Comments by "Ash Roskell" (@ashroskell) on "A Different Bias"
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My dad had a condition similar to the protagonist’s in the movie Memento. He’d had a series of mini-strokes rendering him unable to make new memories. Imagine your dad asking you, “Will you drive me to the hospital to visit your mum?” Only to have to see his face crumple with shock and pain, once again, when I had to explain that she was dead and buried already, just a few weeks ago. Why am I sharing this? Because it was this man who fell, trapped his arm, got taken to hospital and there caught Covid, from which he died within a couple of weeks of admission. The trauma, for me, was compounded by the fact that my dad knew he was seriously ill, but needed to have the fact that none of his four children (nor his wife) were there for him accounted for over and over again. Covid was still a new crisis and nowhere near as well understood as it is now, and the rushed off their feet medical staff would not have had the time to patiently re-explain my dad’s isolation to him, or the different reasons for his wife’s absence from that of his children’s. Yes we could WhatsApp with him, but that was a haphazard, unreliable process, often mediated by an exhausted medic who’s English was little better than basic. He died hard. He died alone. He died not understanding why he was alone.
And then I saw a video of a female press secretary in which she stood at a podium and literally laughed out loud about the drunken antics of the politicians from which she’d just extricated herself, finding their rule breaking somewhat hilarious. At that moment, when I thought about their motives for doing that, and mine for being tempted to break the rules when I even had to get special permission to travel from Scotland to the north of England to attend his funeral, I felt (for the first time in my life) the rage of a revolutionary. I felt like the Tories were laughing at me and every family that suffered through those times.
And I resolved never to forgive them. Even if I could, one day, find forgiveness for their blind, venal, arrogant self service and lies, in my heart, I knew it would be damaging for the country to allow this, “Let them eat cake,” moment to pass unanswered. Whatever Boris’s, “punishment,” for his cruel dereliction of duty, failure to model basic leadership in a time of crisis, or downright lies, I can never get my last moments with my dad back. So whatever they do to Boris, it won’t be enough.
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Exactly. Truth is, the Tories fear and loathe her. The very rich, and perhaps some snobs of the type who had to hold their nose when they voted for the likes of Lee Anderson, fear they will end up paying their fair share in taxes because of people like her. She has all of the benefits that people who like, “personality,” politics go for, with none of the drawbacks. She delivers genuine zingers at PMQ’s, she’s personally charming, eloquent, attractive and seems to genuinely care about the most disenfranchised, vulnerable Britains.
I’m sure the Tories would LOVE us to think of Rayner as, “Marmite,” because their entire political model has been built on a foundation of DIVISION, wherever they can find it or (more often) create it! Even inside their own party.
Their criminal conspiracy against her failed, when James Daily asked a Tory pal in the police to look into her background, without ever making ANY formal complaint until much later. When he realised he and his senior police officer bum chum might face charges themselves, they had to go back over the paperwork and agree on the same lies to make their investigation not appear as Stasi-like and blatantly criminal as it was!
That’s just DESPERATION and they’re still desperate to get at Rayner by hook or by crook, because she’s one of Labour’s most popular and effective MP’s. She does her JOB! And the Tories can’t understand that about her! They probably think she’s a witch or something, because working hard for your constituency would NEVER occur to them.
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@teniente_snafu : Nailed it. “We want the right to own and run a train service without all that, ‘bureaucracy,’ of competition or any other companies being allowed to compete and make the trains run on time.” The water companies also refuse to deal with the, “bureaucracy,” of competition or, “standards,” and prefer being allowed to LITERALLY sh*t in our drinking water without fear of consequences. Totally nailed it.
Now we have actual red tape, so that business can attain parity with European businesses, so as to continue trading, whilst getting away with ignoring all basic safety, legal or moral standards for their British customers.
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No, that’s wrong. Why would we equate high pay with quality? The highest paid people in the world do the most damage and are fundamentally thick! Rishi Sunack is an example that leaps to mind. Do YOU, “need,” high pay to, “like talking about politics”??? People who love history, civic matters, policy creation, people management, are not even interested in riches!
I’m sorry, Phil, but you’re just wrong about that commonly accepted bit of received wisdom there which has been empirically disproven time and time and TIME AGAIN, since history began being committed to print!
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Considering that our armed services are tiny now, compared to when the Tories came in, we simply cannot spare them anyway! But, I suggested in previous comments that Ben Wallace should dramatically, “Cross The House,” over to the Labour benches, as he really has nothing to lose and so much to gain. If we set aside his one gaff (having a go at Zelensky about a week ago, for, “ingratitude,” of all things! For which he could still apologise) he’s actually pretty talented as a diplomat and statesman, and has clearly spearheaded the charge against Russia, being instrumental in breaking the deadlock over tanks to Ukraine. He’s liked on both sides of the House, and has good relationships in NATO, the UN and in the EU.
And he’s not seen as being any Tory camp. He’s shown loyalty to Johnson when he was PM, but no more so than Sunack now. And all the thanks he got for his efficiency and hard work has been to be left to twist in the wind as the boundary changes for his seat will leave him without the votes, in all likelihood, to remain an MP.
If he’s had talks with Starmer, perhaps offering to bring some other Tories with him over the weeks (Sit TF down, Johnson, no one wants you!) for that drip, drip effect that gets the whole nation and the press on both sides crying, “Can we have an election now!?” Starmer will have offered him big rewards.
And let’s face it? He’s a vanishingly rare item in politics: a competent Tory, free of scandal and not hated by at least 50% of the population. He would be a genuine boon to Labour, perhaps continuing in his current post, under a brand new constituency? . . . Just a thought . . .
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Two things for me: The pandemic is Number 1. My dad died from that, alone. And, like the woman from your example, it was while Johnson was getting drunk with his mates. The first response I saw to that was that press staffer standing at a podium and having a good, “informal,” larf at the drunken antics of Cabinet members! I don’t know if that was a replay or if it was a contemporary event, but it was the first thing I saw when I got back from dad’s funeral. I felt like they were laughing in our faces and too drunk to be shamed.
2: All the stealth and blatant privatisation of everything, which was never actual, “privatisation,” because that implies private businesses running things. When you’re the ONLY company ALLOWED to run the water resources, supply urgently needed medical equipment, etc, that’s a monopoly and just a, “medieval level,” fiefdom!
You could add lots more, like having a vested financial interest in betting AGAINST the pound, at crucial moments of Brexit, race baiting, cruel and heartless victimisation of THE most vulnerable people on the face of the earth: asylum seekers, but I’d be here all day.
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@ : The fact is that battery, hybrid and old fashioned petrol burning combustion engine cars are all using roughly the same amount of fossil fuels in the big picture final analysis. There are certain advantages to hybrids; the ability to both generate and store energy by converting kinetic movement into battery recharge, etc. I’m no expert, but the maths are pretty clear when explained to me.
Yes, you’re right. The hybrid is a bridging technology which will become redundant when battery cars are recharging from power stations that rely on wind, hydro-electric, and other renewable technologies. We’re just not there yet. When we are, my family will be trading in our old hybrid cars and buying purely battery powered ones (assuming they aren’t prohibitively expensive to run?) and we’ll be glad of it.
Despite being expensive, hybrids do offer pretty appetising returns when it comes to keeping your personal costs down and in terms of convenience, since you don’t have to recharge the batteries (they do that for you while you drive) saving you a lot of time. And, if you pay attention to the requests of your onboard (nanny) computer and try to drive at an efficiency rating of 90% or higher, they are very cheap over distances, beating the alternatives hollow.
You are correct, though. They’re not, “the,” answer. Just the interim solution for now.
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Johnson looks more to me like Ted Heath to Sunak’s Thatcher, being too popular as a former PM back bencher to get rid of, but lacking the ambition to seek any goals that the government can block, thus sniping from the sidelines becomes something of a revenge hobby. I too wonder about his own commitment to the top job, which I honestly still think he would prefer another stab at, but further down the line, after the Labour Party have had time for their popularity to wear off, by being in office for a term or two. The only problem with that as a strategy is that so much can happen between now and then, he might find people don’t remember him, or think of him as a plausible candidate any more. Particularly once he’s set against a background of more adult styled governance from Labour, and less obviously venal self service.
It’s his cult who are more driven than he is. And Boris is probably finding many of those cultists too useful in other ways (connections, business opportunities, publishing deals, etc) to disabuse them?
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This year, I have seen an unusually high level of campaigners begging voters to, “study the form,” and vote TACTICALLY. Personalities and YouTubers of all kinds, appealing to the public to get the Tories out at all costs. The idea being, whomever seems to be the strongest candidate most likely to beat the Tory in your respective area, vote for that person, regardless of party, so long as they are NOT Tory or anyone right of them. I figured, if they were successful, we would see increases for both Labour and Lib-Dems all over England. It seems to be baring fruit?
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It’s a fitting caricature. At a time when Prison Hulks are reappearing on our coastlines, and the most vulnerable people ON EARTH are being used as a human football; whilst the Tories act as though they have the, “right,” to hold their next conference behind closed doors, as if they were just some fringe party and not the, “governing,” power, locking Britain OUT of the democratic process; after all the corruption and entitlement we’ve uncovered, which is exactly what we uncovered after the last time the Tories had a prolonged period in office under John Major, merely proving that they are incapable of learning any lessons from past scandals and continue to literally TRAIN their protégés in the art of getting away with murder; I could just keep going all day, but suffice it to say . . . My honest conclusion is that they WANT us to fear them. We are moving toward a dictatorship, and we really should be flooding the streets with protestors, demanding not only that the Tories reverse their decision to lock the press out of their conference, but laws should be introduced, making such abjectly anti-democratic actions ILLEGAL. And with harsh consequences!
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I didn’t quite follow what, “Horizon,” actually is? Something to do with cooperating on technology, or science? I wish you had explained it, for dunces like me? But everything else in this video was vividly clear. I very much like your style. You get a lot of information out in a clear, comprehensive, unvarnished way, trusting your audience to infer what they will from the facts, without putting any, “spin,” on it. That’s something we used to be able to rely on the BBC’s political analysts for, but it saddens me to say we simply can’t any longer. Not that the BBC is, “terrible,” but ever since it became a political football (since the early 1990’s. At least, that’s when I noticed the change in tone and constant implicit threats made in Westminster regarding the renewal of their Charter, or their license fee?) I’ve seen a bizarre twisting of, “agendas,” within the organisation, where they seem to want to please everyone and end up pleasing no one. It doesn’t seem to occur to Auntie that she should simply remain unbiased altogether.
Anyway. I love the name of your channel, btw. A Different Bias is sort of a stroke of genius, if you ask me . . . which you didn’t, but there you go. I’m getting sort of addicted to this channel. I always come away feeling like I’ve had a good gossip about Westminster with a smart guy who can fill the gaps in my knowledge without making me feel thick about it. A bit like a big brother you look up to. Thanks. 👍
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It seems you’re getting legged up a lot by, “events, dear boy, events,” these days. All just signs of the, “interesting times,” we’re living in.
