British Politics
Been on holiday for a few weeks, surprised to find no general discussion of British politics so though I'd kick one off.
I don't think Reform are very likely to take Islington North, which is the only place you can vote for Corbyn if he stands next time-- which he might not, as he's not enjoying the leaderless YP fiasco very much, and he doesn't like Sultana.
Tax-dodging chance(llo)r Nadhim Zahawi has jumped ship to Reform.
Which is quite interesting considering his published views on Farage:
Lowest London murder rate in a decade, after significant decline. taking into account population, since records like this began in 2003.
At 1.1 in 100k one of the safest major cities in the globe, safer than all big American cities, & every single US State.
Lowest London murder rate in a decade, after significant decline. taking into account population, since records like this began in 2003.
At 1.1 in 100k one of the safest major cities in the globe, safer than all big American cities, & every single US State.
I've said this elsewhere but for the time I was there in July last year as you know I spent quite a bit of time walking in central London between 10pm and 3am going from bars back to my hotel. It was probably my first night out I walked from the bar in Soho at 2am to Paddington not realising how long the walk was but apart from the annoying rickshaws following me for the first 10 mins of the walk I could not tell the difference between walking around here in Aus and in London. And I never did feel unsafe while I was over there - maybe it was because of my physical state they didn't want to take on someone that looked physically fit but London felt no different to when I was last over there 13 to 14 years ago including a night when I literally spent the night out on the street before going to the airport to meet someone. And I even spent some time walking from east London to central London in the early hours of the morning - again no issues.
Though I go out at night far less often these days that doesn't surprise me at all.
London was pretty violent and unpleasant for both young men and women in the 70s and 80s but since then it's been a pussycat of a city violence-wise.
Mobile phone thefts seem to be the main problem nowadays.
The first protest has been organised by a group calling itself Bristol Patriots, who have said they will gather at the Cenotaph and then from noon march around the city centre, Broadmead and next to Castle Park. The group say their protest is an anti-Government and anti-Keir Starmer.
A counter-protest has also been called by a coalition of anti-racism groups in Bristol. They have called on people to gather at the Cenotaph too, but from 10am - an hour earlier. They have titled their counter-protest 'We Hate Keir Starmer More Than You'.
Well on that didn't have any issues in London - I didn't realise the extent of the problem in the UK generally and may have been a bit more protective of my phone if I knew about it (i.e not to hold it as much while I'm walking down the street) but there was one night in Cardiff after having a few in a local pub close to where I was staying (and this was one of those decent warm days in the UK where it was low 30s and plenty of people still drinking till 1am (the pub didn't close until 1am) but they were mostly outside (due to the heat I guess) and I was only one of a few inside watching a band and went off to the toilet and then went out to a different spot not realising I left my phone where it was but just lucky no one was over there watching this band and my phone was still there. Not saying the people at that pub are the same people that seem to be striking Londoners the most with phone thefts and would have taken my phone and not handed it in to the pub but I didn't know the extent of the phone thefts problem till after that event. I think the solution to it all is just to buy less iPhones as it is those phones that are targeted the most and make it less of a market for thieves to want to do it.
authorities finally cracking down on iphone thefts. It's not a tricky problem when they make an effort to tackle the organised criminals.
I was about to post the same as jalfrezi about london - back in the late 70/80 it was violent and dangerous. Some blame the lead in petrol
I don't know which part of London you grew up in chez but as a teenage in 70's North London it was completely routine to get abused and threatened in the street by groups of teens from a different "tribe", so much so that you developed 360 degree awareness and made sure to cross roads early as soon as you saw figures ahead even if it meant taking a detour, and generally walked very fast so if someone was coming up behind you they'd have to run and you'd hear them.
A couple of times with friends we were chased down the road by a group of teens from a different "tribe" ("Let's get them!") and managed to outrun them (an advantage of wearing trainers instead of platforms) or jump onto a bus.
Does this sound familiar? I'm pretty sure other cities were similar but London had a deserved reputation for being rough as hell.
In the '80s and '90s the 'murder triangle' of Camden, Islington and Hackney used to see about 90 murders a year. That's now the approximate figure for the whole of London despite considerable population growth.
So in the most obvious cover up since Hillsborough, it turns out the police decided to unjustly ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans and conjure up the evidence later.
Of course, there are always some useful idiot who is happy to uncritically believe anything antisemitic.
sigh
The six bullet points that showed the concern of police for Macabi fan violence have not been refuted. The controversial point, Elweasel, is some fool in the police not checking the output from AI/google which cited a game that hadn't taken place:
Wrong.
Police pointed to violent clashes and hate crime offences during the 2024 Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv as part of its justification.
But BBC News has since obtained a letter from the Dutch police inspectorate, which appeared to contradict the claims about Maccabi fans' previous behaviour.
Yeah, why did the parliamentary committee waste all that time investigating obvious police corruption when they could have just looked at your twitter feed to see it was obviously The Jews fault.
At this point you're just being a moron again and your Islamophobia is shining through.
Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, a club with a well known racist hooligan element, were banned from the Birmingham match due to the existence and past behaviour of these racist hooligan fans. It's not as difficult as you seem to want it to be, and I think we can all see why you're taking this line.
The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority
--This is something Taleb (ironically a raging antisemite himself) talked about. Basically, leftists and Islamists are more dedicated to ostracizing Jews than everyone else is to stopping them. So the path of least resistance is just to appease them. As parts of Britain become more and more Islamized, demographically and politically, expect this phenomenon to become more and more prevalent.
Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, a club with a well known racist hooligan element, were banned from the Birmingham match due to the existence and past behaviour of these racist hooligan fans. It's not as difficult as you seem to want it to be, and I think we can all see why you're taking this line.
The point isn't that the club might have racist fans. Many clubs do. The point is the police lied about the evidence supporting the claim, and people like you couldn't trip over their lies fast enough to point and shout that Jews = bad!
This insistence of yours that Jews = Israelis is very antisemitic and entirely meets the international definition of antisemitism. You should stop being so racist.
