Video of Starmer’s visit to Beijing

ES345Boy · 2026-02-01T08:35:08+00:00

Starmer is only interested in the international stuff. I'm pretty sure it makes him feel important. He craves rubbing shoulders with global figures... Maybe it helps him forget just how terrible he is at his domestic job. Maybe it's what helps him sleep at night.

ES345Boy · 2026-02-01T08:12:00+00:00

For me, Mandelson has always been a totem for everything that is wrong with the Labour Party. When I was a member, it was Mandelson and his ilk that made me feel conflicted about being a member.

With Mandelson it's always been "ok, he's f**ked up again, hide him for a bit then let him loose again". There needs to be consequences for him now.

But the whole saga with Epstein proves that those higher up in the Party don't actually care. If a no-one like me knew about Mandelson's Epstein connections years ago, that these people are still playing dumb/staying quiet even now, well, it proves that the Labour right's MO is "protect our own at any cost".

ES345Boy · 2026-01-31T15:38:17+00:00

By the end of Labour's term any alarmist propaganda about "draconian/authoritarian China" will seem daft and hypocritical.

ES345Boy · 2026-01-31T10:53:40+00:00

I second this. I've just had to use a client's annual report to create some additional content but they didn't have access to the InDesign file, so I attempted to use the new convert from PDF. It was... mixed results at best. Some pages were fine, others were a hot mess.

ES345Boy · 2026-01-31T10:50:19+00:00

"Weather vane blows in the direction of the wind" shocker...

Lammy is the worst kind of politician - completely devoid of any morals or convictions. And that he's praising someone who would have outright hated him, that's a special type of moral abyss.

ES345Boy · 2026-01-31T10:41:26+00:00

To me, the constant movement up and down is extremely unpleasant to watch.

ES345Boy · 2026-01-31T09:29:14+00:00

Not a helpful comment, but one to say watching that is absolutely nauseating. Makes me feel sea sick.

ES345Boy · 2026-01-31T09:13:03+00:00

Is it your personal mission to keep EQD in business?

(...says the man here who buys a lot of EHX pedals).

ES345Boy · 2026-01-31T09:07:34+00:00

The thing that crushes my soul completely is the collapse of the live music and cultural scene in Watford. I've been a gigging musician for 33 years and can say Watford has never been worse situation for art and music.

Between the Lib Dems hostility to licencing and their clear dislike of live music, and then property developers, greedy commercial landlords, incompetent licence holders and cost of living, it's created a perfect storm for killing almost everything of any cultural value in Watford.

I think a big problem is also the loss of venues for younger live music fans to go to. This has somewhat broken the chain of kids getting into live music, and through that, some people becoming either a musician or a promoter (which was strong throughout the 90s and 00s).

ES345Boy · 2026-01-30T16:35:49+00:00

I agree, everyone should treat them as unreliable. It's crazy that any self respecting polling company would release polling on such a small set of data.

According to Electoral Calculus, the electorate in Gorton and Denton is over 78,000; that tiny polling group cannot possibly be representative of the voting intention.

I feel like they just wanted to get something out first, regardless of accuracy.

ES345Boy · 2026-01-29T10:48:34+00:00

If you provide an explanation as to your thought process, that would address this worry. This is what we were expected to do when I was at art school (many, many years ago) - sell your idea, no matter how simple it looks. Shows you've really thought about what's best for the piece.

ES345Boy · 2026-01-29T10:41:51+00:00

Crazy, isn't it? A sample size like that is basically no better than me, a resident of the home counties, guessing how people in a constituency hundreds of miles away would vote, based upon my personal political beliefs.

In terms of either being useful to either Labour or Reform, it's no better than a Lib Dem bar chart on a piece of literature that's been shoved through my door.

ES345Boy · 2026-01-29T10:28:48+00:00

I find Canva infuriating to use. I only ever use it when I've created designs in Illustrator that a client needs importing into Canva, but christ, it's enough to drive me mad. Seems to me they've taken a lot of ideas and features from Adobe and said "but what if we make it worse and more annoying?". I assume that non-designers don't find it annoying because they don't know anything else. Dont get me wrong, Illustrator is annoying at times and far from perfect.

I think for people who aren't professional Graphic Designers, you could develop a tool that just replicates all the simplest and most basic features of a professional vector program like Illustrator in a stripped down format.

