I can get why people want it and sure it may represent the people more, but it would be way easier for any extremist party to get in to power. FPTP was designed to keep extremism at bay.

When a party can win a massive majority with one-third of the vote, that argument makes no sense.

When a party can win a massive majority with one-third of the vote, that argument makes no sense.

 

Very much this :lol: You talk like the Johnson government didn't exist with their Brexit shitshow.

He's come over and it's miserable as anything.

This WASPI thing shouldn't be paid. If you charged into irreversibly cocking up your retirement plans without checking changes to pension age that were decided years ahead of the fact, that's your fault darling.

 

The infected blood and Horizon scandals led directly to death and false imprisonment. It's not even in the same universe as the complaints of these entitled old fools.

 

The winter fuel changes i'm not opposed to in principle but it looks like it will raise very little if anything all considered so it's been a pretty pointless exercise in winding that certain demographic up.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78631e4gygo

 

Really poor stuff from this Gov so far. Non stop bad news

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78631e4gygo

 

Really poor stuff from this Gov so far. Non stop bad news

Growth in the third quarter had next to nothing to do with this government. It simply confirms that Labour inherited a stagnant economy. Growth in the fourth quarter of this year will also not be much to do with this government. Blame the Tories for their scorched Earth policies.

Yeah you're not going to be able to turn an economy round in 6 months. It's easy for people to lay blame to the rise in NI and use that as an excuse to manage the PR (Shoe Zone is a great example of this). The moves Labour have made are long term. The key to unlocking the economy is letting the lower earners spend, it's why I feel giving higher earners tax cuts is going to be bonkers. That money is not going to be invested back in.

 

I don't think it matters who is in power, the economy is fuked for a while when we have such high levels of retirement age vs working population and lower birth rates. Problem with the latter, is while the likes of alt-right rightly point to this, I'm not sure the factor is as simple as they make out. And of course the elephant in the room is fecking Brexit which hampers our economy massively.

The increase in NI has nothing to do with growth in Q3 as it wasn't even announced until the end of October. Not that the Tories will let that minor detail stop them using it to blame Labour.

 

Next year is likely to be pretty difficult, particularly if Trump imposes hefty tariffs willy-nilly. Businesses will blame the government for causing them to reduce recruitment, without considering whether they could cut executive pay rises or dividends instead. Starmer didn't get off to a great start as Leader of the Opposition (even allowing for the little matter of Covid), but grew into the job. If he does the same as PM, things should be fine, but the press will continue to be brutal with little regard for the facts.

Let me start with this, child sexual exploitation is utterly sickening, utterly sickening.

 

And for many, many years, too many victims have been completely let down, let down by perverse ideas about community relations or by the idea that institutions must be protected above all else. And they’ve not been listened to, and they’ve not been heard.

 

And when I was chief prosecutor for five years, I tackled that head on, because I could see what was happening, and that’s why I reopened cases that have been closed and supposedly finished. I brought the first major prosecution of an Asian grooming gang in the particular case – it was in Rochdale, but it was the first of its kind …

 

We changed, or I changed, the whole prosecution approach, because I wanted to challenge, and did challenge the myths and stereotypes that were stopping those victims being heard.

 

So we changed the entire approach, not without criticism at the time, I might add.

 

But when I left office, we had the highest number of child sexual abuse cases being prosecuted on record.

 

Now that record is not secret as a public servant, it’s all it’s there for all of you or everybody to see.

 

I also called for mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse. I’ve called for that decade ago. The Tories did nothing about that, for those 10 long years, including when the Jay report came out.

 

Having defended his record as DPP, Starmer goes on to attack those who have criticised him and Jess Phillips. He does not name Elon Musk, but he is clearly referring to him. Towards the end he also explicitly attacks the Tories, who have joined Musk in calling for an inquiry into the Oldham rape gangs. He says.

 

Those that are spreading lies and misinformation as far and as wide as possible, they’re not interested in victims. They’re interested in themselves.

 

Those who are cheerleading Tommy Robinson are not interested in justice. They’re supporting a man who went to prison for nearly collapsing a grooming case, a gang grooming case. These are people are trying to get some kind of vicarious thrill from street violence that people like Tommy Robinson promote.

