Absolute *** of our time Pt.MXXVI

[CornwallFox]

3 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

It's never been a uniquely right wing position, no. 

 

That being said, like the discussion above I think such terminology, on this topic anyway, is obsolete. You're either in favour of using scientific advancement to guarantee the future or you aren't and you value your own present over all of that future. That goes beyond political compassing IMO.

True, TBF there's lots of positions that aren't really traditional any more. Brexit itself should have been a left wing idea but the reasons for it ended up being traditionally right wing immigration/Johnny foruner concerns instead of left wing free market concerns. Everything since is upside down.

[grobyfox1990]

1 hour ago, Grebfromgrebland said:

While you're celebrating getting rich me and my family might become refugees or sent to concentration camps.

Well let’s hope people realise this. Because right now Barry the baby boomer reckons because he’s worked 30 years at the local authority he’s ’done his bit’ to earn the extraordinarily generous welfare state he’s extravagantly benefitted from his entire life and will be voting for Nigel because only he can stop the leeches on boats. 
Sorry Bazza but that knee op will not be covered by the nhs, your state pension will be hammered by offsets, rent increases have no ceiling and you’ll think wistfully about the time you were annoyed labour took £300 away from old people at winter. Providers of capital now own you. 

[Torquay Gunner]

5 hours ago, reporterpenguin said:

The thought of him being in control of anything more dangerous than a butter knife is scary, but a nuclear arsenal... 

 

I know in politics it's very hard to criticise your own side, but it blows my mind that anybody can defend this (notwithstanding @Muzzy_no7's fair point about him being correct to highlight people buying Russian energy, a stopped clock and all that...). 

 

I listened to an interview with him from before his first term a few weeks ago, it's astonishing and frightening how much he's changed. I didn't like what he was saying before, but at least it was pretty coherent and kind of funny in his delivery. Now it's completely detached from reality and he's completely absorbed by his own ego.

Trump has never really been coherent. You may have forgotten his ‘cure for covid’, which was injecting people with disinfectant and exposing them to UV light.  Whether they’re talking about his UN address, or his next garbage speech, they’re not talking about Epstein which I am sure is a big motivating factor for him these days. 

Edited 23 September 2025 by Torquay Gunner

[Jattdogg]

2 hours ago, Torquay Gunner said:

Trump has never really been coherent. You may have forgotten his ‘cure for covid’, which was injecting people with disinfectant and exposing them to UV light.  Whether they’re talking about his UN address, or his next garbage speech, they’re not talking about Epstein which I am sure is a big motivating factor for him these days. 

Watching him try to say acetaminophen was painful. I probably shouldn't laugh about it but that's tough given the cvnt status he owns.

[urban.spaceman]

20 hours ago, Bellend Sebastian said:

Is there anything fundamentally right wing about this obsession with fossil fuels? What is it about the use of ancient hydrocarbons for power generation that aligns with conservative values in a way that solar or wind power, for example, doesn't?

 

I don't really get it

It's conservatism as an ideology, politically in this country at least, that has a fundamental problem with any sort of improvement of infrastructure whatsoever and that extends far, far beyond their love of fossil fuels. Everything you are paying through the nose for now, is down to either Tory short termism, humiliating failures, or downright destruction. 

 

Energy? 

Thatcher sold off our energy sector so we’re now at the mercy of private foreign companies and volatile markets. She also sold off our North Sea oil to private extractors to profit from instead of setting up a sovereign wealth fund like Norway did (who extract their own oil and now have a wealth fund worth $1.5 TRILLION dollars). Miliband just signed off on Sizewell C which was identified by.... Ed Miliband in 2009. The Tories did **** all. Tories repeatedly delayed investment in grid modernisation and storage, leaving us exposed to energy shocks. 

Rail?

Beeching closed down thousands of miles of railway in the 60s, Major privatised them in the 90s. HS2 took 7 years to even start building and was only supposed to cost £33bn. Sunak cut the Northern leg to save £36bn. Brown's government set up High Speed Two Limited in 2009, Labour inherited a project that won't finish until way after 2033 and is budgeted to cost well over £100bn by the end of it. 

Water?

Privatised in the late ’80s; sold off to private companies whose shareholders include foreign pension funds. Said companies starved the infrastructure of investment and loaded themselves with debt. Now we’ve got raw sewage pumping into rivers—partly because the companies chose to pay billions in dividends instead of upgrading treatment works, and partly because Brexit sent the cost of treatment chemicals through the roof. Infrastructure’s rotting, bills keep going up, and we’re literally swimming in the consequences. Not a single company was held accountable.

Internet?

