Britain - The Official Thread

  • Thread starter Ross
  • 12,479 comments
  • 500,209 views

How will you vote in the 2019 UK General Election?

  • The Brexit Party

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Change UK/The Independent Group

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Conservative Party

    Votes: 3 7.5%

  • Green Party

    Votes: 2 5.0%

  • Labour Party

    Votes: 11 27.5%

  • Liberal Democrats

    Votes: 8 20.0%

  • Other (Wales/Scotland/Northern Ireland)

    Votes: 3 7.5%

  • Other Independents

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Other Parties

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Spoiled Ballot

    Votes: 2 5.0%

  • Will Not/Cannot Vote

    Votes: 11 27.5%
  • Total voters
    40
  • Poll closed .
In today's episode of "It's Always Sunny in the Uplands":

I give it 2 years before the Tory conference's tagline is "Totaler Brexit - Quicker Brexit!"
 
What is Christmas all about then?

Only the original festival that the Romans co-opted with the celebration of Saturn before they caught Christianity and pasted Jesus onto it was all about gathering with family, feasting, and exchanging gifts, to celebrate the passing of the shortest, coldest, and least productive days of the year and look forward to things getting better...

This thing with the hymns and church and stuff is about 150 years old, although based on an increasingly Puritanical approach from the mid-17th Century.
 
Well, to be honest, i do think people seem to have gotten very short memories about the current situation.

Supply chain woes are definitely not a light matter and I think that GB News post is completely wrong and mixing apples with oranges. However, can I just mention that this time last year everything was going to hell and back and by Christmas no one could see their families at all because there was a not small chance that you would kill them! And indeed the run up to last Christmas killed 50,000 extra people in the UK in early 2021 alone!

And i didnt see my gran for 6 months (which was entirely the right thing to do, but no less distressing as a result).

Please, please, please do not lose sight of the things that really matter.

Life is undoubtedly difficult with what is going on and I'm no less affected by that than everyone else, but I get to see my gran every week. Personally, I dont consider things bad, for me they are bloody brilliant in comparison with recent history.

No offence intended to anyone, I just get tired of nothing but negatives sometimes.
 
Southend MP Sir David Amess has been "stabbed multiple times" while holding a surgery.
 
A 25-year old man has been held in connection with this horrific stabbing.
 
The police have announced that the investigation of the murder of MP Sir David Amess will now be handled by specialist counter-terrorism officers.

The BBC also reported that a man "of African appearance" was seen being led away from the scene, but this is presumably not official or confirmed. The Telegraph are reporting a 25 y.o. Somalian man has been arrested.
 
Last edited:
I'd always felt it was a bit risky when MPs hold surgeries like this. Mine does hers in the high street. Admittedly I was mostly thinking about them getting an earful from any disgruntled constituents as I assume they all have security wherever they go, but maybe that's not the case.
 
Just heard on the radio that my MP, Yvette Cooper, gets about a hundred death threats a day on twitter. Her press secretary said she'd received a condolences card with keep this it can be reused when I kill you.

Maybe twitter needs an AUP. There is a reason why this is a good site when most game fan sites are toxic. Just as there is a reason FF14 a realm reborn is welcoming to new players and WOW is toxic.

Moderation, used properly, works.
 
Last edited:
Piers Corbyn is part of a group staging an anti-vax protest in Parliament Square, which has chosen to erect a gallows for what they see as vaccine-pushing COVID conspiracist MPs.


Read the room, Piers.
 
Famine
Piers Corbyn is part of a group staging an anti-vax protest in Parliament Square, which has chosen to erect a gallows for what they see as vaccine-pushing COVID conspiracist MPs.


Read the room, Piers.
Click to expand...
Just because you have a right to protest, doesnt mean you should.
 
Famine
Piers Corbyn is part of a group staging an anti-vax protest in Parliament Square, which has chosen to erect a gallows for what they see as vaccine-pushing COVID conspiracist MPs.


Read the room, Piers.
Click to expand...
How to destroy any remaining credibility, a short guide by Piers Corbyn.
 
