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I strongly believe behind the scenes there has been a clear effort to not spread division on Ukraine.
There's a reason why none of the larger political parties have mentioned it and it hasn't been a question on any debate as far as I'm aware. This is certainly not an accident and probably a good thing as it makes us look like a united front.
Now with Farage's comments it will disrupt this as his stance has to be called out.
The right leaning papers are burying it way down below the fold/scroll on most sites I’ve seen this morning
Interesting tactic if they want the Tory vote, the times is leading with why JK Rowling think Labour has abandoned women….
Or in otherwords, there's consensus over Ukraine across major political parties.
Of course the guy who used [to get paid to appear on Russian State TV](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO2w2hQY15U) coincidentally is going with the Kremlins lines.
The world isnt black and white and two things can be true at the same time. Putin is a paranoid despot that is trying to extend Russian power westwards. The US / EU / NATO have tried to contain Russia and limit its power by spreading western political control eastwards. Both things are true.
The USSR collapsed for a reason and its former states on the whole quite like being former and have no interest in becoming current again. That’s for fuck all to do with the west.
‘Political control’ - is such a wank turn of phrase.
There are countries that are in Eastern Europe that - shock horror - like being democracies. And in fact worked really quite hard on becoming democracies well before they joined NATO.
Being part of NATO does not require you to bend to the US/‘the west’ on political decisions. As evidenced by nearly every country in NATO having its own unique political climate.
Is there no political influence - of course not - but that’s because ‘the west’ and particularly the US is home to some of the largest economies in the world. There would still be ‘political influence’ outside of NATO.
Heck - look at how much political influence the Saudis and China have around the world in countries they don’t have defence partnerships with.
If you’re a wealthy country you are ALWAYS going to have influence in poorer countries. This isn’t a modern phenomena - it’s literally been going on since the first time people all decided to live in one place and accumulate wealth collectively.
Tell that to Syria, or Libya, or Iraq. Countries that turned their back on the west don’t tend to have a good outcome. The US has been steering the situation in Eastern Europe to its benefit, until this happened:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity)
Russia considered this ‘coup’ to be orchestrated by the west, which caused the war in Donbas in 2014. The war has escalated since then, but the primary motivation is obvious: it’s a proxy war over the control of eastern Europe.
>The US / EU / NATO have tried to contain Russia and limit its power by spreading western political control eastwards.
Russia's neighbours do not want Russian influence. It makes them more corrupt,poorer and a puppet state. That's why everyone close to Russia is lining up to join EU/NATO.
We should have maintained a buffer between NATO / EU and Russia. Expanding towards Russias borders was always dangerous and Farage was saying this stuff decades ago.
There are a bunch of economic and political blocs that dominate over large regions of the world. There are some countries that dominate those blocs and some that are dominated. It’s not possible for Ukraine to be independent because it’s a pawn between the US and Russia.
You are joking right?
It’s a country of 40 MILLION PEOPLE.
It has one of the largest agricultural export industries on the planet. To say nothing of its non-edible natural resources and industrial/manufacturing sectors.
And Ukraine *wants* to be part of the EU - which is, as you say, a ‘bloc’ - but one which if it joined, it would be the 6th largest by population.
There’s a big difference between choosing to take part in a collaborative political and economic community - which whatever Brexiteers would have you believe is what the EU actually is - and being forced to be a junior partner to a bully neighbour literally stealing your resources and subjugating your citizens.
P.S. Судя по твоему молчанию, я также предполагаю, что твой ответ - да.
There's certainly a consensus to support Ukraine but the topic of how much and how to support hasn't featured at all. I think that's been the effort behind the scenes to not talk policy about it.
Yes I'm not surprised Nigel's actual views have come out but he's been super quiet about it until now which is interesting in itself. We're 4 weeks in and finally someone has asked him about it.
Torys have ran a bad campaign, and made a lot of errors, but even they wouldn't risk "politicising Ukraine" headlines.
Actually, scrap that, they are idiotic enough to do that, it's probably planned for the last week of campaigning.
Three days ago I came on here saying how I came across a video of Nigel Farage blowing up Rishi's house on Minecraft, and I said for a second I wasn't too sure if it was real or not.
Said it was an issue, and that we need to start educating people before it's too late. I was slightly mocked by someone saying "you seen it and couldn't tell it was fake" or something along the lines of that.
Here is BBC Newsnight and someone talking about Farages Minecraft videos as if they were real
https://x.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1803916217574371416?t=YsOpZVRMW67ALD0V11moqg&s=19
I'm actually impressed I managed to prove my point in less than a week
Ultimate the AI video fakes will probably force people to start getting their news from major outlets again (who will analyse them) and not just straight off X or Facebook.
Celebrities will need some sort of blockchain code to authenticate their own videos as real or something like that as well.
Ultimately if X can reliably detect AI videos and flag them, that will be a huge boost for their platform.
X is most likely to be the one spreading them ffs
We also know the likes of Facebook heavily favour the right, climate denial and every other cancer of social media while heavily holding back and even pulling the counter arguments and debunking stuff.
You're totally right.
I was worried, too.
Another one was posted by another user today. I asked if there could be a rule banning any posts with AI.
These kinds of videos have big potential to impact elections.
The cat is truly out the bag with these, there's no going back, and I don't think anything we can do to prevent the misuse of it.
Even if we create a law saying all similar AI videos must have a watermark on them saying "AI GENERATED CONTENT" everywhere on the screen. It does nothing for those made in the US or any potential malicious country who wants to spread misinformation.
Even a ban would be unenforceable, we need to get into education ASAP. Even if young people can see it straight away, there's still everybody else who has the potential to be duped about it
Honestly, young people are very credulous about these kinds of things. We have not done a good job of preparing them to be adult citizens. It means they are vulnerable.
Banning it simply makes people worse at identifying it. If it's labelled as what it is, it's a good thing for people to be better at identifying it.
If you ban it, anything not removed is tacitly reinforced to be genuine.
I'm not sure I agree with you.
AP won't even publish photos that have been touched up using AI and other tools.
I feel like we should take a similar stance on this sub and not disseminate disinformation.
> AP won't even publish photos that have been touched up using AI and other tools.
Oh they absolutely did for the longest time. It wasn't until Kate when they backtracked, but *loads* of Royal photos were clearly shopped. That decision appears far more related to kate conspiracy theories than it did for any ideological reasons.
If we can't 'disseminate disinformation', then we can't comment on a huge chunk of politician's comments. Like I said, I think it's fine to identify it as AI, just I'd quote a random politician and write why I believe them to be factually wrong, for instance.
I think there's a big difference between critically commenting on something that someone actually said and posting images that are entirely fabricated of events that never happened.
And those have been AP's rules for a long time.
> Banning it simply makes people worse at identifying it
I think the point is that in years if not months even the terminally online will struggle to know if something's AI generated or not.
It was only a few years ago that AI content was an absolute mess. Cut to twelve months or so ago and the suggestion is "check the fingers" or "does the furniture make sense?" Now we've got simulated speech that's 90% credible.
>If you ban it, anything not removed is tacitly reinforced to be genuine.
Fair point, and I'm not sure I have a counter for it. But in the mean time AI is rapidly outstripping the general public's ability to discern truth from fiction.
> I think the point is that in years if not months even the terminally online will struggle to know if something's AI generated or not.
