There are a bunch of posters who make it sound like they would rather the status quo if they can’t have a radical transformative agenda, which I don’t get.

Without radical change, the status quo is what you get irrespective of the party in charge.

So you don’t have energy bills?
Don’t think 500k new jobs is beneficial?
Don’t think accelerating the path to net zero is important?

Just, it doesn’t help me so I don’t care about the rest of society?

I don’t personally care about saving £30 or so on heating.
It’s generally a good thing but it’s a sticker plaster policy.
It doesn’t tackle the root of any problem – energy ownership, housing, rent, work, benefits etc

Home insulation isn’t a big issue for me.
I don’t own a home and most people I know can’t and never will be able to afford one.
Might have been good to tackle something like that.

28 billion pound investment a year, for 8 years, in green investment.

Whats that mean? Investment in what?

Green New Deal not worthwhile?

As he talked for almost 1hr 30mins and it was one of the only policies he vaguely hinted at – can you explain what it is?

He covered all the big topics and not really sure there was much the general public would disagree with

Aye, utterly vacuous and banal.
Just making the noise of a politician.

Old bike was class. Modern update of timeless 90s style.
New bike looks like it was bought from Staples.

If you’re looking to get into a bit of the music theory, the best I’ve found is this fella: Michael New You Tube

Makes complex things really simple to understand.

The Labour Party is the problem not the solution.
Thank you.

So just to clarify, you’re peeved because the advertising you don’t mind sometimes looks like news which you think is broadly of zero worth all of which helps to support the forum/comments which aren’t in anyway advertising and are the thing to which you ascribe greatest worth?

Not sure what all that means.
I’m just pointing out that forum comments are not ‘worthless’.

Maybe the most valuable content to other users are the comments of the forum, but other than that, they are, for all intent, worthless. The internet is full of comment after all.

I disagree. The most valuable content to the world in general.

I would guess that this is borne out by the numbers. Forum posts will attract massively more views than any articles published by STW.

“Which doesn’t give it’s advice away for free, papers like the Times and FT sit behind a paywall, if you want independent critical journalism, it costs money, and that can only come from people wiling to buy it.”

You could apply this to forums. The most valuable information that a site like STW has doesn’t come from any paid journalists – it comes from the accumulated knowledge and experiences of the people who post stuff on the forum.

STW is fantastically well ranked. Search for just about any topic relating to middle-aged blokes and you will find a relevant STW thread. So as the most valuable content comes from its users – we should be paid. Only fair.

The reason is freemarket capitalism.

What I was struggling to understand was those people for whom the very act of taking the risk is what makes the pastime enjoyable.

I think the same way. I enjoy myself most when there’s little or no risk.
I don’t enjoy feeling out of control and don’t get any particular buzz from going fast.
My favourite way to get down a mountain is just tootling down and picking a safe route.
That’s why I don’t really enjoy bike parks.

I like the tactile feel of trundling along and feeling all the roots/bumps, rather than just hurtling down something.

Slow mountain biking should be a thing. Like Slow TV and…other slow things.

I dont understnad the whooping and yeah boiing thing, I think its the youtube generation playing to the camera – and their fans then copying them infront of their friends – rather than a natural reaction.

I agree. To me, it seems forced and done as a kind of a show. I doubt if most people do it when riding solo so find it all a bit weird.

In terms of brand penetration, injuries are good.
Very powerful emotive force to watch humans badly injured. Good.
But they have to be the right kind of injuries.
We don’t like paraplegics. Bad.
Death. Good.

Prefer climbing.
It’s like a game that you have to figure out.
And when you finally clear a tough climb it feels ace.
I’ve never had much of a buzz from going fast.

It’s funny how it has become a sort of prevailing narrative, when probably the two most iconic, viral moments in the whole tournament are:

It’s absolutely not the prevailing narrative of the media.

While there’s plenty about claimed injustices inflicted on England by the ‘cheating foreigners’, there’s little self-analysis or questioning of the English team’s reliance on diving and simulation.

Would you like salt and vinegar with that chip?

Just a bit of soccer banter. Don’t take it so seriously.
Just like your hilarious fans dressed as Crusaders and singing about World War 2 bombers.

Really enjoyed watching England get beat.

Having seen the media’s relief once Wales and Scotland were out.
Instantly forgotten – back to what matters…England, England, England.

Probably the best squad in the tournament – played immaculately.
But also relied on cheating as one of their most successful tactics – now known as the ‘dark arts’.
And promoted by an obnoxious, arrogant media who push a vile brand of nationalism.

England’s dickhead support isn’t a few bad apples. It’s the majority.
It represents the toxicity of a nationalism born out of an empire.
Of ideas of racial superiority that have never fully been challenged or questioned.

