General News Thread

[Bellend Sebastian]

In fairness that's about how long our lot last when they realise they're actually going to have to do some work

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c93knke95peo

 

Edited 26 June 2025 by Bellend Sebastian
Crap link

[bovril]

30 minutes ago, Bellend Sebastian said:

In fairness that's about how long our lot last when they realise they're actually going to have to do some work

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c93knke95peo

 

Warwickshire about to get a preview of Britain in the 2030s

[Tommy G]

1 hour ago, bovril said:

perhaps boring Yank culture war shit can go in a separate thread which I can then mute?

It gets tiring - can we have a separate thread to discuss Trump and America?

[leicsmac]

1 hour ago, bovril said:

perhaps boring Yank culture war shit can go in a separate thread which I can then mute?

 

12 minutes ago, Tommy G said:

It gets tiring - can we have a separate thread to discuss Trump and America?

It was tried, sadly it lasted about fifteen minutes.

[bovril]

Something uniquely tragic about adult Brits who become embroiled in American culture wars and use phrases like "Trump derangement syndrome" and "jerk offs" like an Ohio teenager in 2016 posting Pepe the Frog memes. Brings shame on our great nation. 

[Sampson]

20 minutes ago, bovril said:

Something uniquely tragic about adult Brits who become embroiled in American culture wars and use phrases like "Trump derangement syndrome" and "jerk offs" like an Ohio teenager in 2016 posting Pepe the Frog memes. Brings shame on our great nation. 

Sadly this isn’t far off how Kemi Badenoch conducts herself.

[bovril]

1 minute ago, Sampson said:

Sadly this isn’t far off how Kemi Badenoch conducts herself.

I bet on a social media account somewhere she describes herself as a 'veteran of the great meme war 2016'. 

[Trav Le Bleu]

1 hour ago, bovril said:

Something uniquely tragic about adult Brits who become embroiled in American culture wars and use phrases like "Trump derangement syndrome" and "jerk offs" like an Ohio teenager in 2016 posting Pepe the Frog memes. Brings shame on our great nation. 

Bulgaria?

[Dahnsouff]

2 hours ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

Bulgaria?

So, so many times I believed it was thus.

[leicsmac]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8d64z4rl5ro

 

Amy Hunt, whose mother and two sisters were murdered in their own home last year, has told the BBC there is an "epidemic" of misogyny in society that has "the most horrific, devastating consequences".

In her first interview since the murders of her mum, Carol, and sisters, Hannah and Louise, Amy say the UK "should be very concerned" about sexist, hateful content on social media - calling on media platforms, people in power, schools and "every single one of us" to do something about it.

She tells the BBC people are "slowly waking up" to the links between hate posted on social media and violence against women by men in real life.

The man who killed her loved ones was Kyle Clifford, her youngest sister's ex-boyfriend. The attacks came two weeks after Louise ended their 18-month relationship.

Amy describes Clifford as a man filled with hatred, self-loathing, and a deep insecurity. "It's very clear he hates women," she says. "But what I often say is, he doesn't hate women as much as he hates himself."

She says there is "a serious obligation as a society to change men's behaviour, because this is a man's issue - it is not a woman's issue".

 

A problem becoming more and more identifiable. The solution, however, is far from easy.

[Md9]

I know it’s probably annoying to keep hearing about it sorry but It’s actually crazy how much every single one of trump and his cabinet can be disgusting to anyone they choose and nothing will get done about it . They go after the media for asking simple questions they can’t answer and lie about pretty much anything they are asked . And the arse kissing between them towards trump is actually quite disturbing. He really is a disgusting piece of crap and they love it because they can be the same and get away with it. 

[Wymsey]

The highest-level of stalking, surely?..

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyrnd1per9o

 

[Torquay Gunner]

Definitely a good thing that more police officers are held to account.  Until very recently they would have probably just got a ticking off.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8zyjdj067o

 

 

[fox_up_north]

9 hours ago, Torquay Gunner said:

Definitely a good thing that more police officers are held to account.  Until very recently they would have probably just got a ticking off.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8zyjdj067o

 

 

I feel for the girl but it's absolutely shocking that nobody at the school, least of all a safeguarding officer, rang her mum. That's the first thing we do. 

 

Been naughty that requires more than a detention over lunch? Ring parents. 

 

Given the prevalence of county lines in this country, the fact that the first option was to strip search rather than ask and consider HOW a 15 year old girl came to smell so strongly of weed, baffles me. 

 

I'm glad the cops involved have been named and struck off. That a school staff member didn't intervene and say "we would like to have a trusted adult here first" is beyond me. 

[Torquay Gunner]

15 minutes ago, fox_up_north said:

I feel for the girl but it's absolutely shocking that nobody at the school, least of all a safeguarding officer, rang her mum. That's the first thing we do. 

 

Been naughty that requires more than a detention over lunch? Ring parents. 

 

Given the prevalence of county lines in this country, the fact that the first option was to strip search rather than ask and consider HOW a 15 year old girl came to smell so strongly of weed, baffles me. 

 

I'm glad the cops involved have been named and struck off. That a school staff member didn't intervene and say "we would like to have a trusted adult here first" is beyond me. 

Yes agree that the school was culpable also.  Some very odd decision making all round. 

[davieG]

Political U-turns 

Why do governments changing their minds get such abuse surely they can be seen as a good thing.

 

Isn't this democracy in action, sure they could have done a better job of judging any impact but you'll not see the like of Putin, Xi Jinping or Kim Jung-un publicly doing U-turns.

[leicsmac]

12 minutes ago, davieG said:

Political U-turns 

Why do governments changing their minds get such abuse surely they can be seen as a good thing.

 

Isn't this democracy in action, sure they could have done a better job of judging any impact but you'll not see the like of Putin, Xi Jinping or Kim Jung-un publicly doing U-turns.