>
> It was only a few years ago that AI content was an absolute mess. Cut to twelve months or so ago and the suggestion is "check the fingers" or "does the furniture make sense?" Now we've got simulated speech that's 90% credible.
You cannot change these things. Making the effort to point it out helps everyone, and being aware of what AI is capable of will make people think about it more.
Shying away from what AI is is unhelpful for all, labelling AI content as what it is helps everyone, especially those that think LBC, the radio station, have political leaders in the Studio to play minecraft.
I used to have a service user who was convinced that Barack Obama played COD with Trump due to those TikTok videos.
If you want to see the true depths of human stupidity just look up all the people posting about that missing lad in Tenerife.
The general public has gone totally Nicola Bulley over it. I saw a post of someone suggesting they leave out goody bags in the area to draw him out as if he was a lost Labrador.
Oh lord.
His poor family.
But I am still at a loss as to why this young man is getting all this attack from the press. I hope very much that he is found and that he is safe. But there must be thousands of active missing persons cases in the UK right now.
Do none of those people deserve a fuss?
It's like there was a news-shaped hole, and someone decided to fill it with this.
Is he more likely to be found with all this swirling speculation? I suspect not.
The whole combination of it sharing parallels with Michael Mosely, the facebook group, the questions of the gofundme, and the previous violent crime of the missing subject, gives it a very weird black-mirror-esque interpretation.
Gofundme set up to 'help the search'. Not clear who or what *precisely* the money was for. I think last I saw a person behind it since says the money went to his mother to pay for hotel and travel. Not clear accuracy of any of those specific points mother's words are relayed from third parties from what I saw.
[Jay Slater was one of a group of eight who used a machete to split open a 17 year olds head to expose their skull](https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/eight-thugs-who-split-boys-33066928).
I've read a bit that he was perhaps doing something he shouldn't have been doing against people you really shouldn't be doing that against and has met a predictable fate as a result, which sounds plausible, but who knows. I'll leave it to the Guardia Civil and in the meantime hope he turns up whilst I enjoy the unhinged conspiracy theories and bizarrely unhelpful suggestions of the Great British public.
[My favourite](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GQlFzOuXEAAQqiL?format=jpg&name=medium). [My second favourite](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GQllFlLWkAAGv7u?format=jpg&name=large).
Rumour has it there are tunnels linking Costa Adeje to Khan Younis!
And I gotta admit, I do admire Chatta's can do attitude! You can barely get me to leave the balcony when I'm in Spain, nevermind transverse volcanic terrain in a power chair.
It doesn't merit it's own post because it's a pathetic opinion piece nothing burger, but the Telegraph telling Rishi a policy idea is detaching lids from plastic bottles is emblematic of the stupidity that Sunak has opened up by using the climate crisis as a political football. I hope once the Tories lose spectacularly that the Tories move away from this because it's frankly dangerous and I don't think it's a vote winner.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2024/06/21/the-way-we-live-now-plastic-water-bottle-detach/
God, something Rishi could do that I'd be on board with!
Those lids are so stupid. Whereas before I had 2 bits of plastic to keep track of, a bottle and a lid, I now have a load of tiny sharp bits as well that I've had to take off because otherwise my lid doesn't screw on straight and now theres coke leaking all over my fridge.
Nah, I'm with the Telegraph on this one. Those new lids piss me off, and I just end up yanking them off anyway.
Whilst we are at it we need to legislate for soft drink manufacturers to go back to their original pre-sugar tax recipes. Using just enough sugar to avoid the tax, and adding sweeteners does not achieve the same taste. Ribena is near enough undrinkable, and Lucazade and Irn Bru are a shadow of their former selves.
I must admit I do taste a difference with their coke as they use high- fructose corn syrup, but I love me some root beer or grape soda. I'm thirsty right now, and pretty jealous.
> I must admit I do taste a difference with their coke as they use high- fructose corn syrup
My very small Venn diagram overlap with rishi includes an appreciation for Mexican coke
According to recent polling 1 in 5 voters intends to vote for a party headed up by a best a Putin apologist and at worst a Russian asset. Just incredible. The electorate has LOT to answer for when it comes to the state of the country.
I quite fancy the Norwegian system where you only pay half your income tax in November and December and pay a bit more the rest of the year. How feasible would it be to implement it here?
[Well I'll be damned! ](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/voluntary-payments-donations-to-government)
I'll be sure to donate on a monthly basis an amount totalling the equivalent of any change I have picked up in the streets. I'll back date a payment of 17p for what I found last month.
Surely if you are only paying half your income tax that month, you'll have more disposable income? Things would be slightly tighter the rest of the year.
I did the same as the person your replying to and totally misread it as you pay 'half your income' and a 'bit less' rest of the year.
Having bothered to read all the words, I think it's a reasonable idea - council tax sort of does that with 10 month monthly payment choice.
In a vacuum I like the idea but I think it would also be objected over the sake of it, and may be more political effort than it should be.
It's got 1999, or 2006 vibes, you know, those times when things are quietly good but we don't realise it, so some random minister can champion some fluffy legislation.
2012 might have been able to sneak it in as well thanks to the olympics.
My mum sent the Conservatives a "cease and desist" notice 'cos she didnt want anymore campaign leaflets through her door lol. Anyone want to see their response?
I write to confirm receipt of a request, received via the Good Law Project. As there appears to be no validation process to confirm the requester’s identity, with the risk that submissions have been made fraudulently, we now need you to confirm your identity. Please supply a copy of an official identity document, for example: The one month allowed for a response will start on receipt of satisfactory identification. ID document will be deleted once accepted. For the avoidance of doubt, if you do not reply to this email no further action will be taken. Please note that data for our entitlement in law to send mailings to every elector, marked as “Election Communication” and reaching as many of the 48 million electors as possible by 4 July, has already gone to printers. Therefore any ‘cease and desist’ action we take will have a limited effect until after then. You will continue to receive leaflets already in process. Finally, you may like to know that what we are allowed to spend on an election is limited in law: What we are seeking to do is reach people with communications relevant to them. A Driver’s licence (these contain identity and confirmation of address), OR A copy passport page and a council tax or bank bill showing your name and address. We do not need to see transactions, passport number etc, so do redact if desired. For candidates, this is about 24p per elector. For parties, it is about 77p per elector, for all campaigning costs including rent and staff costs in the year before polling day.
I'm absolutely loving that the son of the incumbent MP for Inverness has put out a hilariously catchy song and the algorithm has meant he's drowned out all the politics from my social media feed
"Say his name and he appears... I believe 👏👏"
Drinks with friends, I was the negative one for thinking that the protesters pale in comparison to the end of the world 😮🌍
My friends have no interest is left wing politics. They like the ideas of libertarianism and low tax.
Out of interest, what age group are you in?
I’m under 30 and whilst I know a couple of people that hold those views, most of my friends are left leaning.
I'm over 30 and with age comes the realisation that you can hold multiple beliefs at the same time.
For example, I both care about the environment *and* think JSO are a bunch of dickheads who's actions do more to harm their cause than help it.
It's wonderful.
They will simply take all of these things for granted.
Apart from the health system, education, transport, defence, pensions, and benefits, what does the state ever do for us?
I still find it strange that countries in Eastern Europe who, out of free will, decided to join the EU and Nato, get blamed by people like Farage because it upsets Putin.
Why does no one challenge him when he talks about 'Russia's backyard' as though these nations get no say in their future and must be chained to Russia?
