ml1dch

2 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

Wasn’t really sure where to put this, but the MP appears to have linked it to his pro Israeli views.

BBC

To state the obvious, violence and intimidation are absolutely not acceptable and they need to catch and convict people.

 

What I then think odd, is following an arson attack, he’s decided he can’t put himself or his family through the risk anymore, so he’s resigning… at some point 6 or 8 months off in the future.

Am I being super cynical?

As you say, threats and intimidation are A Very Bad Thing, and no MP of any flavour should have to deal with what he has had to deal with.

But no, cynicism is probably appropriate - he's currently expected to get around 28% of the vote at the next election, behind both the Labour AND Lib Dem candidates. I'd probably think that it was worth "taking the risk" for the next nine months or so of salary, and then choosing to not lose an election. 

On 27/09/2023 at 10:04, Wainy316 said:

Laurence Fox suspended from GB News for being a word removed beyond even their standards it seems.

And loses his counter-claim of defamation for being described as a racist. 

What a pity.

(now deleted post for reference)

It must be decades since we had an actual "McCarthyism was good and  right, it was all the fault of the lefty infiltrators" take.

40 minutes ago, Chindie said:

We can go back into the whys and wherefores of the issue, and trust me, you know, I know them. It doesn't change the fact that wrongdoing is happening, and someone stood up and pointed the court at it. And that's the entirety of my position.

I don't think anyone is really arguing contrary to that position. Perfectly sound, and it's definitely not a bad thing that this is being raised in The Hague, whoever is bringing the case. 

The problem was with South Africa being described as "a beacon of hope and morality". Which is nonsense. 

10 hours ago, Jareth said:

Anyone know what Starmer's doing ( the next PM).

Looks like yesterday he went on This Morning to talk about anti-social behaviour, then met with Holocaust and Srebrenica survivors for Holocaust Memorial Day today, the day before that he was in Milton Keynes talking about knife crime, day before in the Commons for PMQs.

Pretty normal LOTO stuff.

1 hour ago, Chindie said:

They're being thumped in the pools

No running / no diving / no heavy petting / no thumping etc. 

1 hour ago, Seat68 said:

It's safe, it's a comment on the democracy we have enjoyed electing the last few Prime Ministers. 

I was pretty confident that would be the case, mainly as @MakemineVanilla clearly isn't a massive wrong 'un.

Even so, I feel its still a fairly sensible policy to have.

31 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

 

That might be the most insightful video in the world, but without a sentence or two of context as to what it's about first, there's no way I'm corrupting my YouTube algorithm with the sort of video that a guy with a Union Jack in his title talking about "British Democracy" could potentially be.

Oh, "senior party figures" is Simon Clarke.

Imagine the state you've got yourself into for Simon Clarke to be someone whose opinions are considered important.

Tonight's "the polls will definitely close as we get closer to the election" news:

23 minutes ago, bickster said:

I was wrong about the polling not being done very often and you'll see the problem in these figures

12–15 Jan 2024	Deltapoll	N/A	2,136	46%	38%	15%	8%
11–12 Jan 2024	Omnisis	N/A	1,161	50%	33%	17%	17%
4–5 Jan 2024	Omnisis	N/A	1,226	48%	32%	20%	16%
2–3 Jan 2024	YouGov	N/A	2,016	51%	36%	13%	15%
28–30 Dec 2023	Omnisis	N/A	1,181	49%	33%	18%	16%
22–29 Dec 2023	Deltapoll	Daily Mirror	1,642	47%	39%	14%	8%
20–22 Dec 2023	Omnisis	N/A	1,177	48%	34%	18%	14%
14–15 Dec 2023	Omnisis	N/A	1,065	46%	34%	20%	12%
10–11 Dec 2023	Redfield & Wilton Strategies	UK in a Changing Europe	2,000	52%	40%	8%	12%
8–11 Dec 2023	Deltapoll	N/A	1,005	44%	41%	15%	3%
7–8 Dec 2023	Omnisis	N/A	1,201	46%	34%	20%	12%
1–4 Dec 2023	Deltapoll	N/A	1,000	45%	40%	15%	5%
30 Nov – 1 Dec 2023	Omnisis	N/A	1,123	46%	31%	23%	15%

Wiki has a page dedicated to it

End columns are Sample Size / Rejoin / Stay Out / Don't Know

Also, take a quick glance at the polling for "rejoin EU" and "rejoin EU if required to adopt the Euro" and they are wildly different.

