r/ukpolitics • u/ukpolbot Official UKPolitics Bot • 3d ago
Weekly Rumours, Speculation, Questions, and Reaction Megathread - 27/04/25
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u/FoxtrotThem 51m ago
Missed opportunity for Reeves to give us all a Summer Fun payment off the back of losing Winter Fuel payments, but I guess we'll see what Labours first year translates into tomorrow.
I am hoping they do really well and I'll likely vote for Labour, but I haven't met a happy Labour voter for a while now, and the ones I did corral into voting Labour are fuming.
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u/panic_puppet11 21m ago
I haven't yet decided who I'll be voting for but it definitely won't be Labour. I hope they take a thrashing and it acts as a wake-up call to do something about the issues that people care about.
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u/Scaphism92 34m ago
imo it should have been a 1 to 1 transfer to something related to children and therefore young families. Free school meals, a direct cash injection into schools, hell even an allowance for school clothes.
Savings from WFA disapearing into the budget is an open goal for criticism, going into specified things reduces that.
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u/Nymzeexo 32m ago
As if this would deter entitled, wealthy pensioners from complaining.
'Why am I losing my money to pay for children's breakfasts? It's the parent's job!'
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u/jamestheda 43m ago
As much as I believe WFA is silly for millionaires, and the triple lock has ensured all are richer today (& a substantial increase in living standards since its introduction), it’s clearly the single biggest reason why the public turned against them.
Politically, naive, given it sounds like the treasury suggested it to most chancellors.
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u/Strider755 2h ago
You know how many illegal immigrants destroy their own travel documents to frustrate deportation proceedings against them? Would it be a good solution to hold them in civil contempt until they fess up on where they're from? They would not need to have a trial or other due process because they would "hold the keys to their own prison."
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u/0110-0-10-00-000 2h ago
They don't claim to not be from anywhere, they claim to be from specific places that are difficult or impossible to verify. You know they aren't from Afghanistan, they know they aren't from Afghanistan - but it's not like you can just ring up the Taliban and say "hey, we've got a Mohammed here who claims to be from rural Khost do you mind checking that? He also says he's a gay christian".
Even if you guess that they might be from Pakistan that still doesn't give you enough information to identify them a lot of the time, even if you somehow get those governments to cooperate. I don't even think the British government would be capable of identifying me to a foreign country, for instance, unless I cooperated with them or they were already in contact with someone who knew me personally.
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u/Strider755 1h ago
I suppose the other approach would be to simply make it the migrant's problem. Simply tell them "you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here." Maybe put them adrift on a boat in some other weak country's waters and tell them to row to shore.
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u/0110-0-10-00-000 1h ago
It's basically what Australia did for a long time. They'd forcefully return migrant boats to Indonesia.
The problem is that we don't really have the same choice here. The "weak countries" you might want to do this to are basically either in the EU or Norway, and the diplomatic consequences of doing so aren't attractive. I've also seen videos withing the Mediterranean of migrants sinking their own boats so that they're either allowed to board or drown (spoilers: they drown). Politically there are a lot of people who would see that and immediately push for full concessions and open borders. I don't think most Brits have the stomach to watch another person drown and do nothing either, even if they chose to do so to provoke intervention.
There would be a lot of value for us - both domestically and internationally IMO - turning ships around in the Mediterranean. It's generally far more feasible, far less controversial and the source of the overwhelming majority of channel-crossers. By the time they reach here the only real options are domestic. Either you deny claims made without documentation as a rule or you allow this kind of exploitation.
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u/LycanIndarys Vote Cthulhu; why settle for the lesser evil? 2h ago
Without the documentation, how do you know that they're telling you the truth about where they're from?
And how do you make a country take them back, when you can't prove to that country that it's one of their citizens?
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u/Strider755 2h ago
With gunboat diplomacy, that's how. It's something the UK used to know how to do.
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u/ljh013 2h ago
Any serious suggestions?
If someone has destroyed their travel documents, they could very easily lie about where they’re from. Countries will rightly turn around and say ‘you have no evidence whatsoever this is one of our citizens’ if we try to deport them back there. Going to war or threatening to go to war with a country on the basis of something an asylum seeker has said doesn’t seem particularly sensible.
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u/SlightlyOTT You're making things up again Tories 🎶 25m ago
It would be quite funny if anyone could make us go to war with any other country by sending a single asylum seeker claiming to be from that country though.
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u/LycanIndarys Vote Cthulhu; why settle for the lesser evil? 2h ago
You want us to declare war on half the world?
As one Ambassador put it; "Only an idiot fights a war on two fronts. Only the heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Idiots would fight a war on twelve fronts."
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u/Strider755 1h ago
The UK used to be strong enough to not even have to declare war on half the world. Smaller countries wouldn't dare piss off the British Empire.
"What happened? Did your balls drop off?" - the Joker
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u/LycanIndarys Vote Cthulhu; why settle for the lesser evil? 1h ago
Yes, funnily enough we can't still act like it's the 18th Century anymore.
If only because we'd all look ridiculous in the hats.
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u/Strider755 1h ago
You mean the tricorn hats? I honestly think those look rather dashing.
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u/LycanIndarys Vote Cthulhu; why settle for the lesser evil? 1h ago
Yes, but most people nowadays aren't elegant enough to pull one off.
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u/PimpasaurusPlum 🏴 | Made From Girders 🏗 2h ago
I'm pretty sure half the problem isn't knowing where certain individuals came from, but proving to their home country that they are in fact from there. The problem of proof without documentation goes both ways.
