Something for those that think rail workers strikes aren't necessary.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...e-years-a-striking-rmt-train-guard-speaks-out
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...e-years-a-striking-rmt-train-guard-speaks-out
Off Topic Politics Thread
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So `Baroness` Mone has taken leave of absence to concentrate on clearing her name. Surely if she is innocent, then she would tell her accusers to provide the evidence or shut up or I`ll see you in court. And what`s the mechanism for `taking leave of absence` - or is it a case of just showing up when she feels like it ? Corruption, cronyism and nepotism at play here. Cameron has a lot to answer for in this case. Starmer has gone up in my estimation by his declaring his intention to get rid of the HoL as it is at present, although that will be easier said than done.
Just had a chance to read through yesterday's comments. I'm sure you are right that given their usual attitude to nationalised industries the Tories do underfund them. But I think there is more to it than that. In my admittedly limited experience those companies become top heavy and money wasted becomes almost accepted or at least unquestioned. I stand to be corrected but I can't think of many efficient publicly owned companies when they were numerous. Waste should obviously be kept to a minimum but I've always felt that nationalised industries should be about keeping people employed as well as an affordable product. As most of us know, water was once free or at least paid for out of the rates and for such an important commodity there is a strong argument for returning to that. Wishful thinking I know but no one should ever have their water cut off for not paying the bill.
With regards to nationalised industries making money for the country, I would suggest that if they make a profit they are charging more than they need to or not paying their staff enough.
Any profits should be distributed as a bonus and/or invested in improvements. I can't see any other way of attracting and motivating staff then better pay and conditions.
Local politics but what is the likely impact of Solent Freeport?
South Today in its balanced capacity was basically noshing off Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives in its coverage ‘This is Rishi Sunaks pet project since growing up in the city and it is likely to lead to prosperity’.
Is this likely to have a significantly positive impact or will it just be a tax dodge?
South Today in its balanced capacity was basically noshing off Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives in its coverage ‘This is Rishi Sunaks pet project since growing up in the city and it is likely to lead to prosperity’.
Is this likely to have a significantly positive impact or will it just be a tax dodge?
I think, I might be wrong, that there is a law that prevents water from being cut off.
If that is true, then those feeling the pinch know where to save a few quid.
Just seen on the news about the arrests in Germany, where it was thought that right wingers were plotting a coup!!!
WTAF!
A right wing coup couldn’t happen in the UK as it has already happened, with the current government being the most extreme we have ever had.
Link to the German coup arrests.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63885028
WTAF!
A right wing coup couldn’t happen in the UK as it has already happened, with the current government being the most extreme we have ever had.
Link to the German coup arrests.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63885028
The current Tory government isn't even remotely right-wing enough for these sorts. They want an end to democracy. It's only going to get worse.
Also notable:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/07/world/europe/germany-coup-arrests.html
QAnon/Sovereign Citizen nonsense has been exported from the US, and has now become the dominant ideology of extreme right-wing reactionaries throughout North America and Europe. It's why I keep pointing out this stuff: these lunatics aren't merely fringe weirdos, they are fringe weirdos that want to spill blood for their cause. And historically, those people are extraordinarily dangerous even when they are a small minority.
It is intriguing how this story has gone from Chinese whispers to looking like some serious wrong-doing. I have always said that the fall-out from the measures implemented during the pandemic would result in criminal convictions and there is a whiff that this could be quite serious. Not surprised that Hancock is quitting politics before the police come after him too. I feel that the consequences of the contracts that were let and issues appertaining to the provision of PPE will be extremely serious. There will be quite a few of them leaving before they get the chance to be held to account.
It does make me wonder how effective Labour really are in opposition. They should be putting the Tories to the sword yet Starmer seems more focussed on removing the Left Wing from his party. He seems more keen to fight Corbyn than Sunak/ Meanwhile, Starmer is not really giving the unions much support although the general public are sympathetic. A committed , socialist Labour Party could inflict lasting damage on the Tories and I think hold them to such account regarding the corruption during the pandemic that I would be doubtful if they could effectively recover. It feel like they have an open goal yet are kicking the ball in the wrong direction.
