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What do Labour need to learn from the US election?
at 19:07 8 Nov 2024

Re the budget I agree, but I am finding their approach pretty odd - they are not shouting loudly enough about the good stuff they are doing (possibly because it's a bit too left-wing for them) and as a result the negative stories get more traction.
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What do Labour need to learn from the US election?
at 18:14 8 Nov 2024

Many in the Labour leadership have been pretty derisive of people on the left, and I think this is something they really need to stop doing.

Labour only won the last election because the right was heavily divided – the huge majority masks the fact that their vote share was one of the lowest on record for a winning party. A good number of people voting Labour will have been centre-right Tories holding their noses to get rid of a disastrous government.

Should the right unite and those centre-right voters drift away, Labour don't have a solid-enough base to win the next election as it stands thanks to Starmer deliberately and repeatedly being quite offensive to people on the left (in an attempt to get those centre-right votes).

I agree with the comment from thebooks that Labour needs to deliver some decent left-ish policies and make these front and centre of their next campaign. They have had a few (like keeping rail nationalisation on the agenda) but they have largely been overshadowed by nonsense like the winter fuel allowance cut and suspending MPs who had the courage to take a stand on benefits. Many traditional left policies are extremely popular with the public but Starmer chose to move Labour away from these to distance himself from Corbyn.

These policies also need to be cost-of-living focussed, even if these won't deliver immediate results, they might make people feel like there is a better future - things like more council housing or looking at rent controls, both of which they can also argue for on a fiscal basis because they will deliver savings for the government in the long-term.
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Liz Truss is being very critical of the budget
at 20:08 31 Oct 2024

Hmmm:



Government borrowing costs measured by 10-year gilt yields touched their highest since May at around 4.38% , but the move was modest in comparison to the surge two years ago. Sterling rose , meanwhile, and the domestically-focused FTSE mid-250 index (.FTMC), opens new tab briefly jumped more than 1.5%.

"Investors feared a new Liz Truss moment, but in the end the announcements do not suggest an uncontrolled surge in debt," Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management portfolio manager Nabil Milali said


https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-labour-budget-spares-markets-another-liz-tru
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£33,000 a year on benefits!!!
at 15:25 31 Oct 2024

Another key element is the historic government policies that have increase the cost of living for the worst off.

Right to buy is the main one of these - if we had not lost millions of council houses (or prevented councils from continuing to build them in large numbers), the benefits bill would be billions of pounds lower. Nicole's rent would be £450/month rather than £1250, nearly £10k/yr difference.
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British Colonies owe a debt of gratitude
at 16:52 30 Oct 2024

Yes, the actions of the British in the vast majority of our colonies was abhorrent and is still causing problems for most of them today. I don't think anyone could seriously deny that.

That can be easily be said without making untrue claims about wiping people out or countries not existing if we had not colonised them.
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British Colonies owe a debt of gratitude
at 16:30 30 Oct 2024

Your response to:

After all, why would there be 56 sovereign state members of the Commonwealth if they shared your view that the British Empire was essentially a genocidal project built on slavery and the destruction of ancient cultures.

was:

Those countries only exist because of the commonwealth. I'm sure if you asked the native population their views you'd get a very different opinion. Oh wait, you can't because we wiped out indigenous populations!
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British Colonies owe a debt of gratitude
at 16:13 30 Oct 2024

I left them out because it wasn't relevant to my point. Your post that I was responding to effectively said that we'd wiped out indigenous populations in all 56 commonwealth member countries. The response was pointing out that we had not.

India and Bangladesh's governments have both chosen to remain in the commonwealth despite how their populations were treated.

It's also worth noting that several countries that were not British colonies have also chosen to join, such as Gabon, Mozambique and Rwanda.
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British Colonies owe a debt of gratitude
at 15:26 30 Oct 2024

I think your second paragraph would be news to the vast majority of member countries of the Commonwealth. Or are you suggesting we wiped out the indigenous populations of Botswana, India, Kenya, Papua New Guinea, Samoa. Zambia etc?
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Commonwealth calls for reparations.
at 12:15 29 Oct 2024

The 150 year lease was on the New Territories, not Kowloon or Hong Kong island, which had been ceded in perpetuity and was where about half the population lived.

