BBC News

Pretty shocking news just in - not many details yet though.

Kanye West's has been controversially booked to headline all three nights at Wireless festival in July, when little over a year ago he has been rather openly anti-semetic, praising Hitler and offering merchandise saying the same. It hasn't gone down particularly well, to put it lightly, with the prime minister saying it's a deeply concerning booking, huge sponsors like Pepsi pulling out and even some talk about whether he can re-enter the UK. West has apologised since the statements and has put it down to his bipolar condition and states he's in a better place. The festival organisers have stood by him for now, but the pressure's mounting.

What's your takes on this, should art and artist be separated when it comes to booking acts or is this going just a bit too far?

now gary glitter is an extreme case, his music is rarely ever played on the radio (as by doing so he will get royalties, thus funding his sick lifestyle) and quite rightly so, but where do you actually draw the line?

many of our musicians have been caught out, ken dodd for tax evasion... (not that we would buy a kd record but still...lol) chuck berry, jerry lee lewis, bill wyman, a bloke from the bay city rollers, a bloke from the foundations, pete townsend, jonathon king, all have had some form of sexual encounter either by relationship or downloading child porn, with underage children. plus how many others have been convicted of violence, even murder.. oh and of course theres jacko! :lol:

when we now buy material these people have produced, arnt we actually saying "we know what youve done, we dont care" .... should we care? arnt we aiding them?

Such INSPIRED cabinet picks include:

Elon Musk & Vivek Ramaswamy being sent to the kids table at the new Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE, wow so le epic)

Tulsi Gabbard, former Democratic snake oil saleswoman as Director of National Intelligence

Kristi Noem, South Dakotan governor and dog murderer in Homeland Security

Marco Rubio as Secretary Of State

Elise Stefanik, insane Trump loyalist as Ambassador to the UN

A Fox News host as Defense Secretary

and possibly most insane of all, the notoriously creepy Matt Gaetz as Attorney General.

Anyway, discuss the trajectory of the US here.

A shocked President Trump said he had spoken to the NY Governor and that this was a cowardly despicable act to kill an innocent baby and to be rest assured that we will hunt these men down

From The Sun.

SOHAM monster Ian Huntley was given just a five per cent chance of survival after he was battered senseless with a metal pole in a prison workshop.

The child killer was in an induced coma today as he was treated in hospital following the attack at HMP Frankland just after 9am on Thursday.

And sources said medics “worked miracles” to keep the fiend alive after staff who saw Huntley after the beating assumed he was dead.

One told The Sun: “It is miraculous he is still alive.

“Medics have worked miracles on him and he has clung on.

The next UK General Election must be held on or before 9 July 2029 - in the last iteration of this thread the Tories were polling at near 50% at times, but they've just polled their lowest percentage in a UK general election ever.. basically since 1835.

So when everyone has sobered up... in the meantime, please continue to post and discuss the latest Opinion Polls here.

First major reported thing out of the new government is scrapping the Rwanda scheme, thank f***.

Since the General Election in July there has been 150 by-elections in councils across Great Britain. Many of these have been as a result of newly elected MPs resigning their council seats, although there are other reasons for stepping down, such as retiring, getting up to unacceptable behaviour, or moving house. The aggregate results make for interesting reading, with Labour losing 22 seats and the Tories winning nearly the same amount, with Reform UK & the Greens also making net gains. Now there obviously could be local factors at play in these by-elections that transcend party politics in some of these cases, but those quite a lot of seats lost in such a short space of time, especially given their recent successes in the local elections in May.

@1859940695093428598

Must admit slightly surprised at the speed of the monarchy stripping Andrew of his royal titles considering he claims that he is innocent of the Virginia Giuffre allegations so it seems they are prejudging the trial. Top marks to Giuffre for wanting to push it through an open court as way too many sexual abuse allegations don't get reported, especially against those in high positions of power.

I'm not a fan of the monarchy and think it's laughably outdated and of course promotes the idea that people are better than others. I'd wager that the majority of people on this forum would agree and this would become more mainstream after the Queen dies, especially as the media aren't going to be sympathetic to Prince Charles. What does everyone else think?

The list of supporters giving Polanski their impassioned support read like a Who's Who of the cream of the movie-making world. It included, among many others, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Harvey Weinstein, Pedro Almodóvar and Ethan Coen.

But rather than rallying mass public support for the beleaguered film-maker – director of such undoubted classics as Chinatown, Rosemary's Baby and The Pianist – they have provoked an extraordinary backlash.

Led by a handful of outspoken female voices, a rising tide of opinion has instead applauded Polanski's arrest for unlawful sex with a 13-year-old back in 1977. They have turned the focus on the crime itself, calling the director an accused rapist who abused a child.

That, they say, should be the focus of the story and of Hollywood's ire, not defending an old man who pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with a young girl then went on the run for 32 years to avoid prison. The backlash – not only against Polanski, but also against the Hollywood clan that rallied round him – has begun in earnest.

"Roman Polanski raped a child. Let's just start right there, because that's the detail that tends to get neglected," wrote feminist and author Kate Harding in an impassioned column in Salon. That article then went viral across the internet, gaining tens of thousands of page views and seeming to herald the reaction to come.

