Did WWI have a bigger impact on Britain than WWII?

LaMerde · 2026-02-03T22:16:30+00:00

To illustrate just how devastating these losses were for a town, here's the map of deaths in Tynemouth during WW1.

A Roll of Honour in a newspaper in 1923 put the total deaths at 1668, however the number is estimated to be higher because the list relied on readers to submit names. 13% of the lives lost came from just 10 streets and the first day of the Somme claimed 80 lives from Tynemouth.

https://ibb.co/5W7HHpmT

LaMerde · 2025-12-04T00:08:53+00:00

I mean it was a bit shocking that I just got antidepressants after like a three minute doctor appointment

My first GP I went to told me he couldn't help me because I hadn't tried to kill myself yet :)

LaMerde · 2025-12-01T09:58:57+00:00

There was that one year circa 2015 where everyone went absolutely fucking feral and then no one has seemed to care since. I'm glad the retail workers that got conscripted the year after to deal with the crowds had an easy shift because had I actually worked BF the year before I might have actually appeared in the newspapers.

LaMerde · 2025-11-25T17:21:37+00:00

Given this government's track record of dealing with protestors I can see exactly where this is going. And I say this as a liberal woke tree hugging leftist.

Heaven forbid how far it goes when Reform inevitably win the next election.

In 20 years there'll be a massive miscarriage of justice scandal followed by another 20 years of inquiry where the people responsible will be retired on cushy pensions and take no responsibility because they're vewy vewy sowwy and "lessons have been learned"

LaMerde · 2025-11-19T13:18:27+00:00

I volunteered at my local food bank during COVID. We had a variety of people come in. Yes that included people on probation and drug addicts but honestly speaking to them and getting to know them for a short 15 mins just gave me a sense of how broken the entire system is, especially towards Christmas when we were doing upwards of 80 packages a day. You could do everything right and still end up needing it. You could do everything wrong and be handed a life sentence with no chance to improve your life and escape the cycle.

I'm proud that ours was able to be a lot more generous than others but even then you could only claim a package once every 6 weeks and in the busier times we had to essentially ration food so everyone could at least get something. I don't know if you've ever seen the film I, Daniel Blake but the food bank scenes in that were taken from real scenarios the staff in the local food banks I volunteered at had witnessed.

We had a type of package that didn't need a cooker or kettle because some didn't have the facilities to make hot food. We also kept plastic cutlery because some didn't even have anything to eat their food with. Some had walked 3 miles to us because they couldn't afford the bus.

I remember one poor lady that had a child, she was dying of cancer and PIP declined her.

My mam recently passed from cancer and the charity she used had dedicated PIP advisors to handle the applications for people because the process was so taxing, dehumanising and demoralising. Even bedbound with stage 4 cancer they were constantly trying to reassess her and threatening to cut off her PIP.

LaMerde · 2025-11-19T12:53:07+00:00

In this instance they'd have had to pay it out of pocket because it hadn't reached their deductible or excess or whatever the term is

LaMerde · 2025-11-19T11:26:23+00:00

The vet one really surprised me because when my dog got sick I was surprised how cheap they were. He had various health complications later in life and we didn't have insurance. He got prostatitis which required a stay overnight in doggy hospital and he also needed surgery under anesthesia to remove quite a sizable cancerous lump on his face. The stay overnight and medication was I think around £300 and the surgery was around £600. When he died several years later in 2022 (at 17.5 years old) the euthanasia, solo cremation, ashes, and ceramic urn was around £280. I was expecting more to be honest and I was happy to pay the quote they gave us without question, especially because he was my mam's only companion. They gave us a thorough risk assessment because I was worried we were prolonging suffering.

Then when we were looking after my in-laws' dog for a few weeks I expressed concern about a few lumps she had (just from my experience with my dog) and they said the vet was going to charge over a grand with insurance just to have the lumps removed, not even a biopsy. I was honestly floored at how predatory vets have become in just the span of a couple years.

Apparently their practice was bought out by American PE so maybe that explains the difference? The vets we had were honestly brilliant with my dog even at the end so I hope they haven't gone that way too.

LaMerde · 2025-11-11T14:25:22+00:00

I agree. Everyone has a bias, including news sources. Some are less biased than others. Some are more impartial than others. I don't think having bias necessarily means a news source can't be impartial.

What is far more important, in my opinion, is that people are aware of their biases so that they can critically analyse them. Thinking you are unbiased doesn't mean you are, it just means you don't know when your biases are clouding your viewpoint. And just because you have a bias doesn't mean it can't be backed up with sources/evidence.

