I wonder who’ll be next week’s Prime Minister?
Politics and Current Affairs
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Also all my neighbors here are immigrants. Polish on the left, Iranian on the right, and Eritrean above me. I have a good relations with all of them. I also worked with many of them when I still had a job.
Okay. So maybe you should look at these experiences more than at the cases that make national headlines.
Really in a nutshell the thing I’m trying to say is, I just think it’s evidently false to say that after three generations immigrants are all “fully assimilated” or “integrated” or even that this is feasible.[…] It is quite a different culture, with many (not all of them, don’t misquote me) people who have fundamentally different opinions about many things that you would probably think are important.
It depends on what your understanding of integration. If you equate this with “full assimilation”, then no, that won’t happen. But it doesn’t need to. Not everybody has to enjoy sauerkraut and bratwurst and pray to Jesus to fully be part of German society.
As for it being a completely different culture, the same goes for me and someone living in a village deep in Bavaria, not to mention Sachsen-Anhalt. The idea of one coherent national culture is a mirage, it’s nonsense. There’s always a thousand different subcultures running in parallel, and these days some of them are influenced by ethnicity. (Well, actually, they always have been, but those ethnicities used to be a smaller number and geographically closer.)
Different opinions can be fine, but we’ve also had people killed here for saying certain things about Islam, parents who killed their daughters because she was too “Westernized” etc
And you have people getting killed for being gay, or being women, or out of jealousy, or because they ran into somebody with a psychosis. When it comes to migrants, we tend to attribute crimes to their being immigrants, and to the things that make them Other from us.
And once again, I am not saying that things like radical Salafism (imported to my city of Bonn from Saudi-Arabia, by the way) aren’t problematic; they are. And where there is ideologically motivated crime, or deliberate radicalisation, you have to fight that. (But that also goes for Christian extremism, and for right-wing radicalisation.)
But the best way of fighting the root causes in all of these cases – and I am including naziism here – is to invite everybody to participate in our society.
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This was a surprisingly good summary of the mess Labour are in, some of it self-inflicted.
And simply sacking the manager won’t solve it, politics isn’t football.
Edit: Not sure it’s going to go the way Healey and Cairns want as it’s come out they wanted 3% of GDP by 2030, but were offered 2.68%
Now in national budget terms that will be a big gap, but to a lot of people, throwing your toys out of the pram after getting a more than good chunk of what was asked for won’t look great.
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Dude, your algorithm is feeding you exclusively stories about immigrants committing crimes from all over the globe to make you more and more racist. Stop clicking.
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One positive, albeit not much reported story is, in response to the Belfast riots, there’s been anti-fascist demos in Glasgow, Brighton and others.
Anti-immigrant ones were also held in the same locations, but they were very, very much in the minority.
Meanwhile Reform-led councils are exhibiting either incompetence, they don’t know how it works nor do they wish to learn, or viciousness in banning Pride events and cutting social support services.
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One positive, albeit not much reported story is, in response to the Belfast riots, there’s been anti-fascist demos in Glasgow, Brighton and others.
The best sign I saw at the Belfast one said “It’s Chead Milé Failté, not Chead Milé Fascists”
Also, the deep irony of most of the people involved in the pogrom in Belfast being Unionists, who are themselves the descendants of people who came to Ireland and forcibly removed the native population.
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Ilhan Omar was the only democrat who voted against the Ukraine support bill.
Is this good because you’ve repeatedly claimed Ukraine is full of Nazis, or bad because you hate Muslims?
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Oh fuck off man. I don’t hate all Muslims,
I don’t believe you
Also I never said Ukraine is full of nazis
Yes you did.
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A campaign to foster division and hatred, for at least five years, involving fake Muslim organisations and an arson attack on the PM.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8r2l352z2do
Kind of amazing that it’s from the BBC.
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#47 in his hubris, tore up the Obama deal with Iran back in 2016. Now there is all this, and the current administration is trying to reach a deal that won’t be better.
https://abcnews.com/Politics/obama-doubtful-iran-deal-past/story?id=133874150
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Susan Rice gave a little background on that Obama deal:
@blueatlgeorgia Susan Rice absolutely schools Bill Maher on Iran.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8r2l352z2do
Kind of amazing that it’s from the BBC.
How are goverments not stomping on this kind of thing? I know Trump and the Tories have gained from it, but everyone else should be doing everything in their power to stop this kind of influence.