If you want a further fotball analogy, the Tories have failed the fit and proper test. Too many cronies from business in the Lord's and no real accountability. I am not say that the Right does not have a right to be presented in parliament . I would argue that they are unfit to represent the political position they do. The debacle with Liz Truss has destroyed their economic credibility yet there are so many other fronts on which Labour should be holding them to account. I do not think that there is a better opportunity to destroy their mantra about protecting business and any Labour leader worth their salt should be using the Lady Mone issue as a vehicle to demonstrate that capitalism clearly no longer works. It is a race to the bottom and encourages the greedy and corrupt. Lets dismantled the arguments in favour of capitalism no there is the gift horse of demonstrating that a train service in private ownership is a recipe for disaster. Starmer should be far more idealogical and exploit the situation whilst the people are supporting the strikes and there is widedspread disatisfaction with the cos of living crisis. There is no longer an argument to be had for the Conserative Party and Labour should be far more ambitious in putting them to the sword.
I don’t think it was ever only Chinese whispers. I’m not sure where you are getting that from
Why do you think these people will be safe due to quitting parliament? They aren’t immune from prosecution as private citizens
You also appear to grossly overestimate the power a party who is in the opposition and is so far from having a majority vote on anything actually has. And seem to have a bit of an axe to grind over them removing the unelectable parts from the party - because recent actions seem to have all been about calling out the Tories on things like strikes and cost of living. I don’t even know when the last action against their own party members happened. Nothing has been reported for a while
So it turns out that the guy that shot up a drag show, who also maintained an arch-racist website that praised mass shooters and was known to be extremely anti-gay by his neighbours, wasn't actually non-binary at all. Truly a shocker.
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So it is. And I can't find the court filing it pointed to, that had male pronouns, anymore.
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Twitter files 2 just dropped. Highlights:
- Social media has been censoring and shadow banning ideas that don’t conform to government political narratives. (Basically promoting some culture and covid lockdowns as I’ve been saying for 2 years on here whilst people called me a conspiracy theorist)
- the last Twitter files were obtained by an FBI linked lawyer and cleansed of some information. That lawyer has now been fired by Twitter
- Doesn’t matter if users broke any rules or not, they were simply preventing political discussion
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This stuff is straight from 1984 by George Orwell.
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It's not 'straight from George Orwell', you silly. Here, for instance, is Elon Musk explaining their policy:
Which happens to be the same goddamned policy you're hyperventilating about. Libs of Tik Tok was getting deboosted because they routinely engage in hate speech that resulted in several bomb threats being made against children's hospitals. Oh no! If we stop them from trending, it's basically ****ing 1984!
And no, banning people from Trends is not JuSt LiKe OrWeLl, unless you believe that there is an Orwellian conspiracy to ban Justin Bieber and some KPop groups from having political influence because their fans were synthetically trying to get them to trend every damned day. This is twelve years ago. Twelve!
Another pretty damned obvious way of looking at it: Twitter bent over backwards to create systems that would keep rule-breaking accounts on the platform, in order to avoid a firestorm, while also trying to keep their advertisers from getting alarmed that they were letting accounts stoke hatred and spread blatant misinformation. So rather than banning the likes of Libs of Tik Tok, they tried to make it so that their posts wouldn't leak out into normie Twitter, so that Advil or whatever wouldn't see their ads next to a bunch of posts with 50,000 likes whose replies were filled with literal calls to kill people. But they weren't 'shadow-banned' or any such nonsense because, y'know, they were getting 50,000 likes on those posts.
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Which happens to be the same goddamned policy you're hyperventilating about. Libs of Tik Tok was getting deboosted because they routinely engage in hate speech that resulted in several bomb threats being made against children's hospitals. Oh no! If we stop them from trending, it's basically ****ing 1984!
