General News Thread

[danny.]

2 minutes ago, AKCJ said:

I'm the same but so many lives would be saved if high powered guns are taken out of civilian hands.

 

I can't personally imagine a life where I'd feel safer with a gun strapped to my waist but if Americans only have access to pistols then I think it stops 90% of America's gun problems.

 

I think it creates an arms race, but I do understand why people would feel safer. Look how often you see people in the UK walking around with large knives and machetes now, if one of them decided to attack you you'd have no chance without something like a pistol.

The better solution would obviously be to stop people walking around with machetes, but doesn't seem like the UK is down for that rn.

[Tommy G]

23 minutes ago, Zear0 said:

One of the characteristics of an ex-barrister, he'll always wait until he's got the facts despite the political direction of travel on them.  Does seem pretty crap at reading the room, but it's not in his nature to act on his gut.  Still not sure how waiting for the independent advisor to finish investigating Rayner was a bad thing either.  If he didn't back either, he'll just be accused of not having confidence in them even if they're found not to have done anything wrong.  Do suspect any future issues with him team will end up with small details being leaked, wait for a defence with the available information, then release more that night to embarrass him.

 

Not entirely sure what Reeves has to do with this though.

She will be the next to be given full confidence and then resign/sacked. 

[Sly]

31 minutes ago, danny. said:

I think it creates an arms race, but I do understand why people would feel safer. Look how often you see people in the UK walking around with large knives and machetes now, if one of them decided to attack you you'd have no chance without something like a pistol.

The better solution would obviously be to stop people walking around with machetes, but doesn't seem like the UK is down for that rn.

Luckily, I don’t come across many people wandering around with a machete in the UK either. 
 

You can outrun a knife, you can’t out run a bullet.

[leicsmac]

Shifting the topic slightly, it will be interesting to see how both of the events being discussed today affect what Starmer and Felon#47 talk about next week, if at all. 

[Muzzy_no7]

2 minutes ago, Sly said:

Luckily, I don’t come across many people wandering around with a machete in the UK either. 
 

You can outrun a knife, you can’t out run a bullet.

Believe me, there are more people carrying knives and machetes than you think. 

[Trav Le Bleu]

43 minutes ago, danny. said:

Equating the concept of self defence i.e. if someone comes into your home with being murdered by a trained sniper is wild.

I don't agree with gun ownership, BTW, but not a fan of disingenuous fallacies or false equivalences either.

It's not a false equivalent or any kind of fallacy.

 

Gun ownership doesn't protect you from being shot. Simple fact, proven time and again.

 

Studies show that you are 4 times more likely to be shot in possession of a gun than not.

 

Go figure.

[Trav Le Bleu]

1 hour ago, MC Prussian said:

Try fighting a gun (or knife) with your bare hands. Good luck.

 

You can always try running, too.

 

6 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

It's not a false equivalent or any kind of fallacy.

 

Gun ownership doesn't protect you from being shot. Simple fact, proven time and again.

 

Studies show that you are 4 times more likely to be shot in possession of a gun than not.

 

Go figure.

I refer the honourable gentleman to my previous answer.

 

Having a gun won't stop you being shot. It might give you the chance to shoot back, that is all. As a protection you have to be prepared to shoot first... which then makes you a murderer.

 

For the record, the same is true of knives, probably more so.

Edited 11 September 2025 by Trav Le Bleu

[danny.]

30 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

It's not a false equivalent or any kind of fallacy.

 

Gun ownership doesn't protect you from being shot. Simple fact, proven time and again.

 

Studies show that you are 4 times more likely to be shot in possession of a gun than not.

 

Go figure.

source for those studies?

[CornwallFox]

1 minute ago, danny. said:

source for those studies?

Google is usually your best starting point. 

 

It's common sense though. A gun is usually carried by the criminal to give them power so they they can carry out a different crime - a theft or whatever. 

If the victim simply complies then they run away with the goods, no shots fired. 

If the victim pulls out a gun, there a high chance they get shot.

[The Bear]

Guns don't kill people. Rappers do. 

[danny.]

5 minutes ago, CornwallFox said:

Google is usually your best starting point. 

