Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Would be an huge step. But are they still blocking the dustcarts?

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Wed Jul 30, 2025 9:46 pm Would be an huge step. But are they still blocking the dustcarts?

To be honest, apart from the recycling piled on a few inner-city streets you'd hardly know it was happening. Our bins get emptied every week; not always on the right day but they go eventually.

Ah, I though it was much worse than that.

Well, there have been no recycling collections at all since the strike got started in January. We've been taking batches of recycling and green garden waste to the tip in the car ourselves every couple of weeks. Some of the inner city areas seem to be suffering more than the suburbs.

He may talk rubbish but Trump has an eye for beauty, and that is a breath of fresh air
Simon Jenkins

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... 1754042991

In which a plan to build a ballroom in the White House and a hatred of wind turbines, is produced as evidence for this laughable conclusion.

. The president with whom he is becoming comparable is Teddy Roosevelt after 1900. He too tested the limits of presidential power. He too was frantic to lead the daily news agenda. But he too seemed to care about America’s natural environment, its forests and deserts, and a role for Washington in their custodianship.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 12:45 pm

He may talk rubbish but Trump has an eye for beauty, and that is a breath of fresh air
Simon Jenkins

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... 1754042991

In which a plan to build a ballroom in the White House and a hatred of wind turbines, is produced as evidence for this laughable conclusion.

. The president with whom he is becoming comparable is Teddy Roosevelt after 1900. He too tested the limits of presidential power. He too was frantic to lead the daily news agenda. But he too seemed to care about America’s natural environment, its forests and deserts, and a role for Washington in their custodianship.

What is the point of Simon Jenkins?

To be a reliable source of readable tosh a few times a week.

"An eye for beauty"?

Really?

The bloke who plasters everything in tacky gold?

I think he meant 12-year-olds.

Wes Streeting said to be eyeing up No 10 – but how will doctors’ strikes affect his chances?

No evidence is offered that Streeting is "eyeing up No 10". Never mind, stick that in the headline, watch the internet run with it. The article is actually fine.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ir-starmer

The collapse of civilisation is a good thing, apparently.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... l-collapse

His first step was to ditch the word civilisation, a term he argues is really propaganda by rulers. “When you look at the near east, China, Mesoamerica or the Andes, where the first kingdoms and empires arose, you don’t see civilised conduct, you see war, patriarchy and human sacrifice,” he says. This was a form of evolutionary backsliding from the egalitarian and mobile hunter-gatherer societies which shared tools and culture widely and survived for hundreds of thousands of years. “Instead, we started to resemble the hierarchies of chimpanzees and the harems of gorillas.”

Instead Kemp uses the term Goliaths to describe kingdoms and empires, meaning a society built on domination, such as the Roman empire: state over citizen, rich over poor, master over slave and men over women. He says that, like the biblical warrior slain by David’s slingshot, Goliaths began in the bronze age, were steeped in violence and often surprisingly fragile.

Goliath states do not simply emerge as dominant cliques that loot surplus food and resources, he argues, but need three specific types of “Goliath fuel”. The first is a particular type of surplus food: grain. That can be “seen, stolen and stored”, Kemp says, unlike perishable foods.

The last sentence of the piece could have been written for all the leftist goons who refused to vote for Kamala Harris.

“But even if you don’t have hope, it doesn’t really matter. This is about defiance. It’s about doing the right thing, fighting for democracy and for people to not be exploited. And even if we fail, at the very least, we didn’t contribute to the problem.”

Yeah, man.

Top story.

Labour does not deserve to win next election without change, Reeves says
Chancellor admits voter frustration as government faces renewed calls from Labour politicians for a wealth tax

The Guardian really doesn't like Rachel Reeves. Every other article seems to be framed in terms of Reeves blocking their favourite solution, a wealth tax. You could equally frame her period in office with fairly large increases in spending, investment and borrowing. But they've decided the clicks are with making Reeves sound like Ronald Reagan.

Just in case you were thinking she was actually struggling well with difficult circumstances, there's this, as the third story.

Chancellor’s attempt to intervene in car finance scandal branded ‘disgraceful’
Defending industry over consumers sends ‘really bad message’, says Treasury committee member Bobby Dean

The intervention didn't happen, because the Supreme Court decision wasn't as damaging to the car leasing industry as it might have been. But the Guardian reported Reeves might have intervened, and here's a Lib Dem MP to keep the story alive.

It might or might not have been disgraceful if it happened, but it didn't. And given the stuff we were told was definitely happening (watering down the workers rights bill, for instance) I'm not taking on trust that it would have. Aren't there stronger stories than this?

This is quite a Lib Dem approach to politics. Try and build up things like this to make yourselves look like you're the party of sticking it to the man, when you're opposing tax rises on the man and stronger working rights for working people. Vince Cable was good at this, and often the points made are valid in themselves. Cable of course became the Business Secretary in the Coalition. Not a period when business quivered, I recall.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Sat Aug 02, 2025 6:34 pm Top story.

Labour does not deserve to win next election without change, Reeves says
Chancellor admits voter frustration as government faces renewed calls from Labour politicians for a wealth tax

The Guardian really doesn't like Rachel Reeves. Every other article seems to be framed in terms of Reeves blocking their favourite solution, a wealth tax. You could equally frame her period in office with fairly large increases in spending, investment and borrowing. But they've decided the clicks are with making Reeves sound like Ronald Reagan.

Just in case you were thinking she was actually struggling well with difficult circumstances, there's this, as the third story.

Chancellor’s attempt to intervene in car finance scandal branded ‘disgraceful’
Defending industry over consumers sends ‘really bad message’, says Treasury committee member Bobby Dean

The intervention didn't happen, because the Supreme Court decision wasn't as damaging to the car leasing industry as it might have been. But the Guardian reported Reeves might have intervened, and here's a Lib Dem MP to keep the story alive.

It might or might not have been disgraceful if it happened, but it didn't. And given the stuff we were told was definitely happening (watering down the workers rights bill, for instance) I'm not taking on trust that it would have. Aren't there stronger stories than this?

Oddly enough one group who did help water down the workers rights bill were a group of Tory and Lib Dem peers.

Did the government accept those amendments?

It seems not.

The Lib Dems under Davey are basically saner Tories. I'd love them to replace the Tories in Southern England, but I don't see them forming a coalition with the Greens as some Labour-haters have suggested. Even with 72 MPs, the Lib Dems are basically just "localists" who get to attack whoever's in power in Westminster.

Next week, business secrets of the Pharaohs.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... 1754303140

The ancient Aztecs aren’t usually grouped with today’s self-help gurus. But their philosophy, preserved in early post-conquest records, offers surprisingly sharp tools for modern life. Unlike stoicism or Buddhism, which emphasize internal reflection as the path to a better life, the Aztecs believed that you should start with your surroundings, your relationships, your body and speech. In their view, wisdom begins outside. Here are 10 lessons from their “outward path”, starting with those that clarify life goals.

Assuming that "cut everyone's heart out" doesn't feature.