mattiloy

The guardian is a liberal paper. Its opinion pieces are usually indiscernible from the main liberal paper over here Dagens Nyheter. It gives a little space to leftists such as Jones and Monbiot but a cynic could say that this is sort of balance-washing in the same way the beeb will throw a leftist on question time once every blue moon. Jones is hated because he uses the little space he gets as a soapbox to campaign and usually to amplify issues that both the right and the liberals don’t like. Also because he himself can be quite belligerant in his media appearances, presumably knowing as he does that in the clickbait landscape that this is the best way to amplify those views. It’s probably his celebrity thanks to that and his bestsellers that means the guardian keeps him on despite his polemicism as regards their usual editorial position. In the end, loathe him or love him, I guess people care enough about what he writes to buy the paper. The same can’t be said for the other dullards they have on columns.

But New Labour were more right wing in power than they were in the election campaign so…

The more you post in this thread, the dumber you are.

He’s here now professor politics. Make way everybody, here comes the politics understander!

Why did public attitudes change? In the post war era people were happy to invest in public infrastructure and pay more taxes. Can it be that the intellectual capitulation of the nominally left wing party to the neoliberal thatcher/reaganite consensus of the 80s has directly contributed to the erosion of the credibility of left wing economics? If so, is the route back to double down and undermine your own economic philosophy? Seems farfetched.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/19/police-investigate-labour-selection-contest-over-computer-misuse-claims https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/22/labour-party-selection-sam-tarry-angela-rayner/ The former DPP who went rogue.

Blair came to power at a time when the global economy was going gang busters and ramped up the public spending and everyone had a nice few years. Unfortunately it was all smoke and mirrors, funding profligate current account spending and ineffective reforms by flogging off assets and PFI and now you have little to show for it. Had they won in 2010, alastair darling was committed to austerity promised greater and deeper ’swingeing cuts’ than the tories. Philosophically there is a fag paper’s difference between Blair and Cameron. And now their heirs Starmer and Reeves reaffirm this time and again in both words and deeds but for some reason people have decided that they shall disbelieve what Starmer and Reeves say and do and instead hold on to some odd fiction that they are secret radicals. Presumably because they are at least nominally still ’Labour’ and the association of that brand with doing good things has still not completely died.. yet. I predict another decade of austerity, underfunded public services, paternalistic authoritarianism and overseas interventionism. But dont say I didnt warn you!

I know folks are desperate for something other than tory rule but how do you manage to just ignore everything Starmer’s Labour say and do and make up your own version of who they are? In a decade or so, the only thing that will remain of another lacklustre New Labour govt will be another insufferable odd couple podcast with Starmer and David Cameron chuckling their way through wacky political anecdotes and into the hearts of centrist dads everywhere, their despicable records long since forgotten.

https://x.com/bbcpolitics/status/1746460963534934358?s=46 God Starmer looks absolutely tiny compared to Cameron here

Agree. Why does a poxy inbred backwater need a mayor?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/04/george-galloway-sworn-in-as-rochdale-mp-after-byelection-victory How we feeling about FPTP now, Starmerroids?

??? am i missing something? Hunt getting rid of non dom tax status but giving the cash away in tax cuts is not really inflicting pain on the country. Its still net positive from the status quo right? Its upto Reeves and Starmer if they decide to maintain those tax cuts rather than spend on the public sector. Stop making excuses for Labour spinelessness. A tremendously unpopular govt, a public sector in dire need of investment and still they are apparently happy to concede the intellectual argument before a shot has been fired - ’tax cuts good, nice stuff bad’ - all hail the iron chancellor!

Shades of shite.

Imagine playing with semantics when it comes to a demand for a ceasefire. We are lost

This beautiful little boy looks like my beautiful little boy. I pray that heaven has a place for him and his feathery pal. RIP Osama.

Absolutely pathetic. Be as sh*tty as possible, do everything to provoke a reaction and then cry Jo Cox / David Amiss. Disgusting crybullies.

Feel sorry for Hoyle. Imagine being bullied into martyrdom for the sake of lardy lawyer Sir Keff Farter. Bad times all round

https://x.com/boweschay/status/1759496793824362532?s=46

He was a bad racist him. Mad to see western liberals mourn him.

Schools were mostly open. But yeah kids here also get depressed. Social media execs dont let their kids on it for good reason. The correlation between this sh*t being embedded in kids lives and the collective mental breakdown of a generation of kids is near perfect. I think its just so easy to detach yourself from reality and just sit and ruminate. I guess the pandemic exacerbates that, but its a problem that predates it too.

https://www.mind.org.uk/news-campaigns/news/benefits-assessments-making-people-with-mental-health-problems-more-unwell-mind-research-reveals/ Quite difficult to find stats on it but found a source in the above article - seems like its quite a lot less than most. I just checked, for stress you get 600 quid a month… of course you’ll get the odd chancer, but it seems unlikely to me that a majority of claimants will be putting it on for the princely sum of 600 quid a month.