Thread 33 Starmer - Gerst Monath

[DuncinToffee]

Pull up a chair for some friendly chit chat about politics and beyond

Taxes optional but greatly appreciated.

Previous thread

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5405579-thread-32-starmer-corn-moon?page=40&reply=147167011

Yes, it’s sad. Politicians who had convictions, had led normal lives and who could understand and find common ground with those from other political persuasions.
My dad, too @Notonthestairs - from oldest (surviving) son of a miner to primary school Headteacher. It seems harder to do that now (though Starmer has made a similar transition, and Streeting, and Rayner - probs others too but those are the obvious ones).

If ever presented with having to decide if someone is actually stupid, or clever and playing stupid, balance of probabilities (you know, science) is your friend.

My Dad is a bit younger than Menzies Campbell but he was also the adopted son of former miner from the NE (although my Grandad hated it so much he moved away and trained as a mechanic) and he went on to be the first in his family to go to uni and became an Economist. My Mum was also the first in her family to go to uni.

It is.

RIP Menzies Campbell.

RIP to Ming Campbell.

It's sad to see another political giant gone. I hadn't realised he'd been an athlete.

I saw a bit about this in one of the local rags, yesterday. I'm sure that some are totting up how many flags they could buy with the funds.

Communities to seize control over high streets and restore pride - GOV.UK https://share.google/nzQxgAWeCrZ8bhN1o

The fuckwit flagshaggers have shown up near us, didn't manage half mast, more quarter mast

That's a con. The High street is dead. Any attempts to revive it are simply well disguised grifts.

So some of my local SUTR group went to take some down in one area round here - people came out to see but mainly they were keen for them to be gone, and even the ones who weren’t engaged a little apparently.
There was another attempt to get them back up but SUTR appeared again and it was foiled.
However, I was quite surprised they went up there in the first place, and just happened a few people were around to work together to stop it. That isn’t the case everywhere unfortunately.
I’m really not sure why they’re flown at half or lower mast actually? Probably just the ladders though.
Hooe they blow away soon.

But why though? Has there been detailed analysis of this? I guess there must have been... Because I visit the Netherlands quite frequently and their equivalent of the high street is doing OK ... Some big shops closed. But the shopping streets are still busy. Maybe cos they use out of towns less...
I think even if the actual high street as a central place is dead, regenerating pubs, adding additional community spaces like community cafes etc could help. We need third spaces even if we don't need physical shops.

The former leader of Reform UK in Wales, Nathan Gill, has pleaded guilty to bribery charges relating to statements in favour of Russia while being an elected member of the European Parliament.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj6xwy015ngo

But why though? Has there been detailed analysis of this?

Why does water run downhill ? Has there been a detailed analysis ?

Being constrained with fucked eyes and not driving (maybe forever) I can't imagine the sharpness of the stick I would need to be prodded with to even dream of regularly visiting my nearest high street.

Everyone loves the high street until they have to pay for it. Then they discover it's not only cheaper online, but you can actually get what you want 95% of the time.

Having trawled a series of shops only to realise there is no variation in stock - which is shit anyway - I gave up 20 years ago (my Amazon account is older than my friends 27 year old son).

Local greengrocer ? If you like 2 types of potato.
Local butcher ? Well only if you like less range than Sainsburys
Local coffee shop - have you seen the threads ?

The High Street is dead in the way that the local blacksmith died a century ago. And no amount of money will every bring it back. And anyone who is involved in such a scheme is either being conned, or running a con.

There will always be a few situations where physical presence or interaction is mandated and must be provided in some sort of "town centre" setting. But they are fading yearly.

Even the huge retail cathedrals are starting to crumble. Why spend £££ on a building that needs to be expensively maintained as space the public access when you can shrink it by 60%, eliminate a lot of public safety expense and man it all with robots to fulfil online orders from a patch of land that costs fuck all ?

25 years ago, I saw a warehouse run entirely by robots with 7 staff. Whose main role was to move the robot delivered pallets from the loading bay onto the lorries. And the reason this was needed was because the metal strips the robots followed didn't go into the lorries. Each aisle could house racks that were twice the usual height as the robotic fork lifts weren't subject to the safe regulations for human powered ones. This was John Dickinson near Hemel Hempstead.

With technology like that over a quarter of a century old, the direction of travel can only be one way.

I presume we are all awaiting a whinge of how unfair it is, two tier, etc etc.

Maybe Reform should make leaving the EU a policy ?

Is this a new version of "Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelled of elderberries"?

I've had a few retail jobs in the high street.
A common theme is that back in the 70s when times were good, they signed long leases for up to 50 years, and were pretty much paying 1970s rental prices.
When lease ended, they turned from profit to loss and they closed.

From the locations given in the Chronic Online, it's more about small towns and estates than big town and city centres. Here in Durham, any boarded up shop becomes more student accommodation or another bar within a year. Out in somewhere like Spennymoor or Crook, it stays boarded up and gets smashed up. And it's not just shops, it's parks, community facilities and so on.

I am sitting here pondering what does Nigel Farage really want?
He certainly doesn't want to be our PM.
He simply could not handle it.

Many people see him as a disrupter which to be fair I do too ,
but I wonder if he just wants be on tv every day ?
He could have hosted a talk show or something.

RIP Menzies Campbell.

When we passed through flagland on the top deck of a bus, last week, many of the flags were just the right height to whack the front end of the bus in the wind.

Well obviously, in the absence of the ability to use the properties for anything else, then commercial landlords have a vested interest in selling "the high street" as something that can suck up a fucktonne of my money.

And the powerful residential property owners are never going to allow any shift towards residential use. That would undo 40 years of carefully crafting a housing "crisis" that has allowed them to burn used fivers for warmth in winter.

If the UK had any experience in strategy and planning and evidence based policy this would be a golden opportunity to bring a lot of disparate threads together.

However, fortunately that's never going to happen, so keep your shares in the big landowners.

Spennymoor

Now there's a placename I've not heard for decades ...

Thank you, probably too late for my sister and I but hope for my little granddaughter and nieces and nieces

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/sep/26/dorset-school-urged-reinstate-book-race-banned-the-hate-u-give

Why couldn't the school just tell him not to read the book.

Seems like a bit of a kneejerk reaction from the school, if they did that after only one complaint!