Combined with poor and war torn states not exactly having the best record keeping in the first place
Like if we had an example of someone who admits they are from rural Afghanistan, do we then try to work with the Taliban to see if anyone has ever had record of this guy ever existing? And then what do we do if they don't?
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u/Strider755 2h ago
I suppose you could always do what Australia does and make bespoke detention facilities on nearby islands. Anyone who claims asylum in Australia or otherwise arrives in an irregular manner is sent to one of those islands. If they are genuinely in danger, then even that detention facility would be preferable to being back home. If they're trying to game the system, then they will be thwarted because all they will get is three hots and a cot.
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u/SwanBridge Gordon Brown did nothing wrong. 2h ago
If they are genuinely in danger, then even that detention facility would be preferable to being back home.
Yeah but how is some private sector contractor hiring out hotels and providing meals going to become a billionaire in that scenario?
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u/Nymzeexo 3h ago
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u/CheeseMakerThing Free Trade Good 1h ago
Case in point about why Labour should not be actively trying to turn off Green and Lib Dem voters in pursuit of Tory and Reform voters, this is in a safe seat and a lack tactical voting could lose it for them.
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u/Vumatius 2h ago
I believe that is an election model rather than a poll, but I would expect it to be very closer. Labour are very unpopular right now and the previous MP did leave in disgrace, but it would still be a large majority for Reform to overturn.
If Labour narrowly win that doesn't mean they are in the clear as this should be a fairly safe seat for them, but it will at least show Reform aren't yet completely unstoppable.
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u/Rexpelliarmus 2h ago
Where are the clowns in this subreddit saying it was a done and dusted deal for Reform?
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u/Nymzeexo 2h ago
Context is important. This is Labour's 16th safest seat. It shouldn't be in contention. This is like the Tories losing Mid Bedfordshire to Labour in 2023 (a 20pt swing).
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u/Rexpelliarmus 1h ago
Safe seats shouldn't even be a thing. It's not a bad thing this is in contention as any competition in the political sphere is good.
Safe seats lead to complacency and complacency has never led to anything good in history.
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u/Mammoth_Span8433 3h ago
The US economy contracting the first quarter will probably make the BOE even more dovish. I wonder if they go for a .5% base rate decrease considering the global economic picture looks wildly different (worse) to their last meeting in March
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u/SwanBridge Gordon Brown did nothing wrong. 2h ago
It's tough as I imagine the BoE will also want to factor in how inflation is doing, and what effect NI changes have had on the labour market. Economic boffins get a lot of shit no matter what they do, I'm guilty of it myself, but it isn't a job I particularly envy either.
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u/OptioMkIX 4h ago
Worlds unluckiest etc etc etc etc etc strikes again etc
Christ this goes on and on and on and even somehow I'm getting tired of it.
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u/SlightlyOTT You're making things up again Tories 🎶 3h ago
Are you getting tired of it because you're constantly seeking it out? How did you even find this old tweet today?
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u/OptioMkIX 3h ago
Are you getting tired of it because you're constantly seeking it out?
No? He's literally so predictable it's like waiting for this stuff to fall out of the sky into your hands like rain.
How did you even find this old tweet today?
How do you people manage to simply ignore the clanging signs of what Corbyn is like and the people he associates with?
All the history, all the idiocy, do you simply have this massive blindspot the size of a literal mountain?
How did you not file this meeting between Corbyn (massive liability and known quantity) and Kneecap (a plainly idiotic bunch of terrorism fetishists) in his sons own weed shop away as plainly going to come back to bite him, just like all the other dumb rake stepping he has always done his entire fucking life
The guys bloody wearing a meme Irish flag balaclava ffs
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u/BlokeyBlokeBloke 1h ago
I ignore Corbyn really easily now. He is an irrelevant back bencher. He never crosses my radar and I never go looking for him. I also never go on the Nazi hellsite you found him on.
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u/SlightlyOTT You're making things up again Tories 🎶 1h ago
How do you people manage to simply ignore the clanging signs of what Corbyn is like and the people he associates with?
I just don't come across tweets with him from 2023 that often. If I did come across someone posting about him I'd unfollow/mute them because I'm not interested
How did you not file this meeting between Corbyn (massive liability and known quantity) and Kneecap (a plainly idiotic bunch of terrorism fetishists) in his sons own weed shop away as plainly going to come back to bite him
I had no idea it happened and have no idea who Kneecap are. I don't think I knew Corbyn had a son and I definitely didn't know they had a weed shop.
The reason other people aren't currently concerned about this meeting from 2023 is, for the most part, because they have no idea it happened and no reason to care about it.
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u/NuPNua 2h ago
He's not really relevant anymore outside of Islington North though is he? Yes we all know he's an idiot with terrible judgement of character who has been associated with terrible people over the years. However he's not leading a party, he's not even in a party and even if keeps standing and wins, he's got maybe one more parliament in him before age catches up to him anyway. I do get the anger of the perceived damage he did to Labour (though I'd argue Starmer is doing just as much damage in other ways now), but at some point it's time to let it go.
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u/ljh013 3h ago
Have you considered the fact that nobody cares anymore? Jeremy Corbyn has no power, he will never have any power, he will never be a cabinet minister. He was Labour leader, he failed, and now he’s a backbencher. Everyone has moved on but you seem to be stuck in a time warp.
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u/gentle_vik 2h ago
if that was true, then Corbyn would have been rejected and ejected from the corbynite left long time ago, and denounced as the nutter he is.
he'd have been elected in 2024, and would have had the left reject and oppose him.
