UK Politics: Step Right Up, Step Right Up. Come Marvel At Our Amazing North Sea Snake Oil. Will Cure All Your Electoral Woes. Get It While It's Hot ;-)

[mormont]

7 hours ago, Spockydog said:

Obviously, that depends on how you define 'leader'.

Not really. On any definition, Corbyn was a massive failure.

If we start with the most basic, like 'is anyone following you?', Corbyn certainly started out with goodwill and support but he squandered it. By the end he had very low support within and outwith the party. If nobody's following you, by definition you're not a leader.

He was a poor communicator and had no ability to form alliances or persuade those who disagreed with him: he seemed unable to even understand different points of view and unwilling to try. He showed personal bias and favouritism, and spent large chunks of political capital on trying to rescue personal friends from (deserved) disciplinary action.

Quote

If it's conjuring a vision of hope for a people badly let down by a political class utterly beholden to a foreign-owned, right wing media, then I'll take that leader any day of the week.

We didn't get that from Corbyn. If he had a coherent vision, I don't know what it was, and I'm a political junkie. Free broadband, nationalising a couple of industries, but these are policies, not a vision. What was even in his 2017 manifesto, that you admire so much? I can't remember.

As for hope... I'd guess that's not the emotion eight out of ten voters associate with Corbyn. He was certainly unable to communicate that emotion to voters.

Quote

Corbyn had thousands of people turning up to hear him speak, wherever he went. When was the last time a politician could do that shit?

Donald Trump?

I make that point just to point out that attracting a crowd has little or nothing to do with leadership skills.

7 hours ago, Spockydog said:

He wasn't suited to the cut and thrust (i.e. the lies and general dishonour) of modern political life. That doesn't make him a terrible leader.

It really does. Being unsuited to the job of leader makes you a terrible leader, by definition.

[Which Tyler]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66386310

Quote

Child sexual abuse probe 'obstructed' by asylum hotel staff

Staff at a hotel for asylum seekers obstructed a police investigation into a report that a man masturbated in front of a seven-year-old child, the BBC has been told.

Officers were blocked from entering the east London hotel and staff delayed providing CCTV - which was later automatically deleted, it is claimed.
...
ARTICLE CONTINUES

 

Edited August 3 by Which Tyler

[Derfel Cadarn]

I was very unimpressed with Corbyn’s handling of the Brexit vote. His ‘opposition’ to leaving the EU was anemic at best. He seemed to be personally in favour of leaving the EU but lacked the conviction to say so.

Had he been PM during the Ukraine war, I suspect his response would be a loud tutting.

[BigFatCoward]

The party needs people like Corbyn, but nowhere near power. 

I honestly think we would still be behind in the opinion polls if he was in charge, despite the absolutely catastrophe that the current tory party is. 

[Derfel Cadarn]

Daily Fail’s desperation to push transphobia:

A report on murders committed by a trans person, except…
 

The murders happened 33 years ago, 10 years before the killer transitioned.

[Heartofice]

Of course he was a terrible leader, even leaving aside the disastrous 2019 election result which might be Labour's worst ever, he basically over saw his own party fall into a chaotic mess of factionalism and infighting. Hardly the stuff of great leadership. He was absolutely terrible at politics, in that I mean communicating with people and bringing people together. The man was a disaster, and it says a lot about the state of the world that we had Boris Johnson vs Corbyn as choices.

It says just as much that now we are looking at a choice between two boring 'safe' technocrats in Starmer and Sunak.

Edited August 3 by Heartofice

[Spockydog]

7 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

The party needs people like Corbyn, but nowhere near power. 

Why? If he was so terrible, why does The Labour Party need people like him?

And then tell me how that dovetails with Keir Starmer's purging of the left. 

I'm all ears.

 

Edited August 3 by Spockydog

[BigFatCoward]

1 hour ago, Spockydog said:

Why? If he was so terrible, why does The Labour Party need people like him?

And then tell me how that dovetails with Keir Starmer's purging of the left. 

I'm all ears.

 

Because he was a terrible leader but a good man. And we need them to keep the party drifting too far to the centre and keep the people that appeal to the majority of the electorate honest. 

 

[Spockydog]

And.... suspended. By The Mail, for now. Surely GB News will be binning him as well.

Quote

 

GB News star Dan Wootton twice used an identical password as the catfishing pseudonyms ‘Martin Branning’ and ‘Maria Joseph’ to subscribe to a movie-sharing website, Byline Times can reveal.

The presenter used the password along with the email addresses for his private web domain danwootton.com and also his official News of the World account. They were leaked and published on a publicly-available data breach directory in October 2018.

Alongside Wootton’s two email addresses revealed in a dump of log-in details for 743,280 users of the defunct film-indexing service ‘MyDVD.overhere.com’ were the email addresses Byline Times revealed ‘Branning’ and ‘Joseph’ had used to trick and bribe scores of men into sharing compromising sexual material over at least a 10-year period.