The way I see it, they're going to get pelters from their opposition no matter what they do, so looking purely at the act itself, u-turns showing a government is actually listening is a good thing. 

[davieG]

4 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

The way I see it, they're going to get pelters from their opposition no matter what they do, so looking purely at the act itself, u-turns showing a government is actually listening is a good thing. 

Not just the opposition but the whole media.

[Jon the Hat]

33 minutes ago, davieG said:

Political U-turns 

Why do governments changing their minds get such abuse surely they can be seen as a good thing.

 

Isn't this democracy in action, sure they could have done a better job of judging any impact but you'll not see the like of Putin, Xi Jinping or Kim Jung-un publicly doing U-turns.

To deserve respect for listening they’d need to admit they got it wrong and listened.  Unlike Labour canning winter fuel allowance then pretending they found the cash down the back of the sofa to bring it back .  For example.

Edited 27 June 2025 by Jon the Hat

[RobHawk]

3 hours ago, Jon the Hat said:

To deserve respect for listening they’d need to admit they got it wrong and listened.  Unlike Labour canning winter fuel allowance then pretending they found the cash down the back of the sofa to bring it back .  For example.

Still don't think they got the actual policy wrong in regards to winter fuel payments. 

 

Problem was it was such an own goal in regards to giving the opposition a stick to beat them with, that eventually they caved, even though I still believe it was the right thing to do and that money would be much better used elsewhere. 

[kenny]

Just now, RobHawk said:

Still don't think they got the actual policy wrong in regards to winter fuel payments. 

 

Problem was it was such an own goal in regards to giving the opposition a stick to beat them with, that eventually they caved, even though I still believe it was the right thing to do and that money would be much better used elsewhere. 

Particularly as the triple lock increased the pension by more than the WFA. The other thing thats strange is setting the level to receive it at £35k, why have they chosen such a high figure as part of the U-turn?

[Sampson]

19 minutes ago, RobHawk said:

Still don't think they got the actual policy wrong in regards to winter fuel payments. 

 

Problem was it was such an own goal in regards to giving the opposition a stick to beat them with, that eventually they caved, even though I still believe it was the right thing to do and that money would be much better used elsewhere. 

I’m with you, I thought it was the right thing to do but it became politically impossible.

 

I struggle with these debates more and more though because I feel like there’s no real solution that isn’t just too (understandably) politically unpopular that it’s a complete non-starter. I guess I’d consider myself a wet centrist liberal but I do have some sympathy with social democratic policies and certainly agree with the theory behind having a really high social safety net and welfare system is clearly a good thing in an ideal world. I just think it’s something that was great in the decades following the post-war relieve with a young working population in the 1940s-1960s but is probably for the birds in 2020s-onwards where the population is much older and so the average person objectively and understandably needs more social benefits as they get older and the working population who support them is a smaller proportion of them - (this isn’t just economically but in terms of pure number of labourers in terms of care workers, administrators, support workers etc.).

 

One look at UK government spending shows social benefits (most of which is the pension system and healthcare costs) are the huge albatross around government spending which they ideally want to put into housing, building new hospitals etc. 
 

Of course I don’t know what the solution is, because it’s a perfectly understandable argument that it’s hard to argue with emotionally that older more vulnerable people need more support, but how you distribute that when more and more of the population is older and requires more healthcare and social benefits through pension, and disability benefits I’m not sure. It’s also a problem that’s only going to get worse as the fertility rate remains under replacement ratio as it does for pretty much everywhere outside of Africa and the Middle East.

[MadsEmil]

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq6m79n6q65o

 

Yet another break in on an RAF base, more break ins reported in Brussels and Germany. Either it's sheer stupidity of these protestors to go and vandalise or destroy equipment meant for Ukraine in some twisted solidarity with Palestine or it's intentional. 

 

The refueling planes last week weren't even compatible 

[Sampson]

Btw as an aside, I watched the Britain and the Blitz documentary on Netflix the other day and it’s a good documentary and I recommend it - but it did get me thinking if the world feeling like it’s spinning out of control and populism going through the roof is at least partly due the lack of catharsis at the end of Covid.

 

I remember under the first lockdown in March 2020 all the talk and announcements from the Queen and Prime Minister and talk that “this was the current generation’s WW2”. And I remember people specifically saying - can you imagine in a couple of years when this is all over it’ll be the biggest party you’ve ever seen - but it never was, it just seemed to get pushed out the news a couple years later by Russia invading Ukraine and that was that.

 

When I see the celebrations of like VE Day and the baby boomer and “post-war consensus” era that followed afterwards until the 1970s - also the catharsis/celebration of the fall of communism/the Berlin Wall and the “end of history”/globalisation that followed afterwards until 2008 - I wonder if the fact we never had that period of catharsis afterwards led to a lot of people going down the populist path? I definitely think more than a small number of people got led down it by Covid (not just regular people but even celebrities like Russell Brand, Matt Le Tissier, Kanye West etc. )

 

I do wonder how much the mental health struggles and isolation a lot of us had with never getting a payoff of catharsis to feel like it was “worth it” had led to the world’s shift to populism increasing rapidly the last 4 or 5 years (I’m of course aware it existed beforehand but has definitely noticeably increased post-pandemic).

 

Anyway, just a pet theory after watching the documentary.

Edited 27 June 2025 by Sampson

[Sol thewall Bamba]

8 minutes ago, MadsEmil said:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq6m79n6q65o

 

Yet another break in on an RAF base, more break ins reported in Brussels and Germany. Either it's sheer stupidity of these protestors to go and vandalise or destroy equipment meant for Ukraine in some twisted solidarity with Palestine or it's intentional. 

 

The refueling planes last week weren't even compatible 

"Yet another"? When was the second one?