Humza Yousaf never struck me as, “quite nice.” I live in Scotland. I’ve heard him speechifying about how angry he is that people in positions of power here are predominantly white. The country’s population is still overwhelmingly white and, while I will always support good faith attempts at addressing inequality in all walks of life, there has been something truly sinister the wording of his newest legislation (which breaks the law, by his own definition) articles and speeches.
You just cannot give the power and tools of oppression over to a new, previously marginalised, group and call it solved. But it seems that some radical thinkers prefer this alternative to actually addressing the hard and challenging work of good faith education.
No one in Scotland (other than SNP members) will feel particularly upset, or even distracted, by this development. And I think that is sufficient commentary in and of itself as to the caliber of politician we’re talking about here.
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I would be utterly unsurprised if these WhatsApp exchanges amounted to little more than a gag reel of sick jokes at the bereaved’s expense and evidence that ministers knew they were actively doing real-world harm, and handing off their responsibilities to civil servants, because they had no clue as to how anything works.
My suspicion is based upon the very firm foundation of my own experience of finally coming home after the funeral for my dad, who died of Covid, for which I had needed special permission to travel to England from Scotland to attend, and which had been complicated by my dad’s mental health which made his death particularly hard and cruel, only to switch on the TV to see a Tory press spokesperson LITERALLY LAUGHING OUT LOUD to members of the press, in front of camera, and for some reason believing this would not somehow become a headline story! LAUGHING, by the way, at the drunken antics of Cabinet members and Number 10 staff at Boris Johnson’s birthday party! Nay, PARTIES, plural!
I was so emotionally damaged by that experience that I could have physically harmed Johnson had he been within blind rage shot! I carry that vertigo inducing sense of horror and despair at the realisation that the very people in which you have placed your trust at a time of crisis, are literally drunk at the wheel and think the whole thing is FUNNY! I kept seeing those (ironically enough) WhatsApp images of my dad, unable to make new memories, asking where his children were, having it explained to him, yet again, and then forgetting and only knowing he was dying alone, abandoned by his loved ones for no reason he could understand.
That image is SEARED into the scar tissue of my brain. There is no, “healing,” that. But, every time I hear of yet more attempts to either play games with the truth, or to bury ANY of it, for a PUBLIC enquiry that THEY set up, I once again want to strangle a Boris Johnson type. They should just arrest the lot of them and get warrants to turn over every nook and cranny of their private spaces. Lord knows what they’d find!
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Rayner is one of Labour’s biggest assets. Everyone I know says they think so and most of them love her. I do. She’s got everything that the, “personality politics,” fans look for with none of the drawbacks. She’s attractive, articulate and fizzing with performative style and aplomb at PMQ’s. The fact that she seems to genuinely care about the poorest and most vulnerable people in Britain is just another boon.
I think the Tories want us to think of her as, “Marmite,” because their entire political model is about exploiting division wherever they can find (or create) it. But that doesn’t make it so. Sure, there will always be a small minority of people who will hate her accent, and read her directness and eloquence as bluntness and haranguing. But who are these people? The very rich and snobbish, who fear her, and the Tory MP’s who are SO afraid of her that they will enter a Stasi level CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY to get their Tory pals in the police to dredge through her past to find ANYTHING they can call a, “crime,” without ANYONE, EVER laying a formal complaint!
That’s desperation! Treat ALL Tory attitudes toward Rayner with deep suspicion.
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You made a series of very excellent points there. The only thing I would have added to your list of reasons was when you spoke about government officials taking, “the path of least resistance,” what we’re really discussing is, “Appeasement.” And that’s the watchword that needs to be drummed into the Labour government. If I was the party manager I would be drilling this term into every single MP’s head, personally and collectively, wherever possible. “Watch out for ANYTHING that smacks of APPEASEMENT,” even a little bit.
And I would remind them all that even if we kowtowed to everything trump wanted, he would STILL find a reason to get mad at us and try to, “punish,” us for something. And, knowing that his wrath is inevitable, we should make our choices accordingly, and let him be angry at us for doing the right thing, rather than failing to bow and scrape low enough.
“Appeasement,” is the buzzword that we need to fill the pages of the press with, so the national gets an unambiguous grasp of what their government is doing, even when the wrong-wing press tries to spin it some other way.
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I really hope that poll is a sign that the British public has soured on, “personality,” politics wholesale? Asking our politicians to, “perform,” for us, like Hollywood stars, or make us laugh, or to even have a noticeable personality at all is just SO NOT what we NEED. I’d settle for dull, boring competence, honesty and hard work, with a watchful eye out for the dirty tricks of the far right.
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So, just to get this straight: Braverman has been outed by the intelligence services as a security risk, on six separate occasions; she has been demonstrably incompetent, with several of her schemes either failing of their own accord or being shut down as, “unlawful,” by the courts; she deliberately, openly attacks half of the population, courting popular enmity - which is the EXACT OPPOSITE of what a politician is being PAID so handsomely to do - and now she’s trying to make a virtue out of her abject bloody-mindedness FAILURE, at a time when WE NEED a population increase, doing everything she can to scare away decent, hard working migrants! It’s like she’s a sleeper agent working for China or Russia!
At least it gives the Labour Party the opportunity to make, “Stop The Boats!” the opposition’s battle cry, as the nation’s majority is clearly horrified by these Plague Ships! The sheer COST has been INSANE! Braverman must have Sunack’s goolies in a glass jar or something, and threaten to stomp on them if he fires her!? What hold on him must she have!? After already leaving in disgrace, she’s gone from bad to worse to country destroyingly worse!
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When she was Home Secretary, Teresa May LAMBASTED Labour for even putting forward the mere IDEA of ID cards. She said they were, “utterly un-British,” and more characteristic of Hitler’s Germany! A Hitlerian hyperbole that was considered not out of place for once. Now she’s no longer a victim of The Peter Principle (as she was a far better Home Secretary than she was as a hopeless PM) she’s gone back to actually doing her job, which is a vanishingly rare instance of a Tory MP who does what they get paid for. And she has been the Tory’s biggest thorn in the flesh (at least from an internal, party source) ripping down the flaws in the proto-fascist, “Stop The Boats,” bill. It does illustrate how far the Tories have sunk in such a short time, though. And I genuinely hope, regardless of Feckless Rees Mogg’s gut reaction in place of analysis, that their ID scheme WAS one of the factors that backfired so badly! I’ve never seen such scum rise to the top of our party political system as the egregious, hate filled, self dealing, thieving, little junta we have now. They deserve hell from the electorate. And period in the wilderness that’s long enough for all of these scumbags to become nothing more than bad memories.
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It’s understandable that Reform UK are seen as the main source that is siphoning votes from the Tories, and that’s a big story, as it’s Tories eating Tories; very much a theme doing the rounds presently. Granted, it’s clear that Tories would be losing if Reform didn’t exist. Also, granted, the Galloway result ought to be getting at least some coverage, as should the other groups with major gains, and I’d say that’s inexcusable for mainstream media to ignore these facts. But we also know that the client media have infiltrated the BBC at this point.
Unless Labour introduces some radical reforms to prevent this in future, during their first term in Parliament, that looks set to only get worse. The first sniff of danger in the air and the likes of Rupert Murdoch will start throwing money and bribes at Labour MP’s and courting them with positive press coverage, like they did on the run up to the 1997 elections.
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“Why didn’t they point out,” these various points? Because, A) they are vapid and don’t know these things. And, B) there is pressure on them from the three most senior figures at the BBC who are all well known Tory donors and activists and who have NO PLACE running the BBC.
And, yes, Ed Balls was a senior Labour MP, but he was disliked and distrusted in the party because he was always a snake who played both sides, and who cared far more about his own, “brand,” than any ideology. He is what political thinkers of the 1990’s all feared might happen as a consequence of Blairism: the ideology-free salesman; in it for the notoriety, the cash and the connections.
He’s NOT the sort of person who does his homework before an interview, or with any, “statesmanlike,” instincts enough to have even cared about the topics in hand. He’s a real piece of work and I wouldn’t be surprised if he JOINED the Farage party one day. All it would take is money.
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@ohyeah2816 : Never let ANYONE convince that there’s, “no point,” in writing to your MP. That’s just not true. Letters from the public alarm MP’s. If you are articulate, polite, but forthright on your issue, and willing to write several times, they will write back to eventually. They know that for everyone willing to write a well thought out letter, there are hundreds (possibly thousands) who feel the same way. If you tell them a bill on migration is an election issue for you, they now know it is for many others too, as these views never occur in a vacuum. They hope for your apathy. They survive on voter apathy. When you take that from them, they get all scared and willing to do things to make you go away.
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You all saw Jan 6th, right? They’re plotting a coup! It’s all planned. The conspiracies are set up to run, the infrastructure is in place to spread the word like wildfire; the muster points already selected; orders will go out to take away security measures just as the election is happening at state levels all over the country.
It’s his last chance and he is desperate enough to do anything!
We all have a responsibility to play our part in defending democracy world wide. Sadly, yet inescapably, that means looking to America. If their democracy fails, every other democracy in the world will fall thereafter. We just don’t have the means, physical or financial, to withstand China, Russia and America uniting against us.
YOU have a legitimate dog in this fight and a responsibility to do what you can; whether you donate to Harris’s campaign, raise awareness through videos like this one, join forces internationally with US YouTubers, whatever you can think of.
To each and every person reading this I say, take responsibility and stay within the bounds of decency and lawfulness, but fight for your democracy with every means at your disposal, as this is the big one. We either save worldwide democracy together in November’s American elections, or we get to tell our children about how things used to be better once and how we watched it all fall apart. It’s on YOU now.
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Even if the leadership of Labour seems somewhat uninspired in the eyes of conservatively leaning voters, it remains inarguable that the difference between both parties is stark! At the very least Starmer comes across as competent, unlike his counterpart, and has the added gravitas of experience, having served as the Attorney General under the last Labour government, rather successfully I might add.
People will surely be anticipating a PM with a good, broad knowledge and experience of criminal law with glee, considering how many enquiries are still ongoing into Tory criminality and anti-democratic rug pulling. Just reminding people that vote for Labour is a vote for ACCESS to previously hidden knowledge about the postal scandal, Covid, the water scandals and so much more!
With some amendments to existing laws and some root and branch reform of the committees’ powers and staffing, so they can subpoena the right people and recommend criminal procedures against the guilty parties, we might just get some long overdue JUSTICE.
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The irony is that their coverups draw more attention and cause them to be even less popular than the actual things they’re covering up! I mean, who TF will be even remotely, “surprised,” that all of these WhatsApp messages contain nothing more than a gag reel of sick jokes at the bereaved’s expense, confessions of knowingly doing harm, insider dealing for their friends and family’s brand new, “companies,” meant to provide the protection equipment for hospitals, and MP’s handing off all of their own responsibilities to civil servants!?
My dad, having had a series of mini strokes, was like that protagonist in the Christopher Nolan film Memento, where he couldn’t make new memories and he kept asking for his wife, my mum, whom we’d buried the year before. He had it explained to him over and over again that his four children were not allowed to be with him, and why, but forget again within minutes. So, in his world, he died of Covid, alone, and heart broken, unable to comprehend why he was alone.