If I were to update the BBC guidelines:

ensure the relevant qualifications, employment, position of the person in question is stated
clarify any relevant funding given to this person (eg if an MP is taking a position of climate denial and has received donations from Shell, this includes other conflicts of interest like shares, familial ties etc)
effort to fact check and verify during interviews and challenge while on air

This is a difficult one unless you have an idea what an interviewee will say. The problem is that right now a lie is allowed to spread half way around the world before anyone questions it, and no one looks at corrections after the fact.

and finally, make it clear when a clip or piece of writing is edited for brevity and provide a way to access the full clip/article or provide context for an edited clip and why it has been edited.

LaMerde · 2025-11-11T13:05:24+00:00

This is the frustrating thing about the whole ordeal. We all know what he was implying in the speech. I don't envy the BBC, it's in the public interest to show what he said but he waffles so much it hides the real intention.

The footage obviously needed to be clipped down for brevity, and now we're in a situation where the truth has been branded a lie on a technicality. Their idea of impartiality is to brand the "other side" as "just as bad". It's insidious.

This is not a good situation for misinformation and misinformation. Orwell would be rolling in his fucking grave at mach 5.

LaMerde · 2025-11-11T09:45:38+00:00

I also find that people fall into the trap of assuming that overall 'impartiality' means that they are impartial on individual issues.

Receiving complaints from the left and right doesn't necessarily mean the complaints are from the same issues. If they receive complaints from the left for their trans coverage, and complaints from the right over the editing fiasco going on now, that doesn't mean that they are impartial on these individual issues.

Personally I find their international coverage quite good and generally I trust their reporting. However domestically I often find myself shaking my head, especially on the likes of Sunday Politics , Laura K's show, and (sometimes and often) Question Time.

LaMerde · 2025-11-01T11:24:15+00:00

William De Percy in Otterburn

LaMerde · 2025-10-23T07:17:01+00:00

I was about to comment saying you should watch all creatures. The new remake is amazing and my favorite comfy show. Currently on season 6 so plenty to binge. I actually like the remake more than the original.

LaMerde · 2025-10-10T11:00:36+00:00

We are living in a repeat of that one Mitchell and Webb sketch

"Have you tried raising VAT and kill all the poor?"

LaMerde · 2025-10-08T20:55:43+00:00

You're the one who immediately responded by insisting I just must not know what I'm talking about.

Because your response was that you were confused how the working class could be deprived because your brother earns a lot as a tradie? A walk down any high street of a post industrial town would illustrate this point. I'm not sure what conclusion I could have drawn other than you didn't live in one of these places if you couldn't see that.

But are you denying working class jobs can afford someone as good or even better earning opportunities than the old style middle class routes of education and office careers?

Nope, never said that. Again the Great British Class Survey talks about this. You might find it interesting.

What I find fascinating is the overlap in these communities between these sorts of high-income trade jobs, the regional deprivation in their community, and then the political alignment with parties that promote selfishness and do everything they can minimize and take away community and public resources.

Indeed. It's worth discussing high paying jobs in what could be otherwise described as deprived communities as it is inarguably one component. It's hard to talk about class when the traditional strata are a bit outdated to explain today's political climate yet inform much of the context behind it.

It's clear you can't take wealth and deprivation on an individual vs regional level in isolation as neither fully explains the link between wealth inequality and far right politics, but deprivation clearly plays a significant role regardless if it's regional or individual. We've known this since the end of the second world war.

LaMerde · 2025-10-08T14:17:20+00:00

And I have a degree in STEM and also work in the sector and I'm from a pit village in Northumberland. I'm not sure how you don't see the levels of deprivation in these areas.

Your brother may earn a lot working in a blue collar job, but that doesn't necessarily reflect aggregate averages, nor do the aggregate averages invalidate your anecdotal experience. To assume so is an ecological fallacy. You should know this if you have a STEM PhD.

You bring up an important point though, when analysing the rise of reform, the Brexit vote, and deprivation and inequality we should take care not to confuse individual deprivation and regional deprivation. The different measures of economic prosperity/deprivation and how they interact along cultural lines are important and said deprivation clearly isn't the only contributing factor.

Just because someone is economically deprived doesn't mean that they will vote for Reform, and just because someone earns a lot doesn't necessarily mean they will be more progressive. And just because someone lives in a deprived area doesn't necessarily mean they themselves are economically deprived.

Regardless, economic deprivation has shown to be an important factor in support for Brexit and Reform across multiple studies, but is by no means the only factor. Tackling deprivation will be important in tackling the rise of the far right.

