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The thing with the trans issue is it’s another thing they’ve tried to weaponise to play to their base. Even in the wake of this, another entirely avoidable and entirely of their own making PR disaster. As seen by Badenoch’s comments, they just can’t help themselves in terms of trying to ‘win’. Even, as is clear in this case, when she’s being a massive hypocrite. Apart from the pathetic ploy of using something which can impact people’s lives negatively, it just shows how out of touch the government are. By that I mean, people don’t even fucking care. I don’t mean I don’t care about trans people. I was appalled by Brianna Ghey’s murder. But for most people not directly involved by it, the issues around the wider trans debate going on are fucking miles down the list of people’s priorities. The only reason the likes of Badenoch make such a priority of it is because they are so lacking in talent, compassion, a sense of public duty, empathy and practically anything you’d want in a politician. So all they have is using the culture war to play to the party members. Because all Badenoch, Braverman, McVey, etc want is power and to be party leader (certainly in the case of the first two). They’re ambitious sociopaths and nothing more. They’re not even very clever. They can’t even grasp that they’re going to be leading a party of 150 MPs (if they’re lucky) because they think this is more important than people being skint. It’s an insane state of affairs. Illustrated by the excerpt ewerk posted. I.e. they’ve ended with that little cunt as their PM. A bloke parachuted into no. 11 because (the then de facto leader of the country) Cummings thought he would be easy to control. A PM literally no one chose. Disliked by his own MPs and party membership. Who became an MP for something to do and so he could lobby on issues that were of personal financial benefit. I absolutely fucking despise them.

I wonder how much it'll hamper his pace short term on a scale of one to ten, (10: Being easily able to outpace Everton fans in a side street who have barricaded his car in to, 1: Not outpacing Everton fans who have barricaded his car in?

FYP

Seems to be what has happened is, Sunak is not very bright and we know he can't think on his feet. For whatever reason he makes his "quip", having not absorbed the fact Esther Ghey was in the room. Like all current tories, his natural reaction is to double down and not apologise, so he doesn't, in parliament. But apparently Downing street were going to issue an apology afterwards but then Badenoch doubled down further and they were too gutless to row back on this. Sunak is a political feather weight. In the olden days, PMs served an apprenticeship before getting the top job. Most had 30 years as an MP, 20 years as a minister (or shadow),10 years in caninet, 5 years as one or more of the great offices of state. Sunak? Wasn't an MP until 2015. As Alex says, promoted to chancellor as a useful idiot for Cummings. PM by default after the Truss disaster. And things aren't much better for his predecessors. Although I think this applies to Labour as well, the Front Bench seem much more competent to me and I crucially I believe their motivation is different. They aren't in it for personal gain as much. WHatever you think of him, I believe Starmer is a fundamentally decent person. Since Johnson's purge of the conservative party, you can count decnet tories on one hand.

Great post @Alex

For ‘Slipless in Settle’, Harry Pearson’s book about northern cricket. He used his dad’s definition of ‘the north’. I’m paraphrasing here but it’s a line starting at the Humber and going directly across the country to roughly where Southport is. He said it would come as a surprise to many that Geoff Boycott is not, therefore, from the north. But it provides the only reasonable explanation as to why the aforementioned cricketer is a Man Utd fan

I might genuinely read that and report back with any mentioned MLF influence

John Travolta accepted an invitation to be a guest at Italy's Sanremo song festival. John Travolta will be sacking his agent in the morning.

The 1980s are on line two…

Whilst he’s not charismatic in way Johnson, or Hitler, were charismatic, that’s fine by me. Most of actual, competent governance is dull as cloudy piss, so I’m fine with him being Burton For Men at the helm, we’ve got Rayner in the Mad Dog role to keep the morons entertained. Switching the country to a socialism based one , with nationalised utilities and services, properly funded , and proportional representation ( all of which is what most of us are after) can’t be done in his first term - it’ll need a softly-softly approach since decades of Tory rule has turned many in the electorate in to selfish cunts. He’s got a job on his hands tbh, to keep Labour in power long term, beyond his tenure and whoever comes next, but he’ll be well aware of that. Of course, I’m hugely pessimistic about that actually happening because selfish cunts will be selfish cunts and vote the Tory/Nazi party back in within 5 years.

It’s not a stance I really agree with but I think it basically boils down to this - Labour are so far ahead in the polls that they could be much braver. But when you are so far ahead in the polls what do you have to gain by being brave? I’m also willing to judge Starmer on what he actually does.

Bloke walks in to a bakery in Glasgow and says “ Is that a cream puff or a meringue?” Baker says ” No, you’re quite right, it’s a cream puff.”

Some guy on Australian MasterChef made a meringue and everyone gave him a round of applause. Which is odd as they usually boo meringue.

