.

[Banquo]

Your memory of pre-Thatcher times is a bit shaky.

Your memory of prog is self-evidently fucked.

Nah mate, the mid to late 60's were ok because of the Beatles; 70-79 was absolutely sh8t- the country was disintegrating even more rapidly than 65-70, all progressive ideas were scuppered by the trade unions and by three godawful governments, we had to borrow a load of money from the IMF, oil prices sky rocketed, NI 'Troubles'......but more especially, England had a lot of good rugby players but no idea what to do with them. Prog Rock is shit, with the exception of King Crimson possibly. The Clash were great though at the other end of the spectrum. I quite enjoyed the 70's in fairness, apart from 74/75 when my father died, having been effectively forced to leave the country by Healey's tax regime; came back in 75, discovered booze and fags etc so all ok for me, whilst the country around was dying, then punk, then winter of discontent which lead to Thatch. Then I was at university so happy days

How old were you in 1978 btw?

Yes.

Oh dear.
(though in fairness, TFTO was a low point which colours my pov )

[Son of Mathonwy]

Nah mate, the mid to late 60's were ok because of the Beatles; 70-79 was absolutely sh8t- the country was disintegrating even more rapidly than 65-70, all progressive ideas were scuppered by the trade unions and by three godawful governments, we had to borrow a load of money from the IMF, oil prices sky rocketed, NI 'Troubles'......but more especially, England had a lot of good rugby players but no idea what to do with them. Prog Rock is shit, with the exception of King Crimson possibly. The Clash were great though at the other end of the spectrum. I quite enjoyed the 70's in fairness, apart from 74/75 when my father died, having been effectively forced to leave the country by Healey's tax regime; came back in 75, discovered booze and fags etc so all ok for me, whilst the country around was dying, then punk, then winter of discontent which lead to Thatch. Then I was at university so happy days

How old were you in 1978 btw?

Yes.

Oh dear.
(though in fairness, TFTO was a low point which colours my pov )

TFTO is massively disappointing (considering its ultra-prog ambitions). I haven't listened to it for years. Going for the One and Tormato are the best albums IMO. There's some brilliant stuff on Relayer, Close to the Edge and Fragile but you have to find it amongst the not so brilliant stuff. Anyway, Gabriel-era Genesis is peak prog, better than Yes.

[Banquo]

Yes.

Oh dear.
(though in fairness, TFTO was a low point which colours my pov )

TFTO is massively disappointing (considering its ultra-prog ambitions). I haven't listened to it for years. Going for the One and Tormato are the best albums IMO. There's some brilliant stuff on Relayer, Close to the Edge and Fragile but you have to find it amongst the not so brilliant stuff. Anyway, Gabriel-era Genesis is peak prog, better than Yes.

agreed!!

[Son of Mathonwy]

Oh dear.
(though in fairness, TFTO was a low point which colours my pov )

TFTO is massively disappointing (considering its ultra-prog ambitions). I haven't listened to it for years. Going for the One and Tormato are the best albums IMO. There's some brilliant stuff on Relayer, Close to the Edge and Fragile but you have to find it amongst the not so brilliant stuff. Anyway, Gabriel-era Genesis is peak prog, better than Yes.

agreed!!

Agreement across the political divide! Only prog can do this .

[Banquo]

TFTO is massively disappointing (considering its ultra-prog ambitions). I haven't listened to it for years. Going for the One and Tormato are the best albums IMO. There's some brilliant stuff on Relayer, Close to the Edge and Fragile but you have to find it amongst the not so brilliant stuff. Anyway, Gabriel-era Genesis is peak prog, better than Yes.

agreed!!

Agreement across the political divide! Only prog can do this .

[Which Tyler]

I'll be honest, I'm a little surprised it took this long for the "mask" to slip
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... on-jumping

Reform UK's leader, Nigel Farage, and another of the party's MPs, Rupert Lowe, demanded that a new inquiry focus specifically on men of Pakistani origin targeting white girls, not on other ethnicities.


"This is not a bandwagon of the far right. This is about ensuring swift and brutal justice to these demons," Lowe said. He spelled out a list of demands for an inquiry to answer, referring to them as "foreign rapists".

[Mellsblue]

And clearly the markets are pretty calm about it. Sure yields went up - there would have to be a knee-jerk reaction upwards to this announcement - but +0.06% is just a murmur.

Whoops.

[Son of Mathonwy]

Badenoch speaks approvingly of mobs burning down people's homes:

“There are some places where, when people behave in that way, a mob turns up and burns their homes down, and then they know that they can’t do that sort of thing,” the Conservative leader told GB News.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... s-badenoch

[Puja]

Badenoch speaks approvingly of mobs burning down people's homes:

“There are some places where, when people behave in that way, a mob turns up and burns their homes down, and then they know that they can’t do that sort of thing,” the Conservative leader told GB News.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... s-badenoch

And describing the perpetrators as "peasants" from "sub-communities". Not quite confident enough in herself to refer to Pakistani men as uncivilised barbarians out loud yet, but certainly getting more comfortable with ever less subtle euphemisms.

This is your scheduled reminder that, despite what Elon and Kemi would like people to worry about, Pakistani-ethnicity men are statistically less likely to be involved in sexual assaults or child abuse than white men are, based on the percentages of the UK population. It is also your reminder that taking a subset of child abuse rings that contain only people of a certain skin colour, rebranding them as a new thing called "grooming gangs", and making sure that gets a lot of publicity is a) very deliberately constructed propaganda and b) deeply, deeply racist.

Puja

[Mellsblue]

I’m loathe to get involved in this as rational debate went out of the window years ago, but the statistics are useless for a handful or reasons, both quality and quantity, so no point drawing anything from them. Even if you’re a titan of the internet, eg own X or moderate RR.