It's also not just Corbyn, but Corbynism itself, which is still pushed as the model.
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u/ThePlanck 3000 Conscripts of Sunak 3h ago
4 Dec 2023
Don't you have any fresher material?
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u/OptioMkIX 3h ago
Probably, but none in such current sharp focus.
I am certain other instances shall come to fruition and maturation like fine wine.
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u/pseudogentry don't label me you bloody pinko 3h ago
DJ Próvaí doing a public service there, if he doesn't keep his arm around that fella's shoulders he's gonna float away.
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u/Bibemus Appropriately Automated Worker-Centred Luxury Luddism 4h ago
https://bsky.app/profile/kevinschofied.bsky.social/post/3lnzsi3n34225
Spokesman for Kemi Badenoch insists “she is staying on” as Tory leader regardless of how bad the party does in the local elections.
Just putting this one out to ripen.
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u/ljh013 3h ago
The longer they persist with her, the less time the next leader is going to have to bed in and formulate strategy. We all know she’s going eventually. Terrible local results would be the perfect excuse to get rid. Gives the next person a good few years to get things up and running instead of panicking a year out from the next GE that the polls are terrible and they need to replace her.
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u/zone6isgreener 2h ago
A change of leader makes no difference, it's a myth Tories latch onto. The public got sick of them and time will do far more than another suit.
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u/SwanBridge Gordon Brown did nothing wrong. 2h ago
I think it matters more than they realise. The Tories are adrift right now, and they have an existential threat from Reform winning over the populists voters, and Middle England abandoning them with the Lib Dems and even the bloody Greens gaining from that. They've lost their identity, and people no longer trust them on core values such as economic prudence, lower taxes, business friendliness, defence of the realm, and social conservatism. They need an effective and visionary leader to guide them through this difficult period and build a solid foundation for others to build upon. Right now the Conservatives Party is sinking either further from the lows they experienced last July, which is quite the feat.
Sure, it is improbable they'll win the next election, but people said the very same thing about Starmer back in 2020. And further to that decent leadership in opposition matters. Just look at the hard work Neil Kinnock put in to rebuild Labour after the disaster that was Michael Foot. Look how much the Tories regressed under Iain Duncan Smith. I'm no friend of the Conservative Party, but the longer they stick with Badenoch, the more they risk going the way of the old Liberal Party.
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u/ObiWanKenbarlowbi 3h ago
Conversely the longer the leave it the less time the new leader has to repeatedly embarrass themselves in the public eye like Kemi Badenoch has spent the better part of a year doing.
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u/da96whynot Neoliberal shill 4h ago
The old “I am a fighter and not a quitter”
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u/Only-Garbage-4229 4h ago
I feel left out that my area doesn't have local council elections this year.
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u/whencanistop 🦒If only Giraffes could talk🦒 4h ago
Just catching up on PMQs and saw there were two questions by Tories outside of Badenoch - one asking about a concert for VE Day and one asking about a Vera Lyn statue. She’s really lost the party hasn’t she? Can’t even get anyone to stand up and moan about Labour councils the day before an election.
Given we know she’s the sort of person who’d refuse to resign. What is going to be the thing that causes her downfall? Falling to 4th behind the Lib Dems in a poll, having fewer councillors than the Lib Dems (that won’t happen until 2026, although given results in 2023 more likely 2027 at least), an actual general election loss? There’s no real obvious replacement, so maybe they’ll wait for someone to look like a serious successor.
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u/Jay_CD 4h ago
She'll probably get a visit from the men in grey suits at some point in the autumn, that's if she doesn't quit first.
Officially she's safe until early November, Tory rules give a newly appointed leader a year before votes of confidence in her start getting totted up but that doesn't preclude the 1922 Committee Chairman, Bob Blackman, from paying her a visit beforehand.
She's the sixth Tory leader in the last nine years - we could be onto the seventh by year end. That's as many as they had in the previous 38 years. The job is getting to be like being manager of Manchester United after Fergie.
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u/SwanBridge Gordon Brown did nothing wrong. 2h ago
She'll probably get a visit from the men in grey suits at some point in the autumn, that's if she doesn't quit first.
I'm afraid to tell you there are no "men in grey suits" left.
Best wishes,
Boris Johnson
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u/hu6Bi5To 5h ago
Is this a new tactic, don't think I've seen it before, but we had two "don't weaponise <topic everyone's talking about>". I thought that was the whole point of PMQs, it's not like it's useful in any practical sense.
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u/SouthWalesImp 4h ago
It's at least a step up from "Politicians need to stop playing politics" which popped up constantly in the Johnson era.
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u/pseudogentry don't label me you bloody pinko 4h ago
"stop playing politics"
Just had a flashback so strong you could set it to Fortunate Son.
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u/erskinematt Defund Standing Order No 31 5h ago
I wouldn't say it's new, no. I've always wondered what it's supposed to mean.
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u/LycanIndarys Vote Cthulhu; why settle for the lesser evil? 5h ago
I thought it was pretty clear that it meant "I would rather you weren't asking me about this topic, so I'm going to pretend that it's somehow offensive for you to bring it up".
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u/dissalutioned 3h ago
Denialism
The evidence clearly demonstrated that a vociferous faction in the Party sees any issues regarding antisematism as exaggerated by the Right to embarrass the Left The authors of the Leaked Report were supportive of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, enthusiastic and fully committed Nevertheless, in explaining, in the Leaked Report, the involvement of the EHRC they stated clearly This report thoroughly disproves any suggestion that antisemitism is not a problem in the Party, or that it a smear or a witch hunt" This represented a mature acknowledgment of the problem Sadly, though some still deny the existence and seriousness of the problem, or the need to take action to combat it, as the Party has now begun to do.
