Bad actors stoking hate again (Southport Stabbings)

“Keir Starmer condemns ‘intolerable racist’ riots in Northern Ireland shocker”

An open goal which should have been ruthlessly exploited. Opportunities like that don’t come very often

Half of voters think Reform leader Nigel Farage is responsible for riots, poll reveals

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-uk-riots-poll-b2598252.html

The ground was very fertile and with precision attacks more damage could have been inflicted on Farage

The majority of the people who supported Farage will support the alleged motivation behind the riots, if not the riots themselves. Quite a few will have been displeased that he didn’t push against the trouble caused by counter protesters and has largely remained silent. Attacking him allows him to play the victim.

He makes John Major look like John Noakes.

I wonder if he is the same in person. Read several accounts from journalists and the like saying Major is actually really charismatic in person.

What if Starmer drove a Mitsubishi Carisma, would you change your mind then?

I keep seeing this 6 weeks excuse….

But OK, let’s say he’s just started and needs time to find his feet. How long before we are allowed to start pointing out his shortcomings?

What really major long term problems have you/your employer solved in the last 6 weeks? Serious question. If these things are so obvious and simple.

I’m also disappointed at what I haven’t heard from the new government. But I’ll judge by their actions in 6 months, not their words in 6 weeks.

What really major long term problems have you/your employer solved in the last 6 weeks? Serious question. If these things are so obvious and simple.

Within the first six weeks of arriving at a new company?  Absolutely none.

However, after 6 weeks in a new company I’ve got a good idea about the issues and I’m able to articulate a plan to begin improving things.  More importantly, I’m able to articulate a goal for where I think the company should be in 5 years.

Starmer hasn’t had 6 weeks.  He’s had 4 years as leader of the opposition.  If that hasn’t allowed him time make a plan of action and articulate it to the country then I don’t know how much time is going to be enough.

If there hadn’t been a fairly large outbreak of rioting then the argument that parliament wasn’t in session, everyone is on holiday, etc might have held water.  But there was, so some acknowledgment of the conditions and misapprehensions that led to the violence and at least a rough outline of how these are going to be tackled should have been made as soon as things settled down.

So far we’ve had nothing.  That’s a problem.

So far we’ve had nothing.  That’s a problem.

Over 400 charged so far, dozens given lengthy prison sentences, changes in prison procedures to accommodate more prisoners, changes being reviewed on tackling extremism and the crimes committed within these areas, etc, etc.

Is it possible you can just admit you don’t like the current Labour government, Starmer isn’t a one man band, but gets named every time something occurs, what exactly are you after, the Prime Minister of the UK to raise a press conference every time he has a soundbite, visit the scene of every crime, micromanage all his cabinet personnel at each crisis, what?

Rioters Get Time

Cooper’s Gonna Get`ya

Livestream Your Crimes

Farage Stokes Hatred

Starmer Secret Gigolo

Is that clear enough for the people missing the absolute shower we had for 14years?

Is it possible you can just admit you don’t like the current Labour government, Starmer isn’t a one man band, but gets named every time something occurs, what exactly are you after, the Prime Minister of the UK to raise a press conference every time he has a soundbite, visit the scene of every crime, micromanage all his cabinet personnel at each crisis, what?

Is it possible you could actually read what I and others have written before going off on your usual rant?

It would make a refreshing change.

Is that clear enough for the people missing the absolute shower we had for 14years?

I hate to tell you but you got the tories out. Can’t keep using that excuse forever.

I hate to tell you but you appear to not understand tenses.

Pram-pushing mum, balaclava-wearing ‘introvert’ and flasher appear in court over rioting

Father of five Thomas Ward, 35, of Colliery Street, Manchester, was jailed for 32 months after waving his penis at female police officers during disorder in Manchester.

Ward, appearing via video link from HMP Birmingham, also deliberately targeted female police officers, reaching inside his shorts, taking out his penis and waving it at them, Manchester Crown Court heard on Monday as he was sentenced.

What a strange way to express your deeply held concerns with levels of immigration.

^^ It seems the rioters inhabit a very broad church, from those that have never seen the inside of a plcell to those that have spent as much of their adult life inside one as out.

That being said, the willy waver is possibly in an annex to the main congregation.

