Britain - The Official Thread

  • Thread starter Ross
  • 13,322 comments
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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 .
That's a very specific number to tout without a source to either support it or demonstrate that every one of them would be improved.
That's because he's dropped the mask that he has any factual basis for what he's talking about and is openly making up bollocks. He will now claim that he was being funny, and followed by desperately hoping that nobody follows up on the actual number.

Because we already established in the Islam thread that it's not about cousin marriage or protecting children. It's about legislation targeted at certain minority groups and trying to dilute their culture into oblivion through forced "integration".

I know you know this, but I thought it was worth saying out loud.
 
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The problem with everybody but one on this forum is that we're refusing to analyse this problem objectively and dispassionately. What does the MailOnline comments section think? :dopey:
 
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Yep, because the UK going private is going to solve the underfunding of the NHS.
Please expand on:

A) Why you posted this in response to a suggestion that will....save lives.
B) Whether this would be a positive or negative for patients and the NHS in the short and long term.
That's because he's dropped the mask that he has any factual basis for what he's talking about and is openly making up bollocks. He will now claim that he was being funny, and followed by desperately hoping that nobody follows up on the actual number.

Because we already established in the Islam thread that it's not about cousin marriage or protecting children. It's about legislation targeted at certain minority groups and trying to dilute their culture into oblivion through forced "integration".

I know you know this, but I thought it was worth saying out loud.
Please read this:


And answer:

A) Why you're fighting so hard for cousin ****ing, creating generations upon generations of disabled children and repressed women that will....hurt lives.
B) A rough estimate of the amount of severely disabled individuals you have cared for, and in what capacity.
C) If you think you know what's better for the British Pakistani community than Nazir Afzal (son of Pakistani immigrants) and Matthew Syed (half Pakistani).

Many thanks lads, long may the loony left continue to provide the solutions our world so desperately needs. This is, most definitely, the way to keep Farage out of No. 10.
 
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Please expand on:

A) Why you posted this in response to a suggestion that will....save lives.
B) Whether this would be a positive or negative for patients and the NHS in the short and long term.
Mainly because the ongoing introduction of private service and underfunding in the service has caused damage, and the utter failure of insurance based system in the US.
Please read this:


And answer:

A) Why you're fighting so hard for cousin ****ing, creating generations upon generations of disabled children and repressed women that will....hurt lives.
B) A rough estimate of the amount of severely disabled individuals you have cared for, and in what capacity.
C) If you think you know what's better for the British Pakistani community than Nazir Afzal (son of Pakistani immigrants) and Matthew Syed (half Pakistani).
Ohh look an appeal to authority that doesn't actually support the number you presented.

Before we go anywhere, support your original claim.
Many thanks lads, long may the loony left continue to provide the solutions our world so desperately needs. This is, most definitely, the way to keep Farage out of No. 10.
No one has commented on the morals of banning it, rather on your inability to form a coherent position and actually support the data you presented!

Oh, and insulting members for your own failings stops now.
 
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Many thanks lads, long may the loony left continue to provide the solutions our world so desperately needs.
Stop pretending you're trying to save the children. We can all see it for the lie that it is.

You know who actually has a problem with consanguinuity and has put in place a reasonable solution to the problem? Iceland. The population is ~400,000, there's some degree of relation between almost everyone. Do they ban first cousin marriage? No, they have solutions that provide information to couples that allow them to see their ancestry and make an informed choice. You know, like a normal, sensible first world country. The medical system can bear the minor potential increase in burden from first cousins the same way it can bear the burden from older parents, the only problem is making sure that potential parents are aware of what they're signing up for when they have a child with their chosen partner.

Even for you, banning first cousins from having children would suffice if you wanted to be an absolutist about the genetic dangers, although you'd probably have to add a bunch of other groups of people to that ban as well. You could allow them to marry but not have children if they wished, as many couples choose to do. That's why so many first world countries have a birth rate crisis, because couples are not having children.

But that's not the point. The fact that you choose marriage as the thing to ban and not the actual act of having children gives away the fact that it's not about children and never was. Plenty of people get married and never have children, and plenty more have children despite not being married. So why focus on marriage?

