General News Thread

[CornwallFox]

9 minutes ago, kenny said:

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/uae-cuts-funds-citizens-study-uk-over-refusal-ban-muslim-brotherhood

 

This is crazy to read. A muslim country is worried about Islamic radicalisation in the UK.

Reading that, isn't this autocratic regimes are opposed to it, and where democracy flourishes it wins elections? I.e. it's a threat to autocrats? That's not quite what you were trying to say using this. 

[kenny]

9 minutes ago, CornwallFox said:

Reading that, isn't this autocratic regimes are opposed to it, and where democracy flourishes it wins elections? I.e. it's a threat to autocrats? That's not quite what you were trying to say using this. 

I only heard as its being discussed on LBC. 

 

They are still providing scholarships in many other countries including France. The UK has been singled out and I can't see that the 300 or so students that used to come here would be a threat to their Autocracy.

 

Interestingly, they are still allowing UK universities to open campuses there.

Edited 9 January by kenny

[Trav Le Bleu]

4 hours ago, danny. said:

I'm still annoyed at the theft of Greenland by Denmark from the Palaeo-Inuits

I'm annoyed about the English stealing England.

[Trav Le Bleu]

2 hours ago, leicsmac said:

A rare example of party unity in the UK with X/Grok:

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c99kn52nx9do

 

Even Farage backing the government action, though not said in this article. 

The X rebranding must be the worst since Insignia. Just watching this story being reported and almost every time the say, "X, which used to be known as Twitter."

 

 

[CornwallFox]

17 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

The X rebranding must be the worst since Insignia. Just watching this story being reported and almost every time the say, "X, which used to be known as Twitter."

 

 

It's generally known now as "Twitter, or X, or whatever it's called now". Musk has done a terrible job with it. Will be quite amusing watching Trump threaten Britain and Musk and Vance bang on about freedom of speech of Ofcom did dare take strong action like a suspension of licence or ban. 

[st albans fox]

I’m not seeing this Greenland thing as black and white as some.

 

the states and Denmark have an ongoing arrangement whereby they can station as many troops and whatever hardware they want to on the territory. 

 

other things are at play here. 
could be that the administration aren’t convinced that Europe and they are going to have a strong relationship going forward so cannot rely on that agreement being renewed/continued 

 

could be that this is a tactic to force the Europeans into bringing forward their military spending increases.  That also plays well for the Americans as they are the largest producers of defence equipment. 

 

im struggling to accept that a president who is so transactional would risk losing the ‘support’ of a massive alliance and see the end of NATO when it’s simply not strategically necessity to do that. 

[kenny]

21 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

I’m not seeing this Greenland thing as black and white as some.

 

the states and Denmark have an ongoing arrangement whereby they can station as many troops and whatever hardware they want to on the territory. 

 

other things are at play here. 
could be that the administration aren’t convinced that Europe and they are going to have a strong relationship going forward so cannot rely on that agreement being renewed/continued 

 

could be that this is a tactic to force the Europeans into bringing forward their military spending increases.  That also plays well for the Americans as they are the largest producers of defence equipment. 

 

im struggling to accept that a president who is so transactional would risk losing the ‘support’ of a massive alliance and see the end of NATO when it’s simply not strategically necessity to do that. 

They can increase troop numbers or have as many bases as they want.

 

They can't currently mine for minerals. Particularly ones that are currently frozen over but might not be after climate change. Its clear it has nothing to do with defence.

[Spiritwalker]

On 05/01/2026 at 22:37, danny. said:

I can confidently say what doesn't win minds, going around shouting everyone is a racist, fascist or Hitler. That was one of the main reasons we ended up leaving the EU.

I thought it was the extra £350 million a week that would be going to the NHS.

[leicsmac]

42 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

I’m not seeing this Greenland thing as black and white as some.

 

the states and Denmark have an ongoing arrangement whereby they can station as many troops and whatever hardware they want to on the territory. 

 

other things are at play here. 
could be that the administration aren’t convinced that Europe and they are going to have a strong relationship going forward so cannot rely on that agreement being renewed/continued 

 

could be that this is a tactic to force the Europeans into bringing forward their military spending increases.  That also plays well for the Americans as they are the largest producers of defence equipment. 