What a strange way to express your deeply held concerns with levels of immigration

C’mon we’ve all been there. One minute you’re discussing the impact of immigration on local services, and the need for safe routes to claim asylum, the next minute your hand is in your shorts and you’re waving your Big Fella at a passing member (geddit???) of the constabulary.

But I’ll judge by their actions in 6 months, not their words in 6 weeks.

Words come before actions and as Brucewee mentions, he has had 4 years to prepare the words.  Words that actually state why the country is in a mess for so many people and the fact that the root cause for that is not immigration (with majority of it required and handled via Visas).  Explaining what illegal immigration actually is (i.e. people over staying Visas) and plans to address that if it is necessary based on numbers.

Repeating that until at least some people start to get it that don’t currently would be a good start in not adding to the number of idiots blaming immigration for everything.

I hate to tell you but you appear to not understand tenses.

It’s true, despite having learned 4 foreign languages to B2 level over the course of my life I never understood tenses.

However, let me try.

Past tense:  Keir Starmer did not explain why people were poorer and why it wasn’t the fault of immigrants because he didn’t want to scare Tory voters.

Present tense: Keir Starmer is not explaining why people are poorer and why it isn’t the fault of immigrants because he has only been in the job 6 weeks.

Future tense (bit tricky because English doesn’t have a future tense but here goes):  Keir Starmer will not explain why people are poorer and why it isn’t the fault of immigrants because **excuse tbd**

My worry is that the real reason Starmer isn’t explaining these things is because a) he’s still running scared of the right wing press and b) immigrants are just as useful to a Labour government looking to pursue neo-liberal policies as they were to a Tory government pursuing neo-liberal policies in that they provide an excuse as to why people are continuing to find their standard of living being eroded.

Hope I’m wrong about that but I don’t think making excuses for Starmer and Labour is going to help anyone.

My worry is that the real reason Starmer isn’t explaining these things is because a) he’s still running scared of the right wing press and b) immigrants are just as useful to a Labour government looking to pursue neo-liberal policies as they were to a Tory government pursuing neo-liberal policies in that they provide an excuse as to why people are continuing to find their standard of living being eroded.

Your worries are entirely reasonable and I agree I would have preferred more clarity on this.

I’m just not leaping to assume the worst every time someone doesn’t do what I want, when I want it.

Do you honestly think these types would listen or understand things being “explained” to them?  They are not reasonable normal people.  It’s not normal to go out and smash stuff up, nor wave your Willy at police.  They just want an excuse to riot, in my opinion the thing they are rallying on is immigration, but the majority of the rioters are just people who want to get angry and do a bit of shouting.  Rational sensible arguements dont really work on a bunch of irrational angry people who just want to cause trouble, however they can

DT78 I think it’s much more complicated than that. Sure there’s a few as you describe but many suffer from multi generational poverty and addiction with all the problems that brings. So when some shit stirrer like Farrage comes along and tells them their problems are all down to some other easily identifiable group they believe him/her and react in the way that seems most appropriate to them

These people don’t operate in a vaccum.  They’ve not had their misapprehensions about immigration (legal, illegal, and asylum seekers) and the connection to the cost of living crisis challenged by friends, family, and co-workers because so many people in society share the same mistaken beliefs.

Just because people were against the riots doesn’t mean people don’t believe the same things as the rioters.

It’s true, despite having learned 4 foreign languages to B2 level over the course of my life I never understood tenses.

You do seem a little tense.

Six weeks? Nowhere near enough time, but Starmsy has played what is in front of him pretty well – other than (on the purely political side) not using the Farage Riots to drive a wedge into the right.

Six months? Yes, I’m going to want to see some definite progress.

A year? That’s the natural moment to really say that there is a clear direction of travel, whether it is the right direction and whether the velocity is correct.

(bit tricky because English doesn’t have a future tense but here goes)

Which will no doubt come as a surprise to industries like airlines and logistics, and weather forecasters everywhere.

The danger of Starmer – or any politician, responding to rioting with placatory speeches telling them how their lives will be improved is that it tells the rioters that they were right. That they had a purpose. It gives the sorts of folks that are stirring the issue; the Farages and Robinsons of the world all the ammo they need to encourage more rioting. “See? Get out onto the streets and politicians will listen to you” Post any riot, the only message that any govt can send is “we will punish rioting as fully as we can”

Do you honestly think these types would listen or understand things being “explained” to them?

