Starmergeddon: They Came And Ate Us

[inactionman]

No. We still have industry, and there are multiple new technology industries where our research base can give us a head start. We need an industrial strategy and we need one quickly.

Well yeah, but you've designated as a service economy, so WTF cares about making shit ?

I mean Dyson could have stayed in the UK, & made lots of money, but he's a greedy douche bag, so instead of making x billion, he moved to Far East, & fucked over his employees, so he could make 1.001x billions, because that's what his patriotism is all about !

I mean RoRo are developing their modular reactors, but will they actually make them in the UK ?

I believe JCB has moved a ot of their manufacturing to the EU too, so all that money they threw at the bumblecunt has really worked out well

Like you say, the UK has a great reseacrh base from their Universities, but the conversion from research to jobs is diabolical, & who'd go into STEM when you know you've almost zero prospect of converting your education into a career, because you know the Government don't value those skills; the companies will pay you worse than some gimp who has a BA.

Well, if you look at things like photonics (laser manufacturing and such), that’s worth about £15 billion a year to the UK, or the space sector, worth about £8 billion in manufacturing, and a whole load of other stuff, we have a manufacturing industry worth over £420 billion, which is just under 20% of our economy. So it’s significant.

And when it comes to high tech, high value manufacturing, if you don’t do the hardware it’s more difficult to do the services related to the product, so we need to do more manufacturing to really build the economy in high value sectors.

And wrt graduates, the UK has a terrible shortage of engineers, so anyone doing mech, electrical, software, systems engineering etc has a wide range of jobs to go to, and wages are higher than average. Our graduates are not far short of forty grand in two years, and we still lose half of them to other organisations because they get significant pay rises.

Engineering loses significant amounts of early-career grads to other sectors - banking, IT and similar - due to highly numerate nature of the education and the wages on offer in these sectors.

There is also an issue of ceiling - most engineers will need to make a call relatively early about whether they stay in the actual technical side or shift to management roles. The technical roles have a surprisingly low ceiling in many organisations. To be honest I don't think that is unique to engineering but it can be quite marked in engineering.,

[fishfoodie]

Well yeah, but you've designated as a service economy, so WTF cares about making shit ?

I mean Dyson could have stayed in the UK, & made lots of money, but he's a greedy douche bag, so instead of making x billion, he moved to Far East, & fucked over his employees, so he could make 1.001x billions, because that's what his patriotism is all about !

I mean RoRo are developing their modular reactors, but will they actually make them in the UK ?

I believe JCB has moved a ot of their manufacturing to the EU too, so all that money they threw at the bumblecunt has really worked out well

Like you say, the UK has a great reseacrh base from their Universities, but the conversion from research to jobs is diabolical, & who'd go into STEM when you know you've almost zero prospect of converting your education into a career, because you know the Government don't value those skills; the companies will pay you worse than some gimp who has a BA.

Well, if you look at things like photonics (laser manufacturing and such), that’s worth about £15 billion a year to the UK, or the space sector, worth about £8 billion in manufacturing, and a whole load of other stuff, we have a manufacturing industry worth over £420 billion, which is just under 20% of our economy. So it’s significant.

And when it comes to high tech, high value manufacturing, if you don’t do the hardware it’s more difficult to do the services related to the product, so we need to do more manufacturing to really build the economy in high value sectors.

And wrt graduates, the UK has a terrible shortage of engineers, so anyone doing mech, electrical, software, systems engineering etc has a wide range of jobs to go to, and wages are higher than average. Our graduates are not far short of forty grand in two years, and we still lose half of them to other organisations because they get significant pay rises.

Engineering loses significant amounts of early-career grads to other sectors - banking, IT and similar - due to highly numerate nature of the education and the wages on offer in these sectors.

There is also an issue of ceiling - most engineers will need to make a call relatively early about whether they stay in the actual technical side or shift to management roles. The technical roles have a surprisingly low ceiling in many organisations. To be honest I don't think that is unique to engineering but it can be quite marked in engineering.,

That was my old employer. For most of my time there they had a Grade cap for technical roles, so all the best Engineers/Scientists etc had to make a decision in their mid-30s on whether they wanted to continue to be hands on, & stay on the same grade, or become a people manager.

It was the dumbest idea ever in a massively technical company to force many of it's best Engineers to become managers, & bad managers at that, because most of them hated the job.

