General Election 2024: Gone on the 4th of July

[Shindig]

Never had a problem with mould, to be honest.

[niko_cee]

By which I mean, having been a landlord in the past, greater regulation etc generally only drives up costs of responsible market participants, and doesn't help solve the actual problem. Driving up costs can drive out landlords, which reduces stock, thus further exacerbating the issue. I suppose the obvious end goal would be to somehow drive down property values to make ownership more viable [or have adequate stocks of social/government housing], but in reality as responsible, small landlords are driven out, they are replaced by Blackrock [or whoever] and nothing gets better, and mass house building to be owned by the public sector is a long lost fantasy. I've been thinking for a while as to how you could make changes to help the poorest renters. I reckon Council Tax, which I guess is our version of property tax, should be one of the main ways to do it. Back in lax tax fantasy land [Guernsey] it was broken down into 2 parts - a tax on the land/size of the property itself and a tax on the occupier for things like collecting the bins. The former was much larger, and swelled massively in recent times, and was always the responsibility of the landlord. In the UK all of the council tax, which goes to pay for all manner of things, is the responsibility of the tenant, which seems perverse to me, as it goes towards paying for all sorts of shit above and beyond collecting the bins. Yes, transferring liability would perhaps drive up rents, but I'm not sure, and even if they did, the occupier would likely not be any worse off.

We just basically need to build a fuckton of decent housing, but like everything the existing infrastructure has been sweated [?] with little investment and now it's all a bit falling apart.

[Magic]

Scumbag.

[Manc]

The conditions people live in. :sick:

[niko_cee]

Scumbag.

In fairness I probably should have sold my flat in London as it basically saw very little gain in value after 2012. It actually lost value on the 2014 valuation I had when I sold it in 2022.

If I had sold it then and bought a house it probably would have tripled in value.

Flats are a mugs game.

[Magic]

In fairness I probably should have sold my flat in London as it basically saw very little gain in value after 2012. It actually lost value on the 2014 valuation I had when I sold it in 2022.

If I had sold it then and bought a house it probably would have tripled in value.

Flats are a mugs game.

Oh is a wickle baby upset at not making enough money at the proletariat's expense?

[niko_cee]

Not really, I think what it showed was the market essentially broke in early 2010s and there was a total disconnect at that point between property values and what you could get a mortgage for, which probably hasn't really changed all that much. Well, in Central London in my experience but probably more nationally now. One of the main drivers was the lack of credit availability for normal people, and the people that could get the credit, which was absurdly cheap, well, they probably bought a lot of the property.

[niko_cee]

Oh is a wickle baby upset at not making enough money at the proletariat's expense?

Also, want to hear another mad thing? If you own a property in Guernsey as a non-resident, and rent it out, you get tax withheld at the maximum applicable rate [20%] by law. There may be some forms of double tax mitigation available, but I don't know. The tax gets collected and then you'd fight to get it back. If you own a property in the UK as a non-resident, you can apply to be a non-resident landlord, which requires you to complete a self-assessment form if you qualify [most would], for which you get given full personal allowances and all allowable deductions, and if you own the property jointly then you get both allowances. There are nuances to how it works and I don't think you can fully take the piss with it, but even as a basic thing it's fucking mental, in my mind.

[Magic]

Alright Peter Rachman.

[niko_cee]

The whole [tax] system is completely ballbagged, it's hard to know where you would start trying to fix it.

[Spikey M]

Mold is a tricky one, because atleast half the time it's caused by tenants not heating their homes (poverty). Which is obviously horrible, but not necessarily the landlords fault. If they're on Universal Credit, for example, their rent is often paid in full, but it doesn't stop them being skint.

It's usually pretty easy to tell though. If it's around the windows and doors, and in the corners, you need ventilation and heating. If it's covering the walls and ceilings, the property has a serious issue that the landlord has likely been painting over for years, evicting anyone who dares complain, because fixing it would be a more expensive pain in the arse.

[Lofty]

Labour must be thick as fuck pushing all this 'we have got rid of more illegal immigrants than anyone since 2018' stuff as a flex, surely the main people who want that would never vote Labour anyway.

[Kikó]

Aye, it'd be fine if they were paying market rent like everyone else in the story.

I've never even heard of a protected tenancy.

Sounds like they are going to be quite rare:

My friend bought a house in London for relatively cheap because they had to keep the previous tenant because of this reason. They built her a flat at the bottom of the house so that she can continue living there at a relatively low market rent. So if you want a cheaper house, find an immovable tenant is my advice.

[niko_cee]

The people in the street they talked to on Newsnight were funny about those videos.

[I]Well, good, but it's not enough. Maybe if they put them out every day . . .

I can sort of understand why Starmer is pissed that using actual laws to make actual progress [as some would see it] doesn't get much, if any, recognition, but, as you say, who is this going to win over?

[niko_cee]

My friend bought a house in London for relatively cheap because they had to keep the previous tenant because of this reason. They built her a flat at the bottom of the house so that she can continue living there at a relatively low market rent. So if you want a cheaper house, find an immovable tenant is my advice.

And then move them into a Fritzl dungeon?

[Spikey M]

The people in the street they talked to on Newsnight were funny about those videos.

[I]Well, good, but it's not enough. Maybe if they put them out every day . . .

I can sort of understand why Starmer is pissed that using actual laws to make actual progress [as some would see it] doesn't get much, if any, recognition, but, as you say, who is this going to win over?

Was that the one with the rogue tranny out of nowhere? If so, Basilslum is NOT my endz.

[niko_cee]

:D

Yeah, the rogue tranny was certainly a surprise inclusion.

[Kikó]

And then move them into a Fritzl dungeon?

That's the price you pay if you want to live in London.

[Spikey M]

I for one welcome our new AI overlord.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8edn0n58gwo

[niko_cee]

All your data are belong to US.

[Magic]

Trust Sir Beer to cuck for the Trumpmeister. What a truly pathetic boy licking nation we are.

Sadly 50% of us will love it.

Edit: boot licking.

[niko_cee]

:D

Freudian.

[Pepe]

Trust Europeans to want to ban shit before they even understand what it is.

[Pepe]

:D

Freudian.

:lol:

[Jimmy Floyd]

If France, China and India are on one side then Britain should be on the other. Excellent from Sir Keir.

[AJ23]

Having worked in Property Management most of my life, mould is one of those contentious issues which is difficult to prove either way who's fault it is. To the outside world anyway.

The Landlord has to demonstrate that they are doing everything possible to give the tenant adequate ventilation. Trickle vents, etc.

I've managed properties privately for years and some flats have never had issues with mould, however suddenly it appears all over the place. When I walk past the flat, the windows are all closed in winter and if I ask to do a random check on the flat, the heating is on full blast with wet clothes being dried by the radiator. You tell them the reason why mould happens and they complain that they shouldn't have to open their windows, 'because it's sooooooooo cold.'

So the Landlord is then forced into installing an MVHR to assist the tenants. You're then relying on the tenants to switch on the MVHR. They say they are using it but it's not working, then complain about energy costs and that they shouldn't have to switch the MVHR on, or it's not really working and that they have it switched on all the time (although it's not on when I attend). Being difficult in every way.

Damp/rising damp is something different entirely, but tenants don't seem to understand that. They go to citizens advice or to solicitors and complain about health/breathing issues and it becomes a complete nightmare. So many opportunists out there who are trying to get money out of private Landlords from this.

Being someone in the middle, I've definitely experienced far worse from tenants than Landlords.

[niko_cee]

Of course, 'personal responsibility' is the answer.

Either that or get a PFI contractor (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czdllq5z6jeo) in to manage the situation.

Goes nicely alongside that local council hitpiece I read the other day about how a lot of the swingeing cuts being made to budgets/services largely mirror in magnitude the [insane] pension contributions said councils are simultaneously making, which are being funded out of significant rises in council tax. No, you can't have your bin collected, but yes, you can pay for my final salary pension and yes, I did get bumped up several pay bands in my final years of working and no that has nothing to do with inflating my pension.

[-james-]

Havertz has torn his hammy in Dubai. Fucking hell. :lol:

[niko_cee]

Starmer in pieces.