After going through a series of loopholes, so I could get permission to attend his funeral, travelling from Scotland to England, I returned home, weary and emotionally exhausted, so I only have myself to blame for putting on a current affairs program. But the first image I saw when I got back, now SEARED into the scar tissue of my neuro-divergent brain, was some Tory press wonk, standing before the agog press and a live camera, ACTUALLY LAUGHING OUT LOUD at the drunken antics of Cabinet members and Number 10 staff at a series of parties for Boris Johnson’s birthday!
I can never relate that vertigo inducing sensation you get when you have been forced against your better judgement to place your trust in the government at a time of genuine, worldwide crisis, only to see that they drunk at the wheel! And LAUGHING IN YOUR FACE! I know there are many out there who went through something similar, some of them with worse mental health issues than me to begin with. And I will NEVER forgive or forget that utterly self-entitled, reckless, arrogant, cruel indifference to the fates of so many trusting fools like me.
So now, when I hear that they want to cover up what we all KNOW we will find - cruelty, selfishness, indifference, arrogance, theft under the guise of business as usual and flat out incompetence - I once again feel that revolutionary RAGE boiling in my blood. It will be good for the country when the Tories are sent into the wilderness and not allowed to re-enter the corridors of power until they’ve culled their far right deliberate antagonists of the people and self enriching Masonic lodge Liberal Economics clubs they call, “think tanks,” altogether. But in the mean time, we have one HELL of a mess to clean up and a MOUNTAIN of hard cash to reappropriate for the people who earned it.
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@Rich-ng3yy : Yet, much like your original comment, you don’t have any specifics. Only generalisations regarding, “Gaza,” or her being, “a weather cock,” in your opinion. Tell me what politician hasn’t said something they wish they could take back since the Hamas Attacks started this latest craziness? Or which politician isn’t a weather cock to some degree or other? But, unless you reference something she said, or something flip flopped on, you’re only expressing a, “feeling,” that you have about her, no facts.
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@Rich-ng3yy : You can relax. It didn’t annoy me. I was curious is all. I haven’t, “debated,” with you at all. Indeed, I was merely pointing out that there is nothing to debate. I cannot speak for, or about, your feelings. They are yours and you are entitled to them. But you didn’t qualify your remarks either, with an, “in my opinion.” You stated your views as though they were established facts.
I am not aware of her saying anything, “unfortunate,” or any of the other adjectives you attached to her public role, so I simply wanted to know what these incidents were.
You must understand, when you make comments about politicians that have value judgements attached to them, on a political channel, in response to a political comment, during an election period, it is natural that people will ask you to qualify your assessments. They may even wish to, “debate,” you, though I was seeking no such thing. I may have. But my questions were merely about getting more information, perhaps looking up the incidents in question, about which you may well have been right.
All of this to say, you have your, “feeling,” about her, and that’s fine. More power to you. She has said some things you found, “unfortunate,” but you cannot recall any of them, so that’s just a feeling too. That’s also fine, but it is equally meaningless in terms of offering anything to the discussion. Yet I would admonish you to expect, “debate,” on a channel which is pretty much for that purpose, and not act all surprised when people challenge assumptions, check your statements or, as was the case for me, merely seek clarification.
Hope this somewhat lengthy comment clears things up a bit? No harm, no foul. The rest is up to you.
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“CELEBRATES”??? Was that just Truss, knowing the reminders were coming anyway, doing the equivalent of sticking her fingers in her ears and shouting, “Lah, lah, lah! Not listening! Lah, lah, lah!” Yup. Everyone, not just Labour, can remind voters, “Truss, and the Truss supporters, still accept no responsibility and are STILL TRYING to do it again!”
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I don’t think you’re right about this. Ultimately, all businesses need to expand. Twitter will become a dead zone to companies who are already preaching to the converted. In order to grow they will have to reach new people and they will set up a presence wherever the potential new markets are. Sure, the Tory press aren’t moving right now, whilst the, “crisis,” occurs, since they need to show solidarity and back each other whilst the lines are being drawn and people are showing, “who,” they are by stepping to one side or the other. But ultimately, they will have to go where the market takes them. Especially if Bluesky becomes a serious rival to Twitter.
I too follow both the right and left wing press as well as those attempting to be genuinely unbiased, such as TLDR on Nebula, for instance. But I haven’t used Twitter for many years now because I think I am probably still banned for saying things about Elon that his moderators didn’t like. His was the only account I ever responded to.
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@ : I must confess to being pretty ignorant about the detailed workings of social media, and I hadn’t even heard of BlueSky until the last few days. So, you’re probably right. I just know that right wing outlets (like all outlets; businesses) have to reach the potential customer to expand.
It doesn’t necessarily follow that they would behave in the same manner that they do on Twitter. They won’t necessarily be alienating and hostile to different views on BlueSky. It will start will respectable outlets, like The Times and Telegraph getting a foothold, and their international equivalents. Better moderation will see lots of accounts being banned, presumably. But there will soon be, “inducements,” to follow on Twitter, inserted with the revenue producing adverts for BlueSky. The larger the platform grows, the more people seeking to expand their businesses or, “influence groups,” will be attracted. No business ever says, “We prefer one platform over another,” after all. They just want a presence wherever they think they can expand.
I’m probably missing an awful lot, not knowing how BlueSky works, or what their business model is, so please correct me where I’m wrong?
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@songsofloveresistance8549 I won’t bore you with the details of my dad’s death but, suffice it to say, if I were to encounter Boris Johnson, or any of his acolytes, campaigning in the streets, I would genuinely attempt to kick him hard in the nads, explaining each point of contention as to why I will never vote Tory again with each blow, until someone overpowered me.
I would then look forward to telling my story in court, and I actually think I might well be able to parley my case into being dismissed by arguing, “Justifiable Bollockaside,” on behalf of the nation. Regardless, I’d serve my sentence with a smile and write a book called, “I Bollocked Johnson In The Johnson For Britain,” or something. 😉✌️
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That’s true. Labour could have, and should have, squashed the false claim that the Winter Fuel Allowance was being, “stopped,” “ended,” or otherwise, “breaking their manifesto promises.” They could have made such a VIRTUE out of necessity by using the term, “MEANS TESTED,” as a way of telling the public they were no longer throwing money at the rich and only giving the allowance to those who NEED IT, due to Tory greed, incompetence and fraud!
Then they could have debated over the barrier to access to the allowance, which is too low. More people need to be entitled to it. But each time the Tories made THAT point, Starmer can point to the 22 billion pound hole they left by the Tories that was covered up, as well as their record breaking loss of £26 billion to fraud, incompetence and waste, which was the number that the Tories came up with themselves!
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It really should be a crime for people like Johnson to lie so blatantly. Any politician at Cabinet level should have a legal responsibility to tell the truth and face criminal liability for disinformation. By all means, allow them to express their warped opinions all the live long day, but NOT their facts.
The vaccine issue is clearly shown in the history books. Anthony Seldon’s books, Johnson At 10, and Truss At 10, both show the receipts. We were able to use the European mechanism to get our vaccines, because that had not yet expired! It was a benefit of being IN Europe, that we would not get again!
If there is a, “hero,” in this story, it’s Doctor June Raine, the CEO of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Agency, who oversaw the entire vaccination program. It is because of her that we were, “first,” to begin a rollout of vaccinations but she too confirms that we were the slowest to complete it. And that was due to conflicting political agendas in Cabinet, and Johnson’s continual flip flopping on decisions, leaving the right hand never knowing what the left hand was doing, frequently legging up the NHS in mid step.
Johnson’s lies are not just craven, blatant and reliant on the ignorance of the average voter, but cynical to the point of threatening genuine harm in the future! This should not be tolerated in a modern democracy!
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I would support national service if it was for two years and each conscript was allowed to choose between one of three options: 1) The armed services, obviously. And you can learn a skill or two that can go on your CV, as well as shore up our shrinking armed services’ numbers, which is an issue that needs attention as well as money.
2) Health and Social Services. Again, these services are desperate for staff and meaningful skills could be taught to young people for their CV’s, whilst they prop up the services by doing all the grunt work, while the NHS can redirect some of their real money to be spent on doctors, nurses and other skilled professionals, along with the equipment and premises they need. Just DON’T allow any, “friends and family,” contracts with people who are married to MP’s providing equipment that is unfit for purpose!
3) Community Projects. I started out in Community Resource work, in a previous life, and there is mountains of stuff to do and an awful lot that could be done if we got enough bodies to do the liaison work and build relationships in these communities. Everything from play-schemes during the school holiday periods, to needle exchanges, and countless other outreach projects which strengthen communities, build relationships between people in those communities and foster positive relations between local government and those communities.
If all of them lasted for two years, they would be long enough for the participants to gain meaningful skills and qualifications. AND they would be long enough for participants to make a meaningful difference. And with their new qualifications and the knowledge of their contribution to society, each draftee will emerge with a sense of ownership over their contribution and a sense of responsibility toward their country and communities, making them better informed and responsible, contributing members of society.
Of course, informed, educated and responsible members of society is the last thing that Tories want, so they wouldn’t dream of running it like that. Especially if National Service could result in the extended longevity of Health, Social and Community services, which they want to privatise by running them into the ground.
But, if Labour were to pick up their ball and run with it? Doing it properly, in the manner I suggested? . . .
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I must question one early assumption there? I’ve been asking around. I cannot find a single person who supports the, “Stop The Boats,” alleged, “policy.” Not one! If I were to make an assumption of my own, I would have to guess that fifth pledge is only aimed at the type of people who join pro-Nazi groups secretly? Which this government is contributing toward creating by telling people they ought to be more racist and in-your-face divisive.
Even among those who sound a bit like the BBC, saying, “Well it is going to be a growing problem that we will have to do something about,” (yeah, like every other country on the planet) don’t think it should be in the government’s top 10, let alone top 5 actual, “pledges.”
Btw, you cannot make a pledge that is fundamentally illegal and will not survive legal scrutiny. That’s a, “We will try this, knowing we will be told off by a judge’s panel.”
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Isn’t it obvious to everyone, what actually happened? . . . “Brexit changed left wing voting habits,” for the simple reason that the general public were more worried about the possibility of a government overturning a democratic referendum and the UK no longer being a democracy, than they were about which party was in power. The Tories were promising to honour the Brexit vote, and that won them the election.
The fact that we did not get the Brexit that was advertised came as a surprise to precisely no one, except for those right wing voters who were naive enough to actually believe in people like Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson.
I, and many people I know, voted Tory at the last general election, not for any ideological reasons. I simply believed that overturning a national referendum was such an egregious mistake that we would no longer even be a democracy anymore and we could easily wind up with governments that refuse to accept election defeats, as we later saw the Republicans attempt in America.
What we actually DO about this seems pretty obvious to me too. We simply have to seek terms with Europe that closely align us on trade, human rights, strategic military goals and justice, without surrendering our sovereignty and without sacrificing our right to make policies on a case by case basis, when it comes to new crises affecting the world.
And that’s something that the Tories have been fighting against since Margaret Thatcher. So, we have no alternative but to change government, if for no other reason than getting friendly faces into power that the Europeans will find acceptable, in order that we can iron out new deals without the baggage of the Euro-Skeptic politicians round our necks.