 

im struggling to accept that a president who is so transactional would risk losing the ‘support’ of a massive alliance and see the end of NATO when it’s simply not strategically necessity to do that. 

 

You're making the mistake of assuming the man, and anyone around him, cares about anything other than their short term self interest.

 

19 minutes ago, kenny said:

They can increase troop numbers or have as many bases as they want.

 

They can't currently mine for minerals. Particularly ones that are currently frozen over but might not be after climate change. Its clear it has nothing to do with defence.

Which of course is a fools errand, given that the degree of upheaval that climate change will inflict elsewhere in order to make those resources accessible will in all likelihood condemn everyone, including them. 

[Tommy G]

The new POV from the ice agents has been released on X, puts a bit of a different slant on that situation. If anyone dare look at X that is 

[leicsmac]

4 minutes ago, Tommy G said:

The new POV from the ice agents has been released on X, puts a bit of a different slant on that situation. If anyone dare look at X that is 

Does it directly contradict most or all of the eyewitness videos that have been made public?

[Tommy G]

1 minute ago, leicsmac said:

Does it directly contradict most or all of the eyewitness videos that have been made public?

I’m not linking it on here - but watch it and make your own mind up. 

[bovril]

Assuming this is the one:

 

https://www.foxnews.com/us/cellphone-video-released-deadly-minneapolis-ice-agent-shooting

[leicsmac]

5 minutes ago, Tommy G said:

I’m not linking it on here - but watch it and make your own mind up. 

Fair enough. 

 

The further point is that if it does, then I guess it comes down to which source one believes is more trustworthy and less likely to fabricate such footage. 

 

2 minutes ago, bovril said:

Assuming this is the one:

 

https://www.foxnews.com/us/cellphone-video-released-deadly-minneapolis-ice-agent-shooting

If that is, then it doesn't tell us much.

[StanSP]

13 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Fair enough. 

 

The further point is that if it does, then I guess it comes down to which source one believes is more trustworthy and less likely to fabricate such footage. 

 

If that is, then it doesn't tell us much.

It tells us she wasn't much of a threat! 

 

'I'm not mad at you'... Then proceeds to drive away from the officer/killer. 

 

Then officer calls her '****ing bitch' after shooting her in the head. 

 

Tell us a lot!! 

[leicsmac]

15 minutes ago, StanSP said:

It tells us she wasn't much of a threat! 

 

'I'm not mad at you'... Then proceeds to drive away from the officer/killer. 

 

Then officer calls her '****ing bitch' after shooting her in the head. 

 

Tell us a lot!! 

Right. 

 

I meant more that it doesn't tell us much more than is already known. 

[foxes1988]

58 minutes ago, Tommy G said:

The new POV from the ice agents has been released on X, puts a bit of a different slant on that situation. If anyone dare look at X that is 

I'm not sure it really changes much either way does it?

 

I don't think she should've panicked and driven off but I don't think you can claim she deliberately was trying to run him over and he has enough time to move out of the way. I appreciate you have to make split second decisions but surely if the choice is move out of the way of the moving vehicle or shoot you have to choose the former.

 

 Seems like he says '****ing bitch' after he's shot her.

[Brizzle Fox]

3 hours ago, kenny said:

They can increase troop numbers or have as many bases as they want.

 

They can't currently mine for minerals. Particularly ones that are currently frozen over but might not be after climate change. Its clear it has nothing to do with defence.

Exactly. Their agreement with Denmark pretty much gives them carte blanche militarily in Greenland, an agreement they've barely utilised.

 

They couldn't give a shit about Greenland from a strategic military perspective.

 

 

[kenny]

52 minutes ago, Brizzle Fox said:

Exactly. Their agreement with Denmark pretty much gives them carte blanche militarily in Greenland, an agreement they've barely utilised.

 

They couldn't give a shit about Greenland from a strategic military perspective.

 

 

I heard tonight they used to have 15 bases and have reduced it to 1. If it was military they would just reopen their old ones.

[Aus Fox]

6 hours ago, Tommy G said:

I’m not linking it on here - but watch it and make your own mind up. 

The biggest problem as I see it with society today, and this is all sides. People now, make up their own minds and then look for evidence to support their way of thinking. Rather than looking at the evidence and then making up their own minds.

I find it really sad, I would say more and more people are becoming rooted in their opinions and idealism and will not waver or change their opinions if something happens that distorts that narrative.