[-james-]

:moop:

[niko_cee]

Bedenoch going big on the UK immigration services commissioner doing his job working from home in Finland at PMQs, it does sound a bit odd.

Appointed in 2019.

Starmer could barely contain himself.

Is she/her staff actually retarded?

[Lewis]

Yes.

[Lofty]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c77r05nx11po

[niko_cee]

Obviously a bit salty they weren't able to run the NO MORE FISCAL HEADROoM WHERE'S THE GROWTH!?!?!!! story they likely had tee'd up.

What a load of nothing.

This kind of microscopic scrutiny of all details of people in public life really needs to stop.

[niko_cee]

I see they also have an ancillary hit piece to go with that one with what I would call an interesting headline choice.

She's obviously pissed someone off somewhere. Christ knows how, she must be one of the most boring characters ever to grace the British political scene.

[niko_cee]

Thought this was quite interesting on the mould business:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUNkyV9vl4s

[Jimmy Floyd]

Debate raging in the office at the moment. Gen Z Brit is passionately defending the NHS. Romanian and Algerian equally passionately telling him it's the worst health system in the world and a complete joke. Now the Indian has just arrived and weighed in on the side of the NHS. 2-2.

I'm staying quiet.

[niko_cee]

I know RL won't agree but I quite like Chippy Wes Streeting. He seems driven. No idea if he's any good but he has that slight air of the madman about him.

[Lewis]

He speaks like Marjorie Dawes.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Just read a scorching new Cummings substack in which he advocates for 'regime change'. To this day, can't get enough of the man.

[Lofty]

That Brewdog twat is trying to be a poundshop Elon Musk and proposing a 'Shadow Doge' initiative in which he encourages people to 'flood public institutions with FOIs' in the name of er, efficiency savings. Because no-one's ever thought of that before, local authorities are in a constant state of re-orging for cost purposes.

[Magic]

How is he regarded as an entrepreneur? Brewdog is absolutely loaded with debt and will probably fold. He's a mega cunt.

[randomlegend]

Debate raging in the office at the moment. Gen Z Brit is passionately defending the NHS. Romanian and Algerian equally passionately telling him it's the worst health system in the world and a complete joke. Now the Indian has just arrived and weighed in on the side of the NHS. 2-2.

I'm staying quiet.

My experience with Romanians is they don't like the NHS because it won't just give them whatever random non-medically-indicated shit they want/their "doctor in Romania" has recommended.

Child presents with an obvious viral rash and it's all:

"Well I showed the rash to my doctor in Romania and they said they should be tested for all known allergens and it's ridiculous you aren't planning to do that".

[Magic]

I mean that is correct though.

[Spikey M]

I have a friend that broke his leg in Romania. He spent 4 days in Romanian hospital, with no painkillers beyond paracetamol and they botched his surgery so bad that he ended up with one leg significantly shorter than the other.

[randomlegend]

I mean that is correct though.

Not doing it is correct, yes.

[Magic]

Not doing it is correct, yes.

Basically why we don't trust you lot.

[randomlegend]

:thbup:

[niko_cee]

I don't know if this should be in the DOGE discussion, the house thread, the news thread or here, but as someone currently going through the planning process with HDC [current update, application in for 2 weeks and not even yet validated, great work chaps, efficient] this sort of shit (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgye3zr4eqo) is both maddening and a bit terrifying.

CIL is going to end up as one of those many other national scandals we have. It's completely insane in its operation, like properly Kafkaesque.


You must apply for the reliefs or exemptions that apply to your development by submitting the correct form. You must also submit an Assumption of Liability form for all claims, apart from the self-build residential exemption, before we can grant the relief or exemption.

The self-build exemption form is here (https://ecab.planningportal.co.uk/uploads/1app/forms/form_7_self_build_part_1_exemption_claim.pdf)

It literally says at the top of it that you have to do the assumption of liability form as part of this exemption process, even though the council guidance says you don't. If you get any minute aspect of the paperwork wrong you end up getting fucked. It is almost designed so you get it wrong. It is supposed to apply to large developers, but if you look at any local area planning map you will see that almost anywhere a big developer is developing stuff they are doing it on land that is designated as CIL exempt. If you look at pages 13 and 14 here (https://www.horsham.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/62868/Horsham-CIL-Charging-Schedule_April-2017.pdf) you will see my local area. The zero rated/purple areas are where literally all of the new major housing schemes are/were [it is obviously a bit out of date now but don't think it has been updated]. It's just another one of those things where the headline is making big developers pay, but the detail is just fucking the little guy. Top work. Get Elon in to dissolve the cunts.

[Boydy]

1891519026104356915

It's like he's trying to ensure Reform win the next election.

I've seen far too many BBC breaking news alerts today about Starmer says this and Starmer says that about Ukraine. He should shut the fuck up. I'm not fucking dying for Ukraine.

[Lewis]

What does he think an American 'backstop' and 'security guarantee' is that they haven't already ruled out? It sounds like European treaty-brained mongs thinking they can pull the wool over the Americans with fuzzy language, which obviously they will love.

[Magic]

1891519026104356915

It's like he's trying to ensure Reform win the next election.

I've seen far too many BBC breaking news alerts today about Starmer says this and Starmer says that about Ukraine. He should shut the fuck up. I'm not fucking dying for Ukraine.

As if you'd get called up.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Presumably it's the price for not being tariffed to fuck by Uncle Sam.

[Yevrah]

I've seen far too many BBC breaking news alerts today about Starmer says this and Starmer says that about Ukraine. He should shut the fuck up. I'm not fucking dying for Ukraine.

Utterly insane that there's seemingly only one man in the whole political landscape who is trying to stop that absolute shitshow.

[phonics]

Yev while I agree on the larger point I think you’re being completely mental on this. Your one guy happens to be the one guy who would face absolutely zero repercussions from Russian aggression being rewarded.

Please please look at the deal they offered Ukraine.

[AJ23]

Trump thinks Russia and Ukraine are the same country. He's a lunatic like Putin.

People need to look at the history of these two countries. Cossacks. Holodomor (more deaths than the Holocaust btw). Orange revolution. As starting points.

There is a lot of history where Ukrainians have tried to be wiped out in the past by Russians. It goes back centuries, and they see it happening again.

Ukraine are somehow still standing because they're a proud nation who've been fucked time and again and see themselves as different to Russians, who they view as sneaky and untrustworthy like most of Europe does.

And most importantly, they're mentally and physically strong fighters against the aggressor, who has always been threatened by their genuineness and spirit. They are also the breadbasket of Europe. So that's another thing. Money.....

I don't like Starmer but I see why he's supporting Ukraine. You let Putin take a vast country like Ukraine, you might as well give him Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Moldova. Etc. Then you're looking at another USSR situation. It's a different type of war nowadays with more technology which is why Putin is going hard for it.

And why Europe has to protect Ukraine, who do not have the same type of technology or weapons that Russia has built up over the years in preparation for this. His little Lenin/Stalin moment in history before he pops his clogs. Similar to Trump. Stuck in the cold war era mentally but mutual respect of that. Rocky IV. Old school mentality from both. Why can't we find young leaders nowadays? Trump and Biden. Fucking hell. Is that the best USA can give us out of 334 million people?

Anyway, Putin complains about Nato aggression but we all know it's the other way around. Trump doesn't want to support Nato, and that's what is dangerous. But if he gets a deal with his egomaniac despot mate Putin, everyone will see he's the main man who solved it all. Messed up situation.

[Lofty]

Utterly insane that there's seemingly only one man in the whole political landscape who is trying to stop that absolute shitshow.

Is this the same guy who believed Putin because he took him in a room away from his handlers and said he didn't do anything?

People seem to forget Russia were running regular naval and aerial sorties along our sovereign borders prior to Ukraine, I wouldn't be naive enough to think if Trump gets it agreed they just leave things as they are that is the end of it.

[Boydy]

1891787642645193122

Reform will be on about 40% when those 11% budget cuts kick in.

[Spikey M]

I just want to know who the 21% voting Conservative are. Baffling.

[Yevrah]

Any indication as to what that looks like in seats?

