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.

And others are determined that every bad thing in the country is the fault of immigrants. It’s not the case.

Maybe, but that doesn’t have anything to do with my post or your comments which suggest it’s not possible to tell if someone is a local or a foreigner. Arguing with every point doesn’t make your argument stronger

I thought it was fab.
Possibly verging slightly on the preachy but in a noble well meaning way.
London is an international city and the show was celebrating that and the cultural highlights of 2025 - what's not to like 🤷‍♀️
Wouldn't ever pay to go apart from via GLA part of my council tax. Far too cold, Sydney on the other hand was brilliant when I was there.

I dont aim to "think democratically" - who does???🤔
And not sure you are correct there.

Latest pole by the Standard indicates more Londoners view him unfavourably ( around 49–52% see him unfavourably vs ~36–40% favourably, with a slight majority saying he’s done a bad job as mayor...)

I wasn’t born here but have a full London / SE accent. I always get comments ‘oh but you were born here right? Oh really? You don’t sound XYZ’. As if it’s really hard to grasp that someone who moved here in late childhood is capable of learning perfect English.

So in an election. With more than 2 candidates he’d win then?

The fact remains that London IS diverse. Whether you like it or not, it's a fact. Reflecting that fact is much more politically neutral than ranting against it. When you refer to those who 'do not agree with inclusion', you refer to people who advocate for drastic and inhumane measures looking to put an end to the current diversity. What does that really mean in practice, eh? Is that not orders of magnitude more political than a message reminding us that we are a diverse population, which is basically only reflecting a reality?

Stop being so disingenuous to float your agenda - you sound ridiculous, honestly.

Maybe they were “British citizens” who looked and sounded just like men from Algeria then? That ok for you? 🙄

What makes you so knowledgeable about phone theft, have you had it happen to you? How do you know they remain silent throughout? 😂

Sadly having had experience of this it was a no.

A big fat NO

You mention Trump, but he literally just renamed the most prominent US cultural institution (The Kennedy Center) to put his own name at the top. THAT is blatant.

What agenda do you think I have?
I haven’t had a phone nicked. What I’ve read about is phones snatched by people on bikes, so I’m assuming no massive spoken interaction. I don’t look at people and wonder if they come from Algeria and then worry about them though.

You're talking about ethnic diversity. I was talking about 'inclusion'. Inclusion is a contested political notion that takes a particular view on how diversity should be managed. That includes ethnic diversity but all sorts of other types of diversity too.

Oh thanks @FellowSuffereroftheAbsurd The Associate Press has a version - I found it interesting to compare it with the BBC one.

That was a much nicer event to watch - Faking what happened at the event was just not needed. The CGI wasn't even that great.

When I say diversity, I mean all 'types' of diversity, not sure why you're making that distinction. Inclusion (of any kind) tends to be contested by people who seek to see straight Christian white males at the top of the food pile forever. Am I right? If I'm wrong, please tell me how inclusion is to be managed differently from what has been done by centrist parties so far? Genuinely interested in how that terribly contested inclusion should be handled.

So people are leaving london because of brown men robbing?

Agree I loved it. Especially when they included the tea alarm.😂😂😂

Are straight, white, Christian men really at the top of the pile? Are atheists discriminated against? I'm not sure about that.

'Inclusion' doesn't just mean, 'don't discriminate against people'. It can also mean 'take proactive steps to provide opportunities to certain groups' (positive discrimination, which is contested). It can also mean 'remove all segregation between groups' (ie include men in womens' spaces; remove the right for people of particular groups to associate as they wish).

Year on year they have a diversity theme so nothing new there. I thought it was awful, the"special effects" were hideous and blatantly there so Disney could use it to advertise Wicked, no drones but instead excessive fireworks (paid in part by Disneys revenue) and where was the nod to Lando Norris?

As much as I despise Farage and Tommy Robinson, I wish people would realise that saying "fuck you" to a large percentage of the country won't make them reply "Ah, now I have seen the error of my ways, I realise now that the other side is right and I will never vote Reform again."

Wicked is not a Disney production 😂

London is a major international city. People have been suffering from low-level crime (pickpocketing, mugging, scamming) for centuries, and blaming it all on “foreigners” for just as long. All major cities have crime problems, locals who resent diversity, violence and social problems, and they always have had. Just as there have always been cynical super-rich grifters like Farage ready to exploit the hard of thinking and channel their prejudice and discontentment into anger and division. It’s great to see a display of unity and positivity to counter all that nonsense.

"Operation Raise the Colours, a UK-wide campaign that began in August 2025, aims to promote national pride by displaying the Union Flag, the Saint George’s Cross, and the flags of the other UK constituent nations in public spaces. Organisers claim the movement is a patriotic effort to restore civic pride and unity, with some groups stating their goal is to "cover every town, city and village in the UK with the colours that remind us who we are and what we share"."

So not about raising concerns about so cslled "illegal immigration" (which has roughly halved under labour) and hotels for asylum seekers (which labour are stopping) then?
Or are the organisers lying about their true motives?

@Dappy777 I’m not sure if you missed my post, but you haven’t told me what you and the American/Canadian people thought the U.K. has become. I’m curious.