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@jackrabbitism : OMG . . . You said that out loud, son . . . The investment media has bought and sold your mind and you don’t even know it. Did you know that critical thinking is a skill that you have to learn and is not innate? No matter how appealing the thought, “Well, I’m a smart person who doesn’t take everything at face value,” is, that doesn’t make you a smart person. Please stop proving it. Musk is not even (technically) qualified as an engineer, and his intellectual credentials collapse when he talks! Listen, CAREFULLY, when he talks. Set your pride aside and REALLY LISTEN. Then read Critical Thinking For Dummies (not making that up, it is a thing) and see what you did wrong. For your own sake. And always remember, NASA likes his MONEY, not him.
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@martianunlimited : Underrated comment, there, my friend. That’s all there is to it. Be born with money and make a, “career,” out of paying to have your name slapped onto every pack and warehouse of the most successful projects, and let each company’s own publicity department get going on the myth making, with bonuses for those who raise your profile in a positive way and by a measurable metric. Sit back and look for more stuff to buy.
The only way that plan ever goes wrong is when you fall for your own myth and start buying controlling shares in your investments, so you can, “make decisions.” Then, if your ego is really fragile, you’ll be spending the rest of your days looking for none-specific groups who cannot sue you for scapegoating them for your every mistake, like, “the woke,” or, “the left,” or, “bleeding heart liberals.”
You think you’re getting away with it, but now people have started actually scrutinising your, “decisions.” And the smarter ones out there having started doing their homework and delineating the line between the point where there was a thriving, growing, future focussed business, and when YOU started making decisions, and realising that this is where things started to go wrong, each and every time.
With the exception of SpaceX of course . . . Because NASA and the American government have never allowed you to fuck around with the science or the budgets and retained the last word on every decision of importance. But, you still get to pick the colour of the cockpit, so . . . Well done you . . . 🤭✌️
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By the way, I must challenge that assumption that it was, “complacency,” that caused people to vote for other parties, rather than the Labour Party, since they knew they would win anyway. You can only tag those who don’t bother to vote with, “complacency.”
I wanted Labour to win, but I didn’t vote for them, since they stood no chance in my constituency. Most of all I cast a TACTICAL vote, because it was between the Tories or the SNP in my constituency. I voted SNP to stop the Tories. And it worked.
I think the use of that term in this context will be taken very negatively by people like me, who voted according to the advice of the tactical voting campaign, since it overlooks the very fierce opposition so many voters had for the Tories. Lots of different political persuasions followed the tactical campaign on the web and took advice on how to vote in order to STOP THE TORIES.
That was NOT complacency, but political activism writ large across the land! And, as so many pundits seem so worryingly quick to forget, the tactical vote goes a long way to explaining why Labour won so many seats, yet did so rather narrowly in so many constituencies.
The tactical voting campaign was far, far bigger than most news outlets either comprehend or are willing to give credit for. Largely, I believe, because they don’t want to encourage a trend by acknowledging its power to create meaningful changes in the political landscape. It is being treated like British politics’ dirty little secret. I wish someone would commission an independent study into how many people were aware of the campaign, versus how many voters cast their vote not, “for,” any particular party, but just to STOP the Tories? I think the answers would be game changing.
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It would be a tragedy for us all if we lost any representation of moderate conservatism as a party ideology completely. We would see Labour claiming more and more centrist ground, which would drive them away from more fair, left of centre, policies. And we, the electorate, would be stuck between moderates and extremists.
As far as the, “infighting,” is concerned, the Tories have already fired the first few shots in their civil war, but just never had the honesty, decency or self awareness to accept that they should be fighting it out between themselves whilst in opposition, as is the norm. Now they’re likely to be fighting over any scraps left up for grabs after seeing total annihilation.
We need to see a call to arms of the old guard conservatives, to take on these extremists. At the moment they are being extorted by their own saboteurs!
And in a landscape like that, we have never needed PR more! It might be our only hope of avoiding a totalitarian breakdown of democracy, which will (as it always has historically) come upon us far quicker than any of us are ready for.
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Stair lifts are expensive, but they’re common in the homes of vulnerable people, as are carers, special rails, even moving to a bungalow. All measures that people who aware of a vulnerability will take. Johnson’s argument can, therefore, be used to argue that extreme and expensive measures should be taken, using his, “logic.”
But, what’s striking is not that he is clueless about risk management. It is that he doesn’t know he’s not an expert in risk management, despite the fact that he will have been surrounded by experts, trying to tell him these things. A good leader would say, “I don’t have the expertise, so we will be guided by the specialists.” Not give way to every Dunning Kruger impulse that pops into my head! During a crisis! 🤦♂️ . . . Glad you’re making these videos. ✌️
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I’m starting to feel like a psychic. The last time I commented I suggested that Wallace should cross the House over to Labour? This sounds like the build up to that? He’s talented, well liked and respected internationally (despite his one gaff recently, for which he should apologise) yet he’s been neglected within his own party, as they’ve done nothing to help him out with the coming boundary change and loss of his seat. Being in no, “camp,” within the Tories and untainted by scandals, he’s got a real potential within Labour. He was, “loyal,” to his PM, when it was Johnson, as he’s been to Sunack. And he’s being left to twist in the wind by a bunch of infighters who can’t tell who’s side he’s on.
He could still be offered something sweet within Labour’s government, in the way Chris Patton was, when Blair was still new and popular, and the people loved his inclusive politics of poaching Ex-Tories for important jobs-cum-sinecures, like chair of the BBC or being Governor of Hong Kong, as was Patton’s package.
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P.S. This video is a good example of your analysis being so insightful. The topic is perhaps a bit abstruse for younger viewers, even though it does affect them directly, in the roundabout way that you explained.
The weird thing, for me, that I’ve noticed is that, if I were to list all of the YouTubers that I spend the most time watching or listening to, (which represents a pretty broad spectrum of topics) the one thing they all have in common is that they have teaching experience in one way or another.
I feel like the knowledge that former teachers, trainers, scientists, etc, have the best presentation styles for YouTube growth should be worth something to analysts . . . perhaps?
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@davidcolin6519 : In fairness, the JSO protestors were causing criminal damage to irreplaceable art, or disrupting the roads with no concern for the potential harm their delays could cause to groups or individuals. Their reasons for their actions were ignored by the courts and they were only judged on what they did, not their motives, about which they are quite right. The judges in these cases are going to great lengths to let it be known that they will not get to air their grievances in court, or make a connection in their defence between the issues that drive their movement and the actions they take.
Obviously the authorities intend to take away that stick before it even gets into the courtroom, so the press will have nothing about the issue (other than what is already in the public domain) to discuss when covering these cases. Smart, really. As it takes away the motive for committing such acts in the first place.
But, setting aside that potentially lengthy debate, I just wanted to comment on your opening remarks. They were spot on. 100% agreement from me. You clearly get it and are speaking from a place of fact, not opinion. Or, at least, you are not mixing the two so as to blur the line. I admire that.
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Ben Wallace needs to get into talks with Keir Starmer! In exchange for the supreme sacrifice of crossing the House, he could be offered a good job by the Labour Cabinet? Perhaps encouraging some others to come with him over subsequent weeks for maximum, drip, drip, “When’s the election, already?” effect? Sit down, Boris! No one wants you!
The doors are slamming shut in all directions anyway for Wallace, as his seat was redefined by the new boundary reorganisation and he is believed to be one of the big beasts of Torydom at risk of losing his seat now anyway. He’s no longer guaranteed the Conservative voters of Preston and he’s at the mercy of Lancaster’s more cosmopolitan ministrations with a large student population to boot.
Could he do a Chris Patton? He was a Tory who’s reputation for hard work and talent saw him being offered the governorship of HonKong by Tony Blair’s Labour government, overseeing the island’s transition back to China. Then he got a post chairing the BBC (which he wasn’t very good at in public meetings, that’s for sure) again, under Labour.
Mr Wallace ought to apologise for his remarks last week, to wipe that blot off his copybook, and make some overtures to Keir Starmer, perhaps even to stay on in his defence post? He is already a known quantity in Europe with good relationships in the EU and NATO, which is no mean feat for a Tory. As is the fact that he appears to be untainted by any of their scandals. The pressure to become part of Johnson’s sewer, Truss’s mad house, and now Sunack’s pit of despair, incompetence, graft and insanity, all rolled into one must have been immense, so we might just have a Tory that’s worth something to the public interest here?
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Even people who like Reform UK will have seen how Sisyphean the task of, “reforming,” immigration laws is. They’ve seen the Tories take L after L in the courts, trying to execute what (to a Reformer) must look like rather mild changes to the law, and Sunack’s humiliating, “purchase,” of a SINGLE asylum seeker to send to Rwanda, because he could only send the people who had already been refused asylum and who were willing to take £20K as a bribe, rather than be sent back to the place they were fleeing. So those potential voters are likely not to want to waste their votes on a no account party that isn’t going to move their needle anyway, aren’t they? Not that Reform voters are that bright or logical, so who knows?
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When you see that people want different things, but want people to engage in politics, not be divided by it, surely the goal is to reach across the isle and win over opponents. There are always things your political opponents want that you can give them, if you do your homework, without compromising your own vision.
Biden achieved this in an American system that has never been so divided, passing a raft of legislation against the will of the far right, despite everyone predicting total paralysis. As it happens, American living standards have risen considerably, along with employment, trade, oil profits, soft and hard power, etc.
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I do love this show. Thank you. So glad you clarified that point too, as I have heard people misinterpreting these findings. No one has been, “found guilty,” of anything. You can say they have been, “accused,” by the committee. Sort of . . .
You never know? They might surprise us? Remember, everyone was debating whether Johnson might get 9 or maybe 10 days of suspension? People’s guesses veered between 30 days and none at all! We were all surprised at the massive slap down they gave him.
Perhaps the Tories might choose to demonstrably, “clean house?” They may see an opportunity to divest themselves of their most careerist, opportunistic, corrupt and damaging MP’s who routinely present egregious law warping TV programs on GBN’s, “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Illegal,” “news,” shows? Maybe WishyWashy Sunack will find a pair and actually DO something to at least save some of the crew on the ToryTanic? Perhaps he is actually sick of corruption himself? . . . I can’t keep this up!
Who am I kidding? Wishy Sunack’s glassy-eyed programming wouldn’t compute, let alone download, the word, “property.” The meltdown continues!
“Blue on Blue action,” made me giggle though. 😁 You have a way with words, sir. 😆
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This seems like new phenomenon that has stunned the population into a kind of confused inactivity. A new breed of Brown skinned Brown Shirts whom it’s hard to call out for their obvious racist dog whistling due to the colour of their skin, yet it’s obvious they are pulling up the rope ladder that their parents used to get them into their privileged position. We thought Pretty Patel was bad? Braverman is hacking at the rope ladder with a meat cleaver!
She might as well be a sleeper agent for the Chinese or Russians at this point! I genuinely wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what they found! Both left wing AND right wing analysis of geo politics is pointing one thing! WE NEED A POPULATION BOOST! We ESPECIALLY NEED the type of young people with the drive and determination to risk everything to get here, and the sort of integrity to prefer that dangerous option to giving in to the dictatorships they are fleeing!
