The General Politics Thread v2.0 (AKA the "Labour are Cunts" thread)

[SuperBacon]

11 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

Maybe not counties, but England should be split up into devolved regions with devoMAX - North, Midlands, East Anglia/South-East, London, South-West, at the very least. England as a whole holds too much sway in the Union, and London too much sway in England.

One of the directors the other week spoke about Hampshire and said it has a bigger economy than Wales and a larger population than Northern Ireland which struck me as an odd way to put it.

Historically the unitaries of Southampton and Portsmouth have been very independent and like to do their own thing, but a union is being reached with the county council.

I just hope they fix the buses, roads and street lights more than anything.

[Carbomb]

1 hour ago, SuperBacon said:

One of the directors the other week spoke about Hampshire and said it has a bigger economy than Wales and a larger population than Northern Ireland which struck me as an odd way to put it.

Historically the unitaries of Southampton and Portsmouth have been very independent and like to do their own thing, but a union is being reached with the county council.

I just hope they fix the buses, roads and street lights more than anything.

Yes and no - there's often reference made to how California has the world's 4th largest economy.

But the reason why I say England should be split up is because of population, not economy - the southeast is too heavily weighted, and London's economy is just too big. The country shouldn't keep centring the UK's economy around London; there needs to be de-centralisation to allow the rest of the country to develop like it's supposed to, run by governments that are more likely to understand the needs of their constituents, elected on that basis.

[LaGoosh]

15 hours ago, Carbomb said:

England as a whole holds too much sway in the Union, and London too much sway in England.

Interesting!

I've lived in or close to London my whole life so I've always had this weird feeling of being a Londoner rather than English or British. When I visit other places in the country I sometimes feel similar to how I feel visiting other countries. 

It's almost certainly because I've never spent any significant time anywhere other than London but it's just this bizarre vibe I've never been able to shake where London and England feel like two different places entirely. A country within a country.

Edited November 30, 2024 by LaGoosh

[Carbomb]

1 hour ago, LaGoosh said:

Interesting!

I've lived in or close to London my whole life so I've always had this weird feeling of being a Londoner rather than English or British. When I visit other places in the country I sometimes feel similar to how I feel visiting other countries. 

It's almost certainly because I've never spent any significant time anywhere other than London but it's just this bizarre vibe I've never been able to shake where London and England feel like two different places entirely. A country within a country.

That is absolutely true. I'm a Londoner born, bred, and baked, and it's always been my experience that London culturally is essentially a city state.

But economically, London has been given far too much, and most of the time it comes at the expense of the rest of the country. It's not surprising so many people outside London hate it.

It's a very general perspective, but I can't help wondering if we wouldn't do better following the model of Germany, who have a bigger economy than ours. Sure, theirs happened organically because their various states developed independently before unification, but the end result is demonstrative that having several major economic centres should make a country more robust and prosperous in general. Between Frankfurt, Munich, Essen, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Dortmund, Dusseldorf, etc., they cover lots of different economic areas which then benefits the populations of their surrounding areas. I don't think it's a coincidence that the most prosperous area of the modern UK is the southeast, i.e. the area surrounding London.

Edited November 30, 2024 by Carbomb

[FLips]

Is there more to this Waspi case going on at the minute than “they just didn’t know”? Because I feel like even I knew the retirement ages went up so how could such a large portion of people not when they’re the ones effected by it?

[johnnyboy]

49 minutes ago, FLips said:

Is there more to this Waspi case going on at the minute than “they just didn’t know”? Because I feel like even I knew the retirement ages went up so how could such a large portion of people not when they’re the ones effected by it?

Part of it is arguing that they were not made sufficiently aware, and there's also the part where their retirement age has been changed multiple times, sometimes with fairly short (in the terms of your entire life) notice.

For the first ~20 years of your working life you think you'll be retiring at 60.  At 40 you're told it'll be 65.  At 55/56 you're told it'll now be 66.  Plus women from this era were particularly affected by being short on National Insurance years if they'd taken time off with children and hadn't topped up their NI.

