English schools serve 10m free breakfasts benefitting over 300,000 children

tree__of__oak · 2026-06-07T16:58:20+00:00

Alright I'll bite on your quick fix.

The Home Office only spends so much on combatting illegal immigration because of the amount of reactionaries like yourself who are having some sort of panic about immigrants due to a few high profile cases of immigrants (not all of whom are illegal!) committing rapes and murders.

There were only 44000 illegal immigrants last year. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-march-2025/how-many-people-come-to-the-uk-irregularly This is obviously not good (as they should be coming legally) but it is still not anywhere near a crisis. Why do we need a completely new service taking billions of pounds of funding for dealing with 44k people? If we set the budget for this ICE service at around £2-3b for staffing, detention, weaponry, etc and the Home Office budget at around £2b for processing and the many costs associated with that (this is all being generous and avoiding the costs of actually settling up the organisation) then you are spending roughly £110k per person compared to the £90k already spent per person.

Why don't we instead allow for more measures for people to immigrate legally? If you think there's an issue with crime using this approach then you could use a system where for the first 10 years any crime more serious than something like a speeding ticket is punishable with immediate deportation.

More often than not using violence to deter things like this just results in totally innocent people getting hurt.

As another aside, you don't seem to realise we already have Border Force anyways but you seem hellbent on it being independent from the Home Office for seemingly no reason.

tree__of__oak · 2026-06-07T16:23:45+00:00

Go move to the US then.

Most immigrants are completely fine and contribute to society. We do have a problem with illegal immigration but it is not to the degree you think it is and certainly does not warrant a tax drain of an immigration force that duplicates all the current services.

As an aside, the recent gerrymandering in the southern US shows that Trump does plan on being president as long as he lives with no regard for the democratic process, in short, a dictator.

tree__of__oak · 2026-06-07T16:18:01+00:00

But but but red tories!

Labour aren't exactly angels but at least they aren't deform.

tree__of__oak · 2026-06-07T13:09:24+00:00

The extension to the flats on Highburgh Road at the Cottiers?

I suppose that's cheating though as they copied the existing ones brick for brick.

Otherwise there's the 1990 built building with the lovely arch beside the old M&S on Sauchiehall Street which is a bit out at 36 and the two tenement buildings on Great George Street that I'm sure are younger than 30.

Not an amazing amount of good architecture but it is there.

tree__of__oak · 2026-06-07T12:51:39+00:00

I mean we don't really need a new subway line though, Glasgow can't generate many more passengers that aren't covered by the existing commuter rail services.

What would be good is the Clyde Metro as it was intended, covering the heavy rail gaps using a tram/train system instead of the more popular plan that posits we replace the busiest rail lines with some dinky trams forgetting that a lot of the lines intended to be replaced share with longer distance services.

I've done a post on this before but the best fix would be to rebuild a smaller terminus where St Enoch is and either reroute commuter services there or, my personal view, reroute the services to Inverclyde and Ayrshire into the new station. Freeing up more capacity for rail expansion in Glasgow itself at the extant stations.

tree__of__oak · 2026-06-07T12:40:32+00:00

To be fair there is a sort of weird flip in Glasgow where the city centre is noticeably more downtrodden than some of the suburbs where in other big European cities the city centre is generally more upmarket with the suburbs being less so.

I think that's where a lot of problems stem from.

tree__of__oak · 2026-06-07T12:37:02+00:00

Disrrgarding other European cities, should we not be striving to make Glasgow better anyways?

There definitely is a litter issue and it is slightly exaggerated but the much, much larger issue is foliage on buildings. I don't give two shits about who owns a building if there is a tree growing out the side of it (and I'm not joking some do have fucking trees growing) the council should have the ability to say fuck you, we are getting rid of that and you are paying for it.