China and Russia are both on the brink of economic implosions, for a range of reasons, but right at the heart of both is the fact that their populations are shrinking, and they’re being left with an increasing number of elderly retired people whom the state cannot generate enough income to look after, as the number of working youth, generating income they spend to stimulate the markets and that all important TAXES which pay to prop up the state, are vanishing!
Our population has stagnated and desperately NEEDS an injection. The nations willing to do what it takes to create a baby boom, or welcome migrants willing to do all those ONE MILLION (count them! ONE MILLION PLUS!) JOBS going begging in the UK, that we don’t want to do, especially for the terrible wages, are the nations that will come out on top in the next 10 years and will have financial assurances lasting 30 years beyond that.
But, no . . . This corrupt administration will cling to power for as long as possible, NOT in the hopes that they can turn things around, despite telling the press that, but simply to raid the sweeties from the sweetie shop before it shuts its doors on them for a generation of wilderness years! By their OWN SUMS government losses, due to, “Waste, Incompetence and FRAUD,” has gone up in the last five years almost 1,000%!!! How MUCH has it cost them to keep those figures out of the headlines, do you think? Over £26 BILLION POUNDS!
I’m genuinely wondering if we should treat the Tories as a national security threat? They just seem to want to break the country so as to ensure Labour could never hope to fix it again?
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To your thumbnail, “Has Daddy Trump Dropped Farage?” I would ask, “Did daddy trump ever pick him up?” I doubt he even remembers meeting him, let alone who he is?
If I were Starmer, I would say, “You have a point, Mr Farage. And to that end, I am announcing an independent panel, with subpoena power and priority referral power to the CPS, who will be charged with investigating the entirety of Parliament for ANY AND ALL infractions. They will be making recommendations to close any legal loopholes in the law and will be a permanent oversight body, charged with reviewing and maintaining standards on an ongoing basis.”
Then just sit back and watch all the rats scurry off for cover.
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I have a feeling that’s coming. They’re doing root and branch reviews of each department, shattering the traditional Tory playbook where they usually get to say, “Oh look how expensive and time consuming Labour’s plans are!” Soon, Labour will be pointing to each INDEPENDENT review outcome exposing the cravenness, callousness, waste, incompetence and corruption of the Tories, laying the, “blame,” for each mess where it belongs.
But how soon before the patterns emerge and people start connecting the dots? How soon will it become apparent that there was a systematic and organised approach to sabotaging every public service, so that private companies could get to act like, “white knights,” saving the health service, the police, schools, etc, by buying up the lot outright and privatising EVERYTHING? To me, that looks (and has always looked for the last 10 years at least) like a conspiracy!
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How long, I wonder, before people start looking at the outcomes of each of these departmental reviews and start joining the dots? To me, it has always looked like a deliberate conspiracy to drive all public services into the ground, so that industry bosses get to look like white knights, supposedly, “rescuing,” the floundering prison services, health services, policing, education, water, transport and whatever else they can lay their greedy mitts on.
Start putting the outcomes of each of these departmental reviews together and they will reveal a pattern of consistent planning, from the top, almost as if putting a city banking hedge fund manager in charge of Britains resources was a bad idea.
By electing a Labour government, we have literally just saved the country at the very cliff edge, from being broken up and sold off in packages to any foreign oligarch-investor that wants political clout in our country. And the people most culpable would have been given knighthoods and seats in the Lords, instead of going to jail where they belong!
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Absolutely. It may well come to that. How long, I wonder, before people start looking at the outcomes of each of these departmental reviews and start joining the dots? To me, it has always looked like a deliberate conspiracy, to drive all public services into the ground, so that industry bosses get to look like white knights, supposedly, “rescuing,” the floundering prison services, health services, policing, education, water, transport and whatever else they can lay their greedy hands on.
Start putting the outcomes of each of these departmental reviews together and they will reveal a pattern of consistent planning, ordered from the top, almost as if putting a city banking hedge fund manager in charge of Britains resources was a bad idea.
By electing a Labour government, we have literally just saved the country at the very brink, from being broken up and sold off in packages to any foreign oligarch-investor that wants political clout in our country. And the people most culpable would have been given knighthoods and seats in the Lords, instead of going to jail where they belong!
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I saw Lord Haw Haw, otherwise known as Jacob Reese Mogg, being challenged on his own channel, by a guest interviewee, trying to explain why what the Tories are doing is both immoral and illegal. He used vivid analogies of, “Dickensian,” dystopias, evoking images of, “prison hulks,” and, “convict transportation,” and then explained that none of this legislation fits in line with international law. He said that Putin is even using our flouting of international law for his propaganda purposes, with a legitimate case! When evil pr*cks like Vladimir Putin can take the moral high ground over our politicians, you KNOW you have to REMOVE the ruling party.
Lord Snot quickly killed the interview in mid sentence and it was priceless viewing. I thought it was just a clickbait title but checked it out anyway. I was rewarded with a genuine, “car crash interview,” in which the interviewer had, once again, assumed he was preaching to the choir, only to discover his guest has a brain which works. Vote, vote, VOTE!
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In a sense, Gove is right, but not in the way he thinks. You see, to people like me, who were really put through the wringer on PartyGate, as voters we’re thinking, “These are the same people who did PartyGate to us, showing us that they’ve learned NOTHING! It takes the same kind of self serving, tone deaf, egregiously entitled attitude to gamble on insider knowledge that it takes to ignore the plight of the plebs as they lose loved ones!”
Or to put it another way; if it was Labour or the Lib Dems caught in such a scandal, it wouldn’t be reopening old wounds and proving to the public that they’re NEVER going to change from their old evil ways; or that no amount of leader swapping will change what is inherently and culturally an irredeemably rotten organisation.
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I see you lost an argument with your barber. 😉 But in all seriousness, the pressure to put an end to the democratic project, worldwide, will be monumental with the trump presidency in cahoots with Putin and Xi, among others. The tragedy is that people like Lee Anderthal are the exact types who will thrive and prosper as the lights go out around the planet.
It is time that we all accept the challenge, or at the very least, the reality. We are all responsible for whatever comes next. Either our actions, or inaction, will define us.
It is not just a question of the planet surviving one more term of trump. Those who think trump cannot serve a third term are about to learn their first mistake about how democracy ends. I will honestly be surprised if our democracy survives the next election, certainly two cycles of parliament.
As you say, the barometer for meritocracy currently reads Wet & Windy, but it also reads, High Pressure and getting higher by the week. And that’s the contradiction we must all be brave enough to face up to. Or, just stay TF out of the way.
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I believe Prof Allan Lichtman. He has predicted elections for over 40 years and ALWAYS got it right. He uses a system of analysis which he calls, “The Seven Keys To The White House,” for the sake of giving a simple explanation to the lay persons of the press.
He says Kamala Harris has won it. Once he makes his call, he never changes it unless, “events,” have been significant enough to alter one of those seven metrics. That’s why, for example, he didn’t change his prediction for trump in 2016, despite everyone saying that the, “locker room talk,” recordings had cost him the election. It seemed like a big deal, likely to effect the voters, but it didn’t alter anything in any one of those seven areas of analysis. So, Prof Lichtman stuck to his guns.
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He’s clearly making a list of, “grievances,” to explain away his deserting of Britain, after going to all that trouble to make it sh*t, and not look like the coward, traitor and anti-British scumbag he’s always been. The narrative being, “The wokerarty are getting revenge on me, making my circumstances intolerable and driving me out of Britain,” so he can play the, “victim,” whilst abandoning all of his supporters to go and live in a country with better weather and a more tolerant attitude toward tax dodgers.
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Why aren’t we talking about three separate payments? Compensation, inflation adjusted, merely repays the monies falsely squeezed out of Post Masters. What about damages? For their jail time, reputations ruined, the families of the suicides, properties lost to make good these fraudulent claims, etc? And then there’s the state matter of punitive damages? Will the individuals responsible for perjury, fraud, conspiracy, perverting the course of justice, etc, be made to pay punitive settlements? There’s no reason for the tax payer to foot that part of the bill as it was criminal activity on the part of cruel, malignant conspirators, who maintained their plot for years, in the full knowledge that it was claiming lives and ruining entire communities. Punitive damages should be a part of their settlements and be assessed based on what each convicted conspirator is worth and their level of culpability.
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RedHeadNINTY9T9 : Sometimes I have genuinely come to wonder if we now have foreign sleeper agents in charge? Simply trying to sabotage Britain for the Russians or Chinese or something? Ask yourself, before, “Stop The Boats,” became a slogan, WHO ASKED FOR THAT? Who even sees it as a, “crisis”? The demographics clearly show that we NEED net migration, rather urgently. And who better than YOUNG people, who will still be contributing to economic activity with taxable incomes, when we’re all drawing our pensions? Wouldn’t we WANT the kind of people who say NO to dictatorships, with the motivation and drive to risk everything just to live in a democracy? Those are the EXACT people Britain needs! Yet we’re being utterly monstrous, to the extent of breaking international laws and UN and NATO treaties, for what? . . . Banning a certain mode of transport? It’s utterly illogical! One day, we’ll discover the real reasons for all this, which will inevitably turn out to be back room financial dealings, and we’ll feel like even bigger idiots than we do already!
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Tactical Voting, people! : Spread the word!
There’s a part of me that wishes they would try delaying the election to Jan 2025, as the outrage at their anti-democratic antics is already rather high, but that would guarantee they would be unelectable for at least a generation, probably shifting them to, “Third Party,” status.
The idiocy of waiting for, “something good to happen . . . anything,” is that it’s just as likely that something really bad happens. Indeed, given the political climate and the unstable world stage, the odds of unpleasant surprises coming out of a clear blue sky seem significantly higher to me than some arch angel intervening on their behalf? Any angel would probably see them as satanic anyway.
But, truthfully, the sooner they’re gone the better for everyone, including their own party.
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Let’s face it? What the government should be putting in every single speech that references the economy should contain three major talking points, for the rest of this Parliament.
1) The last budget of the Truss government EXCLUDED the OBR, the Bank Of England AND the Treasury!
2) The last budget of the Sunack government EXCLUDED the £20 + BILLION POUNDS MISSING and HIDDEN from the public, whilst the Tory government’s OWN FIGURES confirmed a RECORD BREAKING £26 BILLION POUNDS LOST to, “Waste, Incompetence and Fraud!”!!!
3) The last Tory government, despite being questioned about this in every forum imaginable, from the press, to the Commons and Lords, to the COURTS and sworn statements in government committees, have yet to offer ONE SINGLE, “benefit,” that Britain reaps, or is yet to receive, from Brexit! Not ONE Tory minister, or any minister from other parties that are pro-Brexit like Reform UK, has EVER stated a SINGLE, “benefit,” from Brexit. Not ONE!
Labour should be seizing every single opportunity to pummel these points home until the entire country is at least AWARE of these FACTS, whether they excuse or deny them or not! They should be making the TRUTH as inescapable as the consequences we are ALL OF US suffering as a DIRECT consequence of Tory entitlement, self interest and atavistic greed!