It's not unreasonable to say that Starmer is being disingenuous given the softly-softly approach he's taken to anti-trans people in his own party like Rosie Duffield, but that doesn't make Sunak's comment any less egregiously tone-deaf and it'd be madness to get in the way of something that can and should damage the party you're - supposedly - most trying to damage.

The video started again and I didn't even realise cos that's what it's like having to listen to this robot.

do you remember the blair/brown years? life in the uk then was pretty good. it's extraordinary that the left of the labour party refuse to acknowledge it. we can all agree blair's legacy is forever stained by iraq but he did what all successful politicians do - win power to improve people's lives. find a pragmatic way to make sure you're electable and speak to the floating voters who decide elections. corbyn was absolutely useless at this and he helped inflict misery on the country - an absolutely terrible politician.

Corbyn was an absolute disaster for the Labour party and the country. I blame him almost as much as Johnson and Cameron for where we are now. The useless cunt facilitated this shambles

The fact that every school text book had these doodles in it, and were never replaced - not because of funding but because they'd just be coloured in as well . The only thing missing from this to make it truly accurate is a speech bubble proclaiming something mildly homophobic, or (at least in my school) "I give sucky for chucky"

Exactly I used to get the Rugby Leaguer paper when I went to uni. A few lads would read it. When I got home I would pass it to my dad to read. He asked if I went to an asylum and not a university because of all the cocks drawn on it

What utter bullshit this is. If every criticism of Israel is anti-semitic then all Jews are responsible for Israel’s actions in Gaza. Neither is true of course and Israel really aren’t doing their image any good on the world stage.

The thing he’s got to make the norm is honesty - being able to say for example ” Yes, you’ll pay slightly more NI, but you’ll see the benefit of it in improved services , like getting your dentist appointment in the same year or having your fucking bin emptied once a week”, and not being torn to shreds for it. The three word catchphrases Tories fucking love can get in the same bin as well- treat people with a little respect and it’ll come back to you.

it's all they've got left: culture wars and [not] stopping the boats

Aye, maybe I’m being a touch over pessimistic there, but you know what I mean. They need PR in as soon as possible, to finish the Tories off as a ruling party for good. I’d fine with a Labour/ LibDem coalition if that’s what it took to get the country functioning for its citizens instead of the elite.

Radio 2 has had a few people on today who seemed to fit this description. Plenty on there that are framing it as it's a joke that Starmer doesn't know what defines a woman - not a remark on gender identity itself (therefore it's ok). None of these people can comprehend that making even a flippant remark like that in front of a mother who's just lost her trans daughter in the most horrific way imaginable is at the very least insanely insensitive and is still something he should hold his hands up and apologise for. They also think Starmer was wrong for pointing out how insensitive a comment it was. Whether you deem it transphobic or not is somewhat irrelevant IMO. It was a fucking horrible 'joke' to make in the circumstances and Starmer was morally in the right to highlight it. Some fucking right whoppers saying Starmer should apologise and not Sunak which is a fucking horrendous take.

I think there’s a tragedy to him that a lot of his policies were good. But he couldn’t bring himself to even play the game a little bit. I also think he lacked the intellect to see the bigger picture on foreign policy, where he was definitely quite 6th from politics. The antisemitism stuff was handled so badly to the point I think he’s antisemitic without probably realising that himself. You obviously need to get in to effect change but I do agree in part with your views on Starmer. Whilst also recognising his decency as a person imo anyway. But I’ve said on here before that if they don’t look at stuff like voting reform and rowing back the stuff of the last 13 years or whatever it’s been then we’re getting an even worse version of the right gaining power not too far down the line

Boris Fat Cunt won solely because of Corbyn IMO. The centrist fence sitters were never going to swing left for him, it really didn't matter what he did or said. Had Starmer been in post then, we'd have a labour government now, I reckon. Aye, the second the poor lass's dad commented on it it should have been a damage control apology, on the spot, without delay - not wheeling out an endless supply of detestable cunts to try and tell everyone that the thing they heard, and was explicitly clear in it's intention was actually not that at all. Not only does it make them look incompetent but it highlights how they view the voting public - as a bunch of thick plebs who'll buy anything their selling.

Been in Manchester for nearly 10 years, it’s a great place to live with generally decent (city/stockport fans) people. Still not sure I would count it as the “north”. People are just a little different the further north you go (better), but it’s not the midlands. The mancs don’t deserve being lumped in with those mutants.

from! FROM! As you'd expect things are flipped here, the south island is definitely the "north" of NZ

Stuff like this is why Keegan's loved as much as he is. Always talked the club up, always wanted the best, was a superstar of his time and was still a man of the people.