I didn't insult you. Right let me cover your points. As someone who knows a lot of Americans (I would do, I called it home for 9 years) I can tell you now that life conditions were better under Trump. Or rather, they were better under Republican rule. No one I have spoken to has said that Biden has done anything whatsoever to improve their lives, and everything now costs twice what it did when Trump was the president. As such his actions, at least to me, mean little. Was it embarrassing when he was voted out? yes. Yes it was. However, it got him nowhere and he is no longer president. The immigration thing? again, having lived out there I can tell you now it is an enormous problem. It is. There is no dancing around it. However, as I am sure you will know it is now an even worse problem, with tons of Nigerians having had their lives ruined. They were invited over there to work, only they are not allowed to work, or drive, or much of anything else and are mostly now living homeless on the streets of New York because of it. I've said it before and I will say it again - countries like the UK and USA can not solve the world's problems. Unfortunately some are born less privileged than others, and countries like the UK and USA can not take in all of those people and give them better lives. At some point something is going to give. And it has. Like I said, I have been waiting over three years to have scans and possibly knee replacements, which I know is now a pipe dream. I have spoken with my doctors, and they have told me that there are just too many patients. So we are now becoming over populated. The entire world ****ed the response to Covid. That was nothing to do with Trump as governments worldwide made the same mistakes. We don't vote for presidents because of their responses to covid, or whether they do things we may or may not like. As I said, we do it for our own quality of life. I think more people need to realise that. It's not a popularity contest it is about results. And like I said, not one American I know has told me they are better off under Biden. And I know a lot of them, from many states and many walks of life. As for the Ukraine? well, as I said when the war kicked off I think we are to blame for that. IE - the west. I think we got a bit too close to Russia's doorstep and yeah. Maybe one day we will stop using countries as puppets, though we all know that is not going to happen. Trump didn't undermine the election he just acted like a total knob. As for him encouraging gun toting mobs? yeah see I don't agree with that. Thing is, had he done anything truly wrong he would have been arrested for it. However, again I will reiterate that none of what you have said has changed the living situation in the USA. None of it. Just because you don't like the guy (and believe me I don't I think he is a tosser) that doesn't mean that he made his country worse because he just didn't. In fact, if any one has done more damage to the country it is the democrats. Who legalised all drugs in Oregon, and now it is a dangerous hovel. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...ata show Oregon,from opiate overdoses in 2022.
BTW I think you will all find that none of the current political parties offer the answers needed to anything or any one. All of them are now out of touch with the world and how it works, and none of them are helping.
So to get the Tories out and bring labour in you decided to vote reform after seeing a conservative advert. That's pretty much the definition of propaganda. No, but that thing most of us have called a job means I talk to a hell of a lot of Americans on a daily basis. 1. Nothing to do with Biden. 2. Exactly what's happened in nearly every other part of the world, costs have gone up. Biden isn't the president of the UK yet our prices are up, same for the rest of Europe. 3. You're having a laugh. Biden divided the nation? But trump didn't? You've lost your mind. To name a few Protected Marriage for LGBTQI+ and Interracial Couples Executive Orders Protecting Reproductive Rights Student debt relief pardoned all prior federal offenses of simple marijuana possession How does us buying oil and Gas from Russia make the west responsible for them invading Ukraine? Bin off everyone that doesn't work then, problem solved. Less burden on the NHS and more money in taxes to the gov. We'll swap people on benefits for foreigners willing to work. He's literally been found guilty. Based on the fact none of the Tories have been arrested I think we can all agree that doing something wrong doesn't immediately mean being arrested.
Nope, we are not over-populated, our public services are under-resourced. No thanks to the Tories and 14 years of austerity. Amazingly, if you don't continue to invest in public services then you end up with them not being fit for purpose.