[inactionman]

Well, if you look at things like photonics (laser manufacturing and such), that’s worth about £15 billion a year to the UK, or the space sector, worth about £8 billion in manufacturing, and a whole load of other stuff, we have a manufacturing industry worth over £420 billion, which is just under 20% of our economy. So it’s significant.

And when it comes to high tech, high value manufacturing, if you don’t do the hardware it’s more difficult to do the services related to the product, so we need to do more manufacturing to really build the economy in high value sectors.

And wrt graduates, the UK has a terrible shortage of engineers, so anyone doing mech, electrical, software, systems engineering etc has a wide range of jobs to go to, and wages are higher than average. Our graduates are not far short of forty grand in two years, and we still lose half of them to other organisations because they get significant pay rises.

Engineering loses significant amounts of early-career grads to other sectors - banking, IT and similar - due to highly numerate nature of the education and the wages on offer in these sectors.

There is also an issue of ceiling - most engineers will need to make a call relatively early about whether they stay in the actual technical side or shift to management roles. The technical roles have a surprisingly low ceiling in many organisations. To be honest I don't think that is unique to engineering but it can be quite marked in engineering.,

That was my old employer. For most of my time there they had a Grade cap for technical roles, so all the best Engineers/Scientists etc had to make a decision in their mid-30s on whether they wanted to continue to be hands on, & stay on the same grade, or become a people manager.

It was the dumbest idea ever in a massively technical company to force many of it's best Engineers to become managers, & bad managers at that, because most of them hated the job.

Yep, Hugely demotivating, and works on a very false assumption that a technical expert will necessarily be a good manager.

[robmatic]

Well yeah, but you've designated as a service economy, so WTF cares about making shit ?

I mean Dyson could have stayed in the UK, & made lots of money, but he's a greedy douche bag, so instead of making x billion, he moved to Far East, & fucked over his employees, so he could make 1.001x billions, because that's what his patriotism is all about !

I mean RoRo are developing their modular reactors, but will they actually make them in the UK ?

I believe JCB has moved a ot of their manufacturing to the EU too, so all that money they threw at the bumblecunt has really worked out well

Like you say, the UK has a great reseacrh base from their Universities, but the conversion from research to jobs is diabolical, & who'd go into STEM when you know you've almost zero prospect of converting your education into a career, because you know the Government don't value those skills; the companies will pay you worse than some gimp who has a BA.

Well, if you look at things like photonics (laser manufacturing and such), that’s worth about £15 billion a year to the UK, or the space sector, worth about £8 billion in manufacturing, and a whole load of other stuff, we have a manufacturing industry worth over £420 billion, which is just under 20% of our economy. So it’s significant.

And when it comes to high tech, high value manufacturing, if you don’t do the hardware it’s more difficult to do the services related to the product, so we need to do more manufacturing to really build the economy in high value sectors.

And wrt graduates, the UK has a terrible shortage of engineers, so anyone doing mech, electrical, software, systems engineering etc has a wide range of jobs to go to, and wages are higher than average. Our graduates are not far short of forty grand in two years, and we still lose half of them to other organisations because they get significant pay rises.

Engineering loses significant amounts of early-career grads to other sectors - banking, IT and similar - due to highly numerate nature of the education and the wages on offer in these sectors.

There is also an issue of ceiling - most engineers will need to make a call relatively early about whether they stay in the actual technical side or shift to management roles. The technical roles have a surprisingly low ceiling in many organisations. To be honest I don't think that is unique to engineering but it can be quite marked in engineering.,

British organisational culture really favours the middle management bluffer unfortunately.

[Tichtheid]

British organisational culture really favours the middle management bluffer unfortunately.

I don't know if it's still the case in UK industries, but some people used to get promoted out of the way, if you were a really good engineer you'd be kept on the job as indispensable. I've known a few in both categories.

[Biffer]

Well yeah, but you've designated as a service economy, so WTF cares about making shit ?

I mean Dyson could have stayed in the UK, & made lots of money, but he's a greedy douche bag, so instead of making x billion, he moved to Far East, & fucked over his employees, so he could make 1.001x billions, because that's what his patriotism is all about !

I mean RoRo are developing their modular reactors, but will they actually make them in the UK ?