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I’m cautiously optimistic now there really is a peace deal with Iran and it isn’t just smoke and mirrors to keep the market going. I really really hope it works out. And hopefully Lebanon is included in the agreement.
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I’m cautiously optimistic now there really is a peace deal with Iran and it isn’t just smoke and mirrors to keep the market going. I really really hope it works out. And hopefully Lebanon is included in the agreement.
Seriously, if you want to know how the deal is actually going, pay attention to what is coming out of Iran. If they say it’s legit and things are progressing, that’s a positive indicator. Anything coming out of Trump administration should be treated as highly suspect.
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Israel nukes the deal within hours.
Meanwhile, the Reflecting Pool turns green. Trump….
Blames Obama.
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They need to chill, it won’t be in place for long.
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I don’t know, you wait over 100 years for your constituency to get an MP who’s not a Tory and he gets himself arrested in under two years.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjdgzzlgvxko
MP Cameron Thomas suspended amid police investigation
A Liberal Democrat MP has had the whip suspended pending the outcome of a police investigation, a party spokesperson said.
It is understood that Tewkesbury MP Cameron Thomas was arrested by Gloucestershire Police on Wednesday.
A Liberal Democrat spokesperson said they could not comment further while the police investigation is ongoing.
Gloucestershire Police and Thomas have been approached for comment.
A party spokesperson said: “Cameron Thomas MP has had the party whip suspended pending the outcome of a police investigation.
“We are unable to comment further while the police investigation is ongoing.”
The former RAF officer has served as MP for Tewkesbury since the 2024 general election.
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It’ll be due to the media being required to do nothing to prejudice either the investigation or a future trial, if there is one.
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In a shocking turn of events, Israel’s need to bomb everything around them is fucking up the US/Iran deal😱😱.
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In a shocking turn of events, Israel’s need to bomb everything around them is fucking up the US/Iran deal😱😱.
Can we just have regime change in Israel?
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That is nt part of the news coverage however. Sloppy not to mention such a thing.
‘s not sloppy, it’s to generate outrage. At least I assume that you first saw this not on the SkyNews website but on X or other social media, potentially posted by someone else with a link to the Sky article. Look, the algorithm wants you to be angry all the time, because it gets your attention that way. And for many news outlets (not to mention fucking “influencers”) – potentially SkyNews – that’s a business model now, because they need the algorithm to pick up their headlines.
The BBC report itself does mention all that.
Cambridgeshire Police said a 30-year-old man arrested on suspicion of attempted murder had been bailed and was “unfit for interview”. He reportedly has learning disabilities and had been on a trip to Johnsons of Old Hurst, near Huntingdon, with carers.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp9l2278m8no
So, you know… just don’t go and make assumptions. Just check with proper sources first, before you get outraged. Or even better: Just stay away from the fucking algorithms that keep feeding you hate slop about weak justice and immigrant crime and so on. Just… read a newspaper in the morning. Listen to solid news podcast, maybe one by a public radio channel. How about that?
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Can we just have regime change in Israel?
Funny how an ongoing genocide is seen as grounds for a military intervention except when Israel is doing it to Palestinians, when it’s not even a reason to withdraw any kind of support from Israel.
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Regarding this new Iran deal:
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Fuck this asshole:
https://x.com/patriottakes/status/2068002237440197044
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Nah, people need to be angrier.
Yeah man, get angry! It doesn’t matter what the facts of the case are, take the initial report at face value! Don’t investigate the biases of the reporter, the news organ or yourself, just get angry! Grrrrr! you don’t have to ensure you’re directing that anger at the right people or anything, shake your fist impotently at the sky!
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And Lorcan’s knows what he’s talking of, used to be he was shown to be in Seething Anger Land.
Meanwhile…. And there it goes, Farage and co will be insufferable, as will the media. RefUK and the Tories will see as the perfect opportunity to return to their natural position of lording it over everyone loudly.
And Burnham? He’s about to get media nuked, the honeymoon’s over.
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ou don’t have to ensure you’re directing that anger at the right people or anything, shake your fist impotently at the sky!
Not the sky. The refugees, the migrants, the unemployed, the lazy beaurocrats, the trans people, the woke idiots. And in this case, supposedly the justice system because clearly it doesn’t want to punish people who so clearly deserve it, which is probably also because of woke.
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And Lorcan’s knows what he’s talking of, used to be he was shown to be in Seething Anger Land.
Meanwhile…. And there it goes, Farage and co will be insufferable, as will the media. RefUK and the Tories will see as the perfect opportunity to return to their natural position of lording it over everyone loudly.
