Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Party.

[Typhoon]

Still we won't be able to criticise whatever she does soon unless we want to be branded an extremist.

Revealed: plan to brand anyone ‘undermining’ UK as extremist

Leaked documents spark furious backlash from groups who fear freedom of expression could be suppressed

www.theguardian.com

I have always thought that 'Tolerance' was a British value (as in 'I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.' - Evelyn Hall summarising Voltaire.)

I would like to see the actual wording, when it comes, but I suspect there will be a good few Conservative MPs from the recent past and present, particularly of the older generation, who will be studying them much more closely than I will.

 

[nw1]

I'm pretty sure Suella Braverman is against illegal immigration - not legal immigration. So I don't see where the hypocrisy is. Were her parents illegal immigrants? Or did they come to the UK at a time when immigration was at unsustainably high levels and there was therefore a good argument for trying to reduce it - which appears to be what Braverman believes?

Besides, last time I checked, Suella Braverman was born in Wembley: It's her parents who migrated to the UK. Are you working to some new ethical standard by which people are responsible for what their parents did before they were born, and are therefore hypocritical if they don't fully support people doing whatever their parents/ancestors did? Am I a hypocrite because I'm against smoking despite that my parents used to smoke, and my grandfather smoked for his entire life?

It's quite legitimate to disagree with Suella Braverman, as you do. But I don't see any rational grounds for accusing her of hypocrisy on account of her desire to keep immigration down to reasonable levels.

I was actually responding to @GS250 who was the first one to bring up Braverman's background and appeared to be (and apologies if I misread their point) suggesting that, due to that, she could not be a supporter of anti-immigrationism.

But with the wider immigration argument, yourself and myself have fundamentally different views on this matter, so I think there's little point arguing about this again!

 

[GusB]

The same article goes into say:

Internal departmental documents marked “official – sensitive” say the proposed definition could “frame a new, unified response to extremism”.

It lists a number of organisations which it considers would be “captured” by the new definition.

Among them are the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), Palestine Action and Mend (Muslim Engagement and Development), which has featured at some Conservative party conference fringe events and in 2021 provided evidence to parliamentary committees.

The documents state: “Extremism is the promotion or advancement of any ideology which aims to overturn or undermine the UK’s system of parliamentary democracy, its institutions and values.”

So, apart from the blatant anti-Islamic stuff, this could potentially affect anyone who campaigns for electoral reform, scrapping the lords, criticising the government...

There's one extremist that we do need to boot out, and that's the utter moron who occupies the position of Home Secretary. The recent comments about homeless people were utterly despicable. She has to go.

For reference:

Suella Braverman says rough sleeping is ‘lifestyle choice’

Home secretary criticised for tweets vowing to restrict use of tents by homeless people, ‘many of them from abroad’

www.theguardian.com

The home secretary, Suella Braverman, has described rough sleeping as a “lifestyle choice” while defending her decision to restrict the use of tents by homeless people on the streets of Britain.

According to Whitehall insiders, Braverman plans to crack down on tents that cause a nuisance in urban areas such as high streets – amid growing numbers of rough sleepers and what the government considers a rise in antisocial behaviour.

The home secretary has also proposed the introduction of a civil offence, which could lead to charities being fined if they provide homeless people with tents, the Financial Times reported.

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, Braverman defended her proposals, saying: “The British people are compassionate. We will always support those who are genuinely homeless. But we cannot allow our streets to be taken over by rows of tents occupied by people, many of them from abroad, living on the streets as a lifestyle choice.


“Unless we step in now to stop this, British cities will go the way of places in the US like San Francisco and Los Angeles, where weak policies have led to an explosion of crime, drug-taking, and squalor.

“Nobody in Britain should be living in a tent on our streets. There are options for people who don’t want to be sleeping rough, and the government is working with local authorities to strengthen wraparound support including treatment for those with drug and alcohol addiction.

“What I want to stop, and what the law-abiding majority wants us to stop, is those who cause nuisance and distress to other people by pitching tents in public spaces, aggressively begging, stealing, taking drugs, littering, and blighting our communities.”

Take away all her stuff, make her sleep in a tent during the month of December and then let's see if she changes her tune.

 

[nw1]

Braverman is against homeless people now, its a lifestyle choice after all so she wants to stop them using tents to try and avoid freezing to death.