Harding, a liberal feminist, found herself being asked to appear on rightwing talk radio shows. Soon editorial after editorial, from the mighty New York Times to the smalltown Lowell Sun in Massachusetts, followed suit, welcoming Polanski's arrest as a case of long overdue justice for a serious crime.

It seems that the consequences of the dramatic development could now spread wider than just Polanski. Already some early supporters of the director, such as actress Whoopee Goldberg, have had to backtrack and clarify their positions. More are likely to follow suit in the weeks to come. Could it be that Hollywood – whose very existence rests on accurately predicting the public's taste – has made one of its gravest misjudgments? "The disconnect between Hollywood and the rest of the country seems enormous," said Anthony Mora, an author and founder of a leading Los Angeles-based public relations firm.

There is little doubt that the case is extremely complex. In many ways both sides are dealing in black and whites and not the shades of grey that too often more accurately describe reality.

For Polanski's defenders, that has meant ignoring the act that took place in 1977 and instead focusing on judicial wrongdoings that have plagued the case and Polanski's own tragedy-tinged life.

They point out that the director pleaded guilty only as part of a deal, which he then feared was being reneged upon. That is why he fled, they say. They also refer to his past – as a Holocaust survivor and a man whose wife, Sharon Tate, was brutally murdered by followers of Charles Manson – as evidence that he has already borne much suffering in his life.

Finally, his sterling record as a film director is held up as evidence of why he should be celebrated as a leading artist, not arrested for a crime where even the victim has asked for him not to be pursued after such a long time. Perhaps it is no wonder that many in Hollywood have described his plight in terms that make Polanski himself the martyr. Weinstein said the arrest was a "terrible situation". Actress Debra Winger said the Swiss had been involved in "Philistine collusion" in allowing the arrest. Goldberg, in now notorious remarks, said: "I don't believe it was 'rape-rape'."

But, as the outrage has grown, especially in the wake of Goldberg's remarks, the sheer scale of Hollywood's misjudgment in rallying so enthusiastically to Polanski's cause has begun to be exposed. One of Goldberg's fellow presenters on the ABC TV show The View, Sherri Shepherd, condemned Polanksi outright. Details of the victim's testimony in 1977 have been published and widely circulated through the media and via the gossip website The Smoking Gun. It makes for grim and unpleasant reading.

The girl graphically described being given champagne and a quaalude, a popular recreational drug in the 1970s, by Polanski before he had sex with her. She testified that she repeatedly said no but that he did not stop, committing numerous sexual acts as she protested.

Not surprisingly, it is feminists and women who have led the charge against Hollywood's support of Polanski. The Feminist Majority Foundation is in favour of his extradition. Katie Buckland, chief executive of the California Women's Law Centre, has pointed out the difference between Hollywood's attitudes towards Polanski's long-ago crime and the unearthed pasts of elderly paedophile Catholic priests.

Writer Vicki Iovine has also been outspoken, making the same point. Even some women members of Hollywood have broken ranks as actress Kirstie Alley loudly condemned Polanski and those who defended him. Nearly all have accused him in no uncertain terms of being a child rapist.

The ramifications of that will be difficult to measure. Polanski now faces a long legal battle that will span two continents. But in the arena of public opinion his image has been shattered. The words many people will now first associate with Polanski will be all to do with the sexual assault of a young child, not his film work. Even if he goes free, Polanski could now be hurt where it really matters to Hollywood: the box office. "Sex with children was, and always has been, anathema to Americans... the 'anything goes' cultural excesses of the time do not excuse Polanski from society's expectation that adults should protect kids, not exploit them," said author and sociologist BJ Gallagher.

The Polanski backlash has spread far and wide. He was never popular at all on the right wing of America's culture, but now middle America is firmly in favour of seeing him in a Californian courtroom. Talkshow hosts, radio commentators and newspaper editorials from coast to coast have all insisted that the arrest was long overdue and that Polanski needs to be brought to the US.

"Hollywood people really don't see the world in the same way as average people... that is why there is a backlash," said Mike Levine, a Hollywood PR expert.

But it is perhaps no surprise that the gap between Hollywood and the rest of America has grown so large on this particular case. Because of his long and illustrious career, Polanski is a friend and colleague of nearly all the main players in the film world. They are his confidantes and his peers. His movies have made them stars and helped them to earn millions. They live in the same rarefied world of global fame. "Elite Hollywood culture is protecting one of its own," said Alexander Riley, a professor of sociology at Bucknell University.

It is also speaks to a certain type of Hollywood culture which appears to insist that its top stars are in some ways elevated above the law and should be treated differently to ordinary members of the public.

If Polanski was just an ordinary man instead of a world-famous film director, the bare facts of his case would be likely to elicit little sympathy – especially from the world famous. Hollywood stars seem to be arguing, in some ways, that Polanski's talent should allow him some sort of free pass for his past behaviour. "Hollywood... looks at the Polanski case and says, 'You have to make allowances for genius'," said Gallagher.