All four of the accounts used the same unusual eight-character password. To protect Wootton’s privacy, this newspaper is not publishing the password – which his new representatives today appeared to confirm was indeed used by the journalist.

Further analysis of the databases, which are openly available online, shows Wootton also used the same password for his LinkedIn and MySpace profiles alongside music and fitness-app sites between October 2016 and October 2018.

Byline Times commissioned analysis of the data by an eminent PhD specialist in mathematical prediction modelling. The expert said the chances of Wootton’s password randomly duplicating those of Branning and Joseph were “zero”.

He explained: “Assuming that a user can choose any eight-letter password using the 26 lower case, 26 upper case and 0-9, then approximately 136 trillion passwords could be formed. If each of the 700,000 accounts is expected to have a unique password, then the probability that three are the same would be (1/700000)^3, approx 3*10^-18 – or basically zero.”

In a special three-year investigation into the personal and professional conduct of 40-year-old Wootton, this newspaper has uncovered extensive evidence that he targeted journalistic colleagues, friends, and members of the public with elaborate ruses to obtain private sexually explicit imagery.

Byline Times has revealed how Wootton – whose MailOnline column has been paused while an independent investigation is conducted by DMG Media following this newspaper’s reports – rented the Facebook accounts of adult film stars so he could catfish unsuspecting victims into being the subject of covert sex videos and charged it to his employers. And how Murdoch’s News UK paid-off six employees of The Sun who say Wootton forced them out of their jobs.

This newspaper has exposed Wootton as Maria Joseph – a honey-trap who for years harassed men for nude pictures. 

And we have unmasked him as Martin Branning – a faceless character who targeted men, some heterosexual and married, with bribes of up to £30,000 for compromising images. One gay man, carefully drawn in by Branning, even became the object of a 10-year blackmail campaign that saw him forced to make a secret sex film of his own partner, leaving him at the brink of suicide over his actions.

Though Wootton has said he denies any allegations of criminality, his representatives have not denied that he is, or is connected to, the identities of Branning and Joseph.

So today, in the seventh part of our investigation, this newspaper is taking a deep dive into Wootton’s online presence and reporting on its findings.

All of Byline Times’ evidence has been lawfully and ethically uncovered using open sources, and began with an examination of the email addresses [email protected] and [email protected].

 

This is what real journalism looks like. I hope the Pulitzer people are paying attention.

Edited August 4 by Spockydog

[Derfel Cadarn]

9 hours ago, Spockydog said:

And.... suspended. By The Mail, for now. Surely GB News will be binning him as well.

This is what real journalism looks like. I hope the Pulitzer people are paying attention.

Lol self-own

 

[Spockydog]

 

 

[dog-days]

1 hour ago, Spockydog said:

 

 

It's a beach largely frequented by the working and lower middle classes from a 'holiday park' (a hotel for white people who didn't go to Oxbridge). Early exposure to partially diluted excrement has actually been proven to have a strengthening effect on their children's immune systems, making them more resistant to bacterial infections. Keep the sewage flowing, I say. 

But the sea at St Mawes on the better side of the county is crystal clear, so there's no need to worry about sailing your favourite yacht there.* 

Aaaaanway. Good news from Wales. Toni Schiavone from Llangrannog has won his case against a parking fine enforcement company on the grounds that the fine was issued in English. 

Maybe now private companies will pay more attention to their Welsh comms. Da iawn, Toni and Cymdeithas yr Iaith. 

*Ok, in reality the sewage discharge problem is so bad and so extreme that it's happening everywhere, even in the poshest parts. 

[dog-days]

‘I’m 57, I’m just shattered’: The reality of being a Deliveroo rider over 50

Fucking Tories. 

[Spockydog]

Here is a list detailing Jeremey Corbyn's shameful forty-year history of raging anti-Semitism.

 

 

[Spockydog]

 

[Spockydog]

This, btw, is one of the most prominent anti-Corbyn twats in the British media. This is the actual racist that The Telegraph goes to when they need a column about Corbyn's anti-semitism.

 

 

Edited August 5 by Spockydog

[Heartofice]

Curious isn’t it, this preoccupation from a number of socialist accounts with David Baddiel.. I wonder what it is about Baddiel they don’t like… hmmm

[Spockydog]

Racism and hypocrisy. And shit jokes.

p.s. Go on. Say it. I fucking dare you.

Edited August 5 by Spockydog

[Heartofice]

8 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Racism and hypocrisy. And shit jokes

Sure, yes that’s the reason. Nail on the head.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

7 hours ago, dog-days said:

‘I’m 57, I’m just shattered’: The reality of being a Deliveroo rider over 50

Fucking Tories. 

The issue shouldn't be the over 50.

The issue should be working conditions for deliveroo drivers.

 

And tbf, that issue is not restricted to the UK/Tories. Deliveroo sucks.