Neil Schofield-Hughes

I have always used the em dash - British-style, with a gap either side - and I am not going to change now!

Exactly this.

Listening to Starmer’s speech after the Gorton and Denton by-election result I’d have said that Starmer can embarrass himself quite enough without Rhun’s help…

Indeed. It was always obvious to anyone who has eyes to see and ears to hear what Starmer was, and why Mandelson and McSweeney chose him to bear their standard. A useful idiot without morals or courage.

And this is why so many decent people can’t vote Labour any more.

For a party whose core support is among the over-65s that’s quite the claim.

Among the many, many reasons this is nuts: the bulk of British Muslims are Sunni, while Iran is a Shia theocracy. Sunni-Shia rivalry and mutual hostility goes back roughly a thousand years and has played as large a role (if not larger) as Protestant-Catholic rivalry/conflict in Europe

In my experience Labour staffers strut their arrogant and entitled stuff as if they’re something out of the West Wing when in reality they’re straight out of the bar scene in Star Wars.

I wonder if that Labour organiser - and the ones I have met are invariably lacking both intelligence and self-awareness - understand that their behaviour is one reason why millions of ex-Labour voters are doing precisely that?

The Iranian regime is objectively hideous. It murders & incarcerates innocent people, threatens & attacks sovereign neighbours, routinely breaks international law, outlaws dissent & crushes free speech.
Can you see the problem with *Donald Trump & Benjamin Netanyahu* leading the attack on them?

The Board for Peace starts its first war...

Absolutely. Here in Cymru, Labour in Westminster already treats its own government with complete contempt. Imagine how they’ll treat we uppity Welsh when we decide we want better for ourselves.

Absolutely!

And, yes, if you detect a hint of mea maxima culpa in there you’re dead right. Older, wiser, and out of Brighton I am very ashamed of some of what as a
Labour activist I allowed myself to be mixed up in.

Something I learned in my time in Labour politics in Brighton: how the Greens drive Labour people into paroxysms of frothing irrationality. One of the reasons why @carolinelucas.bsky.social beat them time after time was that they were incapable of framing an intelligent response to her politics.

Absolutely so. And it’s why the UK is in its last days.

Nach dem Aufstand des 17. Juni
Ließ der Sekretär des Schriftstellerverbands
In der Stalinallee Flugblätter verteilen
Auf denen zu lesen war, daß das Volk
Das Vertrauen der Regierung verscherzt habe
Und es nur durch verdoppelte Arbeit
zurückerobern könne.

The text that has been going around my mind over and over this morning.

This is absolutely true. The Epstein Files show us how the neoliberal world really works. What democratic accountability isn’t allowed near.

The drugs scaremongering was the last straw. Everyone who knows anything about the issue knows that public health approaches work better than prohibition.

Labour’s deep irrational hatred of the Greens does them no favours. I saw this when I lived in Brighton too.

Labour in Gorton and Denton were a disgrace.

But… where are Labour’s members? I know they’re mostly better than this. But they still pay their subs, do the legwork, repeat the Progress duckspeak. All in the name of illusory “Labour values”. When, and how, will they regain their self-respect?

One for all Labour’s loyal useful idiots who have been repeating the party line about how only Labour can defeat Reform in Gordon and Denton.

You may find the odd moment of reflection on the nature of self-respect helpful this morning.

That face when you built your entire academic and media brand on being the voice of the populace against the snooty elites, and you got your arse handed to you by a plumber.

The Labour party has been outflanked on drug policy by institutions as various and reactionary as the Metropolitan Police and the fucking state of MISSOURI (legal recreational weed since 2022).

Gutless, gormless little cowards.

Exactly this.

Fall in UK net migration threatens to carve deep hole in public finances Issue is expected to come under the spotlight in chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Spring Statement

The migration doom loop at work: does anyone in government seriously think that a strategy designed to keep out skilled workers and students makes either economic or political sense?

://www.ft.com/content/7408ad00-e4eb-41c7-8849-36061bc0eac1

I see that, as in Caerffili, only Labour could beat Reform.

I wonder whether Labour has ever reflected that it might do better if it stopped patronising the electorate and treated them like intelligent adults.

But still. Hope won out over cynicism. Da iawn.

Well quite.

Fascinating.

I live in Canton, an urban district of Cardiff, dating from the late 19th Century. Almost all the essentials are within ten minutes’ walk. It’s a place where people want to come to live.

It’s almost if our Welsh Victorian forbears invented the 15-minute city.