Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Also Ice Cream vans.

Hand car wash

Bones McCoy wrote: ↑Fri Dec 29, 2023 11:25 am Also Ice Cream vans.

Saw a documentary on the Glasgow ice cream wars, and apparently it started off when new housing estates were built with no shops or retail areas included. So local ice cream companies started trading in all sorts of groceries from their vans (the on board fridge helped a lot). This quickly became very profitable indeed, and there was a fair amount of dirty trickery between the ice cream companies way before the local hard cases got involved.

Later on, it became about drugs, but at first it was all about selling food.

See also Bill Forsyth's superb fillum about the schemie vans, Comfort and Joy, though the plot really was about actual ice cream.

Andy McDandy wrote: ↑Fri Dec 29, 2023 12:12 pm
Saw a documentary on the Glasgow ice cream wars, and apparently it started off when new housing estates were built with no shops or retail areas included. So local ice cream companies started trading in all sorts of groceries from their vans (the on board fridge helped a lot). This quickly became very profitable indeed, and there was a fair amount of dirty trickery between the ice cream companies way before the local hard cases got involved.

Later on, it became about drugs, but at first it was all about selling food.

This is good. Trial and Error (basically BBC Rough Justice defected to Channel 4) on the Ice Cream Wars murder case. Evidence was a bit weak.

At the following link, there is a list of the “non-battleground” seats at the coming election:

https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploa ... lected.pdf

The party is now engaged on a fairly urgent quest to find candidates for these remaining seats and get them in place before the election is called.

Looking through the list, nearly all of the seats are Tory held, and look on the face of it bleakly unpromising. But remember, for example, Stephen Twigg, not expected to win in Kensington & Chelsea, but who provided the key “Portillo Moment” in 1997 that was arguably the iconic (forgive me) moment of that election.

Every current Labour MP worth his or her salt has had to fight one of these unpromising looking seats in the past before being able to get selected and elected in a more winnable seat. The better you do, the quicker you are likely to be selected and elected in a winnable seat in future, and the sooner your rise to political stardom.

So if you fancy having a go (and you’re a Labour member), why not go for it ? The world is your lobster.
It’ll be fucking hard work, but perhaps you think it’s worth it.


The one caveat I’d add is that in my experience, it takes a very special type of person to become an MP. And by very special, I mean a fucking nutjob.

Abernathy wrote: ↑Tue Jan 02, 2024 6:47 pm At the following link, there is a list of the “non-battleground” seats at the coming election:

https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploa ... lected.pdf

The party is now engaged on a fairly urgent quest to find candidates for these remaining seats and get them in place before the election is called.

Looking through the list, nearly all of the seats are Tory held, and look on the face of it bleakly unpromising. But remember, for example, Stephen Twigg, not expected to win in Kensington & Chelsea, but who provided the key “Portillo Moment” in 1997 that was arguably the iconic (forgive me) moment of that election.

Every current Labour MP worth his or her salt has had to fight one of these unpromising looking seats in the past before being able to get selected and elected in a more winnable seat. The better you do, the quicker you are likely to be selected and elected in a winnable seat in future, and the sooner your rise to political stardom.

So if you fancy having a go (and you’re a Labour member), why not go for it ? The world is your lobster.
It’ll be fucking hard work, but perhaps you think it’s worth it.


The one caveat I’d add is that in my experience, it takes a very special type of person to become an MP. And by very special, I mean a fucking nutjob.

You'll know more about it than I do but a fairly senior member of the party locally told me recently that Sutton Coldfield might not be as unwinnable as it seems.

Would be winnable in a by-election. Labour clear second last time.

It's estimated that Sutton Coldfield voted Leave, but not by much. There may not be that many voters for Labour to swing- they seem to be doing better in seats that voted big for Leave where the Tories have been picking up easy votes since 2015. The swingable Remain Tories in Sutton Coldfield might go Lib Dem more than Labour,

You could well be right. Rob Pocock won a council seat in Sutton Coldfield a few years ago, to my sheer amazement, after years of diligently working there, and he has continued in that vein.

A Labour MP for Sutton Coldfield? Now wouldn’t that be a thing ?

Malcolm Armsteen wrote: ↑Tue Dec 26, 2023 12:01 pm I see from Xitter that Rachel Reeves has stated her intention of 'clamping down' on Candy Shops. From the comments there seems to be a general impression that these shops, as well as Turkish barbers and nail bars, are some sort of money laundering or otherwise illegal operation.

I knew nothing of this - can anyone elucidate, please?

Bit more here on the context.

Reeves apparently considering tax cuts

Bad idea, but the Tories are definitely considering them. Very hard not to match them.

Why would they have to match them?

Money talks.

Oh great what could Labour do to counter this without making massive tax cuts.

Say "we can't afford them with the mess we're inheriting". Maybe some small cuts at the bottom, where there are a surprising number of Tory voters these days.

Day 3, address to the nation:

"My fellow citizens I am afraid that I have to tell you that we have discovered that the nation's finances are in much worse condition than we had been led to believe..."

There’s a sizeable proportion of Tory voters who have no politics beyond tax cuts but can Reeves calm international markets with a magic box of money that Truss didn’t know about? Unless Labour has a credible growth policy, which it hasn’t.

Because they haven't told you about it, it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

See all previous comments about not revealing your plans so much in advance that your opponents steal/sabotage them...

Funny old world innit!

On the one hand we have Owen Jones and his posse telling us that Labour are Tories in disguise.
On the other we have Reform and their associated goons telling us that Tories are socialists.
Both groups insist "there's no difference".

Meanwhile the voting public sees a real difference to the extent of a 20% poll gap.