General News Thread

[Tommy G]

53 minutes ago, Sampson said:

I really don’t get replacing Starmer with Streeting. He’s very much more of the same - someone trying to act centre-right when most of his mps and backbenchers are voting against it. How would getting Streeting in change the positions of the back bench mps?
 

It feels very much like for like and very much a pointless endeavour to replace Starmer with Streeting that only harms Labour because you get people moaning about the revolving doors of PMs at a time where the world is so unstable

I'm not sure he would change the back bench view but I'm sure he would make a much better leader and act with a more integrity than KS does. 

[kenny]

9 minutes ago, Tommy G said:

I'm not sure he would change the back bench view but I'm sure he would make a much better leader and act with a more integrity than KS does. 

Jeez KS is boring, this speech is enough to make anyone give up.

[Tommy G]

Just now, kenny said:

Jeez KS is boring, this speech is enough to make anyone give up.

''I know, let me do a speech in front of 30 odd people that love me, that will clap way beyond necessary as I pin all this on Mandelson and try and get away scot free.

 

Oh sh*t, here come the difficult questions from the media, I can feel my hands shaking like yesterday - let me answer these and deflect the best I can and hopefully noone will notice''

[kenny]

Just now, Tommy G said:

''I know, let me do a speech in front of 30 odd people that love me, that will clap way beyond necessary as I pin all this on Mandelson and try and get away scot free.

 

Oh sh*t, here come the difficult questions from the media, I can feel my hands shaking like yesterday - let me answer these and deflect the best I can and hopefully noone will notice''

Reckon he has laced the journalists tea and he hopes they all need to nip off for s**t by the time he does questions?

[leicsmac]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdx41r62601o

 

Vance is such a deceitful reptile. Embodies the "smart" part of his voter base.

[Danizen]

28 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdx41r62601o

 

Vance is such a deceitful reptile. Embodies the "smart" part of his voter base.

Didn't they meekly announce something that was almost identical to the agreement that's been in place for the past 70 years? 

 

Even before Trump, the Americans would be shouting from the rooftops about any perceived diplomatic victory, especially during an election year.

[CornwallFox]

42 minutes ago, Tommy G said:

I'm not sure he would change the back bench view but I'm sure he would make a much better leader and act with a more integrity than KS does. 

There'll be a lot of labour MPs very annoyed at the Burnham situation. 

 

My dad has become a true Brexit lover, GB news watcher, immigration above all else voter and we do struggle to discuss politics at times. When we do have a calm discussion we usually find we both see the same problems, but disagree on the answer to them - basically he thinks reform style answers are the answer, whereas I think our current economic model has failed and we need something different underpinning everything. 

 

He hasn't been very fond of labour ever really - though he voted lib dem through the late 90s before going Tory then reform more recently - but he does seem to like Andy Burnham. He potentially had something about him that could have pulled voters back in.

 

I think starmar is an honest and principal led man (labour really have stuck very closely to their manifesto on all but a handful of issues which has pretty much never happened before) who is genuinely trying to make hard long term decisions, but that doesn't really work well in the current 24/7 news and social media environment when alongside those things he keeps making really stupid political decisions that cause endless short term pain.

 

So he's getting hit with all these immediate things that hurt him but all the good things he's doing won't come to fruition for years. 

[Lionator]

2 hours ago, Tommy G said:

Agree with your first paragraph. 

 

It happens all the time, whether it's this or any other situation Starmer gets tangled up in. 

 

Ironically Rayner is making moves so she can ignite her political career again, it has to be Wes Streeting though, he's one of the only ministers that has shown some credibility and competence since being in position.  

Streeting is the sneakiest, snakiest, sleaziest of the lot!! He stands for nothing but himself and comes from Mandelson’s sect, so he wouldn’t last two minutes. 

[leicsmac]

36 minutes ago, Danizen said:

Didn't they meekly announce something that was almost identical to the agreement that's been in place for the past 70 years? 

 

Even before Trump, the Americans would be shouting from the rooftops about any perceived diplomatic victory, especially during an election year.

No disagreement there, but there does appear to be a difference in the brazenness and the number of the lies from the current US administration compared to others, election year or not.

[Sampson]

2 hours ago, Tommy G said:

I'm not sure he would change the back bench view but I'm sure he would make a much better leader and act with a more integrity than KS does. 

But all we keep hearing is we want getting things done. Streeting is not a particularly inspiring speaker and I certainly don’t see where the more or less integrity comes from when Streeting is an old school inauthentic Oxbridge follows-the-wind career politician with zero cohesive philosophy, which is what I thought we were trying to reject? 
 

Again, if Starmer goes over this then surely Streeting is surely just more of the same and not going to solve Labour’s problems? For better or worse at least the likes of Burnham or Raynor would offer something different and have most of their MPs on side so they could actually stand for something 

Edited 5 February by Sampson

[Dahnsouff]

Just watched a Simon Clark vid, and he states London has hit its traffic emissions target 184 years ahead of schedule.

