[Non-US] News That Makes You laugh/cry/neither...

[Kaelik]

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/labou ... fe-2337576

Remember when there was a leadership election in the UK and this guy fucking won on promises of being very leftwing.

[MGuy]

Didn't the labor party in the UK work to sabotage, smear, and otherwise undermine the actual left leaning guy that was in charge?

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

Yes, but now, if you are left wing and mention that they will eject you from the party for being a traitor.

[Kaelik]

Didn't the labor party in the UK work to sabotage, smear, and otherwise undermine the actual left leaning guy that was in charge?

Yes, and then because he did such a bad job almost winning in 2017 despite their sabotage and then did relatively to that, badly in 2019 (still better then a couple blair/milliban elections), they had a leadership election where this guy, Kier Starmer, and Rebecca Long-Bailey were running. Starmer claimed to be nearly as left wing as RLB, and barely won.

Since there hasn't been a general election since, he hasn't had a chance to lose (Labour, despite the cons being, you know, the Tories, spent most of the last 4 years polling worse then 2019). But he has taken that time to expel every left leaning member from the party including both Corbyn, and the RLB who ran against him in the leadership election in 2019. He's also invited several Tories into the party and given them leadership positions, and he's been the entire time campaigning on how he hates immigrants and won't let those dirty browns into the country, and also, the cops need more power, and the poor need to starve.

I'm sure this is all very confusing to you since you live in the US where the centrists are glorious FDR liberals and definitely not republicans with D's in front of their name issuing more stringent immigration EOs then Donald Trump, but it's really bad in the UK.

Statistically it's possible that Labour might win an election with this fucker in charge because the Tories are just constantly burning the country down, but if he does, it's just going to be 5 more years of burning the country down with a Red flag and then people will get mad and elect the Tories for anbother 15 years like last time.

[MGuy]

There is one thing that is legitimately confusing to me. I don't understand whether or not Brexit got done or not. Brexit hell was supposed to descend on the UK but I can't tell if it ever got 'done' or not.

[Thaluikhain]

In my opinion (as a non UK person with limited knowledge) they sorta got lucky that covid hit, the effects of Brexit can be blamed on that, and covid happening wasn't their fault. They mismanaged it, and everything else, appallingly, though.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

Brexit got done.

Brexit hell is happening. It just isn't totally apocalyptic. It's bad, it's exactly what was predicted and warned against, but since a majority didn't listen to the warnings and dismissed them as "alarmist" apocalyptic warnings the lack of total alarming apocalypse confuses them further. Also they live in the UK. Slumping into a long term depressed economy might be hard to distinguish against background conditions. Empty shelves at super markets and MPs telling them to just man up and get used to eating beets as their only available vegetable is just something they think of as normal.

Tories are trying to get off blame free despite mismanaging the Brexit to make it as bad as possible by saying "It was the plague" (which they also mismanaged) or "It was Putin!" (which they also mismanaged). Then they say they "didn't really Brexit" (they did, clumsily as hell) or "They didn't get the Brexit they wanted" (they did, and since they were the ones in charge of which brexit they got it seems odd if they chose the one they didn't want).

And other than that it's just a week by week thing waiting to see if the latest flip flop on the Brexit/Northern Ireland paradox causes it to literally explode or just get quietly handed over to the rest of Ireland whether they want it or not because the Tories fucked it up so badly it literally cannot be part of the "United" Kingdom anymore. Which is hilarious because hard core Unionists (the pro UK not pro workers unionists) siding with Tories was a large part of how "Brexit got done".

Oh. And Scotland wants to leave too. Mostly because Brexit.

And Wales wants to leave too. Mostly just because Tories and not wanting to be the last guest at a party run by a really shit host.

edit: Oh, and Gibraltar, the UK is just sorta trying to gaslight everyone that it probably doesn't even really exist and hey look over there.

[Stahlseele]

So . . appearantly the Wagner Mercenary Unit used in Russias Attack on Ukraine has decided to . .
Turn around and march on Moscow. And appearantly, russian regular military units have been seen
not resisting but letting them through or even going with them . .
Huh . .


Aand it is over . .

[Omegonthesane]

"Sir Kid Starver" is trending because the leader of the alleged opposition has committed to retaining the two child benefit cap.

For those not in the UK, the two child benefit cap is a cruel measure passed by the David Cameron-era Tories, introduced in the 2015 budget by then-chancellor Gideon "George" Osborne and implemented in 2017, in which parents don't get child benefit for their third or later children born after 2017. In theory there's an exemption for rape, but in reality there isn't, because the trauma of proving you got raped in order to get the "this child was a product of rape" exemption isn't worth it to most people who would be eligible.

[MGuy]

Out of curiosity what is the argument that they've given for why a cap is necessary? Surely sane people would not want a cap on that kind of thing.

[Koumei]

"Because those damn poors are PUMPING OUT BABIES at an alarming rate! We only want good wealthy upper-class (white, Tory-voting) people reproducing a bunch! Poor people shouldn't even be having sex in the first place, they should be looking for a job"

[Omegonthesane]

Out of curiosity what is the argument that they've given for why a cap is necessary? Surely sane people would not want a cap on that kind of thing.

