[mattomac]

I think he should go. I'm not one of those who thinks he's one of the worst people, nor do I think he secretly runs the government, but I feel he's out of his depth, and his strategy isn't working

This is it, I don't know what he does but whatever he is doing its not looking that effective? I think when the back of house become the full focus you have to go, it would also placate some MPs for Labour I reckon.

Miller will end up the same way in the US, though he is a shit bag.

[Abernathy]

Yes it’s odd, isn’t it? Several years ago, I was on my local municipal golf course. I played a decent enough approach shot up onto the green, on a hole that was on the edge of the course, bordering a fairly scruffy council estate. As my playing partner and I walked up onto the green, a lad, about ten or eleven years old, I guess, emerged from the bushes, sprinted over to my ball, picked it up, then made off with it.

I of course pursued him and demanded he give me the ball back . Brazen as you like, he baldly claimed that it was actually his golf ball (he may have been related to the current president of the USA). I of course remonstrated with him in an only slightly threatening manner (I was somewhat enraged) and again demanded, deploying some choice profanity, that he return my ball to me.

In response, he said “I’ll say you touched me.”

I might well have taken a step back in shock. Visions of being detained in a police station interrogation room, suspected of being a kiddie fiddler, flashed through my mind. The kid eventually relented and surrendered the ball, but I was quite genuinely perturbed by what he’d said to me. And about his awareness of such a thing, though that may possibly have been a good thing in certain grim circumstances. But yes, the power of the paedophile accusation. The horrible little scrote that he was.

[Tubby Isaacs]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... over-deals

Labour should halt public contracts with the US tech company Palantir, opposition politicians have said, amid growing concern at the lack of government transparency over dealings with the company and Peter Mandelson.

Or contract signed 3 Prime Ministers ago, and which started in 2023, is being treated just like every other contract signed with a contractor. If you've agreed to commercial confidentiality, you can't just ignore that because some politicians later complain about it.

The Green party leader, Zack Polanski, wrote to the health secretary, Wes Streeting, urging him to break a £330m contract between Palantir and the NHS. The deal to run a “federated data platform” has faced opposition from the British Medical Association, with some NHS trusts having raising doubts about its effectiveness.

Polanski said Palantir “has absolutely no place in the NHS, looking after patients’ personal data … I understand there is a break clause in the contract this year and I would urge you not to renew the contract of such a disreputable corporation”.

I've done some reading (OK, reddit) and the IT people commenting seemed pretty clear that Palantir isn't "looking after personal data" and were fairly impatient with some of the public discussion. The NHS has also said that it remains in control of personal data. I still don't think I've seen Zack get anything right.

As we've said before, there's a need to pivot away from US tech (other more recent contracts are mentioned in the article). Breaking this 7 year contract, which this and the previous Government seem to have been happy with, and retendering for someone else to take up the work half way through would not seem to be a good idea.

[The Weeping Angel]

It doesn't help that Palantir is owned by Peter Thiel, a man who is obsessed with hunting down the anti-Christ.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Government carries out core function of government, and gets it in the neck anyway.

Nearly 60,000 unauthorised migrants and convicted criminals have been removed or deported from the UK since Labour took office, the Home Office has said.

The announcement came amid claims that the government was promoting “harmful stereotypes” by equating migration with criminality.

Officials said the figure was the highest number in a decade.

The department said 15,200 people who were in the UK illegally were removed since the 2024 election – a 45% increase on the previous 19 months.

A statement said 43,000 people left voluntarily after being told they were in the UK illegally. Deportations of foreign national offenders have risen by 32%, with more than 8,700 deported under this Labour government.

The Home Office also released footage showing a recent removals flight, with detainees, their faces blurred, being escorted on to a plane destined for eastern Europe.

The figures have been released as the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, said she would “scale up” the number of deportations even further.

Right Media- Labour is soft on foreign criminals. Don't vote Labour!
Labour- we're actually deporting many more of them than the Tories could be bothered to do.
Another part of the media- Labour is being disgraceful, it says that migrants are all criminals. Don't vote Labour!

The Right Media must laugh its arse off at the way this works.

I don't like at all that they're making citizenship much harder to get, especially changing rules for people already here, and hope that this gets amended. But most of the stuff is what Government should have been doing for ages.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Per the Telegraph.

Trump expected to approve Starmer’s Chagos deal
US president appears to have changed his mind after PM made new pledges to protect US military base

He approved the deal already, then Mike Johnson spoke to Kemi, now he's approved it again. And yet lots of the Telegraph's writers continue to take Trump (and Kemi-Farage) seriously.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Ha ha ha ha ha. The Telegraph 2 weeks ago,

Ross Kempsell
Trump has ended the Chagos deal, regardless of what Starmer says
The US president was right to kibosh the PM’s sell-out treaty and now it looks dead in the water

Ross Kempsell is ex-Guido Fawkes, put in the Lords by Bozo. He is 33 years old.

That's not exactly the sort of career that gives you the sort of hard won experience that we're told the Lords has (though many of them do). He's only one year older than Charlotte Owen, who was picked out as being a particularly undeserved peerage, but he's much worse.

[The Weeping Angel]

Government carries out core function of government, and gets it in the neck anyway.

Nearly 60,000 unauthorised migrants and convicted criminals have been removed or deported from the UK since Labour took office, the Home Office has said.

The announcement came amid claims that the government was promoting “harmful stereotypes” by equating migration with criminality.

Officials said the figure was the highest number in a decade.

The department said 15,200 people who were in the UK illegally were removed since the 2024 election – a 45% increase on the previous 19 months.

A statement said 43,000 people left voluntarily after being told they were in the UK illegally. Deportations of foreign national offenders have risen by 32%, with more than 8,700 deported under this Labour government.

The Home Office also released footage showing a recent removals flight, with detainees, their faces blurred, being escorted on to a plane destined for eastern Europe.

The figures have been released as the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, said she would “scale up” the number of deportations even further.

Right Media- Labour is soft on foreign criminals. Don't vote Labour!
Labour- we're actually deporting many more of them than the Tories could be bothered to do.
Another part of the media- Labour is being disgraceful, it says that migrants are all criminals. Don't vote Labour!

The Right Media must laugh its arse off at the way this works.

I don't like at all that they're making citizenship much harder to get, especially changing rules for people already here, and hope that this gets amended. But most of the stuff is what Government should have been doing for ages.

Or as Bluesky would put it alienating elements of your own coalition.

[Tubby Isaacs]

There's a political argument against it, but I wish people were honest about what they're saying. "We think virtually anyone who gets to Britain should be allowed to stay" is not exactly an argument opposed only by Reform voters.