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Or keep digging. Whatever
Sometimes STW threads can be useful and informative, especially for those of us who are not familiar with a subject.
People are really moaning about one page of lighthearted nonsense in amongst 500 pages of self absorbed politicotoss?
Just let it go.
You don’t see the irony of telling someone who replies to your post to let it go? That’s this place in a nutshell. 🙄
You don’t see the irony of telling someone who replies to your post to let it go? That’s this place in a nutshell. 🙄
I was referring to your complaints about site moderation.
Is this now turning into a "Pick me! Pick me!" for the next mod? Jeez, transparent or what? I don't get what's happening on here lately, just about every mildly heavy thread is either being wrecked or subject to pile on attempts at moderation by the usual sanctimonious suspects.
This is the Starmer thread, for talking about Starmer.
He seems to have gone into hiding.
Is he down the donkey sanctuary?
Jeez; I need a drink.
Tea or coffee?
It was closed because someone was falsely accusing others they disagreed with of being anti-semites. Rather than just dealing with the offender the entire subject was banned.
Was it?
I don't recall the mods stating why the Gaza thread was closed.
If they did, I withdraw my comment.
If they didn't, then don't make things up; assumptions and facts are not the same thing.
To the majority of people in the UK it will make little difference to their lives what Stammer's stance is on Israel. He is clearly very scared of being labelled another Corbyn terrorist sympathiser for having the courage to criticise Israel when western governments seem to always love them unconditionally for some reason.
He is just riding it out like everything else to ensure he wins the next election. He may lose some 'true' labour voters who would typically be against Israel but they will have moved away from Starmers Labour some time ago just like I did.
I wonder what he has got to say about those lifestyle choice homeless people...
To the majority of people in the UK it will make little difference to their lives what Stammer’s stance is on Israel. He is clearly very scared of being labelled another Corbyn terrorist sympathiser for having the courage to criticise Israel when western governments seem to always love them unconditionally for some reason.
You'd like to believe a man of his profession might be able to navigate that particular junction and still come out on top of the moral argument.
If not then he's not worthy of leading a progressive party.
"You’d like to believe a man of his profession might be able to navigate that particular junction and still come out on top of the moral argument."
Have you even met the British Voting Public???
To the majority of people in the UK it will make little difference to their lives what Stammer’s stance is on Israel.
Which makes it even more ridiculous that he has got himself in such a mess over the issue and plunged the party into a crisis, with over 30 councillor resigning from the party and many senior party members publicly rebelling.
No reasonable person believes that politicians, such as Andy Burnham and Anas Sarwar, who are calling for a ceasefire, are terrorist sympathizers, and it won't effect their election prospects.
Have you even met the British Voting Public???
These people do so on a regular basis. Apparently only 8% of the voting public are opposed to a ceasefire.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/travel/survey-results/daily/2023/10/19/e363e/1
What makes this all worse is Starmer is barely differentiated from the noisy dumb-ass GB news types. (That would normally have the Sunak thread in kittens.)
Richard Tice, Brewer, Alison Pearson, Farage, Bravermen etc.
It's the refusal to have a different line of logic to them. Letting the argument slip into a pit of Brexit levels of debate.
I mean - just use solid pro humanitarian logic!
Course if this was back in the days of the messiah the usual suspects would all be complaining that party members should all get inline behind dear leader and dissent within the party should be stamped out.
We get it guys, Starmer's not your messiah, but he's not the antichrist either. He's a politician that's trying to get his party elected and give us a glimmer of hope.
he gives me no glimmer of hope having stated he will follow tory spending plans and given his attitude towards the scottish parliament
following tory spending plans means that in Scotland nothing will change. No increase in budgets.
given that the scottish paluiament with what is basically a fixed budget has been able to ameliorate the worst of the tory attacks on benefits then Starmers insistence that he will not be able to afford the same things in england ( an end to the 2 child benefit cap etc) then I have zero hope of significant change
Course if this was back in the days of the messiah
Tony Blair?
Nah, he was just a very naughty boy. He did think that he was on a messianic mission though. Which is why he wouldn't listen to anyone else.
following tory spending plans means that in Scotland nothing will change. No increase in budgets.
Oh yeah. If only capitalists realised they got the money from the state in the first place and accepted that interest income paid from central banks, and government spending gave them their money for assets we'd all be in a better place to tell made-up wealth creators to bog off.
Sadly the Laurel & Hardy duo that is Starmer and Reeves are playing false lip-service to the 'wealth creators' at the end of a failed macro-economic experiment.
Course if this was back in the days of the messiah the usual suspects would all be complaining that party members should all get inline behind dear leader and dissent within the party should be stamped out.
I don't get this line of attack.
Who are the usual suspects - those that simply don't agree with Conservatism?
Point is the party didn't get in line with Corbyn. You are spelling out exactly what happened.
None of this means we can't scrutinise Starmer.
Labour or tories being elected will make zero significant difference in Scotland. some marginal improvements perhaps but also some downsides to a labour victory
Viewing this thread always reminds me that the tories have a decent chance of getting another 5 years when push comes to shove and we have an election, it’s like cake or death, but everyone on here hates cake.