 

And those attacking Jess Phillips, who I’m proud to call a colleague and a friend on protecting victims - Jess Phillips has done 1,000 times more than they’ve even dreamt about when it comes to protecting victims of sexual abuse throughout her entire career …

 

We’ve seen this playbook many times, whipping up of intimidation and threats of violence, hoping that the media will amplify it.

 

Jess Phillips does not need me or anybody else to speak on her behalf. But when the poison of the far right leads to serious threats to Jess Phillips and others, that in my book [means]a line has been crossed.

 

I enjoy the cut and thrust of politics, the robust debate that we must have, but that’s got to be based on facts and truth, not on lies, not on those who are so desperate for attention that they’re prepared to debase themselves and their country.

 

So this government will get on with the job of protecting victims, including child sexual abuse, mandatory reporting, accelerating the processes.

 

But what I won’t tolerate is this discussion based on lies without calling it out. What I won’t tolerate is politicians jumping on the bandwagon simply to get attention when those politicians sat in government for 14 long years, tweeting, talking, but not doing anything about it – now so desperate for attention that they’re amplifying what the far right is saying.

 

So that’s what I say about Jess Phillips, Thank you.

 

This is really genuinely good from Starmer - shuts down all the nonsense provocation that keyboard warriors like Musk have been doing on social media and refocuses it to the real issues. I hope that puts the matter (partially from the other topic) to bed. You need people calling out when others are spreading lies.

 

It's this sort of strength that we need in the PM office, no-nonsense, getting on with the job at hand, not personality politics, I hope it gets cut-through.

Two big issues. Probably the most profound of my life-time. The essential genocide in Gaza in the last 18 months and the grooming gang issue and both issues Starmer has been on the wrong side of and woefully so too. These are not issues you can get wrong. You saw with Blair once he ignored people and got the war wrong he’s permanently stained even 15 years later. All you have to do now is look at what victims of these gangs have said about Starmer’s response.

This is really genuinely good from Starmer - shuts down all the nonsense provocation that keyboard warriors like Musk have been doing on social media and refocuses it to the real issues. I hope that puts the matter (partially from the other topic) to bed. You need people calling out when others are spreading lies.

 

It's this sort of strength that we need in the PM office, no-nonsense, getting on with the job at hand, not personality politics, I hope it gets cut-through.

 

Quite right. If the Tories now think that a national enquiry is long overdue, how overdue was it six months ago? It's good to see Ed Davey also criticising Musk.

 

Two big issues. Probably the most profound of my life-time. The essential genocide in Gaza in the last 18 months and the grooming gang issue and both issues Starmer has been on the wrong side of and woefully so too. These are not issues you can get wrong. You saw with Blair once he ignored people and got the war wrong he’s permanently stained even 15 years later. All you have to do now is look at what victims of these gangs have said about Starmer’s response.

You haven't bothered to check the facts, have you? Starmer reopened investigations into grooming gangs when he was DPP. He led prosecutions of those gangs. How was that getting it wrong?

I'd also add that there have been many inquiries into this topic and this long after the incidents I am sceptical at how much value new inquiries will add, as ever, inquiries often end up delaying action, the issue is actually implementing their recommendations and clearing up outstanding cases.

 

Two big issues. Probably the most profound of my life-time. The essential genocide in Gaza in the last 18 months and the grooming gang issue and both issues Starmer has been on the wrong side of and woefully so too. These are not issues you can get wrong. You saw with Blair once he ignored people and got the war wrong he’s permanently stained even 15 years later. All you have to do now is look at what victims of these gangs have said about Starmer’s response.

 

...but you yourself did not respond to anything he said at all, just continued bashing him for the reasons you already dislike him. What have these victims said, because I have not been able to see that reported anywhere?

 

So these are tragedies Starmer is not responsible for nor has perpetrated, while his I/P stance is not as pro-Palestine as it should be he's been reasonably balanced about it and unlike Biden it's not like his aid is allowing Israel to continue.

 

It's also just kind of ridiculous to call him responsible for the grooming gangs scandal as a chief prosecutor who came into that office with a backlog, worked to bring down that backlog in his time as DPP, was responsible for locking up hundreds of abusers, and now his government is about to start action into unresolved cases caused by previous Conservative governments dragging their feet over the many completed inquiries that have been done already. Absurd for anyone to say he's on the wrong side of this issue.