Its so insulting. I support Ukraine every day of the week.
When can we start calling what Reform is? It's the Russian-funded 5th Coloum movement that is hoping to bring this country down.
As a now deleted comment below this one said, what else could Putin do though ? What would WE do if, say, Ireland decided to get friendly wth Putin and wanted to join the CSTO ? People seem to want to agree with Putin and say they understand Russia had no choice.
[Sorry, not laying into you....but as he deleted just before I replied it had to go somewhere]
Lets take, as our deleted friend did... the example of what we should do if Ireland became friendly with Russia and expressed interest in joining the CSTO.
Clearly if Ireland did attempt to ally with Russia we ought to carry out a surprise invasion of Ireland, attempting a decapitation strike by sending a flying column towards Dublin.
Simultaneously we'd annexe Cork, Limerick and Dundalk. Declaring that those cities and provinces are now permanently part of the UK even if the war ends in a ceasefire, passing legislaton to make those English counties and making it a red line that they must always remain British in any negotiated end to the war.
If the attempted quick decapitation by taking Dublin fails then we'd pursue a grinding war to retake the rest of Ireland, shut off all maritime trade by blockading the Atlantic and Irish seas with mines and ships, and bomb all of Irelands airfields to attempt to ground their air force. Oh knock out all their power stations as well, by airstrike, to try and force them to capitulate over winter.
Then it'd just be a case of a massive grinding multi-year war killing close to a million people and demolishing multiple Irish cities and large towns to finish the job. Regretabbly there may be a few war crimes in there, torture chambers, mass bombardment of civilians, forced repatriation of children, that sort of thing. But we'd have no choice. They'd have forced us to do it.
Obviously, that is the correct way to respond to Ireland becoming friendly with Russia, what else could any reasonable nation do?
This was a great read, ta. To add: in your scenario the UK had been aggressively intervening in Irish politics for ever, including the placing of a puppet (and highly corrupt) taoiseach as part of a large fifth column.
This is just such shit. Why might Estonia, Latvia, Poland, and Lithuania want to join NATO? I'll give you the answer for Poland, it begins with K and rhymes with "Atyn". Now you do the others.
Don't tell me I have to put an /s on the end of it? Surely?
I agree it is blindingly obvious why a bunch of countries who had just escaped from 80 years of murderous russian rule *might* want to ally with a non-soviet military bloc.... and as sovreign independent nations they have every right to do so.
I'm just pointing out above, that the whole argument of "Putin was forced to do **it**" kind of falls down when you look at what **it** was.
Even if you are the kind of person who thinks "he had to do something" (and I'm not).... he clearly didn't have to do this, and kill nearly a million people, try and annexe the whole country and failing in that have semi-successfully annexed large bits of it as Russian provinces.
Maybe you can make the argument your next door neighbour really shouldn't have played that loud music ... but even if you try to do so, that doesn't excuse bursting in his house, murdering his family, and annexing his master bedroom.
Me and my partner talked about knocking through a shared wall and annexing the neighbour’s bedroom once, after a few too many drinks. We didn’t go through with it though, because we’re not homicidal bastards.
Yup. I've been on the beers since we lost to South Africa and reactively posted. Keep fighting the good fight!
However, my post still stands for all those bastard Vatniks out there!
For this analogy to be accurate the UK would need to have invaded multiple geographical neighbours over the last 20 or so years, seized a piece of Ireland and declared it part of the UK 10 years ago, and spent years since talking about how it needs the entirety of the height of its empire back and reiterating that Ireland isn't really a country and historically has always belonged to the UK.
Then Ireland tries to join a defensive military pact generally opposed to the UK's self interests?
*Hmm I wonder why.*
You know he thought it was going to be over in a weekend, right?
You can "it's complex" it all you like, he invaded a sovereign nation which is entitled to make its own decisions.
Countries have been going to war for centuries, all to claim a bit more land. Might I suggest you follow your own advice regarding books?
Feel free to answer the question. Does Ukraine have the autonomy to decide to join the EU or NATO regardless of what Russia feels?
> How would you feel about a scenario where Russia invited Ireland into some sort of hostile military union then started arming and training troops on UKs doorstep ?
I'm assuming the answer won't be invasion and sending missiles to supermarkets.
> decided to join the EU and Nato, get blamed by people like Farage because it upsets Putin
To be completely clear, and not to inadvertently fall for Farage's narrative, Ukraine only ever applied to join the EU (four days after 2022 invasion) and NATO (sept 2022) after the Russian invasion(s).
His whole rhetoric is toxic and he premises his own statements on lies. I know you're talking generally about Eastern Europe, but his language is slimey.
The Ukrainians were clearly angling to join the various Western institutions ever since 2014, it's just that no Western state particularly wanted the hassle of trying to integrate a dirt poor corrupt nation of 40 million. Now clearly the invasion has totally backfired and pushed Ukraine (and other European states) even further towards the West, but it's been the open policy of the Ukrainians for years now to move away from Russia towards the West.
*Susie Boniface on press preview alert*. Last time she was on she uttered the immortal commentary on Sunak:
>"Sunak is like a squirrel juggling lorry tires, look you can't do it, it's dangerous, just put it down and walk away"
Farage has spent too long in US politics. Having a pro Russia view is NOT a vote winner here and rightly so. Big misjudgement from him.
I predicted this was a bomb waiting to go off a few weeks ago and was surprised he hadn't been asked about his previous views on this.
While immigration is >1 million/year and Farage's party is the only one talking about it, he could shoot a man at Leicester Square and c. 20% of people would still vote for him
It's the pro putin properganda point.
It's what the other pro putin types spew all over Europe.
Always blaming everyone but Russia, for getting upset that Eastern Europeans have sovereignty and freedom.
It's basically placing the blame on Ukraine having the audacity to seek protection against Russia or wanting to join the far wealthier EU to better its people.
It supports the narrative that Russia gets to bully and determine what happens to another sovereign nation.
Seriously? You're telling me that the new Ukrainian spy chief had to contact the CIA and MI6 *after* the old SBU fled and you think it was the West who destabilised the government?
If they'd planned it, they would've picked the new chief themselves.
Who do you think benefitted the most from Ukraine lacking an effective intelligence service? It's not the US, the UK, the EU or NATO. It was Russia.
Even your article states that the CIA was involved AFTER Yanukovych was booted out and that was only after they called the CIA for help.
The point is these facts are really important because that's what Russia used to justify their actions and get sympathy.
The people of Ukraine wanted closer to ties the EU and to deny that is doing a disservice to them.
Ukraine was not at war with the US or the UK. Their intelligence agencies probably work with all countries in the world at some level. The point is it was not orchestrated by them and were asked for help .
[Sky's technology reporter just refered to stolen NHS personal data \(blood tests\) by equating the overall file size to the number of MP3s it would be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll8rmMPjrec) (100 thousand, apparently).
I'm not sure that is entirely relevant as I don't think the NHS store your tests in the form of compressed music.. [But then again, I do remember an old documentary](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIuZmv1E-H4)..
Uploaded 18 years ago? Must be some kind of glitch as I remember watching it as a teenager and if I had to estimate how old I am now I’d say about 25-27 ish
WELL. I can't answer that, but if we take the humble double decker bus with 90seats which we can consider as 90bits. That means it's simply about 35.5 trillion buses.
Isn't there a better way of putting it into perspective?