Watching the news after they got beat was joyful.
Full state funeral mode – no mention of the behaviour of the fans.
And English left types trying to kid themselves that a bunch of millionaires taking the knee represents a ‘new England’.
Aye. No.

Needs to be devolved.

My purchasing guide is:
Union Jack – put it back.
Welsh dragon – get in mun

I don’t get it.
You fell off your bike and didn’t hit your head.
And the moral of the story is…helmets!!!

Thats not me being defeatest. Thats me being a realist

In the uncomfortable position of agreeing with Binners on this.
It really doesn’t matter who the Labour leader is because they face the same issue.
How do you push against a media that’s dominated by a right-wing agenda?
And one that’s increasingly targeted and nuanced.

The option for a Labour leader is to do a Blair – court the media and stick to Tory-lite policies.
Or do a Corbyn – focus on safe stuff like trains – keep your head down and see how long you can absorb the punches.

Both strategies produce the same result – nothing much changes.
Burnham, Starmer, Lewis. It doesn’t matter who it is, the problem is the same.

No

Corbyn wasn’t much better than Starmer.
Both face the same problem – a right-wing media that batters anyone who falls out of line.
Starmer has gone down the Blair route of trying to court them.
Corbyn’s tactic was to soak up abuse and basically hide – mumble a few words and disappear.

His views as a backbencher pretty much collapsed when he was in a position of power.
If he wasn’t so lacking in political nous he would have realised that he was never going to be elected. And instead, used the time to find a successor, to build on grassroots success and deal with right-wing elements.

You could argue that Corbyn is worse than Starmer.
Starmer is a career politician doing what career politicians do.
Corbyn was a principled left-wing backbencher who somehow found himself as leader.
He had a unique opportunity to fundamentally change the direction of Labour and he utterly failed.

Britain is full of **** who seem happy/want endless tory governments.

You can either move to another country where the **** ratio is a bit lower or just isolate yourself from them like I have.

Or if you live in Wales or Scotland, you can support independence.

Q: What’s the difference between Binners and Dazh types?
A: About 18 months.

Starmer is dead. Long live Burnham.
And the whole process starts again.
The circle of life for Labour supporters.

Starmer out. Burnham in.
Replace one grisly weathervane politician with another one.
Yep, that’ll fix it. Well done Labour people. Well done.

Strange tournament for Wales really.
Done well to reach the knockout stage while also underperforming.
Apart from Turkey game, we have been hammered in every game and lucky to scrape a point against Swiss. Possibly last chance for current mix of classy older players and decent youngsters.
It just never clicked.

There really is.

Aye, one’s red and the other is blue.

Freemarkets, militarism and monarchy.

Choose a colour.

Labour or Tory. No difference.

The big challenge for England is the myopic arrogance and sense of entitlement of its media and shared by many of its supporters.

So I can buy a crap bike and get my thrills on the local canal path? Why didn’t I think of that?

No, instead of riding an appropriate bike along a canal path you should add some hype ‘features’. Oi, oi. Yeah boi!!!

They are there because they are fun

They’re fun if you own a £5,000 bike.
But a byproduct is that they also often ruin decent natural trails.

The problem: You have a £5,000 bouncy bike that’s completely unnecessary for your local trails.
The solution: Add lots of ‘features’ to trails and try to change the environment to suit needs of Tommy C hype types. Yeah boi!

I’m sorry if I wasn’t making myself well understood.

My fault for not reading it properly.

They’ve driven the pragmatic voter away in to the arms of the separatists.

To portray British nationalism as pragmatic and Scottish nationalism as emotive is daft.
In today’s UK, the most wild-eyed brand of nationalism is the British variety.

A pragmatic Scottish leadership would probably wait and see, but the Nationalists won’t

Nice example of the arrogance and hyprocrisy of a British nationalist.
Every single party that has or will be in power in Scotland is a nationalist party.
You are a nationalist. You will have voted for nationalist parties.
Conservative and Labour are unionist/Brit nationalist parties.
They are not pragmatic superior beings. They’re ‘nats’.

You really really REALLY DO NOT GET MY POINT here.

There should be some kind of helpline for British nationalists who face the existential horror of realising that they’re nationalists.

You already have just as much say in your own decisions as I do and everyone else in Britain because WE live in the same country under the same government and vote in the same elections.

Really interesting to watch Molgrips’ journey of self-discovery.
It cant be easy being somebody who rants about ‘nats’ only to discover – you are one.

Wiki on British nationalism/unionism:

Unionism in the United Kingdom, also referred to as British unionism, is a political ideology favouring the continued unity of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as one sovereign state, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Those who support the union are referred to as “Unionists”.[1] British unionism is closely associated with British nationalism, which asserts that the British are a nation and promotes the cultural unity of Britons,[2][3]i