Still we won't be able to criticise whatever she does soon unless we want to be branded an extremist.

Revealed: plan to brand anyone ‘undermining’ UK as extremist

Leaked documents spark furious backlash from groups who fear freedom of expression could be suppressed

www.theguardian.com

The real extremist is of course Braverman.

To me, she is a hard-right, bordering on far-right authoritarian with an almost pathological dislike of anything liberal or left-wing. In my view, it is she who promotes hatred towards certain groups, whether they be asylum-seekers, left-wing liberals, or people who participate in Palestine marches. In using terms such as "tofu-eating wokerati" and, far worse, "hate marches", she seems to want to belittle and silence anyone with ideological differences to her own.

Possibly worse than Meloni, and comparable to Le Pen.

I honestly think that if she ever became PM, we'd see erosions of our rights unseen in this country in modern times. There seems to be too much of a "she's British, she must be OK, she's not like those hard-right continental types" mentality in the Tory Party. She's not ok. In my opinion, she should be sent immediately to the backbenches.


== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Nov 2023 ==

So, apart from the blatant anti-Islamic stuff, this could potentially affect anyone who campaigns for electoral reform, scrapping the lords, criticising the government...

There's one extremist that we do need to boot out, and that's the utter moron who occupies the position of Home Secretary. The recent comments about homeless people were utterly despicable. She has to go.

Exactly, and shame on that other clueless individual Sunak for keeping her on. But perhaps he, too, is now showing his own authoritarian colours.

So what sort of things will be counted as extremism, I wonder? Knowing this government it wouldn't surprise me if people are branded extremist for criticising Brexit. "Undermining UK values" sounds to me dangerously Mc-Carthyite.

 

[jfollows]

To me, Suella Braverman is a bit dim in the conventional way, but she's politically aware and knows that she has a large number of voters who are anti-immigration, quite often totally so, and so she's representing them. I'm not saying that such people are posting here, though.
I'm not sure she'll ever become PM, in the past I'd have said because the more traditional views in the Conservative party would have prevailed, but I am less sure today - I still think it's important to have a party leader who has support from all wings and not just the right.
But some of that is wishful thinking too. However it's likely to be a long time before she gets the opportunity to be PM, more than 10 years I would guess.

 

[nw1]

To me, Suella Braverman is a bit dim in the conventional way, but she's politically aware and knows that she has a large number of voters who are anti-immigration, quite often totally so, and so she's representing them. I'm not saying that such people are posting here, though.
I'm not sure she'll ever become PM, in the past I'd have said because the more traditional views in the Conservative party would have prevailed, but I am less sure today - I still think it's important to have a party leader who has support from all wings and not just the right.
But some of that is wishful thinking too. However it's likely to be a long time before she gets the opportunity to be PM, more than 10 years I would guess.

I'm rather hoping that the 2010s/2020s fashion for authoritarian right-wing populism has passed by then, and Braverman will be seen as a ridiculous fringe figure. Sadly I doubt she'll ever lose her seat: an ex-colleague who lived in her constituency described it as the sort of area which would vote for a horse if it had a blue rosette...

 

[takno]

Sadly I doubt she'll ever lose her seat: an ex-colleague who lived in her constituency described it as the sort of area which would vote for a horse if it had a blue rosette...

If these things were decided on personality and suitability for the job then I'd expect a horse to win in a fair number of constituencies. Voting for Braverman seems like quite another matter

 

[asw22]

Overseas buyers of property and businesses welcome ... Come on small boats you're not.
And if you're unlucky enough to be homeless ...

Unless you either inherit wealth or can generate a mass of wealth, then most are only one or two pay cheques, or one family breakdown or one rent / mortgage increase, away from being potentially homeless.

 

[Merle Haggard]

I was in the university pension scheme so also contracted out of SERPS. The scheme had to guarantee at least as much as I would have got from SERPS - the Guaranteed Minimum Payment. The GMP is just part of your work pension, but it has to be index-linked and the state pays some of the index-linking as an add-on to the basic pension. So this year, with high inflation, my total state pension went up by more than inflation, and my work pension by correspondingly less. Over the years this has become quite a large amount, but its just money I would otherwise have got from my work pension.

