General News Thread

[st albans fox]

I thought the Ukrainians built their own drones 

and I’d be interested to know how the uk govt would provide export licences for drones to the Middle East (specifically one country) as they can hardly be described as being for defensive purposes and they’re on record as saying they won’t provide equipment that could be used to attack civilians. (Unless they’re purely observational) 

[st albans fox]

I reckon this mandelson vetting stuff is going to be excused by foreign office civil servants under data protection rules where they

will claim they weren’t allowed to pass on any details 

 

suspect that won’t wash but how much other stuff that needs to be known across govt etc is left in files marked ‘private’ for this reason ??

[davieG]

They're not going away yet

 

Reform UK has narrowly retained a Leicestershire County Council seat, with the winner claiming there was "dirty fighting" from opponents in the by-election campaign.

‌

Dr Dee North took the Narborough and Whetstone seat, beating the Conservatives by just over 100 votes.

‌

The win sees Reform retain the seat which had been vacated by Councillor Andrew Thorp who stepped down due to ill health earlier this year.

[Trav Le Bleu]

19 minutes ago, davieG said:

They're not going away yet

 

Reform UK has narrowly retained a Leicestershire County Council seat, with the winner claiming there was "dirty fighting" from opponents in the by-election campaign.

‌

Dr Dee North took the Narborough and Whetstone seat, beating the Conservatives by just over 100 votes.

‌

The win sees Reform retain the seat which had been vacated by Councillor Andrew Thorp who stepped down due to ill health earlier this year.

It's pretty damning on the more established parties that they're still getting beaten by a party that has so far largely shown themselves as having no idea how to govern once in power.

[CornwallFox]

1 hour ago, Tommy G said:

What is the plan when the interest on that debt then becomes a larger and larger proportion of government available cash to spend, is it just borrow more? 

That questions ignores two important things:

 

1- a big share of the debt is owed to ourselves in the form of the bank of England.

 

2- if you borrow to invest, the assets and investments that arise from that also potentially increase in value. What's missing from this discussion is that the interest may rise, but it may be more than matched by the economic benefits. 

 

Besides either of these points, the only way the economy is going to start growing is to spend to invest, to put money into the economy. Once we have a good level of growth THAT'S when you start looking at how to create a surplus. You don't try to create the surplus in the bad times. This is precisely the reason that Gordon brown as chancellor is the only one in decades to produce a surplus. Whereas Osborne cut and cut and all he produced was a double dip recession and increased debt.

[Alf Bentley]

43 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

I reckon this mandelson vetting stuff is going to be excused by foreign office civil servants under data protection rules where they

will claim they weren’t allowed to pass on any details 

 

suspect that won’t wash but how much other stuff that needs to be known across govt etc is left in files marked ‘private’ for this reason ??

 

According to BBC News, Olly Robbins has been summoned to answer questions before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee on Tuesday.

 

Will be most interesting to hear what he does or doesn't say. That committee is chaired by Emily Thornberry, one of the more impressive questioners in parliament...

[Lionator]

1 hour ago, st albans fox said:

I thought the Ukrainians built their own drones 

and I’d be interested to know how the uk govt would provide export licences for drones to the Middle East (specifically one country) as they can hardly be described as being for defensive purposes and they’re on record as saying they won’t provide equipment that could be used to attack civilians. (Unless they’re purely observational) 

They do but in some cases they’ve set up drone production factories outside of Ukraine so that Russia won’t fire at them (there’s on at RAF Mildenhall called FirePoint which is tied to Zelenskyy’s main funder). Secondly, European states including us purchase independent drones from start ups in the UK, then donate them to Ukraine. On Wednesday we announced a purchase of 120,000 drones for Ukraine from UK companies, costing around £3billion of tax payer money. 
 

So logically these places SHOULD be targets for Russia (like Belarus should be for Ukraine) but obviously they’re deterred for now by NATO. 
 

As for the Middle East bit, obviously they don’t care and will send to that country. Thought interestingly Belgium intercepted a British shipment this week to said country on these grounds. 

[CornwallFox]

2 hours ago, st albans fox said:

I thought the Ukrainians built their own drones 

and I’d be interested to know how the uk govt would provide export licences for drones to the Middle East (specifically one country) as they can hardly be described as being for defensive purposes and they’re on record as saying they won’t provide equipment that could be used to attack civilians. (Unless they’re purely observational) 

They're using the drones to attack Russian military positions that are attacking them. So they are defensive.

