Rayvin

Steady on princess, you're officially on the left of me based on that conversation the other week. You came flying out of the blocks at Labour, I didn't.

Actually I'd find that quite interesting if you can be bothered, especially the trade union one. I'm genuinely always open to improving my outlook with relevant information.

I mean I was told on here for years in the run up to this that Labour were keeping their cards close to their chest, that they were saying what they had to do in order to win, but that them winning would be transformative. That they just said what they needed to say to win, but they'd do untold good once in power. I knew it was bollocks, so I'm not surprised and am actually judging them as fairly as I can do given that I never believed any of that shit to start with, but I think what the left are doing is making clear to people that this notion was a lie. Besides, you don't even care what the left are saying. They're holding power to account as best they can, just view them as a counter balance to the right wing noise. It's not hurting anything.

I do view it from the other side tbh as I said beforehand - if people like myself are literally never calling out for things we want, how is anyone to know that there is demand for it? I honestly don't see what the harm in people voicing their opinions is, especially now that Labour have won and you've got everything you wanted for the next few years. Tbh mate, you likely even agree with 99% of everything they believe in. So you don't even have a philosophical difference on this, we just have a situation where you've accepted that this is the best we can get, and they haven't.

I see you woke up on the wrong side of bed this morning. Back to the naive line again - for the record I've not once accepted that particular attribute, it seems to be something said by middle aged left leaning centrists to justify their jaded "best we can get" approach to politics. The fact that a lot of the things the 'naive left' want in this country seem to be implemented elsewhere in the world quite easily are of course just the exceptions that prove the rule. "We're a small c conservative country, it's not possible here, blah blah blah..."

I'm still reserving judgement. There have been things I've appreciated (strikes, quick handling of riots etc) and things I'm wary of (this does sound like the beginnings of a return to austerity to me) but I'm prepared to wait and see. I do wonder though, when in your mind is the right time for anyone of a left leaning persuasion to start making demands about what we want to see? It wasn't before the election because 'the priority was getting the Tories out' and it's not now either? I guarantee it won't be at the next GE either.

I just hope someone manages to find a way to peace somehow before it becomes a full scale regional war. I hope Harris has some ideas on this tbh, I suspect it'll be her main foreign relations focus in year 1.

I read wacky's comment first. Immediately fucking panicked. Laptop nearly went out the window. And then read up 3 comments and yep, classic TT bollocks. My heart doesn't need this shit ffs.

Musk's daughter has been amazing at taking him to task recently. They've been no contact for a few years since he decided that her being trans was bad for his image and started making all sorts of claims about her.

Critical thinking needs to be pushed in schools indeed, and some sort of civics course so that people understand the country they live in as a political entity, so they can understand what they're voting for. People need to have things like immigration explained to them while they're a captive audience, and not before the right has managed to get their tendrils into them. They can still choose to disagree with it after that of course, but at least they'd be doing so based on factual realities, and not hysteria.

With everything else going on in the world now, we really need Harris to win this. If we get Trump then I think the days of the US as the global superpower are done - power vacuums and regional splintering await.

Fox genuinely must be a complete idiot. Surely he could get done for that.

You were up there naturally, just needed some naive idealism and sixth form debate club approaches here and there to get you over the line For my two cents I actually think Labour are doing ok so far but I suspect my bar for them might be even lower than yours

Ewerk rapidly becoming my favourite poster here

The destruction of the Tories. The singular brexit benefit we have seen.

The more I see of Harris, the more impressed I am as she steps out of Biden's shadow. Trump losing to a woman of colour will be amazing either way, but the fact that she is clearly capable of being a very good president will also be a blessing.

Did he ever get to meet Trump in the end whilst on his pilgrimage?

My bad, it's difficult to tell on here sometimes. I remain fairly neutral on this personally as long as they actually reduce child poverty somehow.

Tbh I think NJS' post is plausible although I would argue that it's good politics by Starmer if so? If he has to make some pointless statement against the left to appease the brainless before enacting the policy further down the line anyway then tbh.. I'm ok with that. As long as the right thing gets done, I'm pretty relaxed on whatever bullshit has to be done to arrive at it.

What is it you think I'm arguing for? I tried to make my comment as neutral as possible because I don't actually know what Labour's proposed approach for dealing with this is. You've been a bit trigger happy on this one my old friend

What are the thoughts on the two child benefit cap issue? Seems to be a clear sign that Labour are going to stick to their promises to the letter and not surprise us. I've not seen any discussion around this issue beyond headlines in fairness so I assume Labour have an alternative approach to combat child poverty.

I think Biden was likely the most empowered of all non-directly affected international leaders, but I'm not saying I expected him to change it. I'm saying I expected him to call it out. Which he did - but if you remember I said very early on in that whole thing that for me, Biden had to either call for a ceasefire straight out of the gate, or back Israel to the end. If he just waited for the death toll to pass some arbitrary limit, I would be fucking pissed because it implies that he felt that an acceptable number of civilian casualties were worth it to allow Israel a revenge strike. His arbitrary number was 30,000 dead - here's the post I made back in November saying what my view was going to be on this:

Completely agree about those two but let's not pretend that we're above the same sort of behaviour. Russia will have been delighted to be able to characterise the US as morally inconsistent because of things like this. We can agree to disagree here honestly but I do expect more from the US than what they showed. It was actually the last Trump presidency that convinced me that for all they're annoying on the global scene, we really do need the US to be the leaders of the Western world. It's noticeable when they fall back. I do think in this case, they failed to show leadership.

As I've said before, I do actually understand why Israel responded in the way it did at a human level. I am not saying I wouldn't respond in the same way ultimately, but that is why justice in our societies is taken out of the hands of the victims. Because they are unlikely to take the 'right' and balanced course. Only in the international sphere do we seem to be unable to comprehend this. Which is why countries like the US, who claim to be friends to Israel, should have counselled them against perpetuating more grief, despair and death - which will impact both sides. China, Russia, France (3 UN Security Council members) on the 'for' list... I mean look at the 'against' list, it's US, Israel and no one else of any significance. The UN does indeed have no power to say anything about this but that's a goalpost shift. We were talking about international condemnation - I've evidenced it for you. Whether you accept that 121 counties against 14 at a UN vote 3 weeks after October 7th qualifies as the international community speaking out or not, it does for me. It's actually fairly elitist to suggest that the international community is only relevant as far as UNSC members tbh (and even then, the majority of the UNSC backed ceasefire). Take France here - do we think that they hate Israel? Or maybe Macron had the leadership to be able to see the clusterfuck for what it was going to become.

I'm not, I'm comparing the mental thought patterns that we seem fine to use for one and not the other. Also I'm not calling what Israel is doing a genocide, I'm still benefit of the doubt on it with my desperate hope that they are a country simply in a lot of pain that doesn't actually want to completely eradicate all Palestinians. Call it my naivety. I'm simply saying that given their actions radicalise more people to join Hamas, they aren't winning without a genocide. Some of the international community called it out immediately. A ceasefire was tabled at the UN in the same month it kicked off. 121 countries voted in favour of it. The UK "bravely" abstained, but the US voted against it with only 13 others. That was October 27th, 2023. The reason you think opinion shifted only recently is because the US finally accepted that it had a moral responsibility to fall in line with most of the rest of the world.