Sean Madden

Even if there was an answer to the question, "What could someone possibly do to earn that much?", in her case the answer would be "Destroy the planet."

Hi! Immigration lawyer here! Mahmood's view of the Refugee Convention as providing temporary protection just isn’t correct & AFAIK isn’t one anyone has ever adopted.

On the contrary, the Convention is clearly predicated on a long-term need for protection.
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No, it is the children who are wrong This week: Keir Starmer has decided that he blames the voters. Also: some golden age anti-car propaganda; and some new maps of British living standards.

"Where’s the soul searching about why voters might have defected to a challenger from the left? Why, in God’s name, did anyone think it was a good idea to imply a large chunk of Labour’s coalition is, in fact, stupid?"

Newsletter out. Bit angry.

I imagine most work harder at their primary job than he does.

Arsenal aren't people's rose-tinted memory of the invincibles, who were, in reality, regularly dour and a grind to watch. It's just how titles are often won.

The government of Venezuela wasn't overthrown either. The world's mafia just controls their oil.

And actually even into the 00s if you ignore the inevitable losses and busts that come with privatisation and hitching your wagon to the City.

It's also worth keeping in mind that there was a time, not that long ago, when through public spending and fair taxation, we did adequately fund public services and things were, generationally, getting better. This until the financialisation of the economy in the 80s and prioritising private profit.

I don't understand how this has become a detailed conversation about macroeconomics but the bottom line is: privatisation across public services - utilities, transport, health and social care etc - actively costs us more than if it was in-house and run for the benefit of the population.

Again, what's so undeliverable about working public services and living wages in the world's sixth-wealthiest country, where the thousand richest doubled their wealth in the aftermath of the financial crisis? Not doing much to convince the lib dems have really moved on from the coalition.

So basically, Reform are populist and the Greens aren't.

No it isn't! Populism is about the delegitimisation of "the other", about discrediting different world views without evidence and based purely on feeling. What you, and tbf a lot of the media, are describing is just stuff that's popular.

Right, but you're here telling me that people in deprived communities who've experienced nearly 2 decades of falling living standards can't have their concerns properly addressed without it being considered "populism", so forgive me for thinking the party may not have changed that much.

Without wanting to relitigate coalition dynamics, LD were complicit and I can have ire towards more than one party. But the idea it was 15 years ago so doesn't matter is absurd. We're living not just with the consequences but still in that world. Created by Osborne and propped up by Alexander et al.

"That old chestnut" is an unavoidable fact of British politics over the last 15 years. People are worse off than they were in 2008 and the public realm is crumbling. Those benefiting scapegoat migrants and other minorities to avoid scrutiny. Farage's popularity is because of your party's decisions.

I'd call it attempting to restore public services and living standards to, at least, their 2010 levels before your Orange Bookers helped trash them, but each to their own.

In Brum, daily vehicles are up nearly 9,000 since 2022.

More cars = more danger, more pollution at child height, fewer kids walking or cycling.

If we care about children’s health, it’s time to introduce a congestion charge - and cut traffic, not just emissions.

www.itv.com/news/central...

What's that?

Though I agree on the general and dangerous lack of urgency over the climate crisis, I don't think it's really a criticism that can be levelled at the Greens.

I don't think "giving people stuff" after 15 years of austerity is necessarily a bad thing.

It's in the national literature, but on the ground, the focus was clearly on wealth inequality and the cost of living. Addressing the those in the way the party wants to also addresses ACC. The Greens don't necessarily need to hammer the environmental message, it's already factored in.

Yeah, the hatred of the left is palpable. Possibly because they know, on some level, it's who they should be but don't have the guts?

I don't recall Starmer ever voicing a dislike for fascists.

I'm going to put it out there that if I, admittedly a very anxious, twitchy, and generally psychologically unwell guy, went around launching "preventative" attacks against anyone I thought for a second might do me harm, I think *at the very least* everyone would stop giving me weapons

When does a war of aggression become a preemptive strike? When it's the US or its outpost in the Middle East, I guess.

*view

Yes, this is an accelerationist: the European Super League can't happen quickly enough.

Or the last month. That midfield just does not work.

Excerpt from Resisting Erasure, it reads: Moreover, when solidarity with Palestine is framed as divisive or ‘too political’, what is really being argued is that the lives and struggles of racialised people outside the West do not belong at the centre of political and labour movements. This attitude treats the concerns of certain workers – those who are predominantly white or in the Global North – as the ‘real’ working-class issues, while marginalising those of others. Bread-and-butter racism is not just about what is opposed but also about what is excluded. It is itself a racialising logic.

Oh, talking about Palestine is too fucking 'sectarian' is it? Why should Gaza be an issue in Gorton and Denton?

To quote myself, Adam Hanieh and @rafeefz.bsky.social:

The drive towards endless growth that characterises neoliberal capitalism is *the* fundamental, undergirding source of environmental depredation, so fighting that *is* fighting climate breakdown. To a far greater degree than, for e.g., Net Zero or the SDG.