Which bit is the cake?
The choice is Conservatism or whatever the Tories have become.
Your argument is woolly because Starmer can always choose to appeal to anti-Conservative values and make a case to win my vote, and still get elected.
Starmer can always choose to appeal to anti-Conservative values and make a case to win my vote, and still get elected.
He needs to appeal to the people who own the Sun, Daily Mail and Express or he won't ever be prime minister. That really constrains what he can say and do.
I'm not saying I like it but it's how it is.
I’ll take a slightly stale Jaffa Cake over another 5 years of theft and incompetence.
I want to rejoin the EU, have all public services renationalised, and ditch FPTP for PR, but right now I’ll settle for the Less Worse option of a centrist that can get elected.
I thought no one could possibly vote for a mop-headed buffoon and pathological liar blathering “Get Brexit Done”, but I was wrong. It’s bloody hard to get the Tories out.
His **** the green belt approach won't win him any tory votes or mine.
I knew someone who claimed they could taste if water had been reboiled and so demanded the kettle be emptied and refilled each time.
After carrying out several scientific experiments I am confident they couldnt though.
Boiling water removes the oxygen from it. So there would be a difference, but whether that is bad or good i could not say.
It also concentrates the mineral content of the water as it evaporates through boiling so repeated use does make a noticeable difference
He needs to appeal to the people who own the Sun, Daily Mail and Express or he won’t ever be prime minister.
That is certainly the narrative which those newspapers would have their readers believe, especially the Sun which has always trumpeted its huge alleged influence.
Which is precisely why the Sun supported Labour in the 1997-2005 period, it hates backing losers as it obviously undermines the myth of its massive influence.
The Daily Mail and the Daily Express have never backed Labour, and never will. If they were vital to a Labour victory then the Tories would have ruled uninterrupted for the last one hundred years.
Personally I think they should have left this thread closed. Then the coffee issue would have percolated through to the Sunak thread and then it would have been also closed. Then the Braverman thread, then the Truss thread, then the Trump thread, etc until it had nowhere to go but the Brexit thread.
And finally we would be free...
And finally we would be free…
Bruce you're already free. All you have to do is not click the links.. 🙄
I'll never understand why so many people on here want to stop other people talking about stuff they don't like or have no interest in. Just don't ready the bloody threads FFS!
Bruce you’re already free. All you have to do is not click the links.. 🙄
You mean 'Just say no' was the right strategy all along.
Interesting. Didn't have you down as a Nancy Reagan fan...
I’ll never understand why so many people on here want to stop other people talking about stuff they don’t like or have no interest in. Just don’t ready the bloody threads FFS!
It's all a bit ridiculous.
If you don't support the Sunak thread in however certain members expect you to then you become one of the 6/12/25 (delete as applicable) people that apparently derail threads. (The fact that the Sunak thread contains many references to hundreds of people other than Sunak goes totally unnoticed 99% of the time.)
More posters seem to step-up to warn other posters that they've ruined a thread by making a comment to point this out - than people actually opposing the consensus itself.)
It's pre-school politics. Teddies and pram.
Just ignore an opinion if you don't like it. I find it relatively easy to just engage when I need to. And I mostly ignore reactions that I can't the arsed with.
I welcome support for Starmer in this thread. The fact that few people can't seem to construct a robust argument speaks volumes about their conviction.
I would say mostly it's hard to defend Starmer - is the honest answer, and attack the Tories.
I feel your pain and disappointment that Starmer has become a Conservative.
Just ignore an opinion if you don’t like it.
Exactly.
Imran Hussein has resigned from Labour’s front bench so that he can take a position contrary to Starmer’s on tea vs coffee.
That tea resignation puts pressure on those who call for a ceasefire but remain. I follow a member of the shadow cabinet who's had flack for delaying a fortnight before calling for a ceasefire and is now under pressure for not resigning. The Times claims that Labour can do without the muslim vote but the situation is much more complicated than that. There are people calling for a ceasefire from all backgrounds and a wide range of political opinion and the Met says there's no reason for Saturday's march not to go ahead.
Starmer's intransigence doesn't look very much like an agile ceremony.
The Times claims that Labour can do without the muslim vote
I expect that the Times's claim is based on a report by the think-tank More In Common. But the MIC report appears to be based on assumptions, likelihood, and guesswork, rather than actual fieldwork :
Their conclusions might of course be correct but without any fieldwork there is also the possibility that they might have massively underestimated the effect among Muslims of Starmer's highly unpopular stance.
This is far from a definite survey but it suggests a quite different scenario to More In Common's conclusions:
https://muslimcensus.co.uk/labour-losing-muslim-vote/
The majority of respondents stated that their votes moved away from Labour or Conservative, to one of the following: abstaining to vote, Independent candidates, and the Green Party.
go Green party
Not just MUslims. I know others outraged by Starmers stance but it looks to me like pressure within the party has caused him to shift a bit
There was a good thread from former diplomat and JIC chair earlier this week, including the final comment on why Starmer (or anyone) might call for either a ceasefire or a pause.
https://twitter.com/LordRickettsP/status/1720700329769967909?s=20