The brits are in for a rough ride

[pmv]

What I really don't understand is the passivity of the public. No rage whatsoever, no throwing of eggs at the politicians, or putting them in a literal garbage bin... Just... Nothing.

It's like so many issues seen in the last years rendered them unable to react in a violent way. Cause the polite way, is definitely not working

More than a few strikes. It's probably far too cold for riots.

I do wonder what all those "former red wall" working-class Northern voters who switched to voting Tory last time are thinking now. Surely many of them, though now mostly home-owning pensioners, were once trade-unionists themselves?

This parliamentary term feels like it's been going on for an eternity. Still two more years till an election - I can hardly believe it.

Surely at least a year has gone by since it was previously the case that they had two more years to go?

We've had hard Brexit, Boris partying while COVID killed tens of thousands, the energy companies going bust and everyone freezing, the return of '70s style inflation, Truss and KamiKwazi's economy-breaking budget, and now a resumption of full-on class-war (now unconstrained by EU interference). And yet it's _still_ 2 years to go before anyone can do anything about it!
Has something gone wonky with time? Is it something to do with that Large Hadron Collider?

 

[senseamp]

Conservative rule anywhere is a disaster.

 

[KMFJD]

UK government to block Scottish gender bill

It will be the first time ministers in London have used powers to stop a Scottish bill from becoming law.

www.bbc.co.uk

this won't go down well in Scotland i am gonna guess

 

[sdifox]

UK government to block Scottish gender bill

It will be the first time ministers in London have used powers to stop a Scottish bill from becoming law.

www.bbc.co.uk

this won't go down well in Scotland i am gonna guess

well I guess Scots will go for independence.

 

[igor_kavinski]

well I guess Scots will go for independence.

That's a nightmare for parents, the freedom to change gender.

Oh my dear Freddie (in their mind they think, now with a bloody vagina!)

Oh my dear Sally (with the great big phallus she won't conceal properly)

 

[pmv]

well I guess Scots will go for independence.

I suspect they will, if they ever get another vote. I was thinking less about this (honestly, don't really know what the general view of Scots is about this topic) and more about the new proposed anti-strike legislation. I just can't believe Scots would be happy to stick around for a resumption of Thatcher's war on trade unions.

 

[pmv]

Now we have Sunak flying around the country doing short hops from marginal constituency to marginal constituency in a private jet, and doling out random infrastructure projects like prizes in a game-show (which, apparently, are dwarfed in value by the cuts being imposed on local authorities by Sunak's government) . Just bizarre.

Two more years of this zombie government that nobody wants. Where is Michonne and her katana when they are needed?


Meanwhile yet another former chancellor turns out to have not been paying his taxes

Nadhim Zahawi ‘agreed on penalty’ to settle tax bill worth millions

Claim over sum imposed by HMRC likely to raise further questions for Conservative party chair

www.theguardian.com

Nadhim Zahawi’s position as Tory chair ‘untenable’, says Labour

Angela Rayner calls for explanation after it emerged former chancellor paid 30% penalty to settle tax bill

www.theguardian.com

Turns out now the story nearly came out nearly a year ago, but he suppressed the story by threatening to sue the paper that was reporting on it. Even though the story was true!

This has to be the worst government the country has ever had. Why are they still there?

I was always slightly ambivalent about Brexit because I have never been impressed by the EU, but my main reason for voting remain was fear of what the gang of crooks pushing Brexit were planning once they were clear of any EU oversight. And that's exactly how it's turned out. The country's been captured by gangsters, basically.


And another

HMRC names three schemes linked to Mone’s husband as tax avoidance

AML Tax (UK) Ltd, which ran payment programmes, was ‘part of Doug Barrowman’s Isle of Man-based Knox Group’

www.theguardian.com

 

[Moonbeam]

I was always slightly ambivalent about Brexit because I have never been impressed by the EU, but my main reason for voting remain was fear of what the gang of crooks pushing Brexit were planning once they were clear of any EU oversight. And that's exactly how it's turned out. The country's been captured by gangsters, basically.

What moral transmissions of quality of character a country once seemed to possess, or thought that it did, allow for this downward spiral of ethical behavior?
It strikes me sometimes on my admittedly shallow readings of history that at the time of Mohammad, a similarly 'ungodly' criminal collection of individuals had control of power and used it to kill off people commanded to restraint by compassion managing in the end to wear out their welcome and provoking a Jihad against them.

I wonder what happens when the English finally get a belly full of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and decide it's best to end them. It will be a wild ride without the quality of mercy somewhere again dropping like gentle rain.

 

[pmv]

Tory sleaze has increased exponentially. God alone knows what kinds of sums they'll be trousering a decade from now.

