Thread 26 Starmer: Cats, Rebels and Orange Chaos

[DuncinToffee]

Previous thread https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5349605-thread-25-starmer-cheers-for-a-falling-out-among-thieves?page=40&reply=145224605

I’m sorry things are tough. I thought you didn’t seem yourself.

I’m glad you’ve apologised and it’s been accepted.

O enjoy these threads of rune live and let live attitude alongside where we agree and disagree.

Pubs have been steadily closing down for the past decade, though, accelerated by the pandemic.

It began with the smoking ban if I remember correctly.

And Brexit

I would imagine challenge 25 has also had an effect. Gone are the days of students drinking in pubs from 14 with fake IDs!

Yep, Brexit definitely didn’t help (what did it help?). It led to the largest single duty rise in 50 years.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/mar/17/complex-post-brexit-tax-rules-means-price-rises-for-wine-drinkers-in-britain

In any other country, most people wouldn't give a shit about "Banned by the BBC".

However in the UK the BBC is the state broadcaster (we're all grown ups, aren't we) and as such plays a unique role in civic society.

They also banned "Brimstone and Treacle" (after making it) - Dennis Potter at his most allegorical.

Meanwhile, why have they not remade "The Year of the Sex Olympics" ?

It was certainly true round here - 2 lovely pubs closed about 2 years later so 2009/2010ish

Pointy I didn’t realise you couldn’t vote in a GE I’m really shocked another who also thinks you really should💐
@derxa hope things improve for you very soon

After a year of Labour, is life in Britain really becoming worse?

Betteridge's law of headlines applies (as always).

I've said before that you would never have got the smoking ban if the truth about it costing an extra penny on income tax had been shared.

In hindsight it's probably about 2p now.

Or (putting it another way way) 2p in every pound of income tax is probably being used to offset the cost of the smoking ban. The exact figure is probably an official secret.

Am I the only person that hadn’t heard of The Year of the Sex Olympics?

Fascinatingly prescient.

What of course should happen is an extra 5 pence on a litre of petrol. Would generate approximately £3.5 billion on revenue. Even reduced to 3 pence would generate billions.

I hated the smoking in pubs. Most good pubs survived Brexit, the pandemic and austerity. There's several local to me that have done this, and they are great.

Just watch Scissor Sisters on iPlayer, Glastonbury set. Now that's sexy 🥰

No, not just you

Thanks for sharing @SerendipityJane

We saw the Scissor Sisters at Live 8 in 2005. one of the better performances.

Oh, yes. They snuck it in on the same boat as "Will nobody think of the children ?".

I remember at the time, a fuckload of numpties who either really didn't get it, or who were just playing to the gallery trying to compare it with banning <something else>.

However they could never surmount the hurdle that <something else> hadn't been proven to harm people who didn't partake in <something else>. Whereas smoking most certainly affected non smokers. Just ask the Castle family.

The real test here is posterity. Even Farage hasn't dared suggest repealing the smoking ban. It's just become part of Britain. Like decimal currency that he also hasn't suggested ditching.

When it was floated, I was working in financial services, so the ironically back of the fag packet calculation was quite informed. However it missed the raising of the pension age and the slight reduction in life expectancy.

There is of course the additional factor of expenses caused by people replacing smoking with vaping etc etc. Although maybe the littering is the same so that's zero-sum.

Sir Rod on stage rn

This is a man whose best known hit is a totally unironic "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" co-written by the former drummer of Iron Butterfly.

#justsayin'

E2A: although in all fairness (today I learned !)

Royalties from the song were donated to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and Stewart performed the song at the Music for UNICEF Concert at the United Nations General Assembly in January 1979.[6]

Hardly any pubs left to close in my rural area.

It began when tied pubs ended. A well intentioned measure with unintended consequences. The third thing I think that had an impact is when the lunchtime trade reduced with fewer people on shifts and it becoming quite rightly socially unacceptable to drink and drive. Some companies also banned lunchtime drinking.

I blame the film An Werewolf in London for the decline in local pubs.

Lunchtime drinking was SUCH a thing when I was younger. Especially on a Friday. The whole office would be in the pub. Then we got taken over by an American company in the early 90s and it became a sackable offence overnight.

Back in the 80s and early 90's I worked for a couple of companies that had on-site bars at lunchtime. You could get drunk just walking through the IT department on a Friday just by breathing in the alcohol fumes.

Yes, my first job had an onsite bar in the 80s and it was Civil Service!
Not to mention the smoking at desks. Ugh.