Sampson

Hmm. Not convinced by that. He kept repeating this £2k figure that he well knows is pulled out of thin air and knowingly lying and misleading people into saying it’s independently sourced rather than based on figures Tory advisors have completely made up. He’s also happy to water down climate change targets knowing full well it’s a policy that will help lead to the deaths of tens of millions of people so he can lower taxes for the wealthy instead of sharing the wealth he’s earned already off the backs of the tax payer. The “high achieving” bit also grates given he made his money from the collapse of RBS which everyone else had to pay for by bailing RBS out while he pocketed tens of millions from it. Then he has the gall to back an economic philosophy about how working class are pulled up by upper class people creating and sharing wealth. I’m just not having “well meaning” and high achieving with Sunak. He “achieved”by gambling and winning off the backs of the tax payer’s money and then completely and knowingly lies about his opposition tax budget and the net zero and the impact of climate change. He has already profited so heavily off the pain and suffering of others and continues to completely and knowingly lie and make up figures in order to continue it.

**** me. This Reform UK guy is an absolute raving lunatic.

Watching Ed Davey’s interview and he comes across as so much better than Starmer or Sunak. Still voting Labour inspite of Starmer, he’s a Labour leader, he shouldn’t be scared to say he’s going to raise taxes ffs, it’s supposed to be a Social Democratic Party, not a neoliberal one.

*Sunak rubs fingers together* ”oh yeah, the taxes, the finger thing means the taxes.”

Jesus Christ, this chair is such a Sunak supporter

It’s becoming clearer and clearer that Starner has shifted the party to the right of Blair and is the most right wing leader Labour have ever had tbf. Happy the Tories are getting trounced but I sincerely hope Rayner et al. steer him the other way. It’s a shame because a few years ago it felt like he was on the left of the party

What? Sunak would love to abolish all taxes and let the poor fend for themselves in the streets if he could. He’s a libertarian who made his millions off the collapse of RBS while the tax payer bailed them out.

It doesn’t mean you should accept it as final and people absolutely should be now bringing it back into the discourse around how shit it’s been, more than enough time has passed now. Thats how democracy works. Brexit has been shit, the majority of people know it, the majority of people want to rejoin the uk and the demographics of the vote show that that feeling is only increasing over time. The “we should accept it” stuff in 2024 is crap, if you accepted it in 2017 then fine, but we have elections every 4 or 5 years for a reason - so people can change course when evidence has been presented to them. The time at which you can reasonably say “you should (still) accept the referendum” should’ve long expired by now. We shouldn’t be still accepting being outside the EU because of a referendum from donkeys years ago, we should be reminding people that it’s been crap and keeping the discourse of how crap it’s been in the public eye so we can reasonably change course, as is the case in a democratic country.

All this says is people of certain demographics, most notably older people, were more likely to vote leave, which is news to no one. People may have been quite fairly dissatisfied with society, but that says nothing about why multi-millionaires like Farage and Johnson then weaponised this dissatisfaction by blaming on immigrants and quoting 2 or 3 word slogans about taking back control and project fear over and over again: Hate this “I’ve accepted the result of the referendum” stuff in 2024, in the 2017 fine but the referendum was 8 bloody years ago now, why have you accepted a result that was made years ago as if it’s final. There are 25 year olds now who weren’t eligible to vote then, there are naturalised British citizens who hadn’t moved to the uk then. That’s not how democracy works, Labour aren’t in power because well we voted them in in 1997, so we have to accept that. Every poll shows now the public are in favour of rejoining the eu and regret leaving. We have had 8 years worth of evidence and a changing world since the referendum happened. I don’t know many people who think the country is a better place now than it was in 2015. I don’t see why people should have to accept a world based on a poll that was done nearly a decade ago and then ignore everything that has happened since.

David hankey’s post is a great example - still going on about WW2 as if it was him who won it.

There is one true British patriot and hero in that picture. There’s also Nigel Farage.

I would’ve agreed with you until 2016. People tried to say this during the EU referendum, people tried to make economic and social arguments about the need for immigration, people tried to argue it might actually increase immigration as you’d make it harder to get in short term workers from abroad so people would have to hire longer term instead, people tried to argue they’d be making their children or grandchildren’s life into an anxiety and beurocratic ridden hell if they fell in love with a non-British person, people tried to argue our universities would start losing highly skilled talent, people tried to argue highly skilled workers would start choosing Germany or France instead. Problem is every time they were met with “project fear” “we’re taking back control” “you don’t believe in Britain” “you’re unpatriotic” and 3 word slogans and blind calls for patriotism and “Brits vs the world” mentality won out. Then we were told we couldn’t call a bigot a bigot and remain only lost because they called people racist. I just can’t see where this “informed debate” would genuinely happen and it wouldn’t be flooded with 2 word slogans and calls of patriotism. I remember the optimistic days of the 90s and 00s where it felt like that could happen, this isn’t how politics works in 2024 sadly.