The original justification by the Tories was a slightly sanitised version of what Koumei said without the explicit "only the upper class should have children" baked into the text of the law. It was wrapped in bullshit rhetoric about convincing parents to either look for jobs or have fewer kids, but the actual effect has been exclusively to drive children into poverty without achieving any of the objectives that were nominally worth driving children into poverty for.

SIr Kid Starver's argument for why this should not be fixed is that it would cost too much. In reality, it would cost a rounding error, and even a soulless spreadsheet ghoul would have to admit that it would more than pay for itself in a) the fulfilment of those children's potential and their resulting contribution to the UK economy b) something something people driven to crime by poverty end up costing the state more money than if they were simply bought out of financial desperation, I forget the details and I don't have time to research right now

[Kaelik]

It's truly amazing how committed to trying to make Labour the right wing party Starmer is. He does this on almost every issue from climate change to police violence to austerity to immigration. If they wanted to vote for Tories they'd just vote for Tories Kier!

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

Starmer is there to make sure there is only a choice between Tory and Tory. They know that isn't what people want, that's why they are not giving an option.

No one in politics is more obviously controlled opposition than Starmer.

[Stahlseele]

https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/ ... dying.html
WTF CANADA?!?

[Omegonthesane]

is this just about the fact MAID exists?

'cause on its own, MAID existing is not the problem.

As I understand it from the few times the great and mighty algorithm has shown me Canadian voices, the problem is that it's ridiculously much easier to get on MAID than to get disability payments, IE it's a horrible painful slog to get the support you would need to contribute to the Canadian economy and a much easier ask to join the queue for a "voluntary" summary execution.

Which is to say - removing the summary execution queue would not solve the problem at hand.

[Stahlseele]

Yes this is about the fact that that exists.
And in Canada of all places . .
Depressed? Here, let us kill you!
Homeless? Here, let us kill you!

[PseudoStupidity]

Yes this is about the fact that that exists.
And in Canada of all places . .
Depressed? Here, let us kill you!
Homeless? Here, let us kill you!

Did you not read your own link? To apply for MAID you must have a grievous and irremediable medical condition, which means being unhoused or depressed would not qualify you on their own.

The big problem with MAID is what Omegonthesane said, where in some cases it's easier to get MAID then get access to the support needed to make life worth living. And that's not a problem with MAID, it's a problem with Canada's welfare system. MAID is fine in a vacuum, because people should be allowed to kill themselves if they have a condition that makes it so they no longer consider life worth living and that condition cannot ever get better. I do not support making people live in pain they consider unbearable.

[Koumei]

I'm surprised you're surprised. Stahlseele reliably comes in here on a semi-regular basis with something he's vaguely heard about, with the dumbest of wrong opinions because some fascist podcaster or something told him about them.

[PseudoStupidity]

I'm not surprised by the wrongness. I am surprised he went through the effort of finding a link to the actual program instead of posting a link to Triumph of the Will. Our resident fascist is no longer linking directly to nazi propaganda and is now doing the bare minimum to cover his tracks. Although I do wonder, Stahl how did you actually learn about MAID and get mad about it? You definitely didn't read the link you sent, so it couldn't have been that.

[MGuy]

Given stahl's past behavior I'm surprised there was a rebuttal . Typically they lay one of these down and don't bother further defense or discussion about it.

I know Vox did a video about this program about a month ago. I remember seeing the title but I didn't look at because I didn't (and don't) care. Searching YouTube for it brings up your JPs and Matt Walshes who were talking about it 3 months ago. Whatever niche right wing propagandist they are getting this stuff from is late on this one. Shitting on workers and trying to figure out whether or not they support shutting down the government is supposed to be on their docket right now.

[PseudoStupidity]

Maybe Stahl just has a backlog of fascist media to consume and now he'll be a few months late to everything. In a few months he's going to be talking about shutting down the government even though that was just averted (though I guess it'll be kind of relevant when he gets to it, given the next shutdown threat will be coming up in November).

While this is US news it's also non-US news so I think it's fine to talk about it here: the agreement that was reached to avert the US government shutdown did not include aid to Ukraine. If the US pulls its support of Ukraine that is going to be devastating to the Ukrainian war effort and I don't think they'll be able to push Russia from their territory. Sure the EU countries are sending weapons, but the US is the largest supplier by leaps and bounds. And with winter coming right around the corner this is a particularly shit time for Ukraine to lose support.

[Omegonthesane]

As I understand it the new agreement included no additional aid to Ukraine, but didn't include anything to forbid the US increasing its contributions to NATO which can then pass on the funds / equipment to Ukraine.

Of course, based on how well the spring counteroffensive went, I doubt that even the Democrats are interested in providing the level of material support that would actually break the current stalemate even if the Republicans were on board with that.

[MGuy]

I thought they were just doing a continuing resolution. So isn't it that whatever is already sanctioned to go somewhere it persists until they come up with a real agreement?

[PseudoStupidity]

What's already funded is already funded, but Biden had asked for $24 billion more and was expecting it as part of the normal spending bills to keep the government running. He didn't get that.