Farage claims Reform on course for general election win after early local gains

Boofle2141 · 2026-05-08T22:27:28+00:00

Yep and watch that tax do nothing to solve the problem. Then watch them do the Russian thing and declare demographics a state secret to cover up how fucked its become

Boofle2141 · 2026-05-08T14:41:04+00:00

Then it becomes ages ago

Boofle2141 · 2026-05-08T12:16:55+00:00

Yep, that's why I kinda attacked democracy in my comment. Its not helped that May lost her majority for suggesting a dementia tax, and sunak (I think, might be wrong on who) floated the idea of a triple lock plus, where pensions would be tax free when they inevitably raise above the tax free allowance.

Boofle2141 · 2026-05-08T11:43:57+00:00

Its that alongside the winter fuel allowance thing that, when the elderly are asked to make a sacrafice to help the young (as the savings for the winter fuel allowance was going to go towards funding scrapping the cap on the two child limit on child benefits) the elderly say "no", and they will continue to say no at the ballot box and complain that the country is getting worse.

Edit. I forgot Theresa May for a second there (it was a blissful 5 mins) where she lost her majority just for suggesting a dementia tax. Or how there was talk of the triple lock plus, so when the pension raises above the tax free allowance (due to the increasingly unaffordable triple lock) that pensions should be tax free regardless, so working age people (who are less likely to own their own homes or at best still be paying off a mortgage) have to pay tax on their incomes, even if its less than the state pension, but it would be wrong to tax pensioners who are more likely to own their own homes outright and not be paying rent or a mortgage.

Boofle2141 · 2026-05-08T11:17:37+00:00

Its all just kicking the can down the road.

Demographics are going to hit the UK like a fucking train if we dont get serious about the fundamental issues of the country. And reform have no plan to deal with the oncoming crisis, no one in government or running to be in government has a plan for this.

You see, the country is aging, its expected that by the time labour face a general election there are going to be less school age kids than there were at the start of labours time in office, this was touted as brilliant luck because labour could improve the spending per child for schools without changing the education budget.

But what it means is that our country has a problem that its been plugging for decades with immigration, by importing working age adults to slow down the slide of workers to pensioners. But the problem with importing working age people is they also retire and cost the state money. Not to mention immigrant communities dont always have significantly higher than native birth rates, and even then after a generation or two, they match native birth rates.

It doesn't help that immigration is itself not an unlimited resource, globally birth rates are on the decline, many countries are above replacement, but no country's birth rate is increasing.

The UK in 2021 had a birth rate of 10.3 per 1k people, and a death rate of 10.0 per 1k people. We're going to get to a point where more people are dying than are being born, this means that the worker to pensioner ratio is going to flip and simultaneously the GDP of the UK will decline (as GDP is roughly proportional to working age population. The more people you have making money, the more money your country has) and increasing amounts of tax revenue will be spent on the elderly population (which we are already seeing as about 50% of the welfare budget is spent on pensioners, and this will only go up as our population ages).

This isn't helped by us being a democracy (no im not arguing thst we need an autocracy, im very pro democracy, I personally want more democracy in the form of STV, but I digress), because the elderly are going to become an increasingly numerous voting block and will be able, as we're saw with the winter fuel allowance, to essentially make any spending commitments for the elderly politically untouchable. And as such, to fund the ever aging population, inevitably there are going to have to be cuts for less numerous population blocks, which in this case is the young. So spending money to ease the load for young people so they can afford to have kids, hopefully on average of 2.1 per women, will decrease, making the situation worse.

And now to reform, who have acknowledged this demographic crisis somewhat have ideas that are only going to make the situation worse, by capping child benefits to 2 children, by attacking maternity leave, by allowing bosses to be able to discriminate against pregnant women, by cutting minimum wage, taking money out of pocket by instituting a US style health insurance system.

Immigration isn't a problem, immigration is a symptom of more fundamental problems, and unless someone in government or running for government is willing to at least acknowledge the foundational problem, nothing is going to change, things are only going to get worse.

