Renton

Am having some regrets about searching for this on my usual browser and the targeted ads I'm now getting. 🤬

Thank fuck I've done the essential shopping already for Wednesday night.

Were.

Guehi OG?

Why not? Benton Park View is relocating to Pilgrim Street. That will leave the land for prime residential development and give the city centre a much needed boost. Got to be a good thing. Speaking personally, I'd much rather work in Newcastle, travelling by metro, than have to drive to some soulless shit hole business park out of town. If you mean instead of working from home, then no, I'm not advocating this but it's obvious that for most white collar workers hybrid working is the future. I don't believe purely wfh is good for your mental health. As for online shopping, this also should be hybrid with buying online for some stuff but using physical shops for others, like clothes . Otherwise, what's the future here? Are you happy for our city centres just to become ghost towns like so many US CBDs have become? Surely what is needed is for urban centres to offer a mix of residence, work, retail and leisure and for the out of town shite to be done away with. It offers nothing.

Horrible what is happening to retail in this country, especially independent shops like this. I would bulldoze oot shopping centres, especially the Metro centre. There just isn't the retail capacity to support both Newcastle city centre and that American mall shite. Build houses there, consolidate Newcastle. Fix Eldon square and. Northumberland street which is a disgrace. Fix the Metro and get more working interchanges and park and rides which actually worked before the Tories destroyed it all with bus deregulation. Get office workers into the city. Some of this is happening but not the Metro centre bit. God I hate that place. As things stand I can see John Lewis and/or Fenwick going and then what's left?

So because there is a theoretical risk of coercion or because of the risk of "slippery slope" (a logical fallacy in itself) others should suffer a tortured undignified death, or be forced into suicide, alone? None of the arguments against assisted death stack up for me. It's all about others wanting control over your life, and death. Taking away your bodily autonomy. And 90% of the time this boils down to religion, with people desperately trying to hide this using a range of fallacious logical arguments that wouldn't be out of place in sixth form. My body, my mind, my choice thanks, end of. Also, nice to see parliament debate this respectfully and reach the right conclusion.

You've fucking done it now. MF: Hmmmmm. You going to Lower Hutt City mate?

He did both. Put his socks down the big to rinse them, then put them on. I mean, who hasn't?

Aye. Being a massive pedant, they went to war with us a decade ago, and we didn't realise or wake up in time. That was a colossal failure of normative politics in many countries. I wish they had declared it. Amazing how much damage this little insecure prick from St Petersburg has done to Western Europe, the US, and his own country in the time since.

Really sorry to hear about that Gloom. Every persons worst fear, worse than death itself, I don't know how you come back from that. Hope you can stay strong to help get them through this.

I'm as pro-European as anyone on this board. I had the EU flag in my profile before Rayvin joined. I always wanted full membership, the euro, and ultimately federalisation. But there is what I want, and there is reality. Look at the EU now and its constituent countries. Le Pen on the verge of becoming French Leader. A fascist in charge of Italy. AfD in Germany, with the powerhouse of Europe witnessing its industry collapse. Victor Orban. Right wing and nationalist parties rising everywhere in the continent, against a back drop of Trump and Putin. Theres's one hell of a lot wrong in Europe currently and for once the UK and its leader are not the issue here.

Absolutely. At least there's a good reason for them being fucked, at least normal people have benefitted. But its not affordable now. So you get Barnier in, and his choice is either economic collapse or (relative) enforced austerity and pension age significantly increasing. The French may well end up choosing Le Pen and the former. How will thate end up do you think? A big problem now I think is most the previous major players, the UK, Germany, France, Japan, are peripheral at best now and dwarfed by the US and China. Against that context, what do we do? Join a union is the obvious answer but honestly, the EU is looking weaker than ever and closer integration is not happening any time soon. If France defaults, it may be game over.

Naive if you think that is an easy solution imo. Economically, it makes absolute sense. Politically, it would be disastrous. And this is still us in our echo chamber, has anyone asked the EU? It is just about possible Trump may push opinion towards Europe out of necessity. But Europe is now riddled with the far right itself. There was an interesting episode of the News Agents today that talked about France being close to a sovereign debt crisis. If that happens, with Le Pen hovering over the trigger, we may not want to be that close to the EU at the moment.

I've mentioned Labour's comms are terrible. That is something I expect them to improve pretty quickly, certainly before next GE.

Who is? Let's say Burnham had the gig. The right wing press and social media would be equally if not more vitriolic and we'd have the same issues. It's they who set the narrative, and it works. Starmer's PM now, he is less than half a year into his tenure, and he is being crucified from all sides. Fortunately, I do think he's tough. He'll be PM for another 4 1/2 years save for some unforeseen catastrophe. Fuck knows what the World will look like by then though. With Starmer, I feel we have a safe pair of hands at the control. The main concerns I have now are external threats which as a small isolated country we aren't equipped to face. Not Starmer's fault, but I'd be happy for you to offer suggestions who could do a better job.

To add, if you want a precautionary tale about risk management, go no further than Truss. There are no easy solutions.

I'm not bothered about personalities. I do prefer normative politics. I trust professionals and experts. I distrust and usually dislike popularists. Some exceptions, Blair had a hint of popularism about him but importantly knew how to delegate and govern. Starmer is much less inspiring and is in much, much harder times both politically, economically, and security wise. Tough gig for anyone and possibly a doomed one. As for the Southgate analogy, who knows? Maybe England fans just over-rated the English players and he did as well as anyone could. Maybe we'll find out with Tuchel.

He's playing by the rules. He's technocratic. He's a bit grey. He's literally staying out the news and quietly governing. I don't mind this. Better that than a useless bombastic popularist like Johnson. I'm more than happy for politics to take a back seat after the last few years. Unfortunately, with Trump and the rise of the right elsewhere, this isn't happening.

I don't think I could disagree more. He's getting shit from all sides, he isn't reacting, and he isn't changing his policies. Cutting WFA was obviously going to be unpopular, but he's stuck with it. Putting inheritance tax on farmers? No, he's not rowing back. Ditto employer NI. I can't think of any reversals he's made or even him going back on anything that was in the manifesto. Even on the Brexit issue, he's quietly getting along with our European allies fostering closer cooperation. It's inevitably going to be a slow process. I'll add that the comparison with Chamberlain seems not only unfair but baseless. In what way are his actions similar?

Think they need two third super majorities? Like Brexit should have had.

Absolutely.

Rotorua, twinned with Penrith. Apparently its Lower Hutt city, next to Wellington. You'd think with sucha small population, the hobbits could sort their shit out.

Fancy this, what's it on again?

Fair enough. Given the next GE is probably further away tyhan the next US GE (if that happens), then I think the plan of getting all the shit stuff out at the start and relying on some form of economic recovery is reasonable. If it doesn't work, well, we are really fucked anyway I guess. I'd love to ignore the media (social and main stream) but it's hard to completely ignore. And I'm bored and want an argument.