Thread 17: Starmer: Treading softly.

[DuncinToffee]

Lettuce pray

Keep it civil

Cat, dog, flowers tax much appreciated

Previous thread
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5257111-thread-16-starmer-mad-world?page=40

Freedom of Speech apparently

A US VP from an administration that bans journalists from White House if they dare challenge anything govt says, that bans publication of research on women's health or climate change, and from a party that bans books that tell the story of Rosa Parks.

He means people outside the US being nasty about Trump.

It's what Hitler would have done had the people of Germany been able to access what the rest of the world thought of them. Remember how much of a shock it was to a lot of Germans to realise they were the baddies.

If you can't prevent the information being disseminated (although controlling Twitter and Facebook is a good headstart) then the next best thing is to ensure the people that matter (i.e. your own country) believe it is all "fake news".

So that is what Vance is doing here.

And as always remember who his audience is. It's not us. It's the people who will believe this sort of shite because they want to believe. Again a testament to the corrosive power of organised religion. If you are going to believe in fairy stories, then you are prime material for believing any old nonsense.

Putins pretext for invading Ukraine was to "rid it of Nazis". Let's not be surprised when the US pretext for attacking Europe is the same.

Yes I thought he said freedom of speech was that internal enemy. He doesn't know what freedom of speech is. It's not the freedom to spread lies and hate.

Don't waste a second on arguing with the words. Fight the actions.

Their freedom of speech trumps (sorry!) everyone else's free speech.

My ex's other ex is American and she fears Vance being in charge even more than the orange one. His vision is full on Handmaid's tale.

I think the first thing we did in these threads when image posting was suspended was test hyperlinks to see if they still gave a preview. At this point I'm thinking that mumsnet's IT department is Jeff round the corner who made his mam a MySpace page, once.

We're the baddies.

A good dismantling of a Daily Heil headline here...

https://bsky.app/profile/monkemma.bsky.social/post/3leyyl5qigs24

Saving for the inevitable MN thread...

When they advertised a while back, I briefly considered applying. Then I saw it was in office only and rather lost interest.

#justsayin'

This was my first thought…

Meanwhile, it seems MNetters must be signing up places ...

That kind of reporting about research makes my blood boil. As a (now retired) market researcher, I think it's incredibly irresponsible to misrepresent results like that, and I'd be wondering how complicit the agency that conducted the research is. It's the kind of thing that the Market Research Society to get involved with.

I mean, at best it's mis-reporting - but in actuality I think it's lies.

I've just noticed that we can post images again. Not quite sure that's a wise move, just yet, by MNHQ

I wonder if this might be a time to suggest that MN ban Twitter links ? Because I suspect they could be a vector for some nasty activity.

I think what is not very clear to us in the UK is the degree to which Trump and Vance are supported by very severe Christian evangelical movement. This is a lot of their vote.

This movement believes in an element of holy war. Trump has been having meetings and prayer events with such people since 2018 at least.

These supporters believe in their faith to bigger and greater than the laws of men, much like theocracy in Iran.

This is not very obvious to us in the UK and Europe.

People often forget the margin of error as well and get very excited by a 1 point difference.

If there was just a one point difference it would be more understandable/acceptable!

Well that 'reporting' goes far beyond misleading.
It's distortion.

The Mail isn't the only newspaper guilty of doing this of course. But that has to be one of the worst examples of its kind.

What do you expect from the paper that supported Hitler ?

Even now I bet they are having classes in Russian for when the invasion they crave comes.

Has anyone told Donald ?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nigel-farage-ukraine-donald-trump-nato-reform-uk-b2697098.html

I note that this is the polar opposite of what well known Dubai resident Richard Tice said to Julia Hartley Brewer when was struggling to work out what part of the UK Reform are willing to cede to a foreign power

(She slid in the delightful barb "I thought you were all in favour of national borders")

Nigel is not keeping abreast of his chumps plans, is he?

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/15/europe-will-not-take-part-in-us-russia-talks-ukraine-kellogg

Must have learnt it from the Covid press conferences of Boris Johnson who banned Channel 4 for a period for asking an awkward question, and also one of the medical experts was persona non grata (sorry cannot recall her name) after offending the then Prime Minister.

Was the medical expert Jenny something? That vaguely rings some bell. I remember someone contradicting him when he shouted some very obvious crap?

I think it was Ruth May who was NHS England chief nurse at the time. I know someone who worked with her and says she’s the most honest person she’s ever met. Apparently she couldn’t stand next to politicians on TV while they lied, she found it incredibly offensive.