 

It's common sense though. A gun is usually carried by the criminal to give them power so they they can carry out a different crime - a theft or whatever. 

If the victim simply complies then they run away with the goods, no shots fired. 

If the victim pulls out a gun, there a high chance they get shot.

Not really. I didn't make the claim so I'm not going to try and second guess which studies are being referred to.

[CornwallFox]

Just now, danny. said:

Not really. I didn't make the claim so I'm not going to try and second guess which studies are being referred to.

Genuinely not looking for an argument here but I  hate it when people write 'source' online, as if an ordinary person will have a list of references for everything they've seen. 

 

Now, you certainly shouldn't believe claims made online either, so requiring evidence of the claim absolutely is needed if you're going to reconsider your position, but expecting an ordinary football fan to give you a link to a detailed study is clearly not realistic. 

 

I think the only sensible middle ground is not to believe them, but to question whether they're correct by going online to see if I can support what they've said with evidence.

[danny.]

2 minutes ago, CornwallFox said:

Genuinely not looking for an argument here but I  hate it when people write 'source' online, as if an ordinary person will have a list of references for everything they've seen. 

 

Now, you certainly shouldn't believe claims made online either, so requiring evidence of the claim absolutely is needed if you're going to reconsider your position, but expecting an ordinary football fan to give you a link to a detailed study is clearly not realistic. 

 

I think the only sensible middle ground is not to believe them, but to question whether they're correct by going online to see if I can support what they've said with evidence.

Well peer reviewed studies generally do have sources available to link to, as they are published and available online.

I'd have thought anyone, whether they like football or not, would know the source they are quoting, otherwise why quote it? It was a very specific claim so no doubt is backed up by evidence. 

[CornwallFox]

11 minutes ago, danny. said:

Well peer reviewed studies generally do have sources available to link to, as they are published and available online.

I'd have thought anyone, whether they like football or not, would know the source they are quoting, otherwise why quote it? It was a very specific claim so no doubt is backed up by evidence. 

Usually somebody will be quoting something they've read elsewhere - ie a news report on gun crime talking about what studies have found - rather than through having intimate knowledge of those studies personally.

[danny.]

1 minute ago, CornwallFox said:

Usually somebody will be quoting something they've read elsewhere - ie a news report on gun crime talking about what studies have found - rather than through having intimate knowledge of those studies personally.

The problem with that is that the conclusions of studies can be misrepresented when going through other sources, especially if different sources have their own bias or agenda.

[CornwallFox]

14 minutes ago, danny. said:

Well peer reviewed studies generally do have sources available to link to, as they are published and available online.

I'd have thought anyone, whether they like football or not, would know the source they are quoting, otherwise why quote it? It was a very specific claim so no doubt is backed up by evidence. 

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2759797/

 

I found this within ten seconds of googling it

 

Results. After adjustment, individuals in possession of a gun were 4.46 (P < .05) times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not in possession. Among gun assaults where the victim had at least some chance to resist, this adjusted odds ratio increased to 5.45 (P < .05).

[Sol thewall Bamba]

Farage in a stamp duty controversy, here we go again!

[AKCJ]

It seems as though Trump's announcement of Charlie Kirk's death was AI generated, which is frightening for so many reasons.

[Alf Bentley]

18 hours ago, Bilo said:

That’s a really good and thoughtful reply — thanks for laying it out so clearly. You’re absolutely right that the Ipsos numbers show Boomers weren’t the Thatcherite bloc in the 1980s, and I’ll happily concede that my framing risked oversimplifying. Many were voting Labour at that time.

 

Where I’d gently push back, though, is on the way the political parties themselves have changed over the decades, and how that interacts with Boomer voting patterns. Labour and the Tories of the 1980s were very different beasts from what we have now. The Thatcher years entrenched neoliberal thinking, and as Boomers aged, they were the first big generation to live through — and then consolidate — that shift. Labour’s own movement towards the centre under Kinnock and Blair was in no small part a reaction to chasing votes from Boomers who had swung rightwards. So while it’s true that many weren’t Thatcherites in their youth, the gravitational pull of that generation’s voting habits helped normalise a new political consensus that dismantled post-war safety nets and prioritised markets over collective provision.