I’m still wary that Labour have been won over by the right on some of their arguments though. Seeing Starmer talk about immigration recently was quite depressing, I’m looking forward to seeing what’s in their actual manifesto. I’ll give myself a week of relief and celebration when the Tories are finally kicked to the curb and hopefully it’s the most humiliating defeat in living memory as the polls show no question. And I totally understand that Labour need to stop the bleeding before they can start the surgery, but I hope they actually offer some genuine change and not watered down versions of Tory policy. I thought Starmer had some good ideas a couple of years back but he seems to have backpedaled on a lot of it and I am worried that he’s not really even offering New Labour solutions but going to govern from a place that’s noticeably to the right of Tony Blair and quite a way right of Gordon Brown. But I’ll reserve judgement on that for now and enjoy the Tory demise.

There’s a book called The Wall by John Lanchester where the UK builds a wall round it. Every citizen has to do mandatory military service guarding the wall from people coming in in dinghies. If people get in they’re allowed to stay but those guarding that section of wall where they get in are kicked off the island and cast into the sea as a punishment in a “1 in 1 out” system. Reading some people online today fawning over Nigel Farage makes me think there’s plenty in the UK who would genuinely welcome this system.

Brilliant in the first half of his time here, kind of crap and semi-permanently injured in the second half of his time here. Will always wish him well for what he’s achieved here, but I think it’s time to part ways. Giving big wages to players who haven’t performed for several seasons now feels like Matty James’ 4 year deal all over again.

Next Tory broadcast: ”Your guilty conscience may force you to vote Labour, but deep down you secretly long for a cold-hearted Conservative to lower taxes, brutalize criminals, and rule you like a king!”

Considering how “clear” this “plan” for saving our economy supposedly is from the Tories, I sure wish they’d actually be clear about what the plan actually entails.

“Kier Starmer wants to bankrupt the country. This is still the same man who backed Jeremy Corbyn for PM twice. Vote for the Tories or go back to square one with the same old Labour”. ”Mayor Quimby supports revolving-door prisons. Mayor Quimby even released Sideshow Bob, a man twice convicted of attempted murder. Can you trust a man like Mayor Quimby? Vote Sideshow Bob for mayor!”

Honestly, if I was in Clacton, as much as I want them out, I’d be tempted to vote Tory tactically. I have never hated a UK politician more than Nigel Farage. He is a cancerous influence on UK politics

Yeh Dominion is one of those that they still keep pumping out expansions that there’s probably tens of thousands of cards these days. But they all add new mechanics and work together. By its sheer number of potential combinations of games you do get some dud games of it, but it’s one of those games that so easy to just play 4 or 5 times in a row in an evening that it doesn’t matter. Cosmic Encounter is one of the classic and really influential “hobby games” from the 1970s that were even pre developers like Reiner Knizia, Wolfgang Kramer and games like 6 nimmt, Modern Art, Settlers of Catan, Bohnanza and El Grande which popularised “hobby games” in the early-mid 90s. Though Fantasy Flight games gave it a facelift about 15 years ago and made the definitive version of it.

I’ve already removed it. Campbell is in hospital seriously ill and fighting for his life though.

Great thread bump though never played Dagger heart. Big tabletop gamer for decades in general though, been rotating D&D and Call of Cthulu for decades with other odd TTRPGs here and there Then board/card games, probably some general favourites) Cosmic Encounter (still the best board game ever made for me) Libertalia Dominion Ra/Tigres & Euphrates/Modern Art/Quest for El Dorado (although any top tier Reiner Knizia game is always a blast) Clank! Catacombs El Grande Race for the Galaxy I do enjoy the bigger euro games from time to time but it has to be with players who know the game and don’t know it well enough to wipe the floor with everyone else.

Thank you, I have removed it

I know it’s been mentioned on other threads, but worth its own thread. Even if he was only here for a few months, he was a brilliant player in his brief time here who was head and shoulders above the rest of his teammates.

The main thing for me that the post-May government have proved to me is that I’d always believed that you had to actually be an intelligent person who understood diplomacy, economics and had a good grasp on how the world worked to get to the top in politics and that’s been proved wrong. I may have profoundly disagreed with Cameron or May on many things, but I never would conclude they weren’t intelligent people who had pondered a lot on how the world works, same with every other leader in most people’s lifetimes. Truss and to a lesser extent Johnson shattered that illusion. I have no idea how Truss genuinely made it to the top of her party,