 

I really think it's ridiculous to be harping on this kind of thing, particularly the exaggeration of 'most profound in my lifetime', no it isn't, they're just two significant cases with many victims where the important thing is to go after the perpetrators, not the managers of institutions trying to fix things. It just feels unnuanced and ridiculous to claim he is responsible for them in the same way Blair was responsible for a war he was a major party to. I can see where someone might be coming from on Gaza, but I wouldn't expect reasonable people to hold Starmer responsible for either tragedy, only uncharitable political enemies.

 

In any case, and I say this to everyone, I fully agree with the below and hope it's a turned corner for Starmer, this speech was a huge improvement on rhetoric and one should watch if the quoted words above weren't enough:

 

@1876226248881721704

 

As much as I have political disagreements with him, we need him to be strong and steadfast in government when faced with the threat of far-right misinformation spreaders (cue liam sota arguing 'you can't call anyone who disagrees with you far-right' like a personification of the Daily Mail comment section) who would see him replaced in government by some Faragist dystopia.

 

Similarly, from Gordon Brown:

 

When it comes to the exploitation and abuse of children and young women by sex grooming gangs, the priority for all people in public life should be to secure justice for the survivors, punishment for the perpetrators, and action at local and national level to ensure that these kind of horrific crimes can never be allowed to happen again.

 

But that collective endeavour is undermined when some individuals and media outlets instead propagate outright lies about the reasons that these crimes happened in the past.

 

The people bringing this issue into national conversation again aren't doing it for the right reasons and their demands are not the way to get justice.

The issue is these victims never got true justice. This leaves a huge hole of resentment that will never be filled until it’s truly addressed.

 

So the issue is are you supposed to just move on or should people actually demand real justice.

 

There are too many examples to bring up all of which are pretty horrifying but I’ll use one as an examples

 

I advise everybody to read this from start to finish https://www.theoldhamtimes.co.uk/news/20221...-oldham-police/

 

At every level this girl was failed by police, by social services by politicians by everybody and anybody you can think of. Yet she has received little to no justice. Little to no true help or compensation. So what kind of country adds insult to injury to a girl whose life they helped decimate when she was just 11-12 yrs old? Why can people(harmless 65 yr old women)be fast tracked to prison over Facebook posts but a guy with significant evidence of raping a 12 yr old girl get bail and be allowed to leave the country?

 

Every single person who failed this person should receive prison time retrospectively. Not in a stupid just saying it on social media way but logically and legally their failures led to horrific crimes this without consequence is spitting in the face of people whose lives were ruined. Instead people find the topic uncomfortable or simply do not care enough and they’d rather it to go away or be ignored. So the only people advocating for it become the ‘far right’ then it’s a ‘far right topic’ that whole political football of the topic is further spitting in the fact of the victims.

 

Where Starmer fails is that is his position makes no sense. He claimed it’s a far right position to want an inqury . He has since clarified that wanting an inquiry isn’t a far right position but amplifying those that do is a far right position??? https://x.com/mrharrycole/status/1876309035961786509?s=46 God knows what that means.

 

Ultimately the original reason it was covered up was definitely in-part due to fears of racism or amplifying the far right etc. so it’s definitely a huge insult and rubbing salt into the wounds all these years later to basically be stuck in that same pattern. The failures are widespread it was politicians but not just labour politicians. Every institution and every kind of person you could think of. Of course an inquiry without power is pointless. There has been an inquiry and the recommendations were not implemented. So what good is an inquiry? I don’t know. https://x.com/gmb/status/1876184214137143722?s=46

 

 

Most of the conservative people calling for one are doing so to appear supportive and on the right side but really they have no end goal because they probably they don’t care enough. I don’t see how a society can allow what took place to happen and be satisfied with the justice we’ve seen so far. It has been bare minimum to put it lightly. So I get people are not maybe fully aware of the full horrific details but to those who are Starmer’s response was lazy and political. How can you show outrage that an MP’s safety is put at risk when people have seen 13 yr olds handed to gangs of pedophiles repeatedly. It seems out of touch. Their safety was discarded on a monumental scale and those that did that have faced little to no consequences.

 

This is Britain’s worst scandal ever. Nobody even knows how many victims with estimations of a million thrown around before. All these girls have brothers and parents. You’re not ruining one life. Every time it comes up and people turn it into a political football it’s infuriating to them. A lot of these victims are adults now they’re activists they’re on social media, nobody needs to talk as if they’re children, you can see what they think, you can hear from them. They view Starmer’s words as disgusting because they’ve seen this all before. You know when someone cares or wants justice and you know when someone just wants it to go away.