And Burnham? He’s about to get media nuked, the honeymoon’s over.
I’m sure the leadership battle between tub of grey sludge (primary feature: transphobia) and tub of grey sludge (primary feature: hatred of migrants) is going to make the world a better place.
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Ah, but one has a northern accent.
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I don’t quite know what it is that wrecks parties with +100 majorities. They either go too timid on the right things, while going stupidly macho on the wrong ones.
Labour have done damage to themselves on trans rights, disability. They could have been far smarter on winter fuel payments.
Israel is a mess, but one western democracies have failed across the board. The spending rules is more of a bind in that without them would the markets go off the deep end? Plus, maybe they wouldn’t have got in, with the media resurrecting No Money Left Labour. Remember, it doesn’t have to be accurate or true, all it has to do is stick.
But that begs the Q of why they were so timid to the media and chasing Reform voters and their party. Neither will ever be a friend to Labour. The last two years prove that. I don’t think its comms issue, it’s an issue of the media deciding it’s all bad. See the knives already being plunged into Burnham.
Overall? I’m tired. I’m tired of a world where the right-wing get everything they want for decades, scream it’s not enough, that they want more and more and more, most of it impossible, and the entirety of politics and the media are directed to sating the insatiable.
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Are you doing a John Oliver imitation?
That wouldn’t be the worst person to imitate, honestly.
But no, I am – as before – giving you as honest an assessment as I can. I think quite a lot of people today, and you amongst them, are driven to emotional extremes because that’s what the algorithm wants. And the emotional extreme that it’s aiming for in your case in justice not being dealt, especially in cases in which minorities are involved.
You say that there is not enough anger. I believe the opposite is the case. I think we are in a period in which there is no shortage of anger, and while that could potentially be a good thing if it was aimed at the right targets, it can also be used to stoke the flames of hatred towards what we perceive to be The Other and push people towards extremism. I am worried that that’s where social media is pushing you, Arjan.
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People love to claim anger is good, or healthy, but I am yet to be convinced that anyone makes good decisions in that state.
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Yeah, I mean… anger is the basis for punk rock. But unfortunately sometimes, what you get is nazi punk rock.
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Yep, this is accurate for UK politics.
“You can already see these dynamics reassembling under the new presumptive leadership, the determination of the rightwing press and the algorithm to extinguish the new administration before it can even change the letterheads. The onslaught will be vicious, immediate and unashamedly detached from reality. “Whoever the next chancellor is, they are coming for your home,” screams the Telegraph. “A man with no plan and no proper mandate,” scoffs the Sun.
You didn’t have to agree with everything Starmer did to recognise the hostility of the environment he faced. But his great delusion was to imagine that this malignance could be placated, even brought onside. To this end he threw them lots of red meat: the criminalisation of protest and planned cuts to disability benefits. But none of it worked in the face of an establishment that does not merely disdain leftwing voters but barely appears to regard them as human. “Blue-haired city-dwelling Green-adjacent trans-lovers,” went one description by a Sunday Times columnist, who, if pushed, would probably still classify herself as a sensible moderate.
And so it makes no odds to point to the second fastest economic growth in the G7, falling immigration, falling NHS waiting lists. None of this really matters. The average voter will have little idea of what Starmer has actually done, because those with the job of telling them have no interest in doing so. Which may explain why many people still think immigration is rising, the economy shrinking and that Starmer is a posh paedophile who let Jimmy Savile off the hook.”
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A gang of about ten migrants beat a 17 year old kid to death in Narbonne, France.
The news coverage I see states that he was beaten/kicked to death by 5 young men, the youngest of whom was 16 and the oldest 19. No mention of any of them being migrants (except on a questionable Instagram post), only that the victim and his killers may have known each other through child welfare homes, and that the attack was premeditated, not random. We should take everything we hear or read with a grain of salt, Arjan.
On the other hand, it is absolutely true that Narbonne is one of the French cities that are going to start fining men 150 Euros if they remove their shirts on a public street. No mention about what happens if a woman takes off her shirt…
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On the other hand, it is absolutely true that Narbonne is one of the French cities that are going to start fining men 150 Euros if they remove their shirts on a public street. No mention about what happens if a woman takes off her shirt…
She gets paid 150 Euros?
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I think you can tell a lot about the disfunction in society by how big building projects progress. The new pier at Schiphol airport is 8 years behind schedule.
Honestly I think at least in the long term this country is fucked. We lost our capacity to do things. If we have to build new water defense projects, like new Delta Works, I think it will turn out we’re unable to do this.
