Afternoon music
On the blog 3 years ago
I think that that blog post stands up well, three years on; not in all details (I overestimated the speed of Russian advances in Ukraine), but overall.
On the blog 2 years ago
On the blog 1 year ago
Tweets seen
They really are a horrible tribe.
…and the criminal arrested was…African…
Migration invasion…
Get rid of them, either by dumping them in North Africa or by just eliminating them. Sterilization is vital, in the meantime.
Never had a non-political job. Is not qualified for any profession. Has no background in economics beyond her back-of-postcard PPE degree from Oxford. Member of Labour Friends of Israel. Believed to be or have been involved with lobby activities on behalf of China.
A stupid drunken moneygrubber, in short.
[“Congratulations to everyone celebrating the end of the triple lock.
You won nothing.
You will be pensioners one day. Many of you will be renting in retirement. Your private pension won’t touch what today’s pensioners have.
Cutting the triple lock doesn’t hurt today’s pensioners much. It hits you. Compounding, year after year, until you retire into a system even more inadequate than the one we have now.
As Sam Coates explains here, you just cheered for your own poorer retirement.
Own goal.“]
Exactly right.
The same is true of cuts to social security/”welfare”, in most cases.
Thoughts out of season
In my view, taking the electorate overall, the voters knew what they were doing in 2024. They were binning the Conservative Party. What were were not doing, in intention, or primarily, was voting for a Starmer-Labour government (which has now become a Burnham-Labour government).
In 2024, the only way to bin the Conservatives led by little Indian money-juggler, Sunak, was to vote against the Conservative candidates. In some constituencies that meant voting Labour, in others for Reform, in yet others LibDem or even Green.
As frequently blogged about over the past 2.5 years, out of every 20 people eligible to vote, 8 did not vote at all, 4 voted Labour, 3 voted Conservative, 2 voted Reform, 2 voted LibDem, and 1 voted Green.
Rough figures, obviously. Reform scored about 600,000 more votes than the LibDems, even though the latter ended up with 72 MPs, and Reform only 6, by reason of the absurd voting system in the UK. Likewise, the Greens did not get anywhere near 1 out of 20 potential votes (or 1 out of every 12 cast), but closer to half a vote out of every 20.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_Kingdom_general_election#Full_results
In short, Starmer-stein had no real mandate. Only 4 out of 12 actual voters voted Labour; 4 out of every 20 potential/eligible voters.
Even if you take it in terms of those that actually voted, Labour was only voted for by about a third of those who voted.
Burnham may be marginally more popular than Starmer-stein, but not much more.
Nature abhors a vacuum. The Cons were binned by the voters mostly voting elsewhere, or abstaining. Labour will probably go the same way. However, Reform is so underwhelming (pro-finance-capitalism, pro-Jewish lobby, pro-Israel) that its ceiling is probably, at highest, 35%, and its popularity presently stands somewhere around 25%.
What matters is not just Reform UK’s popularity, but the unpopularity of, in particular, Labour. I think that most people who want rid of Labour will vote Reform (if they are anti-immigration), or LibDem/Green if they are not very anti-immigration and/or want to rejoin the EU.
How high can Labour’s polling go? It could get up to 30%, but it may well stick, in the end, say next year, around 25%. Hard to see it going as high as 35%.
More tweets
Underwhelming…yes. Unlikely to really be able to do what is necessary…yes. However, much better than LibLabCon…also yes.
I think a majority or at least plurality of voters will take the same view.
Britain in 2026…
“A heavily pregnant woman has been left homeless after a council that houses more than 3,500 migrants refused her emergency accommodation, a charity says.
Homeless Project Scotland posted on Facebook claiming the 34-week-pregnant woman, who said she had fled an abusive relationship inΒ London, was snubbed by Glasgow City Council.
The charity’s chief executive Colin McInnes described her plight as one of the most ‘horrific’ he had seen.“
The charity’s chief executive and co-founder described how staff there called the council’s social services helpline and a taxi was sent to collect the woman.
But she was later returned to the night shelter in a taxi after what Mr McInnes described as a ‘four-hour interrogation’.
He said: ‘I explained the situation that there is no way that this lady should obviously be in our shelter β we are at full capacity and this woman cannot sleep on the streets.
‘They told me, “Unfortunately this lady isΒ going to have to sleep on the streets because we wonβt be accommodating her.
At that point, I said the rights of every child is important and this child needs to be protected with its mother and the words that the woman on phone said to me and I quote, “An unborn child does not have rights”.’
Mr McInnes said the woman then spent the night sleeping on a mattress on the night shelter’s floor before leaving for the streets the following morning.Β
But volunteers later found her and directed her back to social services, he added.
Mr McInnes said: ‘This is not how we behave in the United Kingdom and certainly not how we behave in Scotland that we would leave women who are 34 weeks pregnant lying in the streets.’
Michael Robinson, executive director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children,Β said: ‘Whatever happened to the SNPβs compassionate society?
‘This is a truly chilling and callous response to the plight of a heavily pregnant woman and her unborn baby.’“
[Daily Mail]
Late tweets
[“The President also reminded that Russia did not start the war in Ukraine, and linked the collapse of the USSR to the naivety of Soviet leaders who tried to please the West, which in turn was only pursuing its own interests. At the same time, the Russian leader noted that “we experienced the collapse of the state system, which was a real tragedy for tens of millions of people.”
Following this, Putin again emphasized the risks:
“The moment when nothing can be changed may come very quickly and unexpectedly for everyone… […] A policy of escalating hostilities and sanctions is never one-sided; destructive actions by one side are always followed by a response from the other…”
The President of Russia also stressed that “armed conflicts, unfortunately, exist and will exist; they are an integral part of human existence,” and that now it is necessary to raise the issue of the rules of conducting such conflicts.“]
Most are not even European, let alone “French”. Shoot them down in the streets.
Bizarre.
Spectacular.
It never had them in the first place, not even in the 1990s.
Late music