Because it's about control of minorities. Get your story straight, or at least come up with an excuse that is more plausible than "but what about the children". No children are harmed when two cousins marry. They don't hand out genetic disorders at the wedding ceremony.
 
A) Why you're fighting so hard for cousin ****ing
Ain't no faith like bad faith, eh?

What conversations are you so used to taking part in that being questioned even slightly about your position and sources causes imbecilic reactions like this? It's almost like you're around people who daren't disagree with you, so you can't even conceive of having to defend your thoughts and just... lash out. I wonder if that's why the people around you daren't disagree.

Stop. Making. Crap. Up. And. Answer. The. Questions.
 
Here's a wacky solution:

Everyone needs to submit themselves to a government database and rank how hot their cousins are. Anybody who ranks a cousin at 6/10 or higher is sterilised.

Problem solved. No marriage ban needed (!)
 
I think I may have just the theme tune for the government campaign ads:

 
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Thank god we have Syed speaking up still:


Second most upvoted comment, at 1884 recommends:
As I have written a few times before on these pages and I quote :
" My father, now a retired doctor/surgeon now an Orthodox Sikh ( after years of procrastinating having lived a quite hedonistic-life, prior ) was reprimanded by his employers for advising a Muslim man from avoiding consanguineous marriages....it went on and on almost escalated to GMC level until they backed down 'cause my dad refused to apologise . It almost lost his career and livelihood .
The science was on his side and was not being Islamophobic or anti-Muslim ".
Consanguineous marriages are just wrong . Morally and Genetically and an evolutionary dead-end if contained in very small consanguineous group of inter-related individuals ...those are just well established scientific& medical facts .
It's not prejudiced .
There is no prejudice in science : it cares nowt for your creed, ethnicity, colour, caste or class . It's equal to all and all are equal to it ... despite & regardless of one's indoctrination or ones Holy Books or inbred culture for which the Science cares not .
Facts are facts . And facts cannot be changed by religious/cultural idiotic ideological idiocy
Fortunately, the good guys are winning ;)
Mainly because the ongoing introduction of private service and underfunding in the service has caused damage, and the utter failure of insurance based system in the US.
Please explain how taking out private medical insurance would cause damage. What has the introduction of private service and underfunding got to do with my post?

Please also say which other countries, including the highest ranked ones, have insurance based systems.

By "insurance based", what exactly does this mean:

1734291435305.png


Before we go anywhere, support your original claim.
It's a silly answer to a silly question. You can't possibly quantify how many lives will be changed to a quotable degree, but it is fair to say a damn lot will be improved.

No, they have solutions that provide information to couples that allow them to see their ancestry and make an informed choice.
Well this confirms you have no idea of the problem you are talking about.

Icelandic people =/= British Pakistanis =/= Mexicans =/= Spanish etc etc

EDIT:

Hold on a second. What exactly are the benefits of keeping this legal?
 
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It's a silly answer to a silly question. You can't possibly quantify how many lives will be changed to a quotable degree, but it is fair to say a damn lot will be improved.
And yet you did and then avoided answering it and engaged in yet more bad faith arguments.

Time to see if another break will give you more perspective, and should it not improve on your return, the next break will be permanent.

Take a week away, and this time put it to use.
 
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At least we've moved up to the Times comment section now.

EDIT: He didn't really answer why it's okay for the Íslendingar to carry on "keeping it legal" while educating themselves against it besides "Icelandic people =/= Pakistanis". This despite the Born in Bradford focus group research indicating that education results in a sharp drop in cosanguinous marriages for them, too.

Not sharp enough for those that would rather eradicate those marriages via targeted legislation, apparently, since the Times' pet academic Nash dismissed these findings as an outlier in the article he linked to.

"I know it will make things better but I can't tell you by how much" doesn't seem like much of a convincing rationale for introducing laws seemingly aimed at a specific community to me. Why not test people before they have kids instead?
 
