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WTF is happening to the UK?

The only apparent solution to a debt problem is more debt. The only way it can be improved is to make it interest free (with taxpayers footing the bill). What could possibly go wrong…

Exactly my first thought when I read this, it’s absolutely bonkers
 
Not sure how it goes, but there's a saying that if you default on a very large debt, it's the lender's problem. If defaulting on a smallish one, it's yours.
 
Uh Oh....backed by the treasury apparently....this is going to be the s^&tstorm to end all of them...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61826209

Not really. The amounts are small, and there appears to be a focus on financial education for the borrowers - teach a person to fish if you like.
Hell - I bet the loans are less than the MONTHLY housing benefit for many folks. Never mind stamp duty holidays, help to buy and other such nonsense.

I'm in agreement that the UK government is desperate to prop up the housing bubble, but I don't think this particular story is part of the picture.
 
I’d argue social media was the only hope we have. No way in hell would I want to go back to the dark ages of the 1990s or before where we only got things spoon-fed to us by politicians, the BBC or the largely Murdoch press.

Alas, that's a pretty slim "hope". Because 'socal media' often tends to show people what they 'like' and also may be powered by 'ads'... and thus push users towards what those with money/power want them to see and 'buy'. Your world isn't then the same as everyone else's. Some users may be able to cut though that - but, to do so, need their own pre-existing independence of mind and background understanding to navigate. Given how many lack that we get paid 'influencers' and other forms of shills and misleads having an impact.

FWIW although I like PFM very much and find it 'friendly', that's actually an example of the above. Compared with usenet its a *very* different 'world' that you'd be shown.

The basic problem is the kleptocracy that then pays for its hangers-on and shills to promote/cover up, etc, to get what they want. But how long has it taken for any media to really show this to the public? While lawyers, estate agents, newspapersmen, politicians, etc, have facilitated it in the UK for decades by stealth.... to get their slice.
 
FWIW although I like PFM very much and find it 'friendly', that's actually an example of the above. Compared with usenet its a *very* different 'world' that you'd be shown.

That’s just good moderation, it’s not anything to do with a commercial model (though obviously it needs funding). No way in hell would I host any of the conspiracy theory, software piracy, child porn, racism or other shit that was (and likely still is) absolutely routine on Usenet in the alt. groups. I remember Usenet being at least as toxic as say bits of 4chan, 8chan or reddit are today. Open the doors wide and all manner of shit flies in!
 
I view the USA and the UK as pretty much the same thing. Where America goes politically the UK is only a couple of years behind. They have already had a far-right coup attempt, there has been endless election gerrymandering etc, white supremacy and religious fascism is gaining huge ground and is not only an existential threat to the LGBTQ+ community but it is also seeking to set the whole women’s rights movement back by a century or so. A Taliban level of authoritarianism. That is before we even get to black civil rights, which if the right have their way is rapidly heading backwards to an authoritarian apartheid.

In the UK we thankfully lack the religious fundamentalism/terrorism, but a very similar racist, nationalist and xenophobic political culture exists right in the mainstream and has done since the Conservative Party so widely adopted popularist NF, UKIP and Daily Mail policy. This starting with the Nazi-styled ‘go home’ vans of Theresa May’s ‘Hostile Environment’, the illegal deportations and countless human rights violations of ‘Windrush’, the toxic attitude that led to the criminal negligence of Grenfell, the branding of civil rights judges and lawyers as ‘enemies of the people’ and has currently escalated to the point of colour-selecting fleeing refugees and deporting those of an unacceptable hue 4000 miles away to concentration camps in Rwanda. At every stage the rights of minorities are reduced, the right for decent people to protest, demand accountability or democratically oppose eroded.

It is what it is.

The DM goes full pickaninny watermelon today:


“Camerawoman Kate! Duchess of Cambridge recycles white £1,370 Alexander McQueen blazer she wore in Jamaica as she visits a youth group with Prince William to mark Windrush Day”.


Clap for Windrush!

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Hooray! for Hostile Environment whitewashing, hooray!
 
On a tangent: I noticed a few days ago that BloJo looked unwell. Then heard he'd been in hospital for an op. Set me wondering if that might give him and the Tories an "off ramp" to dodge meeting their promises if he can use it to quietly 'resign sick' at some point whilst they try to keep their images looking good.

If so, a mixed blessing for us as he may walk away, but still leave us with the mess. Maybe we'll get Lord Snooty for their replacement PM and he can explain that the 'Levelling Up' really meant paying low wages to people who tidied up the moat he has around his home to help keep out the rest of us from begging at his gate.
 
On a tangent: I noticed a few days ago that BloJo looked unwell. Then heard he'd been in hospital for an op. Set me wondering if that might give him and the Tories an "off ramp" to dodge meeting their promises if he can use it to quietly 'resign sick' at some point whilst they try to keep their images looking good.

If so, a mixed blessing for us as he may walk away, but still leave us with the mess. Maybe we'll get Lord Snooty for their replacement PM and he can explain that the 'Levelling Up' really meant paying low wages to people who tidied up the moat he has around his home to help keep out the rest of us from begging at his gate.

His vanity, ego and sense of entitlement say he's not going to resign unless he's very seriously ill.
 
Suits me in the medium term. The longer he stays, the worse he and his chums will look, and the more votes they'll lose, plus the more blame will stick to them. Having a 'new' set of Tories could give them a chance to play "blame the last lot".

The tragedy is being stuck with any of them.
 
Suits me in the medium term. The longer he stays, the worse he and his chums will look, and the more votes they'll lose, plus the more blame will stick to them. Having a 'new' set of Tories could give them a chance to play "blame the last lot".