Zahawi, Sunak, Johnson: this is rule by plutocrat. It’s like a stench that’s worse each day | Polly Toynbee

The Tory chairman’s £5m tax ‘error’ shows the murkiness of politics run by and for the super-rich, says Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee

www.theguardian.com

(And that article doesn't even mention Lady Mone and her £100million

Revealed: the full inside story of the Michelle Mone PPE scandal

PPE Medpro and supply chain partners made as much as £100m in profits; Tory peer and husband now selling yacht and homes

www.theguardian.com

)

 

[senseamp]

Australia, US, and UK, all victims of the Murdochs.

 

[itsmydamnation]

Australia, US, and UK, all victims of the Murdochs.

We smashed Murdoch in the last election and he is still in the doldrums influence wise.
He hasn't been able to capture any younger audience at all in OZ and his base is dyeing at a ever increasing rate ( boomers )

 

[KMFJD]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1618536800762630144

jfc, imagine being born there, lived there for 40 years and suddenly being told to gtfo, your not a citizen of the UK

 

[pmv]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1618536800762630144

jfc, imagine being born there, lived there for 40 years and suddenly being told to gtfo, your not a citizen of the UK

God, that's an insanely complicated legal mess. With deeply unpleasant and unfair consequences for those affected by it.

I guess it's a concequence of laws being made exclusively by people who aren't themselves affected by them, and don't have much incentive to properly think through the implications.

 

[pmv]

I really don't know that celebrity opinions have much effect, but they probably are a _symptom_ of existing trends. That the Tories have lost Middle-England icon Carol Vorderman, and even a long-time Conservative supporter like Rod Stewart, suggests the opinion polls are correct in indicating they're doomed. I doubt anyone will change their votes due to what this pair say, but hopefully it will spread more panic among Tory MPs and increase their tendency to turn on each other.

I’m a celebrity, get the Tories out of here

Labour gains fans as dyed-in-the-wool Conservative Rod Stewart joins Carol Vorderman in lambasting Rishi Sunak’s government

www.theguardian.com

 

[uallas5]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1618536800762630144

jfc, imagine being born there, lived there for 40 years and suddenly being told to gtfo, your not a citizen of the UK

God, that's an insanely complicated legal mess. With deeply unpleasant and unfair consequences for those affected by it.

I guess it's a concequence of laws being made exclusively by people who aren't themselves affected by them, and don't have much incentive to properly think through the implications.

Britain has had some f'd up citizenship laws for quite a while. My mother was still a British subject living in the US when I was born in 1966. Because my British parent was female and not male, I didn't automatically qualify for British citizenship. They then changed the law in 1984 so that going forward children of British mothers and fathers would be treated equally. It also said that children born of British mothers prior to 1984 could qualify for citizenship, but they would have to formally apply for such with the foreign office via a British consulate AND must do so before the applicant (child) turns 18. After 18 they had NO option to claim this birthright. All the while the children of British fathers were still granted citizenship automatically and could receive said citizenship at any age of their choosing.

After some pushback in the 90's and a couple of losses in the EU courts, they changed it yet again. The latest I read was that I could apply for my birthright citizenship if:

1) I submitted the paperwork proving my mother was a British subject at the time of my birth
2) Was sponsored by a British citizen who was not a relative AND
3) said person had NOT resided in Britian for at least 7 years prior to agreeing so be my sponsor.

All this was the leftover of the British government punishing women who went abroad and had children, particularly with men who were of the darker skin persuasion. While with the men it was the typical "nudge nudge wink wink", "say no more", and "good on ya".

 

[pmv]

Britain has had some f'd up citizenship laws for quite a while. My mother was still a British subject living in the US when I was born in 1966. Because my British parent was female and not male, I didn't automatically qualify for British citizenship. They then changed the law in 1984 so that going forward children of British mothers and fathers would be treated equally. It also said that children born of British mothers prior to 1984 could qualify for citizenship, but they would have to formally apply for such with the foreign office via a British consulate AND must do so before the applicant (child) turns 18. After 18 they had NO option to claim this birthright. All the while the children of British fathers were still granted citizenship automatically and could receive said citizenship at any age of their choosing.

After some pushback in the 90's and a couple of losses in the EU courts, they changed it yet again. The latest I read was that I could apply for my birthright citizenship if:

1) I submitted the paperwork proving my mother was a British subject at the time of my birth
2) Was sponsored by a British citizen who was not a relative AND
3) said person had NOT resided in Britian for at least 7 years prior to agreeing so be my sponsor.

All this was the leftover of the British government punishing women who went abroad and had children, particularly with men who were of the darker skin persuasion. While with the men it was the typical "nudge nudge wink wink", "say no more", and "good on ya".

Wow. But, yeah, long history of sexist laws, that have only slowly been overturned.

I remember my father having to give in his passport for some sort of reassessment when the 1980s changes to nationality laws came in. Fortunately his birth predated the demise of the British Empire so turned out his citizenship was secure.