I really didn't want to get into this in any more depth than I already had. I had originally written quite a bit about how I don’t actually care about who people vote for so long as they’re thinking for themselves and so on... But I closed the browser tab; I've had a long-ass day, and I was going to start catching up on a few games I've been neglecting. I knew that if I didn't just leave it alone I would end up doing exactly what I'm doing now: spend bloody ages writing and re-writing something until the point where I literally have to stop or I'll be here so late that I won't be able to switch off when I try to go to sleep and will be up until well past 2am. But I can't leave it alone, can I. I can't help myself. Honestly sometimes I don't even have the energy to fight it, and maybe today is one of those days. Some of the draft was auto-saved, so I’ll open with the most pertinent part. I can't - and won't - speak for anyone else, but as impassioned or sarcastic as I often am, it is never - ever - personal, no matter what thread I post it in. If people ever interpret something I've said as a personal insult then I apologise and edit my posts accordingly. But I will never apologise for having an opinion or making my case, no matter how provocative or emotive my choice of language might be. So which politician is like you? Rishi Sunak, married to the heiress of a very large and very wealthy technology company, who is so incalculably wealthy that generations of his descendants will never have to worry about money? Nigel Farage, a man who made his fortune as a city banker and has spent most of his life campaigning on a single issue? Keir Starmer, who spent decades as a criminal barrister, has a knighthood, and was formerly director of public prosecutions? None of those leaders are like “normal people”. There are a few in the Labour Party you could credibly call “normal people” - people who’ve come from very modest backgrounds and who have only got to where they are now through sheer hard graft. But no one like that is a contender for prime minister. I doubt that the politics of post-war Britain are in any way relevant nearly 80 years after the end of the war. You missed the point there. We were talking about being "rich", and my point was that both Sunak and Farage are and were already richer than Starmer will likely ever be. The fact that Farage was eligible for a Coutts bank account in the first place means that he's got some mattresses absolutely bulging with cash. Also, that account closure was perfectly lawful and handled in line with industry rules. Nothing to do with "cancel culture" or any other nonsense phrases like that. In fact the first person that went for the "cancel culture" angle was Farage himself. NatWest handled it bloody terribly though and should rightly face criticism and penalties for it. Details about his finances should have never been discussed publicly by anyone from the bank, let alone senior leadership. I worked for a bank for a long time; I started in the telephone banking call centre, and people from that department were fired for even gossiping with colleagues about customers and their finances. And these were your average regular people, not people who had enough money to be eligible for a Coutts bank account. The fact that Farage saw the term "politically exposed person" and went instantly to "they're cancelling me because they don't like my politics!" is a problem for Farage and Farage alone. "Politically exposed person" is a well-known and well-understood term in financial services, they're the kind of people that banks have to be extra careful with because of their position and their potential susceptibility/exposure to bribery. He's got a lovely highlight reel in his past. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/aug/31/boris-johnson-nigel-farage-in-quotes: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uk...h-Powells-River-of-Blood-speech-is-right.html: https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/nick-ferrari/when-i-was-uncomfortable-condemned-says-farage/: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2014/dec/19/nigel-farage-ukip-defends-word-chinky-video: https://www.theguardian.com/politic...emn-nigel-farage-for-antisemitic-dog-whistles: And, by the way, most of the batshit things being talked about in this article are actually just a thin veneer for antisemitism. In the past few people ever said that quiet part out loud, but the rise in prominence of people like Farage means that they're less and less afraid to be quite so coy these days. Yeah, OK, fair enough, I've mined that one article enough. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ration-migrants-hiv-ban-from-uk-a7077716.html: https://metro.co.uk/2014/03/31/hes-...r-he-admires-the-most-vladimir-putin-4683624/: No, he's not going to say any of that stuff on I'm A Celeb because millions of eyeballs were on him when he was on that series, he needs those people to vote for him/his party. Now, hang on a sec here. You're extrapolating some pretty dire predictions of doom based on some quite unfounded assumptions. Let's dig up what I actually said - emphasis mine: Not once did I say I condoned or encouraged it. I said it was funny. If I watch a video of someone accidentally being hit in the balls by a football or something, I find it funny - that doesn't mean I encourage people to go round hitting each other in the balls because I find it funny. I've also watched "funny" videos where someone tripped, fell, etc, and injured themselves quite badly, and I did not find those funny at all. I've also seen videos where people have been hit in the balls quite severely, and I did not find those funny at all either. Your mate accidentally kicking a football at your balls is unlikely to result in serious damage - it'll hurt for a while, but you'll almost certainly be fine. That's funny. A skateboarder or a cyclist hitting their balls on a metal bar at quite high speed is potentially an extremely serious injury. That's not funny. There is absolutely no risk of injury from having milkshake thrown at you or water dumped over you. That was funny. It was funny not only because of the slapstick element of "man get hit with thing that's gross", but it was also funny because Prescott's reaction was not what you'd expect from a Deputy Prime Minister. His reaction was the same way a lot of "normal" people would react: punch the guy in the face. Buzz Aldrin was accosted by a crank who told him, to his face, that he never walked on the moon, and his response was to ask the person to leave him alone; when they didn't go away, Buzz punched him in the face. I thought that was pretty damn funny as well. I'm not going to apologise if other people don't find any of those incidents funny. Again, I'm not going to speak for anyone else but me, but I am not attacking or criticising you personally, only the arguments you put forth. I would do the same to others and I have done the same to others. Criticising an argument is debate; criticising the person making the argument is an ad-hominem. Since the turn of the 20th century, the UK has been under a Labour government for a total of 23 years. 23 out of 124 years, and 13 of those were the Blair/Brown days. Unless we get true proportional representation, no party other than the Conservatives or Labour will ever feasibly be in power throughout any of our lifetimes. Even if we did have true PR, it's unlikely to cause a major shift in this country's political dynamics within our lifetimes (well... except maybe @MLyons, he's got a bit longer to go than most of us crusty farts ). The Conservatives have been in power for the last 14 years and have, objectively, failed to improve the economy or living standards. By your own admission, there are at least some things that you would prefer under a Labour government. Shouldn't they at least be given the chance to to try before we condemn them as "not helping"? In this case I'm really not going to get drawn into this, because right now I can only just spare enough energy to worry about politics in our own country... But it is worth highlighting that Biden has actually achieved quite a lot, apparently. This is not my image and I'm afraid I can't cite a link for any of these, but it should at least be a good starting point if anyone is inclined to dig further into any of these: Those games are still neglected and now I really do have to stop, because I need a good hour or so to unwind before I try to sleep. I get up at 6am, I can't take any more nights of poor sleep this week. So if anyone needs me, I'm afraid I will not be here again until around 4pm-ish tomorrow .