An absolute hung parliament tastic shit show I’m guessing.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I just want to know who the 21% voting Conservative are. Baffling.

South and west of London will never, ever vote Reform. Basically the old Saxon kingdom of Wessex will always be Tory or at most Lib Dem.

Viking kingdoms are the Reform voters.

[Boydy]

Any indication as to what that looks like in seats?

An absolute hung parliament tastic shit show I’m guessing.

There was another poll the other day which had Reform on 29% which I think someone had worked out as probably being a majority. I think a Reform majority will happen.

[Spikey M]

I don't even mean "why aren't they voting Reform?". I fully understand not wanting to vote for them. I sure as shit wouldn't. But why would ANYONE vote Tory after the last 14 years? Who were they good for, exactly? Certainly not anyone that wanted a (small c) conservative government.

[Ben]

Any indication as to what that looks like in seats?

An absolute hung parliament tastic shit show i’m guessing.

Lab 209
Ref 151
Con 156
LD 62

[Jimmy Floyd]

I don't even mean "why aren't they voting Reform?". I fully understand not wanting to vote for them. I sure as shit wouldn't. But why would ANYONE vote Tory after the last 14 years? Who were they good for, exactly? Certainly not anyone that wanted a (small c) conservative government.

Because you want generally right-wing / conservative policies but don't want them delivered by Nigel Farage and Richard Tice.

Personally think there is a lot of water to go under the bridge, Tories and Reform both need something that the other has if they are to beat Labour, so I would expect a merger or at worst a pact. Wouldn't be at all surprised if the Tory/Conservative brand was ditched and they merged into some bullshit name like Rule Britannia (probably not that, but you get the idea).

[Spikey M]

Lab 209
Ref 151
Con 156
LD 62

Christ, that would be awful. Absolutely nothing would get done.

[Boydy]

Christ, that would be awful. Absolutely nothing would get done.

I dunno, I'm sure they could all agree to make the place even worse.

[Spikey M]

That already appears to have cross party support.

[Lewis]

The energy policies Tice announced the other day are genuinely retarded - not as in they merely sound ineffective, but actual mong logic like windfall taxes on existing subsidies - so they still aren't any sort of serious party, but they could easily finish the Conservative Party off once it becomes a choice and they look like the more likely one. On the other hand, the Conservative Party will have to switch leader before long, and Jenrick is better placed to reverse the trend, so who knows.

Anyway, another Labour minister making their job experience up lol. No wonder none of them wanted to probe Reeves' lies.

[randomlegend]

I don't even mean "why aren't they voting Reform?". I fully understand not wanting to vote for them. I sure as shit wouldn't. But why would ANYONE vote Tory after the last 14 years? Who were they good for, exactly? Certainly not anyone that wanted a (small c) conservative government.

Because some people (the elderly, Jimmy) treat political parties like football teams and vote for the one they support, no matter what.

Same way I'm still prepared to have my eyes raped by Man Utd twice a week, they'll still vote Tory whilst they burn the country down.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I voted for Keir Starmer's Labour this time. Not one of my prouder moments.

[Manc]

Jimmy the bald(ing) fraud.

[Lofty]

Where's Tommy Tugger at? Exiled by Thick Kemi?

[niko_cee]

Does a pot plant with a red rosette win where that punchy Labour MP is from or is there the prospect of an interesting BELLWETHER by-election on the assumption he gets recalled/biffed?

[Jimmy Floyd]

Got to be a solid chance for Reform in a by election there. Although the recent Trumpy/Musky stuff probably hasn't helped them.

[niko_cee]

Sounds like Sir Kier's mission to Washington is going to be rather overtaken and subsumed by events.

[Spikey M]

I'm not sure why he's bothering, really. Trump isn't going to listen to him. Why would he? At best he gets another pat on the head and told he's a good boy. At worse, he gets humiliated like Macron did.

[Magic]

Lol that's terrible take.

[Yevrah]

Did Macron get humiliated?

[niko_cee]

Kier should be landing in Boston Harbor with the King in tow.

I reckon we could take back at least a few of the Thirteen Colonies. New New England.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I reckon Trump would sell us Maine in exchange for maybe three courses off the Open rota. Trump Sandwich has a nice ring to it.

[randomlegend]

That Macron/Trump exchange made Trump look like someone with special needs and Macron his exceptionally patient support worker.

[Spikey M]

Well, yes, but I think it's fair to say that the intent behind brushing dandruff off Macron's shoulder wasn't positive.

[phonics]

I’ve just seen James O Briens current hair and it did psychic damage to me. My word.

[Disco]

He had a big plaster on his head so I assume it's to cover up whatever was underneath, I fail to see how it could be worse than the hair though.

[Spikey M]

He had a big plaster on his head so I assume it's to cover up whatever was underneath, I fail to see how it could be worse than the hair though.

Would you consider having Hitlers hair worse?

1897657034893295919?t=jFKUvNRlWsO90yW0yy1rpw&s=19

[Magic]

Petition to ban twitter links.

[Giggles]

Censorship, it's all the far left has any more :nuts:

[niko_cee]

What is going on with Reform and Rupert Lowe?

[Lewis]

He said that the party needs to be more than a Nigel Farage ego vehicle and become more professional, so Nigel Farage has kindly proved his point for him.

[Spikey M]

I had - clearly incorrectly - assumed, that the set up was Farage and Tice pandering to the Centre Right, with Lowe being left alone to sweep up the votes from the further right.

Fuck knows what the plan is, if not. They won't win the next election without a Rupert Lowe figure saying the stuff they won't say though.

[Ben]

You think there’s a plan? They’ve fluked their way into this position due to the incumbents not dealing with the huge piles of steaming shit over the past decade or so, and have no clue how to handle it.

[Spikey M]

I thought they'd atleast have a very basic plan for how they're going to balance the obvious issue they're going to have in keeping both lapsed Tories and the Muslamic Ray Gun mongs happy. And the set up with Lowe seemed pretty good with that in mind. But no, clearly not. Thankfully they're actually this stupid.

[niko_cee]

Wait, Rupert Lowe was the right wing wacko?

I've obviously not being paying enough attention.

Richard Tice has to be one of the worst front men ever for a 'this is why your life is shit' narrative.

[Spikey M]

Well, he's been part of the Elon Musk MUSLIM RAPE GANG circle jerk and has been banging the drum for ethnicity backed crime statistics. In our current climate, that's pretty far right.

Outside of that I've not really been paying attention.

[niko_cee]

By enough, I've mean zero attention other than thinking wait isn't that the guy who owned Southampton at one point a few years ago.

[Lewis]

Tice is awful in every way. Boomer Facebook memes come to life as a massive twat.

[Disco]

Would you consider having Hitlers hair worse?

1897657034893295919?t=jFKUvNRlWsO90yW0yy1rpw&s=19


I fail to see how it could be worse than the hair though.

:dc:

[Ben]

Kanye West just out there openly saying his new album will be antisemitic.

[phonics]

Kanye West going off his medication and then saying wild, dumb shit to promote his album?

A truly seismic poltical moment.

[Ben]

I’ve had half a pint, I’m not in the business of finding the right thread.

[phonics]

https://i.imgur.com/qdRkFuN.png

This man blocked me years ago because I said him using his 800 thousand follower account to actively tag and tweet about how Hertz car rentals was ruining his ski holiday wasn't very man of the people. And now he looks like a bald drunk, the lesson here is to be nice to me.

[Yevrah]

He blocked you for that? :D

[phonics]

885818723701055488

https://i.imgur.com/DI94fzo.png

Blocked within 30 seconds.

Its impressive, despite being a destestable arsehole I think I'm only blocked by 3 people on the entire website: James OBrien, the Run The Jewels Rapper, El-P and Barney Ronay.

[Shindig]

What did you do to piss off El-P? :D

[phonics]

That one I feel fully justified on. This was old school Twitter. He spent years on that very same feed mocking rappers who would use Twitter as a promotional tool and jerking themselves off with retweets into doing exactly that once Run the Jewels popped off.

I quote tweeted this

99249334666788864

And then said something along the lines of "When they become what they hate :("

and got an immediate reply of "Go fuck yourself you frowny ass fuck" and got blocked.