The tragedy is being stuck with any of them.

That's how I thought during the 2016 US election cycle. There was a new outrage every time Trump opened his mouth, Surely he'd do enough damage to himself and his party to torpedo any chances of election victory.

Problem was (1) the outrages are not cumulative, people only remember the most recent one; (2) you can't count on a rational electorate, the right wing base actually like the things we think are outrageous.
 
I heard the 20-stone bin-bag of offal that is our PM, describe rail workers' union managers as "Trades union barons". What a mendacious, cowardly, slippery turd of a man. To try to depict trade union members as somehow equating to feudal baronial power (no doubt with himself as the "man-of-the-people") is a new low verging on evil.
 
That's how I thought during the 2016 US election cycle. There was a new outrage every time Trump opened his mouth, Surely he'd do enough damage to himself and his party to torpedo any chances of election victory.

Problem was (1) the outrages are not cumulative, people only remember the most recent one; (2) you can't count on a rational electorate, the right wing base actually like the things we think are outrageous.
3) You can depend, in the UK at least, on 90% of the press minimising the offensiveness of the statements, or even denying they were ever made.
 
That's how I thought during the 2016 US election cycle. There was a new outrage every time Trump opened his mouth, Surely he'd do enough damage to himself and his party to torpedo any chances of election victory.

Problem was (1) the outrages are not cumulative, people only remember the most recent one; (2) you can't count on a rational electorate, the right wing base actually like the things we think are outrageous.

I think you are correct. It becomes a kind of soap opera; "What's he up to today then? Cor! Ain't he awful!..." We do love a bit of outrage.
 
I heard the 20-stone bin-bag of offal that is our PM, describe rail workers' union managers as "Trades union barons". What a mendacious, cowardly, slippery turd of a man. To try to depict trade union members as somehow equating to feudal baronial power (no doubt with himself as the "man-of-the-people") is a new low verging on evil.

Especially as only a couple of days ago his thieving corrupt party were having one of their oligarch fundraiser ‘balls’ where they sell off access and privilege to the highest bidders. They are the very definition of robber barons. A fundamentally crooked enterprise no better than the local drug gangsters, who judging by how much time they spend sniffing on camera and generally looking out of it many Tory MPs know on first name terms.

PS I’d love to see the results of a lockdown random drug test in the HoC. My bet is at least 20% of the Tory party would test positive for cocaine, and far higher than that on the front bench.
 
Especially as only a couple of days ago his thieving corrupt party were having one of their oligarch fundraiser ‘balls’ where they sell off access and privilege to the highest bidders. They are the very definition of robber barons. A fundamentally crooked enterprise no better than the local drug gangsters, who judging by how much time they spend sniffing on camera and generally looking out of it many Tory MPs know on first name terms.

PS I’d love to see the results of a lockdown random drug test in the HoC. My bet is at least 20% of the Tory party would test positive for cocaine, and far higher than that on the front bench.

High on coke!

Nah, they're having a bad trip on LDS.

So much money they have and what to do with it all.
 
Especially as only a couple of days ago his thieving corrupt party were having one of their oligarch fundraiser ‘balls’ where they sell off access and privilege to the highest bidders. They are the very definition of robber barons. A fundamentally crooked enterprise no better than the local drug gangsters, who judging by how much time they spend sniffing on camera and generally looking out of it many Tory MPs know on first name terms.

PS I’d love to see the results of a lockdown random drug test in the HoC. My bet is at least 20% of the Tory party would test positive for cocaine, and far higher than that on the front bench.

I really feel quite strongly about Johnson attacking the rail workers in this way. He is stirring up a class war and encouraging the mechanisms of the state to attack it's own workers.
This is the same party that worships the laws of supply and demand and competition; the holy "Market". And yet when the balance of demand in the labour market tilts slightly towards workers, they are straight in with the boot.
 
I really feel quite strongly about Johnson attacking the rail workers in this way. He is stirring up a class war and encouraging the mechanisms of the state to attack it's own workers.
This is the same party that worships the laws of supply and demand and competition; the holy "Market". And yet when the balance of demand in the labour market tilts slightly towards workers, they are straight in with the boot.
They,MP's got an above inflation pay rise in 2020
they're getting another £2200 (for working harder)on top taking them to
£84k.They don't give a *uck.
 
I really feel quite strongly about Johnson attacking the rail workers in this way. He is stirring up a class war and encouraging the mechanisms of the state to attack it's own workers.

Johnson is a very well documented class warrior. His whole life reflects it. Don’t underestimate stuff like the Bullingdon Club, it is an elite far-right entity that promotes class warfare. Part of the inauguration ritual is taunting ‘tramps’ by setting £50 notes alight in front of them, trashing working folk’s businesses etc. Johnson is well documented in this kind of cruelty, as he is in racism and white supremacy. He clearly fools some idiots in our society with the bumbling posh-boy act, but beneath it he is a thoroughly nasty piece of work. A racist, a white supremacist, a misogynist, a menacing bully and a class warrior. A man who will shit on anyone and anything to get his way, and apparently enjoy the pain he causes others. A sociopath who had the luck to be born into the super-rich.


This Led By Donkeys film catalogues a fair bit of what he is covering his life up to becoming a politician, but there is an endless amount more to dig into if you google around. I am amazed he manages to fool anyone at all. Regardless, his party own him. Absolutely everyone who lines up in Westminster or at a voting box box outside to support him or his party is actively endorsing this catalogue of vile behaviour. The only question is whether they are racist bigoted scum, or profoundly stupid? There is no other logical option.
 


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