Every single Labour (and Lib Dem) MP and candidate should be making these three points the centrepiece of ANY discussion on public finances and speaking in terms of their proposals, policies and actions being direct response to the financial CRISIS the Tories wantonly lead us into. Sure, we want to hear solutions, answers and policies that move us forward. But every single one of those policies NEEDS to be set in context so persistently, so often and so articulately that even the Tory client press cannot avoid printing their words in black and white, hearing it on the radio, seeing it laid bare in any and all news coverage. It needs to be organised with military precision and the commitment of an election campaign.
Then, when the public has NOTHING ELSE to talk about; when whatever new situation arises and is duly set into the proper context, it will become an abject impossibility for any of this current iteration of the Tories to get elected ANYWHERE. Anyone who was in government during the economic meltdown under the Tories will be marked by the pirate’s Black Spot and will need to seek employment outside of politics or lose their deposits at the polls. And any talk of a potential, “Johnson comeback,” Will be met by derision, even in the Tory press.
Only then will the country (possibly) get an opposition worthy of office, capable of doing what a healthy democracy needs, which is holding government accountable, for REAL issues and holding their feet to the fire in parliament.
But, as you have observed on multiple occasions, the one thing the Labour Party is bad at, and really needs to get better at, as a matter of urgency, is communicating with the public. So, I doubt this would ever happen. But, a man can dream, can’t he? . . .
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Tories hoping they may, “get lucky,” with some, “good news,” as an excuse to delay elections are certainly not, “rational thinking beings.” Quite apart from the fact that it’s just as likely that there might be, “bad news,” over time, even when all things are equal, it’s obvious that things are only going to get worse for the next few years now, regardless of who is in power! That’s a strategy for building resentment and angering the electorate on the basis of their clinging to power despite their objective incompetence to add to the long list of legitimate resentments the electorate already have!
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That’s a supremely salient point you make there. Churchill’s Conservatives suffered their biggest ever landslide defeat against Labour directly after having just won WWII! You don’t get a bigger feather in your political cap than defeating Nazism, victory in history’s biggest ever war and being vindicated after the country had faced some incredibly dark times.
Yet, the country did not trust the Conservatives with the nation’s future. “Let us finish the job,” was an insufficient slogan to convince a nation that, quite rightly, felt it had earned itself a more equitable slice of the pie than they were being offered.
And, thank goodness they did! Since we got the NHS, our, “cradle to the grave,” social security safety net and a better standard of basic education for all out of the incoming Labour government. And that was in the face of bankruptcy and financial dead ends that were so bad they literally killed Maynard Keynes!
Yet, despite pulling that miracle off, Labour were promptly booted out again at the end of their first term, by that same fickle nation of ingrates we call the British electorate.
You can’t rely on rewards for good service, let alone punishment for craven neglect of duty, from the British people. And all politicians would do well to remember that.
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The bigger project for me, that I hope more Brits will spread the word on, is to get the Tories down to Third Party status. The Tory project has not just failed us this time, but resulted in unforgivable damage, some of which can never be repaired. But it’s worse, even, than that.
They have no plan for Britain, which makes them as likely to grasp at straws dangling from the Nazis as it does old fashioned conservatives. And the evidence for this is their increasing tendency to lean into deliberate divisiveness and the far right rhetoric imported from America’s Republican Party. “Woke,” as a pejorative; “Open Borders,” as an allegation; and active hostility toward large sections of the electorate, from the dispatch box, with the conscious aim of deepening fear, anger, outrage and widening those ideological gulfs of division through a type of soft core media terrorism, are all imports from the Capitol of school shootings, mass murders and insurrections we know as the once, “United,” States of America.
I want to see a concerted campaign that nips THAT hard in the bud and answers it in such a resounding fashion that the conservatives are forced to spend a wilderness period culling their most egregious race baiters, like Braverman, Patel, Rees Mogg and Mister, “Stop The Boats,” himself, Sunack, whilst also having to kill off their most egregious carpet baggers, like the Quasi Chancellor Kwarteng, and his side kick, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson and, once again, Rees Mogg.
Between the Liberal-Economics of attempting to privatise everything from transport and clean water to policing and the health service and the sheer, blatant carpet bagging of, “personality politics,” as characterised by Johnson, Rees Mogg and that despicable waste of organs, Matt Hancock, we’ve devastated Britain in a giant game of British Politics’s Got No Talent, like we were playing a popularity contest with the nation’s future!
And in the same manner that so many winners of Britain’s Got Talent manage to win because the public wants to make a point, rather than believing in the ability of the contestant, so the winner ends up vanishing into obscurity again, we’ve done the same with our votes! Except, the pond is too shallow for our failures to sink without trace, and we’re all forced to deal with the corpses of their populism, rotting and floating among us, daily. We cannot escape our failure of judgement and just, “stop going on about it,” as so many wish we would about Brexit, or Prime Ministerial corruption, or the simple failure of INSANE economic policies, because we’re all having to deal with them, every day!
The only way we get to, “move on,”m from this mess is if we honestly accept our mistakes and face them, fix them (as best they can be fixed) so that then, and ONLY THEN, do we get to move on and stop talking about them.
And that means that the British public needs to seize this once in a lifetime opportunity to galvanise a national Tactical Voting Campaign so that the Tories are not just beaten, not just Landslided out of power, but utterly CRUSHED! Even those who care about Conservatism could get onboard with that, as it presents conservatives with an opportunity for a complete restructuring of the Tory project from the ground up, and to revive their core values that were once so popular. That simply cannot happen while the people in charge are either blatantly corrupt or abjectly incompetent, or both.
Tactical Voting! Look it up, spread the word. Do your bit for Britain.
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The Covid scandal is, “current,” for everyone because we were ALL affected by it at some level and it still burns. Covid killed my dad, and he caught it from a doctor! While the drunken government were literally laughing in our faces and debating the significance of a birthday cake instead of apologising! That will remain, “current,” for all of us until we get satisfaction.
We’re talking about a, “government,” occupied by, “people,” who belong in jail! Focus on the past is where we look for accountability and justice. Present and future focus is where we establish policy and preventative measures. Different things, which should be handled by different people. The blood scandal being a case in point. Government will typically stall by hiding behind, “We must wait for the outcome of the enquiry,” while laws need to be enacted RIGHT NOW to protect and reward whistleblowers and force openness and transparency in the systems of practice, and the definition of what, “good practice,” is, themselves.
There are just SO MANY, “bastards,” skirting around accountability and justice, (like the woman who perjured herself in front of the postal scandal enquiry, yet still has her title from the Queen!) that we lose count and lose track of them! They need a task force who’s job is to hunt down all of the, “bastards,” and bring them to justice!
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@frankoneill5675 : The context in which I am speaking is obvious: trade deals, border restrictions being relaxed or modified to facilitate easier movement of goods, personnel and currency. All that stuff that Brexit is about. What context do you need?
Europe trades with China, Canada, South Korea, Taiwan, The USA, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, countless other countries which are not in the EU but essential to profitable trade. All of those countries have bespoke, ongoing trade, “deals,” with the EU, which suit their economies, demographics, the items they trade in and their longer term political goals.
You’re asking me to explain the definition of the word, “deal,” or how the term fits, “Britain,” or other countries more generally? Unless you clarify I cannot answer your question.
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@frankoneill5675 : So, this is what you’ve been building up to via your circuitous build up. Dunno’ why you didn’t just get it off your chest, rather than attempt to entrap me into saying something you’d like to pounce on? You cannot speak for the whole EU, nor Europe. Nor do you even speak for Brussels for that matter. People never get Money, “Fatigue,” especially business leaders. Naturally, European leaders are fatigued by the Tories, with their belligerence and arrogance, but they’ll be just as delighted to stick it to them by making money with more reasonable people, running the new British government. Especially when they turn out to be discrete and progressive.
Much as you’d like to see our divided land collectively punished, it just doesn’t work that way. Try to take it less personally and not like a spurned lover who wants to even the score? It’s just politics.
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When does a, “manifesto,” come out in the form of a word salad? When the people selling it expect to be pulled up on their lies and hypocrisy. They literally cannot promise a thing without being busted for lying. Apart, perhaps, from the policies that are pure evil, such as eliminating our human rights, or, “stop the boats,” which NO ONE WANTS.
At the very most, people will read the policy titles and then maybe a few lines of the ones they don’t believe or feel angered about. And then they’ll see that the Tories have a complicated way of saying nothing, just like Rishi. ChatGBT really has been worked hard for the Tories this year.
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It annoys me that politicians don’t have the balls to simply say, “We’re still working on the final details, so I’m not willing to give a definitive answer until we have a completed bill.” Who can moan about that? “We’re doing the work, right now. The answer will be abundantly clear when you see the white paper and I’ll happily discuss how we got there, WHEN we’re there.” And anyone can generalise in the mean time: “Working people are the ones producing stuff of value; whether that is data, intellectual property, machinery, ‘tool making,’ food producing, it covers a vast swathe that we cannot go over in granular detail in a single debate. But they’re the ones who PRODUCE things or support people who produce things, rather than owning them or earning passive profits from them.”
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Nationalise water and transport. Save the tax payers from having to pay for Tory greed and force fines on the previous owners, taken out of the bonds issued for the purchases. Then use that fund for a public housing startup service for young families. No rents, but zero interest loans, payable after the mortgages. And designate the houses by percentage minimums for every constituency, with councils empowered to decide where they go in their own zones, by a deadline. If they fail to meet the deadline, the money goes back into the central pot to be reallocated to constituencies which have been fulfilling their obligations.
Meanwhile, start immediate negotiations with the EU with the long term goal of re-entering the single market. Some good will can be generated by reaffirming our commitment to international law and enshrining the EU human rights legislation into our own books.
Use windfall taxes to lower energy prices and shore up our military, and take some windfalls from unusual places, like the arms industry, who will have a vested interest in remaining in business with a nation that’s growing its armed services and is producing replacement weapons and equipment for all the stuff we’re sending to Ukraine, which shall be increasing for the next couple of years anyway.
While all this is happening, grab up the headlines by reopening all the books into Windrush, Grenfell Tower and the post office scandals and prosecuting people. Where prosecutions are no longer possible, or loopholes allow the culpable to walk free, take away their gongs and introduce legislation to prevent further such abuses and to close any escape hatches for those who might think they can get away with stuff. While those books are open, you are all but certain to catch people with their hands in the tills, or burying bad news, in the act. Make examples of them.
Play to your strengths, sound financial management and work on your weaknesses, like social media and popular public figures in the media. And, while we’re at it, crush the client media with a raft of legislation that levels the playing field. You can’t tell people what to say, but you can make statements as to political affiliations mandatory on all outlets and publications, thus being able to hold those with none to account, and enforcing equal numbers of outlets permitted (never exceeded) nationally and regionally.
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A genuine secret to successful podcasting that not many people know: NEVER allow the term, “um,” “ah,” or, “errrr,” to make it to the final cut. And NEVER say, “um,” or, “er,” live. There are techniques you can adopt for seeing to this and I promise you it will make the difference between how many audience members tune in and how many you retain for an entire podcast.
It’s a genuine psychological reaction that is only just showing up in studies, but something we can all intuitively grasp. Umming and erring is what makes people tune out, change the channel, or decide it’s frustrating to listen to. It’s the one thing that Radio 4 live broadcasting is prescient about and does well. And I don’t doubt it is included in their training packages. That is, “training,” for those presenters who aren’t already too famous and prickly to admit they could benefit from training.