[Shindig]

I can't not read that quote in his rap voice. Wonderful.

[phonics]

Actually Shindig I just remembered my 4th block which you may be interested in. Austin Walker of 'I'm super smart and a deep thinker about video games' fame. I tweeted at him a song I made of Africa by Toto using only Yoshi noises and he also blocked me within 12 seconds.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96Utvjk2qtw

[Shindig]

Well, that was insufferable.

[phonics]

Quite, it's the opposite of the El-P one, he was the justified one.

[Spikey M]

885818723701055488

https://i.imgur.com/DI94fzo.png

Blocked within 30 seconds.

Its impressive, despite being a destestable arsehole I think I'm only blocked by 3 people on the entire website: James OBrien, the Run The Jewels Rapper, El-P and Barney Ronay.

Someone posted a quote from Limmy in response to one of my tweets, I said I had no idea what they were talking about, and they tagged Limmy. I was blocked before I even clicked on his profile.

Blocked for not knowing who the fanny is. :happycry:

[Lofty]

I enjoy Limmy's content but I have heard on good authority from good sources in Glasgow he is a cunt in real life.

[Ben]

Who is Limmy?

[Jimmy Floyd]

A Scottish streamer. Come on, even I know this.

[Magic]

I enjoy Limmy's content but I have heard on good authority from good sources in Glasgow he is a cunt in real life.

In fairness who isn't.

[Shindig]

Mildly depressing that he's a streamer first, these days.

[Magic]

A Scottish streamer. Come on, even I know this.

He is that now but that's not why he's famous.

[Jimmy Floyd]

He didn't ask for an account of the battle of Bannockburn, he asked who Limmy is. Correct answers only.

[Spikey M]

Who is Limmy?

I still don't really know, but at the time he had some kind of show on the BBC (3 or Alba, not one of the proper channels). I think he's basically a shite Karl Pilkington.


https://youtu.be/P_0qXhN_72c?si=hRqj_U7-pA-H6KeL

Hilarity.

[niko_cee]

I've heard 'the name' but would have probably guessed Linehan as it was mentioned in the context of someone being a mong on twitter.

[Ben]

I don’t think I’ll be watching any more of his stuff if that’s the standard.

[Magic]

He didn't ask for an account of the battle of Bannockburn, he asked who Limmy is. Correct answers only.

This is how I'll justify my addiction to Trans porn from here on in.

[Shindig]

The local Reform bloke just stuck his leaflet through the door. Three bulletpoints:

- Freeze immigration and STOP THE BOATS
- Scrap Net Zero to cut your energy bills
- Reduce waste and cut your taxes

Three things that distinctly seem impossible to do. Why would scrapping net zero lead to cheaper bills? Energy suppliers are private entities. Are you going to nationalise the energy sector, Nigel? Are you going to mine the channel? Reducing waste sounds like a green policy. How does that reduce taxes?

The leaflet ends on an incomplete sentence. "We take our county back, then our"

Have a word with the printers you used in Southend for that, Andrew Husband/Husband, Andrew.

[randomlegend]

The local Reform bloke just stuck his leaflet through the door. Three bulletpoints:

- Freeze immigration and STOP THE BOATS
- Scrap Net Zero to cut your energy bills
- Reduce waste and cut your taxes

Three things that distinctly seem impossible to do. Why would scrapping net zero lead to cheaper bills? Energy suppliers are private entities. Are you going to nationalise the energy sector, Nigel? Are you going to mine the channel? Reducing waste sounds like a green policy. How does that reduce taxes?


It doesn't matter whether it does or doesn't or whether there's any logic, all that matters is morons like Giggles will vote for it and there are a lot of them.

[Shindig]

They'll be as effective as this white fella clambering up Westminster with his little flag.

[Spikey M]

Rishi Sunak gave a great interview this week and the part about the PM - and government as a whole - lacking the power to get anything done was very interesting. Reform would have zero chance of making anything at all happen under the status quo, which is good, but pretty concerning on the whole, because the country needs lots of change, even if it isn't the change Reform want.

[Shindig]

Illegal immigration is especially difficult to tackle because you have the most desperate people trekking across continental Europe. No deterrent is big enough to stop them and it has been going on for as long as people have been able to travel. You can't realistically imprison them. Deporting them is a long and stupid process. Even then, they'll be back again.

[Lewis]

It's a long and stupid process because we have made it one.

[Magic]

Illegal immigration is especially difficult to tackle because you have the most desperate people trekking across continental Europe. No deterrent is big enough to stop them and it has been going on for as long as people have been able to travel. You can't realistically imprison them. Deporting them is a long and stupid process. Even then, they'll be back again.

Refugees aren't illegal.

Illegal immigrants aren't that desperate.

Also it's the legal immigrants that are the problem. Everything else is irrelevant.

[igor_balis]

Limmy is (was?) great but very inconsistent. His BBC Scotland sketch show has a solid hour or two of absolute GOLD, but then also a lot of patience testing wank - I guess that's partly the nature of sketch shows.

He's basically given up actually making stuff now, and just streams for a few hours a day on twitch. It's inconsistent like the sketch show, but it's much more pronounced. I have absolutely no idea how anyone can actually watch it live, cus he's constantly stopping what he's doing to thank people for subscribing/donating. I don't blame the cunt for doing it, but i don't wanna fucking watch it. Thankfully some mentalist has been making little highlight videos for years, some of them are pretty good.

[Lofty]

The highlight channel must be unofficial because they once put some editing over his story about going to a festival with a lad from work who went on a bad trip after too many Garys and the editing was hilarious with disco lights and music between cuts, got taken down pretty swiftly though. Possibly because it was funnier than Limmy's original story.

[Spikey M]

Mark BoE Carney the new PM of Canada. :happycry:

Can we nuke them?

[Jimmy Floyd]

Was it him who came out with the immortal idea that people should stop asking for pay rises? A true great if so.

[Spikey M]

No, that was Andrew Bailey. Not that you could slide a Rizla between any of the cunts.

[niko_cee]

Former Goldman Sachs executive the problem is you just aren't productive enough lets keep printing the money and holding interest rates at zero Mark Carney somehow being the good guy seems like the world is fully inverting on itself.

[Luke Emia]

Oh Andrew Bailey is a 100 times more incompetent than Mark Carney ever was.

[Pepe]

I don't know. Reddit seems to think that this Carney lad is the best economist to have ever walked the Earth and that he did an excellent job in England, so I will side with them.

[Magic]

I don't know. Reddit seems to think that this Carney lad is the best economist to have ever walked the Earth and that he did an excellent job in England, so I will side with them.

I mean he did rightly say Brexit would be a fucking disaster but nobody listened to him.

I guess he understands country economies so he'll wipe the floor with the clown leading your circus.

[Spikey M]

He also sleep walked us into the nightmare what was keeping interest rates at 0% for absolutely no fucking reason.

[Boydy]

Put them back down.

[Spikey M]

They can't unless you want 10% inflation again. Absolutely fucked it.

[Magic]

Hmm...can't afford any of the "not inflated" goods because my mortgage is so high...

[Boydy]

1899409443839680900

Sort of seems like a meeting of the parliamentary labour party should include all members of the parliamentary labour party.

[Luke Emia]

They can't unless you want 10% inflation again. Absolutely fucked it.

I suspect we are going to be in this ‘spikeflation’ cycle for quite a few more years I can easily see it going back over 5% this year if not higher, falling away and then having another cycle of higher inflation in 2027. That’s even if they don’t cut interest rates any further this year.

It cannot be underestimated how bad a decision it was to keep pumping money into the economy until late 2021 even though they could see inflation was already running wild.

[Shindig]

No idea what the benefit cuts will bring but I would propose the following:

Bring back face to face assessments. Those observations are crucial to the process. We've been carrying out a small percentage since Covid and that really should be increased.

[Boydy]

1901603061383970823

[Boydy]

This is also interesting:

1901762117658648860

[niko_cee]

Yeah, I saw that yesterday [?] - isn't it to do with tax relief changes or something? Like you pay business rates instead of council tax or something mad if the property is unoccupied and stuff about debt interest?

