Erm I think you are conflating 'fully onboard' with an understanding as to why people are hacked off at the inaction of government whoever they are to address the pretty lengthy backlog of claims and get people either able to work or on their way ....I dont think I ever backed mindless hooliganism :think:

A distinction without a difference in this case, in my opinion. When you parrot Robinson propaganda about "concerned citizens," then, although we're not friends, I don't believe you to be mindless enough to just repeat the same indoctrinated far right Mantra that was busy lighting up hotels and the fuzz.

Greens the only progressive party on that list.

why can't you accept that people have an alternative viewpoint to your own. That is what this is really all about. You can't accept reality and try to shove some crackpot theory about politics down peoples throats. Newsflash, people vote for 1 million different reasons or don't vote at all. People are engaged with politics or not at all. Politics is life and cannot be boiled down to some narrow political ideology

Kemi Badenoch has responded with a tweet on X

"The PM has time to respond to my jokes
about lunch.....but not time for the farmers
who produce our food.

He refused to answer questions because he doesn't care.
It's an ideological attack on farmers and will destroy lives.

The Conservatives will reverse his cruel Family Farm Tax."


It was debated in Part 2, of Gravitas WION HD
Sky Ch 519

And here we are in the famous Slim/Bots playbook.

You say something, I make a counter point. You make it about me. It's a tale as old as old as time. If you want to disagree with me, then disagree with me, but make it about comments that have been written, rather than having your jimmies rustled (shout out to LK wherever he is).

I've only commented on things you've written, you have to resort to this other weird stuff for some reason.

My politics is the minority in this country, so why wouldn't I be able to accept others have different viewpoints? Because you have nowhere else to go, after you boxed yourself into a cul-de-sac. As you seem to do every time we have a discussion. Don't blame me for that, you should be mad at yourself, brother.

Starmer's reset speech the other day has had a good effect then :skull:

:laugh:

This is another part of centrism I didn't even get to. Labour were voted in for change, and the fact they are a tepid party only interested in protecting the status quo (which of course, I pointed out years before an election was even called), will be the final driver of sending folks towards reform. When centrism gets power and does little to nothing with it, RW demagogues are the main beneficiaries, with the simple solutions (however wrong they may be) they offer, such as immigrants being the cause of all the nations ills. Especially during desperate times, which we are definitely in.

This kind of buys into the idea that everyone is tribalistic, and wants to fit neatly into a defined box.

Some people just have a string of connected or disparate ideals to which they cling, and these don't always perfectly coalesce with an existing ideology.

I reject all labels - I like to say this is because I'm above your puny earthlings' politics :laugh: but it's really because I barely have a coherent set of beliefs :joker:

My only consistencies which have carried through my various phases are environmentalism (and at one point I was even against that for like a week, but I can't remember what my "reasoning" was) and dislike of big companies. The latter ties in to the next one, which is I'm against the exploitation of the Little Guy. All of this in isolation might make someone think I'm a Leftie.

But the above are all why I'm against mass uncapped immigration - I don't trust any government to respect the Green Belt when it comes to excreting crappy new builds, while the brownfields will remain untouched, and maybe unused. And high numbers of non-specific workers coming in doesn't exactly help Darren Down The Road.

I'm also in favour of women and girls keeping their sex-segregated spaces and sports.

And those two points might make me look "right wing."

But to quote Treebeard - I'm not altogether on anyone's side, because no-one is altogether on my side. And I'm certainly no friend of those tree-killing Orcs and their masters :joker:


But meh, feel free to refute any of that, I barely give politics more than a surface level thought, I'd be relatively easy to swing :laugh:

Every party has it's good points imo.

Reform's ahead of the Tories?:shocked:

Keep up Mock, thet Tories have tanked :laugh:

:joker: as is the case near all the time Mock.
Polls are not reliable.

Selectively taking one only to make some point is never a wise move.

There's 2 other polls out around the same time as that one.

One has Labour and Conservatives each on 26% with Reform on 19%

Another has Labour on 27%, the Conservatives on 25% and Reform on 22%

They're easy to see by just entering as a search 'latest UK opinion polls'.
So the whole picture of the opinion polling world is seen, not a tiny snapshot of only one.

The polls reflect certainly the dismay and disillusionment in politics.
They tell us little of where all will be in July/August 2029.

Remember Farage proclaiming in an election debate that Reform had now gone ahead of the Conservatives in the polls.
Yet on election day, Reform were 10% behind the Conservatives.
The Conservatives on 24% and Reform on 14%

Reliance on opinion polls is not a recommendation I'd make, and certainly NEVER on only one single poll.

Nobody thought the tories would be wiped out at the next election when Boris won in a landslide :laugh:

It wasn't a selectively chosen poll. The numbers are almost irrelevant for the point I wanted to make. Moving a few points around is neither here nor there, because we have the Starmer/Reeves lab party in power - the archetypal centrist party. Very concerned with being seen as grown ups making tough choices, and yet those tough choices are exactly the same ones as the tories made (with the support of the centrist LD party, no less).