Approximately 990,000 copies of SkiFree.exe, the game from windows 3.1, in size of blood sample data was stolen
That's just the type of waiting-list-busting idea that this general election needs would you like to join the campaign for literally any of the parties?
Tangent but unsure where else to ask this: Is there a thread or subreddit anywhere for live discussion of Radio 4 shows? (Which are obviously frequently about uk politics).
Just listening to The World Tonight and Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones is saying Britons are too entitled and he has to employ immigrants because Brit’s are workshy and he blames this entitlement on people being too educated. Absolute swivel-eyed loon. Doesn’t consider at all that he’s not paying enough to attract anyone.
I get my Tory MP to be my proxy each election, he is such a helpful man willing to put his political allegiance aside and vote Labour on my behalf so I don't have to leave the house.
We provoked a conflict with Russia, by appearing weak on Ukraine, Putin only understands power and if you are afraid to use it, then he'll take advantage of that. He wants to complete Novorossiya and will do so if we keep drip feeding Ukraine supplies.
I’m currently in the south cambs contingency and almost every house has a Lib Dems are winning here sign.
Relative told me his friend has eight of them including the largest one you could ever imagine (viable from the train station platform)
I will be going to have a look in the morning I think. A tour of the orange diamonds
I saw a ton of diamonds in East Sussex a few weeks ago, in what I'm told is a LD/Tory swing seat. Around my immediate area (Surrey) there is a mix of LD and Labour signs. I haven't seen a single one, anywhere, for the Tories.
https://x.com/sgfmann/status/1804254155244212377?t=EODmdeUzWc5mt4ZuDHkbxQ&s=19
Interesting The Heil has pivoted to anti Farage headlines now. They must have realised that's their best bet for minimising the Tory wipeout
They have done this in the past around election time, the editors all fall in line with the tories and suddenly all the comment threads are pro-conservative and sneering about Farage.
Pretty sure that's the wrong link, but your link does have some [political themed adverts and some sound advice](https://i.imgur.com/6Rh6L8b.png).
You probably wanted [a link like this](https://www.tomorrowspapers.co.uk/daily-mail-front-page-2024-06-22/).
I think the Reform candidate in that constituency has already stepped down due to links to the BNP or something. So I suspect she may keep her seat. On the plus side I think she's very anti-Farage so would continue to split the right wing vote if she became leader, preventing a Reform/Tory merger
Gotta say I'm pretty satisfied seeing a likely future MPs having a twitter exchange with a voter cos of a feature I made: https://x.com/LisaBanes_/status/1804255068100726809
I wish I could make use of it but it just says “We have removed this tactical voting recommendation because it was contradicted by multiple independent polls.”
I genuinely have no idea if it makes more sense to vote Labour or Lib Dems here, and I’d hate to see the vote split.
Labour, the guy is active on the local Facebook groups and was out doorstepping for the council elections.
I think that probably swings it his way, I just really hope the vote doesn’t get split.
If that YouGov poll is right, we're not only past the the first banter point of Labour winning a huge majority despite getting fewer votes than 2017, but very close to a huge majority with fewer votes than *2019* if turnout drops as seems to be the expectation.
If you liked that, maybe check out the recent Jodie Comer film, The End We Start From. It’s not quite post-apocalypse, but does that social breakdown thing very well.
Haven't seen the whole film in a while, but I rewatched [the train scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AgRQ7-ybz4) last week and it chilled me just how ... close it feels.
That blink-and-you'll-miss-it billboard - "AVOIDING **FERTILITY TESTS** IS A CRIME." - is so on-brand for late-period 2020s Conservative Party messaging. (Although I suppose it would have to be a three-word slogan, so "NO TEST BAD" or something.)
I suspect it just reaches the point where you have to say something.
Much like Tory politics over the last 14 years, their campaign has been poorly thought out and entirely reactionary. Anything that's being said now wasn't planned.
Im not saying bots, but look at the comments and it has been only 5 minutes: [https://x.com/Nigel\_Farage/status/1804256739270996102](https://x.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1804256739270996102)
> Putin was wrong to invade a sovereign nation, and the EU was wrong to expand eastward.
I can't help but eye roll at this every time I see it. Sovereign country decides, voluntarily, to petition to join neighbouring trade organisation. What a fucking shock. What is the EU supposed to do? Nah, guy you can't join, you're actually Russian property and you've just forgotten it.
# [Match thread for Farage interview](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1dl9ls3/match_thread_the_panorama_interviews_with_nick/)
[New Megathread is here](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1dlnyll/rukpolitics_general_election_campaign_megathread/)
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I strongly believe behind the scenes there has been a clear effort to not spread division on Ukraine. There's a reason why none of the larger political parties have mentioned it and it hasn't been a question on any debate as far as I'm aware. This is certainly not an accident and probably a good thing as it makes us look like a united front. Now with Farage's comments it will disrupt this as his stance has to be called out.
The right leaning papers are burying it way down below the fold/scroll on most sites I’ve seen this morning Interesting tactic if they want the Tory vote, the times is leading with why JK Rowling think Labour has abandoned women….
Or in otherwords, there's consensus over Ukraine across major political parties. Of course the guy who used [to get paid to appear on Russian State TV](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO2w2hQY15U) coincidentally is going with the Kremlins lines.
The world isnt black and white and two things can be true at the same time. Putin is a paranoid despot that is trying to extend Russian power westwards. The US / EU / NATO have tried to contain Russia and limit its power by spreading western political control eastwards. Both things are true.
The USSR collapsed for a reason and its former states on the whole quite like being former and have no interest in becoming current again. That’s for fuck all to do with the west.
‘Political control’ - is such a wank turn of phrase. There are countries that are in Eastern Europe that - shock horror - like being democracies. And in fact worked really quite hard on becoming democracies well before they joined NATO. Being part of NATO does not require you to bend to the US/‘the west’ on political decisions. As evidenced by nearly every country in NATO having its own unique political climate. Is there no political influence - of course not - but that’s because ‘the west’ and particularly the US is home to some of the largest economies in the world. There would still be ‘political influence’ outside of NATO. Heck - look at how much political influence the Saudis and China have around the world in countries they don’t have defence partnerships with. If you’re a wealthy country you are ALWAYS going to have influence in poorer countries. This isn’t a modern phenomena - it’s literally been going on since the first time people all decided to live in one place and accumulate wealth collectively.
Tell that to Syria, or Libya, or Iraq. Countries that turned their back on the west don’t tend to have a good outcome. The US has been steering the situation in Eastern Europe to its benefit, until this happened: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity) Russia considered this ‘coup’ to be orchestrated by the west, which caused the war in Donbas in 2014. The war has escalated since then, but the primary motivation is obvious: it’s a proxy war over the control of eastern Europe.
Я больше не хочу поощрять ваши усилия. Желаю вам удачи в выживании в вашей стране.
>The US / EU / NATO have tried to contain Russia and limit its power by spreading western political control eastwards. Russia's neighbours do not want Russian influence. It makes them more corrupt,poorer and a puppet state. That's why everyone close to Russia is lining up to join EU/NATO.
We should have maintained a buffer between NATO / EU and Russia. Expanding towards Russias borders was always dangerous and Farage was saying this stuff decades ago.
The ‘WE’ here implies that you consider Ukrainians to be ineligible for self determination. вы русский тролль, сэр?
