Thread 41 Starmer : "Alban Arthan" the returning of the light

[DuncinToffee]

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Welcome to 2026 for political discussion, general chat and taxes in kind.

Maybe Ponteland.

There’s Ben a good Rest Is Politics assessment of the ‘speech’ and of the mood in the hall. Worth a listen.

Hopefully the start of a further decline in Reform support.

Farage and Badenoch backed the wrong horse over the last 48hrs.

They both turned on the PM, supporting/agreeing with Trump... at a time when we needed national unity.

I hope some people noticed this.

Yvette cooper was very clear on pointing that out this morning.

I’m really not sure what the orange one thinks he got on Greenland - thought it was just me, age or not understanding something, but other threads seem to say I’m not on my own with my confusion, so I may still have a bigly functioning brain I think.
Farage apparently backing Trump over Greenland in Davos - we’d definitely be effectively the 5?th state if that lying traitorous toe rag got in.
But in better news Greens beat Reform in a Derbyshire by election so there’s hope they’re starting the downward spiral. Advance stood, got nowhere, but guess may split that vote more and more. Though obviously sad people feel they need to vote for these parties.

Reform also took a council seat from Labour, which is not so great.

Here in Wales, I have had another flyer from Reform. Most political parties here have them in Welsh on one side and English on the other.

Not so here.

Welsh "policies" on one side in English (fuck all) and their usual guff on the other in English. It is so disrespectful of Wales and our language.

Yvette Cooper has reiterated that the UK won't be part of a US proposed Gaza Board of Peace'

We won’t be one of the signatories.. we do also have concerns about President Putin being part of something which is talking about peace”

It is so very rude and almost unbelievable they just can’t read a room as big as Wales - worrying.
It gives an indication of future respect of Welsh policies and how much regard they would have for Wales if they were to be in power - I would have thought that would cut through even their supporters?
I always think of Reform as very ‘ingerland’ rather than U.K. and they don’t do much to alter that view anywhere - I guess they hoped to capture the equivalent of the red wall voters as there seemed to be some frustration with how Labour have done in Wales, but I’m surprised they get many votes at all outside ‘ingerland’ and I’d imagine (and prefer) Plaid Cymru could fill any gap there more than Reform.

They are using a similar approach in Scotland.

@MsJinks someone on this thread made an astute point re:Reform in Wales a while back which has stuck with me. The Tories are still reviled by many here for obvious historical reasons, and so even those who dislike Labour would find it hard to vote Tory. Those people might turn to Reform instead. I think there is a lot of truth in that.

So it was Badenoch who stabbed Britain in the back during the Greenland crisis,

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/21/how-badenoch-meeting-with-mike-johnson-led-to-trump-chagos-deal-rant

This is why any opposition needs to push the Reform are Tories angle especially in Wales. Every time another one defects.

So yesterday’s rambling was doing Badenoch’s work?

I very much doubt Trump has any inkling of the existence of Kemi Badenoch.

Absolutely. Loudly and persistently.

And if he did he'd say that woman is far too repetitive, very repetitive, she just repeats things all the time, extremely repetitive.

What patriotism & hypocrisy - go running to Daddy.

But they have to keep those climate change denying US think tanks happy.
Worth remembering that the Conservative coffers are empty.

Wonder if there would have been any outrage if Starmer had -

a) approached Congress to ask them to put tariffs on the UK in order to overturn the elected Government or

b) approached Biden/Harris to ask them to undercut UK agreements.

What do we think?

Rumours that Andrew Gwynn is likely to stand down this afternoon. Possible that Andy Burnham could put his hat in the ring.

Ooh. Interesting!

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jan/22/andrew-gwynne-pension-deal-could-open-path-commons-andy-burnham

I just read this. Enough news for me today, I think. 💔

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/21/ice-arrests-five-year-old-boy-minnesota

It's horrible to read.

Worse that there are plenty of cheerleaders for an UK style ICE

They are utter fuckheads. Almost as bad are the people allowing it to continue by saying it isn't happening. It's emboldening them to get worse.