General News Thread

[Alf Bentley]

49 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

Two groups of people known to each other. Feuding families falling out on holiday?

 

"Police confirm that they have arrested a white man in his 70s from the Islington area. They are also looking for a young woman of Asian heritage with a Coventry address".

 

It's Your Party and they'll fight if they want to, fight if they want to.... 

[CornwallFox]

17 hours ago, Salisbury Fox said:

The concern isn’t that China will invade or attack us directly, the issue is that China’s leverage comes through economic coercion, strategic dependence and control over key technologies and supply chains. The fear therefore is not a militaristic one, but one that sees them reshape rules and norms that limit our autonomy through a different means than the US uses. There’s a reason why our security services are becoming more vocal about the threats posed and only a fool would ignore this. It essentially requires a very cautious approach rather than jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Which of those doesn't apply to the US also?

[CornwallFox]

16 hours ago, Salisbury Fox said:

Well that’s certainly a leap of faith and I am not convinced that their ambition is limited to being equals. Their military build up, economic leverage and political influence campaigns appear to go beyond have a seat.

It's this I struggle with. It just reads like propaganda swallowed whole. Because they have huge economic and military might we need to be scared of them, even though they haven't misused it. But we should trust the US who regularly misuse both.

[Dahnsouff]

58 minutes ago, CornwallFox said:

It's this I struggle with. It just reads like propaganda swallowed whole. Because they have huge economic and military might we need to be scared of them, even though they haven't misused it. But we should trust the US who regularly misuse both.

Would assume the reason the US is less to be feared is because they are shamelessly brazen in their power plays, well that and we are quite used to being mistreated by the US. 

[Salisbury Fox]

1 hour ago, CornwallFox said:

Which of those doesn't apply to the US also?

I haven’t said they don’t. Whilst I do hope that the US will come to their senses next time around, I would prefer a closer relationship with Europe than simply replacing them wholesale with a relationship with China. You seem to be prepared to ignore the risks that our security services are clearly highlighting just because of the economic convenience in doing so. 

[CornwallFox]

12 minutes ago, Salisbury Fox said:

I haven’t said they don’t. Whilst I do hope that the US will come to their senses next time around, I would prefer a closer relationship with Europe than simply replacing them wholesale with a relationship with China. You seem to be prepared to ignore the risks that our security services are clearly highlighting just because of the economic convenience in doing so. 

I haven't said anything about replacing everybody with China. I'm more interested in making the comparison between US and China

[Salisbury Fox]

1 hour ago, CornwallFox said:

It's this I struggle with. It just reads like propaganda swallowed whole. Because they have huge economic and military might we need to be scared of them, even though they haven't misused it. But we should trust the US who regularly misuse both.

Perhaps you would feel differently if you were anywhere near the South China Sea. China hasn’t had any reason to use their military extensively as it’s easier to use Russia as a proxy and watch the US become ever more isolationist. I don’t see heeding warnings of our security institutions as swallowing propaganda either btw.

[Sampson]

I think all this shows that regardless of the what people thought about the rights and wrongs of the political institutions of the EU, the timing of Brexit was really catastrophic in hindsight. To uncouple our economy and create antagonistic relationships with the rest of Europe a few years before the US decided to completely abandon us and decide to instead favour Russia like this (and to be frank absolutely no one would’ve believed you of all of this if you’d told them back in 2016) was pretty horrendous timing.
 

We were sold it would cause “Global Britain” and allowed us to trade with the world exactly the moment just before the world decided to become protectionist.

 

The fact the media and country still feels like it’s still all too wounded to even have a debate about it and we all feel that we still have to pussyfoot around a referendum result from a decade ago when the whole point of democracy is you can change course if something isn’t working and aren’t at the whims of a guy dictating, when every poll for a good 4 or 5 years now has shown overwhelming support of favouring Europe is what to do seems weird to me. I think UK and the rest of Europe seem to be desperately holding onto to the hope it’s just a blip and if we can just hold out until 2028… but Trump moves the goalposts so much and successfully takes on the checks and balances that I’m not even sure a Democrat government would looks much different by then. 