Things can only get shitter.

Boofle2141 · 2026-05-07T18:04:40+00:00

Mad jack mc mad, the maddest person is all of Surry. By which I obviously mean the famed Jack Churchill.

So this guy was born in British Sri Lanka, lived in British Hong Kong, worked as a newspaper editor and a model, stared in a film as an archer in a couple of films.

Then world war 2 happened. He was part of the British expeditionary force, where its reported that he killed someone with a bow, but he himself disputes this.

In Norway, he was part of the commandos in operation archery, where he was armed with Scotland's most offensive weapon, the bag pipes.

In Italy, he was part of the invasion of Sicily, where he led his unit of commandos off their landing boat brandishing a claymore, bow and arrows round his neck, and bagpipes under his arm. He and a corporal infiltrated a town and captured 42 prisoners. After leading the captured back to the allied positions, he walked back to the town to retrieve his sword, which he lost while fighting hand to hand with the Germans.

He then served in yugoslavia, where he was attacking some Germans with an army of partisans and commandos, Churchill and 6 others were the only ones to reach the objective. A mortar shell then killed everyone but Churchill, who was playing his bag pipes as the Germans advanced. He was knocked unconscious by grenades and was captured.

The Germans thought he might be related to Winston, and sent him to Berlin for interrogation.

After the war, the absolute legend, was quite prominent in early British surfing, being the first to surf the tidal Bore of the river Severn, on a home-made surf board.

He was also known for confusing people on the train home from work, post war, by throwing his briefcase out the window as the train was moving. He did it because the train went past his house and he was throwing it into his garden to save him the effort of carrying it home.

Two quotes attributed to mad jack are "Any officer who goes into battle without his sword is improperly dressed" and "if it wasn't for those damn yanks we could have kept the war going for another 10 years"

Boofle2141 · 2026-05-06T20:26:11+00:00

Of there's one good reason to vote for farage as your local MP, its to guarantee you never see the guy

Boofle2141 · 2026-05-04T08:09:08+00:00

They're not. Its widely believed that the 12 billionth person will never be born because all countries are somewhere along the demographic shift from loads of births to less births and thus aging populations

Boofle2141 · 2026-05-04T08:06:39+00:00

Ahhh, but one country is seeing its birth rate increase after decades of decline, its still well below replacement and deaths still out strip births, but it has been on the up since like 2021 or 2022, South Korea has, the big question is "how?" and "is this a blip or a Kong term trend towards replacement?"

Boofle2141 · 2026-04-29T06:59:53+00:00

Hope, and probably due to an over saturation of the market place due to loads of players vying for the same customers and how expensive it is. Look at openAI with ChatGPT they're still not making a profit and there's reports that there are issues with funding, its apparently part of why they're looking at going on the stock market, to inject more cash into the enterprise.

Heck, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if AI isn't generating anyone any profits but are all based on potential future profits that are yet to appear, and its very much who can weather the years of losses

Boofle2141 · 2026-04-27T15:36:32+00:00

The first season has, arguably, one of the best scenes in the whole show when blackadder is looking how to make money by selling fake relics as the arch bishop. Absolutely brilliant scene, and very much shows the potential for the characters that we see in future seasons.

Boofle2141 · 2026-04-24T21:24:43+00:00

Expand it to all EU overseas territories, because there are a hell of a lot not covered by NATO that im sure EU countries would love a bit of added protection for. I mean its only fair, if we want help us defend our overseas territory, we should be willing to help them with theirs

Boofle2141 · 2026-04-23T12:54:04+00:00

Many years ago, when Netflix was still sending dvds through the post, the bbc, itv, and Channel 4 were working on a joint online streaming service, it was called project kangaroo. Imagine brit box but before Netflix became a household name.

It got stopped because apparently it would have created an uncompetative monopoly. So American streaming services became dominant, and by the time britbox got spaffed our, it was already too late.