And no, banning people from Trends is not JuSt LiKe OrWeLl, unless you believe that there is an Orwellian conspiracy to ban Justin Bieber and some KPop groups from having political influence because their fans were synthetically trying to get them to trend every damned day. This is twelve years ago. Twelve!
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Another pretty damned obvious way of looking at it: Twitter bent over backwards to create systems that would keep rule-breaking accounts on the platform, in order to avoid a firestorm, while also trying to keep their advertisers from getting alarmed that they were letting accounts stoke hatred and spread blatant misinformation. So rather than banning the likes of Libs of Tik Tok, they tried to make it so that their posts wouldn't leak out into normie Twitter, so that Advil or whatever wouldn't see their ads next to a bunch of posts with 50,000 likes whose replies were filled with literal calls to kill people. But they weren't 'shadow-banned' or any such nonsense because, y'know, they were getting 50,000 likes on those posts.
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It would seem Ossie has got lost down a rabbit hole of unhinged right wingers for whom the most important thing in the world is that we shouldn’t have been banned from seeing revenge porn of Hunter Biden in the build up to the election
And also the types who simply don’t understand that the US 1A is solely related to the actions of the US government - which Twitter is not. And even if this was based on the actions of the US government - it happened under the Trump administration because all the stuff people are having a fit over was stuff they think might have cost Biden the 2020 election
There are so many bigger fish to fry. As in - nearly every fish out there
But there will be no convincing some people
And also the types who simply don’t understand that the US 1A is solely related to the actions of the US government - which Twitter is not. And even if this was based on the actions of the US government - it happened under the Trump administration because all the stuff people are having a fit over was stuff they think might have cost Biden the 2020 election
There are so many bigger fish to fry. As in - nearly every fish out there
But there will be no convincing some people
If you don’t understand the implications of media & social media collusion with governments to control public perception then that speaks more to your IQ than mine
If you are happy to sleepwalk into authoritarianism then fair play. But I will continue to call out wrongs where i see them.
This isn’t a left wing or right wing issue. This is an issue which fundamentally impacts democracy.
If you can’t trust information, you can’t make informed decisions. So, no, there aren’t many bigger fish to fry.
I’m not really sure why you felt the need to personally attack me there. All I did was share truthful information
Odd that you saw that as a personal attack rather than just a simple commentary of what I think has happened. Because you clearly haven’t sought out anything other than the right wing’s view on this.
Because those more on the left say something completely different that you have not acknowledged at all - I have written some of them above but instead you decided to actually make a much more direct personal attack on my IQ (although you tried to be a bit indirect about it). Rather than the perceived personal attack you are claiming. Because wandering down an information rabbit hole led by confirmation bias is easily done and not a slight. Questioning someone’s IQ because they don’t agree with you though…
But since I now know that is what you took my comment as I can see why you went straight to a personal attack rather than reading anything that disagrees with your viewpoint.
You talk about not trusting information (a lot) but as has become readily apparent over a long period of time there are some sources (including media ones) and content providers who you appear to trust absolutely without even a shred a challenge or questioning. One of those, bizarrely, is now Elon Musk. Have you not for one second considered what his motives are for all of this? A billionaire who was ultimately bounced into buying something for far more than he wanted to pay?
Musk joins an interesting list of which I can’t remember all of but I do remember includes local Florida tabloids headed up by a right winger a few years out of college
And to be clear - the above is not a personal attack on you. Disagreeing with you is not personal or an attack. Neither is pointing out inconsistencies. It is commentary and challenge. You are being inconsistent in the standards you apply to your sources. Pretty much everyone does it. But people, in this case, you, are more likely to be challenged when they frame things as the biggest scandal ever. Such a claim warrants scrutiny.
Os, you really should get Schad back from your ignore list. He’s about the only one left with the patience to respond to your hysteria, but you’re not seeing his posts.
You called me unhinged.
I don’t trust any media blindly, left or right.
I trust Musk in this instance because he literally posted proof with screenshots.
The one being inconsistent is you. You are applying political narratives to a post which was simply information sharing