Alicia
British liberal. Apparently technically a "Bluesky Elder", according to that one labeller.
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She/Her
- So, I've actually looked at the Immigration White Paper yesterday and, uh, like this cannot be read as anything other than pinning absolute GDP "stagnation" primarily on increased immigration and not anything else? Like, this is dropped in there, and then it moves on and, uh, what?
- Content note: elsewhere on the BBC Sport site there's a picture of Awoniyi at point of contact (in the broadcast it wasn't that clear what happened) - it's not graphic, but the combination with "knowing how badly he was injured" makes it relatively not mind safe.
- There's definitely an element of "this was a freak accident" here, but surely this has to prompt a rethink on the change to "let play continue if they might score, even if the offside is super-obvious". www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...
- There's definitely an element of "this was a freak accident" here, but surely this has to prompt a rethink on the change to "let play continue if they might score, even if the offside is super-obvious". www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...
- The thing about polling on the "Island of Strangers" line is that I'm not sure it breaks the top-3 offensive things Keir Starmer said _in that speech_. (not least because he also repeated his "the increase in immigration was a secret Tory experiment" conspiracy theory in it)
- I'm trying to think of any politician who would take the "the Tories have mendaciously experimented upon the pure British people with open borders" stance on immigration Starmer has opted for and... uh? Maybe Rupert Lowe? Like, even if you flip the party invoked it's still "maybe Rupert Lowe?".
- Reposted by Aliciaa society where "bad immigrants" are demonised is a society where no immigrant can truly feel welcome, because aren't we all just one wrong turn or accident away from being unemployed? on disability benefits? unable to care for our children without state help? just no such thing as a safe immigrant
- Ngl, I feel like the "vote Labour to keep out Reform" line would work better if Keir Starmer wasn't _really_ attached to talking about immigration in ways that best fit in with the extreme end of Reform Councillors.
- So, the thing about the "Care Worker" visa route is that it was badly designed and, honestly, it is fair to at least give the people already here first dibs on the jobs they actually came over for rather than what they got tricked into. But the government isn't making _that_ argument.
- Watching the Sistine Chapel Chimney livestream like
- This is an absolute joke. Like, the statue to Churchill is simply not remotely the same kind of thing as a memorial to thousands killed. (and also, like, the protests give his statue attention, which he'd absolutely have loved, come off it) www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
- Tbh, fundamentally, like. The Government should have put the reciprocal social security deal with India, that's just like ones that have existed for ages, in _their_ press release, rather than leaving it to the Indian govt (who have an obvious incentive to make it sound as good/unique as possible!).
- Ngl, I feel like the government leaving the Double Contribution Convention out of their main comms might prove a bit of an error (given, like, it's being communicated elsewhere as a special deal for India rather than extension of a standard thing) www.gov.uk/government/p...
- ... ... He does realise that he stood for the Labour party in a general election less than a year ago, right?
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- So there's a story Dominic Cumming (I think) once told about Liz Truss. He tried to get her to focus on her 'real job' over playing to the media, to which she looked at him blankly - playing to the media _was_, in her mind, her job. I've been thinking about it a lot lately, for some reason.
- Like, I think it makes sense for the LDs to work with the Tories (and other parties) if the alternative is Reform, due to the unique nature of the Reform threat (and point to the majority voting not-Reform). But the preference of the Tory leadership seems to be to work with Reform.
- And, of course, the immediate Labour line about Runcorn showing that moderate Tories voted not-Tory for fear of Reform is nonsense: anti-Reform Tories are the ones who stayed Tory rather than voting Reform. So, what happens with _them_ if/when the Tories start outright working with Reform?
- Okay, so here's a question: what happens with current Tory councillors if/when coalitions with Reform start happening? Like, the wider party seems cooked, and the councillor base ranges from "would fit in with the LDs or even Greens" (hence the "if") to "basically Reform already".
- Important correction: Labour eventually overtook the Independents and so are 4th. But also they lost nearly 2/3 of their held seats, and it's not like 2021 was _good_.
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- NGL, I'm torn between wanting Leicester to win and wanting Derby County to remain the clear WOAT because oh we're actually close enough to properly be rivals now, huh. (Derby County could still get relegated - and it's Derby County so it is an actual 'could' - but it's not _likely_).
- Important update to this meme
- Wow was I overly bearish on Reform, and bullish on Labour and the Tories here, huh. It really is some achievement from Badenoch, though. (look, I was working off the assumption they'd match previous notably poor results by losing ~30% of seats, maybe 50% for the Tories, not over 65% each!)
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- ... Ngl, I feel like the Greens would be right to take umbrage with this take from John Curtice, given, well, where things stand as of a few minutes ago (16:21-ish).