I can tell you’ve never dealt with builders before.
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A gang of about ten migrants beat a 17 year old kid to death in Narbonne, France.
See, this is what I mean. Do you get a news alert every time someone is beaten to death anywhere in Europe? Do you get a news alert when a migrant is killed for whatever reason?
I am not saying this isn’t terrible, but every day, 47 are killed in a homicide in Europe. But somehow, this is one case, out of those 47, is the one that is reported to you. Why do you think that is?
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Too accurate?
On the nose.
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I think Israel runs troll farms on social media like Russia does. Dutch twitter is full of very extreme Israel defenders, but most Dutch people don’t like what Israel does.
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Yeah, I heard about it. I don’t think it’s an entirely terrible idea that someone in the UK searching for news topics gets results that are both from the UK and from trusted news organisations rather than some Russian shill American etc. But of course it’s very easy to interpret it as the legacy media wanting their thumb on the scales, curtailing independent voices that aren’t towing the mainstream narrative etc. So, I don’t know. Given how the UK government’s recent forays into trying to police the internet have been going, I don’t expect it to turn out well. But being able to filter YT search results by country of origin would be a good step.
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Mere days after PS tries to pull a fast one by claiming digital sales are so high they have to stop making discs, not expecting that their data for the claim would be scrutinised, YouTube are it.
They’re all: Bro, save us from the evil UK government requiring us to clean up our Wild West virtual room! So unfair. What’s actually going on? UK consultation here:
How this likely plays out is legislation in 2027. YouTube, Google, Meta and the tech bros scream as if mortally wounded and critics say it doesn’t go far enough.
Strangely, all the Google search results are “YouTube warns UK government”. Hmm, wonder how that happened?
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Nigel Farage has resigned as MP, triggering a byelection which he intends to contest, in order to try and escape the investigation into… you know… the massive number of illegal bribes he’s taken.
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It’s going to be Farage vs Binface, for the croissants.
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Nigel Farage has resigned as MP, triggering a byelection which he intends to contest, in order to try and escape the investigation into… you know… the massive number of illegal bribes he’s taken.
I’m glad the other major parties have stayed away and not indulged this for what it is – an attempt to circumvent and distract from an investigation that now seems likely to find that he acted wrongly by accepting so much money in the way that he did.
If he really wanted to offer his constituency a proper choice then he’d stay in post and wait for the outcome rather than putting them in a position where he might return to parliament, get suspended and then put Clacton through yet another by-election shortly afterwards.
Feels like the wheels are starting to come off for him. What a shame.
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With it being Farage vs Binface, the media are obliged to give equal media space to the Count.
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Seeing clips of Binface being interviewed on the morning shows has gave me a good giggle today.
I’m glad the other parties are staying out of it and highlighting what a farce the whole situation is.
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With it being Farage vs Binface, the media are obliged to give equal media space to the Count.
I think there’s a typo in that last word.
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Nope, you’re thinking of the other guy.
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Still plenty of ways for them to screw up but the report sounds good:
Mandatory step one for all politicians: Do not continue talking of PIP as an in-work benefit.
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It definitely feels like whatever plot-armour he’s had with the media has finally rusted off and they’ve decided they’re allowed to actually do negative coverage with the merest hint of teeth.
He’s pulled the Tories and Labour to the right, and he’s too dangerous to be allowed take power so into the grinder he goes.
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With these heatwaves now in Europe you’re hearing a lot about airconditioning but I wonder if there aren’t other things people can do in their homes, like minor adjustments to allow for less heat retention and more ventilation. I remember garjones saying in Malaysia many people don’t need airco as their homes are built to be cooler.
Still i would agree certain places need airco. I heard many hospitals in France and Germany don’t have airco which is crazy.
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The bad news, Mitch McConnell is apparently still alive…The good news, Lindsay Graham isn’t.
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The bad news, Mitch McConnell is apparently still alive…The good news, Lindsay Graham isn’t.
“Apparently” being the key word. I would not put it past this administration to pretend McConnell is still alive to mess with the midterm election.
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Graham died of a “brief and sudden illness” after visiting Ukraine and is one of the few Trump allies to be a vocal supporter of Ukraine, so… Russia killed him, right? Not paranoid in suspecting that, am I?
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Apparently it was an Aortic dissection or similar.
I choose to believe he had the explosive diarrhoea that the CDC has stopped tracking on RFK Jr’s orders.
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