Trust me on this. It will change your fortunes.
The brain just reacts super-negatively to hesitations and digressions. Especially impatient or autistic brains, like mine. But autism is far more wide spread in the world than most people realise. And the key to audience retention lies here, in this one small change to presentation style (especially in live broadcasts) that will probably prove to be the biggest net positive for the least effort.
Never allow yourself to digress (always stick to the point) and never, “um,” and, “err.” I know I come off as a bit dotty, but I honestly would bet serious money that you’ll notice a huge benefit in very little time, once you master the technique.
And, obviously, I’m speaking as a (none member. I don’t, “join,” groups) huge fan, wishing you nothing but success and growth in the future.
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Phil, I just wanted to say this, apropos nothing. I’m 57 years old and have a long memory. Phrases that are right up there in my Top 10 favourites to here, along with, “Bring me sunshine,” (Morecambe and Wise) “Submitted for your approval,” (Rod Serling on The Twilight Zone) include, “Alright, my name’s Phil, and I like talking about politics.”
I just want to say THANK YOU for your contribution to the national dialogue. Your YouTube name is a stroke of genius, your tone (a bloke down the pub chatting) your expertise (always apparent, without any need to boast) your insights, occasional wit and your granular levels of well informed analysis, all come together to strike the PERFECT tone for reaching and engaging the maximum number of reasonable, thinking people at any level of the social strata.
You really SHOULD have been hired by the Labour Party. They missed a trick by not offering you a big brown envelope stuffed with cash. But I am so glad you are an independent analyst.
Seriously. Thank you.
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@seang2700 : Quite possibly. But that has NOTHING to do with Tactical Voting. Simply voting is already a selection from the lesser of two evils, which you describe as, “negative voting,” for some, as yet, unexplained and impenetrable reason. What you described there is the normal state of affairs.
Tactical Voting is a, “Positive,” act. It is a coordinated action, employed by an informed electorate who are taking back the reigns of power, as is their democratic right, and using the system to alter the political landscape. If we are never to be offered a satisfactory party, with an honest commitment to reforms, or even to see through their own stated policy goals, we can still eradicate the most egregious party, thereby putting those who remain standing on notice that they had better see to it that they deliver their promises or die trying, as the electorate hold the keys to their office and now have the power of the internet to coordinate OUTSIDE of their controlled stomping ground.
That is about as close to revolutionary as we can get in a technological age. And about as close as we should want to come. Any action that empowers the demos and strips the entitled classes of their fiefdoms is a, “positive,” act. But it is also one from which only good may come, even if it only half works.
For me, the best possible outcome would be the formation of a Labour/Lib Dem Coaltion, and voting reform.
So, here’s my question for you: You bandy this word, “negative,” about, as though you were accusing Luddites of smashing their machinery in a pointless act of vandalism, and that is partly because you’re clearly disturbed at the upsetting of the status quo, despite the fact that this incarnation of Tory has done nothing but for the last 8 years. So, tell us what is actually, “negative,” about Tactical Voting? If you actually know, that is? And, if you’re not just grabbing at a definition like a bogey man to frighten the children? In what way is Tactical Voting actually, “negative”?
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@seang2700 : I’ll put it more simply for you, as you appear to need it: YOU’RE ALREADY DOING THAT, GENIUS! Literally EVERYONE will tell you they are NOT voting for the party they, “want,” but the party they got. They ALREADY don’t like ANY of their choices! If that’s, “negative,” voting, YOU are already DOING that! Or, are you going to suggest that there’s a party on the British landscape that has all the policies YOU want and that YOU trust to deliver on them? Because, if that’s the case, you’re clearly NOT talking about the Labour Party, as this current lot remain untested. And you’re objectively NOT talking about the Tories for obvious reasons. So, who are these mysteriously, “positive,” politicians? What is their party called? And why haven’t we even heard of them?
What was that you were saying about, “stupid”? . . .
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@seang2700 : The, “personal rancour,” you identify came from you. You called tactical voters, (and, by extension, me) “stupid.” That was your angry response to the, “grain of truth,” you don’t like to chew on in your otherwise steady diet of Tory mush that you are so obviously used to swallowing.
I note you will not, because you cannot, answer the simplest question: What is negative about tactical voting? That was just your way of dressing up something you fear, in hopes of persuading the credulous. It is also why you fail.
See, it hasn’t occurred to you yet, but what, “negative,” outcomes should we fear? That the economy might tank? Already happened. That inflation might skyrocket in a manner that is demonstrably not related to world affairs and purely a problem of our own creation? Already happened. That the NHS might get privatised until we end up with a health system not fit for purpose which puts people in debt for the rest of their lives if they have an accident or unforeseen illness? Well, that’s happening but still worth fighting for to undo the most egregious changes and to prevent the rest from happening. What are we meant to, “fear,” Mr Bogey man? That essential services like the provision of TAP WATER isn’t, “Pretend-Privatised,” when it’s actually handed over to a SINGLE company in each region with NO COMPETITION ALLOWED, making it NOT a business but a FIEFDOM! And that’s WHY they’re getting away with polluting EVERYTHING, because they’re not even in a Liberal-Economist’s wet dream but more like a 17th century royal family!
What POSSIBLE, “harm,” could an alternative to Tory hegemony DO to Britain that the Tories have not ALREADY DONE? That’s a SERIOUS QUESTION, BTW.
I know you will attempt to answer neither, already. Because you HAVE NO ANSWER. You are either in the pay of the Tories yourself, or you’re one of those unthinking drones who simply gets all upset at the idea of, “change,” because you were brought up to think of all alternatives as, “Looney Lefties,” and never had the wit or imagination to read a book!
My, “passion,” is derived from the fact that, like all Tories, you think you have the, “entitlement,” to call those who think differently to you, “stupid,” whilst manifesting your own un-self-aware stupidity, and expecting people to take it without answering back. It derives from the obvious fact that you cannot see the, “germ of truth,” in front of you but you are ignorant enough to dismiss dissent as if you actually had something (ANYTHING) to actually, “say.” It comes from the HORRIBLE death of my father and returning from his funeral (for which I had to get special permission to go to) exhausted and frayed, only to see a Tory staffer, talking to the press, in front of cameras, telling them about the drunken antics of Number 10 staff and CABINET MEMBERS and LITERALLY LAUGHING OUT LOUD! In my face!!!
My depth of feeling is similar to countless millions who shared my experience and who KNEW they would NEVER vote Tory again, so long as ANY of these goons remain in the party. And if you claim to have no, “feelings,” about that, it will simply confirm the vapidity of the Tory mindset. But you needn’t bother making such a false claim, as it is clear that you do have feelings. You feel FEAR, because you see the very real possibility of annihilation for your imagined (and utterly unreal) status quo, which you express through anger, and a typically devious Tory attempt to transfer that fear onto others.
Well, you have failed. Indeed, all you have achieved is to remind me as to why it is SO important that the Tories are not just defeated at the next election, but necessarily CRUSHED for the good of the country. Have a fearful, anger inducing, Tory day, son . . . SMH
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Honestly, this is becoming the, “Nigel Farage is Bad,” channel. He is bad, but come ohhhn? You said it yourself, “You can argue that it works for populism in general.” Here’s a genuine idea for combatting the spread of Faragistic populism: STOP putting his face on EVERY OTHER THUMBNAIL!
Can’t you see it? You can empirically PROVE that Farage is greedy, stupid, manipulative, racist, criminal and just plain WRONG about everything! Yet that won’t make the slightest difference to his followers except to reassure them that he is the top bogey man figure for everyone left of Thatcher. You are actually HELPING him! YOU are establishing Farage THE man to watch, regardless. And you are allowing him to, “dictate the narrative.” The very thing you just warned against!
Isn’t it worth sacrificing a few thousand clicks? All you are doing is making him the de facto leader of the right wing and the right wing themselves are taking their cues from people like YOU; and those whom the centre and the left keep putting up as their bogey man.
Yes, he needs to be discussed and regularly, and seriously . . . when HE DOES SOMETHING! But it was NOT necessary for you to use him in this thumbnail AT ALL for this video, since this is a general topic about tackling populism, not just him!
I am speaking in good faith, as a fan of yours, who has followed your channel for years. I understand that his face is probably getting you higher viewing figures. But you have a RESPONSIBILITY here. Please think about what I’m arguing here?
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Sunack’s election, “pledges,” are actually deeply alarming. Most people don’t know how, “inflation,” works and, “halving,” that doesn’t necessarily mean that food or petrol prices will come down at all. Note; Tories avoid putting it in terms of, “cost of living,” because they don’t intend to bring prices down.
“Growing the economy,” only means Stock Market and big business stuff, which has NO MEANING to the person on the street, who needs to understand that economic growth does NOT benefit people unless they’re already wealthy! It’s just a sound bite. And sinister at that.
As is, “Reducing NHS waiting lists.” NOT, “Improving the NHS,” or making pay and conditions better and therefore more attractive for people seeking to work in the caring professions. Why do they target waiting lists? Because they want to PRIVATISE more and more of the NHS and shortening waiting times is the bribe they intend to use to get privatisation in through the back door: which they have increasingly done throughout their time in office and which they only did more vehemently when Covid struck!
And, don’t even get me STARTED on, “Stop The Boats!” Literally NO ONE wants that, asked for that, or sees it as ANY kind of a, “priority!” No one except Swastika-tattooed Nazis and brown-skinned brown-shirts like the PM, Cruella Braverman and her predecessor, which constitute an apparent new breed of Nazi that’s emerged to confuse the hell out of Brits these days, including the Nazis themselves! In fact, we NEED immigration desperately! And these people are more than willing to do the more than ONE MILLION JOBS in Britain that are going begging because the locals don’t like stacking shelves, picking fruit and hod carrying for some Polish guy with a better grasp of economics than any Tory and moderately better communication skills! But THAT would be too much like common sense for the Tories! Instead we get TOLD that we are racists who want to turn THE most vulnerable humans on the face of planet Earth into political footballs for the lowest common denominator!
Seriously, people! F*ck these racist, feckless, entitled, lying, thieving, Tory scum!
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Invite Rory Stewart! For a one off, to which he may return on an ad hoc basis? He would be perfect! He has Tory values, yet he is HONEST. And he is a podcaster himself, so he would be gleaning material for his own channel. He has the experience of Westminster and service as an MP and I do not doubt he would do a link up with you if invited and if he saw samples of your channel.
AND, perhaps most importantly, he is genuinely sincere about rescuing the old fashioned, one nation, Conservative project for Britain. Therefore, he has good reasons to want to reach your audience. That is why, after all, he shares a podcast with Alistair Campbell, wherein they argue politics but both try to appeal to the, “middle way,” voters who seek UNITY in British politics, emphasising areas of AGREEMENT.
His is precisely the kind of voice that is drowned out at a time like this, but from which it is most important to hear.
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If OFCOM is forcing punishment it must to protect Rishi from being criminally charged. They usually do nothing about outrageous infractions when it comes to conservatives, so they must have been under extreme pressure to act. What we should be calling for is a root and branch reform of OFCOM, replacing their staff with people who BELIEVE in democracy and who see the connection between broadcast media and political influence.
