sadoldgit

No, a weird person is someone who reads what I wrote and interprets it as suggesting civilians should be targeted.

How do you know what level of abuse the system is facing? A bloke down the pub type of actually factual information? Everybody wants welfare form. No system is perfect, but I can tell you that getting Universal Credit and PIP is no walk in the park. My wife applied a few years ago when she left her job through bullying. She had to go in for several meetings and fill in countless forms. So did I, even though I wasn’t claiming benefit. In the end we were turned down because of my pension. The fact that we were relying on my pension and her wages to make ends meet didn’t come into it. They also said it was a pity that we had a mortgage as they could have helped us if we had been paying rent! You need to look beyond the rhetoric of Badenoch and Reform. The idea that thousands of people are living the life of Riley on benefits is no different from the myth that all of our problems are down to migrants. I was out of work for a period about 20 years ago so went sling to the job centre to see what they could do for me. It was so depressing that I never went back. They will always be people who play the system. That doesn’t mean that everybody is. Do you feel the same about very rich people who employ accountants to avoid paying tax? I don’t hear people of your ideology complain about the rich playing the system to get richer.

You seem to have a very warped view of human beings. Do you honestly believe that most people want to struggle to put food on the table? In my first marriage we had four children between us. My wife didn’t have to work. We had a lovely home and a good lifestyle. Out of the blue I was made redundant and everything changed. You go on about “lefties” as if people who care and have empathy for everyone in society is somehow a bad thing. I’ll tell you what is bad. Worshipping money for its own sake and assuming that people who struggle either deserve to or are fiddling the system. Here is something for you to put this into context - Capitalism = anyone can be rich Communism = nobody can be rich Socialism (lefties) = anyone can be rich but nobody should be poor. I think most people would be happy with the last one. Probably not you though.

No, not yet Whelk. But you will be the first to hear about if I do! That is assuming they are not all deported if Reform get in.

Nope. When I accused you of saying that Trump was a genius you corrected me and said that he surrounded himself with them, that is what made him a great President. 😂 Trump is an “asshole” because he sacked lots of competent people because they weren’t yes men and women and replaced them with ones that are. Exactly how many people has Starmer sacked? I think you will find that they resigned and not for being “useless.” For someone with such a huge intellect, you really aren’t very good at this are you? Got that question for me yet? 🥱

Is it really 2025? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/26/pete-hegseth-scouting-america-gender

It never ceases to amaze me that, despite knowing what he was like as a young man and is still like today, people still support this odious excuse of a human being. Like Trump, he is only out for himself and what is in it for him. He attracts similar people like flies to a dung heap meanwhile gullible people swallow his guff because he knows exactly what they want to hear. Fair play to the grifter though, after years of trying to get various scummy parties elected he has found a potential winning formula. The seeds that he has been sowing for years are finally coming to fruition. He can now say things that were unacceptable years ago and get rounds of applause and votes from the hard of thinking. Trump has opened the door, after all, if a (once) great country like the USA can elect a narcissistic, racist, sociopathic, misogynistic, money grabbing, lying, disingenuous, moronic, imbecilic grifter to the highest office, why can’t we?

A question for you Ralph re manifesto promises. How do you think it would have gone down if George Osbourne (a Tory by the way) had said in their manifesto that he would raise VAT to 20%? Still, those sly, lying lefties eh?

When he loses a few matches, how long before he gets slagged off for not having a Plan B?

If you like. But as you probably understand, most came from elsewhere, especially the EU. I bet those people who supported us when the army was there a few years ago and who have been stuck there under the Taliban would love to meet you. By the way, I went to my local hospital yesterday and the vast majority of the staff had brown skin. They were all very helpful and very professional, as were the staff with white skin. I didn’t bother to ask anybody where they came from.

What are “real working people?” No justification for spending more up public services? Well you don’t live here so the state of the NHS, schools, roads, the Criminal Justice System, local government, social housing etc., doesn’t worry you. It worries those of us real people who aren’t earning a fortune living real lives in the UK though. How many governments stick to their manifestos? When circumstances change wouldn’t you expect an appropriate reaction to deal with them regardless of what was promised?

Not great news though. Apparently for every 100,000 drop in migrants (the vast majority come to work or study) it cost us £7 billion in lost revenue (taxes etc). Not that Farage, Tice and chums will tell you that.

I’ve just had a look at the front pages today. Apparently taking children out of poverty is rewarding “skivers.” Little wonder Reform is doing well in the polls when they have the mainstream media in their pocket.

The vast majority of the media in this country is own by very rich and powerful men who are mates with other rich and powerful men who want to remain rich and powerful. How many “centralist mainstream publications” do you think we have in the UK? Can you name them please? As for the budget, whatever anyone thinks of it, like all budgets (apart from the Truss disaster) we won’t know the widespread effects of it for some time, despite people telling us that all of the rich people are leaving.

The Times (owned by Murdoch) is not remotely centralist. The Guardian is not “left wing” it is liberal (with a small L) and has been very critical of many of this governments decisions. Do you remember how much of the media supported the disaster of Liz Truss’s budget. Now that was a crap budget. Every government has to raise money. Every government pisses of whoever they raise money from. Every government look to do this in their early years so they can bring in more favourable budgets nearer general elections. The media have been trying to whip this one up as the end of Starmer and Reeves. Broken promises. Raised taxes. Doom and gloom. As it was this has been a bit of a damp squib. Listen to Norwegians talk about tax. They want decent public services and are prepared to pay for them. How do they do that? Through taxation. Here we all want better public services but no one is prepared to pay more tax. The problem we have at the moment is that our public services have been so starved of cash that it is going to take a long time and continued high levels of tax to get them off their knees. The Tories made this mess and have no idea how to sort it out. Reform would be a bigger disaster than Truss. All they have to offer is blaming immigrants for everything. You won’t find the LibDems cutting welfare spending so you wouldn’t be happy with them n power. I wish she had bitten the bullet and gone for higher income tax all round. By promising not to raise direct taxes she has made a rod for her own back. Governments need to be more direct about us all needing to pay for the type of country we want to live in. I think most of us want it to function properly at all levels - NHS, national and local infrastructure, local government, support for those who need it most etc. These become more expensive every year meaning we need to be prepared to pay more. All of us.

I remember dear old nic telling us that Trump was a great President because he surrounded himself with geniuses! As far as I can see he has surrounded himself with idiotic yes men/women who barely have IQ’s above Trump himself.

Probably accounts for the death stare! 💀

Again, WTF are you talking about you strange little man? You really do have a problem with understanding basic English don’t you? What happened to the question that you pretended to be very annoyed about that I didn’t answer? You can’t be that bothered about it if you can’t be arsed to repeat it. You are just a wind up merchant aren’t you?

No surprises here https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/26/who-leaked-steve-witkoff-call-kremlin-trump-analysis

Well, Leicester was his big test and he passed that with flying colours!

I don’t know what Still was doing, but it was clearly not enough. This is what we were hoping to see from this bunch of players from the beginning of the season.

Get in

It just gets better!!!

Unbelievable!!!!