[st albans fox]

10 minutes ago, CornwallFox said:

They're using the drones to attack Russian military positions that are attacking them. So they are defensive.

Was referencing the exports to isr 

[fox_favourite]

8 hours ago, Lionator said:

This place already got protested against as they’re 🇮🇱’s biggest drone provider in Europe. Seems they’re providing lots to Ukraine too. 

So the place not far from me...

[Zear0]

7 minutes ago, fox_favourite said:

So the place not far from me...

Duck and cover…

[Corky]

Wasn't there quite a lot of cross party praise for the Mandelson appointment at the time?

[CornwallFox]

4 hours ago, Corky said:

Wasn't there quite a lot of cross party praise for the Mandelson appointment at the time?

It's just the sort of thing to get the political class as very worked up and shouty. It's just performative nonsense tbh

[grth2004]

17 hours ago, davieG said:

They're not going away yet

 

Reform UK has narrowly retained a Leicestershire County Council seat, with the winner claiming there was "dirty fighting" from opponents in the by-election campaign.

‌

Dr Dee North took the Narborough and Whetstone seat, beating the Conservatives by just over 100 votes.

‌

The win sees Reform retain the seat which had been vacated by Councillor Andrew Thorp who stepped down due to ill health earlier this year.

Was a bit shocked when I saw this as generally Reform are in a downward spiral  so yeah the other candidates must be terrible. 
Her claim to fame is being a parish councillor and being kicked out for non attendance so same old Reform candidates who want the job but not willing to do the work. 
 

[Jon the Hat]

20 hours ago, wurmer said:

Having said that...

 

It’s amazing how little interest he seems to have in many many things.  A man who doesn’t ask doesn’t get told.  Makes you wonder what else he has zero understanding of.  

[Jon the Hat]

15 hours ago, Corky said:

Wasn't there quite a lot of cross party praise for the Mandelson appointment at the time?

People agreed we needed someone like him to cosy up to Trump.  Unfortunately for him and Starmer, he turned out to be worse than we thought, and cosying up to Trump is no longer in fashion.

[leicsmac]

58 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

People agreed we needed someone like him to cosy up to Trump.  Unfortunately for him and Starmer, he turned out to be worse than we thought, and cosying up to Trump is no longer in fashion.

It should never have been in fashion in the first place. The consequences were obvious from the moment the man won re-election.

 

It's just a shame it's taken all the horrible stuff since for far too many people to get wise.

Edited 18 April by leicsmac

[Lionator]

Seems like there’s two versions of the future of Europe being fought for at the minute (exclude Ukraine/Russia), the current german approach and the current spanish approach, which will win? I know who I’m rooting for 

[Lionator]

Also the defensive military mission of Starmer and Macron is the most pathetic thing going. 

[bovril]

1 hour ago, Lionator said:

Seems like there’s two versions of the future of Europe being fought for at the minute (exclude Ukraine/Russia), the current german approach and the current spanish approach, which will win? I know who I’m rooting for 

Thomas Cromwell, 1540

[leicsmac]

1 minute ago, bovril said:

Thomas Cromwell, 1540

 

 

 

[Parafox]

10 hours ago, Jon the Hat said:

It’s amazing how little interest he seems to have in many many things.  A man who doesn’t ask doesn’t get told.  Makes you wonder what else he has zero understanding of.  

Do you think he's in politics for the good of the country without any self interest?

[Trav Le Bleu]

10 hours ago, Lionator said:

Seems like there’s two versions of the future of Europe being fought for at the minute (exclude Ukraine/Russia), the current german approach and the current spanish approach, which will win? I know who I’m rooting for 

Paella v sauerkraut?

 

[davieG]

David Goldsmith ·

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This is all catastrophically true.

 

 

[worthosoriginals]

On 17/04/2026 at 14:22, Trav Le Bleu said:

It's pretty damning on the more established parties that they're still getting beaten by a party that has so far largely shown themselves as having no idea how to govern once in power.

Sort of the uk. Version of trump and here we have our equivalent of the maga tossers  having learned nothing and saying yeh that farage bloke and his cronies will make everything  great here too.

Thick tossers.