Hollywood's elite also functions as a kind of club and Polanski, seen by the elite as a great European auteur director, is a firm member. That requires a certain degree of success but also a great deal of ideological conformity. It is a cliche that Hollywood is uniformly liberal in its politics, but one with more than a dash of truth in it. It is certainly interesting to see the reaction to Polanski's case and compare it with the reaction to Mel Gibson, when he was caught mouthing drunken anti-Semitic abuse.

Gibson, a rare conservative in Hollywood, was brutally condemned by his fellow stars and sent into virtual career exile. Polanski, whose crime is far more serious, has seen a vast outpouring of sympathy. Being a member of the Hollywood club certainly seems to have its privileges.

"The difference between the reaction to Gibson and the reaction to Polanski has been just huge. Huge!" said celebrity interviewer Gayl Murphy. "That says a lot about what Hollywood thinks is important to them."

But, more importantly, it has also exposed a huge fault line between what Hollywood thinks of itself and what Americans think of Hollywood. No longer is it just the right wing of America lambasting "Hollywood liberals" for their permissive and overly Democratic ways. It is Democrats too. And feminists. And conservatives. Polanski seems to have united the different strands of America in a way that few other things have.

As Harding blogged after her column exploded across the blogosphere and she was inundated with emails and requests for press interviews: "Who knew being disgusted with Roman Polanski would turn out to be the ever-elusive common ground between rightwing dudes and liberal feminists?"

Source: The Observer

What are your views on Polanski, he maybe a brilliant film maker but at the end of the day, is he just another paedophile like Gary Glitter. Did he abuse his position back in 1977 and took advantage of a 13 year old, or is the girl's pushy parents partly to blame for taking her to Polanski to try and get her into the movies. By all accounts the girl(woman) has forgiven him now. There is no doubt his life has had tragedy and tears, success and wealth.

Earlier he won today by ijbol margins against “moderates”

thanks for giving me a throughline to the previous Tory thread references to honesty Kemi.

Discuss the unwelcome attempts at regaining relevancy that the battered and defeated Tory party does over the next few years.

and yes believe me we need one of these for the Farage fanclub/what might be threatening to become something more.

Reform has referred Rupert Lowe, one of their 5 MPs, to the police. He's been very outspoken in his time in Parliament and is threatening to become a figure nearly as prominent as Farage in promoting himself. The police referral is over bullying in his office, and it seems like all the major 'figures' in the party are split over Lowe and Farage.

so put simply, Reform seem to have this evening dissolved into civil war. Enjoy.

What do people on here read with regards to this?

I'm currently reading 'Citizen Clem' a biography of one of my political heroes Clement Atlee. Written by John Bew and winner of the Orwell award in 2017 it's a fantastic read and would recommend to anyone!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Citizen-Clem-Biogr...ag=hydrukspg-21

Domestically, we have the Labour mid-point, perhaps the point where we start feeling good sentiment from them being in power (?) Or another year of the right-wing press gaslighting us that everything is awful and you should stop caring. Anyway, there are a set of local elections, largely focused on cities, in May, and a King's Speech due.

Internationally, the domination of Ukraine and Gaza may be over as both move their way towards peace, though we know that can take a long time and people still are dying daily in this and many other conflicts around the world. On elections, there are the US midterms, but like with 2025, the scheduled elections don't have all that many that we're expecting to be significant with most of the G7 without nationwide elections this year. Israel, Brazil, Sweden, Hungary, Denmark and Bangladesh perhaps look the most likely to attract international comment.

Likely to be a far quieter year than 2024 on the political front, at least electorally, not least because so many countries had their elections last year that there are relatively few having them this year - a quick glance at the electoral calendar has Canada, Australia and Germany as perhaps the most notable elections and those will be months apart and only likely to tangentially affect most of our memberbase.

Of course that doesn't mean politics stops, as conflicts continue across the globe, the potential for peace talks or other goings on in Russia-Ukraine and the Middle East continues, while at (the British) home front, the Starmer ministry will have to focus on rebuilding British society while fending off attacks from rabid newspapers and fascist billionaires, and over in America, the incoming 2nd Trump administration prepares to take on what can politely be called a divided country.

Dump your predictions for political goings-on both home and abroad here.

What does everyone think, I’m leaning towards support for it.

https://owenjones84.medium.com/the-lies-of-...all-2780ad5f908

Week after week our newspapers (including prominently The Times which is generally regarded as one of the better right wing rags) publish relentless anti trans columns with virtually no actual trans voices or trans supporting voices in return.

The Government also deliberately stalls on gender self ID and healthcare for trans people with insufferably long waiting lists which effectively means going private or no treatment

Although transphobia exists worldwide, it seems to be the worst in the UK with it being compared with the US Republican right. Why can't the right wing of this country live and let live instead of dividing and demonising minorities? I'm cis myself but hear it's extremely unsafe for many trans people with their mental health being affected.

People say that the UK is one of the most tolerant societies in existence but we all know it's bullshit (apart from the youth who consistently have a progressive outlook). Not much different to the level of Poland and Hungary.

Interested to hear anyone else's opinions on here.