The second of those points (whether we should / whether we would have to promise to / whether we actually would) is something with a lot of nuance - but you can bet now what the other side of any future "rejoin or not" campaign is going to be based around.

35 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Yes, I'm assuming the EU would allow us back in but I think it highly unlikely they wouldn't like us back, especially when we're not being run by a bunch of xenophobic arseholes.  We've still got the 6th largest economy in the world.  We would strengthen the EU immeasurably. 

And I don't at all buy that we can't have another referendum.   It's been 8 years since the referendum. I think a decade to reflect on what it's brought us is a reasonable length of time. Twice the term of a General Election. 

Nobody is disputing that they wouldn't welcome back a stable, united version of the UK back into the fold. And everything suggests that will happen within a couple of electoral cycles.

But they will take the current (massively imbalanced in their favour anyway) relationship over constant accession / secession talks with every new government who sees it as an easy wedge issue to squeeze an extra half dozen seats out of Lancashire and Cumbria.

And have whatever referendum you like. As long as you know what is in the Government's power to offer in the question that they ask. 

4 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Why could we absolutely not? 

Because it's not up the voters of the UK whether we are members or not. 

And while it is a subject that could be flipped every five years on the whim of an electorate that is happy to judge EU = good / bad as lazy shorthand for what they think of the Prime Minister of the day, they're comfortable leaving us to sort that shit out until there is consensus, one way or the other.

There is no "referendum to go back in". There is plausibly something like "general election manifesto commitment to negotiate accession terms, subject to future confirmatory referendum". Probably in six or eleven years time. 

Don't hold your breath, either way.

18 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Depends what you mean. We could have another referendum go back in. 

We absolutely could not.

On 20/01/2024 at 09:45, Chindie said:

Lost a Hackney council election handily. Safe seat, completely bungled it, Tories swept in.

Perhaps Starmer can be stopped.

It's a glorious mess of a seat. It's only happening due to the resignation of the former (Labour) councillor after he was pictured consoling another former (Labour) councillor after he'd been found with child porn (the latter has since been convicted of said offence).

Then the new Labour candidate goes on a big anti-trans rant online (not really popular with your average Labour council voter) so they suspend her. Then realise that there is no time to get a new candidate, so unsuspend her the day before the election.

So the other guy, (16 years of being a Lib Dem councillor in the same ward and appearing to know everyone) decides that he may as well now be a Tory, having previously been a Labour councillor on top of his Lib Dem history. He stands on a Tory "we hate ULEZ" campaign, sweeping up the dozen Tories in Hackney, all his Lib Dem mates from the last two decades he's been a councillor and all the Labour voters upset at all the stuff in the first two paragraphs. 

Lib Dems, who normally share the seat with Labour drop to 3% of the vote because the guy that the Lib Dem voters have liked for twenty years now wears a blue tie. Labour mired in every scandal possible.

Massive turnout too - 32% for a local council by-election, more than some parliamentary by-elections.

It's silly that Iannuci didn't follow up TTOI with a Vicar Of Dibley / Yes, Minister type crossover thing about local government. Absolutely mental stuff.

4 hours ago, Straggler said:

Yet to suggest reversing this decision despite it being proven beyond doubt to be based on lies, is still heresy in mainstream politics.

It's not heresy, it's just pointless to say it. Given it can't be "reversed" even if there were the political will to do so.

2 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

£100k each!!

I can really see the arguments from both sides to be fair.

Oh yes? Care to share the £169k per person arguments?

3 minutes ago, Genie said:

Versus about £100k if they stayed. 

They are staying. 

6 minutes ago, desensitized43 said:

Throbbers gonna throb.

The dead man walking has called a news conference sowe may get our wish 

No, it's just to whine at the House Of Lords not to change his silly Rwanda bill. 

If repeated at a General Election, would leave them on circa 30 seats.

7 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

**** me

Tory social media pricks: "is there any way that we could give him both a slightly cool anti-hero vibe while also using a slogan that makes him sound extremely competent at what he does?"