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It's a silly answer to a silly question. You can't possibly quantify how many lives will be changed to a quotable degree, but it is fair to say a damn lot will be improved.
Note that you were asked three questions (one of which was a twofer) in that post and you chose to ignore two to give a "silly answer to a silly question" - which, actually, could have had a reasonable estimate given.

If you take the highest possible figures, the number of first-cousin marriages in the UK annually is (between one and) 4% of ~250,000, or 10,000.

Just under half of live births in the UK are to married mothers, but let's take half: 350,000 annually. If 96% of those mothers are not first-cousins with their spouse, we get 336,000 live births per annum compared to 14,000 for their first-cousin counterparts (regardless of fecundity; it's possible for a woman to give birth twice in one calendar year, but I'd wager quite rare, so almost each and every birth is a different woman).

The rate of congenital birth defects (of all kinds, from kooky to extremely life-limiting) among offspring of first-cousins seems to stick resolutely around 6% - compared to 3% outside of first-cousin marriage. That would give us 10,000 children born with a congenital defect among the normies and 840 among the first-cousins.

Even if we take the assumption that all of these congenital birth defects are extremely life-limiting, the estimate then would be 840 lives per year saved by banning first-cousin marriage.

Seems that you can quantify it, and I did that on my phone. We might reach your figure in 4225, or thereabouts.

But you provided a stupid answer to only one of three questions asked of you. I think we know why...


Juke Box Guitar GIF by George Michael
 
Well this confirms you have no idea of the problem you are talking about.

Icelandic people =/= British Pakistanis =/= Mexicans =/= Spanish etc etc
Congratulations on figuring out that Tom is not Dick is not Harry.

However, Icelandic people are humans. British Pakistanis are humans. Mexicans are humans. Spaniards are humans. We all work on the same basic fundamentals of genetics. So you'll have to explain exactly why a solution that works for Icelandics is inapplicable to any other group of people.

I don't think you have any idea of the problem you're talking about, because you keep conflating marriage with genetically inherited defects as if they're one and the same thing. You refuse to face the fact that your "concern" could be addressed without touching marriage at all.

But you don't want that. You don't want the "effective" solution that would make children from first cousins illegal whether it was from a married couple or not. You want to ban marriages. An objectively worse solution that only works to disrupt certain cultures further.

How interesting. When you persist with this barely masked racist behaviour even in the face of solutions to your claimed problems, it becomes impossible for any rational person to assume that it isn't your goal to target specific groups of people.
Hold on a second. What exactly are the benefits of keeping this legal?
Why does anyone get married, in your mind? Only to have children? Surely you can think of some non-sprog-making reasons why people might find getting married desirable. You can't possibly be so far down the rabbit hole that you think that marriage is purely for making heirs.
 
YouTube tends to remind us of videos we like. QE2's funeral procession from a few years back is certainly among them. To me she was the only true royal left in this modern time. And her funeral procession was as impressive as her life and personality. I am very curious if your King Charles will get the same honor when his time has come. (I hope not)

 
YouTube tends to remind us of videos we like. QE2's funeral procession from a few years back is certainly among them. To me she was the only true royal left in this modern time. And her funeral procession was as impressive as her life and personality. I am very curious if your King Charles will get the same honor when his time has come. (I hope not)


Given that at the time of her death, very few people could remember a time when she wasn't the Queen with a reign of 70 years. Charles will do well to reign for 15 years, i imagine, so the impact of his death won't be anywhere the same.

A monach's funeral is a monach's funeral so will always carry the same amount of pomp, so it's unlikely to appear any differently. It will come down to how well his reign is perceived in general, to how much emotional impact it has.
 
I doubt the length of reign is really relevant. But like you said: how well the reign is perceived, how well it would do on Rotten Tomato's if you will. QE2 had like 100 sailors pulling her carriage, will Charles deserve as many? Or does it just come down to cold tradition?
 
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Or does it just come down to cold tradition?
This. Their funeral's are planned years if not decades in advance. I imagine that, details aside, a much loved/tolerated seventy year reign monach's funeral will play out very similarly to that of a largely disliked five year reign monach. Its just protocol.
 