In the early 90s BT wanted to spend billions wiring the country with fibre optics, which would’ve made the UK a world leader in digital infrastructure. But John Major’s Tory government blocked the plan — not because it wouldn’t work, but because they wanted to “protect competition” for the fledgling cable TV market. In other words, they deliberately kneecapped a national fibre network to give a short-term boost to private cable firms. The result? Britain fell decades behind countries like South Korea and Japan, and we’re still stuck patching together copper networks while other nations enjoy cheap, ultra-fast internet. 

 

Housing?

Thatcher’s Right to Buy sold off millions of council homes without replacing them, gutting social housing and forcing people into expensive private rents. The 2010-24 Tories scrapped house building targets, allowed rents to soar, and crashed mortgages with Brexit and Trussonomics. A generation locked out of home ownership and record homelessness. And a planning system that is crippled with obstructions. 

 

RAAC?

The Tories ignored warnings for years about crumbling buildings made with RAAC concrete, which was only ever meant as a cheap stopgap. They cut funding for repairs under austerity, then acted surprised when ceilings started collapsing. Now thousands of schools and hospitals need emergency fixes at far higher cost than if they’d just invested properly in the first place.

 

40 new hospitals?

WHERE .....?????

 

They don't care about improving the status quo because they profit from it. It's not incompetence, it's ideological. All they ever do is destroy. 

[Clogger_]

On 23/09/2025 at 16:46, Bellend Sebastian said:

Is there anything fundamentally right wing about this obsession with fossil fuels? What is it about the use of ancient hydrocarbons for power generation that aligns with conservative values in a way that solar or wind power, for example, doesn't?

 

I don't really get it

Well, it's about votes, money and influence isn't it.

 

Their voter base don't like change, particularly if it comes at any personal cost.

 

If oil/gas companies are waving money around, someone's got to take it?! 

 

The RW press are mouthpieces of the oil lobby, and the Tories are utterly beholden to their press.

 

They're desperate to suck up to Trump and cronies.

 

Personally think the drive for energy independence should be easy to sell to flag waving folks... but there are many reasons why the Tories won't try. Absolutely none are with the good of our country in mind.

Edited 24 September 2025 by Clogger_

[Parafox]

1 hour ago, urban.spaceman said:

It's conservatism as an ideology, politically in this country at least, that has a fundamental problem with any sort of improvement of infrastructure whatsoever and that extends far, far beyond their love of fossil fuels. Everything you are paying through the nose for now, is down to either Tory short termism, humiliating failures, or downright destruction. 

 

Energy? 

Thatcher sold off our energy sector so we’re now at the mercy of private foreign companies and volatile markets. She also sold off our North Sea oil to private extractors to profit from instead of setting up a sovereign wealth fund like Norway did (who extract their own oil and now have a wealth fund worth $1.5 TRILLION dollars). Miliband just signed off on Sizewell C which was identified by.... Ed Miliband in 2009. The Tories did **** all. Tories repeatedly delayed investment in grid modernisation and storage, leaving us exposed to energy shocks. 

Rail?

Beeching closed down thousands of miles of railway in the 60s, Major privatised them in the 90s. HS2 took 7 years to even start building and was only supposed to cost £33bn. Sunak cut the Northern leg to save £36bn. Brown's government set up High Speed Two Limited in 2009, Labour inherited a project that won't finish until way after 2033 and is budgeted to cost well over £100bn by the end of it. 

Water?

Privatised in the late ’80s; sold off to private companies whose shareholders include foreign pension funds. Said companies starved the infrastructure of investment and loaded themselves with debt. Now we’ve got raw sewage pumping into rivers—partly because the companies chose to pay billions in dividends instead of upgrading treatment works, and partly because Brexit sent the cost of treatment chemicals through the roof. Infrastructure’s rotting, bills keep going up, and we’re literally swimming in the consequences. Not a single company was held accountable.

Internet?

In the early 90s BT wanted to spend billions wiring the country with fibre optics, which would’ve made the UK a world leader in digital infrastructure. But John Major’s Tory government blocked the plan — not because it wouldn’t work, but because they wanted to “protect competition” for the fledgling cable TV market. In other words, they deliberately kneecapped a national fibre network to give a short-term boost to private cable firms. The result? Britain fell decades behind countries like South Korea and Japan, and we’re still stuck patching together copper networks while other nations enjoy cheap, ultra-fast internet. 

 

Housing?

Thatcher’s Right to Buy sold off millions of council homes without replacing them, gutting social housing and forcing people into expensive private rents. The 2010-24 Tories scrapped house building targets, allowed rents to soar, and crashed mortgages with Brexit and Trussonomics. A generation locked out of home ownership and record homelessness. And a planning system that is crippled with obstructions. 

 

RAAC?

The Tories ignored warnings for years about crumbling buildings made with RAAC concrete, which was only ever meant as a cheap stopgap. They cut funding for repairs under austerity, then acted surprised when ceilings started collapsing. Now thousands of schools and hospitals need emergency fixes at far higher cost than if they’d just invested properly in the first place.

