Moderating:
We don’t have a formal list of banned words, though one of the minced oaths above is generally gendered, despite many, many threads about it’s use in various non-American English speaking nations (including the one mentioned in this thread). So that one should be avoided especially if it had been applied to a woman.
P&E is already a contentious forum. Does adding the insult make your point better? Especially if it can get people flagged by their company’s internal spyware. If your goal is to rant, that’s better suited to the Pit. But again, not forbidden unless it starts steering the discussion away from the subject, which it has here.
No warnings, despite some very minor Jr. Modding, but let’s keep the discussion to Keir Starmer. An additional comment to @colinfred, if someone wants to use a minced oath, for whatever reason, that’s their choice. Your comment about “Stop this nonsense” was approaching attacking the poster, not the post. Again, NO warning, but avoid that.
This moderation is less about the language used (with the proviso above), but about being extremely off topic for the P&E thread. Discussions of rules/moderation should be in ATMB as you all know. I’ve chosen to hide most of the off-topic discussion to prevent it from being revived by the inevitable late comers.
Yeah, the police obviously made a terrible call in this case, but it seems to have been a really unusual situation.
I’ve worked security in the UK, which is very much not police, but it involved a lot of interactions with them. Almost every time I saw someone getting cuffed they tried to loudly claim something to get out of it - the cuffs were too tight, they had an arm injury, they had a sick mother waiting in the car outside, anything that might work. Police are used to random lies in that situation, it’s practically routine.
It was dark, they couldn’t see any obvious signs of serious injury and the perpetrator had called them pretending to be a victim, backed up by an upset family who appeared like decent, normal people- varyingly due to ignorance or family loyalty. It was also a crazy thing to do on the part of the perpetrator; the police are taking away the person you stabbed, they are going to notice the stab wound at some point. It doesn’t matter how good your acting is. Should the police automatically assume that anyone calling them for help may actually be a dangerous criminal?
It also only took a couple of minutes for the police to realise the mistake. It wasn’t like they chucked him in a cell and left him overnight, they attempted first aid when they realised something was actually wrong.
In 99% of the situations that looked similar they would have been acting appropriately. They just didn’t spot the freak outlier. I bet they also feel terrible about it.
Get your snobbish metropolitan terminology right. These people are chavs, not gammons. Gammons are older, better-off Brexit supporters who are unlikely to live in Southampton, and wouldn’t have the inclination, or frankly the energy, to throw things at police officers.
I can’t speak to chavs vs gammons.
But they’re still idjits in thrall to RW propaganda filling their minds with anger and simple emotive slogans.
Yeah, i really dont see this as a giant ending of a government controversy.
A reminder that when a police officer stabbed Sarah Everard, Nigel Farage’s message was very different:
What an absolute [minced word].
Quite. AIUI, the judge said specifically that the victim was bleeding internally, and with the combination of dark clothing and general darkness the police officers couldn’t necessarily see signs of wounding.
More evidence for the “Starmer can’t make a decision” pile, as both the Defense Secretary and Armed Forces Minister resign over defense funding.
Both resignation letter are here: John Healey and Al Carns: Resignation letters in full and Starmer’s response - BBC News
The complaint is a familiar one - Starmer ahs agreed that defense spending needs to rise, but won’t fund it. Healey’s letter sets it out best: we agree that defense spending will have to increase, we came up with a plan, you said it was good, we acknowledged that it would mean cuts elsewhere…and when the time came to fund it you watered it down well below what we agreed was required.*
Carns resigned because a) he disagrees that the actual plan is focused on the right things, in the light of all we’re learning about drone warfare and b) he feels the government’s efforts to shield veterans from prosecution for war crimes don’t go far enough.
“The government isn’t keeping Britain safe” is always a dangerous criticism to be facing, even when you’re not marking time before a leadership challenge.
*Like a lot of Starmer’s problems with choosing between competing priorities, this one could be ameliorated by raising tax to fund invesetment in vital services, but he won’t do that.
Okay, I’ve missed this. He wants to protect war criminals?
And speaking of missed things: Morgan McSweeney is back and advising Starmer again. Because bringing back disgraced former advisers has worked out so well for Starmer in the past…
In their dying days, the Tories passed the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act which ended all ongoing inquests and civil claims, and prohibited criminal investigations into Troubles-related offences - for all sides, including British Army personnel.
