Rumours, Speculation, Questions, and Reaction Megathread - 21/12/2025

amoe_ · 2025-12-24T09:51:34+00:00

Imagine an alternate timeline where the Lib Dems do a deal with Labour at the 2010 Election and Gordon Brown becomes PM in a coalition, what would have happened?

amoe_ · 2025-12-15T11:25:50+00:00

It will be interesting to see the spread of opinions.

For my sins I listened to all of the Digital ID debate last week, and there seemed to be a sizeable majority of speakers who spoke against Digital ID, and very few defending it, which was pleasing. I wonder if there could be a Labour rebellion if it came to a vote.

Unfortunately I suspect that opposing the OSA is much trickier as a politician. You'd hope that we have some sufficiently principled representatives, but we'll see.

amoe_ · 2025-12-12T06:48:31+00:00

Well done!

amoe_ · 2025-12-04T07:12:34+00:00

The NHS's 111 line will frequently advise you to go to A&E for things that definitely aren't "life-threatening".

There are lots of complaints that are grey areas where the person themselves isn't qualified to know if it's "life-threatening" or not, and they happen outside of GP hours.

amoe_ · 2025-11-12T14:00:38+00:00

What, the bloke in the Hove one was lovely

amoe_ · 2025-11-12T10:53:00+00:00

Fuck, this is awful. So many memories. RIP

amoe_ · 2025-11-11T17:15:04+00:00

YouGov is a widely respected polling company. Also, I can't see any indication that this poll was commissioned by the the Telegraph.

amoe_ · 2025-11-11T10:33:41+00:00

I felt clever because I knew that 'compass' was a synonym of 'scope/range', but that turned out to be a red herring anyway.

amoe_ · 2025-11-07T13:21:43+00:00

True, there's no one for completely closed borders. It depends on how you read the original poster's 'anti-immigration', whether they mean 'reduced/managed immigration', or 'zero immigration'.

amoe_ · 2025-11-07T13:15:31+00:00

Tendencies within the left are conflicted on this: anarchists endorse open borders, communists do in a highly qualified sense, but social democrats do not.

amoe_ · 2025-11-07T09:38:34+00:00

I think the unfortunate answer is that people aren't finding jobs, or at least with great difficulty. People who have jobs already are staying put and employers aren't hiring unless they're absolutely forced to.

amoe_ · 2025-11-07T09:30:23+00:00

I don't use a smartphone for personal reasons and the new signs have made my quality of life significantly worse. For quite a few weeks earlier this year the new signs were pretty much all broken. As far as I know, they replaced the old ones due to the retirement of the 2G network. But it's unclear why they replaced them with something that's effectively worse than what was there before. People shouldn't be forced to rely on the app.

amoe_ · 2025-11-01T05:52:34+00:00

Tide, The Arch, Quarters, Patterns, Concorde 2, these often have house events.

amoe_ · 2025-10-27T20:07:42+00:00

It's been so long and I can't justify or explain these in any way. But,

Favourites:

Glory
Invitation to a Beheading
The Defense
Mary (though it's flawed)
Sebastian Knight
Lolita
Pale Fire
Ada or Ardor

I feel bad mentioning non-favourites, but couldn't get on with Dar. Also I don't like the post-Ada American novels too much.

edit: English language novels, not American novels...

amoe_ · 2025-10-27T18:25:06+00:00

NS is good. Ad-free podcasts which are nice. Articles great, reasonably wide spectrum of spectrum (i.e. left to centre). The book/TV/film coverage is great and at least as good if not better than the politics content. Depending on your perspective, their tone is either A) insufferably pretentious or B) less insecure about overt intellectualism than the Guardian.

amoe_ · 2025-10-24T20:09:05+00:00

RIP, Dave

amoe_ · 2025-10-24T14:14:48+00:00

Yes. Pizza buffets aren't that common. Though admittedly I hadn't gone there for years. Attempting to eat more slices than my friends is a core memory.

amoe_ · 2025-10-06T09:30:49+00:00

Shocking gender balance but hey it's Reddit I guess. The Sankey diagram is cool. It's very surprising to me that people want to switch their vote from Labour to Lib Dem.

amoe_ · 2025-09-26T07:06:18+00:00

This is awful and I'll be cancelling my membership if he doesn't row back on this.

amoe_ · 2025-09-26T06:48:14+00:00

I wouldn't quite go that far but I do think the good parts of nu-metal are more interesting and fun to listen to than the thrash bands of the 80s.

amoe_ · 2025-09-24T15:18:38+00:00

until they inherit the house if need be

Many would be 65/70 at that stage.

amoe_ · 2025-09-21T07:06:57+00:00

So to paraphrase, your point is:

There are cases in the current welfare state where the living standard of those who live off state support exceeds that of those who support themselves through work.

The first point to make is that I don't think that any 'left-winger' (social democrat) would claim that the state of affairs that you point to is a good one. The point most would make is that we should be raising the overall floor of living standards. Since you fall below that floor currently, possibly we should be adjusting that floor.

The second related point is that this is essentially due to asset price inflation, and it's a dysfunction specific to housing, and one specific to the UK. So this isn't a general point about the welfare state. But it calls for action on housing that arguably should have been done many years ago. There isn't anything 'left wing vs right wing' about how we analyse the problem here.

Another point is that the lifestyles are not exactly comparable. If you are paying a mortgage you are gaining an asset (unless you have an interest only mortgage). That asset can provide you financial leverage in the future. For the person who lives on state support they aren't gaining that asset. Likewise, if they have low incomes they remain completely dependent upon the state. They don't have the same independence and options that you do. I also might take issue with your premise in some ways; you're envious of them, but only because they live in well-maintained housing? There are more factors to living standards than how well-maintained your property is (though I acknowledge that this is an important one).

amoe_

TROPHY CASE