I believe JCB has moved a ot of their manufacturing to the EU too, so all that money they threw at the bumblecunt has really worked out well

Like you say, the UK has a great reseacrh base from their Universities, but the conversion from research to jobs is diabolical, & who'd go into STEM when you know you've almost zero prospect of converting your education into a career, because you know the Government don't value those skills; the companies will pay you worse than some gimp who has a BA.

Well, if you look at things like photonics (laser manufacturing and such), that’s worth about £15 billion a year to the UK, or the space sector, worth about £8 billion in manufacturing, and a whole load of other stuff, we have a manufacturing industry worth over £420 billion, which is just under 20% of our economy. So it’s significant.

And when it comes to high tech, high value manufacturing, if you don’t do the hardware it’s more difficult to do the services related to the product, so we need to do more manufacturing to really build the economy in high value sectors.

And wrt graduates, the UK has a terrible shortage of engineers, so anyone doing mech, electrical, software, systems engineering etc has a wide range of jobs to go to, and wages are higher than average. Our graduates are not far short of forty grand in two years, and we still lose half of them to other organisations because they get significant pay rises.

Engineering loses significant amounts of early-career grads to other sectors - banking, IT and similar - due to highly numerate nature of the education and the wages on offer in these sectors.

There is also an issue of ceiling - most engineers will need to make a call relatively early about whether they stay in the actual technical side or shift to management roles. The technical roles have a surprisingly low ceiling in many organisations. To be honest I don't think that is unique to engineering but it can be quite marked in engineering.,

I know, there are issues. but if anything that reinforces my point back to fishfoodie about 'who'd go into STEM'. Numerate degrees, engineering degrees etc make you highly employable across a range of sectors. In Astronomy, we lose a whole whack of PhD graduates to finance every year as their work is one of the most thorough applications of very high level maths, the sort that is very relevant in the city. Some of them get recruited straight out of their PhD to £60, 70, 80k jobs.

[Sandstorm]

British organisational culture really favours the middle management bluffer unfortunately.

I don't know if it's still the case in UK industries, but some people used to get promoted out of the way, if you were a really good engineer you'd be kept on the job as indispensable. I've known a few in both categories.

Not just a British thing. I have clients in Germany, Sweden and Ireland where exactly the same thing happens.

[epwc]

I’d caution against a wholesale push towards STEM we are one of the media and cultural powerhouses of the world. We generate huge revenues from the creative industries.

What we need is an industrial policy that creates a landscape where those roles are actually attractive to youngsters, and an appreciation that it’s pointless sending everyone to uni.

[Paddington Bear]

Not knocking our success with the creative industries, but the figures produced tend to lump in IT asa creative industry!

[Paddington Bear]

British organisational culture really favours the middle management bluffer unfortunately.

I don't know if it's still the case in UK industries, but some people used to get promoted out of the way, if you were a really good engineer you'd be kept on the job as indispensable. I've known a few in both categories.

Not just a British thing. I have clients in Germany, Sweden and Ireland where exactly the same thing happens.

I used to work with a Danish/German firm. As it’s very hard to fire people they just moved everyone incompetent into the same division, never gave them a pay rise and left them to it. Then the competent people could get on with their jobs

[Sandstorm]

I used to work with a Danish/German firm. As it’s very hard to fire people they just moved everyone incompetent into the same division, never gave them a pay rise and left them to it. Then the competent people could get on with their jobs

Indeed. if you really want to know what "promoted above your competence level" looks like, ask the South African-based posters about BEE......

[tc27]

Sue Gray has some enemies it seems.

Quite an interesting career. 'Running a pub' in Northern Island and all that.

[vball]

I’d caution against a wholesale push towards STEM we are one of the media and cultural powerhouses of the world. We generate huge revenues from the creative industries.

What we need is an industrial policy that creates a landscape where those roles are actually attractive to youngsters, and an appreciation that it’s pointless sending everyone to uni.

As I said before, we are relying on immigration to fill the jobs we should be training our kids/others to perform. Not all kids should be going to Uni - in my year at school I would think about 20% went to Uni, now it seems to be the norm. Bring back the old FE Colleges so they can learn a skill - hairdressing, plumbers, tech drawing, engineers, etc, etc. Give employers grants to bring on kids (YOP, YTS, apprenticeships, etc). This will give our kids meaningful jobs, career paths and hopefully a good wage. This then dramatically reduces the openings for immigrants and so reduces the numbers.