Corporate landlords, ie really big ones like Blackrock, are definitely what is coming for the UK rental / property market, which can only be bad for most people.

[Spoonsky]

Ed Sheeran has caught me off guard on that list.

[Shindig]

Okay, so my main issue with the disability benefit reforms is how that encourages people to work.

These people speak their brains. (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2gpl4528go)

The first lass clearly has a job already and is using PIP to subsides the fact she has to deal with the costs of living near London. The second woman is a bit off-base with the mobility bit. You might drive him round but it's his claim. As for her surprise he took a top award, it's degenerative disease. The paperwork they provided would've directed the assessor to a top award.


Tracy, 44, watched Liz Kendall's speech at a community café in Salford. She is unable to work after a brain injury.

"I would love to be back in work, but I would need the right support," she says.

PIP will never give you that. It's just money. I think there should be a signposting aspect to it but that's not going to bring down welfare costs.

[Boydy]

1902705464091045930

[Spikey M]

I need to find a way to leave this dump.

[Magic]

You'll never leave TTH.

[niko_cee]

I need to find a way to leave this dump.

Where you gonna go?

[Spikey M]

Do not question my quarter baked plans, m8.

[Boydy]

1903869411737419944

randomlegend - is this what you were talking about before?

[Pepe]

Nice to have a doctor on staff in a restaurant, tbh. Bars should get some as well.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Why do they restrict training positions? Is it cheaper to import?

[Lewis]

The people most seething about this are generally the same sort of people who claim that foreigners built the National Health Service, who think that foreign medical staff are done for malpractice more often because of racism, and who think that a government health monopoly is good because it can use its purchasing power to lower costs. It's hard to see how they could have painted themselves into more of a corner really. Oh well.

[Pepe]

Why do they restrict training positions? Is it cheaper to import?

Because manufactured shortages are the government's specialty.

[randomlegend]

The people most seething about this are generally the same sort of people who claim that foreigners built the National Health Service, who think that foreign medical staff are done for malpractice more often because of racism, and who think that a government health monopoly is good because it can use its purchasing power to lower costs. It's hard to see how they could have painted themselves into more of a corner really. Oh well.

No they aren't.

[randomlegend]

1903869411737419944

randomlegend - is this what you were talking about before?

Yes. You should see the training competition graphs.

They are restricting training places because consultants are expensive.

They want the NHS to be an army of Noctors (nurse practitioners, PAs, paramedics practitioners, etc) "supervised" by a small number of consultants who basically act as liability sponges.

[Lewis]

So what is the agenda at work here? I mean when it was the Conservative Party doing it it was obviously all a scheme to run it into the ground so that their rich mates could benefit at our expense, which is why you were right to say that their voters are immoral; but why are the people that you voted for doing the same things?

[phonics]

Tbf to RL the people that he voted for in this instance are also doing the same things on everything else hence why everyone thinks they're shit.

[Pepe]

I mean, if it saves money and the outcomes don't degrade too much, then it could be a good thing for everyone but medicine students, but I am sure that RL will tell us that it is actually more expensive and will cause millions of deaths, so either they are stupid or they are evil.

[randomlegend]

Why not both?

I suspect what will ultimately happen if this path is allowed to be continued upon is you'll end up with a truly two tier health system, where the poors have to get by seeing the Noctor brigade whilst those that can afford it pay to see an actual doctor.

GP surgeries have already started to backtrack on the PA experiment though, and some hospital trusts are following suit. Lewisham have just removed PAs from their A and E entirely because they were unsafe, to give an example.

It's almost like medicine is actually hard and can't be learned in two years by people with humanities degrees from mickey mouse universities.

The breadth and depth of what you need to know and be able to do is enormous to be able to practice medicine safely. I am an actual doctor with about 7 years of post-graduate experience - most of that in a very good paediatric department - and I remain extremely aware of the fact that a kid could walk in tomorrow with something I have literally never heard of and wouldn't know how to manage. What I am confident I could do is recognise that fact and go to the right place for help. That takes a lot of training.

Meanwhile you've got PAs with two years of medical training or experience of any sort seeing undifferentiated patients in A and Es and GPs up and down the land, and they simply have no idea what they don't know and are completely unable to do this, even for relatively common things which fall outside their extremely narrow "knowledge" base. They have a huge amount of unwarranted confidence, almost universally in my experience. It is a scandal in the making, I'm telling you.

[Ben]

In my experience at the GP, Noctors >>>>> Doctors.

[niko_cee]

They want the NHS to be an army of Noctors (nurse practitioners, PAs, paramedics practitioners, etc) "supervised" by a small number of consultants who basically act as liability sponges.

I have no idea how the hierarchy of doctoring works, and I think it has changed since it was explained to me once upon a time in the 2000s [SHO what?], but is it not possible to have an army of doctors, not an army of consultants? If there's a training based conveyor belt that gives the latter, is that not a problem? In a field I'm more familiar with most trainee solicitors, for example, don't end up as partners, I don't think [most barristers don't become KCs etc] and most of the mundane legwork, which is almost all the work, is done by the lower down the pecking order folk. Is it possible to have a system where you have x % trainee doctors, y % normal doctors and z % senior doctors/consulatnts whilst maintaining a balanced amount of overall doctors? Or does the senior group grow over time leaving you with only the choice to stifle the lower groups if you want to maintain an affordable system?

Obviously there are other issues more broadly, for example the trainee solicitor probably gets paid more in year 1 than the however many years qualified medical consultant.

[randomlegend]

In my experience at the GP, Noctors >>>>> Doctors.

Yeah, patients often think this because they don't actually understand what they need (and more importantly don't need) and what good medicine is.

That's not to say there aren't crap doctors, but patients often get a lot of satisfaction from interactions with the noctor brigade because they simply give the patient what they want.

Extremely common examples would be antibiotics for patently viral infections or referrals to specialists or for scans that are not warranted.

This is why they often actually end up costing the service a lot more money overall even if they are paid less, and that's before you even start getting to the mistakes they make which GPs/doctors then have to spend time mopping up.

[Ben]

referrals to specialists or for scans that are not warranted

Yeah like my knee that was lacking cartilage and ligaments. Doctor just waved me off, at least the noctor rolled up my trousers and looked at the fucking thing.

Also, noctors say things like "hello, how are you?" and "goodbye" which seems to be lacking amongst your lot.

[randomlegend]

I have no idea how the hierarchy of doctoring works, and I think it has changed since it was explained to me once upon a time in the 2000s [SHO what?], but is it not possible to have an army of doctors, not an army of consultants? If there's a training based conveyor belt that gives the latter, is that not a problem? In a field I'm more familiar with most trainee solicitors, for example, don't end up as partners, I don't think [most barristers don't become KCs etc] and most of the mundane legwork, which is almost all the work, is done by the lower down the pecking order folk. Is it possible to have a system where you have x % trainee doctors, y % normal doctors and z % senior doctors/consulatnts whilst maintaining a balanced amount of overall doctors? Or does the senior group grow over time leaving you with only the choice to stifle the lower groups if you want to maintain an affordable system?

Obviously there are other issues more broadly, for example the trainee solicitor probably gets paid more in year 1 than the however many years qualified medical consultant.

Essentially acute care kind of does work like that already, but the majority of those non-consultant doctors doing the legwork of the acute care will be on training programmes to become consultants.

The numbers for that wouldn't seem to add up; how can the system need all those non-consultant doctors to become consultants when day to day you probably have a ratio of 5+ non-consultants per consultant in order to deliver your acute care?

The reason for that is elective care is almost entirely consultant delivered, because that's where most of the more complex diagnostic medicine and long-term decision making on management is done, and that requires a consultant.

I think your analogy pertaining to solicitors doesn't really fit. The majority of solicitors won't become partners, but they will (to my understanding) become essentially autonomous practitioner's with their own case loads etc. I would say that makes them similar to consultant doctors. The partners are more akin to GPs who are practice partners (i.e. have a stake in the business of the GP practice) rather than salaries GPs. Hospital medicine probably has a less obvious comparator but I guess it would be people like the service directors for the various specialities.