This is both left and right, and both in a desperate propaganda war to prove they are right. When the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.

[CornwallFox]

Just read this while shifting through Facebook and have to sayi think it's bang on the money when it comes to the petit bourgeois part: 

 

For most of the 20th century, class was lived collectively. If you worked in a factory, a mine, a dock, you shared conditions, risks, and power structures with the people around you. Unions made sense because work was shared and labour (and 'Labour') made sense because class was tangible. The vote followed the job because the job followed the structure of power.

 

Now the job has dissolved into fog and that world is gone. Today, class doesn’t organise people’s lives in the same way: precarious work, gig contracts, multiple jobs, benefits topping up wages that no longer work. No shared workplace, no shared leverage, no obvious “we”. It's the quiet collapse of class as lived experience. You don’t join a union when you don’t even know who you’ll be working for next week and you don’t see yourself as a class when your life feels like a juggling act rather than a collective endeavour.

 

Precarity atomises people and exhaustion, isolation, and a constant low-level panic, replaces solidarity.

 

What’s filled the gap isn’t class, but culture. Education has become the proxy and “graduate” now stands in for “elite”, not because graduates own anything (except student debt and a bike helmet) but because they’ve been exposed to structural thinking and a language that can describe systems. University becomes less about elite status and more about acquiring a language for power. And that alone is now treated as a threat.

 

At the same time, a group routinely described as “working class” has come to dominate working-class culture without actually being working class at all. The self-employed small business owners, contractors, landlords with one or two properties.

 

Marx had a name for them: the petit bourgeois, and that's the part polite liberals often tiptoe around.

 

They’re doing alright. The van-and-invoice guy that owns their own tools. Sometimes they own other people’s labour. He is materially incentivised to side with capital, even if culturally he shares a postcode and a pub with people who are being crushed by it. Their interests lean towards money and hierarchy, not solidarity. Historically, that group has always been the shock troops of reaction, not because they’re evil, but because they’re anxious about falling downwards and furious at being told they’re not on the way up.

 

Enter the grifting spiv, Farage, who sells them dignity by letting them punch sideways instead of looking up. Murdoch supplies the vocabulary... the pub supplies the reinforcement loop.

 

Meanwhile, the “educated working class” ends up in a weird half-space. Teachers, nurses, social workers, public sector staff. Still selling their labour and still dependent on wages but culturally separated from the people they supposedly share a class with.

 

Reform thrives in the cracks left behind by the collapse of the old labour movement. It doesn’t build solidarity, but instead redirects resentment sideways. “Elite” stops meaning people who own and control everything, and starts meaning the person next door who reads books, works in the public sector, or turned up to a meeting wearing the wrong clothes.

 

If we’re serious about rebuilding anything resembling a genuine working-class movement in the 21st century, we’re going to have to get much better at telling the difference between power and proximity, between ownership and education and between people who exploit the system and people who are simply trying to understand it.

 

We stopped using the word spiv, even though the behaviour it describes never stopped. A spiv is someone who profits from scarcity while pretending to speak for those harmed by it. I think it accurately describes Farage and his entourage. Perhaps this sturdy old word's time has come around again?

Edited 10 January by CornwallFox

[Sly]

3 hours ago, Aus Fox said:

The biggest problem as I see it with society today, and this is all sides. People now, make up their own minds and then look for evidence to support their way of thinking. Rather than looking at the evidence and then making up their own minds.

I find it really sad, I would say more and more people are becoming rooted in their opinions and idealism and will not waver or change their opinions if something happens that distorts that narrative.

This is both left and right, and both in a desperate propaganda war to prove they are right. When the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.

I think this largely feeds by social media (maybe we should call them Social Mafia) algorithms, that re-enforce what they are looking at! 

 

[Heathrow fox]

2 hours ago, CornwallFox said:

Just read this while shifting through Facebook and have to sayi think it's bang on the money when it comes to the petit bourgeois part: 

 

For most of the 20th century, class was lived collectively. If you worked in a factory, a mine, a dock, you shared conditions, risks, and power structures with the people around you. Unions made sense because work was shared and labour (and 'Labour') made sense because class was tangible. The vote followed the job because the job followed the structure of power.