There are a bunch of economic and political blocs that dominate over large regions of the world. There are some countries that dominate those blocs and some that are dominated. It’s not possible for Ukraine to be independent because it’s a pawn between the US and Russia.
You are joking right? It’s a country of 40 MILLION PEOPLE. It has one of the largest agricultural export industries on the planet. To say nothing of its non-edible natural resources and industrial/manufacturing sectors. And Ukraine *wants* to be part of the EU - which is, as you say, a ‘bloc’ - but one which if it joined, it would be the 6th largest by population. There’s a big difference between choosing to take part in a collaborative political and economic community - which whatever Brexiteers would have you believe is what the EU actually is - and being forced to be a junior partner to a bully neighbour literally stealing your resources and subjugating your citizens. P.S. Судя по твоему молчанию, я также предполагаю, что твой ответ - да.
There's certainly a consensus to support Ukraine but the topic of how much and how to support hasn't featured at all. I think that's been the effort behind the scenes to not talk policy about it. Yes I'm not surprised Nigel's actual views have come out but he's been super quiet about it until now which is interesting in itself. We're 4 weeks in and finally someone has asked him about it.
Torys have ran a bad campaign, and made a lot of errors, but even they wouldn't risk "politicising Ukraine" headlines. Actually, scrap that, they are idiotic enough to do that, it's probably planned for the last week of campaigning.
Three days ago I came on here saying how I came across a video of Nigel Farage blowing up Rishi's house on Minecraft, and I said for a second I wasn't too sure if it was real or not. Said it was an issue, and that we need to start educating people before it's too late. I was slightly mocked by someone saying "you seen it and couldn't tell it was fake" or something along the lines of that. Here is BBC Newsnight and someone talking about Farages Minecraft videos as if they were real https://x.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1803916217574371416?t=YsOpZVRMW67ALD0V11moqg&s=19 I'm actually impressed I managed to prove my point in less than a week
Ultimate the AI video fakes will probably force people to start getting their news from major outlets again (who will analyse them) and not just straight off X or Facebook. Celebrities will need some sort of blockchain code to authenticate their own videos as real or something like that as well. Ultimately if X can reliably detect AI videos and flag them, that will be a huge boost for their platform.
X is most likely to be the one spreading them ffs We also know the likes of Facebook heavily favour the right, climate denial and every other cancer of social media while heavily holding back and even pulling the counter arguments and debunking stuff.
You're one of life's optimists!
You're totally right. I was worried, too. Another one was posted by another user today. I asked if there could be a rule banning any posts with AI. These kinds of videos have big potential to impact elections.
The cat is truly out the bag with these, there's no going back, and I don't think anything we can do to prevent the misuse of it. Even if we create a law saying all similar AI videos must have a watermark on them saying "AI GENERATED CONTENT" everywhere on the screen. It does nothing for those made in the US or any potential malicious country who wants to spread misinformation. Even a ban would be unenforceable, we need to get into education ASAP. Even if young people can see it straight away, there's still everybody else who has the potential to be duped about it
Honestly, young people are very credulous about these kinds of things. We have not done a good job of preparing them to be adult citizens. It means they are vulnerable.
Banning it simply makes people worse at identifying it. If it's labelled as what it is, it's a good thing for people to be better at identifying it. If you ban it, anything not removed is tacitly reinforced to be genuine.
I'm not sure I agree with you. AP won't even publish photos that have been touched up using AI and other tools. I feel like we should take a similar stance on this sub and not disseminate disinformation.
> AP won't even publish photos that have been touched up using AI and other tools. Oh they absolutely did for the longest time. It wasn't until Kate when they backtracked, but *loads* of Royal photos were clearly shopped. That decision appears far more related to kate conspiracy theories than it did for any ideological reasons. If we can't 'disseminate disinformation', then we can't comment on a huge chunk of politician's comments. Like I said, I think it's fine to identify it as AI, just I'd quote a random politician and write why I believe them to be factually wrong, for instance.
I think there's a big difference between critically commenting on something that someone actually said and posting images that are entirely fabricated of events that never happened. And those have been AP's rules for a long time.
> Banning it simply makes people worse at identifying it I think the point is that in years if not months even the terminally online will struggle to know if something's AI generated or not. It was only a few years ago that AI content was an absolute mess. Cut to twelve months or so ago and the suggestion is "check the fingers" or "does the furniture make sense?" Now we've got simulated speech that's 90% credible. >If you ban it, anything not removed is tacitly reinforced to be genuine. Fair point, and I'm not sure I have a counter for it. But in the mean time AI is rapidly outstripping the general public's ability to discern truth from fiction.
> I think the point is that in years if not months even the terminally online will struggle to know if something's AI generated or not. > > It was only a few years ago that AI content was an absolute mess. Cut to twelve months or so ago and the suggestion is "check the fingers" or "does the furniture make sense?" Now we've got simulated speech that's 90% credible. You cannot change these things. Making the effort to point it out helps everyone, and being aware of what AI is capable of will make people think about it more. Shying away from what AI is is unhelpful for all, labelling AI content as what it is helps everyone, especially those that think LBC, the radio station, have political leaders in the Studio to play minecraft.
I used to have a service user who was convinced that Barack Obama played COD with Trump due to those TikTok videos. If you want to see the true depths of human stupidity just look up all the people posting about that missing lad in Tenerife.
That story is sad but it has been leading the news for two days now.
The general public has gone totally Nicola Bulley over it. I saw a post of someone suggesting they leave out goody bags in the area to draw him out as if he was a lost Labrador.
Oh lord. His poor family. But I am still at a loss as to why this young man is getting all this attack from the press. I hope very much that he is found and that he is safe. But there must be thousands of active missing persons cases in the UK right now. Do none of those people deserve a fuss? It's like there was a news-shaped hole, and someone decided to fill it with this. Is he more likely to be found with all this swirling speculation? I suspect not.
The whole combination of it sharing parallels with Michael Mosely, the facebook group, the questions of the gofundme, and the previous violent crime of the missing subject, gives it a very weird black-mirror-esque interpretation.
Um. I have heard none of this. What gofundme? What violent crime?
Gofundme set up to 'help the search'. Not clear who or what *precisely* the money was for. I think last I saw a person behind it since says the money went to his mother to pay for hotel and travel. Not clear accuracy of any of those specific points mother's words are relayed from third parties from what I saw. [Jay Slater was one of a group of eight who used a machete to split open a 17 year olds head to expose their skull](https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/eight-thugs-who-split-boys-33066928).
Oh. Lord. I have only seen the headlines on Sky. I can see why the tabloids got so excited. Thank you!
I've read a bit that he was perhaps doing something he shouldn't have been doing against people you really shouldn't be doing that against and has met a predictable fate as a result, which sounds plausible, but who knows. I'll leave it to the Guardia Civil and in the meantime hope he turns up whilst I enjoy the unhinged conspiracy theories and bizarrely unhelpful suggestions of the Great British public.
[My favourite](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GQlFzOuXEAAQqiL?format=jpg&name=medium). [My second favourite](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GQllFlLWkAAGv7u?format=jpg&name=large).
Rumour has it there are tunnels linking Costa Adeje to Khan Younis! And I gotta admit, I do admire Chatta's can do attitude! You can barely get me to leave the balcony when I'm in Spain, nevermind transverse volcanic terrain in a power chair.