 

[pmv]

Now Truss is back, giving interviews in her unique malfunctioning-robot fashion*, claiming she was right all along and was only bought down by the 'left wing economic establishment'. i.e. the Coven of Bolsheviks that constitutes the international financial markets. She appears to be insane. Yet she clearly still has the support of a major strand of the Tory Party (while Boris Johnson - the Pound Shop Churchill - still hasn't given up hope of a return either, apparently).

I continue to wonder about the fact she started off as a Liberal Democrat. That party is in no sense the 'centrist' one it pretends to be - it's full of Ayn Rand fans, and part of an Axis-of-Evil with half of the Tory Party. But I don't understand how that happened.

I mean, the Liberal Democrats came into existence as a merger of the SDP - who were _supposedly_ a bunch of "European sytle social democrats" (a political strand I just read described as 'former-socialists compromising with reality') and the Liberal Party (a party I _never_ understood the purpose of, it seemed to be just an Old British Tradition that existed for no other reason that it had never quite got round to dying-off in the 19th century where it belonged).

Neither of those origin-parties seemed to have the extreme-right libertarian/Ayn Rand reading/Laffer-curve-obsessive mentality that the Lib Dems of Clegg (and now Truss) seem to display. Certainly the Social Democrats of continental Europe seem to be very different.

* actually, not quite unique, as Sunak seems to have some of the same presentational style. Maybe they're _all_ robots? The Stepford politicians.

 

[pmv]

Truss is also complaining that 'nobody warned her' that the budget would blow up in her face. That's despite the fact she fired the Treasury expert who was known to be against the plan, and specifically blocked the Office of Budget Responsibility from analysing the effects of it.
Basically it went like this:


"I'm gonna dive off this cliff into that lake. Hold my beer."

"But the water's only 2 feet deep - this won't go well, please don't do this"

"You're not my friend any more, go away"

"Look there's a famous diving expert just over there, let's ask him"

"No, I don't care what he thinks"

Bone shattering crunch.

After the ambulance arrives

"Why did nobody warn me?".

 

[WelshBloke]

God, that's an insanely complicated legal mess. With deeply unpleasant and unfair consequences for those affected by it.

I mean the easiest solution would be to grant citizenship to all those that had been 'erroniously' granted it before.
No one loses any thing that way.

 

[sdifox]

Now Truss is back, giving interviews in her unique malfunctioning-robot fashion*, claiming she was right all along and was only bought down by the 'left wing economic establishment'. i.e. the Coven of Bolsheviks that constitutes the international financial markets. She appears to be insane. Yet she clearly still has the support of a major strand of the Tory Party (while Boris Johnson - the Pound Shop Churchill - still hasn't given up hope of a return either, apparently).

I continue to wonder about the fact she started off as a Liberal Democrat. That party is in no sense the 'centrist' one it pretends to be - it's full of Ayn Rand fans, and part of an Axis-of-Evil with half of the Tory Party. But I don't understand how that happened.

I mean, the Liberal Democrats came into existence as a merger of the SDP - who were _supposedly_ a bunch of "European sytle social democrats" (a political strand I just read described as 'former-socialists compromising with reality') and the Liberal Party (a party I _never_ understood the purpose of, it seemed to be just an Old British Tradition that existed for no other reason that it had never quite got round to dying-off in the 19th century where it belonged).

Neither of those origin-parties seemed to have the extreme-right libertarian/Ayn Rand reading/Laffer-curve-obsessive mentality that the Lib Dems of Clegg (and now Truss) seem to display. Certainly the Social Democrats of continental Europe seem to be very different.

* actually, not quite unique, as Sunak seems to have some of the same presentational style. Maybe they're _all_ robots? The Stepford politicians.

Clearly the lettuce was sent by the left wing financial establishment to dethrone her!

 

[KMFJD]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1633158789103747072

the Tory's are headed for a monumental election loss if the polls are to be believed

 

[Sunburn74]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1633158789103747072

the Tory's are headed for a monumental election loss if the polls are to be believed

Yeah so this won't even survive the UK courts. Asylum protections are pretty clear and this pretty much violates existing international law about asylum seeking.

 

[KMFJD]

Yeah so this won't even survive the UK courts. Asylum protections are pretty clear and this pretty much violates existing international law about asylum seeking.

They seem to be attempting a partial Australian policy, and tbqh it did stop a lot of the boats from attempting to reach them as they did not want to be confined to a prison on some south pacific island

 

[misuspita]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1633158789103747072

the Tory's are headed for a monumental election loss if the polls are to be believed

The populists painted themselfs in a corner. That's what happens when you pander to extreme views. You always have to one-up them, going to more and more extremes until you spout something that even your former partisans can't support. It will happen to MAGA also.

PS - if the polls are to be believed and the election meddling they are currently trying will work, the Conservatives are going the way of the dodo

https://twitter.com/x/status/1633230045505257472

 

[KMFJD]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1634208591958753280

how much longer are these idiots in charge for?