Thread 40 Starmer: Prettig Kerstfeest, Nollaig Shona, Hyvää Joulua, Nadolig Llawen ,圣诞快乐, God Jul, Feliz Navidad, Bouan Noué, Nollaig Chridheil.

[DuncinToffee]

Merry Christmas 🎄🎅🎶

Previous thread
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5451789-thread-39-starmer-chwechsaith-dechreuodd-y-plant-ei?page=40&reply=149236698

Who is Bernie Goetz??

I like a quiz, but that one was boring, mainly because of only knowing a couple of answers. As a research project it would have been fun though.

We bought ds1 some flat pack furniture and spent yesterday putting it together with him. That was a giant puzzle.

More a puzzle than a quiz

https://www.futilitycloset.com/2013/12/07/dogs-mead/

Looks like that Egyptian guy that was championed to come out of detention and come to the UK has a "milkshake duck" history.

R4 Today used to follow his mother on hunger strike in Brighton. Philippe Sands and all the right thinking people were campaigning for his release

https://news.sky.com/story/starmer-criticised-for-celebrating-activists-return-from-egypt-13487984

He's never been to the UK but has UK citizenship?

https://nitter.net/KyleWOrton/status/2004868573869867059#m

The lego botanicals are lovely.

DS1 has a lot of lego. I got him the upscaled santa for his birthday, early in December (he has pride of place, next to his lego Christmas tree) and the lego Gameboy for Christmas, after I saw his face light up when he spotted it in the lego store.

And Jenrick seems to suffer from amnesia again

The botanicals are 18+.

Very small pieces.

DS1 is an adult but has hands like shovels so probably would struggle. I bought someone the cherry blossom instead of flowers, once, and it was a rather fiddly build for them.

Forgot to quote and link when mentioning Jenrick's amnesia

https://bsky.app/profile/sturdyalex.bsky.social/post/3mb27gemaxc2x

This was the government's position on "human rights defender" Abd El-Fattah in 2023, while Robert Jenrick sat in cabinet, Cleverly was Foreign Sec, and Sunak was PM - a position confirmed no fewer than ten times on the floor of both the Commons and the Lords.

Did Bob object back then? Thought not.

I assume Johnson/Sunak etc thought they could use El-Fattah as some kind of leverage over the Egyptian government regarding human rights abuses.

The whole thing is mystifying. He was given citizenship by the Tories in 2021, but no-one in the UK ever bothered to check his social media history until now? There are articles from 2015 about his abhorrent views.

Popping back after waving the family off back down to London ... if I heard the phrase "In America they ..." once I heard it 10000 times.

Anyway, does anyone know what happened to the rather amusing "Is English a nationality" thread ? I was having some fun on there and now it's disappeared - the whole thread - as being against talk guidelines.

(Stewart Lee meme ...)
"These, days, if you say you're English, they'll take down your thread ...."

No idea. I was on one about people not having hobbies that has been deleted for being against talk guidelines. Completely confused. Wasn’t even a bun fight last time I was on it.

There was a bit of an intense debate, but at the point I left it (4 posts from deletion) I couldn't see anything to justify the whole thread being pulled.

Clearly this is the new, no nonsense MN. Where (according to another thread in FWR) a rather spiky poster was apparently dealt with "off board" 😎

Remember Starmer's "urgent" review into foreign interference after Nathan Gill?

Well, there's already two ex-UK ambassadors working in Westminster on behalf of a pro-Russian foreign government whose de facto leader is under UK sanctions...

New on D4S: https://democracyforsale.substack.com/p/ex-uk-ambassadors-are-lobbyists-for

So quiet

Only 3 of my 14 watched threads have had new posts today

Isn't it just @Efacsen

Only some cheese and crackers left from Christmas

It is very quiet. Most of my leftovers are in the freezer now. Ham and chips for dinner tonight. Need to get back to healthier stuff!

From the new Private Eye

Last of the visitors departed this afternoon so just me, DH and the dogs here now. I will miss them but enjoy the quiet as well. We seem to be left with a mountain of chocolate and fancy crackers but the cheese has been demolished.

You're going to need more cheese! Can't let the crackers go to waste.

Definitely @PandoraSocks!

https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/29/four_tech_trends_2025/

Note the EU mandates on accessibility :

Accessibility – not just a good idea, it's the law
European regulation on privacy, security, and interoperability has attracted most of the attention and ire from elsewhere, but another piece of legislation came into force in 2025. The European Accessibility Act (EAA) mandates all member states to make products and services equally accessible to all, with inaccessible systems banned from 2030. This means a new approach to design and implementation online and off is going to happen.

We still have so much chocolate and so many lebkuchen! But Christmas part 2 starts tomorrow with DS' fiance and their sister coming to stay, and all things being equal we will meet up with DS himself on Friday or Saturday.

Today is just a work day for me, DD is cooking and it will be tasty and healthy.

The DM is in a muddle over Romanians leaving the UK

https://bsky.app/profile/dsquareddigest.bsky.social/post/3mb5c5tnmlc2n

I've been doing this as a comedy bit for years, but I do believe it; before I die, I will see the establishment of a Royal Commission on Britain's failure to attract sufficient immigration, and many of today's broadsheet ethnonationalists will be on it