[randomlegend]

Yeah like my knee that was lacking cartilage and ligaments. Doctor just waved me off, at least the noctor rolled up my trousers and looked at the fucking thing.

Also, noctors say things like "hello, how are you?" and "goodbye" which seems to be lacking amongst your lot.

What's been the actual outcome with your knee? Have you been offered any intervention which is going to make any significant difference? It's a very long time since I did orthopaedics, but I'm guessing probably not?

[niko_cee]

Essentially acute care kind of does work like that already, but the majority of those non-consultant doctors doing the legwork of the acute care will be on training programmes to become consultants.

The numbers for that wouldn't seem to add up; how can the system need all those non-consultant doctors to become consultants when day to day you probably have a ratio of 5+ non-consultants per consultant in order to deliver your acute care?

The reason for that is elective care is almost entirely consultant delivered, because that's where most of the more complex diagnostic medicine and long-term decision making on management is done, and that requires a consultant.



I agree the analogies to other fields are problematic.

I don't really understand this though.

Is what you are saying that, essentially, we need trainee doctors and non-consultant doctors to largely run 'acute care' [is that A&E?] and we then need that system to feed out the qualified older hands to prop up the rest of the health system in consultant roles? Again with the x, y and zs, if you are a trainee for x years, a qualified doctor for y years and then a consultant for z years is it not necessary for the z number to be no more than, and really probably a lot less than x and y? Is that the case or are you a consultant for much longer than either of the other roles? What percentage of the system is elective care? It just feels from the outside, with no real knowledge, that this is a system doomed to become disastrously top heavy.

[Ben]

What's been the actual outcome with your knee? Have you been offered any intervention which is going to make any significant difference? It's a very long time since I did orthopaedics, but I'm guessing probably not?

Professional diagnosis: fucked.

Had one surgery which has restored pain-free day-to-day stuff. I will need a second (bigger) operation if I want to play sports again. Next booked in with the consultant in May and I think we will probably decide on going ahead with it.

[Magic]

I had a Chinese consultant type as a neighbour who worked at the local hospital. We called him the Chocter.

[randomlegend]

I agree the analogies to other fields are problematic.

I don't really understand this though.

Is what you are saying that, essentially, we need trainee doctors and non-consultant doctors to largely run 'acute care' [is that A&E?] and we then need that system to feed out the qualified older hands to prop up the rest of the health system in consultant roles? Again with the x, y and zs, if you are a trainee for x years, a qualified doctor for y years and then a consultant for z years is it not necessary for the z number to be no more than, and really probably a lot less than x and y? Is that the case or are you a consultant for much longer than either of the other roles? What percentage of the system is elective care? It just feels from the outside, with no real knowledge, that this is a system doomed to become disastrously top heavy.

Ok, so simplified structure of medical training.

Go to medical school for 5 years, then you are a doctor.

Every doctor who qualifies in the UK then has to do 2 years in what's called the "foundation programme", where you rotate through a range of specialities every 4 months. You may have heard these doctors referred to as F1/2s or FY1/2s.

Traditionally, after this everyone would apply for speciality training, whether this be GP or a hospital speciality (there's a bit more complexity to this but it's not that relevant). This lasts between 3 years for GP up to 7-8+ years for some hospital specialities. For roughly half of this time you'll be a Core Trainee and the other half a Speciality Trainee.

The term SHO is officially gone but very much still in use and would refer to any doctor above F1 but not yet a registrar. A registrar would be anyone who is in a training programme and has reached Speciality Trainee level but is not yet a Consultant.

Once you complete those years and fulfill all the requirements of your training programme, you are a consultant in your speciality (or a GP if you did GP training).

In recent years, more people have not gone directly into training programmes but have either taken fixed contract jobs in a specific speciality or just done locums. In these roles you don't progress up the training ladder. Initially people were starting to do this as it was possible to make a lot of money, but the market no longer exists for this.

Now large numbers are simply not getting into training so are forced into these fixed contract jobs. This is due to explosion of competition ratios from the enormous number of international medical graduates coming in.

So yes, career wise you will be a Foundation Doctor for 2 years, a core/speciality trainee for 3-8ish years, then a consultant for the rest of your career (ignoring any gaps in training).

Acute care is essentially all the stuff that happens when someone presents to hospital unwell. So that's A and E, but it's also all the care of people then admitted to the hospital for ongoing treatment and investigation under a speciality.

So if you present with bowel obstruction, you'll be admitted under general surgery and have an emergency operation. Then you'll be cared for on the ward post-op until you're well enough to go home. This is all acute care.

The on the ground work here is predominantly done by non-consultant doctors. All the initial assessment of the patients, the institution of initial management (IV fluids, antibiotics, etc), the organising of initial investigations, etc. Senior registars are able to act as the senior decision makers for much of this care and deliver much of the more complex stuff, like doing the actual operation for our bowel obstruction patient. Consultants are there as the senior decision makers for things beyond the registrar, and will also do ward rounds at varying intervals (may be every day, may not, depends on speciality) where they see all their patients and make decisions about their ongoing care.

Elective care is all the planned care, and this is predominantly consultant delivered. So that's all the outpatient clinics. All the planned operations in surgical specialties. Multidisciplinary case discussions around the management of patients with complex or serious problems like cancer. Diagnostic procedures like endoscopies. Complex radiological investigations and reporting. Morbidity and mortality reviews. Etc etc etc.

Then there's all the adjacent stuff like management and teaching.

I can understand from the outside why it might seem like you've got all these doctors, how can you possibly need them all to be consultants, but there is more than enough consultant level work to go around. Most places are short of consultants.

[Lewis]

:lol:

[randomlegend]

Professional diagnosis: fucked.

Had one surgery which has restored pain-free day-to-day stuff. I will need a second (bigger) operation if I want to play sports again. Next booked in with the consultant in May and I think we will probably decide on going ahead with it.

Good, I'm glad. Maybe the GP you saw was indeed just crap. Not examining a joint when someone has come with a joint problem would certainly not be my practice.

GPs are incredibly hamstrung by the fact they often only have 5 minutes appointments though, whilst the noctor brigade often get 10 plus. GP is an unbelievably hard job. As a med student I've sat in with duty doctors (like the on-call GP for the day in a surgery) where they've had 100 patients on their list for the day. A hundred.

[Pepe]

My solution:
- Let everyone who wants to take the tests/courses/whatever take them. Have them every month, hell every week. Allow retakes.
- Flood the system with doctors
- Since there are so many, you can pay them less
- The people of Britain can be treated by full-fledged doctors as opposed to 'noctors' for less money
- Everybody wins

[Magic]

My suggestion. Don't be so fat and unhealthy.

[randomlegend]

- Let everyone who wants to take the tests/courses/whatever take them. Have them every month, hell every week. Allow retakes.


Huh? You want to run 10 years of medical training weekly?

[Pepe]

My suggestion. Don't be so fat and unhealthy.

I agree. Let's form a coalition.


Huh? You want to run 10 years of medical training weekly?

Taking about those tests that done people were mistakenly told that they failed and it ruined their lives. Let them retake them asap, no need to wait six months or a year or whatever. Also, those ten years could probably be eight or even five. Make people specialize earlier if needed.

[Pepe]

GPs are incredibly hamstrung by the fact they often only have 5 minutes appointments though

Are you telling me that people have to wait months for an appointment and then they only get to see a doctor for five minutes? Because if so, lol at that. Also, what kind of totalitarian system does not let doctors choose how many appointments they want to take?

[Magic]

Are you telling me that people have to wait months for an appointment and then they only get to see a doctor for five minutes? Because if so, lol at that. Also, what kind of totalitarian system does not let doctors choose how many appointments they want to take?

No, these appointments are handed out daily, you just call first thing and try and get an appt.

[Pepe]

I see. So these are just the gatekeepers to the real care?

[Magic]

I see. So these are just the gatekeepers to the real care?

Yeah, like triage. Mostly useless. And they are further gatekept by the dangerous Karens on reception (Koctors) who know miles more.

[Spikey M]

I see. So these are just the gatekeepers to the real care?

