Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 23, 2023 11:35:59 GMT
Ah the Season of Ill Will has come round again . How time flies . Have a good winterval colin and I hope everybody here enjoys the next few days.
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Dec 23, 2023 11:38:34 GMT
The issue here isn't people being Tories. There's nothing wrong with holding conservative views and voting Tory if you think that party embodies those views, and you could argue that this forum lacks posters arguing from that perspective, but what mystifies me is why someone would masquerade behind a political persona that is, in essence, a false one. What's the point? Mercian is a good example of someone who is unequivocal and appears to present his views without recourse to ambivalence and disingenuous bullshit. They may well be views that find little favour amongst this very small representation of the population, but they appear to be ones he genuinely holds.And which are also held by a sizable chunk of the electorate. I know many, many Mercians (and also a few Colins. Trevor is a one-off I think). I have alas a few within my own family so I'm used to doing battle, wearying as it is and pointless as it feels. My own mother has taken up reading the f'ing Telegraph and watching GB news in her old age (my late father would not have approved). Relations definitely feel more strained in the last few years and if I'm honest I try to avoid a lot of them now. My wife's family on the other hand are impeccably thoughtful and liberal all the way down. Annoying 🙂
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Dec 23, 2023 11:42:47 GMT
You reveal your true self. Tory party perfect home for you I reckon Cheap, low, shot from your there sonny. Careful, you'll encourage Mr Fuckety Fuck and that doyen of tolerance jen with posts like that. With a name like that he must have real trouble making restaurant reservations.
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Post by thylacine on Dec 23, 2023 12:04:27 GMT
And which are also held by a sizable chunk of the electorate. I know many, many Mercians (and also a few Colins. Trevor is a one-off I think). I have alas a few within my own family so I'm used to doing battle, wearying as it is and pointless as it feels. My own mother has taken up reading the f'ing Telegraph and watching GB news in her old age (my late father would not have approved). Relations definitely feel more strained in the last few years and if I'm honest I try to avoid a lot of them now. My wife's family on the other hand are impeccably thoughtful and liberal all the way down. Annoying 🙂 My daughter has invented two sets of bingo cards for the respective younger family members to play at the gatherings this year. Amongst the more personal family foible ones ( noisy farts, being told to stop muttering by deaf relatives, having weight loss or gain being commented on etc) she has included categories such as homophobic,islamophobic, transphobic,racist or sexist comment. She is timing both family events to see who reaches full house first. I reckon the in laws will win as both mother and father are daily mail readers but I can't be sure. For the sake of balance there is a Daily Mail readerphobic comment box!
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steve
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Post by steve on Dec 23, 2023 12:06:45 GMT
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steve
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Post by steve on Dec 23, 2023 12:14:30 GMT
"Ah the Season of Ill Will has come round again .
How time flies ."
Yes it only seems like yesterday when your mate jib was calling people senile old farts, oh hang on it was yesterday.
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pjw1961
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Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
Posts: 8,374
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Post by pjw1961 on Dec 23, 2023 12:22:15 GMT
And which are also held by a sizable chunk of the electorate. I know many, many Mercians (and also a few Colins. Trevor is a one-off I think). I have alas a few within my own family so I'm used to doing battle, wearying as it is and pointless as it feels. My own mother has taken up reading the f'ing Telegraph and watching GB news in her old age (my late father would not have approved). Relations definitely feel more strained in the last few years and if I'm honest I try to avoid a lot of them now. My wife's family on the other hand are impeccably thoughtful and liberal all the way down. Annoying 🙂 My in-laws, having had a bad time over the last couple of years as everything went wrong, have rallied recently having discovered the explanation for everything - immigrants. Lack of affordable housing? - immigrants taking them; NHS and public services collapsing? - immigrants using them. Criminal justice system in crisis? - too many criminal immigrants. High taxes? - immigrants being paid benefits. Nothing to do with the government at all (at which I always point out that immigration has gone up under the Conservatives). The secondary reason for problems is that, so I am told, Brexit has not been implemented and apparently won't be until we remove every EU derived law from the statute book and leave all international treaties. There are levels of derangement where it is simply better to talk about football instead.
