Thread 39 Starmer: chwech/saith - dechreuodd y plant ei

[DuncinToffee]

Previous thread
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5446809-thread-38-starmer-tax-your-hamster?page=40

Political and general chat

Taxes optional but greatly appreciated

The Liberal Democrats are forcing a vote in parliament on creating a new customs union to put pressure on Labour MPs to take a more pro-EU stance.
Ed Davey’s party is writing to all Labour MPs urging them to back a new bill in favour of a customs union with the EU, believing this is the best way to boost growth and raise revenue, rather than tax rises.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/nov/21/liberal-democrats-vote-customs-union-eu

And that is why reform want out of the ECHR.
It's got fuck all to do with immigration and everything to do with exploitation.

Not that the patriots, racists and bigots believe it. Even when it's right in front of them.

They could make it an unwhipped free vote.

I think that's either brilliant or premature.

Customs Union is costly to join a d shouldn't be done on a forced vote that smacks of populism and no serious political party wants to align with that.

Of course the council elections are next May, less than six months away. As are the Senedd and Scottish Alba MSP.

Shuddering at the thought that people might look at this year's batch of Reform councils and decide they want the same for themselves.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

I am too - it’s such a dreadful thought isn’t it. I’ve thought quite a bit about it as I nearly went nearer some of my kids and would have ended up in a Reform led county council - and I’m so glad I’m not. So I think I would actually want to leave my area even though I know that sounds unreasonably dramatic and OTT, plus I have no real way to leave the U.K. in 2029
!
I’m quite hopeful my leftie city wouldn’t fall completely to them - but if it did I guess I just have to hang around with non reform folk and push back/campaign on any awful policies.
Stuff of nightmares though. It’s the thought of being in the midst of many people who actively want Reform policies as much as their diabolical policies and dreadful running of the council.

Morning all. John Crace nails it as usual. As he says, Farage failed to hold the usual Monday press conference. Which was a nice break for the rest of us.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/dec/08/for-once-nigel-farage-is-the-dog-that-doesnt-bark

Good to see the C of E have refused to countenance TR’s event

“A traffic cone full of angry wasps” 😂 Which account is that? I need to follow it.

It’s on Facebook @BIossomtoes We Have, I Fear, Confused Power With Greatness

Thank you 🤩

ETA I’ve just been to have a look and it’s where I belong. I can’t believe I’ve missed out on it.

That made me laugh, too. One of those brief moments when I think it's a shame I'm not on Facebook.

One of Englands soft powers is that even atheists like me have a soft spot for "CofE". It's nice to see an institution founded by a tyrant gets to tell Tommah to fuck right off. It feels right, somehow.

As a very regular church goer (choir member) who also happens to be an atheist, I couldn't agree more with you.

I tried to find the actual statement from the Cof E but failed. If anyone spots it please do link as I want to see how they couched it.

Shouts at hotels and paints roundabouts latest consequences

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/dec/09/uk-charities-face-culture-of-fear-as-threats-and-violence-surge

I am sure someone has actually done it, but a fascinating angle of English history is how the CofE came to settle as Calvinist, not Lutheran, and form into the shape it became between swings of extremism in a way that no other European state ever really managed. And whether that process was driven by the unique contingencies of being England, or the ever wobbly Tudor dynasty.

Certainly ignoring the pope didn't seem to do any harm.

I'm fascinated by what people believe and believed and claim they believe and actually believed. Therein lies the power. And it matters, because Farage is really a modern day papist agitator with his flock, his credo.and his foreign master.

The Bear is putting his teeth in this one 🍿🐻

75 Brexit benefits

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/09/jacob-rees-mogg-house-brexiters-labour-brexit-benefits

If you need to hawk a book to tell people of the benefits of Brexit it is it's own statement.

E2A: It was both original and interesting. Unfortunately the parts that were original were not interesting, and the parts that were interesting were not original.

😂Jane

I thought this book was already released, it was trotted out on a Brexit thread a while back.

The irony that a book about Brexit benefits passed me by as silently as the benefits themselves is telling me something about them.

It was published earlier this year but maybe they wanted a Christmas edition? A little stocking filler.
75 is quite an odd number to choose - like they wanted 100 benefits but the bottom of the barrel was by then just a massive hole.

Toynbee bang on the money.

“You lot only talk economics. We talk of freedom that has no price,” a Bruges Grouper tells me. That’s a good reminder of how they won the referendum: these cavalier romancers trounced the roundhead number-cruncher remainers. Surely the country wouldn’t be fooled by the same trick twice."

Once upon a time the Conservatives would have shuddered at the thought of ignoring economics.

Once upon a time the Conservatives would have shuddered at the thought of ignoring economics.

You know the old trope about the biggest trick the devil pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist ? Well alongside that is the way the Tories have managed to convince the country they are a party of economics. They never have been. They remain as they began, A party utterly devoted to ensuring the privilege of position is maintained using all the powers of the state. A party that would happily sacrifice progress and improvement if it came at the expense of the landed gentry. Their genius under Thatcher - when it seemed the game was up - was to pretend to the masses that they too could aspire to be a big nob. Owning your own home ? What ? Like a Lord ?

It makes their extinction all the more remarkable.