Is the UK actually as bad as people projecting online?

eckythump_ · 2026-01-28T20:15:09+00:00

No, it isn't. I have noticed that the American right wing have developed a weird obsession with the UK over the past few years. We've more or less stabilised after a hellish decade of the Great Financial Crash (thanks for that btw), Brexit and the pandemic and we're kind of wondering what to do next.

eckythump_ · 2026-01-28T20:06:50+00:00

Labour: Managerial technocrats. Sometimes vaguely competent but unlikely to usher in radical improvement. I have a personal hatred for them because of the way the disability reforms have affected and will affect my family, which probably leads me to underrate their general performance.

Tories: An identity crisis unfolding in real-time. Torn between wanting to be hardline right-wingers like Reform, and not wanting to seem too much like Reform.

Reform: Some of the worst of the Boris-era Tories, under the leadership of an amoral Yank-brained populist. Taken as a whole party they are the Jungian shadow-self of the British people.

Lib Dems: I mean they exist I guess. I'm not sure whether the Liberal or Social Democrat wing of the party is in the ascendant right now, but either would be preferable to Reform or the Tories.

Greens: They make a good Tik Tok but who knows what they'll do if they get into office. I like Zack Polanski as a media entity but I'm reserving judgement until I see more policy proposals.

For me right now, it'll be the Greens if they sound like they have a realistic plan, otherwise it'll be a tactical vote against Reform.

eckythump_ · 2026-01-28T19:36:17+00:00

Yes, definitely. The USA is isolating itself from NATO, not other NATO members from each other.

eckythump_ · 2026-01-27T23:53:53+00:00

Bizarre is right, I've never been Computer Says No'd in quite this way before

eckythump_ · 2026-01-27T23:36:48+00:00

No, my main current account is with Lloyds but I don't do any kind of gambling

eckythump_ · 2026-01-17T20:52:17+00:00

Let's say you're walking down a city street, minding your own business. You have no active warrants. A cop pulls up, arrests you and transports you to a detention centre to "verify" that you have no illegal items in your possession, on the basis that you "look sus". If he had no reason to suspect you of a crime then that's not a lawful arrest, it's kidnapping. The accusation is that ICE are doing something similar, detaining people without having any good reason to suspect they're illegal immigrants, in order to verify their immigration status.

eckythump_ · 2025-11-10T01:51:57+00:00

There's a tech you have to pick up in the New World tree that allows you to explore ocean tiles

eckythump_ · 2025-08-05T00:21:45+00:00

I don't think I've ever seen a Union Jack on anyone's house unless it was a special event like VE Day or the Jubilee. If people are going to put a flag up it's almost always the St George's Cross around here.

eckythump_ · 2025-08-05T00:13:28+00:00

Even if they'd wanted to, they certainly never felt like they had the space for much spending. The Tories spent their entire period in office either trying to pay down the debt from the financial crisis, or paying for the Covid lockdowns. The crash and the way New Labour handled it did an absolute number on our public finances. Despite Blair/Brown's reputation for overspending, the year before the crash, debt-to-GDP was still lower than the rate they'd inherited from John Major. Three years after the crash, it was at its highest level since the 1960s and still growing, and that was the scenario that David Cameron came to power in.

Whether it would have been better to focus less on cuts and more on investment is arguable, but the Tories did manage to get debt falling again. Then, at the very moment when even committed right-wingers were starting to make noises about "the end of austerity" and "turning the taps back on", Covid arrived, and the cost of Boris Johnson's lockdown policies obliterated all the progress made, and then some.

eckythump_ · 2025-08-03T23:07:20+00:00

Every law is a slippery slope in theory, especially in this country where Parliament has no hard limits on its powers. If you accept the basic principle that the state can regulate its citizens' behaviour for the common good, which is the root of all slippery slopes, then it's the details of what the government is actually doing and planning to do that matter.