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This. Their funeral's are planned years if not decades in advance. I imagine that, details aside, a much loved/tolerated seventy year reign monach's funeral will play out very similarly to that of a largely disliked five year reign monach. Its just protocol.
Protocol/tradition, which helps to preserve a people's culture. Something I can only applaud. Too bad we Europeans have destroyed so many cultures
 
Protocol/tradition, which helps to preserve a people's culture. Something I can only applaud. Too bad we Europeans have destroyed so many cultures
Your monarchs quit rather than die though. Hard to sell that god-given right, making people care or be interested in the grandure, when Old Crownie can just give up when they don't feel like it.
 
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Note that you were asked three questions (one of which was a twofer) in that post and you chose to ignore two to give a "silly answer to a silly question" - which, actually, could have had a reasonable estimate given.

If you take the highest possible figures, the number of first-cousin marriages in the UK annually is (between one and) 4% of ~250,000, or 10,000.

Just under half of live births in the UK are to married mothers, but let's take half: 350,000 annually. If 96% of those mothers are not first-cousins with their spouse, we get 336,000 live births per annum compared to 14,000 for their first-cousin counterparts (regardless of fecundity; it's possible for a woman to give birth twice in one calendar year, but I'd wager quite rare, so almost each and every birth is a different woman).

The rate of congenital birth defects (of all kinds, from kooky to extremely life-limiting) among offspring of first-cousins seems to stick resolutely around 6% - compared to 3% outside of first-cousin marriage. That would give us 10,000 children born with a congenital defect among the normies and 840 among the first-cousins.

Even if we take the assumption that all of these congenital birth defects are extremely life-limiting, the estimate then would be 840 lives per year saved by banning first-cousin marriage.

Seems that you can quantify it, and I did that on my phone. We might reach your figure in 4225, or thereabouts.
Not really.

Apart from the flaws in the analysis (the 6% figure is very likely an underestimate - Pakistani inbreeding has persisted through generations creating a higher rate of disability and so we end up with stats like....)

British Pakistanis account for 3.4 per cent of births nationwide but 30 per cent of recessive gene disorders, consanguineous relationships are the cause of one in five child deaths in Redbridge and the NHS hires staff specifically to deal with these afflictions.

....you're not addressing all that my quote speaks of.

I was deliberate with my choice of words:

This has the potential to change many lives for the better.

We can break it down:

  • The effect on those born with disabilities (as you have solely looked at)
  • The people (esp women) forced into marrying their cousins
  • Those who want a more liberal life in the UK that is not dominated by a patriarchy
  • People who will benefit from more integration and a reduction in the separation and isolation of sections of that community
  • A reduction in the clannish nature, and with it control in terms of individual expression, whether that's voting choices, standards of living, etc.

Will banning cousin marriage lead to all that change to the point where they aren't issues? Of course not, but it can make a dent in it and therefore has the potential to transform many lives.
But you provided a stupid answer to only one of three questions asked of you. I think we know why...


Juke Box Guitar GIF by George Michael
You....want me to answer the other two? Including why we shouldn't ban drinking while pregnant?
Mainly because the ongoing introduction of private service and underfunding in the service has caused damage, and the utter failure of insurance based system in the US.
I might as well come out and ask it....do you disagree with this advice:

As I advise others, if you are fit and able, you should seriously consider taking out private medical insurance. Hence, you get coverage before it is denied for a pre-existing condition.
Why, why not?

The introduction of private services in the NHS is a separate, complicated issue and I addressed your claim about "insurance based systems" in a subsequent post.
Congratulations on figuring out that Tom is not Dick is not Harry.

However, Icelandic people are humans. British Pakistanis are humans. Mexicans are humans. Spaniards are humans. We all work on the same basic fundamentals of genetics. So you'll have to explain exactly why a solution that works for Icelandics is inapplicable to any other group of people.

I don't think you have any idea of the problem you're talking about, because you keep conflating marriage with genetically inherited defects as if they're one and the same thing. You refuse to face the fact that your "concern" could be addressed without touching marriage at all.