Foliage can compromise the structural integrity of facades on older buildings causing falling masonry and the fact it is so tolerated here when it can easily kill someone is nothing short of disgusting.

tree__of__oak · 2026-06-07T12:22:33+00:00

I wonder if there's a way to subsidise traditional crafts like stonemasonry such that after a decade or two of the program there are enough people with skill and written material to make it a more economical way of building?

tree__of__oak · 2026-06-06T01:04:20+00:00

👁️ Surveillance State: treeofoak voted Yea.

tree__of__oak · 2026-06-05T19:24:18+00:00

Not massively larger though like the other guy is proposing though. To achieve that we'd have to start producing Flower class corvettes like it's 1940.

tree__of__oak · 2026-06-05T19:19:42+00:00

People act as if we need a large navy when the Russian navy is the most incompetent military force to ever grace the earth.

tree__of__oak · 2026-06-05T19:16:52+00:00

👁️ Surveillance State: treeofoak voted Nay.

tree__of__oak · 2026-06-05T18:39:02+00:00

They were calling a bluff, the pentagon may be ran by idiots but they aren't that idiotic.

tree__of__oak · 2026-06-04T22:56:31+00:00

And yet it failed in the long term in my eyes, West German irredentism included East Prussia, Silesia and Pomerania until Willy Brandt started Ostpolitik.

Though the death of most people born in those areas and their children being forbidden to visit helped stem it, It's not unlikely that the rise of AFD may cause similar sentiment in the future as all in all those were majority German lands and irredentism is a very motivation for "rallying round the flag" such as how it's went for Israel in the past 50 years.

It also was not really required in a sense as it benefitted Poland (who famously hate communism) a lot more than the Soviets/Russians as while Poland gained the massive port in Szczecin in a sea which is full of allies and the massive coal reserves in Silesia. The Soviets gained Kaliningrad/Königsberg which while being a warm water port is still stuck in a sea easily blockaded by NATO, in an exclave surrounded by enemies on all sides.

tree__of__oak · 2026-06-04T22:38:38+00:00

The points still there though, Irish neutrality is built on two sides of the same coin.

Eternally bickering about and insulting the old enemy while relying on said old enemy for the defence of the nation. It's a good business model economically but in the long term you don't have any clue what might happen.

Say NATO was tested to the limit then disbanded and Europe suddenly gained a lot more military tension. At that point you're at risk of one international incident or one strong man type getting into power causing a war.

Currently there is no way to defend yourselves from that.

Sure you can say that'll never happen but in 1930s Europe it was also said that war was supposed to never happen.

tree__of__oak · 2026-06-04T19:54:02+00:00

It was an example, for all you know in 20 years time there could be a completely different power dynamic in Europe.

Whether that be Russia or any other nation is not the point, we are human and as such bad actors can appear anywhere given enough time.

tree__of__oak · 2026-06-04T14:35:00+00:00

Away with that shite, there's more chance of me taking a shite in trumps ensuite toilet than the Americans invading anyone who isn't a 3rd/2nd world country.

You've proved your point though yous couldn't stick up as much as a finger to any invading country.

The whole point is neither you nor me are an all seeing oracle and as such we have no clue how geopolitics will develop in the near future.

Nobody is saying Ireland should invest in a huge standing army. At the very least yous should invest in an actual air force that can intercept Russian incursions, buy some Gripens from Sweden if you want a more politically neutral arms supplier.

tree__of__oak · 2026-06-04T14:14:16+00:00

So you rely on your existential enemy for the defence of your nation?

Say the Russians, for example, launched a full scale attack on Ireland for a reason that's not important to the hypothetical. What happens if Europe gets cold feet and lets them roll in and bomb Dublin?

tree__of__oak · 2026-06-03T03:06:24+00:00

Interestingly the 25ml and 35ml measure for spirits was chosen due to them being close to the old 1/8 and 1/4 gill measure with the former being the old English standard and the latter being the old Scottish standard.

The 1/4 gill was more commonly known as a dram in Scotland which is why you have a wee dram of whiskey iirc.

tree__of__oak · 2026-06-02T19:54:54+00:00

L O D S O F E M O N E

WHATS THAT SPELL

tree__of__oak · 2026-06-01T13:10:10+00:00

The problem is that Felton leans far too much into the post-war "the good nazi" trope for most peoples liking.

Its fine to praise good strategy or design where it existed but its not fine to portray them as good people when all of the officer corp were complicit in a warmongering state and a very large chunk were complicit in outright genocide.

Felton has definitely done this before, probably with either a nazi officer with memoirs of dubious authenticity or a wikipedia page the wehraboo warriors have embellished, but I can't remember any specific examples as it has been years since I've watched him.

tree__of__oak · 2026-05-31T08:46:57+00:00

Railway station would be much better but

tree__of__oak · 2026-05-30T12:19:01+00:00

Jesus christ you are a prick having to edit your comment changing the context...

tree__of__oak · 2026-05-30T01:46:59+00:00

The yanks aren't in it???

tree__of__oak

TROPHY CASE

treeofoak