I've gone back and forth on whether to respond to this and I don't really want to start a long discussion but I don't want to leave this unanswered. 1. All I said is the statement was untrue, which it is. This response is totally over the top. 2. Your later claim that I "couldn't wait" to reply is also untrue. My view is that this thread should be closed and, while I still sometimes read it, for a variety of reasons I've recently made a decision to try not to post in it any more. You posted at 8:13 and at some point I saw what you'd said, rolled my eyes and moved on. Then gary appeared to take your post at face value and I felt I needed to say something. I deliberately kept the response short and simple because I'm not interested in getting into a discussion on the topic of Israel and Gaza. 3. As others have said, for some time this thread revolved around Os doing exactly what you've done here, with multiple people (including you) jumping all over most of his posts. His justifications were usually the same as yours "This may not actually be true but that doesn't matter because I'm making an important wider point." If you're going to give it out when someone posts false information, you also have to be prepared to take it. 4. I doubt you'll take any notice of this but I truly believe you need to have a long, hard think about your role as a moderator in this thread. Saying I'm despicable is a personal insult. Aside from being a completely inappropriate and over the top response to what I said, it's also against the rules of the thread. It's not the first time you've personally insulted someone in this thread either. You've banned people (both permanently and temporarily) from the thread for personal insults but that rule doesn't appear to apply to you and I have a real problem with that. I'll be frank. There are clearly political subjects you care about very much and it appears you get emotionally involved when they're discussed. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that but you're supposed to be a moderator and that role really requires a degree of balance and impartiality. Tom seems to do that reasonably well but I don't believe you're capable of fairly moderating this thread. It's certainly clear you can't abide by the rules of the thread yourself.
All that is fair comment. I have already apologised for the original post and accepted it was a mistake to post such an obvious falsehood. Now I must make an apology to you personally, my words in the post you quote are completely unacceptable, whether from a general member or, especially, from a moderator. I am so sorry for my immoderate language (pun intended). On your third point, I think you’ll find that Os never once accepted he/she was wrong, and never once offered an apology for any offence caused to another member. Finally, I have always tried to allow every shade of opinion to be expressed on this thread, subject to the general rules of the forum. I have defended people whose views are anathema to my own, because they have a right to those opinions. I have given temporary bans to people I mostly agree with, because they have broken the rules. That’s the job of being a moderator. If I sometimes overstep and allow my personal feelings to show though, I am afraid that is something I can’t do much about, except to try and minimise those occasions.
More fun and games at Reform. As I understand it from a different source, this guy reported the other two to the police.
While it is a true there is a racist element (minority) that is also pushing this, the majority has always been about the need to investigate those that allowed it to happen and the cover up. Even worse is the response from Labour and their supporters trying to deflect away from this by trying to paint it as solely a racist thing and also trying to point towards the Jay report as "this has already been investigated" when it was pointed out time and time again that this report did not investigate this issue other than being a "small" investigation into solely Rotherham. It was never an investigation into what turns out to be a national disgrace and not just a problem in one town! We then have all sorts of people over the media, both in the past administration and the current, and again their supporters trying to misrepresent data as showing that there was no over-representation of a certain demographic in relation to this particular type of crime. Not just of ethnicity but also that there was an over-representation of people who make their living in the night-time economy! You would think that people would learn that we can't brush off something like this as being racist which is surely the lesson that should have been learned when it was first exposed yet here we are in the present day with people still trying to utilise the "racism" retort in order to bat away what is a serious and disgusting episode in this country's history which is beyond believable. At last they gave in to there being a national inquiry! Against the wishes of some Councils! Against the refusal of Jess Philips who refused this request from Oldham in particular! Yet there are still rumours and rumblings, obviously leaked from within the circles of power that they are trying to steer it away from anything other than the perpetrators of the crimes! They are still playing word games to try and avoid investigating those that let it happen, let it continue and then tried to hide that they were complicit in this continuing! Is it something racists jump on as something to say "see, see" Yes of course it is......just as lots of people jump on the fact that a minority of those talking about this are racists, point at them and not the majority and say "see, see" but it needs to happen. Every single person in a position of power, that did nothing, that stayed silent should be investigated. There are plenty of people that have already disclosed that they raised the issue and were basically told to keep their mouths shut. There are fathers that were arrested and given restraining orders for the act of trying to rescue their own daughters after the police refused to do so. Do you really think that this should be ignored? Or should this government be forced to do what the last government was not and stop using a report into 1 local crime problem to ignore how widespread across the country it was and still is, and to detail just how many bystanders in local government, police right through to Whitehall were guilty of being complicit in letting more and more children be abused? We just might find out that this runs even deeper than we already know and it needs to be cleared up once and for all even if it means 10% of the police, local government, child welfare, social services and onward end up being sacked and brought to justice..............We're gonna need a few more prisons building but hey, in this country inquiries are made to last until half of those involved are dead anyway so they have at least 5 years to build them! Even this week Baroness Casey critiqued politicians and their useful idiots for misrepresenting her own words in response to ethnicity and race in relation to her mini audit on the issue! politicos need to stop playing games and dancing around these issues as they are either making the same mistakes of "not wanting to appear racist" or they are, even more sinisterly, using that as a way to deflect from investigations weeding out people all the way up the chain that are guilty of ignoring, scapegoating and covering things up!