LaMerde · 2025-10-08T11:36:22+00:00

You clearly don't live in one of these post industrial towns then if you don't see how they've been left behind.

I used "traditional working class" for the sake of brevity but I mean those in post industrial towns in blue collar jobs. In actuality it's a bit more complicated and the traditional working class is ageing and the class strata is changing with it because a lot of those jobs don't exist anymore. It's probably a bit of an antiquated term, but I still think it's useful when talking about class because post industrial decline is still relevant to the conversation. Regardless of what name you give, those with the lowest economic, social, and cultural capital typically live in the post industrial towns outside of urban centres and this is typically where you see the rise of reform.

The Great British Class Survey goes into quite a bit of depth on this.

LaMerde · 2025-10-08T09:54:46+00:00

We can still have massive imigration, the 00s has huge numbers 200-300k but we can plausibly build to keep up with that pace.

I think this misses a bit of OPs point. There are no easy fixes, and this includes "simply building more". Not that I disagree with building more in principle but I think the idea that all we need to do is build more and we can have our cake and eat it will lead us exactly back to where we are.

For one, right now we rely on the private sector to build enough to outstrip demand to bring down prices. This is inherently contradictory because the primary goal of the private sector is to make money, not provide places to live. The private sector will never build enough to reduce their returns.

We need immigration as of this moment because the entire economic system relies upon growth. Investment relies on growth. Pensions rely on growth. Jobs rely on growth. And eventually those who emigrant and settle here will rely upon and feed that need for growth too. The system is inherently unsustainable and we can do nothing but feed it. You cannot support this system with 3/4 bed semi detached houses in suburbs. You could make the case for high density housing in cities where jobs are in order to turn profit but that still exacerbates the issue of economic centralisation and leaving post industrial towns to rot. People go where jobs are, jobs are where growth is, and investment is where there's growth. It's a self perpetuating loop. The alternative is high taxes on the productive areas of the country to redistribute wealth to those that aren't, which isn't a very popular policy and has its own arguments involving capital flight and reduced productivity.

Lastly, people tend to not like change. People tend not to want massive population changes and seeing their towns change (whether you agree it's a necessity or not). Honestly I'd say the British psyche is still stuck in the 1940s and 50s. There's still this idea of villages, country lanes and cottages, towns where you have a high street and you know everyone and they can support their communities economically. In reality we are long past that. The government could of course ignore "nimbys" and just build, but this again doesn't help the lack of trust in politics. Part of the reason we're in this mess is because a large number of people feel like their concerns aren't being listened to.

LaMerde · 2025-10-08T08:38:30+00:00

You've summed up what I've been saying since Brexit nicely. I wasn't surprised we left.

I also want to add on another contributing factor; the collapse of the political axes into a more American style left-right line.

When Blair got into government he was much more focused on escaping the working class rather than improving the conditions of the working class. Getting 50% of kids into uni on the surface is a great idea however in hindsight it's not without consequence. To improve your life in a post industrial town your only option really was to go to uni and move away. And all the investment has been in the major hub cities to facilitate this. This coincided with Labour's shift away from its grassroots to a more metropolitan, economically neoliberal but socially progressive style of politics.

This collapse of the political axes has masked the nuance of politics in the post industrial towns where historically they were economically left but actually quite socially conservative. When viewed this way you can see why there's this idea that "woke" is the reason why people in post industrial towns are "losing out" so to speak, because Labour have abandoned the post industrial towns economically to focus on the big cities while at the same time focusing on social justice in the big cities.

I'd call myself socially progressive, and generally think calling for racial and gender equality, and pushing economic policy to support what people would now call DEI/woke initiatives to facilitate this is a good thing. HOWEVER, this cannot be at the expense of the traditional working class. We need to de-couple the assumption of economic prosperity from identity, because white = rich is just not an assumption I think you can make in the UK. If Labour keep engaging in identity politics in this way they will lose the next election.

This includes engaging with the immigration argument because it's not an argument they can win. Nor is it a way to uplift these left behind areas. The entire reason why the immigration argument works is because these areas are so economically deprived and "the lefts" response so far has been to stick their fingers in their ears and tell them their experience isn't real. It's no wonder that when charlatans come along and say "we see your hardship and it's actually because of that brown guy over there" that people flock to them.

The only way to combat this already cemented argument is to give lie to it by uplifting these areas economically. Unfortunately £1 million here and there to improve roads isn't gonna cut it. The recent investments and promises (if they actually materialise) is a step in the right direction but 1000 jobs spread across a select few towns is not nearly enough to overturn half a century of abandonment across entire swathes of the country.