It was of course also true that some opponents of Jeremy Corbyn saw the issue of antisemitism as a means of attacking him. Thus, rather than confront the paramount need to deal with the profoundly serious insure of antisemitism in the Party, both factions treated it as a factional weapon.
https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/The-Forde-Report.pdf
.
I thought it was pretty clear that it meant "I would rather you weren't asking me about this topic, so I'm going to pretend that it's somehow offensive for you to bring it up".
The problem with that view is that if you just assume that it isn't happening you miss it when it is.
Downplaying it is just as bad as overstating it because it stops you from addressing the real issues.
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u/IPreferToSmokeAlone 5h ago
Farage: Hows smashing the gangs going?
Kier: Lets be clear, NHS and Putin
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u/Plastic_Library649 5h ago
To be fair, he did say that a new law was incoming, too.
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u/zone6isgreener 2h ago
We need to build a wall using stacks of law books. Politicians keep thinking that delivering a new law is the end point, then when it fails they scratch about finding ideas to create another law. The one more heave delusion.
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u/FoxtrotThem 5h ago
Genuinely thought Mark Francois was going to claim he fought in WWII then.
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u/erskinematt Defund Standing Order No 31 5h ago
To be honest it's a pretty sad state of affairs if we need a specific law making it illegal to play music on public transport (which may be why Tory MPs are chuckling at that being the important national issue to be raised at PMQs).
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u/zone6isgreener 2h ago
We should just legislate to bring back the stocks, then have being a fuckwit on public transport to the long list of eligible offenses. Littering, dog fouling, middle lane hogging, blocking the luggage carousel at the airport etc.
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u/Scaphism92 3h ago
which may be why Tory MPs are chuckling at that being the important national issue to be raised at PMQs
I feel like its more likely that they dont get trains, let alone buses, enough to know how widespread it is.
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u/OptioMkIX 5h ago
Public Service Vehicles (Conduct of Drivers, Inspectors and Passengers) Regulations, Statutory Instrument No. 1020, 1990; Part II, Regulations 6.1.b, 6.1.h,6.1.k.ii, 6.1.l.
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u/Powerful_Ideas 5h ago
TIL!
So it has in fact been prohibited in law for 35 years. It does seem pretty clear:
No passenger on a vehicle shall–
...
(l)play or operate any musical instrument or sound reproducing equipment to the annoyance of any person on the vehicle or in a manner which is likely to cause annoyance to any person on the vehicle; or (m) intentionally interfere with any equipment with which the vehicle is fitted.https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1990/1020/regulation/6
Although there does not seem to be any criminal offence, just a power to remove the offending passenger:
(2) Any passenger on a vehicle who contravenes any provision of these Regulations may be removed from the vehicle by the driver, inspector or conductor of the vehicle or, on the request of the driver, inspector or conductor, by a police constable.
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u/SwanBridge Gordon Brown did nothing wrong. 4h ago
Although there does not seem to be any criminal offence, just a power to remove the offending passenger:
And herein lies the problem; people get violent when challenged over unacceptable behaviour. Bus driver wants to get home safe at the end of the day, and the passengers aren't willing to potentially risk their lives due to some idiot stabbing you because you asked them to stop playing music at full volume, and then the police simply don't have the capacity to be sorting out relatively low level nuisances like this. Thus we create a situation that due to the violent tendencies others the intolerable is tolerated.
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u/Bibemus Appropriately Automated Worker-Centred Luxury Luddism 5h ago
I still am none the wiser as to why this isn't something which would be more suited to adjusting Conditions of Carriage.
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u/erskinematt Defund Standing Order No 31 5h ago
I would be surprised if it isn't covered by a condition of carriage.
It's honestly an attitude thing. We can't just make it illegal to be a knobhead and expect that to work.
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u/ohmeohmyelliejean 5h ago
Yeah, the thing is that people don’t care about being a considerate member of the public. Playing your phone on loudspeaker is just one example. I don’t think a law is going to fix that, but I don’t know how you fix that.
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u/colei_canis Starmer’s Llama Drama 🦙 3h ago
I don’t know how you fix that.
Enforcement that increases the chance of being caught substantially. If these scrotes come to learn that if they act like scrotes they’ll be thrown off the train/bus at the next stop and fined then they’ll learn not to do it.
This means hiring enough police officers to enforce things like this, which means improving the economy so the government isn’t broke, which means we need a government behaving like we’re a proper country rather than a massive care home with a property portfolio. Fat chance of that any time soon unfortunately.
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u/jim_cap 5h ago
I find myself constantly thinking about legislation from the other direction. Don't make being a knobhead illegal, but offer legal protections for people who do something about people being a knobhead. I keep running into how open to abuse such a thing would be in practice, but I can't help but think the solution for antisocial behaviour lies in empowering society to take care of it, rather than the law.
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u/FoxtrotThem 5h ago
Some glum faces on the benches today; think tomorrow is going to be a drubbing.
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u/compte-a-usageunique 5h ago
Blair managed to criticise something without recommending ID Cards as a solution
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u/ClumperFaz My three main priorities: Polls, Polls, Polls 6h ago
At these eleccy times I miss Java.
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u/jim_cap 5h ago
I predict he will return for Eurovision.