 

That’s where the “self-interest” point still has some weight for me. Not in the sense that all Boomers are uniquely selfish, but in that once their generation became the dominant voting bloc, parties of all stripes shaped policy around their preferences — tax cuts, home ownership incentives, pension protection — while younger generations got rising tuition fees, insecure work, and housing locked behind inflated prices. And yes, fear of change is part of it, but fear and self-interest often overlap: protecting what you have can mean voting against what the next generation needs.

 

I also agree with you on gender and race being crucial divides — the data on young men going rightward is worrying across countries. But to me that just underscores that we’re looking at an evolving political coalition where Boomers played the pivotal role in ushering in neoliberalism, and now parts of Gen Z/millennials may be playing a similar role in ushering in the populist right. That deserves as much scrutiny as we give to the old Left/Right generational gap.

 

So in short: I completely take your point that Boomers weren’t always Thatcher’s base. But I’d argue their long-term voting trajectory did help reshape both major parties, and with it the political-economic consensus we’re all still living under.

 

Thanks for the interesting reply. Some random responses to your points....

 

- I completely agree that the economic system and policies (all parties) are slanted in favour of the elderly and against the young. It's tricky to counteract that as there are simply a lot more elderly than youth - and most OAPs vote. Giving votes to 16 & 17-year-olds should help a bit. A campaign encouraging young people to vote would be a good idea. Perhaps a hypothecated wealth/property tax might be electorally acceptable? Such as taxing homes and unproductive wealth above a certain level (£700k? £1m?) and assigning all the revenue to things like affordable housing, apprenticeships or HE tuition funding that would benefit young people?

 

- Wealth taxes on expensive properties might also encourage more OAPs to downsize and could benefit the housing market overall, though that would require complex analysis. A lot of OAPs do downsize eventually - or justifiably want to enjoy some retirement time in a property they've worked all their lives for - but such a measure could be a fiscal incentive. I think there's also a sort-of-unselfish reason why some older folk hang onto large properties - the desire to leave an inheritance for children or grandchildren when they die. That thinking seems wrong to me - surely it's better to find ways of helping out younger generations when they're younger and most need it, while the old folk are still living?

 

- That said, I think @Parafox's comment about many older people acting unselfishly has been under-appreciated. An awful lot of grandparents look after grandchildren regularly (for long hours in some cases), enabling adult kids to work and earn. A lot of OAPs also do voluntary work for charities, foodbanks etc. 

 

- I don't buy your thesis that Labour's move to the centre was driven by a chase for Boomer votes - at least under Kinnock (83-92). This doesn't tally with the fact (see Ipsos) that Boomers were literally the generation most likely to have voted for Foot's left-wing manifesto in 1983 - and were still voting Labour in 1987 & 1992 more than average and more than any generation except older Gen X. It also doesn't tally with my recollection of Kinnock. He wasn't an accepter of the neo-liberal consensus, as Blair was. He was more a pragmatic soft left type akin to Burnham or Rayner today. His shift towards moderation was heavily motivated by Labour's near-death experience in 1983 (losing to a landslide and only beating the Lib-SDP Alliance by 2% in national vote share).

 

- The big question is why only 40-42% of Boomers voted Tory in 1983 (Tory landslide - total vote 44%), yet 50-60% voted Tory or Reform in 2024 (Tory annihilation - total Tory/Reform vote 38%). To stress, I don't just see this as the "old generational gap" - the historic tendency for a minority to drift right as they age. It's on a much larger scale now. That merits proper research by Left parties.

 

- I see Labour's acceptance of the neo-liberal consensus as dating from Blair's arrival in 1994. I don't see it as mainly motivated by a quest for right-wing Boomer votes, though electability was a big factor in the shift to the centre, after 4 successive general election defeats. I see acceptance of the neo-liberal consensus as largely due to the simple reality that the capitalist and financial systems had globalised and become all-powerful, rendering it impossible to introduce left-wing policies in one country. The fact that no centre-left party has successfully introduced left-wing policies in any democratic developed nation for the past 40 years supports that claim. Mitterrand briefly tried in the 80s and was forced to back down. The Greeks tried a decade ago and were crushed. All other leftist govts in the West have largely operated within the all-powerful neo-liberal consensus imposed by the power of global capital, even if some have been slightly more radical than UK Lab. This is why Corbyn's policies were a complete non-starter - even if he'd somehow got elected, global markets would have forced him to back down or effectively forced him from office.