It is showing reduction in sick days and child health compared to other areas of the country.

ULEZ.  Unpopular maybe, but....

Edited 5 February by Dahnsouff

[Zear0]

9 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

Just watched a Simon Clark vid, and he states London has hit its traffic emissions target 184 years ahead of schedule.

It is showing reduction in sick days and child health compared to other areas of the country.

ULEZ.  Unpopular maybe, but....

It is surprising how unpopular making people not want to breath in s**t for air is.

[Dahnsouff]

2 minutes ago, Zear0 said:

It is surprising how unpopular making people not want to breath in s**t for air is.

What's surprising is how much convenience trumps pretty much everything else.

[CornwallFox]

17 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

What's surprising is how much convenience trumps pretty much everything else.

Not always though. The incredibly sensible national id card idea, that could simplify all sorts of government services, keeps getting shot down due to vague reasons pushed by the right. It's a great idea, it's eminently sensible, but in that case convenience, which it offers, is seemingly ignored 

[Dahnsouff]

Just now, CornwallFox said:

Not always though. The incredibly sensible national id card idea, that could simplify all sorts of government services, keeps getting shot down due to vague reasons pushed by the right. It's a great idea, it's eminently sensible, but in that case convenience, which it offers, is seemingly ignored 

Yeah, but that trample all over my civil liberties. 

(I AM JOKING. I am all for it.

 

[orangecity23]

The problem with the ID card proposals are that it isn't a card. It's an app. On your phone. Which means storing details on an internet facing device, and making a government based interface for digitally checking for all the miriad ever increasing number of age and Id checks mandated by the government (thanks to the online safety act, I got ID checked the other day when turning on my Xbox - to sign into my Microsoft account. The account itself is over 20 years old, but now you have to submit a selfie or scan of id to Yoti (3rd party identity checkers used by Microsoft, who "delete all images straight away, trust us") After all that was done, I was finally able to get to the dashboard and watch a bloody dvd). 

 

Which means the government is proposing to implement a shodily developed repository of everyone's most valuable private id data that will be the biggest, juiciest hacking target in history. 

 

If it was a card in your wallet it would be a lot bloody safer. But instead, it is a digital interface, which is soon enough going to be needed everywhere online to prove your age, interacting with multiple 3rd party identity checkers with servers all over the world, to prove you are old enough to go online to look at things like YouTube, Reddit, any social media, football forums, you name it.

 

Edit:

For those who haven't read it, there was news at the end of last year about the security vulnerabilities of the system being used, and the "high level" of risk of data theft possible 

https://www.itv.com/news/2025-12-18/whistleblowers-raise-extreme-concern-about-security-of-governments-digital-id

 

Edited 5 February by orangecity23

[CornwallFox]

1 hour ago, orangecity23 said:

The problem with the ID card proposals are that it isn't a card. It's an app. On your phone. Which means storing details on an internet facing device, and making a government based interface for digitally checking for all the miriad ever increasing number of age and Id checks mandated by the government (thanks to the online safety act, I got ID checked the other day when turning on my Xbox - to sign into my Microsoft account. The account itself is over 20 years old, but now you have to submit a selfie or scan of id to Yoti (3rd party identity checkers used by Microsoft, who "delete all images straight away, trust us") After all that was done, I was finally able to get to the dashboard and watch a bloody dvd). 

 

Which means the government is proposing to implement a shodily developed repository of everyone's most valuable private id data that will be the biggest, juiciest hacking target in history. 

 

If it was a card in your wallet it would be a lot bloody safer. But instead, it is a digital interface, which is soon enough going to be needed everywhere online to prove your age, interacting with multiple 3rd party identity checkers with servers all over the world, to prove you are old enough to go online to look at things like YouTube, Reddit, any social media, football forums, you name it.

 

Edit:

For those who haven't read it, there was news at the end of last year about the security vulnerabilities of the system being used, and the "high level" of risk of data theft possible 

https://www.itv.com/news/2025-12-18/whistleblowers-raise-extreme-concern-about-security-of-governments-digital-id

 

Does the government not hold basically all of the information already? It already has your photo, Comms info, addresses, finances etc. It just strikes me as backwards that we can't have a straightforward id system as if this is a hugely novel product. 

[orangecity23]

16 minutes ago, CornwallFox said:

Does the government not hold basically all of the information already? It already has your photo, Comms info, addresses, finances etc. It just strikes me as backwards that we can't have a straightforward id system as if this is a hugely novel product. 

Holding it internally and securely, not a problem. Building lots of external interfaces to that data and tying it all together makes it more vulnerable. It's not the government holding it thats the issue. It's them inadvertently creating gateways with vulnerabilities in them that will put everyone at risk of fraud and Id theft. If it's all in one central place, then when it gets compromised Everything will be stolen -  names, addresses, age, financial details, employment details, details of children, medical records, state pension details. 