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steve
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Post by steve on Dec 23, 2023 12:29:19 GMT
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Dec 23, 2023 13:31:53 GMT
I have alas a few within my own family so I'm used to doing battle, wearying as it is and pointless as it feels. My own mother has taken up reading the f'ing Telegraph and watching GB news in her old age (my late father would not have approved). Relations definitely feel more strained in the last few years and if I'm honest I try to avoid a lot of them now. My wife's family on the other hand are impeccably thoughtful and liberal all the way down. Annoying 🙂 My in-laws, having had a bad time over the last couple of years as everything went wrong, have rallied recently having discovered the explanation for everything - immigrants. Lack of affordable housing? - immigrants taking them; NHS and public services collapsing? - immigrants using them. Criminal justice system in crisis? - too many criminal immigrants. High taxes? - immigrants being paid benefits. Nothing to do with the government at all (at which I always point out that immigration has gone up under the Conservatives). The secondary reason for problems is that, so I am told, Brexit has not been implemented and apparently won't be until we remove every EU derived law from the statute book and leave all international treaties. There are levels of derangement where it is simply better to talk about football instead. Wow my relatives aren't quite that bad, I honestly couldn't tolerate that, I wish you strength! If people keep their views to themselves then it's fine, I will too but often you find someone on the right will try to provoke with some sudden, mock throwaway semi racist or xenophobic comment which you'd be a coward not to confront and then out it all pours. Makes these gatherings tense from the offset as you just want everyone to rub along but you know it's likely to all kick off at some point especially after a couple of drinks.
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Post by alec on Dec 23, 2023 16:01:17 GMT
This is a great demo of how big business functions. In this case, Palentir, who have scooped a huge contract that gives them access to NHS patient records, has been caught paying social media influencers to tweet as part of a source obscured attack on democracy campaigners The Good Law Project. There are also attacks on the GLP in the right wing press, so this is clearly coordinated. Really shitty stuff, from the boys and girls in suits who love nothing more than raking in tax payers cash and like nothing less than tax payers asking difficult questions about the contracts. I'd suggest everyone pays attention to this kind of this, because when all's said and done, this is how democracy dies. It's not with jackboots and guns but with cash and some bribed journalists and bloggers. Link here - goodlawproject.org/pr-firm-topham-guerin-tories-and-palantir-offers-to-pay-influencers-attacks-twitter-x/
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Post by alec on Dec 23, 2023 16:02:55 GMT
pjw1961 - "There are levels of derangement where it is simply better to talk about football instead" Just don't mention that lots of immigrants play football....
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oldnat
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Extremist - Undermining the UK state and its institutions
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Post by oldnat on Dec 23, 2023 16:23:45 GMT
This is a great demo of how big business functions. In this case, Palentir, who have scooped a huge contract that gives them access to NHS patient records, has been caught paying social media influencers to tweet as part of a source obscured attack on democracy campaigners The Good Law Project. There are also attacks on the GLP in the right wing press, so this is clearly coordinated. Really shitty stuff, from the boys and girls in suits who love nothing more than raking in tax payers cash and like nothing less than tax payers asking difficult questions about the contracts. I'd suggest everyone pays attention to this kind of this, because when all's said and done, this is how democracy dies. It's not with jackboots and guns but with cash and some bribed journalists and bloggers. Link here - goodlawproject.org/pr-firm-topham-guerin-tories-and-palantir-offers-to-pay-influencers-attacks-twitter-x/ I share your concern about this use of paid "influencers" being hired to savage investigative organisations. That affects all of us - although the award of the contract, to process patient data, to Palantir affects only the data of NHS patients within England for the next 5-7 years. None of the devolved administrations are involved with this.
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Post by barbara on Dec 23, 2023 16:30:04 GMT
I have alas a few within my own family so I'm used to doing battle, wearying as it is and pointless as it feels. My own mother has taken up reading the f'ing Telegraph and watching GB news in her old age (my late father would not have approved). Relations definitely feel more strained in the last few years and if I'm honest I try to avoid a lot of them now. My wife's family on the other hand are impeccably thoughtful and liberal all the way down. Annoying 🙂 My in-laws, having had a bad time over the last couple of years as everything went wrong, have rallied recently having discovered the explanation for everything - immigrants. Lack of affordable housing? - immigrants taking them; NHS and public services collapsing? - immigrants using them. Criminal justice system in crisis? - too many criminal immigrants. High taxes? - immigrants being paid benefits. Nothing to do with the government at all (at which I always point out that immigration has gone up under the Conservatives). The secondary reason for problems is that, so I am told, Brexit has not been implemented and apparently won't be until we remove every EU derived law from the statute book and leave all international treaties. There are levels of derangement where it is simply better to talk about football instead. That's basically my family and some of my friends. My nephew in law, born into a reasonably wealthy family and privately educated, then subsidised by his parents as a gopher in their business as he couldn't get post university employment and then given a job managing one of their restaurants which proved to be a failure, given a substantial deposit by his parents for his first house with my niece and then ended up teaching - and yet still believes that those who need support/benefits/an NHS/ state schools are somehow failures and need a good stiffening of hard knocks to make the kind of success of themselves that he has. People should pay for NHS services and despite being a teacher, declares that he doesn't want to send his own children to the kind of school he teaches in. Extraordinary self delusion.