Well we will see if that changes when Labour get in. Kinda betting it won’t but hey, we’ll see I guess.
<shrug> 's a free country, I'm not forcing you to read anything. Not engaging is a decision you're perfectly free to make.
It is, and I didn’t force you to say anything either. I’m not being rude I just literally don’t have the time , energy or want to sit here arguing. Or being any more divided than I already have been by the biggest bunch of **** bags I have ever seen during my lifetime.
It's totally not. Propaganda is when someone shoves something in your face and tries to make you believe something. Maybe go back and read what I said. I said that the Tories were shoving ads down my throat on Facebook (three times, even though I said to hide all ads from them) about how if I voted for Reform it would be a vote for Kier Starmer. In other words what the Tories were doing was shoving propaganda in my face hoping I would say "Hey that is right I better vote Tory !". So it quite clearly failed, and, Reform could actually destroy the Tories once and for all. So explain to me how I fell for the propaganda please? I would say that propaganda has backfired. Now see, I would actually vote Labour if I did not think Kier Starmer was a complete douche. Sadly he is, and thus I would rather peel my bellend with a rusty potato peeler than vote for the ****. As such I did the next best thing, as I have explained.
No, the rabid Remainers said that. They also said that even if we voted leave they would get us back in the EU. Now see, real life issues for people are being completely disregarded. And people are beginning to notice that. Fact is Farage will never get in. What they will do however is destroy the Tories. And I am all for that. I live in the real world me. I don't really care too much about LGB or whatever letter is being added on now. It doesn't have anything to do with me. I also am not in an interracial couple so again, none of that pertains to or concerns me. I think it has all gotten a bit extreme and a bit out of hand. So I then come back to my life. I am in pain 24/7. I have what is now chronic arthritis in my knees. I have a damaged elbow which is also extremely painful (believe me I know the difference between normal pain and extreme pain) and a totally shot shoulder. I am getting one hour sleep at a time before waking in agony. I then have to roll around and find a position that will at least get me back to sleep for another hour before rinse and repeat. I was put on opioids (yes, it is that bad and worse) and just left on them for over three years now. So now not only do I have pain all of the time I am now an addict and one day I am going to have to go through withdrawal like never before. My teeth are all rotten and broken. I can not even get a dentist to let me join, let alone get any NHS care. My mother is in the same boat, and desperately needs to go on a new medication for osteoporosis but she can't because her teeth are rotten too and getting them fixed would wipe out every penny she has in savings as a home owner. And people are banging on about LBG LOL. I really am not fussed who people choose to have sex with, cohabit with, marry etc. However this **** is getting beyond a joke now. People going around attacking politicians and saying it is OK. Cancelling people and ruining their lives. Yeah nah. Just, nah. Politicians are so bad now I just literally sit there praying that I will reach the end of my life before the whole country collapses. It's just all so bloody invasive now. More armchair politicians than ever.
Such as voting reforming is helping labour and hurting the tories... or three adverts after you turned them off... You did fall for it as the advert is two fold. If you're a tory voter, don't vote reform as it will help labour. If you're a labour voter, a vote for reform is the same as voting for labour. So you think farage is a top bloke then? where's that 350 million a week gone again? There's no metric which show us as better off outside Europe. So the "rabid Remainers" saying it was a horrendous idea were actually correct.
