Rayvin

It's nice that Ireland has a population of intelligent people who can make informed decisions. And the boomers will die eventually but they will still stitch us up man. There is no way through the smears, lies, untruths and fake news.

No, I think the left will never win anything. As I said in the post you quoted... So it's not so much a strategy as a determination to die on our feet. I have no optimism whatsoever about the left. It's just what I think will happen, not an insight into wider strategy. There is no strategy on the left. It's all wishful thinking, positivity and self delusion.

Yep. Even Hilary, at least, had "I'm a woman, it's my turn". It's not a strong message at all, but it probably energised a few brainless people. Biden has "I used to work for a black man".

Surely Bloomberg will drop out now. I'm not sure that the Democratic party will survive this shit in the long run though. There's just no compatibility between their left wing voters and their centre right wing voters. Why they should all be in the same party, I don't know. Why anyone expects the left to continue to tolerate failed centrist economic policies, I don't know. The left will never win anything, but i think its patience for propping up the centre may have come to an end across the board. Labour might get away with it because in fairness, even Starmer is pretty left wing. The democrat moderates aren't Starmers though. They're more like Johnson.

It looks to me as though Biden will win this now. As much as people can say that Warren is only harming Bernie by staying in (undeniably true), the same point could be made about Bloomberg. At least he's winning fairly. I hope he has something special up his sleeve to beat Trump because if he comes out like Clinton did he's going to be smashed like she was.

I think the problem might be that we're running out of time though. Late stage capitalism is destroying society and it's destroying the world. We don't really have the time to softly softly our way to global correction. Looks like Biden is going to be the lightning rod for the dropout centrists. Hopefully Bloomberg will stay in the game long enough to split that vote.

I was referring to the powers that be within centrist politics rather than voters tbf.

It's the same shit the world over. The centrists prefer rampant racism and regressive values to the prospect of paying higher tax.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/norway-sovereign-wealth-fund-gains-grows-billions-a9363801.html Norway's sovereign wealth fund made £140bn last year - the one they set up after investing their oil wealth into it for the public good. The thing we could have done if Thatcher hadn't been such a completely incompetent, greedy fucking cunt. It's worth £160,000 per every Norwegian person. Population wise, I'm sure it'd be much lower for us - not that I know how much our oil take versus theirs was - but assuming it's about the same, it'd be worth £2,500 per citizen of the UK. The positive impact that would have on public services man. £100bn of that straight into the NHS. If we'd had that, we could have been a bit more positive about leaving the EU. The Tories are nothing but fucking parasites. Not intelligent, not savvy, not anything other than greedy and selfish.

Fair enough then. Obviously we can't let the ECJ handle any disputes (for many well thought out and robust reasons), so that's presumably no deal for us.

Devil's advocate - have the EU actually done what he says? I actually think they might have. It's only recently that this stuff about the UK being different to Canada because it's 'a competitor on their doorstep' has entered the conversation. Now yes, obviously, we saw this coming - they have to protect their own interests, etc etc. Fine, no problem with that - but they have undeniably changed their position even so. Which is giving right wing rags like the Telegraph ammunition. I wonder if, by the end of this, the gutter press will have turned the whole country against the EU.

I haven't. I assume by unchained they mean full free market, zero regulations. Until someone rich needs help when it becomes socialism again. I hope Cummings is proud of himself if that's what he ushers in. Doesn't seem at all aligned with his espoused views.

But why do they want it so much. Seriously, apart from a few rich fucks shorting the pound, what tangible benefit does it have for anyone, anywhere?

I just read that he's threatening no deal by June if he doesn't get his way. Honestly I think the EU should walk away themselves.

It's about sovereignty mate. You wouldn't understand.

That's essentially how they pushed Farage to the fore. They've long established this precedent. We have to accept that being 'impartial' apparently means impartiality with respect of opinions, not facts.

I really think the BBC are just trying to avoid being smashed under the directive of Grand Overseer Cummings. As I've said previously though, they made their bed in the election and now they can fucking lie in it.

And they say cheaters never prosper. Not that we'll ever know for sure I guess.

Inevitably

If he has been doping, what happens? Will he be stripped of his medals? Presumably sponsorship too.

I'll be disappointed if Farah has been doping. It seems that the period of British overachievement in sport was all a lie tbh.

We have several mackems masquerading as NUFC fans on here so don't worry too much. It took us about a decade (seriously) to conclude that essembee wasn't one, and was in fact just a Newcastle fan who loves to hate Sunderland more than he hates to love Newcastle. Which, when the teams are reversed, would put him in good company in Sunderland - hence our confusion. So anyway, welcome to the board. For the sake of my sanity, please note that Linton isn't Joelinton's last name. His first name is Joelinton and that's just what everyone calls him. And he's genuinely a poor player. We don't understand why exactly but we gave him a decent chance on here for some time. Bruce has played him in every possible game he could have, and he's just horrific. It's sad, we don't know what happened to the lad but he's just shite. Maybe in the next game you can point out some of the useful stuff he does cos I'm struggling to see it myself.

So is this the point where, as it becomes increasingly clear that Bruce is not actually doing as well as Rafa, those who malign the latter start finding a new route to apportion blame away from Bruce (since the "he has more points than Rafa did" argument appears to be a bust). We're therefore left with "Rafa left him a shit bunch of players". Bruce is an absolute waste of space. That's not his fault, most of humanity are in that boat with him - but let's not pretend that he's in any way comparable to Rafa Benitez.

I believe in their rights, but they're not the only ones, or indeed the biggest group, under attack. Nor is the nature of the attack particularly devastating. Pragmatism. Stop being an ideological purist

This is a good point. Trans rights seems to be one of the most toxic and divisive discussions in play. It's such a tiny fucking niche area that any Labour leader should just go with the majority view on it and leave it there. Yes to trans people, no to bathroom sharing. I don't agree with that personally but this is not a battle we can afford. We couldn't even win the immigration battle ffs, let alone trans rights.