To think the London NYE fireworks were an excellent FU to Farage and Tommy Ten Names?

[triumphantantelope]

The NYE fireworks always get me a bit emotional but this year I think it was up there with the 2020 covid ones. The message was beautiful and ran through the whole thing. The way they got the EU stars in, the dig at the mini roundabout painters and flag hangers.
I’ve lived in London my whole adult life and I felt the display reflected it perfectly.

I think I am in this camp. It's not got the unpredictable element that a firework display has. Even programming fireworks and coordinating them to music there's still an element of chaos to them that a drone show can't replicate. Drone shows aren't sensory in the same way. It's the noise, the smell, the smoke. It feels 'real' and that you are part of it rather than the detachment of a drone in the distance as pretty as it may be. There also that 'danger' part which is intoxicating.

Totally agree, fireworks are better when they just have some great classical music or some great pop music to accompany them. Messages are not needed.

Yes, I prefer fireworks to drones. I find drones quite soulless and a bit sinister. Fireworks have noise, smell and smoke, which is exciting, although maybe they're not great for pets and wildlife.

So there was a political message?

Though NYE fireworks with a strong political message of ‘inclusiveness’ is likely to reinforce support for Reform. It is exactly the reason why people are looking to Reform.

By the next election Labour will have got their act together on migration and the Tories will have resurrected like a phoenix yet again.

Reform will no longer have a reason to exist, just like every party Farage has led before.

I doubt Labour will have their ‘act together’ on immigration - there are too many ideologically wedded to open borders or they foolishly believe the immigrants will vote Labour. I hope the Tories do manage to resurrect themselves as we need a mainstream centre-right party but I fear they won’t manage before the next election. If Reform do get into power it will be ‘interesting’ as I think Farage will find it is like herding cats and within a year we will have loads of independent MPs instead of Reform ones - they don’t have an agreed political approach. One thing a Reform government would expose though is the extent to which there has been a silent far left coup within the civil service.

I don't think so, unfortunately. Labour are globalists and to them they are importing future Labour voters.

So it's in their interests to keep the borders open and when people notice and start complaining (higher rents, longer waits for council houses etc) they just try to gaslight people, and if that fails, call them racist.

The UK could hit zero or even negative net migration by 2027, not sure how that correlates with open borders or importing Labour voters.

Khan's 'inclusive' firework display showed a load of flags of countries that now make up England's population.

Only they left out the Star of David in the Israeli flag. They said it was a technical error. A very convenient technical error.

Oh but that’s fine and should be cheered on @5MinuteArgument … for many on mn being anti-Semitic means you’re being inclusive remember…

They think it is in their interest to keep the borders open but the people they think will vote Labour will vote for their own candidates as soon as they think they have a chance of success. We have already seen this.

Yes, agreed, growing sectarianism is coming down the pipeline.

The future of our towns and cities is going to be very different to the past. Don't think it's going to be quite as rosy as mayor Khan makes out though!

Which ‘open borders’ are these please? Nobody is in favour of open borders (even Polanski has rowed back on that).

....and you're the rest of the country?

@BrokenSunflowers there has been a silent far left coup within the civil service.

I'm going to assume that you wouldn't suggest this unless you had long, consistent and regular practical experience of the civil service.

I'm in a position to say that this is a laughable assertion, though.

It was the Ryder Cup for the European Flag. That flag was designed and adopted by the Council of Europe in 1955 to indicate European unity for the whole of Europe. Way before the EU was even an idea. The fact we now associate it with the EU and the EU call their political union 'Europe' is just an example of political appropriation by an Institution with limited accountability and a political agenda.

Can you show how the civil service has implemented the law on single sex spaces across the whole public sector ensuring women’s spaces are just that, as opposed to implementing what left-wing lobbyists desire and destroying single sex wards, toilets, changing room, equal treatment bench book, sports etc?

So when you say there's been 'a silent far left coup', it's not so much that you have evidence of one, it's that you think that's the only explanation for your perception of the ineffective implementation of a specific piece of legislation.

"Why are there no sparrows any more?"

"Must be Martians."

It is hardly ‘ineffective implementation’ to spend 15 years undermining a piece of legislation they are required to implement impartially. To have policy after policy directing people to break the law. To spend millions funding lobbyists and organisations and on ‘training’ that go against the legislation they are required to follow. It has been systematic.