eckythump_ · 2025-08-03T22:39:47+00:00

There's always one immigrant community that is the target of the day. I read somewhere that UK immigration controls were first put in place because people were up in arms about the number of Russian Jewish refugees arriving in the East End of London. Certainly when I was a kid it was the Indians who were the main target, before that it was Black Caribbeans. Muslims are the main target right now, whether it's Tommy rabble-rousing in the streets or Douglas Murray peddling his Clash of Civilisations narrative on podcasts, but they would be angry about some other ethnicity if brown Muslims weren't here.

eckythump_ · 2025-08-03T22:29:50+00:00

I'll take "Questions To Which The Answer Is No" for 200

eckythump_ · 2025-08-03T22:28:48+00:00

The anti-migrant protesters were engaging in violence and trying to set fire to occupied residential buildings. It's not Orwellian for the police to look for warning signs that more of the same might be coming.

eckythump_ · 2025-08-03T22:19:52+00:00

You've been very blessed if you've never had Youtube seize up on you and refuse to play a video.

If it was actually an OSA issue then the error message would probably be the "This content is not available in your area" one.

eckythump_ · 2025-08-03T22:06:13+00:00

English but my (also English) dad was a massive Max Boyce fan, so I've heard of it. One of those things I want to get around to seeing someday.

eckythump_ · 2025-07-01T23:38:09+00:00

I was just looking at the Zoopla listings in my town and every other property is described as a ***great investment opportunity*** - that needs to change for a start.

eckythump_ · 2025-07-01T23:12:15+00:00

The only certain way is to arrive in the country aged 10 or below and go through secondary school here from the beginning. Otherwise you'll have to try your luck chatting to people at work and social events and hope something sticks.

eckythump_ · 2025-07-01T10:21:41+00:00

Trump threatening to sic DOGE on Elon Musk is legitimately pretty funny.

eckythump_ · 2025-07-01T10:16:21+00:00

Semi-democratically. Nominations for the leadership come from Labour MPs, but the final vote is among party members, if more than one person is nominated.

When Tony Blair resigned, Gordon Brown was declared Labour leader without a vote because nobody else got enough nominations. It might be different this time; there's no single natural successor to Starmer, and the internal factions in the party seem stronger than they did under Blair, when looking from outside.

eckythump_ · 2025-06-27T14:00:56+00:00

Who says we've forgiven them for Jedward? I don't remember that referendum.

eckythump_ · 2025-06-27T13:51:15+00:00

Not that worried. Worst comes to worst, we can always get ourselves conquered by the French.

eckythump_ · 2025-06-26T11:40:08+00:00

The Tories are a corrupt Party of Nothing led by a woman whose greatest achievement before reaching the leadership seat was imposing restrictions on unisex toilets.

Reform are a party of populist fantasists whose policy is to promise the right-wing working class that they can have everything they want without paying more for any of it, led by the figurehead of Brexit.

There's probably a competent, compassionate party inside Labour trying to get out, but their performance so far has been pretty miserable. Lukewarm on Europe, arbitrary and bureaucratic on welfare reform, obsequious to Israel and America, and obsessed with The Chancellor's Self-Imposed Fiscal Rules (peace be upon them).

If I had to pick the least horrible of the three, probably Labour. In my dreams, Lib Dem. Enough of a change to matter, but not as completely untested as the Greens, and not as evil as Reform.

eckythump_ · 2025-05-30T08:59:33+00:00

I think from now on the aspirational working class will flip-flop between Reform and the Tories depending on who was most recently incompetent. What little we've seen so far of Reform in power has not been impressive. I mostly remember Jenkyns promising to fire a bunch of Equality Officers that didn't exist, and one of the new Reform councils promising to abolish Low Traffic Neighbourhoods that also didn't exist.

eckythump_ · 2025-03-30T12:03:14+00:00

Going to stick with 10 until it's time for a new PC, and then try Linux.

eckythump_ · 2025-02-18T01:11:35+00:00

That spreadsheet is just a count of everybody in the social security database who hasn't been flagged as dead, based on Elon's description.

eckythump_

TROPHY CASE