Tired Tyres
Just heard on the radio that my MP, Yvette Cooper, gets about a hundred death threats a day on twitter. Her press secretary said she'd received a condolences card with keep this it can be reused when I kill you.
Click to expand...
[Disclaimer: I'm speaking as an American here and I understand speech may not be as robustly protected in Britain as it is in the United States.]

True threat or political hyperbole? It's often not an easy question to answer but I think it's worth considering that speech generally accepted as awful ought to still be lawful. There's so much political speech that hyperbole is sometimes deemed necessary to rise above the din, but then it does and the hyperbole itself is regrettable.

Twitter is different, of course. Twitter is itself subject to the very same robust speech protections where they exist and so it isn't similarly constrained as state actors are, and that's where content moderation comes in:
Tired Tyres
Maybe twitter needs an AUP.

...

Moderation, used properly, works.
Click to expand...
Implementation becomes a significant issue at scale and it's virtually impossible to have good moderation on a platform as eye-wideningly large as Twitter. Because it's so big, Twitter is dependent upon automation for moderating functions and that automation is flawed in the best of circumstances and easily manipulated for abuse in the worst.
 
Liquid
Given that two MPs in five years have been murdered, it's best to err on the side of caution and not downplay threats.
Click to expand...
I don't mean to play anything down and in looking back at what I said, I don't think it's reasonable to infer from it that I'm playing down anything. True threats are of grave importance, but attacks may be (and are perhaps even likely to be) perpetrated when not preceded by threats issued by the perpetrators. Are the perpetrators of these attacks said to have issued threats of violence prior to the attacks?

Caution is absolutely appropriate. I shudder to think how many threats even politicians at the bottom of the totem pole receive, and that figure is likely to only increase as individuals hold more power. They definitely should exercise caution.
 
TexRex
True threat or political hyperbole? It's often not an easy question to answer but I think it's worth considering that speech generally accepted as awful ought to still be lawful. There's so much political speech that hyperbole is sometimes deemed necessary to rise above the din, but then it does and the hyperbole itself is regrettable.
Click to expand...
"I'm going to kill you" is not a hyperbolic statement, in itself.. it might be a hyperbolic reaction, but the words themselves are simple and there's no reason to take them as anything other than clear and simple statement of intent. "I think you're the worst person in the world, and I hope you die" is more hyperbolic, and less threatening, IMHO.

I've told my MP, and the last two Prime Ministers of the UK what I think of them on twitter, and it's not pleasant - probably somewhat hyperbolic, but not threatening - I absolutely think there needs to be an avenue for the electorate to state their opinion to or at an elected representative - and you're right, that's often likely to be done in a (purely self satisfying and ineffective) hyperbolic way to cut through the din -- but a threat of violence has no business there at any level (except perhaps in extreme cases of self-defense I suppose), and is ultimately stupid anyway.

FWIW, my MP states that his social media is 'for broadcast only' (a play on words given the town's history), but as a voter in his constituency, I take that to mean he ignores all comms via social media anyway... so I see little harm in calling him a useless dustpan faced **** on Twitter. It's an ultra safe seat and he almost always votes on party lines so I doubt he's got any interest in hearing formally from someone who's never voted for him or his party, either. If my constituency was anywhere near marginal I certainly wouldn't be wasting time with insults when pro-active positive campaigning would likely be more effective. If our system in the UK didn't render so many voters effectively silent, there might be less hate directed at MP's in the first place.
 
Not content with sending Phil McCann to cover the fuel shortage a few weeks ago, tonight the BBC reported the sickening case of David Fuller - convicted today of double murder and also of multiple counts of sexually abusing corpses - included the professional opinion of forensic psychiatrist Dr. Dick Badcock...

www.bbc.co.uk

The double murderer who sexually abused the dead for decades

The murderer of Wendy Knell and Caroline Pierce avoided capture for decades and hid a sickening secret.
www.bbc.co.uk
 
Earlier today I thought Johnson was going to be out by this time next year. On the current trajectory from the way I've been reading things since, I'd be amazed if it isn't end of this year.
 
Liquid
How hateable is this Tory government compared to the Thatcher years?
Click to expand...
The hate isn't so one-sided. The left and right have both found very different reasons to turn on the Tories rather than it all just coming from Labour.
 

Latest Posts

Back