david

Historically, people turn to the far right when things are going terribly wrong. The conservatives ran the country into the ground and legitimised everything the far right stood for, then were upset that people started voting far right. I say it was unsurprising. Why not vote Reform if you're a rabid racist and your usual party are about the same policywise but have a boring British Asian leader instead of a white laddish thug of a politician?

If things get significantly better for folks, there's less motivation to vote in desperation.

I think it's a bad day to be criticising first past the post. Labour stole a bunch of seats from Farage with his kill-the-NHS policies, a turd who oughtn't to be allowed to attend D-day celebrations, given that he stands against almost everything that we fought the war for. Not sorry one bit for that disproportionality.

Yes, but I think you're overstating how right wing Labour pitched it. There were no claims to be anti woke. I think it was a pretty firmly centrist pitch. It's the Conservatives who are going to panic and try to out-nutcase Farage. Labour are going to try and be responsible and fix the broken ship. It's just whether they can do it fast enough for people to notice a big improvement in the cost of living vs wages problem.

Thank you. But we don't blame regular Aussies. You're good with us.

Yeah, the writer of the article seems to think that the Brexiteers were honest politicians trying to achieve what they believed would be good things for Britain. I don't think that's a widely held view in Britain.

You can't out-Farage Farage. The Putin-sponsored shyster has no limits. Elections are won in the middle ground in the UK. The Conservatives could easily win next time. They just need an affable leader, some more centrist policies and some headlines about how they've had a change of heart and want to be nice to poor people now and balance the books again. Worked for Cameron. Starmer, meanwhile, had to make a difference in the cost of living crisis so large that people notice they're getting better off, and restore hope that our children will be better off than us. Tall order.

She is one remarkably stupid, reality-blind narcissist.

I lived through the Blair government. Some left wing people were upset because he was on the right of the Labour Party, but things did indeed get a lot better in those ten years. Not everything by any stretch of the imagination. But no one expected him to make things better for gay people but not only did the legal situation change but the mood music affected the nation's morals for the better for a while. It became socially far less acceptable to hate on gay folk. Could happen again, but I get why you might be cynical.

It's altogether the wrong question.

Imagine a class who are excited to have a new teacher because the old one was a git and the new one seemed to be not a git, and one of the kids says "I'll get bullied either way." If one of the other kids says "What classroom rules do I have that you don't?" that kid is starting an irrelevant discussion and either doesn't understand, doesn't care about, or supports the bullying that the first kid experiences and no adult would be particularly surprised if it turns out that the kid counting rules was in the same friend group as the bullies.

You see, if there's a rule saying don't pick on kids who have red hair and you start a conversation about how many rules there are about brown haired kids vs red haired kids, you either don't understand why that rule exists at all, or you get it perfectly well and want to abolish it.

If you're complaining that you have fewer rights than someone who has the right to not be discriminated against because they have a protected characteristic under the human rights act, you're being self absorbed and insensitive at best, and no adult will be surprised if you turn out to have said a lot of very unkind things about trans people in the past.

Well, the shit of foxes, but yeah, bit unfair that.

With fox shit, you can put it in the bin and never see it again, but Farage is more of a stinky, greasy, smearing, permanently unflushable turd that's been hanging about in the loo for decades. Every so often you think he's gone away, but it turns out he was just lurking the other side of the u bend and pops back again.

Actually, we're disgusted with your party which we aren't really surprised is turning out to be full of racists and loonies far more, and your policies that seem designed from the ground up to replace the NHS with private health care.

I hadn't thought of the breakfast, but fried egg on toast would be great.

Pajama morning watching a film with the kids and having a Forza mini league. Vehicle handicap to even out the odds.

Out to Macdonalds for lunch, Water World in the afternoon, curry and a pint for tea in front of another film.

I would be prepared to swap Water World or the morning film for building a giant lego castle and waging war against the invaders.