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Post by robbiealive on Dec 23, 2023 17:00:42 GMT
Mercian is the most reactionary of the "eight". He is a wind-up merchant & always has been & if he gets wound-up in turn -- so be it. His unenviable function is to remind us both that so many Brexiteers mourn the passing of the reactionary social values of the '50s & how glad the rest of us are to have left these tawdry ideas behind. It was a glorious decade in economic respects: the post-war boom enabled my parents & their extended families to esxape the poverty of the inter-war years, & the lenghthy disruption that had been imposed on their lives in WW2. They gained things that would have seen fanciful before the war: home & car ownership, foreign travel, etc. The reactiobnary '50s social values are another matter. In my '50s-childhood Q Victoria stalked every street. But increased social mobility for my/our generation (so welcome to our parents) created by wider educational opportunites & prosperity, the changing position of women in the labour force etc, brought about a fundamental change in social values in the '60s & subsequently The reactionary forces may have dominated political & economic life since the '80s but they have been unable to reverse great changes in ideas & levels of tolerance, despite their worst efforts. So, eg., Badenoch, out ludicrous "equalities" minister, babbles on about toilets & "woke" & is part of the anti-immigrant claque, but the claque's racist-tinged hostility to migration has not always been in step with popular opinion. Anti-immigrant feeling reached a peak in the decade before Brexit, softened siubsequently, tho it has hardened once more in recent years given the increase in net migration & the obsession of right-wing Tories with the issue. But the public takes a far more pragmatic view of the necessity of immigration to specific employment areas than the Tory extremists, with their blanket approach: so while there is a widespread & general disapproval of "low-skilled" migrants, people are far less hostile than the Tory nutjobs to immigrants entering the NHS & the hospitalty & care sectors: presumably recognising the irresponsibility of abruptly cutting-off the foreign labour supply to these sectors, in the absence of domestic replacements. Likewise, right-wing Tories cited their unrepresentative (and often superficial) religious views to oppose same-sex marriage. The public is unconcerned: most people are not gay, & as long as they are free to fling money away on traditional white weddings are happy to allow other people to get on with their lives. migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/uk-public-opinion-toward-immigration-overall-attitudes-and-level-of-concern/
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Dec 23, 2023 17:41:21 GMT
Hmm. 1 in 50 people in London are homeless, 1 in 20 in some boroughs. Which doesnt necessarily mean they are on the streets, a lot are in 'temporary accommodation'. Reasons include shortage of private sectors rental properties. Housing benefits having been frozen, so that they would only cover rent for 1 in 20 properties. Spells in temporary accommodation can last for years. Typically such a thing is actually a private sector flat, but the council is paying the difference in rent between what is charged and what is covered by benefit. Which rather defeats the purpose of forcing down housing benefit. not to mention is making shortages of property worse. People in such accommodations can be asked to move at any time without notice, to anywhwere. Apparently also London councils are competing with the home office for accommodation. And the Home office has a larger budget, so its outbidding councils for whatever accommodation might exist in their area. Housing benefit levels were originally defined to cover 50% of rents in an area. Then this went to 30%. But now its frozen its more like 5%. Councils are now seeing their 'risk' assessments of what might bankrupt thwm changing, so whereas it used to be social and care services, now it is a bill for housing over which they have no control. Some of this gets refunded by government, but apparently the more 'temporary', ie bed and breakfast, then the less the council gets refunded. So the worse the shortage of real accommodations gets, so their bill escalates. Obviously the conservative government doesnt care if poor people can any longer afford to find accommodation for themselves. Is this rather akin to the Israeli reaction to Arabs in Gaza? Is the plan for how to turn London more conservative simply to get rid of the poor? People may remember Dame Shirley porter was fined £36 million for deliberately manipulating housing stocks to encourage more conservative voters into her council area. This is of course a central government policy. So should Rishi get the blame and have to pay up? Where are you getting your figures from? 'The briefing Room', R4. Sould be available on the internet.
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Post by mercian on Dec 23, 2023 17:53:13 GMT
No. It would seem that you feel culturally threatened that your sole post solstice festival isn't the only one being celebrated, and that recognising others is "subordinating" you.