You should get an annual letter from DWP telling you how your payment is made up. I get the SERPS-GMP inflation adjustment, graduated pension from when I was not contracted out, and a payment of £1 from post-1997 which I don't understand. They are all index-linked. It's different for post-2016 retirees on the new state pension.

(In today's money I was on something like a train-driver's salary, so plump cat rather than fat cat!)

Thanks for that. I must admit to not taking much interest in the DWP statement, there's no way you can challenge it and I just accept it. Your £1 probably is the same as my 15p because I started drawing the R.P.S. pension quite soon after 1997.

I'm still a bit confused; I was in the Railway Pension Fund for some years before the SERPS link, and you might reasonably expect when that change happened there would be either a reduction in employee contributions or an increase in benefits, but I don't remember either. There might well have been one, but when you're 30 pension seems a long way off.

My question was I just wondered about the circumstances in which the state pension could be enhance by a whopping £338 (?) but what's meant is that it isn't in the state pension but in the private one, not made entirely clear in the original statement.

The only 'con' I did challenge (and they conceded straight away) was the tax on state pension calculation. The income tax to be paid on the state pension is not deducted from it (the cynic would say that it would highlight how much the treasury is giving you to keep, rather than before taking 20% back straight away) but by reducing your personal allowance by an appropriate amount so you pay the amount owing by increase in tax on other income. In the first year of state pension the calculation assumes that you have drawn the pension for the whole tax year; this will obviously only occur if you reach pensionable age on the 1st April and in every other case you will be over-paying tax. The ease of acceptance of my complaint that it was incorrect (I first drew during July) suggests that this may be a deliberate trap.

 

[Mojo]

The real extremist is of course Braverman.

To me, she is a hard-right, bordering on far-right authoritarian with an almost pathological dislike of anything liberal or left-wing. In my view, it is she who promotes hatred towards certain groups, whether they be asylum-seekers, left-wing liberals, or people who participate in Palestine marches. In using terms such as "tofu-eating wokerati" and, far worse, "hate marches", she seems to want to belittle and silence anyone with ideological differences to her own.

Possibly worse than Meloni, and comparable to Le Pen.

I honestly think that if she ever became PM, we'd see erosions of our rights unseen in this country in modern times. There seems to be too much of a "she's British, she must be OK, she's not like those hard-right continental types" mentality in the Tory Party. She's not ok. In my opinion, she should be sent immediately to the backbenches.

Braverman would of course do none of this.

Like her predecessor, she is very good at saying all the right things about immigration, crime, protests and vagrancy. Despite being the woman that has the power to deal with all these issues, she is overseeing extremely high levels of immigration and allowing the "operationally independent" police to have a hands off approach when it comes to dealing with vagrancy and crime.

 

[jon0844]

There can't be much incentive to deal with the immigration problem when they're going to be one of the main scapegoats for all of our problems in the campaigning for the next general election (that and the fact some companies are making BIG bucks from putting asylum seekers in hotels or barges, and I am sure the Tories then benefit from kickbacks or donations).

It's ironic that Braverman has of course now made it hard to argue that we should stop helping immigrants, or giving foreign aid, and 'look after our own' when homelessness is now apparently a lifestyle choice, but I guess we can just add homeless people to the list of reasons this country is where it is - and we MUST vote Tory to deal with them.

 

[GusB]

Braverman would of course do none of this.

Sorry, but I don't believe this. She'd sell her grannie to the highest bidder if push comes to shove.

Like her predecessor, she is very good at saying all the right things about immigration, crime, protests and vagrancy.

They're not the right things, though. Those words are very, very wrong. She is evil to the core and needs to go. Perhaps you should spend a week on the street, living in a tent in the freezing cold - you may well change your own views on the matter.

Despite being the woman that has the power to deal with all these issues, she is overseeing extremely high levels of immigration and allowing the "operationally independent" police to have a hands off approach when it comes to dealing with vagrancy and crime.

Is there such a thing as "operationally independent" police? Police implement laws that are passed by parliament. The fact that such laws haven't been implemented as demanded by the HomeSec is purely down to operational constraints - i.e. lack of funding.

 

[Mojo]

They're not the right things, though. Those words are very, very wrong. She is evil to the core and needs to go. Perhaps you should spend a week on the street, living in a tent in the freezing cold - you may well change your own views on the matter.