With regards to No4, I have also said this many times but Chilco rarely get criticised because his political views are in tune with the majority on here. To his credit, he has apologised but the situation still exists and will continue to do so. You may say that if his moderation is acceptable to the majority, then what's the problem? The problem, is that it leads to actions that are not necessarily justified by the rules of the forum but influenced by a political viewpoint. That is perceived by the minority as unbalanced in the management of this board. None of you may be too bothered about this but some, including me, find unchecked abuse provocative and respond with equal aggression. The famous pile-on then ensues and the thread becomes a bad tempered, tit for tat exercise in point scoring. Something I admit to being part of but by no means am I alone in that. Although I think what I have posted needed to be said, I didn't really want to get involved in this spat. But the treatment of Osvaldorama has rankled me since he was banned. I don't believe for a minute that if his views and his style of posting was from the left, he would have been banned permanently. No one has been banned for "lowering the standard of debate" before. You have all played some part in his removal. It wasn't because he broke the rules, but because he didn't post what and how you wanted. He may have had an "in your face" style but, unable to cope with it or ignore it, you got him banned. Pretty shabby behaviour IMO.
Part of the EU rules is (was) about "state aid" not being allowed to be used in certain areas which is also to do with monopolisation rules and an unfair advantage that stops private companies being able to compete. While now we can see that they have changed their tune especially in the years after the financial crash, for years Germany were manipulating control of their postal system by selling shares to and from different (not government, honest guv) entities like KFW bank. This was well known and brought up around the time of Brexit but of course ignored because it didn't suit the argument that while we in Britain (for good or for bad) were happy to lap up these rules and privatise everything, Germany was not playing by the rules themselves and constantly propping up things by "buying shares" via "not government, honest guv" companies! It was also an argument about the Steel industry when Cameron was still in the gig about how we could not nationalise the steel industry and there was also pressure because of the "no state aid" rules on the UK government when this suggestion was brought up! The EUs idea behind these rules was all about bringing private money into nation states. i.e. gladly accepting investment from the US, Saudi and whoever else wanted to invest in the EU. Countries in the EU do all sorts of "rebates" and "buy shares" to get round these rules yet we stuck fast to them! Even when the financial crisis hit there was a lot of criticism from many many voices in the EU and their nation states about our government bailing out the banks as it contravened these rules however the reality is that it was less about the rules being broken and more to do with them seeing blood and wanting the city of London's share of the financial industry's pie.
Starmer does this all the time! Reeves does this all the time! They get called out on it all the time! They ignore it and repeat it. The media is not at all "keeping their powder dry" they spend a vast amount of article space and airtime calling it out and have done for years while they spend a lot less calling out the lies of the reds and blues especially whoever is in power. In fact the BBC are very happy to repeat things like the "e-gates" blag that Starmer and his team kept repeating despite it being pointed out over and over again that has nothing to do with the EU deal he had signed. Indeed the EU is wanting to bring it in for all non EU countries in October and that had been in the planning for a while but EU loving platforms and Labour fans on top were quite happy to play along and repeat it. And all of them repeated over and over again the "£22bn black hole" quote, even saying it was confirmed by the OBR, when the OBR itself said they hadn't confirmed it and indeed did not have a 22bn black hole anywhere in their reporting that Labour's bigwigs and fanboys kept on repeating. Was it 7bn the OBR had stated? This idea that in the media Farage gets away with it and others don't just suggests you do not read or watch any media that you suggest he gets a free ride from!