I have worked for the world's largest healthcare firm, mostly in the manufacturing area, for nearly 40 years. We have huge placement numbers and it works very well. I ran many STEM programmes over the past 20 years (as did my wife at the local Uni) and they have been hugely beneficial. Lots more local talent identified, nurtured and then placed in real jobs.

[Biffer]

I’d caution against a wholesale push towards STEM we are one of the media and cultural powerhouses of the world. We generate huge revenues from the creative industries.

What we need is an industrial policy that creates a landscape where those roles are actually attractive to youngsters, and an appreciation that it’s pointless sending everyone to uni.

As I said before, we are relying on immigration to fill the jobs we should be training our kids/others to perform. Not all kids should be going to Uni - in my year at school I would think about 20% went to Uni, now it seems to be the norm. Bring back the old FE Colleges so they can learn a skill - hairdressing, plumbers, tech drawing, engineers, etc, etc. Give employers grants to bring on kids (YOP, YTS, apprenticeships, etc). This will give our kids meaningful jobs, career paths and hopefully a good wage. This then dramatically reduces the openings for immigrants and so reduces the numbers.

I have worked for the world's largest healthcare firm, mostly in the manufacturing area, for nearly 40 years. We have huge placement numbers and it works very well. I ran many STEM programmes over the past 20 years (as did my wife at the local Uni) and they have been hugely beneficial. Lots more local talent identified, nurtured and then placed in real jobs.

Although Finland has 70% of its school leavers going on to higher education and has a higher GDP per person than the UK.

[Biffer]

I’d caution against a wholesale push towards STEM we are one of the media and cultural powerhouses of the world. We generate huge revenues from the creative industries.

What we need is an industrial policy that creates a landscape where those roles are actually attractive to youngsters, and an appreciation that it’s pointless sending everyone to uni.

I'm not asking for that. But we need to acknowledge that a service based economy leaves you vulnerable to the whims and events of the global economy and its actors. Successful parts of our creative industry include STEM ffs - we have a successful computer gaming industry and our film and tv sector also needs advanced technical skills. We need a manufacturing base (that doesn't mean it's the primary part of our economy), we need to make it high value manufacturing, and for that we need STEM educated and skilled people. Our defence and national security relies on high tech products and we need to make sure we have security of supply, which is far from guaranteed at the moment. The advance of AI and quantum technologies, the expansion of the use of space tech, energy security, health tech and biotech, and many more are fundamental to the well being of people in the country in the next fifty to a hundred years and we need to make sure we can do at least a whack of it ourselves so we're not just begging at the table of countries that can.

[inactionman]

I note that the GMB has narrowly failed to unionise the Amazon warehouse in Coventry

Apparently failed by 28 votes, 49.5% to 50.5%

[petej]

Bit late now the Brexit horse has shat on the lawn?

No. We still have industry, and there are multiple new technology industries where our research base can give us a head start. We need an industrial strategy and we need one quickly.

Well yeah, but you've designated as a service economy, so WTF cares about making shit ?

I mean Dyson could have stayed in the UK, & made lots of money, but he's a greedy douche bag, so instead of making x billion, he moved to Far East, & fucked over his employees, so he could make 1.001x billions, because that's what his patriotism is all about !

I mean RoRo are developing their modular reactors, but will they actually make them in the UK ?

I believe JCB has moved a ot of their manufacturing to the EU too, so all that money they threw at the bumblecunt has really worked out well

Like you say, the UK has a great reseacrh base from their Universities, but the conversion from research to jobs is diabolical, & who'd go into STEM when you know you've almost zero prospect of converting your education into a career, because you know the Government don't value those skills; the companies will pay you worse than some gimp who has a BA.

For the modular reactors either actually build some or fuck off and stop wasting money.

Brexit is in many ways brilliantly British. It creates service and bureaucracy jobs while killing off some engineering and manufacturing ones.

Speaking of our service economy-support functions can be as shit as you like and with processes that don't function, change them every year and ask the same thing repeatedly so anything you do try progress spends more time in commercial and financial teams that don't speak to each other then it ever does actually being worked on in engineering.