Example: They are STILL, “investigating,” Jacob Reese Mogg for being a, “news anchor,” whilst being a sitting MP! That complaint has been going on for many YEARS now!
Maybe GB news are fighting this because it’s the first time OFCOM have actually done ANYTHING about them? Or maybe this is their attempt to beat OFCOM into an even more pliant shape?
Either way, we need a new OFCOM with new people, subpoena powers, public hearings, public annual reviews, unlimited fine powers and the ability to make recommendations to the CPS.
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@audreymcgready4329 : They are literally like a private club, who’s soul aim is to break down Britain and sell off the parts for scrap! Those, “think tanks,” they all belong to are morally aligned with Satanic Cults, and you have to be a bit of a cult to join one! The most important and transformative legislation Britain could come up with, to save our fortunes collectively, would be to ban private lobby groups of any kind. Certainly, any hint of money or influence being attained by back door dealings should be ruthlessly crushed out of political life. The mere fact that I have suggested that is probably enough to get me onto a watch-list or ten!
But all services upon which the public rely should be in public ownership and administrated by their elected representatives. There would be no place for the Johnson’s, Truss’s and Sunack’s of a logically run Britain. Probably none for the Starmer’s either, but at least he’s a step in the right direction. I just pray that tactical voting catches fire this election and the Tories are relegated to a poor third place, while Labour and the Lib Dem’s are forced into a successful coalition. We need representative voting reform and a TOTAL BAN on business lobbying. Except through the usual, public channels that charities and issue campaigners are forced to use, of course.
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It really upsets me that even, “friendly,” media keeps headlining this story as an, “end,” to the Winter Fuel Allowance instead of what it is! Even my wife described as that yesterday! I had to explain to her that they’re NOT ending it at all! They’re MEANS TESTING it!
Who WOULD NOT say it is FAIR to ensure that poor people WHO NEED the allowance GET the allowance? And those with lots of money already, who DON’T NEED the allowance, WON’T GET the allowance!?
Labour has fumbled this by not announcing it as a, “MEANS TEST,” and stomping out all talk of an, “End to Winter Fuel Allowance.”
They failed to make their position eminently logical and fair in the minds of voters, which it actually is! They need to sack their image makers and get a new team in. The Youth Mobility Scheme has been handled in the same way, though that’s caught far less attention in the minds of voters.
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You’re probably right, but it needn’t be that bleak? I mean, isn’t it obvious to everyone, what actually happened? . . . “Brexit changed left wing voting habits,” as this streamer put it, for the simple reason that the general public were more alarmed by the possibility of a government overturning a democratic referendum and the UK no longer being a democracy, than they were about which party was in power. The Tories were promising to honour the Brexit vote, and that’s what won them the election.
The fact that we did not get the Brexit that was advertised came as a surprise to precisely no one, except for those far right wing voters who were naive enough to actually believe in people like Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson.
I, and many people I know, voted Tory at the last general election, not for any their ideological reasons. I simply believed that overturning a national referendum was such an egregious mistake that we would no longer even be a democracy anymore and we could easily wind up with governments that refuse to accept other votes, like election results, as we later saw the Republicans attempt in America.
What we actually DO about this now seems equally obvious to me too. We simply have to seek terms with Europe that closely align us on trade, human rights, strategic military goals and justice, without surrendering our sovereignty and without sacrificing our right to make policies on a case by case basis, when it comes to new crises affecting the world. We still have considerable economic clout, which buys us a seat at such a negotiating table, if for no other reason than everyone still likes having MONEY.
Yet, alignment with Europe is something that the Tories have been openly fighting against since the days of Margaret Thatcher. So, we have no alternative but to change our government, if for no other reason than getting friendly faces into power that the Europeans will find acceptable, in order that we can iron out new deals without the baggage of the Euro-Skeptic politicians round our necks.
European politicians cannot abide Boris Johnson, or his acolytes. We need people who Europe can do business with and whom they don’t hate on a visceral level.
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@fang_xianfu : Whilst another referendum would be potentially disastrous, not to mention possibly humiliating, should the UK vote to return to Europe only to be told, “Non,” or having to accept painful terms as punishment, whilst the spectre of a divided nation threatens to hold yet another referendum in the future, for the 40% or so of Euro-skeptics that will remain (making everyone think about how Scotland’s SNP refuses to take no for an answer and won’t accept that people actually only vote for them for their liberal policies and not to leave the UK) it’s not an issue that can be shelved either.
Some sort of resolutions will simply have to be reached on many issues that will not go away. And only a new party can realistically reach those settlements, given how much our current government is not just distrusted, but actively loathed, by the electorate, but is equally distrusted and loathed by European leaders. And we’ve given them every reason not to trust us, by breaking our word on trade agreements, showing active hostility to human rights conventions and international justice accords and frequently entering into bad faith negotiations designed to play to the domestic galleries whilst making things hard for everyone at the European negotiating tables.
The only solution that remains is to get busy negotiating new settlements that serve everyone’s best interests. And the only way to get those deals is with new, trustworthy faces.
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In the, “taxing and spending,” debate, surely, “the working people,” they intend to, “protect,” are those who earn less than a certain amount? Isn’t it? Seems obvious to me. Those who, “produce,” the stuff of, “value,” by their, “labour,” which chiefly benefits their bosses, managers, owners, shareholders, etc. You can put a number on that, but it’s only helpful as a general guide until you specify for individual categories.
The question is: How detailed; how, “granular,” do you want to get? The more the better, so long as it doesn’t overwhelm the civil service or the people responsible for delivering the packages.
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Better yet, what you just said, but first, Ben Wallace crosses the House with an offer from Keir Starmer to continue on as Defence Secretary? As far as I can see, he is the ONLY actually talented diplomat, hard working MP, who has actually done a GOOD job as our Defence Secretary, and who seems at least to be more concerned about service and the good of the country than his own career. The new constituency divisions have made his seat no longer a thing now anyway, and he would be welcomed by our allies in NATO and Ukraine, where he is established and well liked anyway. A big show of crossing the House, and the loss of the ONLY talent the Tories have would be sure to hasten the election, before more MP’s follow suit, as so often happens, and everyone wins . . . except the carpet baggers in power right now.
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I wonder if you can tell us how MP’s calculate letters and emails these days? The received wisdom, years ago, was that one letter was seen as equal to roughly 500 other voters who felt the same way, but hadn’t bothered to write in about it. Meaning that 20 or so letters from different people (and not from an obviously coordinated campaign) could make a significant dent in your MP’s attitudes towards that issue.
Nowadays, with electronic communications and the TikTok generation, the calculus must be very different. And the received wisdom I accepted back in the day might well have been a myth anyway, for all I know?
So, it would be really helpful, I think, to explore that issue on your channel and give people a sense of which types of communication are most effective, the ways to go about your own preferred approach, as well as any follow up information or connected issues that might pertain?
I also think it would be very encouraging for viewers who just need a nudge in that direction. As most of us feel we’re likely to be ignored unless we get really pushy, which many have neither the time nor inclination to do. But equally many would try to pressure their MP’s if they actually believed it was worth their while, or that they could just tilt the scale that little bit.
I would also encourage them to express themselves far more briefly than I am doing here, whilst remaining polite, of course.
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Whilst it is gratifying to see these repellant Tories wallowing in self pity at their self inflicted wounds, backed by nothing more than their own unjustified sense of self regard, it is also chilling. It’s not the unedifying spectacle of former leaders airing their permanent sense of grievance, whether they’re in power or out of it, or their willingness to be seen as saboteurs with no regard for the future of their own party, as that’s been a feature, not a bug, for the way they do business anyway. It’s the idea of either one of the alternatives seizing the reigns of power, even for a short-lived pre-election period! Johnson does not need explaining, as we’ve all seen the empirical evidence that he cannot run his own financial affairs without corruption, let alone a country. But the very idea that we would put a proto-Nazi like Cruella Braverman in the job of Home Secretary has been hard enough for Britain to stomach and I believe that many Brits would identify her as their least likeable or competent MP! The secret services have identified her as a security risk, siting SIX separate occasions when she broke the law and Home Office regulations, which got her fired! But the idea of a PM who actively, vocally despises a significant chunk of the electorate, calling them names and deliberately seeking to DIVIDE the nation, makes her unfit to sweep our roads, let alone hold ANY public office! I simply cannot believe she is, “popular,” amongst any group that doesn’t also sport Swastikas? And those same people would probably gleefully burn her at the stake once they’ve gotten their full use out of her!
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@jamesrussel1133 : Well, I said that because that is how it works. Good journalists are paid to be objective and, particularly if they’re political journalists, they will have to ensure access to a full copy to for a full analysis and fact checking. Even hacks who oppose Truss on both sides of the political divide, or with a personal axe to grind, will have copies because they’re all looking for their own original take on it that no other journalist has highlighted; something they can draw public attention to in their interview or podcast, etc.
And no journalist is willing to get caught out with the old, “Well, did you read the whole book?” which any pro-Truss politician can use as a get-out-of-jail-free card in an otherwise embarrassing interview. Those numbers (a little over 2,000) cover roughly the amount of political journalists, students, archives and libraries across Britain who might feel they need a copy for vocational reasons, not its political wisdom or entertainment value.
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I paused the video to go to the survey and completed it after seeing your first answers (thanks for the inspiration there, since many of our answers were similar) but I put something down in the first section that might interest you I hope?
For Number 3 of the, “Best Things About The NHS,” I put that it’s, “Iconic,” and that it improves our standing in the world as a part of our identity, being an institution that defines our national character, like our Parliament, the BBC, etc, does too (for good or ill). That it speaks to our national sense of caring and fairness; being free to all at the point of contact and based upon need over any other concern.
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The only thing that is actually “new” in Tory politics of late is this active, open hostility senior ministers express toward giant cross sections of society. That scares people. When did it become okay to actively attack voters from the dispatch box, with open anger and a list of epithets? That, combined with all of the now exposed graft and policy failures, is genuinely frightening the voters! And they wonder why they’re losing voters?
That stuff may work well in America, from where the Tories have been importing all of their most recent ideas. But deliberate attempts to divide the population, with attacks on its most concerned citizens, are actively forcing voters to seek a sane alternative.
Imagine if you went to your GP and said, “I’ve sought a second opinion and two other doctors have confirmed that you took out my appendix when there was no need and I just had a stomach bug,” and that doctor responds by saying, “That’s just rubbish coming from your “woke” agenda and your anti-medical attitude, so get the f*ck out of my practice and take your communist, freedom hating, Guardian reading bollox with you before I have those removed too!” . . . 😧. . . 🤷♂️ . . . 😵💫 . . . 🤦♂️
It’s a result of lazy, default thinking, that young educated people are being, “indoctrinated into wokeness,” because of a Tory refusal to accept logical arguments and desire to stick to talking points. When your default setting is to defend the indefensible, you find yourself not just at odds with the most outspoken educated people, but actively hostile towards a significant section of the population at any given time.
And people don’t want insanely hostile leaders who are incapable of agreeing to disagree, let alone actively and outspokenly seeking to do HARM to sections of society!
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