Yes he did break the rules with any number of denigrating insulting posts never mind the mis/disinformation and downright lies with racist overtones. He was and probably is elsewhere a trolling wumster unable to back up his bullshit.
I remembered this as being more about subsidising export prices being unfair One of the issues with us and the EU for me was that other members were adept at managing grey areas and we were black and white and then complained about rules we insisted on sticking to when others didn’t I wanted us to stay in and to cause ‘good trouble’ from within
Remembered which bit as "subsidising export prices?" The whole setup was initially (supposed to be) about stopping certain countries gaining competitive advantage over each other in their nation's "specialist" areas, yes..........as long as we're not talking French farming or German Car Manufacture which was of course ignored if not subsidised by the EU itself but then that was the whole reason for the setup of the EU (EU not EEC ) but that doesn't cover things like national railways or postal services which have no actual "export" effect. That was all about attracting outside of the EU money into the EU (mostly from countries those that support the EU moan about money coming from.) Thatcher had refused to privatise British Rail. It was the Pro EU lot under John Major that forced her to concede shortly before she got the boot and they who put it into action.............and they and everyone in power since was quite happy to take what was not a rigid EU rule to hide behind, both in terms of doing it and as a a reason why you could not re-nationalise it. From Wiki a shortened version: Thatcher always resisted rail privatisation and was said to have told Transport Secretary Nicholas Ridley “Railway privatisation will be the Waterloo of this government. Please never mention the railways to me again.” Shortly before her resignation, she accepted the arguments for privatising British Rail, which her successor John Major implemented in 1994. The Economist later considered the move to have been “a disaster”. The Pro EU mob in the house, which back then was mostly blue and less of the reds, have continued the "we can't do that because of the EU" on all sorts of issues, whether they are binding rules or not. Some things they truly couldn't without a comeback but others they were just happy to use it as an excuse. We have to remember that while we see politics as re-aligning in this era that it actually realigned in the UK on Blair's first majority. Before then The Labour was mostly split to say the least on the EU question and the Tories were mostly Pro (as they still were before and after the 2016 referendum.) Labour's conference pre the Maastricht vote was dominated by talk of a referendum with Tony Benn and others giving speeches on the subject but it was voted down, not because they were Pro EU, but because they were happy for the Tories to tear themselves apart on the EU question and were fearful that if they pushed for a referendum and it produced a "yes" result that would give Major and his party a boost. This was of course a time when the country was still reeling from the ERM withdrawal debacle. Labour became a Pro EU party when Blair came in with such a large majority that he could add 143 new MPs to his roster which was a 53% increase on the existing 273. Maastricht passed 292 - 112 in the house with Tories being whipped to vote for and Labour being whipped to abstain, however 40 Tories and 61 Labour ignored the whip and voted against. 4 years later and with the "New" Labour party numbers having the anti EU % watered down by the new arrivals of Blair's landslide Blair was happy to renege on the promises he made to get the Labour Leadership of "renationalising the railways" by being yet another to hide behind the EU excuse.
The full version is here. Its quite a good weekly sketch that Simon Carr does (ex Independent sketch writer): https://order-order.com/2025/06/18/angela-steps-up-while-starmer-takes-knee-abroad/
All this text and you are wrong within the first few lines. Jay did indeed investigate Rotherham. That is not the national enquiry, though. The national enquiry draws in evidence from across England and Wales. It is this: https://www.iicsa.org.uk/reports-recommendations/publications/inquiry/final-report.html “It draws on the Inquiry’s 15 investigations and 19 related investigation reports, the Interim Report of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse and 41 other Inquiry reports and publications.” Edit to reassert - This has NEVER not been happening. https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/iusburj/article/download/19721/25804/43747#:~:text=So%20the%20existence%20of%20prostitution,end%20after%20the%20Victorian%20era. Gangs have taken advantage of poor girls and used them for sex / prostitution forever. People seem a lot more bothered when brown people are doing it.