A significant number of people living on the street are doing so as a lifestyle choice though. She is right in what she is saying and it is not fair that people have to suffer from antisocial behaviour as a result of that.

 

[jon0844]

Yes, there are people who because of substance abuse or mental health issues are unable to be put in hostels or shelters - but as a society we are clearly failing these people even if the issues are more about how we treat people with such issues. We have decimated our mental health budgets, and we don't have the ability to treat people for alcohol or drug dependency, or to deal with the crimes that often get associated with people on the streets (who I still contest aren't doing it as a lifestyle choice, even if their behaviour puts them there).


== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Nov 2023 ==
------

Also, I'm sure it's just a massive coincidence, but Elon Musk has suddenly reinstated two prominent UK-based far-right nutcases on Twitter; Tommy Many-Names Robinson and Katie Hopkins.

If Elon starts to like and comment on their forthcoming posts, it is certainly going to stir up more hatred and reach a huge audience. Tommy in particular is going all in on the upcoming Remembrance Day with mentions of violence if anyone dares do anything he/they disagree with.

I have no doubt he'll be there in person to stir things up with his thugs, and there's already memes circulating on how the left are crying now Tommy is free to pick up where he left off (including a poor mock-up of the Guardian's Owen Jones writing about it).

Edit: Elon HAS already commented on a UK-related post, with comments on a Turning Point UK post:

Elon: Seems extremely wrong for British citizens to be attacked for holding up their flag, while nothing happens to people who hold up other flags! Shame!

TPUK: Thanks for the support Elon! We’ve passed your message onto the lads in the video.

(Another user): Elon showing us some love in the UK warms my heart. Thanks for calling out what you’ve seen lately.

The thread is then, as you can imagine, on to talk about the UK being lost, the USA being next and talk of free speech.

But, hey, all likely a coincidence and nothing to do with the PM meeting Elon...

 

[simonw]

A significant number of people living on the street are doing so as a lifestyle choice though. She is right in what she is saying and it is not fair that people have to suffer from antisocial behaviour as a result of that.

And your evidence for that assertion is?

 

[nw1]

A significant number of people living on the street are doing so as a lifestyle choice though. She is right in what she is saying and it is not fair that people have to suffer from antisocial behaviour as a result of that.

But all of them?

Even if that is the case for some of them, she is, IMO, stirring up hatred towards the homeless as a whole, just like she (IMO) stirs up hatred towards the liberal left, Palestine demonstrators, and asylum-seekers.
Thus, in my own personal opinion, she is an extremist who is on the point, certainly, of crossing the border into the far-right.

She is certainly a nasty, poisonous bully who is abusing her position of power to pick on people weaker than her.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Nov 2023 ==

Yes, there are people who because of substance abuse or mental health issues are unable to be put in hostels or shelters - but as a society we are clearly failing these people even if the issues are more about how we treat people with such issues. We have decimated our mental health budgets, and we don't have the ability to treat people for alcohol or drug dependency, or to deal with the crimes that often get associated with people on the streets (who I still contest aren't doing it as a lifestyle choice, even if their behaviour puts them there).


== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Nov 2023 ==
------

Also, I'm sure it's just a massive coincidence, but Elon Musk has suddenly reinstated two prominent UK-based far-right nutcases on Twitter; Tommy Many-Names Robinson and Katie Hopkins.

If Elon starts to like and comment on their forthcoming posts, it is certainly going to stir up more hatred and reach a huge audience. Tommy in particular is going all in on the upcoming Remembrance Day with mentions of violence if anyone dares do anything he/they disagree with.

I have no doubt he'll be there in person to stir things up with his thugs, and there's already memes circulating on how the left are crying now Tommy is free to pick up where he left off (including a poor mock-up of the Guardian's Owen Jones writing about it).

Edit: Elon HAS already commented on a UK-related post, with comments on a Turning Point UK post:

Elon: Seems extremely wrong for British citizens to be attacked for holding up their flag, while nothing happens to people who hold up other flags! Shame!

TPUK: Thanks for the support Elon! We’ve passed your message onto the lads in the video.

(Another user): Elon showing us some love in the UK warms my heart. Thanks for calling out what you’ve seen lately.

The thread is then, as you can imagine, on to talk about the UK being lost, the USA being next and talk of free speech.