It is very funny sometimes with the senior management generation who have only ever lived with cutting stuff. It is so ingrained that the best route is cost saving by cutting and outsourcing. Here is some money go do the testing umm great but there is no test house capacity and you shutdown all the internal testing. Do you want to build a testing capability? No too expensive.

I was chatting to a nuclear plant manager who had been given money to repair the plant but couldn't as there just aren't the people to carry out the work as they've retired and replacements were never trained and with Brexit the potential pool of workers had shrunk. Led to whining about "why haven't you spent the money" and the "you're losing us money if the plant is offline".

[SaintK]

Someone appears to think they are still relevant!!!!

[inactionman]

Someone appears to think they are still relevant!!!!

Didn't the OBR 'fail' because she circumvented them?

[SaintK]

Hasn't the thicko realised that it's going to haunt her for the rest of her life

In a letter to Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, she said:
It has been brought to my attention that the king’s speech background briefing notes published today and available online contain repeated references personally to me and actions undertaken by my government in the context of a political attack.
Not only is what is stated in the document untrue, making no reference to the LDI [liability driven investment] crisis precipitated by the Bank of England’s regulatory failures; but I regard it as a flagrant breach of the civil service code, since such personal and political attacks have no place in a document prepared by civil servants – an error made all the more egregious when the attack is allowed to masquerade in the document among ‘key facts’.

[Tichtheid]

I saw elsewhere someone suggesting that if Truss feels so strongly about this she should take it up with her local MP.

[Slick]

I saw elsewhere someone suggesting that if Truss feels so strongly about this she should take it up with her local MP.

[Paddington Bear]

Truss has a point - we all know she’s a total and complete idiot, but it isn’t the job of the civil service to point it out to us.

[Slick]

Truss has a point - we all know she’s a total and complete idiot, but it isn’t the job of the civil service to point it out to us.

I agree, but they spent the last few years hollowing out the civil service, blaming them for their own fuck ups and destroying their credibility with made up figures, so a bit rich

[Paddington Bear]

Truss has a point - we all know she’s a total and complete idiot, but it isn’t the job of the civil service to point it out to us.

I agree, but they spent the last few years hollowing out the civil service, blaming them for their own fuck ups and destroying their credibility with made up figures, so a bit rich

I have zero sympathy for her on a personal level and was delighted she lost her seat. We keep being told the adults are back in charge, so they can start to show it by not using the civil service like this.

[JM2K6]

https://x.com/jackmalvern/status/181360 ... _ZtFA&s=19

Seems pretty factual to me. Whether you like it or not, that mini budget goes down in history as an object lesson and will forever be the point of reference for how not to do things. In this case, it's merely justification for the change. Essentially she's whining about her name being attached to it, and the accurate use of the word disastrous.

It's going to be a long five years if Tories are going to scweam and scweam over something like this. Particularly given Truss and pals were very keen to make the civil service overtly political while pissing them off massively.

[salanya]

Truss has a point - we all know she’s a total and complete idiot, but it isn’t the job of the civil service to point it out to us.

I agree, but they spent the last few years hollowing out the civil service, blaming them for their own fuck ups and destroying their credibility with made up figures, so a bit rich

I have zero sympathy for her on a personal level and was delighted she lost her seat. We keep being told the adults are back in charge, so they can start to show it by not using the civil service like this.

I don't disagree, but you could say that all those people who lost their houses or had to resort to food banks, would describe Truss's mini budget as disastrous. So technically it's not incorrect.

[JM2K6]

I agree, but they spent the last few years hollowing out the civil service, blaming them for their own fuck ups and destroying their credibility with made up figures, so a bit rich

I have zero sympathy for her on a personal level and was delighted she lost her seat. We keep being told the adults are back in charge, so they can start to show it by not using the civil service like this.

I don't disagree, but you could say that all those people who lost their houses or had to resort to food banks, would describe Truss's mini budget as disastrous. So technically it's not incorrect.

Yeah.

Anyway, the offending terminology has been removed, so the pearls can hang free again.

[Tichtheid]

I have zero sympathy for her on a personal level and was delighted she lost her seat. We keep being told the adults are back in charge, so they can start to show it by not using the civil service like this.

I don't disagree, but you could say that all those people who lost their houses or had to resort to food banks, would describe Truss's mini budget as disastrous. So technically it's not incorrect.