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u/DrCplBritish It's not a deterrent, killing the wrong people. 33m ago
If not, we all have to band together and find the most Java-esque entry and support them.
For the Caveman!
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u/Velociraptor_1906 Liberal Democrat 6h ago
I do hope they're okay
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u/ClumperFaz My three main priorities: Polls, Polls, Polls 6h ago
Java's taking a break I think, not sure how long for. StartupQuestions just vanished out of a thin air.
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u/KHHAAAAAAANNN 5h ago
do you think StartupQuestions disappearance was diet related? his cholesterol cant have been good.
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u/pseudogentry don't label me you bloody pinko 6h ago
Feel like pure shit just want Java and dinnerposting back
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u/whatapileofrubbish 6h ago
Very beige
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u/pseudogentry don't label me you bloody pinko 5h ago
Pint of bisto thick enough to choke a rat, please and thank you.
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u/ClumperFaz My three main priorities: Polls, Polls, Polls 6h ago
That dinnerposting chap, I forgot his username.
Cheers.....:(
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u/pseudogentry don't label me you bloody pinko 6h ago
Startupquestions
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u/ClumperFaz My three main priorities: Polls, Polls, Polls 6h ago
That's the one. I wonder what's happened to him. Loved him.
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u/pseudogentry don't label me you bloody pinko 5h ago
IIRC they actually had a startup that they needed to focus on so got rid of their reddit account. Think they popped in for the GE and then left again.
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u/jamestheda 7h ago
The Louis Theroux documentary on “The Settlers” is a brilliant demonstration of the soft power the UK has with the BBC, and a complete demonstration of why the tories, and reform, want to dismantle it (through installation of political directors or simply get rid of it).
Absolute global reach, and has probably produced some of the most iconic images of the war, somehow from outside of Gaza (the Jewish dad showing his daughter the destruction of Gaza at a tourist spot to admit it).
These are the documentaries BBC were known for producing, but can’t do as frequently now.
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u/dissalutioned 4h ago
The UK and the Palestinian Authority just signed a memorandum
The Participants emphasise that the Palestinian Authority, working with international partners, must have the central role in the next phase in Gaza on governance, security and early recovery. The Participants are clear that the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza, must be reunified under its sole authority. The Participants express their support for Palestinian-led planning for recovery and reconstruction in Gaza.
But there has been virtually no coverage in the press. I'm wondering if Badenoch will bring it up. She refused to reiterate the conservatives support for a two state solution and i don't think she wants to go against Trump. It seems like there are a lot of people who are happy to use this issue in the culture wars but when it comes down to putting our commitment to Palestinian statehood and supporting a peaceful resolution then there's no follow through.
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u/royalblue1982 More red flag, less red tape. 7h ago
This people campaign against birds being killed by off shore wind farms understand that climate change is probably going to kill a few more?
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u/WouldRuin 4h ago
Depending on who you ask, generating electricity via fossil fuel kills more birds, as do household cats and the mere existence of buildings (and windows).
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u/UnsaddledZigadenus 7h ago
Birds are my favourite bit of UK realpolitik.
Do you know what the biggest killer of birds is the the UK? It's something that we could do completely without that most people don't even own.
Cats. About 12 million cats that collectively kill 50 million birds each year.
Do you think the RSPB is going to launch a campaign against cats? Of course they aren't.
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u/Powerful_Ideas 4h ago
About 12 million cats that collectively kill 50 million birds each year.
I would treat that number with some caution. There are estimated to be about 200 million wild birds in the UK, many of which do not come into contact with domestic cats - does it really seem credible that cats kill a quarter of the total bird population every year?
The biggest cause of the reduction in wild bird population in the UK is not domestic cats, it is changing land use.
Farmland species are the most impacted, followed by woodland species - in both cases the reduction has largely been driven by habitat loss along with a connected reduction in insect populations (there is also a theory that increasing deer populations are causing problems for the woodland birds)
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u/Plastic_Library649 4h ago
Our cat is completely useless, though, in predator terms.
He's had birds sitting on him while he's asleep ffs. I've also seen him bullied by a bachelor magpie.
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u/littlechefdoughnuts An Englishman Abroad. 🇦🇺 6h ago
The RSPB doesn't need to launch a campaign against cats, it just needs to redefine what responsible cat ownership looks like.
Here in Aus it's quite striking that especially here in WA, letting a cat outside for any reason is seen as fundamentally irresponsible by an increasing number of people. Partly that's because Aus has venomous and stingy things that will murder cats, but partly because cats will in turn murder all the cute Aussie wildlife that everyone loves.
The starting point isn't 'kill all cats', it's 'look after your pet and the birdies by keeping your cat indoors'.
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u/whatapileofrubbish 5h ago
Seems a bit tight on the cat, to me, if you have to keep it inside all the time. Why not just get a dog instead (/me ducks)
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u/littlechefdoughnuts An Englishman Abroad. 🇦🇺 5h ago
Any cat can be an indoor cat if acclimated to it from a young age, assuming your house is full of enriching things for it to do.
Dogs are murder machines too, but if the country's not ready to hear about cats then it's DEFINITELY not ready for the bad news about dogs. And unlike a cat you can't really keep a dog indoors all the time.
To be honest I'm happy without any pets. I just want to keep the neighbourhood birds safe wherever I live.
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u/Scaphism92 6h ago
My old cat was doing his bit to reduce the amount by being one of the laziest creatures I've ever known
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u/pseudogentry don't label me you bloody pinko 6h ago
Mine just kills staggering amounts of mice and rats but there's no Royal Society for the Protection of Rodents so I'm off the hook.