 

- While Labour since Blair has indeed accepted the neo-liberal consensus (arguably having no choice), I don't think it's fair to tie them in with "dismantling post-war safety nets" or "prioritising markets over collective provision" - though not doing enough to reverse such dismantling & privatising would be fair criticism. Blair/Brown introduced the minimum wage, rolled out tax credits on a massive scale, introduced Sure Start pre-school provision and greatly increased public provision in health & education. Starmer has raised the minimum wage, again boosted public provision for nurseries, health & education, is bolstering employment rights and is nationalising rail and British Steel. I'd agree there are still big gaps - housing, local govt, care services etc. But the UK has an indebted, deficit-ridden economy, an aging population and operates within an economic system dominated by global capital and with an electorate averse to high taxes....not an easy ask to do more without major economic or electoral problems.

 

- I'd say that the reshaping of the Tories was driven more by an ideological response (Thatcher & co) to the chaos of the 70s, in turn driven by the slowdown in growth triggered by the oil crises and other factors. Admittedly, I'm one of the younger Boomers, but I wasn't even able to vote in 1979, as I was too young - and older Boomers voted disproportionately for Labour in 1979.

[leicsmac]

2 minutes ago, AKCJ said:

It seems as though Trump's announcement of Charlie Kirk's death was AI generated, which is frightening for so many reasons.

The very idea of the truth is being subverted, and that has dire consequences.

 

This has been warned about for so long. 

 

3 minutes ago, Sol thewall Bamba said:

Farage in a stamp duty controversy, here we go again!

Not really relevant until he's in government, apparently. 

[Alf Bentley]

A shorter post..... 

 

I'd genuinely never heard of Charlie Kirk, until his assassination became such a big deal.

 

Another sign of how different generations are operating in different worlds - younger folk in a world more dominated by social media & US political debates, old gits like me in a vanishing world of MSM, alleviated only by a bit of FoxesTalk & Facebook?

[Danizen]

5 minutes ago, AKCJ said:

It seems as though Trump's announcement of Charlie Kirk's death was AI generated, which is frightening for so many reasons.

They probably figured ChatGPT would produce a more convincing imitation of empathy and compassion.

[danny.]

6 minutes ago, CornwallFox said:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2759797/

 

I found this within ten seconds of googling it

 

Results. After adjustment, individuals in possession of a gun were 4.46 (P < .05) times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not in possession. Among gun assaults where the victim had at least some chance to resist, this adjusted odds ratio increased to 5.45 (P < .05).

That's quite interesting. I did find it quite specific as it was "case participants that had been shot in an assault" in Philadelphia, no doubt many of those gang shootings etc. and how well those findings translate to different areas (i.e. not deprived inner city areas, areas with less gang activity) and also different use cases (i.e. home intrusion) I guess are going to vary.

 

As mentioned before, I'm very much against gun ownership personally, but I do empathise why some people might feel safer to own a gun at home for self defence. Obviously that is also going to increase the use for things like domestic violence and suicide. Taking broad stats will hide genuinely useful cases or cases where it's of benefit, so I think it's quite a sweeping claim to say that they don't help defend people. 

[ajthefox]

7 minutes ago, Sol thewall Bamba said:

Farage in a stamp duty controversy, here we go again!

Shame there isn't more reporting in the style of Romano..

 

#Herewego

[danny.]

8 minutes ago, AKCJ said:

It seems as though Trump's announcement of Charlie Kirk's death was AI generated, which is frightening for so many reasons.

I think it's pretty common now, the amount of banal emails I get at work people have clearly used chat for is crazy.

 

In conclusion, you can always – tell, because – they have loads of em – dashes, for no – reason.