kaosmark2

I've heard this idea that they'll be more radical in power than their promises from a fair number of people (including frontbench Labour politicians with "no overpromising" claims), and while I do think there's an element of truth to it, I'd really like something to give me some hope.

Personally I tend to feel more safe when there aren't as many coppers around.

This line: "The United States cannot provide security assistance to foreign governments or groups that commit gross human rights violations," is pretty damning of how well that's enforced.

It's tough to know what to say. I, and I imagine many other people here, try to make an effort, but protecting against absolute disaster needs to be done by industry, which won't happen without either political will or revolution.

I don't disagree, but how?

Yeah, there's a bit of projection around direction involved. Also I don't trust Modi not to do something batshit that involves sparking WW3.

Growing industry, economy, population, and military power. It's the growth within an autocracy.

Well Russia is committing a lot of their GDP, military and influence into the war with Ukraine. Noone likes the West, but there's also big suspicions between the others. Some idiotic behaviour by Trump could be a spark to WW3. The internal politics of the Democrats stopping them from running a decent candidate is going to screw us.

I think China and India are both more powerful tbh. They just don't flex their influence as much in countries we deal with.

Good news. I don't really trust the West to properly hold Israel to account, but every step towards doing so is at least something.

Good speech and good spin. Hopefully they'll follow up.

I haven't watched QT in a while, so I won't comment on that. Personally, I don't think the actual figure matters, it's more the perception that it's yet another commitment Labour are backpedalling on. That said, if they've managed to get public opinion going "fair enough, we'll wait for your manifesto" then that's a good thing. Still, I really wish I could believe Labour would stand up for things, instead of act scared of the media.

As a festivals forum, it's going to be inherently left wing. However there's no intention of turning it into an echo chamber. "Respect" is quite a loaded word with different meanings though. To quote Thatcher “Anybody seen in a bus over the age of 30 has been a failure in life.” Is it important to be respectful to people who hold disdain for you and those you care about? It's not just Tories either. I'll call Neil Coyle a sinophobic abusive waste of space. I'll call Chris Williamson an antisemitic bully. If a politician puts hateful politics into the public sphere, I will refer to them by that hate, not with respect.

As I see it, Starmer's let the media spin him around in a circle chasing a treat (promise to not slag off their fiscal prudence) and now he just looks dizzy.

Not at all. I certainly won't be!

Poverty here absolutely was a political choice. The "swingeing cuts" of coalition were ideological and even several economic bodies said so. As much as we look back and think things weren't as bad then, the current NHS crisis was as much started by the destruction of the care sector in the early 2010s, as it was by the pandemic. COVID was just the tipping point. Ofc, the blatant corruption of Johnson, Truss, Sunak, etc. plays into it, but Cameron/Gideon/Clegg should own the shame of this as well.

You're saying: "do what the media tells them to because the media has an impact" while also repeatedly saying "The media is going to attack Labour and let the Tories off" Either Labour should be playing the media game better than this, or they should be taking a stand against it. I think they're so cautious it's leading to incompetence in messaging. Simultaneously, that incompetence makes them appear as unprincipled.

But they've fallen for the media's game! They've diluted down their messaging so much the media can now go "look at how much you backtrack!" I agree the original mistake was putting the figure down. It just makes things awkward now. But they need to show some backbone, and Starmer needs to give a sense that he is actually passionate about doing SOMETHING to better people's lives. Somehow, a few months ago, he managed to get the nickname Sir Kid Starver for a Tory policy! How is that playing the media's game well?

This is the thing. I think the Tories are so hated right now that Labour win by default, but by having the utter lack of ability to stand for something, or stand up for what they're saying they believe in, Labour are opening the door for Tories to get back in after 1-2 terms instead of having 12-15 years to fix the Tory mess. Backtracking on popular policies out of fear of political/media attack lines is pathetic. As was throwing queer people, asylum seekers, and disabled rights under the bus out of fear of being seen as "too woke". They should stand up for the environment. Stand up for minorities. And stand up for their own ideas.

If transphobia is unacceptable because a hate crime victim's family is there, that implies that it's acceptable the rest of the time. I'm not directly accusing you btw, but I really want to make that point. The incitement of hate crime is constant. And Streeting and Starmer aren't much better than Sunak on this.

Labour pledges since he's been in power. I realise that several of them, particularly related to renationalisation, aren't really possible in the aftermath of Trussonomics. I don't think every single policy reversal/u-turn warrants detailed assessment. I'm mostly saying there's been a huge pattern of Labour's front bench under Starmer (he's not the sole culprit) backtracking on pledges/ideas. I'm hoping the manifesto will be a bit better, because things said to the press 3-5 years ago shouldn't matter THAT much, but I have little hope that the manifesto will give me any sense of optimism for the coming years.

Except this is 1/20th of the pledges they've made since Starmer came into power, and of the other 95%, they've backpedalled and reduced their commitment on virtually all of them. It's simultaneously embarrassing and uninspiring. The issue isn't that the £28bn figure mattered, or that when it comes to the costings and details that maybe there's a better policy than the original announced ones. Things can change in 5 years and I think most people get that. It's that everything highlighted by the Labour front bench at present is weak pisswater compared to previous pledges, or is brownnosing the tabloid press.

It won't happen in bigger leagues where powerful clubs are already lobbying to get rid of competitive games so they can have more money-spinning friendlies in Asia and USA.

There's also various studies evidencing that if people are doing shift work, they tend to perform much better in a 4-day week where they have 2.5-3.5 day gaps to transition between different shift patterns.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/oct/04/jurgen-klopp-calls-for-spurs-liverpool-replay-after-var-error