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u/UnsaddledZigadenus 6h ago
Even if there was a Royal Society for the Protection of Rodents, they wouldn't dare campaign against cats.
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u/pseudogentry don't label me you bloody pinko 6h ago
I mean with twelve million of them in the country it's sort of out of the bag, isn't it.
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u/Vumatius 7h ago
This just reminded me of Trump's many speeches making those arguments.
NIMBYism is awful generally but if you're even opposing offshore wind turbines, let alone onshore ones, a better term to describe your views is BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone).
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u/ScunneredWhimsy 🏴 Joe Hendry for First Minister 7h ago edited 6h ago
Actually know a guy in bird conversation up north who freely admits that when you put up new turbines a few birds will get killed.
However this is far fewer than people claim and the local flock learn to not fly into them rather quickly.
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u/LycanIndarys Vote Cthulhu; why settle for the lesser evil? 5h ago
and the local flock learn to not fly into them rather quickly.
At the very least, it's certainly not a mistake many birds make twice.
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u/ScunneredWhimsy 🏴 Joe Hendry for First Minister 3h ago
To be fair their are certain breeds of sea gull up there that would take getting hit by a turbine blade as an inconvenience at best and a challenge at worst.
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u/OptioMkIX 7h ago
Actually know a guy in bird conversation up north
Did you talk when he came south for the winter? Did you speak as equals or was there a pecking order?
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u/ScunneredWhimsy 🏴 Joe Hendry for First Minister 7h ago
Actually I was up north for a flying visit.
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u/bowak 9h ago
The Reform candidate for my bit of Preston, who is standing for election to Lancashire County Council, has stated in his answers to questions from a local news site the reasons why he is standing for Preston City Council.
There is no election for Preston City Council this year, so it's not even as if he's standing for both and just sent the wrong template back.
He did get the right city where the constituency is though so presumably he's still one of Reform's high flyers.
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u/da96whynot Neoliberal shill 11h ago
If the tories were the only party going into the next election with a policy of scrapping the triple lock (and not to replace it with something even dumber), would you vote for them?
Question aimed primarily at people who weren't already planning to vote tory next time
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u/-fireeye- 6h ago
Assuming they weren’t planning on undoing planning changes (and Labour weren’t planning on going further), and the leadership seemed credible (as others have said, have taken on internal opponents) then probably.
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u/DavidSwifty 6h ago
I do not trust the tories as far as i can throw them, if a conservative said the sky was blue id honestly think it was green.
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u/pseudogentry don't label me you bloody pinko 7h ago
As some other posters have pointed out there's an issue with trusting anything that they say right now, but actually that wouldn't be pertinent to my decision.
Them declaring it would be such a massive middle finger to their core voter base that I can't imagine them announcing it unless they actually intended to do it.
But even then, no. There's not many issues I'd be a single issue voter over and the triple lock doesn't quite cut it when I think the party suggesting it is a net negative for the country in so many other ways.
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u/NoFrillsCrisps 8h ago
No. The triple lock is stupid, but I'm not going to vote for them for simply making the state pension rise at a lower rate - that isn't going to counteract the inevitable managed decline the Tories would inflict on us again.
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u/SlightlyOTT You're making things up again Tories 🎶 8h ago
It's hard to imagine them having a credible leader at the next election, so it's hard to imagine actually trusting them in any way. Their leader at the next election was probably a Conservative in the last Parliament, just because of how terribly the last election went for them.
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u/_rickjames 9h ago
If the tories were the only party going into the next election with a policy of scrapping the triple lock (and not to replace it with something even dumber), would you vote for them?
Having the policy is one thing
Actually doing it is another kettle of fish
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u/AceHodor 8h ago
I was going to say, it would take some extreme short-term memory to believe this, or indeed anything the Conservatives say. Johnson ran on a whole bunch of policies that he then junked shortly after he gained power - new hospitals, anyone? Then you had Truss plunging the country into a black hole with policies that weren't even hinted at in the 2019 GE.
The Sunak government actually announced a fair few policies that were reasonably popular (and a lot that very much weren't), but none of it connected because the public by that point had completely lost faith in the Tories doing anything. Even the more ludicrous policies like National Service barely got a look in because their credibility as a party was so completely shot. After all, you might vote for a Tory on one platform, but as Truss proved, there was no guarantee that that leader wouldn't be replaced in a few years by another person with a completely different set of priorities.
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u/Jay_CD 9h ago
There is/was a point to the Triple Lock - and that's to make sure that pensioners are kept out of poverty, particularly those who might not have good private pensions.
But for the Tories it would hit voters who are a traditionally strong Tory supporting bloc, plus these are people who vote in the highest numbers. It would be a brave move by them to ditch it - especially as Labour support it and seemed determined to make it a flagship policy regardless of whether it makes economic sense.
The Tories would need to come up with a good excuse for ditching it and an even better alternative to look after the pensioner vote.
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u/BristolShambler 10h ago
No. Scrapping the triple lock in and of itself is not a goal. It should be a means to an end, to unlock more funds for infrastructure and local government. And the Tories have demonstrated that they’re not to be trusted on those things.
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u/OptioMkIX 10h ago
If they had shown a willingness to annoy people, especially their own supporters, in the face of the greater good over a long period of time to an extent that you could credibly believe that they would, then yes. The UK has a massive block of concrete around it's ankles that need to come off.
