Saturday 25th & Sunday 26th November 2023

[refitman]

Morning all

[gilsey]

Good morning.


Oh look, Labour are disappointing us again.

[gilsey]

Peter Apps
@PeteApps
"A senior source in the Labour leader's office stressed that Labour's fiscal rules were more important than any policy."

We are not being given the chance to vote for investment, only who can better manage underinvestment.


Remember, the state built social housing, the NHS, the education system and the infrastructure for heating, electricity and much more when it was much poorer. The thing that has changed is ecomomic theory. A democracy should offer the choice to vote for a different one.


I did think at the time left wing commentators cheering on the response of international financial markets to the mini-budget was a mistake. If the alternative is endless fiscal rules to keep the credit markets happy, we'll never again see the proper public investment we need

[AnatolyKasparov]

Now denied (albeit by another unnamed Labour "source")

The person who started this running does sound remarkably like the "source" who sounds off about how "Starmer must sack Ed Miliband" every few weeks.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Anyone else got ice? My birdbath is frozen and there's still crunchy frost where the sun hasn't got to it. Looks like Winter has arrived a little early.

[frog222]

Anyone else got ice? My birdbath is frozen and there's still crunchy frost where the sun hasn't got to it. Looks like Winter has arrived a little early.

Minus 3 this morning, and cold for ten days with too much intermittent rain tho !

Nasty nugget from this article --

Of the estimated 370,000 people who will be affected by the planned reforms, just 10,000 (2.7 per cent) are expected to move into work, while the overwhelming majority are expected to remain on benefits, reduced by £390 a month.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/who- ... -5qnmxxhck

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Nasty nugget from this article --

Of the estimated 370,000 people who will be affected by the planned reforms, just 10,000 (2.7 per cent) are expected to move into work, while the overwhelming majority are expected to remain on benefits, reduced by £390 a month.

The reforms the Tories are proposing mean the vast majority of those will be people with mental health problems.

In the meantime what the Conservatives appear to be offering existing claimants is an amnesty from reassessment until the WCA is finally scrapped around 2028/29 at which point everyone will have been moved to UC and sickness benefits will effectively cease to exist. It's a bit more complicated than that but I don't want to bore everyone with the details.

Unbelievably this is resulting in sick and disabled people talking about voting Tory because at least they'll be safe for the next couple years and they regard Reeves and Kendall to be a bigger threat to their benefits. I cannot stress how much those two are loathed by disabled claimants. Some of what I'm reading is pretty ugly if I'm honest but it's driven by fear. Fear of Labour's past record, and fear of some of the horrendous things Reeves has said and continues to say. She was at it again in her response to the Autumn statement.

Personally it seems mad to me to vote for what is effectively a brief stay of execution but I don't blame others for being less than enamoured by what Labour is offering, which appears to be little more than pandering to the right and reminding people how fucking awful they were last time they were let anywhere near the benefit system.

[gilsey]

Anyone else got ice? My birdbath is frozen and there's still crunchy frost where the sun hasn't got to it. Looks like Winter has arrived a little early.

A bit icy here this am, and we had a few minutes of snow.

[AnatolyKasparov]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/who- ... -5qnmxxhck

Paywall, aargh.

[refitman]

Sounds like Dr Who is worth watching on catchup

[frog222]

Good Times one, including reporting from inside Gaza

" Despite the fear of repression by Hamas, thousands of mainly young people marched in Gaza this summer to demand better living conditions, including jobs, electricity and water.
A widely cited poll published in September by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research showed Haniyeh would win in a presidential election in Gaza — albeit one with a low turnout — if he stood against Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, who controls the West Bank and is also seen as corrupt and hopeless.
But if Haniyeh stood against Marwan Barghouti, another opposition politician, who is currently serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison for murder, he would lose, with 37 per cent to Barghouti’s 60 per cent."

https://archive.is/28tSm#selection-3685.0-3707.215

[frog222]

[refitman]

Ooh, some good news from Labour?

[refitman]

[refitman]

We'll just add cooking to the list of things right-wingers can't do

[frog222]

This year, as usual, French income tax thresholds have been increased to compensate for INFLATION

4.8% for 2023 .

" Dinosaurs ruled the earth ", but NOW Laura Trott is Chief Sec to the Treasury , so they're back in human form ?????????

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH !

[refitman]

RIP El Tel
Terry Venables dies: Former England manager passes away aged 80 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/67536465

[AnatolyKasparov]

Ooh, some good news from Labour?