There are excellent reasons, other than cultural inclusion, for celebrating anything you can over the depressing winter months - and the economic interests of tourism are a massive one.
Scotland has had a Winter Festival for many years. Wiki describes it as "an annual, nationwide festival that takes place across the winter months of November, December and January. Three particular events are highlighted: Saint Andrew's Day, Hogmanay and Burns night."
These events are additional to to the consumerist festival of Xmas, and don't replace it, they surround it. Of course, while they cover Nov-Jan, when there are specific Scottish festivals, we don't have a full Winter Festival which would also cover Feb-Apr and Aug-Oct. I have no problem with other cultures, no matter how backward, celebrating their festivals. I just object to the invention of a new thing to encompass all of them. As my original post said, 'Winterval' seems to have died out in this country so it's all a storm in a teacup anyway.
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steve
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Post by steve on Dec 23, 2023 18:20:00 GMT
mercian Winterval as an issue was only ever found in the pages of the right wing media and only a problem for a small minority of their readership The actual thing was a catch all term Birmingham city council gave for a series of civic religious and non religious events taking place between October and January in 1997 and 1998.They changed the name because of the bollocks emerging from the gutter press. So you're right it's " died out" as it was never actually a thing in the first place The right wing disgusteds of Tunbridge wells merchants have move on to their perennial whinge about foreigners instead. Attachment Deleted
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Post by mercian on Dec 23, 2023 18:40:54 GMT
Despising your fellow citizens seems common amongst lefties. hahahaha! So speaks the site bigot. Yes, I understand that in your view, any socialist, meaning anybody who supports the idea of the NHS or old age pensions (both very obviously socialist constructs) are lefties. I suppose that, in your view, that makes me a leftie, because although I do not support Labour, I support the idea of the NHS and pensions (although I find it unfair that I have to subsidise bigoted shit... to think my dad fought against people like you in WW2, and that we had thought we had put you all to bed at Cable Street in 1936, never mind, maybe one day we will sue you or your children for the damages you have caused with your lies...). TL;DR why don't you just fuck off to Russia? Well I think you prove my point.
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steve
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Post by steve on Dec 23, 2023 18:44:52 GMT
"Well I think you prove my point."
Not really Jen's comment style is pretty unique here, thankfully ,so it rather proved it isn't common at all .
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steve
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Post by steve on Dec 23, 2023 18:52:54 GMT
Here's jibs favourite squirrel on a forlorn search for a Brexit benefit. Attachment DeletedNadolig Llawen you wee daftie.
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steve
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Post by steve on Dec 23, 2023 18:57:52 GMT
I'm more than a little concerned by the Hatters ability to actually beat other sides in the premier league wining against Newcastle is particularly worrying as they're actually rather good. We were all banking on a heroic but brief stay another season wasn't remotely planned.
Nice to see captain Tom Lockyer recovering after his heart attack.
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pjw1961
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Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
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Post by pjw1961 on Dec 23, 2023 19:24:34 GMT
My in-laws, having had a bad time over the last couple of years as everything went wrong, have rallied recently having discovered the explanation for everything - immigrants. Lack of affordable housing? - immigrants taking them; NHS and public services collapsing? - immigrants using them. Criminal justice system in crisis? - too many criminal immigrants. High taxes? - immigrants being paid benefits. Nothing to do with the government at all (at which I always point out that immigration has gone up under the Conservatives). The secondary reason for problems is that, so I am told, Brexit has not been implemented and apparently won't be until we remove every EU derived law from the statute book and leave all international treaties. There are levels of derangement where it is simply better to talk about football instead. Wow my relatives aren't quite that bad, I honestly couldn't tolerate that, I wish you strength! If people keep their views to themselves then it's fine, I will too but often you find someone on the right will try to provoke with some sudden, m ock throwaway semi racist or xenophobic comment which you'd be a coward not to confront and then out it all pours. Makes these gatherings tense from the offset as you just want everyone to rub along but you know it's likely to all kick off at some point especially after a couple of drinks. The highlighted bit is where I get caught out; I can let a lot pass, but not that. It's interesting how times have changed though. The points about 'excessive' levels of immigration tend to avoid outright racism now. It all about how the country is too small and there's no room for more people but tends not to reference the fact that many migrants happen to be darker skinned than the average anglo-celt. I suppose that is some sort of progress.