Not really. They're who you see for non-energencies. Obviously some times they'll refer you for "real care", but more often than not they're chucking antibiotics at a cough that's lasted more than 10 days.

[randomlegend]

Taking about those tests that done people were mistakenly told that they failed and it ruined their lives. Let them retake them asap, no need to wait six months or a year or whatever. Also, those ten years could probably be eight or even five. Make people specialize earlier if needed.

Those are things doctors would love.

The exams being run more often will never happen though. They are barely able to cope with the administration as is (hence examgate). They also cost a lot of money and we have to pay for them.

Exams are also a very small part of how we are assessed. I have a portfolio with a huge number of requirements I have to fulfill each year to progress. Having someone pass the exams definitely does not equate to them being a capable consultant.

[randomlegend]

Are you telling me that people have to wait months for an appointment and then they only get to see a doctor for five minutes? Because if so, lol at that.

Yes. Hospital speciality appointments are longer but in GP that's the reality.


Also, what kind of totalitarian system does not let doctors choose how many appointments they want to take?

The duty doctor is like the on-call doctor for the surgery for the "urgent" appointments people call up for on the day. Things that need to be seen but probably don't warrant A and E.

A GP's normally list will not have that many patients, but they are still packed in back to back 5 minute appointments.

I would not be a GP for all the money in the world.

[randomlegend]

I see. So these are just the gatekeepers to the real care?

They are the gatekeepers to specialist care, but they are also an extremely important speciality in their own right. They manage a lot in the community.

Being a generalist is a very, very hard job. You can get literally anything walk through your door and in five minutes be expected to work out what to do with it. That's fine if it's someone with an obvious viral infection or whatever, but you will get the unicorns occasionally and picking them out so you're not the GP in the daily mail who "MISSED MY DIAGNOSIS that ten people in the whole world have" is tough.

[Spikey M]

1904882033890852941?t=G5ceCXm3JDVE-MLHzwMmdg&s=19

And with that, I never vote Labour - or, most likely, for anyone - ever again. I wish Mr Farage the best of luck in finishing off whatever is left of the country in 4 years time.

[niko_cee]

What, not even if they promised policies you agreed with at some point in the future, presumably under new leadership?

Not sure what anyone was really expecting of the more of the same but just more competent ticket.

[Lofty]

The best bit is the diehard tories who defended the same policies under a blue rosette will be rabid about this cos it's the red team.

[Lewis]

And it turns out they aren't even 'more competent'. You cannot help but to lol.

[Magic]

In fairness I'm just kind of settling for no obscene corruption at the moment. That'll do me.

[Shindig]

I'm just after a government that can outlast supermarket vegetables.

[Ben]

Corbyn was right again...

[niko_cee]

I'm just after a government that can outlast supermarket vegetables.

Maybe we're looking at this the wrong way round. Maybe we should aim for vegetables that outlast governments. Food waste solved overnight.

[Yevrah]

How does one game the outcome of this and the US stuff ala the chap in the Big Short?

It feels like I should be taking the tax hit and putting what's left into that rather than a pension.

[Boydy]

Corbyn was right again...

He was right about everything. I hope it was worth it for these cunts that stabbed him in the back. It's funny that they've turned out to completely fucking shit at being in power but I'm sure the cushy directorships they get from their donors afterwards will make it worth it. They won't even have the shame to be embarrassed.

[Boydy]

The unions should be withdrawing their funding from the Labour party. Corbyn should be setting up a new party and the socialist campaign group (and any others on the left wing of the party who can't stomach this Tory shit any more) within Labour should be leaving to join it.

The Labour party doesn't work in working people's interests any more and it'll be dead and buried come the next election anyway.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Maybe he can team up with Bernie Sanders, discover the elixir of life, and rule transatlantic politics for the next half century. Either that or the left need a new figurehead who's under 75. Perhaps Gary Economics will do it, good for the channel views.

[niko_cee]

He's said he doesn't want to do it enough times he must be nailed on to do it at some point.

[Yevrah]

Gary's Economics vs Mine's a Pint Nige would be interesting at least I guess.

[Ben]

You joke but I don't think it's all that far away that a major (I guess that includes Reform now) party parachute in a YouTube/podcast personality and win on the back of it.

[Yevrah]

Indeed and I wasn’t joking. There seems to be a wilful refusal on the part of the traditional incumbents to acknowledge how much the internet has changed things, the effects of which are not even remotely finished yet.

[Jimmy Floyd]

The parliamentary system makes it a ballache for celebrity politicians, as Farage is finding out. It's not like the US where you can just jump in to run for any old shit and get elected to quite a lot of power. You have to bring loads and loads of people with you at various levels. Which is how it should be, really.

[Yevrah]

I liken those incumbents to the board of Blockbuster video. Similar conversations must be being had with heads in the sand all over the shop.

[Yevrah]

The parliamentary system makes it a ballache for celebrity politicians, as Farage is finding out. It's not like the US where you can just jump in to run for any old shit and get elected.

It does, but there’s only so long that can hold out for. First step will be some nightmare three or four party coalition that can’t agree on anything let alone get anything done (no change there then rofl), at which point we’re basically Belgium, everyone will see how shit that is (probably somehow worse than this) and we’ll be off to the races.

[Shindig]

You joke but I don't think it's all that far away that a major (I guess that includes Reform now) party parachute in a YouTube/podcast personality and win on the back of it.

I mean, UKIP tried that with Carl Benjamin and Count Dankula. Not exactly major but these are the people they'd go after.

[Jimmy Floyd]

The problem will always be that at some point, no matter what political system one uses, simply gassing (which is what celebrities do for a living) will run into the hard reality of actual political work which, for all we moan about MPs, the majority of them actually do pretty well and effectively. That means sitting on committees, reading A LOT of very dry material, being bored, having to listen to other people, these are things anathema to those in the grift economy. Look at Reform, they have 5 MPs, at least three of whom are ego-driven celebrity politicians, and it's lasted about twenty minutes before they've fallen into civil war.

US system is much less robust than ours in the sense that someone like Trump can get voted into, and then wield, a huge amount of executive power simply by gassing. As long as we have a monarch that will never happen here.

[Magic]

And yet we got BREXIT.

[Shindig]

'cos that was a public vote.

[Lofty]

1904819845817901346

[Magic]

*sucks air in through teeth*

Lol @ the vape bit though.

[Ben]

Politics is dead.

[Lewis]

Why is Starmer out there saying there needs to be a 'deadline' on Russia negotiating a peace agreement? Why would they go along with that, and how are we making it happen exactly? Nobody seems to be asking too many questions of this deranged shit, presumably because idiots think it makes him look like a serious person.

[Yevrah]

The approach is all such a mess, held together by this dumb arse notion that allowing him to take any more of Ukraine is akin to Hitler marching through Poland, and it staggers me that so few people can see so.

I see he's also talking about increasing sanctions, so back to the point I made when Trump suggested the same, why in the actual fuck haven't we done that sooner? Until the orange one rocked up sanctions was literally all we had.

It's genuinely embarrassing.

[phonics]

So if I can explain the sanctions thing, it's dumb but for the wrong reasons.

The point of sanctions is to place them on powerful people, refuse them further access to economy outside of the country, so they apply pressure within their country to the leader to change the leaders apporach. The problem being is that the only reason these people are 'powerful' is because Putin has siphoned the money/assets that make them powerful, there is no pressure they can apply to Putin that will not result in their seizure of said economic/asset power followed by a swift fall off their balcony. Fine. However, because they do not want to scare off the non sanctioned people from laundering their assets through London, they refuse to seize what those sanctionees currently retain here.

A raw example is the sale of Chelsea. There is currently 2 billion quid from that sale in a bank account in London that has not been touched since. On interest alone that account has accrued 240 million quid since the takeover. There are hundreds of multi million properties owned by sanctioned individuals that are either empty or their rent is being paid into a trust because it would be illegal to transfer the money to them (tbh I bet this is being transferred anyway using a series of well paid British law firms to launder that money and get it where it needs to go but the Chelsea sale is too high profile to touch)

As with every decision made from both a Conservative or Labour angle, the people in charge are both too cowardly and too owned by the people actually in charge (the people with money) to do anything. So now the Western World is saddled with managed decline while China central plans its way to victory.