 

The internet age verification is an absolute disaster zone, people having to share sensitive id documents with poorly vetted third parties , but being rolled out at breakneck pace. The first step should have been producing an age verification system that guaranteed absolute privacy, with the only thing disclosed to the final website is just an old/not old flag and nothing else. Not the current approach, where platforms are asking for id doc scans, selfies or credit card numbers.

[CornwallFox]

4 minutes ago, orangecity23 said:

Holding it internally and securely, not a problem. Building lots of external interfaces to that data and tying it all together makes it more vulnerable. It's not the government holding it thats the issue. It's them inadvertently creating gateways with vulnerabilities in them that will put everyone at risk of fraud and Id theft. If it's all in one central place, then when it gets compromised Everything will be stolen -  names, addresses, age, financial details, employment details, details of children, medical records, state pension details. 

 

The internet age verification is an absolute disaster zone, people having to share sensitive id documents with poorly vetted third parties , but being rolled out at breakneck pace. The first step should have been producing an age verification system that guaranteed absolute privacy, with the only thing disclosed to the final website is just an old/not old flag and nothing else. Not the current approach, where platforms are asking for id doc scans, selfies or credit card numbers.

The age verification thing is a completely separate issue which presumably could have been made better if we had a national form of ID confirmation. 

 

I don't know enough about exactly what was proposed to know if I'm way off but surely the app itself doesn't need to link to the actual data? So, for example, it could simply know you're flagged as being over 18 to give you access to alcohol, events etc that require an age check. It doesn't need your actual date of birth if systems around it were built to simply accept the word of the app. 

You need to be a UK resident or citizen to access a service? The app simply confirms that, it doesn't need to know your while background, just that you're flagged as a UK citizen. Presumably they could have a limited number of watts to interact with it. 

I may be way off, there may be plans for it to actively review maybe your passport photo, name, date birth docs against your gov held records, but again I'm not sure how many variants they would need to confirm ID. Maybe worth exploring, i suppose I sit in the find a safe way forward camp, rather than the it's too hard camp.

[orangecity23]

The age verification is tangentially related, as it is required as a direct result of legislation being introduced by the government, and continually getting modified every few months. The digital ID seems very much as being brought in to solve a problem the government is creating. It's been also been sold as a means of ensuring people are checked for eligibility to work in the UK, but again, that was already a requirement, and has been for years, which is why responsible employers checked driving license or passport info on the start of a new employee. 

 

How difficult is it to access government services presently? People have been registering with GPs, getting jobs, registering for driving licenses, taxing cars, getting state pensions etc for decades and we've never needed them before 

 

The issue of the app is that even if it only releases the required info, is that it very much depends on there being zero vulnerabilities in the implemented code. This is always easier said than achieved. For an extremely simple example, a classic vulnerability in SQL database systems is code injection. Someone designs an interface where you can enter a name, and the system returns the age verified flag. Cool. Then a hacker enters the name: Joe bloggs" GO use master select all from sys.databases

and suddenly instead of disclosing and age flag, they are getting back the name of the internal databases on the server. 

 

That's trivial level stuff, hackers will resort to all sorts of methods to weasel their ways in, be it through phishing attempts and social engineering to trick government bods into inadvertently downloading malware, brute force DDos attacks to overwhelm servers etc. This kind of system would have to have absolutely top notch security, with the most rigorous testing imaginable. By the sounds of it, at least from the itv article, it's being outsourced on the cheap as a bolt on addition to the pre existing one login system. Not exactly giving much optimism for the final product.

[SkidsFox]

4 hours ago, Zear0 said:

It is surprising how unpopular making people not want to breath in s**t for air is.

I've been working in Croydon with folk who drive in from local (and not so-local) villages. It surprises me how much venom they hold towards Sadiq Kahn (and Starmer too), mainly because of the Ulez laws (and despite the fact they rarely if ever drive into London in their own vehicles). I've even heard them express surprise that anyone voted for Kahn, talk about an echo chamber. It's a bit like those social voices who never visit London yet are certain crime is getting a lot worse. 

[Jattdogg]

Big news over here today with corrupt Toronto police officers. 

 

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2026/02/05/toronto-police-service-officers-arrested-project-south-organized-crime/

[bmt]

8 hours ago, Zear0 said:

It is surprising how unpopular making people not want to breath in s**t for air is.

One of the main reasons its unpopular is it disproportionately impacts less well off people (e.g. people with old diesel cars who can't afford a new car but are reliant on driving for work), thus further entrenching inequalities.

[Zear0]

4 minutes ago, bmt said:

One of the main reasons its unpopular is it disproportionately impacts less well off people (e.g. people with old diesel cars who can't afford a new car but are reliant on driving for work), thus further entrenching inequalities.

True, but also 6.5 million people die per year from crap air quality of which the overwhelming majority are also from low incomes.   Choose your poison I guess.

[bmt]

9 minutes ago, Zear0 said:

True, but also 6.5 million people die per year from crap air quality of which the overwhelming majority are also from low incomes.   Choose your poison I guess.

Yeah I don't disagree - not sure if they could have come up with a better way of doing it!