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Post by mercian on Dec 23, 2023 20:03:22 GMT
You reveal your true self. Tory party perfect home for you I reckon What's the point? Mercian is a good example of someone who is unequivocal and appears to present his views without recourse to ambivalence and disingenuous bullshit. They may well be views that find little favour amongst this very small representation of the population, but they appear to be ones he genuinely holds. Thank you. You and I don't agree on much politically but at least we can usually discuss things rationally without resorting to abuse or accusing each other of lying. I think we ought to take some of these angry folk to a County Championship match. It might calm them down a bit.
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Post by mercian on Dec 23, 2023 20:07:37 GMT
What's the point? Mercian is a good example of someone who is unequivocal and appears to present his views without recourse to ambivalence and disingenuous bullshit. They may well be views that find little favour amongst this very small representation of the population, but they appear to be ones he genuinely holds.And which are also held by a sizable chunk of the electorate. I know many, many Mercians (and also a few Colins. Trevor is a one-off I think). So I hope you would agree that to hear views held by a good chunk of the electorate is healthy on a forum like this. It would descend even more often into factional Labour Party bickering otherwise. I perform a valuable community service and think I should be given a medal.
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Post by mercian on Dec 23, 2023 20:23:44 GMT
Mercian is the most reactionary of the "eight". He is a wind-up merchant & always has been & if he gets wound-up in turn -- so be it. His unenviable function is to remind us both that so many Brexiteers mourn the passing of the reactionary social values of the '50s & how glad the rest of us are to have left these tawdry ideas behind. It was a glorious decade in economic respects: the post-war boom enabled my parents & their extended families to esxape the poverty of the inter-war years, & the lenghthy disruption that had been imposed on their lives in WW2. They gained things that would have seen fanciful before the war: home & car ownership, foreign travel, etc. The reactiobnary '50s social values are another matter. In my '50s-childhood Q Victoria stalked every street. I was wondering if I was one of your "eight". I'm so glad I made it. In return, I grant you founder membership of the "pompous know-all x". I haven't decided on the value of x yet because there are quite a few on here and I can't be bothered to count them. On your substantive point I note that there is a correlation between the UK's relative standing in the world and the decline of what you call reactionary values.
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Post by mercian on Dec 23, 2023 20:26:33 GMT
mercian 'I have no problem with other cultures, no matter how backward' We can't all be as tolerant and loving of all our fellow citizens as you... In case of doubt, that was a mild tease of oldnat because he went on about Hogmanay and so on.
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Post by mark61 on Dec 23, 2023 20:48:52 GMT
Seasons greetings and goodwill to all who post here. May I make a plea that when disagreeing with another's viewpoint or post try to avoid personal insults. If you flame those you disagree with bit by bit minority views on this site are likely to disappear and it will become an echo chamber with all of us LoC posters largely agreeing with each other
Ref PJW &DOMJG recent posts Is The Boomer generation the most entitled?, the charge they seem to love to lay at the door of every subsequent generation. The Boomers came into their majority from the mid sixties onwards benefitting from the post war settlement and economic boom hard won by the generation on both sides of the Atlantic defeated European Fascism and Japanese militarism ( with the enormous sacrifice) of the Red Army) By the Mid-to-Late seventies The Boomers consolidated their agency over Govt. and Business banking the fruits of the post war Consensus and property Boom and voting by large majorities for Policies that bit by bit shut out subsequent generations from the same benefits they took for granted, so much for the Summer Of Love! ( I Know that was only on the Kings Rd.!)
The Boomers last gift to their Children and Grandchildren was Brexit and Boris Johnson, however Time's Arrow moves in one direction and their influence is on the wane. I'm a Boomer too, by D0B, rather than attitude or belief. I am fearful for my children and Grand Children's future, I hope If Labour get in next time they will focus on the working age population and give them some hope for the future, despite working hard and working long hours many are just hanging on.
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johntel
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Post by johntel on Dec 23, 2023 20:55:26 GMT
And which are also held by a sizable chunk of the electorate. I know many, many Mercians (and also a few Colins. Trevor is a one-off I think). So I hope you would agree that to hear views held by a good chunk of the electorate is healthy on a forum like this. It would descend even more often into factional Labour Party bickering otherwise. I perform a valuable community service and think I should be given a medal. I agree and hereby award you the CDM - you can collect it yourself from the factory.
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Post by crossbat11 on Dec 23, 2023 21:24:17 GMT
mark61 LoC posters largely agreeing with each other? You're having a laugh aren't you???
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Post by mark61 on Dec 23, 2023 21:46:24 GMT
Well Crossbat, you and I will never agree about the best team in Birmingham!
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