But you don't want that. You don't want the "effective" solution that would make children from first cousins illegal whether it was from a married couple or not. You want to ban marriages. An objectively worse solution that only works to disrupt certain cultures further.
Please explain the similarities and differences between Icelandic consanguineous relationships and Pakistani ones since I would love to be enlightened by your far superior knowledge on the subject.
How interesting. When you persist with this barely masked racist behaviour even in the face of solutions to your claimed problems, it becomes impossible for any rational person to assume that it isn't your goal to target specific groups of people.
Yawn.

"That's rayciss" is so 2019.

Your....solutions....aren't solutions at all. If you were arguing that it may be pointless to ban because the patriarchs could force through marriage in one of the sharia courts (itself a WHOLE other issue: https://www.thetimes.com/uk/society/article/sharia-law-women-marriage-wedding-3gtt6xk8v) then maybe I'd believe you have a point.

Do you honestly think these women are getting to know their dad's brother's sons and choosing them thinking, yes, that's the guy out of everyone else I want to marry and have kids with?
Why does anyone get married, in your mind? Only to have children? Surely you can think of some non-sprog-making reasons why people might find getting married desirable. You can't possibly be so far down the rabbit hole that you think that marriage is purely for making heirs.
Various reasons.

Why are you advocating for keeping this practice legal?

If you remember I gave a link to a robust argument for banning it - is your defence of it included in that article's list?

You can see how centrists and the right are united in their disapproval:


And your "solution" isn't being tried in Sweden and Denmark (in fact, they are looking to ban it), so the claim that "that's what a sensible first world country would do" isn't as strong as you think it is.
 
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Various reasons.
1734857322698.gif

Your....solutions....aren't solutions at all.
Well, you've convinced me. Really strong argument you've made there.

:rolleyes:
If you remember I gave a link to a robust argument for banning it - is your defence of it included in that article's list?
Robust? Is that what you're calling it?

But you posted the link. You'd think you'd know what was in it, and would immediately be able to identify whether or not the argument was addressed in there. Feel free to point to the part that you think rebuts what I'm saying - if you know what you posted and you've read what I posted it should take you less than 30 seconds.

I don't think you've done either of those two things, nor do I think that you're capable of putting together a rebuttal even with reference material available.
And your "solution" isn't being tried in Sweden and Denmark (in fact, they are looking to ban it), so the claim that "that's what a sensible first world country would do" isn't as strong as you think it is.
You reworded that when you could have just quoted it directly or copy pasted. Why? To try and put words in my mouth?

Here are my actual words.
You know who actually has a problem with consanguinuity and has put in place a reasonable solution to the problem? Iceland. The population is ~400,000, there's some degree of relation between almost everyone. Do they ban first cousin marriage? No, they have solutions that provide information to couples that allow them to see their ancestry and make an informed choice. You know, like a normal, sensible first world country.
That's not a claim, that's my opinion. Iceland, a country that is actually directly faced with significant negative health outcomes from this exact problem, is behaving like a normal, sensible first world country. Countries that are banning or thinking about banning cousin marriage are not.

"Normal" might be an objective adjective in some situations, but "sensible" definitely isn't. Some people think Trump is sensible. When I say something is sensible means I think it's sensible, not that it meets some objective measure of sensibility.

Every other first world country in the world could be banning cousin marriage and I'd still think that they were idiots for doing so. They may be first world, but if they behave that way they are neither normal nor sensible.

Unless they want to admit that they're doing it primarily to disrupt certain cultures instead of because of the health risks, and then I'd have a different opinion on that. But as long as the stated justification is based on the health risks to children, I will continue to think that it's daft. There are better ways to shear that sheep than putting it through a wood chipper.
 
I was deliberate with my choice of words:

This has the potential to change many lives for the better.
And yet you still can't quantify it...
We can break it down:
Let's take a quick look...