Edited 7 December 2025 by Sampson

[st albans fox]

51 minutes ago, Sampson said:

I think all this shows that regardless of the what people thought about the rights and wrongs of the political instruction EU, the timing of Brexit was really catastrophic in hindsight. To uncouple our economy and create antagonistic relationships with the rest of Europe a few years before the US decided to completely abandon us and decide to instead favour Russia like this (and to be frank absolutely no one would’ve believed you of all of this if you’d told them back in 2016) was pretty horrendous timing.
 

We were sold it would cause “Global Britain” and allowed us to trade with the world exactly the moment just before the world decided to become protectionist.

 

The fact the media and country still feels like it’s still all too wounded to even have a debate about it and we all feel that we still have to pussyfoot around a referendum result from a decade ago when the whole point of democracy is you can change course if something isn’t working and aren’t at the whims of a guy dictating, when every poll for a good 4 or 5 years now has shown overwhelming support of favouring Europe is what to do seems weird to me. I think UK and the rest of Europe seem to be desperately holding onto to the hope it’s just a blip and if we can just hold out until 2028… but Trump moves the goalposts so much and successfully takes on the checks and balances that I’m not even sure a Democrat government would looks much different by then. 

As I posted a couple of days back, you can’t just put it back together like it never happened.  We need a proper grown up debate and the problem is that the debaters behave like children …….

[Sampson]

1 hour ago, st albans fox said:

As I posted a couple of days back, you can’t just put it back together like it never happened.  We need a proper grown up debate and the problem is that the debaters behave like children …….

I’m not sure what that really means. My point is it feels like all the major parties have been avoiding the debate like ostriches burying their heads in the sand since Covid kicked it out the news in early 2020 because “it will just open up old divisions”; even though even though it looms over the country like a giant elephant in the room even more now that the US is openly abandoning the European continent as allies and the past few days quite brazenly and openly expressed what many of us having been saying for months - that under Trump the US favours Russia over us and the EU (and countries like Canada and Australia) and is actively antagonistic towards us and our values .

Edited 7 December 2025 by Sampson

[Parafox]

6 hours ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

Two groups of people known to each other. Feuding families falling out on holiday?

Bloody travelling community people.

 

As if they aren't tanned enough.

[bovril]

1 hour ago, st albans fox said:

As I posted a couple of days back, you can’t just put it back together like it never happened.  We need a proper grown up debate and the problem is that the debaters behave like children …….

I don't see how it'd be that difficult just to rejoin the customs union for example but apparently even that is politically unviable, for some unknown reason. 

[leicsmac]

13 minutes ago, bovril said:

I don't see how it'd be that difficult just to rejoin the customs union for example but apparently even that is politically unviable, for some unknown reason. 

I think it might be because a small group of people obsessed with the idea of having and abusing power and leveraging the idea of nationalism to further the above have managed through deft manipulation to convince enough voting people that even that slightest idea of cooperation is somehow offensive to... some kind of ideal. 

[bovril]

5 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

I think it might be because a small group of people obsessed with the idea of having and abusing power and leveraging the idea of nationalism to further the above have managed through deft manipulation to convince enough voting people that even that slightest idea of cooperation is somehow offensive to... some kind of ideal. 

Cheaper grana padano is woke

[leicsmac]

8 minutes ago, bovril said:

Cheaper grana padano is woke

Quite right, isn't Old Winchester good enough for you? 

[leicsmac]

On the general topic, Musk is reacting in roughly the expected fashion to the European Commission giving him and Twitter a fine, then. 

[Trav Le Bleu]

26 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Quite right, isn't Old Winchester good enough for you? 

Mmmmmmmmm, Old Winchester 

[st albans fox]

2 hours ago, Sampson said:

I’m not sure what that really means. My point is it feels like all the major parties have been avoiding the debate like ostriches burying their heads in the sand since Covid kicked it out the news in early 2020 because “it will just open up old divisions”; even though even though it looms over the country like a giant elephant in the room even more now that the US is openly abandoning the European continent as allies and the past few days quite brazenly and openly expressed what many of us having been saying for months - that under Trump the US favours Russia over us and the EU (and countries like Canada and Australia) and is actively antagonistic towards us and our values .

We had lots of opt outs. they wouldn’t let us rejoin with those back in place. Hence we would politically be even closer to Brussels than we were when we left.  It’s likely a mess and could be a tough sell, despite the polls (which are simplified).
 

