Renton

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.

Of course criticism is allowed. And yes the Labour comms have been awful, probably rusty after 15 years out of power (although if they had better comms with an Alistair Campbell type figure, well, we know how that would go down). But the agenda against Starmer's government - from both directions - is transparently obvious to me. Uising this case as an example, he can't win. NJS has already implied it is a deliberate plot from Starmer to purge the government of left leaning politicians. It's just fucking ridiculous. Of the issues listed, I have most sympathy for the 2 child cap on benefits, which is just wrong. But Labour were pretty clear on saying that before the elction, they weren't going to remove it on affordability issues. If they did it now, guess what, they will be attacked for not staying within their manifesto. Hopefully it will come at a later date. As for pensioners, there will be some genuine losers there. But the triple cap means they will still be better off. As for Bexit, well, if they get this much shit over Louise Haigh, what do you think will happen if he overtly moves towards the single market? Our politics are just not mature enough to handle it. As I've said countless time, the government need time and space, they're owed that much.

Yeah, this. Fucking life man. It's amazing what you can get for your money in Western Scotland though. Inmany ways the Lakes has more practical appeal but property there is sky high in comparison.

In a can't be arsed mood, which is most days nowadays. Spend far too much time doing unproductive stuff I shouldn't, one activity of which is just looking on Rightmove. Saw this property which would be just about feasible for me, in terms of costs. https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/145189766#/?channel=RES_BUY Then I realise know way could I be arsed to do the actual work involved with running an establishment like this. Looks lovely though, not far from Calgary beach which is as beautiful as it gets. Maybe just stick to plan B and buy somewhere smaller around here when I retire. Hope I can still walk by then. Sigh.

Looks like the right wing plan is working. They keep sniping away from the sidelines with this anti-Starmer narrative, and the left wing pick it up and back them up for their own reasons. I think this is a bit worse than she's claiming, the police don't prosecute for fraud unless she they think she did this willfully. Who knows what her disclosure to Starmer was before the election, and I am sure he had other distractions. Whilst there is some obvious double standards here with Starmer's government compared with Johnson's, for instance, Starmer is now in a situation where he is damned if he does, and damned if he doesn't. All this is driven from the righ with the tacit support of the left imo. Apparently we are told the government so far has been a disaster. Sorry, I don't see it personally, we're far too early to judge any outcomes yet. I don't think he's done a lot wrong, but then, I don't think that even matters to a lot of people.

Mind you, Rod Stewart agrees. (Sorry for the tweet)

✅ Gregg Wallace