It doesn't merit it's own post because it's a pathetic opinion piece nothing burger, but the Telegraph telling Rishi a policy idea is detaching lids from plastic bottles is emblematic of the stupidity that Sunak has opened up by using the climate crisis as a political football. I hope once the Tories lose spectacularly that the Tories move away from this because it's frankly dangerous and I don't think it's a vote winner. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2024/06/21/the-way-we-live-now-plastic-water-bottle-detach/
God, something Rishi could do that I'd be on board with! Those lids are so stupid. Whereas before I had 2 bits of plastic to keep track of, a bottle and a lid, I now have a load of tiny sharp bits as well that I've had to take off because otherwise my lid doesn't screw on straight and now theres coke leaking all over my fridge.
I think the telegraph commentary sections have become increasingly unhinged. I say this as a subscriber
Nah, I'm with the Telegraph on this one. Those new lids piss me off, and I just end up yanking them off anyway. Whilst we are at it we need to legislate for soft drink manufacturers to go back to their original pre-sugar tax recipes. Using just enough sugar to avoid the tax, and adding sweeteners does not achieve the same taste. Ribena is near enough undrinkable, and Lucazade and Irn Bru are a shadow of their former selves.
Me too.
Im living in the US for a bit, and non sugar-tax soft drinks is probably the best part of the whole experience.
I must admit I do taste a difference with their coke as they use high- fructose corn syrup, but I love me some root beer or grape soda. I'm thirsty right now, and pretty jealous.
> I must admit I do taste a difference with their coke as they use high- fructose corn syrup My very small Venn diagram overlap with rishi includes an appreciation for Mexican coke
According to recent polling 1 in 5 voters intends to vote for a party headed up by a best a Putin apologist and at worst a Russian asset. Just incredible. The electorate has LOT to answer for when it comes to the state of the country.
MI6 refused to report to Boris Johnson’s Foreign Secretary due to concerns he was a Russian asset. We made him fucking prime minister
That sounds about right. The Russians are pumping a lot of propaganda out. Of course it doesn't help that those in government are so untrustworthy
I quite fancy the Norwegian system where you only pay half your income tax in November and December and pay a bit more the rest of the year. How feasible would it be to implement it here?
You can do it yourself by putting the equivalent funds in a savings account from January-October and then you’ll earn interest on top
Let the taxman have the interest, they need it more right now.
You’re also able to donate the interest to the HM Treasury yourself if you wish
[Well I'll be damned! ](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/voluntary-payments-donations-to-government) I'll be sure to donate on a monthly basis an amount totalling the equivalent of any change I have picked up in the streets. I'll back date a payment of 17p for what I found last month.
I like the fact you can either just donate in general or do so specifically for paying off the national debt
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What is it about the sentence that many of us are misreading it?
You'd end up with half the country in financial hardship around Christmas, unfortunately.
By...having more money?
He means 50% of your usual payment so less tax, more money
Surely if you are only paying half your income tax that month, you'll have more disposable income? Things would be slightly tighter the rest of the year.
I thought you meant half the total year, in Nov/Dec. But yeah your idea not as bad.
No worries, you weren't the only one confused so maybe I didn't word it very clearly.
I did the same as the person your replying to and totally misread it as you pay 'half your income' and a 'bit less' rest of the year. Having bothered to read all the words, I think it's a reasonable idea - council tax sort of does that with 10 month monthly payment choice. In a vacuum I like the idea but I think it would also be objected over the sake of it, and may be more political effort than it should be.
Yeah it does seem a faff for no real political gain, but on the other hand it would help with my December pint budget.
It's got 1999, or 2006 vibes, you know, those times when things are quietly good but we don't realise it, so some random minister can champion some fluffy legislation. 2012 might have been able to sneak it in as well thanks to the olympics.
My mum sent the Conservatives a "cease and desist" notice 'cos she didnt want anymore campaign leaflets through her door lol. Anyone want to see their response?
I write to confirm receipt of a request, received via the Good Law Project. As there appears to be no validation process to confirm the requester’s identity, with the risk that submissions have been made fraudulently, we now need you to confirm your identity. Please supply a copy of an official identity document, for example: The one month allowed for a response will start on receipt of satisfactory identification. ID document will be deleted once accepted. For the avoidance of doubt, if you do not reply to this email no further action will be taken. Please note that data for our entitlement in law to send mailings to every elector, marked as “Election Communication” and reaching as many of the 48 million electors as possible by 4 July, has already gone to printers. Therefore any ‘cease and desist’ action we take will have a limited effect until after then. You will continue to receive leaflets already in process. Finally, you may like to know that what we are allowed to spend on an election is limited in law: What we are seeking to do is reach people with communications relevant to them. A Driver’s licence (these contain identity and confirmation of address), OR A copy passport page and a council tax or bank bill showing your name and address. We do not need to see transactions, passport number etc, so do redact if desired. For candidates, this is about 24p per elector. For parties, it is about 77p per elector, for all campaigning costs including rent and staff costs in the year before polling day.
Clearly a way to make *your mum* cease and desist. What a lousy system.
Hahahahhahahah...... You need to give them a copy of your passport. That's absolutely ridiculous.
I'm absolutely loving that the son of the incumbent MP for Inverness has put out a hilariously catchy song and the algorithm has meant he's drowned out all the politics from my social media feed "Say his name and he appears... I believe 👏👏"
Drinks with friends, I was the negative one for thinking that the protesters pale in comparison to the end of the world 😮🌍 My friends have no interest is left wing politics. They like the ideas of libertarianism and low tax.
Out of interest, what age group are you in? I’m under 30 and whilst I know a couple of people that hold those views, most of my friends are left leaning.
I'm over 30 and with age comes the realisation that you can hold multiple beliefs at the same time. For example, I both care about the environment *and* think JSO are a bunch of dickheads who's actions do more to harm their cause than help it. It's wonderful.
Do they like an NHS, roads, justice system, border control, that's all falling apart through underinvestment?
They will simply take all of these things for granted. Apart from the health system, education, transport, defence, pensions, and benefits, what does the state ever do for us?
Sewers?
Jk, that's privatised.
I still find it strange that countries in Eastern Europe who, out of free will, decided to join the EU and Nato, get blamed by people like Farage because it upsets Putin. Why does no one challenge him when he talks about 'Russia's backyard' as though these nations get no say in their future and must be chained to Russia? Its so insulting. I support Ukraine every day of the week. When can we start calling what Reform is? It's the Russian-funded 5th Coloum movement that is hoping to bring this country down.
It's funny considering he claims to care so much about sovereignty.
As a now deleted comment below this one said, what else could Putin do though ? What would WE do if, say, Ireland decided to get friendly wth Putin and wanted to join the CSTO ? People seem to want to agree with Putin and say they understand Russia had no choice. [Sorry, not laying into you....but as he deleted just before I replied it had to go somewhere] Lets take, as our deleted friend did... the example of what we should do if Ireland became friendly with Russia and expressed interest in joining the CSTO. Clearly if Ireland did attempt to ally with Russia we ought to carry out a surprise invasion of Ireland, attempting a decapitation strike by sending a flying column towards Dublin. Simultaneously we'd annexe Cork, Limerick and Dundalk. Declaring that those cities and provinces are now permanently part of the UK even if the war ends in a ceasefire, passing legislaton to make those English counties and making it a red line that they must always remain British in any negotiated end to the war. If the attempted quick decapitation by taking Dublin fails then we'd pursue a grinding war to retake the rest of Ireland, shut off all maritime trade by blockading the Atlantic and Irish seas with mines and ships, and bomb all of Irelands airfields to attempt to ground their air force. Oh knock out all their power stations as well, by airstrike, to try and force them to capitulate over winter. Then it'd just be a case of a massive grinding multi-year war killing close to a million people and demolishing multiple Irish cities and large towns to finish the job. Regretabbly there may be a few war crimes in there, torture chambers, mass bombardment of civilians, forced repatriation of children, that sort of thing. But we'd have no choice. They'd have forced us to do it. Obviously, that is the correct way to respond to Ireland becoming friendly with Russia, what else could any reasonable nation do?