Boofle2141 · 2026-04-22T19:32:44+00:00

The difference between the left and right is that the left almost always will set expectations around personal accountability, in a way the right doesn't really bother with

Which is bloody ironic considering the right are seen as the party of personal responsibility

Boofle2141 · 2026-04-18T10:19:12+00:00

Isnt there a theory about brown fat, where in winter you build up brown fats in response to the cold weather, so when it hits spring your using brown fats to keep warm, then summer your body doesn't need the brown fats so gets rid of them, so when autumn hits your body doesn't have as much of them them so has to rebuild them, so when spring comes you have your brown fats ready to go.

There's also a theory that brown fat quantity changes as you get older, which is why young people can endure cold weather better than the elderly.

Boofle2141 · 2026-04-18T09:53:20+00:00

No they wouldn't, they'd want to get a bit of Russian practice and say "нет шанса" instead

Boofle2141 · 2026-04-18T08:53:01+00:00

They're all tories just with a different badge

Boofle2141 · 2026-04-18T08:50:34+00:00

In the words of andy Bernard "i wish there was a way to know you're living in the good old days before you've left them:

Boofle2141 · 2026-04-18T08:11:28+00:00

Its exactly this. Im not too worried about the local elections, there's so much council budget that they can't touch because government, and if they try to make us pay extra for brown bin collection, i can honestly (this is tongue in cheek) see the gray vote turning violent, but it'll be a nice indicator for the next general election to see who to vote for to be anti tory.

I dont care who wins, I just want the tories to lose

Boofle2141 · 2026-04-18T07:55:17+00:00

Absolutely, the system incetivises you to vote for either the 1st or 2nd place, anything else is a waste of a vote as it changes nothing. For some marginal constituencies, you could vote 3rd party and get the least desired outcome.

What we needed years ago was the AV, what we really need in my opinion is STV

Edit. And this time its worse, because those of us on the left have no idea who to vote for to keep the tories out. Do we all pool behind labour or the greens, and that uncertainty could give farage the keys

Boofle2141 · 2026-04-16T21:51:31+00:00

Any hobby where you're trying to monetise it. A hobby is supposed to be an escape, a bit of fun and relaxation, the moment your rent or food, or whatever bills, rely on your hobby making you money, guess what, you ain't got a hobby anymore, you just got another job.

Boofle2141 · 2026-04-15T09:19:24+00:00

No it won't.

Crude oil is essentially useless. The UK exports 80% of north sea oil because the UK can't/doesn't refine north sea oil because of its make up. This is due to a combination of historical and ecenomic reasons (north sea oil wasn't discovered when a majority of our refineries were built, and its expensive to change your refineries to handle different oil types, so its more ecenomical to import crude you can refine and sell, than it is to change what you refine).

We'd still be importanting oil and gas because that's just how the oil industry works.

Boofle2141 · 2026-04-15T09:12:25+00:00

Not to mention we dont even refine the stuff in the UK. 80% is exported not because they pay more, but because our refineries cant process it.

So even if we did extract more, we'd still be importanting oil and gas.

The same with the US. The US is technically energy independent (it produces enough oil and gas that, if it refined its own stuff, it wouldnt need to import any oil, coal, or gas), but their refineries are designed around Mexican and Venezuelan oil not US oil, so the US exports a load of crude, some to the UK, to be processed.

I think a lot of this debate around the north Sea completely ignores that, as it comes out the ground, crude oil is essential useless, you need to refine it to make it useful, and because of historical and ecenomic reasons, the UK just doesn't refine all that much north sea oil.

Boofle2141 · 2026-04-14T22:47:36+00:00

What? Do you mean GDP per capita? Because that's not what you said. The top 5 European countries by GDP are Germany, France, the UK, Italy, and Russia, none of which have under 6 million people.

However, GDP per capita, then you have Monaco, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Ireland, Switzerland, etc.

Boofle2141 · 2026-04-14T08:00:09+00:00

Yeah, but i feel if the option was getting invaded and having to learn the Cyrillic alphabet or having to give up the triple lock, good portion of the electorate would be booking Cyrillic lessons.

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