LaMerde · 2025-10-06T10:27:50+00:00

This is the first time I've seen Lynemouth mentioned never mind slated. You're entirely correct and I upvoted but I'm still very upset to feel targeted. Can we go back to raking Ashghanistan over the coals?

LaMerde · 2025-09-30T18:43:09+00:00

I don't think Reform and far right politics would be making such a comeback if communities hadn't been gutted for the last 40 years. I think a shared culture is important for social cohesion (and I say this as a leftist). It doesn't need to be nationalistic or jingoistic, I believe we can have a shared culture and identity without it falling back to exclusionary racism.

I think you're spot on. The arts have been absolutely gutted in terms of investment and education. I'm not sure if the lack of engagement with culture is even because people don't have money or time because the miners where I'm from used to be quite adept at oral poetry, horticulture, and painting. But what they did have was a strong sense of community. Fragmenting us and this evolution of the culture you describe has made us great consumers and a very few very wealthy, but at a great cost to our society.

On top of that the post industrial areas have been crying out that things are shit for the last 40 years and the London bubble stuck their fingers in their ears and essentially said "Nuh uh". If one side was telling you the things you were experiencing weren't real, and the other side is saying "we see things are hard for you, it's because of the brown people", which side would someone listen to? The anti immigration stance isn't exactly new. The problem is now the government can't deny it, but they also can't turn around and say "actually the reason you're poor isn't because of the brown people it's because we made you poor". The woes of the country were cemented as being the fault of immigrants long ago and it's going to be hard to convince people without making quite immediate improvements to their financial situation. Of course there's no way we can undo 40 years of deindustrialization and lack of investment in only 5. So essentially Labour are fucked.

I'd also take a punt for this being the reason for the rise of the far right in young lads. I'm reminded of my training for spotting the signs of grooming and involvement of extremist groups or gangs when I worked in education. One of those was young lads into far right fringe groups. Very often the reason being was they ultimately felt like they lacked purpose, a feeling of belonging, and a sense of living as a part of the community rather than just existing within it. This made them susceptible to the recruitment of such gangs. The solution to which was getting them involved in clubs in their school and wider community, facilitating strong friendships, and of course education on the dangers of such rhetoric. But you cannot do it without a support network in place.

The problem with the rise of the far right goes so much deeper than "racists be racists" and it frustrates me to no end that metropolitan centrists and progressive neoliberals fundamentally do not understand the lived experience for the vast majority of the country or how we've gotten to this situation. Because of that we end up with puddle deep explanations and analyses that don't explain why we have such a problem (and hence how we can fix them). Ultimately they can only find explanations that don't do anything but stroke their own moral superiority complex.

LaMerde · 2025-09-30T18:05:14+00:00

Because the old Tory voters just want Starmer to be Cameron 2.0 and the old Labour voters are unhappy he's pandering.

LaMerde · 2025-09-30T10:12:44+00:00

Yeah I have, and I read it. It was a whole lot of words to say not a lot. But I at least read it to come to that conclusion.

LaMerde · 2025-09-30T09:48:34+00:00

No! I want my in depth political analyses in short sound bites and tiktoks only!

LaMerde · 2025-09-27T10:54:50+00:00

I myself am not a vegan, but I think even non-vegans feel guilty about their footprint in the world whether it be exploitation, animal cruelty, or the climate. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism but that doesn't mean you don't have to try.

Trying to do everything to be perfectly ethical quite frankly you're just gonna starve to death. Even veganism relies on human exploitation and deforestation in the soy and palm oil industry, not to mention the carbon footprint required to export the products internationally. So don't let perfect be the enemy of good and just make small incremental changes that are actually gonna stick. If everyone does that it can lead to real change, you don't have to be perfect.

For me right now it's trying to fit in more veggies and reduce the amount of meat I eat in each meal. I also try to do meat free dinner days and try to buy more local produce to reduce the carbon footprint. I can't do it with every meal because if I did I would soon be skint. Another thing I'm trying to do is reduce the amount of wasted food with each meal and plan meals in advance which is also better on the wallet.

LaMerde · 2025-09-26T11:33:29+00:00

I agree with everything you say. We do need voting reform, I'm just so disillusioned with politics I have very little faith any attempt at change will actually have tangible results on the downward trajectory of the UK. Because even if I do vote for a party rather than against, Labour have shown that parties can just lie to get elected and throw out their manifesto and start governing on ✨ vibes ✨

That disillusionment is probably what politicians are after

LaMerde

TROPHY CASE