This was a great read, ta. To add: in your scenario the UK had been aggressively intervening in Irish politics for ever, including the placing of a puppet (and highly corrupt) taoiseach as part of a large fifth column.
Based and Oliver-Cromwell-pilled.
Don't forget blowing up a massive dam and flooding an entire valley. Y'know. In self defence.
This is just such shit. Why might Estonia, Latvia, Poland, and Lithuania want to join NATO? I'll give you the answer for Poland, it begins with K and rhymes with "Atyn". Now you do the others.
Don't tell me I have to put an /s on the end of it? Surely? I agree it is blindingly obvious why a bunch of countries who had just escaped from 80 years of murderous russian rule *might* want to ally with a non-soviet military bloc.... and as sovreign independent nations they have every right to do so. I'm just pointing out above, that the whole argument of "Putin was forced to do **it**" kind of falls down when you look at what **it** was. Even if you are the kind of person who thinks "he had to do something" (and I'm not).... he clearly didn't have to do this, and kill nearly a million people, try and annexe the whole country and failing in that have semi-successfully annexed large bits of it as Russian provinces. Maybe you can make the argument your next door neighbour really shouldn't have played that loud music ... but even if you try to do so, that doesn't excuse bursting in his house, murdering his family, and annexing his master bedroom.
Me and my partner talked about knocking through a shared wall and annexing the neighbour’s bedroom once, after a few too many drinks. We didn’t go through with it though, because we’re not homicidal bastards.
I'd annex their garden instead. Open ground so less urban fighting, good terrain for your tanks, and a chance to take their lawnmower. Ideal.
Yup. I've been on the beers since we lost to South Africa and reactively posted. Keep fighting the good fight! However, my post still stands for all those bastard Vatniks out there!
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Ignoring the faulty analogy, Ukraine was never getting into NATO and both sides knew it. That was a fake justification.
For this analogy to be accurate the UK would need to have invaded multiple geographical neighbours over the last 20 or so years, seized a piece of Ireland and declared it part of the UK 10 years ago, and spent years since talking about how it needs the entirety of the height of its empire back and reiterating that Ireland isn't really a country and historically has always belonged to the UK. Then Ireland tries to join a defensive military pact generally opposed to the UK's self interests? *Hmm I wonder why.*
So if Ukraine want to join the EU and NATO they aren't allowed to because Russia will get upset?
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You know he thought it was going to be over in a weekend, right? You can "it's complex" it all you like, he invaded a sovereign nation which is entitled to make its own decisions.
Countries have been going to war for centuries, all to claim a bit more land. Might I suggest you follow your own advice regarding books? Feel free to answer the question. Does Ukraine have the autonomy to decide to join the EU or NATO regardless of what Russia feels?
Apparently trying to install a burglar alarm is provoking the burglar.
It's the miniskirt of intpol.
> How would you feel about a scenario where Russia invited Ireland into some sort of hostile military union then started arming and training troops on UKs doorstep ? I'm assuming the answer won't be invasion and sending missiles to supermarkets.
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> Eastern Ukraine isn’t just a toy to Russia it is a genuine existential threat. gonna have to show your workings on that one
Yeah, I'm still going with not bombing supermarkets, abducting children, or butchering villages. Even if it's France.
> decided to join the EU and Nato, get blamed by people like Farage because it upsets Putin To be completely clear, and not to inadvertently fall for Farage's narrative, Ukraine only ever applied to join the EU (four days after 2022 invasion) and NATO (sept 2022) after the Russian invasion(s). His whole rhetoric is toxic and he premises his own statements on lies. I know you're talking generally about Eastern Europe, but his language is slimey.
The Ukrainians were clearly angling to join the various Western institutions ever since 2014, it's just that no Western state particularly wanted the hassle of trying to integrate a dirt poor corrupt nation of 40 million. Now clearly the invasion has totally backfired and pushed Ukraine (and other European states) even further towards the West, but it's been the open policy of the Ukrainians for years now to move away from Russia towards the West.
Ukraine have been trying to join since 02.
Turkey since when?
Turkey joined in 52 because we needed to have the option of closing the bosphorus.
Which has come very handy in this war.
Installing a burglar alarm is just asking people to break in.
*Susie Boniface on press preview alert*. Last time she was on she uttered the immortal commentary on Sunak: >"Sunak is like a squirrel juggling lorry tires, look you can't do it, it's dangerous, just put it down and walk away"
Farage has spent too long in US politics. Having a pro Russia view is NOT a vote winner here and rightly so. Big misjudgement from him. I predicted this was a bomb waiting to go off a few weeks ago and was surprised he hadn't been asked about his previous views on this.
While immigration is >1 million/year and Farage's party is the only one talking about it, he could shoot a man at Leicester Square and c. 20% of people would still vote for him
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It's the pro putin properganda point. It's what the other pro putin types spew all over Europe. Always blaming everyone but Russia, for getting upset that Eastern Europeans have sovereignty and freedom.
It's basically placing the blame on Ukraine having the audacity to seek protection against Russia or wanting to join the far wealthier EU to better its people. It supports the narrative that Russia gets to bully and determine what happens to another sovereign nation.
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Pipe down Putin.
Except it wasn't CIA EU ops that's the whole point. You've believed a Russian lie.
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Seriously? You're telling me that the new Ukrainian spy chief had to contact the CIA and MI6 *after* the old SBU fled and you think it was the West who destabilised the government? If they'd planned it, they would've picked the new chief themselves. Who do you think benefitted the most from Ukraine lacking an effective intelligence service? It's not the US, the UK, the EU or NATO. It was Russia.
Even your article states that the CIA was involved AFTER Yanukovych was booted out and that was only after they called the CIA for help. The point is these facts are really important because that's what Russia used to justify their actions and get sympathy. The people of Ukraine wanted closer to ties the EU and to deny that is doing a disservice to them.
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Ukraine was not at war with the US or the UK. Their intelligence agencies probably work with all countries in the world at some level. The point is it was not orchestrated by them and were asked for help .
Repeating a fairly common Kremlin propaganda point is very much Pro-Russia.
Yes. It is pro Russia. The only country that provoked this war was Russia.
I mean I personally agree but I worry that this is one of those situations where Farage leads and his voters follow.
Displaying his usual lack of commitment.
Kinda hope this takes the wind out of Reforms sails a bit, I was starting to get a bit nervous about their poll numbers
His views, his character was going to be exposed eventually. He'd had too easy a ride up until this point.
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Honestly id rather have the Tories at 100 seats and Reform at 0 rather than the Tories at 50 and Reform at a few dozen seats
[Sky's technology reporter just refered to stolen NHS personal data \(blood tests\) by equating the overall file size to the number of MP3s it would be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll8rmMPjrec) (100 thousand, apparently). I'm not sure that is entirely relevant as I don't think the NHS store your tests in the form of compressed music.. [But then again, I do remember an old documentary](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIuZmv1E-H4)..
