Monday 23rd June 2025

[refitman]

Morning all.

[refitman]

[refitman]

Cuomo's losing in NY

[Sky'sGoneOut]

So they're going to ban Palestine Action over a bit of paint on some planes.

Imagine what this government would have done to the women at Greenham Common.

[Frog222]

Refit first post
From a look at the Liveblog .. Lammy and Luke Pollard both more circumspect than Starmer on 'support' and the legal case ?
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The article doesn't say what time in the evening Trump called Starmer to pressure him --

" At that point the deal was a simple trade-off that gave access for US beef to UK markets in return for limited access for UK high-end cars, steel and aluminium to America. And it was all due to be signed the following day.

But when the deal was presented to Trump for approval on May 7, he grilled the two men on whether it was really the best they could do — and how it could be improved.

They admitted that among other things they had not won concessions from the UK on ethanol, a key US export that was subject to 19 per cent tariffs. Trump said he would handle it.

Some 3,600 miles away in London, Starmer was settling down to watch the second leg of Arsenal’s Champions League semi-final against Paris Saint-Germain when Trump’s call came through the Downing Street switchboard. There was a deal to be done, Trump told him, but he needed more. "

https://archive.ph/Zewdb

SO, the deal was done, but not signed, and BullyBoy shows off to the world, at the expense of his Special Friend Starmer ...

[refitman]

So they're going to ban Palestine Action over a bit of paint on some planes.

Imagine what this government would have done to the women at Greenham Common.

Keir should have a word with this subversive Starmer fellow

[refitman]

Labour are properly fucking it

[Frog222]

Labour are properly fucking it

Yep, cack-handed they are !

WATO gave space to Farage's latest wheeze towards the end, neatly disembowelled by Dan Neidl

Chomsky was led down the garden path by Russian Disinfo on Ukraine, but he's on the ball here , at 9.20 --
" That was Noam Chomsky calm clear factual, now for contrast we have Nigel Farage .... "

[Frog222]

Everyday street scenes in Kyiv

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Labour are properly fucking it

It's awful being right sometimes, especially when you can take absolutely no pleasure in gloating about it.

Everything we warned about is coming to pass. Punching down at those least able to defend themselves, authoritarianism, pandering to the right. As the Cylons said in the Battlestar Galactica reboot, 'All of this has happened before and will happen again.' But on this occasion a pop Sci-fi reference doesn't quite cut it. The parallels with nu-Labour are evident but there are also stark differences. Despite his Iraq war antics Blair never polled as poorly as Starmer, neither did Brown. In fact polling even now puts both of them ahead of Starmer even amongst Labour voters. It also has to be remembered that Blair faced an eviscerated Tory party much as it is now, but there was no other threat from the right, the biggest beneficiaries of discontent were the Lib Dems. In short Blair faced a political landscape that was positively benign compared to that facing his counterpart today which (before I bore on for any longer) leads me to my point/question.

Why can't Labour's supposedly brilliant strategists see that they exist in a political environment wholly different to that which existed 20 years ago? It was fine for Blair to fuck off the left because frankly he didn't need them. Starmer is a million miles away from having that luxury. All we're told is they believe that faced with a Reform victory enough people will hold their noses and vote Labour again to keep out Farage. Really? Take the disability benefit cuts, by the time of the next election 1.5 million people will have been (at best) forced into poverty, many losing their homes, their carers, and their ability to live independent lives. How many of them will feel like they've got anything left to lose? What fucking difference does it make who is running the country if you've just been dumped in the bin to rot by the party who at least used to pretend they cared. How many 'hero voters' on the right is it going to take to counteract fucking off just about every even nominally left wing cause from Palestinian Action to the fucking RSPB? Who exactly do they think they're appealing to?

After almost 30 years of following politics for the first time I'm genuinely concerned about not just the abject state of our government but what their smug ineptitude could unleash once they're gone.