What the British government could have done was respect Hong Kongers' right to self-determination and hold a referendum asking people if they wanted to remain under British control, transfer to Chinese control or become independent.
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Evette Cooper
at 15:50 10 Oct 2024

The UK was ordered to give the islands to Mauritius by an international court. And while the last government were quite happy to ignore international law when it suited them, they were the ones that started the negotiations and presumably advanced them quite significantly (I doubt the incoming government had a huge amount of input given the time it would take to negotiate such a complex issue).
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Trump is a real nutcase.
at 21:24 11 Sep 2024

It's the end result of a sh1t electoral system (first past the post)* and heavily biased TV media.

One of the reasons I am in favour of our constitutional monarchy is because I seriously believe we would end up with Farage as president if we had a head of state elected by a single public vote.

* In fact it's even sh1tter than FPTP (quite an achievement) because of the electoral college.
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IBC's outrageous plans to hike car parking fees in car parks around PR
at 12:27 4 Sep 2024

I really doubt it would be double the time if you drove part way and got the train for the rest. I used to commute into Ipswich and did just that - it was quicker doing that because I avoided sitting in traffic in Ipswich for ages.
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Labour Party and Kier Starmer
at 17:18 3 Sep 2024

No they don't. I didn't vote for Labour but I would rather have Starmer running the country than the Tories or Reform.
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Twitter is a cesspit part 7964376597126587§267864802375874139561497365943716578
at 17:05 3 Sep 2024

The most hypocritical aspect of the Brazil saga is that he has been happy to censor Twitter when it's in support of right-wing autocratic governments in India and Turkey.
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First point of the season
at 17:52 31 Aug 2024

The calibre of the opposition made the first two games difficult to judge, but today I thought we looked like a decent Premier League team.

Given we still had a few players in the side who have only just arrived, it'll be exciting to see how good we are when they're all up to speed (thinking back to when the January 22 signings clicked and we went on that ridiculous run).
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Difference in fortunes
at 16:28 21 Aug 2024

I think the map is nonsense - there aren't any kind of boundaries for the divisions - the two divisions will always have an equal number of clubs. Allocations are purely dependent on which clubs are at step 2 at the time. If there was two seasons with only northern teams being relegated from the National League, the boundary would end up being further north, and vice-versa. Plus as pointed out above, Stortford have spent at least two seasons in the North despite Herts being shown as a South county.

IMO it would make sense for the FA to have fixed areas for divisions (as I think the German pyramid does) as this would give clubs more certainty about where they would end up if they were promoted/relegated. Having to move between the Isthmian League (when at step 4) and Southern League (at step 3) has been really challenging for clubs like Sudbury as it changes the pool of players available.
[Post edited 21 Aug 16:29]
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Well, I'm a bit confused and welcome peoples unbiased comments.
at 19:36 19 Aug 2024

That was my thoughts as well.

The first goal was also slightly unfortunate in that Mass and another Town player got in each others' way and let Trent push through the midfield, followed by a bizarre decision by Leif not to track Salah.
[Post edited 19 Aug 19:37]
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Ed Sheeran has acquired a minority stake in the Football Club
at 19:59 15 Aug 2024

Good job New Hollands aren't still yellow!
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Players remembered for just one moment
at 02:41 10 Aug 2024

Marlon Harewood....

For the right reasons, Noel Hunt for that goal at Charlton?
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Lauren Edwards MP: chortle
at 20:22 8 Aug 2024

What I don't get is how they didn't spot this during the checking process – several other potential candidates were left off the shortlists because of past social media comments (although as you allude to, from memory they almost exclusively seemed to be people on the left of the party).

But even for local elections level they do this scrutiny – I was shortlisted to run as a Labour councillor in a local election and had to provide details of all my social media accounts, presumably so they could be trawled for stuff like once liking a tweet by Caroline Lucas or something equally appalling that would see me expelled.
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