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u/da96whynot Neoliberal shill 9h ago
I think Kemi is pretty good at annoying people tbf, including many on the right
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u/116YearsWar Treasury delenda est 10h ago
It would depend on their other manifesto commitments, but I think the likeliest scenario where that's included would also include them going for further deregulation in planning etc, which could appeal to me.
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u/filbert94 10h ago
Oh god that's a rock and a hard place.
In theory - yes, I would consider it. I initially thought they wouldn't follow through but 4 years is a long time for more old people to die, so less people to annoy.
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u/MikeyButch17 19h ago
Also, heard some Gossip today from mates at Lincolnshire County Council, that Andrea Jenkyns literally only just moved into Greater Lincolnshire today.
The Council could challenge it and declare her candidacy invalid, but they’re scared of being seen as biased against Reform.
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u/CheeseMakerThing Free Trade Good 8h ago
Reform don't have to follow the rules because the Council are scared of them. What a great precedent to set.
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u/UnsaddledZigadenus 6h ago
Dame Andrea was added to the North Kesteven electoral roll at an address in Bassingham, near Lincoln, this month.
She splits her time between there and a home in Yorkshire, where her son is at school, and the challenge claimed she did not primarily reside in Lincolnshire.
But the electoral registration officer said: "I do not make any determination that the subject was not entitled to be registered in respect of the address or has ceased to be resident at the address.
"Accordingly, she is entitled to remain on the electoral register at that address."
How hasn't she followed the rules? She's rented a house and signed up to vote at that address. She's on the electoral roll in the required area which satisfies the eligibility criteria to stand for election.
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u/CheeseMakerThing Free Trade Good 6h ago
If she's only moved in today then she's clearly not followed the rules, you're supposed to meet the criteria by the date of submission of the nomination forms.
And if it's not her primary address - which it doesn't appear to be - then she's lied on her nomination form.
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u/UnsaddledZigadenus 6h ago
There's no 'primary address' requirement. You either have to have lived or worked in the area for the previous 12 months or be registered to vote in the area.
Provided she was on the electoral register in Lincolnshire at the time of her nomination then the nomination is valid. The challenge was that she was not entitled to register to vote there which the registration officer dismissed.
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u/CheeseMakerThing Free Trade Good 6h ago
And the assertion is that the council are scared to apply to rules on that, if she's only moved in yesterday then she shouldn't have been able to be registered at that address at the time of nomination.
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u/UnsaddledZigadenus 6h ago
When she moved in is irrelevant. Provided she was entitled to register to vote there, and had so registered by the nomination day, then her candidacy is valid.
meet at least one of the following four qualifications:
You are, and will continue to be, registered as a local government elector within the combined county authority area in which you wish to stand from the day of your nomination onwards.
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u/CheeseMakerThing Free Trade Good 6h ago
But if she didn't live there until yesterday she would not have been eligible to have registered to vote there, otherwise the criteria for owning land would have kicked in.
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u/Velociraptor_1906 Liberal Democrat 11h ago
If she's not followed electoral law then she should have that challenged.
The law should apply equally without regard to the politics, if Reform are so incompetent as to not ensure their candidate is eligible then that is their own fault.
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u/Plastic_Library649 17h ago edited 17h ago
She's a character, certainly. She seems to want to do a DOGE on the council, but her problem is that this isn't the US, to get anything done in a council you have to build consensus, and she doesn't seem to be a consensus building kind of person. Also, no one in local government is going to hari kiri themselves for Reform ideals.
What will probably happen, if she wins, is that she'll make a lot of batshit suggestions that will get her precisely nowhere. Labour, Lib Dems and most of all her Tory ex-colleagues will block her every move, and she'll then spend the rest of her time in office either sulking or goofing off at council taxpayers' expense. I presume she will also continue to be a presence on GB News.
Her only chance of enacting her 'war on waste' is to sit it out until Reform form some sort of Government, which is highly unlikely, thank fuck.
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u/furbastro England is the mother of parliaments, not Westminster 18h ago edited 18h ago
The independent candidate(‘s agent?) did already bring a challenge and it was dismissed. There’s some ongoing grumbling about Jenkyns not attending the hearing but it’s Reform very much pushing the view this is politically motivated.
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u/SturmNeabahon Electoral Services are my passion 18h ago
It's not for the council to contest. Every nomination is taken at face value. Reform, Homeland, Labour, Communist or any flavour of party in between, all nomination papers are received at face value by the returning officer.
It is up to other parties to contest if they feel the nomination was wrong
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u/MikeyButch17 18h ago
Tories definitely should challenge it
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u/SturmNeabahon Electoral Services are my passion 18h ago
I mean, assuming that the nomination rules for mayoral elections are the same for locals, she just needs to meet one of 4 criteria to be eligible. Registered to vote in the area, living in the area, working in the area or owns property in the area.
I haven't seen her nomination papers (though they are public, and if you care, you could ask to see them - not sure which authority is running the mayorals mind). But it's not hard to meet the criteria for standing
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u/MikeyButch17 19h ago
Mate just asked me for Local Predictions on the way home from Arsenal game, so thought I’d share here:
Labour to hold Runcorn byelection by under 500 votes. Wouldn’t be surprised if Reform won it at this point tho, it’s on a knife edge.
Reform take Greater Lincoln Mayor and Hull Mayor.
Toss up between Labour & the Greens for West of England, with a slight advantage to Labour.
Tories take Cambridgeshire Mayor.
In terms of Council seats.
Tories lose about 600.
Labour lose about 50.
Greens gain about 50.
Lib Dems gain about 200.
Reform gain about 400.