This has been found to be slightly unlawful and this year Hilary Benn introduced a repeal and replace act which reversed these moves. There are some protections for veterans such as them not being required to travel to NI to testify, not being investigated twice, and being excused from giving evidence to inquests if they’re too elderly.
Carns references in his letter to soldiers who faced things civilians can’t imagine and the duty of loyalty we therefore owe them are a reference to how unfair it is that people who did crimes might have to account for them at some point.
Andy Burnham has won the crucial Makerfield byelection by a huge majority, paving the way for a challenge to Keir Starmer’s premiership. The Greater Manchester mayor beat the Reform UK candidate, Robert Kenyon, by 9,231 votes, and the new hardline Restore Britain party came a distant third. Labour won 54% of the vote to Reform UK’s 35%, while Restore Britain secured 7%. Turnout was 58.75%, six percentage points up on the general election, with 45,510 votes cast.
That is a much stronger win than I expected. I thought Burnham was only a few percentage points ahead of Reform.
How soon is there going to be a leadership challenge?
“Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” last Sunday June 14 featured an interesting look at current British politics. My two main take-aways from it are that Keir Starmer is an abysmal failure but refuses to acknowledge it, and that the UK Reform Party is not just far-right populist, but a bunch of unapologetic racists, and Nigel Farage is every bit as despicable as Trump, only not as grotesquely obese.
Pretty much, although Farage is like the weedy little kid who always follows the school bully (Trump in this instance) around and gleefully eggs him on to hurt people while hiding behind him. He’s desperately trying to implement Trumpism in the UK and while he’s having more success than I wish he was, he’s got all the charisma of a dead fish.
As the whole point of Burnham standing was so he could challenge, and as his standing put the brakes on other challengers’ campaigns doubtless to their chagrin, it should be pretty soon, like within a couple of weeks. But Labour internal politics are nothing if not farcical and so there’s a decent outside chance it won’t be for a couple of months.
Reasons:
- Starmer has already pointed out that there will now be a by-election for Burnham’s old mayoral job, and it will be clumsy and awkward to run a leadership contest in parallel with that. This is self-serving, but also true. More importantly, it would embarrass Burnham enormously if Labour were to lose the mayoral election so he has an interest in being free to campaign for his successor and not visibly be the guy who abandoned Manchester for Westminster.
- Burnham has been out of Westminster politics for years and there have been noises from his team that actually he would probably benefit from a chance to immerse himself in the Parliamentary Labour Party, re-learn the ropes of Whitehall and Downing St etc. This is also true but comes under: the time to acknowledge and admit that you lacked recent relevant experience was before, not after, getting this shambles underway.
- The big party conference as ever will be in September, Parliament will go into recess in July, that makes summer a neat time to have a leadership contest so that nothing is interrupted and more importantly the new leader gets to do a big showcase/triumph moment to the party/the country at the conference, and politicians have egos so…hey, what’s the rush?
Of course it was Nige, you tosser.
I expect voters approached you, with tears in their eyes, and said “we
wanted to vote for you sir, but we have to vote against Starmer”.
Dickhead.
You left out the part about them being “big strong guys”. That’s key.
“Voters came to me. These are big strong guys and they had tears in their eyes and they said ‘sir, we wanted to vote for you sir, but we have to vote against Starmer’” .
LONDON, June 20 (Reuters) - British Prime Minster Keir Starmer is expected to resign on Monday and set out a timetable for his departure, the Observer newspaper reported on Saturday.
The newspaper said Starmer had reached the conclusion that his position was no longer tenable after speaking to cabinet minister, advisers, donors and trade union leaders.
The report said Starmer was discussing the matter with his wife at his Chequers country residence before making a final decision, but that senior Labour figures expected a clear statement on his future as early as Monday.
That’s too bad. It looks like the UK is sliding into the nigh anarchy of a new government every year or so, like Italy. Starmer did a decent job, he just couldnt do miracles. He has been the PM just under two years. Sunak less than that, Truss almost two whole months, Boris 3 years or so, etc.
I mean Cameron was in for about six years, Blair for ten years.