Maybe not your EDL type who is a chronic alcoholic and wants a fight, but they are very small in numbers and despite the damage and fear caused by the rioting not really the problem.

The real problem includes the 14% who voted Reform UK six weeks ago. Can their opinions be changed through persuasion? Absolutely. They didn’t get to the position where they are now on their own.

For a start they have been told for literally years, by the government no less, that one of the three most important issues currently facing the UK has been the illegal arrival of asylum seekers in small boats. They have heard endlessly about the negative effect this has on services and the cost to taxpayers.

They have endured literally decades of hostile rhetoric, from successive governments no less, towards Muslims. From the “War on Terror” to Israel’s current “just war”.

Politicians, senior politicians, have been feeding and stoking fear against foreigners in general and Muslims in particular for years, is it any surprise that for a small minority of people this has translated into intense hatred?

Politicians have had a significant role to play in the situation which we find ourselves in today. And whilst Labour have never matched the crass and crude levels of the likes of Patel, Braverman, and Sunak, with their crusade to stop the small boats, they certainly have, perhaps more subtly, contributed significantly with their neo-colonist military adventures which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of brown people in distant lands. And their steadfast support for that mostly English speaking outpost in the Islamic world, fighting for Western interests against an alien culture and indigenous peoples.

One thing that will continue to work in Starmer’s favour is the shit state of nearly everything after 14 years.

Rightly act tough on rioters -> prison population needs urgent action due to underinvestment. Etc.

The real problem includes the 14% who voted Reform UK six weeks ago.

And the Farage Riots were the perfect opportunity to make these people feel like they are beyond the pale. Nail the riots on Farage, create a clear gap between acceptable right wing and unacceptable. It would also have put a-holes like Jenrick in a bind – who to back…

“We want you to pay attention to climate change and in order to do that we’re going to stage events and we decided we’re prepared for people to die”

I don’t think anyone has said they’re prepared for people to die as a result of a JSO protest. Has that even happened? Did they die because of the protest or because our roads are choked with traffic and drivers don’t understand how to let emergency vehicles through when they appear? Or did they die because the emergency vehicles were late in any case? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sure blocking the M25 is a particularly good way of making your point, I’d focus more on the banks and corporate sector than normal people trying to get to work. But in a world where climate change gets completely ignored whilst a yacht full of millionaires sinking gets blanket news coverage for an entire afternoon you can see where they’re coming from.

One thing that will continue to work in Starmer’s favour is the shit state of nearly everything after 14 years.

One of the things that will work in Starmer’s favour is that the economy could be in a far worse situation than it is right now.

As far as inflation, levels of unemployment, and the risk of recession, is concerned, things aren’t too bad. The UK economy has certainly experienced far greater crisis* than it is currently experiencing.

* Generally in 10-12 year cycles.

The danger of Starmer – or any politician, responding to rioting with placatory speeches telling them how their lives will be improved is that it tells the rioters that they were right.

It is not about telling them their lives will be improved, it is firstly about putting straight why their lives need to be improved and have become worse and that rioting or even supporting anti immigration is not the answer.

Future tense (bit tricky because English doesn’t have a future tense but here goes):

I suggest you do some reading about English future tenses. Then you will have learned ;)

It is not about telling them their lives will be improved, it is firstly about putting straight why their lives need to be improved and have become worse and that rioting or even supporting anti immigration is not the answer.

But you need to do it in a three word slogan so the hard of thinking can understand it and the right wing press can’t twist and distort it.

Has that even happened?

Thankfully no, but not through any actions of the protestors, it’s not like they did a risk assessment. One of the vehicles trapped in the M25 was a lorry delivering food to a hospital. I personally know of a blood delivery vehicle that narrowly avoided it, had their their plan to block every motorway surrounding the M25 been carried out, the chances of deaths through direct accidents and indirect deaths caused by the complete standstill of the south east…who knows? Trying to fly drones into Heathrow airspace on the other hand puts lives in danger directly, but again not to Hallam and his fellow protestors, but to other people.

you can see where they’re coming from.

Yes, they should be free to protest. That shouldn’t include the freedom to decide that their protests can involve the death of other people, regardless of how slim you me or they think that might be.

Think i never understand about JSO is how they’re so big here, but not as visual in places like Norway, which i believe has about 3 times the fossil fuel production we have, or the usual suspects like the US, OPEC countries and so on, where real differences could be made in fossil fuel production due to the level of extraction in those areas.