Edit: Smiley added to convey the tone of my post.

[Sandydragon]

I’m loathe to get involved in this as rational debate went out of the window years ago, but the statistics are useless for a handful or reasons, both quality and quantity, so no point drawing anything from them. Even if you’re a titan of the internet, eg own X or moderate RR.

Edit: Smiley added to convey the tone of my post.

The police often don’t record ethnicity properly, so you’re quite right to be cautious. It is absolutely racist to describe all men of Pakistani heritage as being rapists. It’s also wrong to focus on only those grooming gangs where the majority were from ethnic minorities.

It is also wrong to ignore a problem, which is sadly what happened in many towns and cities. If local authorities had addressed the problem properly instead of trying t9 ignore it, the issue would carry the weight it does today. Regardless of the attackers ethnicity, the state completely failed to protect hundred if not thousands of young girls from abuse, despite plenty of reports. That’s not acceptable.

[Puja]

I’m loathe to get involved in this as rational debate went out of the window years ago, but the statistics are useless for a handful or reasons, both quality and quantity, so no point drawing anything from them. Even if you’re a titan of the internet, eg own X or moderate RR.

Edit: Smiley added to convey the tone of my post.

The police often don’t record ethnicity properly, so you’re quite right to be cautious. It is absolutely racist to describe all men of Pakistani heritage as being rapists. It’s also wrong to focus on only those grooming gangs where the majority were from ethnic minorities.

It is also wrong to ignore a problem, which is sadly what happened in many towns and cities. If local authorities had addressed the problem properly instead of trying t9 ignore it, the issue would carry the weight it does today. Regardless of the attackers ethnicity, the state completely failed to protect hundred if not thousands of young girls from abuse, despite plenty of reports. That’s not acceptable.

Coming in strong there with the controversial opinion of "The police and justice system's ineptitude at catching and punishing paedophiles is bad and I don't care who knows it!"

Puja

[Sandydragon]

I’m loathe to get involved in this as rational debate went out of the window years ago, but the statistics are useless for a handful or reasons, both quality and quantity, so no point drawing anything from them. Even if you’re a titan of the internet, eg own X or moderate RR.

Edit: Smiley added to convey the tone of my post.

The police often don’t record ethnicity properly, so you’re quite right to be cautious. It is absolutely racist to describe all men of Pakistani heritage as being rapists. It’s also wrong to focus on only those grooming gangs where the majority were from ethnic minorities.

It is also wrong to ignore a problem, which is sadly what happened in many towns and cities. If local authorities had addressed the problem properly instead of trying t9 ignore it, the issue would carry the weight it does today. Regardless of the attackers ethnicity, the state completely failed to protect hundred if not thousands of young girls from abuse, despite plenty of reports. That’s not acceptable.

Coming in strong there with the controversial opinion of "The police and justice system's ineptitude at catching and punishing paedophiles is bad and I don't care who knows it!"

Puja

The failure was wider than just the police. As the inquiry has already demonstrated. And the concern at upsetting a minority group was one of the reasons why that failure occurred. Again, as per the finding of that original inquiry.

As per my previous post, the anger surrounding this would not be there as much to be exploited if the police and other agencies had done their job without fear or favour.

[Stom]

The police often don’t record ethnicity properly, so you’re quite right to be cautious. It is absolutely racist to describe all men of Pakistani heritage as being rapists. It’s also wrong to focus on only those grooming gangs where the majority were from ethnic minorities.

It is also wrong to ignore a problem, which is sadly what happened in many towns and cities. If local authorities had addressed the problem properly instead of trying t9 ignore it, the issue would carry the weight it does today. Regardless of the attackers ethnicity, the state completely failed to protect hundred if not thousands of young girls from abuse, despite plenty of reports. That’s not acceptable.

Coming in strong there with the controversial opinion of "The police and justice system's ineptitude at catching and punishing paedophiles is bad and I don't care who knows it!"

Puja

The failure was wider than just the police. As the inquiry has already demonstrated. And the concern at upsetting a minority group was one of the reasons why that failure occurred. Again, as per the finding of that original inquiry.

As per my previous post, the anger surrounding this would not be there as much to be exploited if the police and other agencies had done their job without fear or favour.

All of which happened under who's watch?

[Mellsblue]

Coming in strong there with the controversial opinion of "The police and justice system's ineptitude at catching and punishing paedophiles is bad and I don't care who knows it!"

Puja

The failure was wider than just the police. As the inquiry has already demonstrated. And the concern at upsetting a minority group was one of the reasons why that failure occurred. Again, as per the finding of that original inquiry.

As per my previous post, the anger surrounding this would not be there as much to be exploited if the police and other agencies had done their job without fear or favour.

All of which happened under who's watch?

a) I’m fairly certain you’ve missed Sandy’s point.
b) Predominantly Labour run councils.

[Stom]

The failure was wider than just the police. As the inquiry has already demonstrated. And the concern at upsetting a minority group was one of the reasons why that failure occurred. Again, as per the finding of that original inquiry.

As per my previous post, the anger surrounding this would not be there as much to be exploited if the police and other agencies had done their job without fear or favour.

All of which happened under who's watch?

a) I’m fairly certain you’ve missed Sandy’s point.
b) Predominantly Labour run councils.

I did. Or rather, I chose to "ignore it" in order to get back to the original point about the stupidity of Kemi Bad-at-this ranting about this issue when she was in charge for part of it...

On b), I think pretty much all councils are crap in the UK, no matter who runs them, and local politics needs a root and branch reform. But then again, so does parliament...

[Mellsblue]

Drain the swamp.