Edited December 18, 2024 by johnnyboy
Edit I can't maths

[SuperBacon]

On 11/29/2024 at 4:13 PM, SuperBacon said:

Lots of talk about devolution in Hampshire

An update on this, today Hampshire have asked to be considered as part of the government's fast track devolution scheme.

https://www.hants.gov.uk/News/01102025DevolutionPriorityProgramme

Isle of Wight didn't agree, so not sure what that means for it all, but yeah, a fairly significant day and decision.

Long way to go though.

Edit: others have expressed an interest as well. They are Surrey, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Warwickshire,  East Sussex, West Sussex, Devon, Leicestershire, Gloucestershire, Kent, Worcestershire and Oxfordshire. 

Edited January 10, 2025 by SuperBacon
Devolution not evolution

[Devon Malcolm]

This is why it's not an exaggeration to call the front bench of the Labour party Tories. This is an agreed meeting with a fascist anti-trans organisation. It's not lazy rhetoric, the evidence is stacking up. Streeting is one of the most powerful and dangerous people in this country right now. Just laying some easy ground for Reform UK to cruise in on.

[MungoChutney]

Scottish Labour has as good as said they'd work with Reform too. So desperate for power and far away from what the Labour party should be that they're about to hand the SNP another term on a plate despite having an open goal. 

[Devon Malcolm]

59 minutes ago, MungoChutney said:

Scottish Labour has as good as said they'd work with Reform too. So desperate for power and far away from what the Labour party should be that they're about to hand the SNP another term on a plate despite having an open goal. 

And it's just a microcosm of Labour across the country and what they have all been doing ever since Starmer took over. Absolutely all they care about is being in power. At no point have they even tried to disguise that's what they're doing, from the start of Starmer's leadership to where we are now. At least with Blair there was an artifice of positivity and progress. With this itineration of the Labour Party, there's been nothing hopeful in anything they've said and done. Nothing's changed, everything's shit and all they have is they're not the Conservative Party. We all know where it will lead to - maybe not in 4 years but within a decade.

They don't give a shit. Because all they wanted was to win. They convinced people with the line 'you can't change anything unless you're in power', and sent their campaigners out on that premise, and have delivered nothing. They traded on desperation and scaremongering and are now delivering more of it. I feel more hopeless under them because they're supposed to be the progressive alternative. With the Tories we knew what we were gonna get. Instead we get Wes Streeting, the obsequious little toad, cosying up to every nauseating group and movement he can to solidify his own tottering, tiny constituency majority. What a bunch of cunts.

[westlondonmist]

Latest you go poll shows Reform ahead on 25%, Labour 24% and Tory 21%. Quite depressing, but Reform got 14% in the election and barely won a seat, so one good thing. 

 

The problem is I don't really blame people. I hate the thought of being governed by them but i understand that people are fed the fuck up with the two main parties. 

[SuperBacon]

Devolution update: six proposals have been chosen to join the fast track programme. 

Cheshire and Warrington, Cumbria, Norfolk and Suffolk, Greater Essex, Hampshire and the Solent, and Sussex and Brighton.

The campaign for Mayor Bacon begins here.

[Carbomb]

I was reading about Hexhamshire a few days ago, and it took me down a Wiki rabbit-hole regarding "Liberties/Regalities" and "palatinates". A "Liberty" was an English variation of a "county palatine" (whilst a "Regality" was a Scottish one), where the governing individual in question, i.e. an earl or duke or bishop, was given full control by the king over the county, and the king's writ did not apply. Hexhamshire was a Liberty given to the Bishop of Durham, and apparently a lot of villains on the run could lie low there if they could get across the county line. The duchy of Lancaster was also a palatinate, and was in essence an autonomous region (mainly because of the sheer wealth of Henry Grosmont and John of Gaunt) until Henry IV became the Duke of Lancaster, and it's been a royal title ever since; hence the reason "Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster" is an official government position..

One of the original palatinates when England was established was Cheshire - seems they "want their county back"!

[Devon Malcolm]

Congratulations to Reform UK on winning the 2029 general election.

Edited February 13, 2025 by Devon Malcolm
gemeral

[RedTwoster]

It’s so stupid. Statements like that won’t win Labour a single vote, but they’ll absolutely alienate left wing voters, and probably some centrists too. I fear that a Reform/Tory coalition will emerge as our government from the next election, and that’s absolutely terrifying.