  • The effect on those born with disabilities (as you have solely looked at)
    • And will you be advocating for similar measure for 'geriatric mothers'?
  • The people (esp women) forced into marrying their cousins
    • Already illegal
  • Those who want a more liberal life in the UK that is not dominated by a patriarchy
    • Rather ironic argument from a faux-centrist
  • People who will benefit from more integration and a reduction in the separation and isolation of sections of that community
    • Citation required
  • A reduction in the clannish nature, and with it control in terms of individual expression, whether that's voting choices, standards of living, etc.
    • Citation required
I might as well come out and ask it....do you disagree with this advice:
To be clear, I've already answered this as it didn't seem to register. Yes, I disagree with that advice.
Why, why not?
Because, as someone who already has (work provided) private medical care, it doesn't offer a solution in the way you're suggesting, it's not affordable for the majority who are most impacted by the current underfunding, as if you think we wouldn't get a 'reset' should those with a chub-on for a private system to replace the NHS you're deluded (and those are large swaths of the Tory and Reform parties).
The introduction of private services in the NHS is a separate, complicated issue...
No, it's not separate. Increased uptake of private cover is a part of the argument, and it does not lead to better outcomes.

...and I addressed your claim about "insurance based systems" in a subsequent post.
No you didn't.
Please explain the similarities and differences between Icelandic consanguineous relationships and Pakistani ones since I would love to be enlightened by your far superior knowledge on the subject.
The member in question already has, you dismissed it without supporting why, the onus is on you, not them.

Do you honestly think these women are getting to know their dad's brother's sons and choosing them thinking, yes, that's the guy out of everyone else I want to marry and have kids with?
Once again, forced marriage is already illegal.
Various reasons.
Which are?
And your "solution" isn't being tried in Sweden and Denmark (in fact, they are looking to ban it),
A quick search indicates the only person to mention Sweden and Denmark are you...
so the claim that "that's what a sensible first world country would do" isn't as strong as you think it is.
...which would once again seem to be bordering on bad faith. A reminder, you will not be given another warning, you have had more than enough.
 
Robust? Is that what you're calling it?
Pretty much. Which parts do you disagree with?
But you posted the link. You'd think you'd know what was in it, and would immediately be able to identify whether or not the argument was addressed in there. Feel free to point to the part that you think rebuts what I'm saying - if you know what you posted and you've read what I posted it should take you less than 30 seconds.

I don't think you've done either of those two things, nor do I think that you're capable of putting together a rebuttal even with reference material available.
Again, you haven't articulated why exactly you want it to remain legal. Because there are other situations in which health risks aren't legislated against?

Is it one of these points:


If so, do you not find each rebuttal's strength to your satisfaction?
You reworded that when you could have just quoted it directly or copy pasted. Why? To try and put words in my mouth?
What are you talking about. I typed it from memory. Is it sufficiently different from what you said so as to have put words in your mouth?
Unless they want to admit that they're doing it primarily to disrupt certain cultures instead of because of the health risks, and then I'd have a different opinion on that. But as long as the stated justification is based on the health risks to children, I will continue to think that it's daft. There are better ways to shear that sheep than putting it through a wood chipper.
Pretty sure they are doing it for at least two reasons, one being the health risks.

What is so wrong with banning it?

Weigh up the positives and negatives and what positives are you left with that lead you to want to keep it legal?

Nice job avoiding this, too:

Do you honestly think these women are getting to know their dad's brother's sons and choosing them thinking, yes, that's the guy out of everyone else I want to marry and have kids with?
The member in question already has, you dismissed it without supporting why, the onus is on you, not them.
Where exactly? Is there discussion about برادری (baradari)?

I also remember the times my posts were censored here when outlining my day-to-day experiences of life working in the NHS so I'm not holding much hope of me being allowed to post here much longer.

Loving the "faux centrist" tag too. You do realise that everyone to the right of you isn't right wing (I don't even see myself as centrist - more centre-right). There is a reason Blair won a landslide in the 90s with New Labour.

The fact is the Left are getting destroyed at the moment which is leaving the Right with an open goal so they can peddle their politics of division because at least they are letting people speak about the issues they are facing.

I will be watching the full interview of this when I have time:

 
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I also remember the times my posts were censored here when outlining my day-to-day experiences of life working in the NHS so I'm not holding much hope of me being allowed to post here much longer.
Your posts have never been censored here, they have been removed from view for breaking the AUP, however, you are right about one thing, your time here is done.
 
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