 

Now the job has dissolved into fog and that world is gone. Today, class doesn’t organise people’s lives in the same way: precarious work, gig contracts, multiple jobs, benefits topping up wages that no longer work. No shared workplace, no shared leverage, no obvious “we”. It's the quiet collapse of class as lived experience. You don’t join a union when you don’t even know who you’ll be working for next week and you don’t see yourself as a class when your life feels like a juggling act rather than a collective endeavour.

 

Precarity atomises people and exhaustion, isolation, and a constant low-level panic, replaces solidarity.

 

What’s filled the gap isn’t class, but culture. Education has become the proxy and “graduate” now stands in for “elite”, not because graduates own anything (except student debt and a bike helmet) but because they’ve been exposed to structural thinking and a language that can describe systems. University becomes less about elite status and more about acquiring a language for power. And that alone is now treated as a threat.

 

At the same time, a group routinely described as “working class” has come to dominate working-class culture without actually being working class at all. The self-employed small business owners, contractors, landlords with one or two properties.

 

Marx had a name for them: the petit bourgeois, and that's the part polite liberals often tiptoe around.

 

They’re doing alright. The van-and-invoice guy that owns their own tools. Sometimes they own other people’s labour. He is materially incentivised to side with capital, even if culturally he shares a postcode and a pub with people who are being crushed by it. Their interests lean towards money and hierarchy, not solidarity. Historically, that group has always been the shock troops of reaction, not because they’re evil, but because they’re anxious about falling downwards and furious at being told they’re not on the way up.

 

Enter the grifting spiv, Farage, who sells them dignity by letting them punch sideways instead of looking up. Murdoch supplies the vocabulary... the pub supplies the reinforcement loop.

 

Meanwhile, the “educated working class” ends up in a weird half-space. Teachers, nurses, social workers, public sector staff. Still selling their labour and still dependent on wages but culturally separated from the people they supposedly share a class with.

 

Reform thrives in the cracks left behind by the collapse of the old labour movement. It doesn’t build solidarity, but instead redirects resentment sideways. “Elite” stops meaning people who own and control everything, and starts meaning the person next door who reads books, works in the public sector, or turned up to a meeting wearing the wrong clothes.

 

If we’re serious about rebuilding anything resembling a genuine working-class movement in the 21st century, we’re going to have to get much better at telling the difference between power and proximity, between ownership and education and between people who exploit the system and people who are simply trying to understand it.

 

We stopped using the word spiv, even though the behaviour it describes never stopped. A spiv is someone who profits from scarcity while pretending to speak for those harmed by it. I think it accurately describes Farage and his entourage. Perhaps this sturdy old word's time has come around again?

Self employment of the trades.Master stroke by Thatcher that was and up there with selling the council housing stock.Thatcher was a level up from world class at divide and rule tactics.Sadly the trades are lost forever and are never ever coming back into the left wing movements fold.Thatcher did the spade work by smashing up the big lump of concrete and Farage and co have got the easier task of shovelling the debris into the wheel barrow.
I don’t  think the public sector workers are viewed as elites.More as willing servants for the elites.How do we turn this around?

 

[kenny]

4 minutes ago, Heathrow fox said:

Self employment of the trades.Master stroke by Thatcher that was and up there with selling the council housing stock.Thatcher was a level up from world class at divide and rule tactics.Sadly the trades are lost forever and are never ever coming back into the left wing movements fold.Thatcher did the spade work by smashing up the big lump of concrete and Farage and co have got the easier task of shovelling the debris into the wheel barrow.
I don’t  think the public sector workers are viewed as elites.More as willing servants for the elites.How do we turn this around?

 

Why can't the trades be left to think for themselves and vote how they wish?

[Sampson]

To don my tinhat end of the world catastrophising cloak for a minute - I think all this class, unions and trades stuff feels very 19th and 20th century. Not that they have zero importance now but we’re literally on the precipice of the majority of jobs being replaced by robots and ai, both blue collar or white collar jobs, both working and middle class jobs. And to the point individual companies will become more powerful than the UK nation state, and these things aren’t going to help us much and the UK state is not going to be powerful enough to its own enforce employment law against quadrillion dollar worldwide tech companies which can control the flow of information.
 

Used to think population ageing and climate change were the biggest issues for us to face in the 21st century, but I think now AI and companies becoming more powerful than countries will usurp those.