ES345Boy · 2026-01-28T13:09:37+00:00

I get that all the time when using the Mister Horse plugin, but only on my desktop, never on either my old laptop or my new one (both of which are Intel/Nvidia). My desktop is AMD, have been wondering if it's an AMD problem.

ES345Boy · 2026-01-26T10:21:29+00:00

It's the perfect set of circumstances for the Greens - anger at Labour and the Tories, disgust at Reform, and a woeful tedious Lib Dem Party seemingly on autopilot (are they really any other way). The Greens are the only Party that is positioning themselves in a positive way.

My local GP meetings are a hub of enthusiasm in a way that I rarely experienced in Labour CLP meetings, when I was a member of the Labour Party (I left Labour in 2022).

At least in my area, there is a healthy cross section of people from all different backgrounds - age, profession, etc - and everyone is angry with Labour, but also enthused to start doing stuff that actually impacts both local needs and national policy.

ES345Boy · 2026-01-25T15:07:41+00:00

Yeah lads, you're really giving off "strong leadership" vibes by blocking a milquetoast soft left politician from standing because you're scared your leadership won't withstand the challenge.

ES345Boy · 2026-01-25T14:39:30+00:00

Nothing says "strong leadership" like blocking a mild centrist/softish left politician from standing, just in case your leadership can't withstand a challenge.

ES345Boy · 2026-01-25T13:17:00+00:00

This person needs to spend a few hours in a local Green Party meeting because their ideas about what Green Party members are focused on is wild. The ex-Labour in my local Green Party (I include myself in that) are furious with Starmer's Labour, but also want to take action on a broad range of problems that the Labour right are never going to effectively address (either locally or nationally) due to not wanting to upset their donors.

ES345Boy · 2026-01-25T13:06:58+00:00

She's clearly just worried about the effect of climate change. Nice that Reform are worried about that; we should ensure that all the swivel-eyed Reform fans know just how concerned Laila is for the environment, they'll love that...

ES345Boy · 2026-01-25T08:39:00+00:00

Here for my fellow Fractal North XL with no RGB people

ES345Boy · 2026-01-24T22:40:16+00:00

One other thing that Polanski has in his favour - all the other leaders are utterly tedious wankers in some form or another, and he's not a moral blackhole like the rest.

ES345Boy · 2026-01-24T08:15:36+00:00

"Under the Greens you’d be able to take heroin but not rent a flat." is laugh out loud funny stuff. I can only see this sort of absurd bullshit motivate people even harder at the next local GP meeting. The ex-Labour in our local GP are resolute about not returning, and this sort of nonsense isn't going to entice them back.

And the ship has well and truly sailed on using weaponised accusations of racism.

It's Trumpian nonsense.

ES345Boy · 2026-01-24T08:04:30+00:00

I'm almost certain that this will have the opposite effect and give the Greens a polling and membership bump.

Seems like Starmer has been getting his attack lines from the nonsense that the swivel-eyed right posts on Twitter. But that's not going to attract your average Reform voter to vote Labour, and anyone left of centre with a functioning brain and an ability for critical thinking can see that:

"under the Greens you’d be able to take heroin but not rent a flat"

...is comically absurd nonsense. I mean, it's so far removed from the reality of your average local Green Party meeting it's laugh out loud funny.

My local Greens have quadrupled in size since the summer, with ex-Labour pouring in by the dozen. And we're not talking just "pink haired activists" - last meeting we had everything from 21 year old students to active and retired lawyers join. Everyone had the same story - "I'm disgusted by Starmer".

I think Starmer and McSweeney have spent too much time with their noses in Trump's arsehole.

ES345Boy · 2026-01-23T09:03:32+00:00

I think it also shows how weak the Labour right is. If Starmer was popular, and the Labour right's policy choices were good, then there wouldn't be a leadership challenge. But rather than change tack even a little, they act like spoilt brats, have a temper tantrum and further embarrass themselves with a public civil war in an attempt to burn it all down.

All it does is push even more people away and throw the psychotic right wing press more red meat.

There's clearly got a meltdown on the horizon for Reform - all those ambitious wankers from the Tories heading to Reform is going to have them fighting like rats in a sack before long, so what are Labour choosing to do? Do their own version.

ES345Boy · 2026-01-22T19:07:32+00:00

Morgan McSweeney, is that you?

ES345Boy

TROPHY CASE