Britain - The Official Thread

  • Thread starter Ross
  • 13,367 comments
  • 617,516 views

How will you vote in the 2024 UK General Election?

  • Conservative Party

    Votes: 2 6.9%

  • Green Party

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Labour Party

    Votes: 14 48.3%

  • Liberal Democrats

    Votes: 2 6.9%

  • Other (Wales/Scotland/Northern Ireland)

    Votes: 1 3.4%

  • Other Independents

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Other Parties

    Votes: 2 6.9%

  • Spoiled Ballot

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Will Not/Cannot Vote

    Votes: 8 27.6%
  • Total voters
    29
  • Poll closed .
MatskiMonk
This is not an insurmountable technical challenge, in much the same was as we have third party payment providers, we could have third party age verification providers. Personal information doesn't need to go anywhere near a porn site, anyone who fears it might can freely elect not to use a site.
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The problem is that the legislation isn't good enough. Further more one of the key companies with AgeID systems setup is the owner of PornHub and a bunch of other similar sites.
The value in having that data and tracking it would already be large, but they'll be able to link that information to all kinds of things.
 
A few of you are missing the real point here. What's next? Extremist political websites? Then what do you do when that political extremist website just happens to be the opposition to the government?

Think long and hard before letting crap like this happen.
 
Tired Tyres
A few of you are missing the real point here. What's next? Extremist political websites? Then what do you do when that political extremist website just happens to be the opposition to the government?

Think long and hard before letting crap like this happen.
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Banning porn sites, or restricting them like this will only bolster the VPN economy and push more sites onto TOR. I think the real question is how long will it be until those services become outlawed.

David Cameron already tried to ban encryption, and yes it was as utterly ****ing stupid as it sounds.
 
MatskiMonk
This is not an insurmountable technical challenge, in much the same was as we have third party payment providers, we could have third party age verification providers. Personal information doesn't need to go anywhere near a porn site, anyone who fears it might can freely elect not to use a site.
Click to expand...

It can be done, eventually, there's no doubt about that. But should it be done? Parents should be able to control the access through their router and through their children's mobile SIMs, private companies should be able to restrict access to their content for any reason they wish... governments should not be able to restrict content based on arbitrary parameters.
 
TenEightyOne
Disappointed to see last night's terrorist shooting of a young journalist being headlined as a "dissident attack" by many sources, that's despite the police treating it as a terrorist murder. Wrong sort of terrorist for clicks?
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Saoradh, the "political wing" of the Real IRA, is currently claiming it was young people defending themselves from unprovoked PSNI (or rather PSNI/RUC, which is what the IRA calls them) harassment...


In the meantime, an MP is caught breaking the law (probably)*:


And her fellow MP thinks it's hilarious, then is accidentally racially insensitive**:



*A law which is barely enforced
**Mojito is Cuban, not Jamaican, and Rastafarians don't drink alcohol.
 
Famine
**Mojito is Cuban, not Jamaican, and Rastafarians don't drink alcohol.
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I presume he's referring to the rum in the mojito being (also presumably) Cuban, and not Jamaican rum. And Rastafarians most certainly can drink alcohol. And do so. Strict adherents of Ital (as with observers of any religiously-based stricture) may not but that's a small section of the overall demographic.

That's not to say that I don't think David Lammy is an utter git. I do. I feel like his tweet is mawkishly invoking their shared blackness for no reason other than to demonstrate his lack of awareness about how much of a git he is.
 
An incredible scene during the funeral of Lyra McKee, the journalist murdered by terrorists a few nights ago: the priest asked the assembled (media hungry) leaders of Northern Irish parties why it took this death to bring them together, and receives a standing ovation.

Arlene Foster (Chief Swivel-Eyed Loon) has a face like thunder throughout. BBC.
 
Famine
Onasanya, the Labour MP for Peterborough who lied about who was driving her car when she was caught speeding and tried to pin it on a Russian man who wasn't even in the country at the time of the offence, which she still denies, is jailed for three months.



Incredibly, this is below the (12-month) threshold at which she would have to step down as an MP, and she has previously remarked that she has no intention of resigning, thus leaving the people of Peterborough without representation during this rather crucial period of British politics...

Let's quickly compare this to Chris Huhne, the Conservative (well, Lib Dem, but you know the coalition) MP who claimed his wife was driving at the time of a speeding offence - she took the points and the fine for it voluntarily - which she then backtracked on after their relationship deteriorated, leading to a prosecution for the same offence. Huhne resigned the moment he was charged, and despite pleading guilty got an eight-month sentence (as did his wife).

Charged, resigned, pleads guilty, convicted, eight-month sentence.
Charged, denies, convicted, three-month sentence, won't resign.
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She's been sacked as an MP following a successful recall petition - the threshold required was 10% of voters, and 27% actually signed.
 
Surprised not to see anything on the Local Elections here yet.

I had a bit of a Twitter moan about this. The Local Elections are about a zillion times more important than by-elections or the GE. You get a chance to vote for the people who will represent your local handful of streets to your council. It affects your day-to-day life - shops, roads, schools, infrastructure, housing, projects in your town - way more than your MP, or parliament, does. They can influence the bigger things, but with 75,000 constituents to represent (or oppose, in the case of our MP), the day-to-day stuff falls through the cracks. Your local councillors represent 10,000 of you, and if they don't actually live in the same place you do, they're not far away (I think three miles is the limit).