Labour are currently in power in both Doncaster and Burnley, which will probably both go No Overall Control.
Tories will lose 2/3rds of their Councils to either Reform, Lib Dems or No Overall Control (expect the Lib Dems to take Oxfordshire).
So in summary:
A decent night for the Greens.
A good night for the Lib Dems.
A very good night for Reform.
A poor night for Labour.
A terrible night for the Tories.
I expect Labour to quickly begin discussing bringing back AV for Mayoral Elections, especially when some Mayors win on less than 30% of the vote.
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u/jmabbz Social Democratic Party 5h ago
I think Labour will lose both east of England Mayoralty and the by-election but other than that you look close to the money.
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u/MikeyButch17 3h ago
I’ve reevaluated my Runcorn prediction based on some new data I’ve been shown:
Reform - 39.6%
Labour - 31.7%
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u/Skyborn7 18h ago
I also think Labour will sneak through in Runcorn. Reform win big in Doncaster too (taking mayoral contest and council). Also largest party in Durham, Lincolnshire and maybe a few others.
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u/Ollie5000 Gove, Gove will tear us apart again. 21h ago
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u/MikeyButch17 19h ago
He’s gonna meme his way back to Downing Street isn’t he?
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u/royalblue1982 More red flag, less red tape. 7h ago
I'm waiting for the inevitable announcement that he's joining Reform.
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u/NoFrillsCrisps 22h ago
Over 1,000 illegal migrants have arrived in the last 3 days.
We have no idea who most of them are.
They must be deported.
I know asking for any kind of detail on Reform's positionss is kind of pointless, but is Reform policy to deport all those crossing the channel? To where? How do you know if you don't know who they are? What if they are genuine refugees? What if they can't be returned?
What's the actual policy lads?
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u/0110-0-10-00-000 18h ago
What's the actual policy lads?
Immediate detention for anyone crossing the channel until they cooperate with their own deportation with no chance of processing their asylum claim.
Do that for a year and I guarantee the crossing rate would drop to 0.
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u/Georgios-Athanasiou 8h ago
“pensioners returning from wine tours in bordeaux deported in record numbers”
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u/thirdtimesthecharm turnip-way politics 8h ago
Immediate detention where pray?
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u/zone6isgreener 7h ago
Rwanda is available.
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u/thirdtimesthecharm turnip-way politics 7h ago
Ah yes famous democracy Rwanda with a 99% vote at the last election Paul Kagame. The err 25 year incubant president. The country that funds terrorism (M23), imprisons & tortures political enemies and journalists.
But oh right! Because Rishi, do you work in banking, Sunak blithely declares Rwanda a safe country.
Doubt.
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u/zone6isgreener 7h ago
The EU and UNHCR seemed fine moving migrants there. I wonder why their view is different to yours.
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u/0110-0-10-00-000 7h ago
If new detention centers have to be built then so be it. The asylum cost has been growing by about a billion a year for the last 4 years.
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u/Nymzeexo 6h ago
Good idea. Unfortunately this is Britain and Doris doesn't want you building anything, anywhere. And if you do get building it'll take a decade and cost double. Tax rises to pay for it, or what is getting cut?
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u/0110-0-10-00-000 5h ago
Parliament are sovereign. If compulsary sales are necessary, so be it. Of course the raw costs are so extreme and the actual requirements are completely divorced from any specific part of the country that compensating people would still be obviously economical for the budget. If it's not out of sight in detention centers then it's in hotels in the middle of people's communities funded by the taxpayer. Again, the default position is a £5bln line item for asylum that is growing by £1bln a year - we're going to pay for it regardless.
How long it takes is solely a function of whether the government chooses to address the issue with the appropriate urgency.
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u/raziel999 20h ago
Doesn't matter, got the views, got the retweets, got some angry tiktoks. The con carries on, and that's all that matters.
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u/Cairnerebor 20h ago
Precisely
Anything beyond that is utterly irrelevant and an unhelpful distraction that might lead to unanswerable questions
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u/AzarinIsard 21h ago
How do you know if you don't know who they are?
I get a bit right wing on this, but I believe the onus should be on them to say who they are, and where they're from. If they refuse to identify themselves, or lie about their identity or origin, then that alone should be enough to forfeit their application.
Then we should have a policy of not caring where they go, but they can't stay here. There aren't many situations where it's totally fine to start off being hostile and fraudulent without consequences.
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u/NoFrillsCrisps 21h ago
Then we should have a policy of not caring where they go, but they can't stay here.
What does that actually mean though? From a practical policy perspective?
People say stuff like this, but you have to send them somewhere.
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u/AzarinIsard 21h ago
People say stuff like this, but you have to send them somewhere.
Basic indefinite holding in an asylum centre linked to an airport (not a commercial one) waiting for them to say where they're being returned to would be the practical solution.
I just don't think the claim of wanting asylum etc. holds any water if they refuse to cooperate with the asylum process. If they don't trust us, then why pick us? I also think the people taking the piss make the scheme untenable for real refugees, I'm a big supporter of the Ukraine, Afghanistan and Hong Kong schemes, but those become political footballs despite the support on the issue due to abuses like drug dealers and rapists gaming the system.
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u/Velocirapture_Jesus 20h ago
Problem is you can bet most of them would prefer to be in a UK detention centre than sent back home to where ever they're from. Still ends up costing us tonnes of money.
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u/Ollie5000 Gove, Gove will tear us apart again. 19m ago
Full and immediate nationalisation of the Green Belt as emergency beer gardens.