Labour have co-opted the language of reform, when it comes to immigration, and have generally been the centre right party I pointed out to you numerous times, and you failed to accept was the reality. I've quoted you numerous times asking you to comment on what lab are doing and have done...crickets. That's fine, you don't owe me a response, but now you want to talk about my post and where you feel it fails, I feel like you've opened up the channel again, so let's talk about it.

When push comes to shove, centrists will fight against the policies that actually made this country great - The post war socialism that built the NHS, workers rights, the welfare state, high taxation leading to free education. None of this is even discussed in classrooms or on news programs.

Instead, we get reform, who have 5 mp's, and yet they're on all the beebs politics shows on a constant loop. When do Independent alliance or green mp's get open invites? That's on the supposedly lefty BBC, no less. The centre of this country is pushing right wing politics down our throats, and most people think this makes them centrists.

Part of the issue Slim is that I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what centrism actually entails; it's not balancing on a left/right seesaw hoping to find a centrist equilibrium on every political stance, this is the misunderstanding that leads to people who don't tribally align themselves to either the left or right as "fence sitting". I come under fire for taking strong positions on pretty much any subject you can name on this forum. Not for fence sitting. If anything, for being "overly confident of a strong opinion". I get that same accusation from people on the clear left and right. Not accusations of over-neutrality; I'm branded a MSM brainwashed wokey by the Reform crew and a right-leaning conservative by what remains of the forum's social left. Frequently on the same day. Occasionally on the same thread. It's a real rollercoaster sometimes :joker:.

For the bit in bold you're incorrect I have never said that I would legally "ban" relationships between adults of any age; what I have said is that I find relationships with large age gaps, where one person is young (probably under 25, definitely under 21) to be highly suspect, personally morally questionable, and if a friend my age started banging a 21 year old I'd not be particularly interested in continuing to call them a friend. I don't want it banned, I wouldn't introduce any aspect of legislation or legality into that at all. But therein lies the problem, maybe? That you automatically assume that a moral personal stance MUST be related to a corresponding legal or political stance? That isn't the real world as I experience it, for most sensible adults, it's the realm of ... well, internet BS ... a warped reality that really reflects nothing particularly real, and yet increasingly spills over into the real world, because you have idiots that have no comprehension of what they're reading protesting and rioting for reasons they don't actually understand. Because they were told it was the way to go, by those they politically align themselves with, and who they trust do know what they're talking about.

As for economic stance that one is fairly simple; I don't talk about it on here because there's no point talking about it on here. The sort of "right and left" being referred to on most of the internet, and 100% on this forum, has absolutely jack to do with economics :joker:. We're talking about populations who need a calculator to figure out 20% VAT. Who believe that the answer to everyone having more money is everyone getting better jobs. Waste of time. It's not a conversation worth even entertaining.

Probably a stupid analogy but lets say you're a neutral (centralist) watching 2 football teams you're not really arsed about, as both mean very little to you. Some years you can get behind the certain "set up", the certain "manager" (Party leader), the "players" (current MP's) and you'll lean for the team you favour that year, out of the 2. And if a certain team that year could help "your team" (what you believe in, on any subject) then you'll lean towards them, support them, want them to win. Therefore be more likely to vote for them. It's honestly that simple, silly analogy aside.

I dunno, i know what im trying to say, probably sounds silly reading in text. But the fact of the matter is, Centralist's help swing elections, we're as important as any hardcore leftie or rightie, in fact we're probably more important when it comes to the vote. It's crucial for both parties to appeal to the centralist's if they want to win.

The biggest problem with the left is they see centralist's as right leaning and more likely to vote for the "opposition". In fairness, that probably proven true in the past 10 years or so. The left have become so authoritarian, that what was once very much centre-left is now considered firm (not far, firm) right wing.

But you also must see, and understand, how WE as centralist's see the right wing upper class' arrogance. A centralist usually wants to vote left honestly, you just make things so difficult for us with all this "YOU MUST SEE IT OUR WAY AND THAT'S THAT" kinda attitude. Let us debate certain issues, let a centrailist question these things, without calling him/her a "racist/phobe/bigot" etc.

Anyway, fck this, that's enough politics for me on a Saturday night. But bare this in mind...... When you have Boris Johnson, PM at the time, go on national TV and tell people (in the midst of a cost of living crisis) to "buy a new kettle as it could save you £10 a YEAR in energy" you, as a centralist are NOT on his Tory side, at ALL. Man was taking the piss. People like BJ wouldn't know what actual hardship, and financial struggles were if they got their massive shclongs out and slapped him across the face with them!

Aaand the thread descends into a look how big my progressive down wiv the kids dick looks

Pathetic

:umm2:

"Help help they're using big words again, big words are woke!" :joker:

Aaaand why are you starting every post with "aaaand" recently LT? It's daaaft. What a spoooon.

Rife with the usual mysogny as well, using Kate and I as examples of why something something is terrible, good job I have a sense of my own worth, the likes of Slim would like to crush me under his mansplaining ...tough

I didn't think by that much.:laugh:

Oh, I agree that surveys/opinion polls aren't everything.

But I am fascinated that the Reform hype hasn't died down by now, like I thought it would've.