 

If people are so lost in the ‘far right’ thing then realise the only reason it often is on that side of the fence is because other people would rather not touch it. I can’t think of anything more profoundly evil than organised gang rape of children yet it’s been seen in some quarters as ‘child prostitutes’ or worded in a way such as grooming that almost underplays the severity of it. Starmer has shown he has no feel for real justice. Just vested interests. 200 Gaza kids could get their legs blown off tomorrow and he’ll be silent. A rocket could target Netanyahu and he’d make a statement condemning it. His positions are distant from real morals or ethics. So the people thinking his stance was good just don’t get it at all. You cannot see those crimes and the cover ups then repeat the same mistakes and dismissals which partly facilitated them to begin with. Not a fan of this guy really but the headline anyway I totally agree with here https://x.com/timothy_stanley/status/187625...8571826368?s=46 things like Southport and various other incidents are all an undercurrent of this issue that was never fully and properly dealt with. If people don’t trust authorities then inevitably you take things into your own hands. The real way to stop that is to truly deliver justice. The few that have got convicted it’s still usually an insult. One guy got 48 yrs but 39 of them were concurrent and he only served 3 years in the end and victims see him when they go to the supermarket. What kind of society is this exactly? One victim got no help, no compensation forced to raise her rapists baby alone and when he got out of prison he got parents rights of two visits per week, does that seem like justice? And this is one of the rare ones who was convicted. It’s the biggest failure in British history but you wouldn’t think it if you viewed most left wing spaces which is part of the problem.

People setting fire to a hotel can't have come about as a result of this.

 

I don't doubt that people were angry but those who actually cared didn't go and do that.

No one involved in this is saying that the victims of these horrific assaults don't deserve justice, and the court cases and justice will continue, in fact I believe Yvette Cooper is announcing her plan for taking it forward this evening.

 

What isn't helpful is the army of online trolls who don't care for justice and want to use this as a stick to beat 'tolerance' with. None of these people care about justice, well, some may think they do, but these people were silent on the Pelicot trial, they were silent about any number of abuses committed by white men. But all that aside, these are not credible people and the government shouldn't be dignifying them with engaging with them.

 

It is an outrage that people's safety may be put at risk by online vigilantes who want to skip the proper processes and spread misinformation. Starmer's right to call that out. Besides, he was there to talk about the NHS, so it's understandable that his response on this was on what's currently been in the news, not the ongoing work of government.

Strong response from Starmer and glad Ed Davey directly addressed the issue.

 

Sadly this is probably going to be the first of many difficulties with the US over the next 4 years. Hopefully this will help us form a closer relationship with our EU neighbours.

 

The sheer inconsistency (or dim-wittedness) of some of Starmer's critics is astounding. Some people are accusing him of lying about prosecuting some of the gangs "because the police prosecute". These are the same people who criticise him for not prosecuting Jimmy Savile. For people too young to remember, the police haven't prosecuted people since 1985 when it became the responsibility of the Crown Prosecution Service.

The sheer inconsistency (or dim-wittedness) of some of Starmer's critics is astounding. Some people are accusing him of lying about prosecuting some of the gangs "because the police prosecute". These are the same people who criticise him for not prosecuting Jimmy Savile. For people too young to remember, the police haven't prosecuted people since 1985 when it became the responsibility of the Crown Prosecution Service.

 

 

People are just thick as pigshit!

@1878771463311769686

 

right I'm anti-Starmer now

 

~

 

seriously though generally tech innovation is good and the AI opportunities list lots of things that are not LLMs in many industries that greater computing power will help in, plus it's good to regulate with regards to these things anyway,

The sheer inconsistency (or dim-wittedness) of some of Starmer's critics is astounding. Some people are accusing him of lying about prosecuting some of the gangs "because the police prosecute". These are the same people who criticise him for not prosecuting Jimmy Savile. For people too young to remember, the police haven't prosecuted people since 1985 when it became the responsibility of the Crown Prosecution Service.

 

How much power do they think one person has?! They're like conspiracy theorists, who make out the stat, or one person, has so much power, to make life not seem so chaotic.