Ian johnson
Software Developer, Architect, occasional artist, sometimes cooks edible food, always a nerd. He/Him
My views are not as confused as those of my employers.
- An improved trade deal with the European Union would hand UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves £10 billion in the Autumn Budget and limit the need for further tax increases, according to economists Sounds like a plan www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
- Hence Labour will say "no... We voted to hate the EU and have a bad relationship with the EU even if it hurts us. The EU is too woke. We are going to accelerate towards fascism like America"
- On Tuesday, Starmer's political director briefed Labour MPs on how government plans to fight Reform. She said: - Reform voters are "our people" but "pissed off" with the state of the country - At Runcorn, Farage mobilised habitual non-voters, while Labour voters stayed at home - Comms must improve
- The reason people are pissed off after 14 yrs of Tory rule is that their lives are getting worse. Don't adopt Reform's simplistic, populist, and incorrect narrative that "immigrants, LGBTQ+ folk, disabled folk are to blame" and deal with the real, but complex, underlying causes
- Why Starmer’s “island of strangers” remark owed more to Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone than Enoch Powell. www.newstatesman.com/politics/lab...
- Is their explanation of "incalculable damage" that the damage has been so small it is impossible to calculate? That it wasn't a racist and xenophobic dog whistle?
- "Island of strangers" struck me more as being an echo of the 2001 Cantle report's "parallel lives". Although Starmer was not exactly crystal clear about what he meant, so it's understandable that people have drawn different conclusions tedcantle.co.uk/pdf/communit...
- Why Starmer’s “island of strangers” remark owed more to Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone than Enoch Powell. www.newstatesman.com/politics/lab...
- How long before they try this explanation "by 'incalculable damage' he meant that the damage they have done is so small that it is impossible to calculate... honest... It wasn't a racist dog whistle..."
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- Funniest thing would be if Spain required "expats" to know English to A-Level standard
- Today’s show provides some clarity on this. (Although the polling hadn’t been published at the time.)
- Can we just ban all opinions polls? The polls keep specific issues in the news and then the politicians rush out some horrific policy which triggers a whole round of more polls. The polls often deal with shallow issues not the complex issues that are actually making people's life worse
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- They might have other more pressing issues... Oh wait... Yeah, you're right, they've upped their rhetoric and policies against a fair few vulnerable groups so they have time to screw something else up before the next round of vile rhetoric and policies about the next vulnerable group
- Once good ol' Nige kicks up a bit of a fuss, gets media attention for a bit and a poll is then commissioned to show the public don't like them (asking only the NIMBYest of NIMBYs). Labour will always follow the polls They will, however, say it was a "tough decision" and how it shows leadership
- Unpopular opinion: Ban opinion polls! They become the news and distort the news. Topic A is put cynically in the news (mostly by right wingers). A is polled as a big issue because it is in the news a lot. Politicians panic and introduce new policies which puts it back in the news
- Labour desperately trying to win Reform voters with anit-immigration policies cause Starmer doesn't actually believe in anything, right-wing-ass shell of a political party, utterly ghoulish
- I had low expectations of Labour when they got into power but I thought they'd try to get out of the "culture war" cycle and focus on the actual causes of so many problems but now they appear to be frothing at the mouth right-wing fanatics who seem desperate to help Reform win next time