 

40 new hospitals?

WHERE .....?????

 

They don't care about improving the status quo because they profit from it. It's not incompetence, it's ideological. All they ever do is destroy. 

 

Excellent post, urban. I'd have added greed and selfishness to this.

 

I am acquainted with a number of people that are openly Tory, and they're all rather unlikeable, self serving individuals.

 

I'd be interested to see a rebuttal on your post from anyone out there...?

Edited 24 September 2025 by Parafox

[kenny]

2 hours ago, Parafox said:

 

Excellent post, urban. I'd have added greed and selfishness to this.

 

I am acquainted with a number of people that are openly Tory, and they're all rather unlikeable, self serving individuals.

 

I'd be interested to see a rebuttal on your post from anyone out there...?

I'll start. Raac is an excellent construction product still in use in most construction projects today in a different form. Gove panicked when presented with a poorly worded report written by organisations that should know better and created unnecessary hysteria.

 

It was not a cheap temporary stop gap, though I do understand why the uneducated believe this is the case.

 

I've seen many raac buildings and they are in decent condition, despite the lack of maintenance by the organisations that in habit them. They have been pulled down anyway due to political mismanagement and poor maintenance scheduling.

[kenny]

3 hours ago, Parafox said:

 

Excellent post, urban. I'd have added greed and selfishness to this.

 

I am acquainted with a number of people that are openly Tory, and they're all rather unlikeable, self serving individuals.

 

I'd be interested to see a rebuttal on your post from anyone out there...?

I'll try the housing part as well. Thatcher of course prevented councils from reinvesting the right to buy sales in more social housing. This could have been reversed in 1997 and 2024 but was not. As before, I don't know why the reasons for this.

 

In terms of targets, the Tories scrapped them I can't explain why, probably to prevent them being criticised for not hitting them. In terms of actual houses being built, the highest numbers in recent years are 2019 and 2022. 2007 was a close third. It's probably inconvenient to discuss what they may be in the current year but we could be looking at 2009/2010 levels.

 

I'm not an economist, but we locked in our mortgage in 2021 as it was widely reported that interest rates were due to rise over the next 12 months due to the movements in the global markets and wouldn't ever be as artificially low again. Thankfully I listened and locked in for 10 years. 18 months later Liz truss did her thing, but they had been going up long before that and will settle back down to the 3-4% they should be soon. Cheap credit has been around too long.

 

The planning system under the Tories has been made more difficult. They have introduced or made more onerous the following:

 

Biodiversity net gain - introduced to counteract the reduction in native species from habitat loss

Flood risk and surface run off - much more onerous with significant policies to reduce storm water into the drainage system and more consideration for Overland water flows.

Ecology - higher levels of appreciation for protected species of flora and fauna

National space standards - forced increases on sizing of properties to improve living standards 

Affordable housing requirements - actually increased the amount that developers are expected to provide not always successfully

S106 contributions - increased above inflation under the Tory government 

Thermal performance of buildings - huge increases in performance requirements between 2010-2024. This of course increases the build costs.

Introduced the building safety act - this has had a massive effect on the building industry in particular high risk [rise] buildings many of which are stuck in Gateway 2 at government level. This has been introduced for the right reasons but has slowed down tall building construction considerably.

 

In terms of house prices, many people are not aware that they mostly rise in line with the rate of inflation. There are outliers for this, in particular the housing boom 1997-2008. For some reason we think about inflation effecting everything we buy except for housing.

 

Hidden homelessness was first considered in 2010. Prior to this homelessness was rough sleepers only and the increasing numbers are due to a number of factors including how numbers are measured, population increases and the more publicised economic factors.

 

 

[grobyfox1990]

“The Communists took a third of the intelligentsia out and shot them in a car park, and I always thought what a waste. But now I think actually, they had a point,” he said, referring to the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Arron Banks of Reform lol. They aren’t going to stop the boats but they are going to take every extravagant benefit you’ve take for granted away from you. Poor old baby boomer reckons by paying about £20k a year in tax he’s earned the right to a retirement of free NHS procedures and a state pension. WRONG!!!!!!!!

 

[leicsmac]

3 minutes ago, grobyfox1990 said:

“The Communists took a third of the intelligentsia out and shot them in a car park, and I always thought what a waste. But now I think actually, they had a point,” he said, referring to the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Arron Banks of Reform lol. They aren’t going to stop the boats but they are going to take every extravagant benefit you’ve take for granted away from you. Poor old baby boomer reckons by paying about £20k a year in tax he’s earned the right to a retirement of free NHS procedures and a state pension. WRONG!!!!!!!!

 

Arron Banks has always been like that. 

[grobyfox1990]

16 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Arron Banks has always been like that. 