I do agree in a way with NickC, but in a slightly different angle, the dangerous stuff JSO do isn’t really any worse than a lot of what we see elsewhere in civil disobedience protests, but i do feel the targeting of the general public over the years is starting to see some attacks occurring on the protesters, which is not a good thing and we are just waiting for the first big incident to occur.

Not sure how we wean ourselves off fossil fuels, they are wide ranging implications, as it’s not just going to be fixed by changing to electric cars, there’s so much more, even electric cars run on bitumen covered roads, and use plastics and other fossil fuel based chemicals in their production. As someone else said earlier, i think scientists have to come up with a good plan and push it hard, and governments need to stop thinking in 5-10 year timescales.

Father of five Thomas Ward, 35, of Colliery Street, Manchester, was jailed for 32 months after waving his penis at female police officers during disorder in Manchester.

Part of the joy of this legal process is imagining those who froth from their armchairs about immigration and think they’re part of a ‘silent majority’ discovering the type of people who are ‘on their side’ are exactly the type of folk who the Mail and Express have also been telling them to hate for the past few decades.

Probably too much to expect them to have their own ‘are we the baddies?’ moment.

Part of the joy of this legal process is imagining those who froth from their armchairs about immigration and think they’re part of a ‘silent majority’ discovering the type of people who are ‘on their side’ are exactly the type of folk who the Mail and Express have also been telling them to hate for the past few decades.

Well at least his protest didn’t kill any children, like those JSO murderers, right? You need to decide what you want, exactly :-)

I don’t think anyone has said they’re prepared for people to die as a result of a JSO protest

I went out for an ice cream yesterday. i didn’t intend to run over a small child in the event that they carelessly stepped off the pavement in front of me, but I was fully aware that that might have happened. Still, ice cream is ice cream.

But you need to do it in a three word slogan so the hard of thinking can understand it and the right wing press can’t twist and distort it.

I am sure they have creative types that could come up with something – “Immigration is not the problem” okay that is 5 words but not really my area.

I suggest you do some reading about English future tenses. Then you will have learned ;)

OK

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_tense#English

The will/shall future consists of the modal verb will or shall together with the bare infinitive of the main verb, as in “He will win easily” or “I shall do it when time permits”. (Prescriptive grammarians prefer will in the second and third persons and shall in the first person, reversing the forms to express obligation or determination, but in practice shall and will are generally used interchangeably,[6] with will being more common. For details see shall and will.) The meaning of this construction is close to that expressed by the future tense in other languages.

Nope, still no future tense.  It’s OK though.  There are workarounds.

Just to tenuously link the language discussion to the JSO discussion:

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180806-can-language-slow-down-time

Speakers of languages that the researchers classified as strongly future-tense-marking are a bit less responsible with regard to the future

Probably too much to expect them to have their own ‘are we the baddies?’ moment.

The paradox being that much of Labours support doesn’t rate immigration as especially high on their list of issies or problems, but it does give this labour govt (like every other western govt) a problem. You need immigration to support the economy as the native population ages and gets smaller, at the same time, it’s unpopular with great swathes of the electorate. We’ve seen the last Tory govt be wildly incompetent dealing with it, it’s quite the achievement to have policies that are all at the same time; cruel ineffective and expensive.

Anyway, I’d imagine that two things will fall in Starmer’s favour, 1 All he has to do is be less inept than the last Tory administration, and 2. demographics may (if he’s lucky) take care of the rest, the ONS think that immigration rates will fall in the next few years anyway.

Nope, still no future tense.

English has four future tenses. You’re using a narrow prescriptivist definition because there isn’t a modification we make to verbs to express the future.

the ONS think that immigration rates will fall in the next few years anyway.

What are they basing that prediction on, out of interest? The ‘success’ of the ‘hostile environment’ over the past decade, or just the fact that we are such a basket-case of a country that there are now more attractive options for immigrants, skilled and unskilled? Not to mention more attractive options for our UK citizen skilled workers, if we’re talking about net migration.

A brave government with a large majority needs to make the case strongly that we need more folk from abroad to pay for, and to wipe the arses of, our ageing population, and that stupid stuff like stopping overseas students bringing family over is cutting off our collective noses to spite our face.