7 Jul
11:50pm, 7 Jul 2024
5,756 posts
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paulcook
I could have easily have just used austerity though it felt somewhat relevant. I came home via Stockton High Street this afternoon which made it more pertinent today. I hate going down there because it's so depressing and about the most depressing town centre I've visited. It's somewhat symptomatic of how people have been kicked and kicked and kicked again. But today I noticed a monumental vote Reform banner covering the entire front of one of the bars. To me Reform offer no solutions to the problems that are so evident there, yet they'll attract plenty of voters. I absolutely cannot say the same problems are found elsewhere in high Reform voting areas but I guess there at worst similar problems. |
8 Jul
6:18am, 8 Jul 2024
1,106 posts
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Fenners-Reborn
BBC is neutral, don't make me laugh. See below: "At this point the BBC can’t ever claim they’re impartial… when Laura K’s a CLEAR Tory propagandist. The way she spoke to Ed Davey was awful “congratulations I suppose”" She (Laura K) must be under editorial control. Why the addition of I suppose? |
8 Jul
7:16am, 8 Jul 2024
28,421 posts
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richmac
Of course Reform attract voters. They say anything with no viable policy to back it up, their 'contract' fails to stand up to a whiff of scrutiny. Also, now labour are in gov they can stay to influence the BBC back to neutrality rather than it's right drift. |
8 Jul
7:18am, 8 Jul 2024
25,006 posts
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larkim
Fenners-Reborn wrote: BBC is neutral, don't make me laugh. See below: "At this point the BBC can’t ever claim they’re impartial… when Laura K’s a CLEAR Tory propagandist. The way she spoke to Ed Davey was awful “congratulations I suppose”" She (Laura K) must be under editorial control. Why the addition of I suppose? The BBC <> every single journalist. And not every phrase is well thought through. Though not entirely sure if I've been "whooshed" with sarcasm that I've not detected here... |
8 Jul
7:54am, 8 Jul 2024
14,923 posts
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Little Nemo
@Fields Some gay people have children so there will be gay grandparents.
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8 Jul
8:39am, 8 Jul 2024
32,733 posts
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Johnny Blaze
I think Laura is still pining for the days when she had special access to Corpulent Joffrey as he slouched across his Downing Street throne whilst feeding the nation a daily diet of lies and incompetence. It made great copy and it wrote itself. Five years of unexciting Starmer policy delivery must fill her with dread.
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8 Jul
8:48am, 8 Jul 2024
50,407 posts
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HappyG(rrr)
Big relief that France have managed to avoid the NR getting into power. But... that's still 1/3 of people with a strong hard right leaning preference. And approaching that in Italy, Germany and UK. I'd argue the dedicated Trump supporters fall into this camp too (albeit, USA doesn't have a party that represents this - the moderates in the Republicans aren't "far right"). Have countries always had that but just most people not prepared to vote for parties who are seen as being "extreme"? Or is this a genuinely new opinion in many countries? @3M we all need to be very careful in our language about what is "normal" (as I'm sure you know and are in your language and interaction with people. Harder in text, of course.) While having children is clearly more common than not, a quick Google says 18% of women do not give birth, so that's a really big "minority" and a group who must not be demonised (I know not your intention in any way). And I accept that adoption, fostering, caring for blended and extended families and many other variations add to that too, but there will still be a significant minority of adults who never "have children". And these people must never be thought of as "abnormal" for doing so. There choices or situation are not known to us and we mustn't make assumptions. I have some strong personal reasons for caring about this topic btw, not just a general desire for understanding and fairness!  G
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8 Jul
8:54am, 8 Jul 2024
25,007 posts
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larkim
Normal / average are oddities. I've got more than the average number of arms for a British person. Does me having two arms make me normal or not therefore? When not used in an intentionally or negligently pejorative sense, normal to mean an adult who has raised a child, and normal for a child to have raised a child themselves seems perfectly sensible. And it's also normal to not raise a child and have children who don't raise children. Neither is abnormal, they are just two iterations of normal. And in the context that JB used, as a man who had fathered children and who had grandchildren, calling out JB for homophobia is unacceptable. Maybe, with hindsight, use of "typical" or "average" or "stereotypical" are better words, and I'd be the first to agree that there are some words and phrases that we use subconsciously which demonstrate subconscious bias, but I don't think the case highlighted here was one of those. |
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8 Jul
9:01am, 8 Jul 2024
25,008 posts
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larkim
And yes, I'm defaulting to the "average = mean" in common use, I'm well aware that there are alternative averages!!
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8 Jul
9:01am, 8 Jul 2024
45,054 posts
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SPR
I think Trump is within his rights to want to be president at 78 and not retire to a 'normal' life of looking after grandchildren. The issue isn't that he wants to be president, it's that he's doing things that are bad whether he's 20 or 78.
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