Except that I don't think Labour actually has an "approved candidates list" any more?

[refitman]

Ooh, some good news from Labour?

Except that I don't think Labour actually has an "approved candidates list" any more?

Don't care. Bigots should have no place in the party. Given all the other shit she's done (cheating on her husband, breaking lockdown to do it, being completely AWOL in her constituency), she should have been shit-canned a long, long time ago.

[AnatolyKasparov]

My point is that the story might be complete rubbish, unfortunately from the viewpoint of those like yourself.

[refitman]

Hmmm...

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Hasn't David Baddiel always been a dick though? Who cares what the fuck he thinks? He even managed to come across like a self important arsehole when he was on Taskmaster for fucks sake. The Syd Little of the Mary Whitehouse Experience.

[frog222]

Very funny refit -- antisemitism being equated with criticism of Israel ...

[frog222]

The FLK was originally "Front Line Kitchen"

Most interesting on Ukrainian "corruption" and civil society

[Sky'sGoneOut]

The thing about Eddie Izzard's statement is 'it depends'.

Ernst Röhm, for example, leader of Hitler's stormtroopers was openly gay but fell foul of his own hubris thinking he was untouchable only to find out he wasn't. The Nazis like any organisation had gay and trans members and rumours abound, much like the Romans, about their sexual proclivities and choice of gender and dress when in private. One would imagine his execution sent a chill down the spine of every gay/trans/transvestite Nazi but they kept on going sieg heiling to the Fuhrer.

We on the left like to think all those in the persecuted groups we champion are sympathetic to our cause. When in fact they're as diverse a community as any other, be it Nazis, gays, trans, disabled.

Eddie Izzard would undoubtedly have been killed by the Nazis but many others like him were sympathetic to their ideas and smart enough to survive.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Sounds like Dr Who is worth watching on catchup

It's always amusing to hear the right attack Doctor Who or Star Trek for being 'woke' when that's what they've been for more than 50 years.

There's been a lot of talk of Star Trek having the first lesbian kiss but what about the first sentient AI pet with a laser in his nose? K9 was awesome.

[refitman]

Yes, but the thing that all the weird terfs completely disregard is that one of the earliest things the Nazis did was ransack the Institute of Sexology and burn all the research they deemed 'degenerate', which are generally the photos you see of books being burned. The Holocaust Memorial has an article on it - https://www.hmd.org.uk/resource/6-may-1 ... -sexology/

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Yes, but the thing that all the weird terfs completely disregard is that one of the earliest things the Nazis did was ransack the Institute of Sexology and burn all the research they deemed 'degenerate', which are generally the photos you see of books being burned. The Holocaust Memorial has an article on it - https://www.hmd.org.uk/resource/6-may-1 ... -sexology/

Yes of course they did, and much more besides, they went through every art gallery in Germany removing any painting they regarded to be impure then stored the offending articles to be sold or stashed them in Swiss bank vaults away from Donald Sutherland on a tank pretending to be a hippie.

All I'm saying is we assume we speak for the people we sympathise with, and from what I've seen amongst disability benefit claimants that's not always the case. some of them are right wing jerks.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

And similarly with gender politics there's a wide range of views and you know mine. There needs to be a genuine conversation in which both sides feel represented and a compromise reached.

Aren't we supposed to be rational?

[frog222]

Meanwhile Putin is doing his Imperial Russia thing while Western Wankers like Biden and Sunak basically leave him alone

[frog222]

And similarly with gender politics there's a wide range of views and you know mine. There needs to be a genuine conversation in which both sides feel represented and a compromise reached.
Aren't we supposed to be rational?

One of those debates I know buggerall about

(dob1947 btw...)

and am most happy not to be involved in !

I leave it to younger members to sort it all out .

[Sky'sGoneOut]

And could I just ask if nobody could use the term 'terf' anymore.

There are women on this forum who have spent their entire lives fighting against sexism.

I don't dare to speak for them but could we just settle down please?

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Anyway.

[refitman]

And could I just ask if nobody could use the term 'terf' anymore.

There are women on this forum who have spent their entire lives fighting against sexism.

I don't dare to speak for them but could we just settle down please?

I'll be honest, I have trouble seeing the compromise between "I just want to live my life" and "we should actively be reducing the number of people who transition because every trans person poses a problem to a sane world."*.

Also, 'terf' is their self described term. The bigots just get angry when it's used against them.

*The words of Helen Joyce, friend of Rowling, Parker et al

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Some of those bigots are my friends.