[Yevrah]

Thanks for the explanation, that is genuinely pathetic and makes this whole thing even worse. Spunking billions up the wall on military aid when our economy is flatlining and we haven't even used the money from the sale of Chelsea to contribute towards it. I swear this whole thing was packaged as "Russian assets seized". What a crock of shit. I think I might actually be angry.

[Yevrah]

Gary's Economics on QT.

[Manc]

Gary Economics on QT.

[phonics]

QT has Gary’s Economics on.

[Manc]

Bruce seething her tits off.

[Yevrah]

This is also making me angry. Fiona Bruce in particular.

[Yevrah]

These parties are all absolutely dead, aren't they? All they have is "wealth taxes don't work".

[Lewis]

They won't work, but they are sort of the intellectual end-point of the current failed, zero-sum, can't-process-second-order-effects way of looking at things that characterises all of our politics, so they will have to come up with better reasons to oppose them.

[Kikó]

So if I can explain the sanctions thing, it's dumb but for the wrong reasons.

The point of sanctions is to place them on powerful people, refuse them further access to economy outside of the country, so they apply pressure within their country to the leader to change the leaders apporach. The problem being is that the only reason these people are 'powerful' is because Putin has siphoned the money/assets that make them powerful, there is no pressure they can apply to Putin that will not result in their seizure of said economic/asset power followed by a swift fall off their balcony. Fine. However, because they do not want to scare off the non sanctioned people from laundering their assets through London, they refuse to seize what those sanctionees currently retain here.

A raw example is the sale of Chelsea. There is currently 2 billion quid from that sale in a bank account in London that has not been touched since. On interest alone that account has accrued 240 million quid since the takeover. There are hundreds of multi million properties owned by sanctioned individuals that are either empty or their rent is being paid into a trust because it would be illegal to transfer the money to them (tbh I bet this is being transferred anyway using a series of well paid British law firms to launder that money and get it where it needs to go but the Chelsea sale is too high profile to touch)

As with every decision made from both a Conservative or Labour angle, the people in charge are both too cowardly and too owned by the people actually in charge (the people with money) to do anything. So now the Western World is saddled with managed decline while China central plans its way to victory.

Not sure this is entirely true. Sanctions are quite arbitrary and being on a sanction list doesn't necessarily mean you've actually done anything wrong other than being in some nexis of someone who is (even loosely). It then makes sense to not go and start auctioning of their homes/possessions.

The hard thing about sanctions is we're not all on the same page internationally and Russia can still sell things like oil at discount rates to India who can sell to us. Going through third countries is difficult to stop. It does make Russia's economy poorer and their ability to trade harder which is the point.

[Ben]

Back to Ukraine for a moment, I've been reading some articles yesterday and this morning and it's getting pretty obvious we'll see "peace" agreements within a month or so.

The US have sent their full detailed plan for pillaging Ukraine's resources post-war and while theirs a lot of scoffing from Ukraine at the moment, they'll probably agree to it given a bit of time and amendments.

Starmer has been waffling (which although looks silly to us, but for the majority of the electorate who are largely pro-Ukraine and ignorant to details, it's a decent move) but it's Macron's comments that give more detail. He's talking about the "peace force" - whatever that is - being ready to go around 3-4 weeks. It's been made pretty clear that they won't land in Ukraine until some kind of peace agreement is signed so again that's an indicator something is fairly imminent.

Even Putin this morning has kind of changed his attitude. There's pressure mounting and he knows that (hence the big push for extra land recently). He's made a comment about installing a UN-monitored government to replace Zelenskyy. Again, he wouldn't be doing that if he was bedding in for longer-term conflict which he has the upper hand in.

Lastly, European markets are planning for a noticeable drop in oil and gas prices. I think that's a fairly big side effect of sanctions against Russia being rolled back.

[Ben]

Putin has also give Trump the tentative thumbs up to go after Greenland, which suggests he's probably about to get a load of extra land in this Ukraine deal.

Longer term, if these attitudes keep up, Taiwan is probably a bit fucked too.

[Spikey M]

Why did nobody mention Gary's Economics was on QT?

[Magic]

He was on a podcast with that grifter CEO cunt and another guy.

The other guy posted on linkedin saying how he was surprised at how crap he was and gave ten reasons. Wild take but no surprise the business chodes agreed with him.

[Spikey M]

He was pretty shit on QT, unfortunately.

He appears to struggle against any kind of push back.

[Shindig]

That's unusual for an internet celebrity.

[Lofty]

Man famous for wittering at camera unprepared for opponent that answers back.

Mick Lynch barracking that absolute tit senseless on QT was peak stuff, she seemed to have forgot you only get to the top of a union by arguing with cunts constantly for decades.

[Ben]

Mick Lynch what a hero :cool:

[niko_cee]

Gary Economics has a lot of good points but he's generally rubbish at marshaling them under pressure. He's not some great orator or debater, he's an angry maths nerd.

He really fluffed the closing bit though, which should have been his if you want change you're going to have to fight for it and it won't be easy shtick. Or the tax wealth not work slogan, which probably fits better with modern slogan based political system we live in.

I say again though, he looks like he's heading towards another breakdown.

[Shindig]

And you know his fans will fluff him up in the aftermath.

[Yevrah]

The problem with him is that he only has about 3 points and everything comes back to those three, which is nowhere near nuanced enough to pwn a professionally drilled politician.

[Yevrah]

And Lynch is an excellent example of someone who had the depth and ability to articulate it. Such a shame he retired.

[niko_cee]

The problem with him is that he only has about 3 points and everything comes back to those three, which is nowhere near nuanced enough to pwn a professionally drilled politician.

I think his bigger 'problem' is that no one really disagrees with him all that much, it's more shrugging yeah, but what can we do and then the it never works brigade turn up sirens blaring. Or should that be Blairing?

There is no room for nuance on QT, you get about 2 minutes to articulate your worldview, and he has to spend most of that time telling those of you who don't know who he is is and what he did [promote the brand], which eats most of those two minutes.

Pretty much all of the answers given to that first question were terrible, and that was him done for his area of interest.

Anyway, Aussie election next up. Can the world's best Labor [sic] government be toppled by a bald retard in hock to the mining industry?

[Lofty]

Wasn't there an FT hit piece debunking his back story as the toppest trader ever to have traded a while back?

[niko_cee]

Aye, but I think that probably just lent more credence to the backstory. Establishment hit piece against anti-establishment figure. Who would have thought?

I think it was less cynical than that though, they just wanted the clicks that writing something about him would bring as he's the media hot property of the day.

Wasn't there a Daily Mail poll the other day where most of their online acolytes were in favour of a wealth tax?

[Jimmy Floyd]

Everyone wants a wealth tax, as long as it's on someone else's wealth.

[Pepe]

More money* for the government to squander. What's not to love?

*Usually leads to less revenue, but we can keep dreaming.

[Magic]

Everyone wants a wealth tax, as long as it's on someone else's wealth.

You know there's over 650,000 millionaires in the UK? Tax them to the fucking hilt.

[niko_cee]

It's not even more money necessarily, it's the same money from different sources, but yes, it is a distant dream in a world where profit shifting, abusive IP licensing practices, tax havens and whatever the likes of the double Irish was are the norm. A world we have created. A world it is, at least theoretically, possible to change.

[niko_cee]

Marine lol Pen barred from public office for 5 years.

Let's hope it plays out better than the US LAWFARE did.

[Manc]

Did I miss something?

[niko_cee]

The French national front were 'embezzling' money from the EU Parliament and using to run national campaigns / their national office or something [something as Nigel from the Pub points out is pretty much the raison d'etre for the whole shebang and endemic at all levels] and so now she and some others have been 'found guilty' in the dear Fifth Republic and automatically barred from holding public office for five years, during which time La France will have to choose a successor to President Biscuit, presumably, or can he stay / stand again? Horreur!

Everyone would be up in arms if Erdogan was doing it, if you were being cynical.

All of the far right of Europe have come out in support of Marine Le Ballpoint