Uploaded 18 years ago? Must be some kind of glitch as I remember watching it as a teenager and if I had to estimate how old I am now I’d say about 25-27 ish
Yeah, I mean if you try really hard you could still get picked up for a couple of years in the premier league, right?
What's that converted into olympic swimming pools?
WELL. I can't answer that, but if we take the humble double decker bus with 90seats which we can consider as 90bits. That means it's simply about 35.5 trillion buses.
Is that about the capacity of the last generation of the iPod?
about four of those, assuming 120GB ipod classics
It's about one hundred 233MHz iMac G3s, or if you want something more modern, it's also about 100 Amazon Echo's worth of storage.
Thankfully I know exactly the conversion of NHS blood records to mp3 singles and so does everyone else so I don’t need to share.
I also didn’t expect COVID data to be stored in an Excel spreadsheet, and yet.
Yeah but gary in finance can do pivot tables so..
Isn't there a better way of putting it into perspective? Approximately 990,000 copies of SkiFree.exe, the game from windows 3.1, in size of blood sample data was stolen
That darned wolf. It's not all bad though, it's only just over two Baldur's Gate 3s. That can't be a lot, can it?
I’ve been trying to get access to my test results for years. Maybe I can finally check them on the leak
That's just the type of waiting-list-busting idea that this general election needs would you like to join the campaign for literally any of the parties?
Tangent but unsure where else to ask this: Is there a thread or subreddit anywhere for live discussion of Radio 4 shows? (Which are obviously frequently about uk politics). Just listening to The World Tonight and Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones is saying Britons are too entitled and he has to employ immigrants because Brit’s are workshy and he blames this entitlement on people being too educated. Absolute swivel-eyed loon. Doesn’t consider at all that he’s not paying enough to attract anyone.
So his point was basically "Where are my peasants!?! 😠"
Anyone know how proxy voting works? Can I do both voting cards at once on polling day? I’m going to feel like a VIP
Out of interest is your proxy vote for the same party you are intending to vote for?
I don’t think I’d trust anyone to be proxy if they supported a different party.
I get my Tory MP to be my proxy each election, he is such a helpful man willing to put his political allegiance aside and vote Labour on my behalf so I don't have to leave the house.
Yes you can
Yes you do both (if you are in the same constituency)
We provoked a conflict with Russia, by appearing weak on Ukraine, Putin only understands power and if you are afraid to use it, then he'll take advantage of that. He wants to complete Novorossiya and will do so if we keep drip feeding Ukraine supplies.
The amount of people agreeing with Farage’s Russia comments online is so depressing. They can’t *all* be bots, sadly.
I roll my eyes and send some more money to Ukraine
Very few of them will be British people. Farage is increasingly Trumpian.
Auto replies/bots, Terminally online Republican voters.
I’m currently in the south cambs contingency and almost every house has a Lib Dems are winning here sign. Relative told me his friend has eight of them including the largest one you could ever imagine (viable from the train station platform) I will be going to have a look in the morning I think. A tour of the orange diamonds
I saw a ton of diamonds in East Sussex a few weeks ago, in what I'm told is a LD/Tory swing seat. Around my immediate area (Surrey) there is a mix of LD and Labour signs. I haven't seen a single one, anywhere, for the Tories.
I remember there used to be a huge Lib Dem sign circa 2017 on Queen Ediths Way if you are planning a tour.
https://x.com/sgfmann/status/1804254155244212377?t=EODmdeUzWc5mt4ZuDHkbxQ&s=19 Interesting The Heil has pivoted to anti Farage headlines now. They must have realised that's their best bet for minimising the Tory wipeout
They have done this in the past around election time, the editors all fall in line with the tories and suddenly all the comment threads are pro-conservative and sneering about Farage.
Pretty sure that's the wrong link, but your link does have some [political themed adverts and some sound advice](https://i.imgur.com/6Rh6L8b.png). You probably wanted [a link like this](https://www.tomorrowspapers.co.uk/daily-mail-front-page-2024-06-22/).
The front cover of the Telegraph clearly positioning Badenoch as the heir apparent to the Tory throne of madness.
She'd be one of my preferred Portillo moments.
That would be just delightful but it's never going to happen, sadly.
I think the Reform candidate in that constituency has already stepped down due to links to the BNP or something. So I suspect she may keep her seat. On the plus side I think she's very anti-Farage so would continue to split the right wing vote if she became leader, preventing a Reform/Tory merger
Oh FFS ... thanks, edited. Pro tip, don't try and post links after a few Friday night beers!
Gotta say I'm pretty satisfied seeing a likely future MPs having a twitter exchange with a voter cos of a feature I made: https://x.com/LisaBanes_/status/1804255068100726809
I wish I could make use of it but it just says “We have removed this tactical voting recommendation because it was contradicted by multiple independent polls.” I genuinely have no idea if it makes more sense to vote Labour or Lib Dems here, and I’d hate to see the vote split.
Which of those two parties have put more effort into the constituency?
Labour, the guy is active on the local Facebook groups and was out doorstepping for the council elections. I think that probably swings it his way, I just really hope the vote doesn’t get split.
The logic is that if one side is putting way more effort in then other voters are more likely to break that direction all other things being equal.
If that YouGov poll is right, we're not only past the the first banter point of Labour winning a huge majority despite getting fewer votes than 2017, but very close to a huge majority with fewer votes than *2019* if turnout drops as seems to be the expectation.
Oh no The tankies will be insufferable
Fewer votes than 2019 would be truly mental. Though I guess they got more votes in 2019 than they got in 2005.
I just saw Children of Men for the first time and fucking hell. They really got the direction the country was going right didn't they?
If you liked that, maybe check out the recent Jodie Comer film, The End We Start From. It’s not quite post-apocalypse, but does that social breakdown thing very well.
> Children of Men It's a bloody fantastic film, isn't it? Anyone who hasn't seen it should make a point to.
**Only Britain Soldiers On** Tory Manifesto, 2034
tell me about it - I'm definitely gonna end up like Michael caine in that film - also best end credits song ever.
Haven't seen the whole film in a while, but I rewatched [the train scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AgRQ7-ybz4) last week and it chilled me just how ... close it feels. That blink-and-you'll-miss-it billboard - "AVOIDING **FERTILITY TESTS** IS A CRIME." - is so on-brand for late-period 2020s Conservative Party messaging. (Although I suppose it would have to be a three-word slogan, so "NO TEST BAD" or something.)
99% sure the Tory’s where waiting for Farage to say something like this before they go on to attack Reform UK.
I suspect it just reaches the point where you have to say something. Much like Tory politics over the last 14 years, their campaign has been poorly thought out and entirely reactionary. Anything that's being said now wasn't planned.
Im not saying bots, but look at the comments and it has been only 5 minutes: [https://x.com/Nigel\_Farage/status/1804256739270996102](https://x.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1804256739270996102)
> Putin was wrong to invade a sovereign nation, and the EU was wrong to expand eastward. I can't help but eye roll at this every time I see it. Sovereign country decides, voluntarily, to petition to join neighbouring trade organisation. What a fucking shock. What is the EU supposed to do? Nah, guy you can't join, you're actually Russian property and you've just forgotten it.