1 hour ago, bovril said:

I don't see how it'd be that difficult just to rejoin the customs union for example but apparently even that is politically unviable, for some unknown reason. 

I’m not sure that a  basic customs union agreement with the EU solves the issues we have in restoring trade to pre brexit  levels with an absence of masses of paperwork etc.  it will certainly help a bit bit we need to find a way of restoring what we had re trade. 

[bovril]

7 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

We had lots of opt outs. they wouldn’t let us rejoin with those back in place. Hence we would politically be even closer to Brussels than we were when we left.  It’s likely a mess and could be a tough sell, despite the polls (which are simplified).
 

I’m not sure that a  basic customs union agreement with the EU solves the issues we have in restoring trade to pre brexit  levels with an absence of masses of paperwork etc.  it will certainly help a bit bit we need to find a way of restoring what we had re trade. 

No it doesn't but the rationale seems to be that it's politically not feasible which seems weird considering it's just a customs union, which 99.9% of Brits had never given a moment's thought to before the Brexit wars of 2019

[Jon the Hat]

12 hours ago, Sampson said:

I think all this shows that regardless of the what people thought about the rights and wrongs of the political institutions of the EU, the timing of Brexit was really catastrophic in hindsight. To uncouple our economy and create antagonistic relationships with the rest of Europe a few years before the US decided to completely abandon us and decide to instead favour Russia like this (and to be frank absolutely no one would’ve believed you of all of this if you’d told them back in 2016) was pretty horrendous timing.
We were sold it would cause “Global Britain” and allowed us to trade with the world exactly the moment just before the world decided to become protectionist.

Do you really think our relationship with EU leaders is worse than it was before Brexit?  It absolutely isn't.  There might be some bickering around defense spending, but the EU will find they need BAE Systems and others pretty soon, just as much as we need French defence suppliers.  Remember again the EU is not Europe, and we have NATO (even ignoring the idiot over the pond) and plenty of other reasons to remain close to our European friends without being in the EU.

[Lionator]

1 hour ago, Jon the Hat said:

Do you really think our relationship with EU leaders is worse than it was before Brexit?  It absolutely isn't.  There might be some bickering around defense spending, but the EU will find they need BAE Systems and others pretty soon, just as much as we need French defence suppliers.  Remember again the EU is not Europe, and we have NATO (even ignoring the idiot over the pond) and plenty of other reasons to remain close to our European friends without being in the EU.

The EU is currently a lot worse than when we left. The holy trinity of Von Der Leyen, Costa and Kallas are an embarrassment and should be nowhere near their positions. Stay well clear. NATO yes, closer economic integration, yes. Rejoin? Not until there’s better leadership. 

[Trav Le Bleu]

Does anyone else feel like Putin and Trump are making plans similar to Hitler and Stalin?

 

New US security strategy aligns with Russia's vision, Moscow says - BBC News

 

https://share.google/CAth2eMzWEgOG5YqB

 

Are they going to save us from "civilisational erasure" by replacing it with theirs (and possibly troops on the ground)?

[leicsmac]

19 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

Does anyone else feel like Putin and Trump are making plans similar to Hitler and Stalin?

 

New US security strategy aligns with Russia's vision, Moscow says - BBC News

 

https://share.google/CAth2eMzWEgOG5YqB

 

Are they going to save us from "civilisational erasure" by replacing it with theirs (and possibly troops on the ground)?

They may will try. 

 

The good news is that such an attempt is guaranteed to fail, given their idea of traditional nationalism and ethnostates cannot survive the way the world is changing. 

 

The bad news is that such failure will screw everyone, not just them.

[CornwallFox]

14 hours ago, leicsmac said:

On the general topic, Musk is reacting in roughly the expected fashion to the European Commission giving him and Twitter a fine, then. 

It isn't freedom of speech him and trump want, it's freedom from any laws

[CornwallFox]

13 hours ago, bovril said:

No it doesn't but the rationale seems to be that it's politically not feasible which seems weird considering it's just a customs union, which 99.9% of Brits had never given a moment's thought to before the Brexit wars of 2019

Should be a nothing issue but the likes of farage have successfully convinced millions that any agreements with the EU are tantamount to treason. They still genuinely think no deal would be optimal.