We got a flyer from Labour even though we have a Labour poster in the window and that the candidate is 100% nailed on. There’s also a bloke of mature years who runs up and down the Eccy Rd in full red kit carrying a Vote Labour placard. Quite impressive commitment.

BoJo’s followers are Fruit Loops but Sunak’s are toast.

We shouldn’t confuse class with status. Educational attainment clearly can make a difference in the workplace in terms of salary, conditions etc but many/most people are only a few salary cheques away from deep doo doo.  You might see yourself as ‘middle classs’ but ultimately your interests are shared with the ‘working class’ as you are all employees. These divisions can be exploited nicely to divide and rule when people are encouraged to think they are ‘a cut above’ and they end up voting and acting against their real interests.

Thought of becoming a ‘full member’?

‘did he not?’ I was asking the question having heard the assertion lots of times. Anyway it matters not one jot what your parents did, it’s where you stand now in terms of social class and whose interests you represent.

The working class sell their labour power, the bourgeoisie own and\or control the means of production. Starmer’s father owned the factory did he not?

Guy I used to cycle with around Harlestone firs had a dog toffee flick up behind his glasses and into his eye. He had to go to hospital (twice).

I used to live in Highbury and this stereotype about elites etc is about as accurate as northerners keeping whippets and coal in the bath. But I guess if it goes with the narrative it will be used (alongside images of public schoolboy Footlights-type humour ffs.)

That John Caudwell of Phones4U got it right, ”What Keir has done…is taken all the left out of the Labour party, and he’s come out with a set of values and principles in complete alignment with my views as a commercial capitalist.”

I think you’ll find it’s anti-Tory sentiment.

If you asked the ‘I couldn’t vote for Corbyn’ people ‘why?’ they’d struggle to give an answer. In European terms he was middle of the road. He was defeated by RW Labour, the press and the Lobby. People now realise they were conned and people change. If Starmer had Corbyn’s policies in his manifesto he would be much more popular rather than just benefitting from the anti-Tory sentiment.  Corbyn was weak, he didn’t fight his corner but I suspect Starmer’s big-business backed neoliberalism will come unstuck pretty quickly.

It’s been much repeated on here but never has a government got elected and then moved left, always to the right. The LP are trying to downplay people’s aspirations already, it doesn’t augur well. Expelling the left in the party and parachuting in placemen to safe seats reflects Starmer’s desire to brook no opposition.

June 16th blooms day

Our ‘septic isle’?

When do we start thinking beyond getting elected? The Times predicts that LP and Tories would effectively freeze the NHS budget for 5yrs and the figures Reeves is tossing about are minimal. If she thinks she can get private business to invest, why haven’t they done so since 2008?

I bought half a litre from this source:

https://www.hedgewitchessentials.co.uk/onlineshop/icaridin-insect-repellent.html

Lowkey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ahlBTd6ZxI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly7qO9fGYZA

Fascinating insights from a now German Israeli

2 pr cycling shoes, 1 pr walking boots, 1 pr wellies, 6 pr Northampton shoes/boots, 4 pr trainers, no sandals.

Curtice also says that Starmer is even less popular than Cameron and the Times predicts that Starmer in office means 5yrs of cuts in public expenditure. I don’t think he’ll be long in office before the matter hits the fan and that people begin to realise that ‘My Labour Party’ has become Change UK – the Independent Group.

Long shot, kick the bucket

It’s a tricky one. We decided on a street and put in an offer on a nicely done up place. We got knocked back because a) we had two properties to sell first and b) they’d had an offer from someone who was renting. Our places got snapped up and a better located house with off road parking came up in the same street. We’d been advised by a landlord to go 10% over the ‘guide price’ and we went 7.5% over and got it (against another offer) and the house down the street was still on the market after we’d moved in. We like this place so much we’d have gone higher in retrospect and nothing like it has come up since. I find once money’s gone it’s fairly quickly forgotten.

https://www.hedgewitchessentials.co.uk/icaridin-picaridin-insect-repellent-500ml.html

Just bought some of this for the jungles of Bordeaux

‘Banning individual thought’ comes from the Tory garbled nonsense playbook, hardly ‘individual’.

“Did you ever in your life,’ he asked, ‘mount a bicycle from the right?’
‘I did not.’
‘And why?’
‘I do not know. I never thought about it.’

I never thought about it but today I realised that, unless constrained by circumstances, as a left-hander I always mount a bicycle from the right, hence a left-legger. Is that normal?

Haven’t read him for about 30yrs so forgive the wild inaccuracy, I knew ages ago it rang a bell but was thinking of Cruiskeen Lawn (‘full jug’, quite apt). I’m told a pint of plain is your only man, shall go and find out shortly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQLvsg9cTx4

Plus training doctors costs a great deal more than the fees paid so there’s another subsidy to the private medicine (which Streeting is so keen to promote.)

that MacCruiskeen is the Third Policeman, half man half bike

If Starmer compares himself with Thatcher and they’re touting trickle down in their manifesto then it’s no wonder fishermen and many others see little difference between them. Fortunately, our LP candidate has campaigned for a ceasefire and election calculus gives her a 100% nailed on chance.

If you want to measure the success of an education system then a value-added analysis rather than outcomes would give a more accurate picture.

Dogmatix you are a joy.

Given Starmer’s propensity for sacking off socialists and installing dubious placemen (sic), he’d probably regard a large majority as strengthening his hand and carry on accordingly.

Yep, ‘right to buy’ was the biggest and most devastating of all the privatisations.

The wrong premise is being discussed here, politicians talk about cutting or freezing taxes whereas the issue should be fighting for higher incomes. A functioning welfare state needs paying for and some of the highest taxed economies have the highest standards of living eg Denmark, Finland. Moaning about £50k being inadequate for a mortgage is because the housing system has been adjusted to benefit developers and landlords, neither major party is addressing that issue.

RIP Rob, it was a privilege to know you.

Alnwick, the benefits of a small town with shops, good pubs, cycling at Rothbury or along the coast, easy access to lots of nice beaches, shortish journey to Newcastle, affordable housing. WNTL?

https://postimg.cc/grJhCLj2

Yep, mainly people who bring their screaming toddlers into the pub and treat the place like a nursery where everyone’s meant to be impressed with their offspring when we just want a quiet pint and chat. Secondly, quite a few of the dog walkers on my daily blast route, rude, insolent, and stupid in that there are footpaths they could be on. Apart from that, eternally happy.

I’m still shellshocked by that Akehurst video. Apart from his dreadful politics, can you imagine having to go out and campaign for such a wreck of a man? How much talent and energy must have been by-passed to drop him into a safe seat? The Durham Labour Party must be thick with a miasma of rancour.