Despite that, our ten candidates (for three councillor roles) were absolutely anonymous. I did eventually manage to find out - there was almost no campaigning that I'm aware of - who they were and what they were campaigning on. The three Conservatives wanted to talk about the steel works and airport which aren't in our ward. The three Labours also wanted to talk about the steel works which isn't in our ward, but also how they couldn't stop the housing development that was in our ward which is odd as they held 29 of the 59 council seats. The three Lib Dems also wanted to talk about stopping the housing development in our ward, which is odd as they held the ward and 11 of the 59 council seats - so a development went ahead despite a two-thirds majority of councillors claiming to be against it. They also wanted to say that any vote other than one for them was a waste, as only they could stop Labour from winning. That left an independent candidate, whose position was that everything was bad and kept asking why nothing had been done about it. Not exactly telling me how you're going to help there.

Anyway, we're not the only place doing our local election. There's 248 councils (of 343) holding elections for 8,800 council seats.

Rather unsurprisingly, there seems to have been a Brexit backlash. The Conservatives seem to be taking the biggest kicking of all, losing 500 seats and 17 councils so far. Labour's losses seem smaller - 75 seats and 1 council (net) - but their vote share is hugely down even where they've held seats. Lib Dems seem to be gaining most, with twice as many seats and four times as many councils as before. Greens are up in seats by 500%, but no councils.

The main story seems to be the gains of Independent candidates. There's a gain of one council, and more than 200 councillors to 350. Councils with no overall control are up nine, to 26, so far too.

The media can't seem to make its mind up as to what's going on. There certainly seems to be a sliding scale from most-Brexity (UKIP, 80% losses) to least-Brexity (Green, 500% gains), with the least Brexity main party (Lib Dem, 200% gains) gaining most and the most Brexity main party (Conservative, 30% losses) losing most... but Labour recently came out for a second referendum and are losing seats and vote share hand over fist.

There's also the rise of the independents and the increase in NOC councils, which to me more suggests a general fed-up-of-politicians-ness - Lib Dem and Green are traditional protest votes after all.

Turnout is about the usual 35% too.
 
Famine
The Local Elections are about a zillion times more important than by-elections or the GE. You get a chance to vote for the people who will represent your local handful of streets to your council.
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Unless you live where I live in which case you turn up to the polling station only to find a sign attached to the door saying "This polling station is closed for voting due to the seat being uncontested". Then you go home and find this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-48002691

Twelve out of 39 seats on Fenland District Council have only Conservative candidates.

The Tories have run the council since 1999 and are the only party contesting all seats in Thursday's local election.
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He still sent us a lovely letter about how he goes litter picking in his spare time, though.
 
Famine
There certainly seems to be a sliding scale from most-Brexity (UKIP, 80% losses) to least-Brexity (Green, 500% gains), with the least Brexity main party (Lib Dem, 200% gains) gaining most and the most Brexity main party (Conservative, 30% losses) losing most...
Click to expand...
Interestingly, these are "to 2015" figures - the last set of local elections to this scale. However, UKIP overperformed there, with 13% of the vote and while they're down compared to the pre-Referendum locals... they're actually up 1% compared to 2018...

Labour and Conservative both 7% down to 2018, Lib Dems up 3% to 2018 and 5% to 2015, Green and Independent both up 5% to 2018.
 
MaxAttack
Will it still be legal to infer sexual excitement from footage of 80s and 90s WRC? I don't wanna to to jail.
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It wont be illegal, but to watch any footage from the 80s-90s World Rally Championship you'll need to hand over your credit/debit card information and passport/driving licence IDs
 
baldgye
It wont be illegal, but to watch any footage from the 80s-90s World Rally Championship you'll need to hand over your credit/debit card information and passport/driving licence IDs
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:lol: Or buy your pass from the local newsagents! Do you think they'll start handing them out in brown paper bags?
 
And the S4 is barely legal …

PS - I suppose using Group B rally cars is the proper way to do some (thread) drifting around here! :lol:
 
Legend speaks of the Group S ECV2, a Delta so depraved, so filthy, even your local XXX store owner will call you a pervert if you ask about it.
 
One council left to declare, but the current picture fro the other 247 is:

1. Conservative - Councils: 93 (-43) - Councillors: 3,549 (-1,327)
2. No Overall Control - Councils: 72 (+36)
3. Labour - Councils: 60 (-6) - Councillors: 2,011 (-78)
4. Liberal Democrat - Councils: 18 (+10) - Councillors: 1,339 (+695)
5. Independent* - Councils: 2 (+2) - Councillors: 1,042 (+612)
6. Residents' Association* - Councils: 2 (+1) - Councillors: 110 (+40)
7. Green - Councils: 0 (0) - Councillors: 264 (+193)
8. UKIP - Councils: 0 (0) - Councillors: 31 (-144)
Others - Councils: 0 (0) - Councillors: 15 (+7)


*Not a political party. These are literally just people standing without a party, or in the case of an RA, a group of residents cooperating.
 
MaxAttack
Lib Dem gains, huh. People are pretty quick to forget getting screwed so lang as their Brexit wounds are being nursed.
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I suspect Lib Dem gains were mainly due to a lot of constituencies not having any other boxes to tick after the 'others'! Seems many don't remember Nick Clegg's promises...
 
MaxAttack
Lib Dem gains, huh. People are pretty quick to forget getting screwed so lang as their Brexit wounds are being nursed.
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To be honest, The Liberal Democrats were so low down after the last time this took place that the only way was up. There wasn't one running in my ward. Just Labour, Conservative and an independent. The Conservative was the only one NOT to put a leaflet through my letterbox.
 

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