Absolutely, problem is in 2025 they have convinced a load of people who are in a commercial sense a burden on our society, yet are actively protesting to vote them into office. 

[Torquay Gunner]

Karoline Leavitt,  possibly the most sycophantic of all Trump’s goons.  They are actually going to hold investigations, as to why the escalator stopped working at the UN when Trump stepped on 🤣🤣🤣.   Let’s face it that’s more important than releasing the Epstein files.  You really could not make this s**t up.

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-escalator-un-karoline-leavitt-b2832804.html#

[Jattdogg]

29 minutes ago, Torquay Gunner said:

Karoline Leavitt,  possibly the most sycophantic of all Trump’s goons.  They are actually going to hold investigations, as to why the escalator stopped working at the UN when Trump stepped on 🤣🤣🤣.   Let’s face it that’s more important than releasing the Epstein files.  You really could not make this s**t up.

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-escalator-un-karoline-leavitt-b2832804.html#

Yup, fooking  t w a t s!

What makes me laugh is that Trump is supposedly the healthiest president ever.   If that's the case, shit happens so walk up the stairs Mr Healthy, do 10 push-ups at the top, flex and then stfu!

 

 

 

[Tommy G]

48 minutes ago, Torquay Gunner said:

Karoline Leavitt,  possibly the most sycophantic of all Trump’s goons.  They are actually going to hold investigations, as to why the escalator stopped working at the UN when Trump stepped on 🤣🤣🤣.   Let’s face it that’s more important than releasing the Epstein files.  You really could not make this s**t up.

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-escalator-un-karoline-leavitt-b2832804.html#

They are masking that it's an assassination threat if he's stationary 

 

She is a bit of a babe that Karoline as an aside

[leicsmac]

12 minutes ago, Tommy G said:

They are masking that it's an assassination threat if he's stationary 

 

She is a bit of a babe that Karoline as an aside

I'll be honest, I never thought that "peroxide blondes with no souls" was considered a type but I'm not here to judge. 

[Tommy G]

20 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

I'll be honest, I never thought that "peroxide blondes with no souls" was considered a type but I'm not here to judge. 

Don't worry I'm rating her personality a 0/10

[Torquay Gunner]

54 minutes ago, Jattdogg said:

Yup, fooking  t w a t s!

What makes me laugh is that Trump is supposedly the healthiest president ever.   If that's the case, shit happens so walk up the stairs Mr Healthy, do 10 push-ups at the top, flex and then stfu!

 

 

 

The escalator right next to them was working, but no one thought to change lanes! 🤣

[grobyfox1990]

1 hour ago, Tommy G said:

They are masking that it's an assassination threat if he's stationary 

 

She is a bit of a babe that Karoline as an aside

Anything to mask the fact Trump a proven n0nce.

Had this argument about Leavitt often. Sometimes you think it's a firm yes, other times you think it's an after 7 pints jobby. Her husband is 30-35 years older so she'll be in the window when the inevitable happens to him.

[Jattdogg]

23 minutes ago, grobyfox1990 said:

Anything to mask the fact Trump a proven n0nce.

Had this argument about Leavitt often. Sometimes you think it's a firm yes, other times you think it's an after 7 pints jobby. Her husband is 30-35 years older so she'll be in the window when the inevitable happens to him.

The voice alone is enough to make any man impotent. For that, count me out.

[Torquay Gunner]

28 minutes ago, grobyfox1990 said:

Anything to mask the fact Trump a proven n0nce.

Had this argument about Leavitt often. Sometimes you think it's a firm yes, other times you think it's an after 7 pints jobby. Her husband is 30-35 years older so she'll be in the window when the inevitable happens to him.

 

4 minutes ago, Jattdogg said:

The voice alone is enough to make any man impotent. For that, count me out.

Guys, this is not ‘The birds you fancy off the telly’ thread! 

[RoboFox]

A clinically obese, glowing orange man who can barely muster a few steps without looking like he's going to keel over and they're saying he's harder to hit if moving on a 1mph escalator? 

 

These ***** will say anything to distract. 

 

America isn't a real place.

 

Edited 25 September 2025 by RoboFox

[Tommy G]

1 hour ago, grobyfox1990 said:

Anything to mask the fact Trump a proven n0nce.

Had this argument about Leavitt often. Sometimes you think it's a firm yes, other times you think it's an after 7 pints jobby. Her husband is 30-35 years older so she'll be in the window when the inevitable happens to him.

Got to be less than 7 pints surely. 

[grobyfox1990]

5 minutes ago, Tommy G said:

Got to be less than 7 pints surely. 

Yep true let's skip the bravado, it's prob a two pint deal

[Muzzy_no7]

3 hours ago, Tommy G said:

They are masking that it's an assassination threat if he's stationary 

 

She is a bit of a babe that Karoline as an aside

Yeah she is very nice indeed, as was the previous one