Yeah.

Anyway, the offending terminology has been removed, so the pearls can hang free again.

They are always the biggest snowflakes of the lot.

[petej]

I have zero sympathy for her on a personal level and was delighted she lost her seat. We keep being told the adults are back in charge, so they can start to show it by not using the civil service like this.

I don't disagree, but you could say that all those people who lost their houses or had to resort to food banks, would describe Truss's mini budget as disastrous. So technically it's not incorrect.

Yeah.

Anyway, the offending terminology has been removed, so the pearls can hang free again.

It is important to be able to call a really big huge unmissable turd a turd though. She really is a complete delusional imbecile.

[sockwithaticket]

At a time when they're having to release prisoners early due to over-crowding, multi-year sentences for peaceful protestors is insane.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... re_btn_url

Perhaps a vain hope, but it'd be super swell if Labour could do something about the bullshit anti-protest measures the last government introduced.

[I like neeps]

At a time when they're having to release prisoners early due to over-crowding, multi-year sentences for peaceful protestors is insane.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... re_btn_url

Perhaps a vain hope, but it'd be super swell if Labour could do something about the bullshit anti-protest measures the last government introduced.

They didn't even get to the protest. It's for conspiracy to disrupt rather than actual disruption.

An insane sentence, they will be appealed successfully you'd think.

[Tichtheid]

Monbiot on the sentencing and the wider issues raised

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ories-laws

[Margin__Walker]

I broadly agree with the sentiment. Whilst I think the sentence is too long, I do think though that the M25 one falls outside of a categorisation of fully harmless protest. Direct action like that to close a busy motorway is a genuinely reckless act, that could have resulted in death or serious injury.

[Tichtheid]

I broadly agree with the sentiment. Whilst I think the sentence is too long, I do think though that the M25 one falls outside of a categorisation of fully harmless protest. Direct action like that to close a busy motorway is a genuinely reckless act, that could have resulted in death or serious injury.

I kind of get what you’re saying, but in order to be subjected to a similar sentence for, eg, reckless driving, you have to kill someone, not just be in the realms of possibility
I got this from a solicitor’s website
“f you have been prosecuted for a serious careless driving incident where death occurs, you could be facing a charge of up to five years in prison and a minimum 12-month driving ban.”

[_Os_]

Extraordinary.

A whole former PM and the leader of the largest party to the right of the Tories, at a crazy Republican meet up in America, chatting on a crazy dark money funded TV channel that has somehow got away with breaking UK broadcast media impartially rules (it's an "entertainment channel"). Acting like they're friends (because they are) and this is all totally normal (it isn't). Big Dog was also there.

Everything they say is nonsense. They think Trump Republicans are conservatives and there's no difference between them and UK Tories. But the US isn't the UK and Trump isn't a conservative. Anyone attacking the UK civil service which is independent (the problem was they were instructed to do impossible things by Tory morons and ignored by Tory morons), like Truss and Farage both do, isn't conservative in any sense that used to exist in the UK. They clearly want a partisan politicised civil service, which will then be tasked with the impossible, which will be a huge failure likely with mass corruption thrown in.

The Tories need Truss, Farage, and Big Dog to all fuck off if they're going to stand any chance. It looks more likely they're going to pick the opposite direction and merge with Reform becoming rebranded MAGA Republicans (fascists plus conspiracies and madness). Not at all convinced there's much appetite for that in the UK. Would get 20%-30% and make Labour the new default party of government. They seem determined to keep blowing up their entire reputation (the party that protects the British constitution which attacks the civil service, the sensible moderate party that's crazy, the party of the silent majority which supports Trump when a super majority in the UK opposes Trump, the party of the economy when they blew up the economy, the party of Europe, the party of home ownership, the party of low taxes).

They need a Heath/Major/Cameron type that kicks out Big Dog and Truss, condemns Farage, and rows back on a lot of the last 14 years. Because of how central Brexit became and how badly it went, they also need to move to a much more pro-European position, outbidding Labour from a more pro-Brexit position will not work and will not signal they've changed. This is another way of saying Starmer and Labour will be in for 10 years minimum.

If the Tories do fuck up the next 5 years, things can get significantly worse for them. The likes of Braverman and Badenoch only survived because the tactical vote wasn't clear pre-election. It is possible for them to lose about half their remaining seats without much of a shift in the polls.

