[Youngian]

The 'Beergate' MP is under pressure from no one beyond a Tory backbench rentaquoter. Bloody MPs, how dare they have relationships?

A Labour MP is under pressure to explain why she lobbied Parliament on behalf of a trade union while in an undeclared relationship with its boss.

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that Durham MP Mary Foy is in a relationship with militant former fireman Matt Wrack, who led the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) for two decades until January.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... ament.html

[Malcolm Armsteen]

So now the register of members' interests should include who the said member is shagging?

Could be interesting for a number of Tories...

Cynthia Payne, anyone?

[Crabcakes]

This is a nice bit of deconstruction work on a typically frothing Mail Labour-bashing headline that turns out to be the fault of…the Tories.

https://www.thepoke.com/2025/06/09/a-mi ... ting-read/

[mattomac]

This is a nice bit of deconstruction work on a typically frothing Mail Labour-bashing headline that turns out to be the fault of…the Tories.

https://www.thepoke.com/2025/06/09/a-mi ... ting-read/

I saw this at a glance and expected it would be something that it actually is. Though classic that its a Conservative policy in place for 11 years.

[Bones McCoy]

This is a nice bit of deconstruction work on a typically frothing Mail Labour-bashing headline that turns out to be the fault of…the Tories.

https://www.thepoke.com/2025/06/09/a-mi ... ting-read/

I saw this at a glance and expected it would be something that it actually is. Though classic that its a Conservative policy in place for 11 years.

But Job Done, every "aspirational" person filling up their SUV will have glanced at that headline while waiting to pay.
They will then add this "outrage" to the hundreds of other cases they've seen.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Saw a Mail headline, something about Starmer not committing to support Trump bombing Iran.

Is that really what Mail readers want? I'd guess there were quite a lot of "faraway country" Mailites, who'd rule this out on principle. And that's before you get to all the people who have a wider view of foreign affairs but think that bombing Iran is a bad idea.

[Andy McDandy]

Doesn't matter. Whatever he does, he'll be wrong. As ever, who is doing a thing is more important than what's being done.

[The Weeping Angel]

Not the banter police

[soulboy]

Workers' rights? Down with that sort of thing

[Watchman]

Not the banter police

But it’s okay if Donald does it

[Samanfur]

In all seriousness, can anyone pinpoint roughly when the word 'banter' stopped involving wit and became cover for being an insulting git?

[Andy McDandy]

Vaguely around the late 1990s, when magazines like Loaded started rebranding jokes and quirky facts as "pub ammo", and Chris Evans was being hailed as a genius by some.

Without looking, here's my guess at the response: whatever happened to having a laugh, sticks and stones, bloody snowflakes, what's wrong with a compliment, back in the day if you tried anything with Bulldyke Maureen she'd give as good as she got, ooh at my age I'd be flattered, can't even show the old sitcoms any more, of course the gays are allowed to talk about their things all they like but you can't say anything about it, what did you expect from Rayner, bloody gymslip mum, foul mouthed fishwife, remember what they said about Esther McVey, of course nobody likes actual offensive language but...

[Killer Whale]

It's not about the 'bants', is it? They want to undermine the bill, but they don't want to full-on tell their readers that it's because they want them to have fewer employment rights. So they'll go with deliberately confusing bullying and banter. Expect also appealing to their retired readership with a whole bunch of "I was bullied mercilessly when I started work in the 'sixties and it did me no harm' bullshit.

[Andy McDandy]

Yes, it's another of those irregular verbs. I banter, they bully.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

And it's the standard ragebait speculation: 'accused' of 'planning to'. Accused by whom? And what evidence of 'planning' to do what she is accused of?

We need a corollary to Betteridge's Law; 'Any accusation made on a front page is invariably false and designed to provoke rage in the hard of thinking'.

[Bones McCoy]

Banter Police has me thinking about the old hands at the cop shop in Hot Fuzz.