Saturday 8th & Sunday 9th November 2025

[refitman]

Morning all.

[refitman]

I remember when he was just the affable sidekick in Lewis

[Frog222]

I remember when he was just the affable sidekick in Lewis

I liked the bit about the London Mayoral election , where Fox as the Reclaim Party with Reform standing aside for him, received £1000,000 in "cash and services" from his donor Jeremy Hosking , and got 1.9% of the votes .

I wonder who is now funding his war against political correctness and er general living expenses ?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Fox

[refitman]

It insane that (a) he thinks this is a good look and (b) his aides allow him to go out like this.

[Frog222]

I scrolled down a bit to see if it was a fake ...

I wonder why his staff and family let him go out like that , FFS ?




Niece Mary on her dreadful grandfather and his favourite spawn -

Asked if she saw signs of anger and lashing out, as exhibited by her grandfather, in her uncle, Mary Trump said: “It's so hard to say because Donald has always been paranoid and vindictive and angry.

“… There are looks of confusion on his face at times, which are very reminiscent of when we would be out in public with my grandfather, for example … and he would get this startled like a deer in the headlights look. Like, 'Where am I? Who are these people? I don't want to be here.’"

"I see that in Donald's eyes sometimes.”

https://www.rawstory.com/mary-trump-2673966116/

[Frog222]

Mary Trump, fascinating, good value !

Fred Trump, in his late 70's early 80's, bought a toupée which he dyed .

Several times he got it wrong would dye his moustache and not the wig , or vice versa...

DJT -- Increasingly disinhibited, sweary, insulting, ugh !

[Frog222]

Plenty of good posts after the Stephen Bush one, and the usual whinge that no-one posts a link to get behind the paywall !



The 'climate of fear' begins with Mc and ends with Sweeney ?

Back to the top two lines, you can have lots of 'knowledge' about parts of economics, look at Reeves' paper qualifications, tho to be snide there wasn't much academic stuff going on in the HBOS mortgage claims dept .

I aim more at the 'lack of interest in economics' angle, and there you come up against the Starmer lack of curiosity . The closed-mindedness of the creature .

So he appears unaware of people selling him snake-oil , whether it's a a magical 'Growth' economic solution (somehow) , and the accompanying Solution from Peter Thiel on AI and the Giga data-centres .

Whoops .

[gilsey]

Plenty of good posts after the Stephen Bush one, and the usual whinge that no-one posts a link to get behind the paywall !

https://archive.ph/q3q7p

Archive doesn't work reliably on the FT now but got this one.


Very much agree with you about Starmer's lack of intellectual curiosity, particularly re economics.

[Frog222]

Plenty of good posts after the Stephen Bush one, and the usual whinge that no-one posts a link to get behind the paywall !

https://archive.ph/q3q7p

Archive doesn't work reliably on the FT now but got this one.
Very much agree with you about Starmer's lack of intellectual curiosity, particularly re economics.

Oliver Eagleton's The Starmer Project is in the jumble of my kitchen/living space bookshelf.
I got it when it came out, after reading a precursor Novara article . One of the hour-long youtubes on it was Aaron Bastani with Len McCluskey, when the latter said -- "He's very much a ^process person' " .
Concentrating on the 'How' while neglecting the 'Why' perhaps ?

One thing that stuck with me was his deep commitment to pleasing the US, Holden in particular, over the two major extraditions cases .

Much later he secretly joined the Trilateral Commission while being shadow minister in the Corbyn Opposition . ( I don't know how 'secret' it was, to be checked ...)

[Frog222]

Then you have the Dark Money financing his leadership campaign, and much more !

Two years' old , actually a Novara article, with interesting comments too --

The corruption behind Starmer’s rise has finally been exposed
Sat 18 Nov 2023

" As the prospect of Starmer in Downing Street draws closer, the political provenance of Starmer and Starmerism becomes an urgent matter of national public interest. It’s heartening to note that more books and articles are in the pipeline.

Oliver Eagleton’s under-noticed book The Starmer Project confirms that, however bad you may think Starmer, he is far worse. There is plenty of evidence that Starmer is an establishment servant and autocrat, utterly obsequious to state power, and a proven, brazen liar. "

https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk ... n-exposed/
----------------------------------------------------------

Now that Starmer is under attack from so many sides, who is gaining from it ?

Let's assume there is real turmoil in the LP, there will be even more public dissatisfaction and distrust which would suit the New Right.
And incidentally Moscow too .

[Frog222]

Leaving this here , gotta get outside for some fresh air, before the rain --

Pat McFadden: The silent welfare disease is crippling a generation
The work and pensions secretary says rising youth unemployment and illness has led to a ‘crisis of opportunity’ that’s harming Britain
https://archive.ph/H21K5

The name Milburn struck me , supposed to do an 'independent' report --

Last year, the health secretary Wes Streeting appointed Alan Milburn, who served in the same role under Tony Blair’s Labour government, as a key advisor.

The appointment was controversial because Milburn has earned millions in dividends advising private healthcare companies through his family consultancy firm since leaving office.

Now, Milburn has suggested that for-profit companies should play a greater role in the NHS in comments made to the Health Foundation podcast.

https://everydoctor.org.uk/talking-poin ... aying-now/

[refitman]

Oh look, the right have their poppy day outrage.

[Frog222]

Oh look, the right have their poppy day outrage.

SHAME that he 'overlooked' it too !

[Sky'sGoneOut]

As I previously mentioned I hung around up at my Dad's last week because he had a stinking cold and despite his protestations could clearly do with a hand. Having just had a shitty cold and sinus infection myself a month ago I confidently assumed I'd be immune. Nope. Sniff.

Anyway I monitor and occasionally post on the benefits advice forums on Reddit and while the Guardian have been absolutely right to highlight the clusterfuck the government/HMRC have made with child benefit and going abroad another issue has begun appearing in the last couple of weeks which I'm sure will receive the same level of attention.

This is one of a lot of similar posts which have begun to appear:

Hi, quick summary of situation; partner is trans (FTM) and for a good long while now he's had UC use the correct pronouns both in person and on the paperwork. We had little to no problem getting this set up, happy days.

As of about a month or two ago this has changed from male to female titles, pronouns, etc and nobody authorised or notified him of this. Mr has been changed to Miss on all the paperwork from them and when we go the office they constantly misgender him to his face. When we ask UC on the journal what the deal with this is they say it has something to do with his national insurance number and then they give us a phone call to make to a different department to change it ourselves.

We're both a little stunned and confused over this. Years of getting along fine and then all of a sudden back to square 1, no explaination, sort it out yourself? Whats going on here?

They all say the same thing. No bother for many years, in some cases for more than a decade, then in the last month there's been a shift and despite having Gender Recognition Certificates and having changed their names by deed poll the DWP have decided to forgo their previous civility and act like cunts.