[Margin__Walker]

I broadly agree with the sentiment. Whilst I think the sentence is too long, I do think though that the M25 one falls outside of a categorisation of fully harmless protest. Direct action like that to close a busy motorway is a genuinely reckless act, that could have resulted in death or serious injury.

I kind of get what you’re saying, but in order to be subjected to a similar sentence for, eg, reckless driving, you have to kill someone, not just be in the realms of possibility
I got this from a solicitor’s website
“f you have been prosecuted for a serious careless driving incident where death occurs, you could be facing a charge of up to five years in prison and a minimum 12-month driving ban.”

I agree on the sentence. It's harsh and wouldn't surprise me if it was reduced down the line (albeit I'm very much a layman here with respect to the art of the possible or sentencing guidelines). Especially in view of the current crisis within the prison system.

I just disagree with the the characterisation of the protest of something that in the article only likely to cause disruption (itself a step up in terms of aims from a standard peaceful protest). It was fundamentally a dangerous course of action that put the public in danger. Turning the trial into a further piece of direct action protest probably didn't help.

[petej]

Extraordinary.

A whole former PM and the leader of the largest party to the right of the Tories, at a crazy Republican meet up in America, chatting on a crazy dark money funded TV channel that has somehow got away with breaking UK broadcast media impartially rules (it's an "entertainment channel"). Acting like they're friends (because they are) and this is all totally normal (it isn't). Big Dog was also there.

Everything they say is nonsense. They think Trump Republicans are conservatives and there's no difference between them and UK Tories. But the US isn't the UK and Trump isn't a conservative. Anyone attacking the UK civil service which is independent (the problem was they were instructed to do impossible things by Tory morons and ignored by Tory morons), like Truss and Farage both do, isn't conservative in any sense that used to exist in the UK. They clearly want a partisan politicised civil service, which will then be tasked with the impossible, which will be a huge failure likely with mass corruption thrown in.

The Tories need Truss, Farage, and Big Dog to all fuck off if they're going to stand any chance. It looks more likely they're going to pick the opposite direction and merge with Reform becoming rebranded MAGA Republicans (fascists plus conspiracies and madness). Not at all convinced there's much appetite for that in the UK. Would get 20%-30% and make Labour the new default party of government. They seem determined to keep blowing up their entire reputation (the party that protects the British constitution which attacks the civil service, the sensible moderate party that's crazy, the party of the silent majority which supports Trump when a super majority in the UK opposes Trump, the party of the economy when they blew up the economy, the party of Europe, the party of home ownership, the party of low taxes).

They need a Heath/Major/Cameron type that kicks out Big Dog and Truss, condemns Farage, and rows back on a lot of the last 14 years. Because of how central Brexit became and how badly it went, they also need to move to a much more pro-European position, outbidding Labour from a more pro-Brexit position will not work and will not signal they've changed. This is another way of saying Starmer and Labour will be in for 10 years minimum.

If the Tories do fuck up the next 5 years, things can get significantly worse for them. The likes of Braverman and Badenoch only survived because the tactical vote wasn't clear pre-election. It is possible for them to lose about half their remaining seats without much of a shift in the polls.

I can't believe they haven't dumped Truss and moved on from brexit. Both are negatives for an increasing proportion of the electorate.

[Sandstorm]

I can't believe they haven't dumped Truss and moved on from brexit. Both are negatives for an increasing proportion of the electorate.

These are not smart people, they're headline-seeking fools who can't see the writing on the wall for so many things that worked for them in 2021.

[Tichtheid]

I just disagree with the the characterisation of the protest of something that in the article only likely to cause disruption (itself a step up in terms of aims from a standard peaceful protest). It was fundamentally a dangerous course of action that put the public in danger. Turning the trial into a further piece of direct action protest probably didn't help.

I think that's a widely held view. However I also think that in the not too distant future the uproar will be around why we didn't do enough to change course now.

I haven't had time to check this yet, but a Just Stop Oil supporter (that was the title given to him) on tv news this morning said that the changes in the law came about after lobbying on the UK government from representatives from Exxon Mobile.

If that is the case, then our ire is being aimed in completely the wrong direction (full disclosure, I tend to that that is the case anyway)