But, hey, all likely a coincidence and nothing to do with the PM meeting Elon...

I've got one thing to say to Musk, a phrase consisting of the name of his company plus "off".

He, like his BFF Rishi, can get lost, right now. He has no right to meddle in our affairs. He's the richest man in the world and still wants to stick his beak in where it's not welcome.

Time for a boycott of Twitter, oops, sorry, "X", and Tesla cars?

 

[dangie]

Time for a boycott of Twitter, oops, sorry, "X", and Tesla cars?

Doing my bit. Never used Twitter, don’t use X and have a Ford Kuga

 

[D6130]

Doing my bit. Never used Twitter, don’t use X and have a Ford Kuga

Also doing my bit....never used Twitter, don't use X and never had a car of any description.

 

[Gloster]

Doing my bit. Never used Twitter, don’t use X and have a Ford Kuga

Very much so. I don’t use Twitter/X, Facebook, Instantgrumble, Tic-Tac or any of that lot, and I don’t have a car. As a result I have a life.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Even if that is the case for some of them, she is, IMO, stirring up hatred towards the homeless as a whole,

Eh? Stirring up hatred? Did you actually read what she said before posting that: Let's look at it:

“The British people are compassionate. We will always support those who are genuinely homeless. But we cannot allow our streets to be taken over by rows of tents occupied by people, many of them from abroad, living on the streets as a lifestyle choice.

“Unless we step in now to stop this, British cities will go the way of places in the US like San Francisco and Los Angeles, where weak policies have led to an explosion of crime, drug-taking, and squalor.

“Nobody in Britain should be living in a tent on our streets. There are options for people who don’t want to be sleeping rough, and the government is working with local authorities to strengthen wraparound support including treatment for those with drug and alcohol addiction.

“What I want to stop, and what the law-abiding majority wants us to stop, is those who cause nuisance and distress to other people by pitching tents in public spaces, aggressively begging, stealing, taking drugs, littering, and blighting our communities.”

(Full quote in this Guardian article)

Now I think what she's saying is problematic: She's focusing exclusively on the problem of some people choosing to beg, while ignoring that many people are homeless through no fault of her own, and there needs to be much more support to get those people off the streets. Saying "the government is working with local authorities...." is laughable when the Government has caused such a massive strain on local authority finances. But despite all that, I don't see any words of hatred in what she has written: She's wrong in her focus, but there's no way she is 'stirring up hatred'. And her point about aggressive begging and people causing a nuisance is absolutely true. I've seen that myself on multiple occasions.

Thus, in my own personal opinion, she is an extremist who is on the point, certainly, of crossing the border into the far-right.

She is certainly a nasty, poisonous bully who is abusing her position of power to pick on people weaker than her.

I've got one thing to say to Musk, a phrase consisting of the name of his company plus "off".

And you're the person accusing Braverman of stirring up hatred? Ummm... have you read your own words (quoted above)?. Because describing someone as a 'nasty, poisonous bully' or telling someone to '... off' definitely looks to me a lot more hate-filled than anything I'm aware of Braverman having said.

He, like his BFF Rishi, can get lost, right now. He has no right to meddle in our affairs. He's the richest man in the world and still wants to stick his beak in where it's not welcome.

I don't at all agree with much of what Elon Musk is saying and I don't have a high regard for him, but how is commenting about things in the UK 'meddling in our affairs'? After all, we frequently comment on or express our disapproval of stuff that goes on in the USA (funnily enough, you can see an example of that in what I quoted of Braverman above). Does that amount to us meddling in US affairs or us 'sticking our beaks in where they are not welcome'?

Time for a boycott of Twitter, oops, sorry, "X", and Tesla cars?

I am actually inclined to agree with you about boycotting Twitter. The amount of disinformation on it and the way Elon Musk has changed it so as to allow even more disinformation is appalling and I think hugely damaging to society and democracy. I for one have stopped posting on it since Musk took over. (You see - I will defend people against absurd/over-the-top attacks, even if I don't agree with those people).

 

[RT4038]

But all of them?

No, but it is the usual issue of the more generous you make welfare, the more people wish to avail themselves of it, and the more who will make that lifestyle choice. Unless there is to be more intrusion into people's lives and lifestyle choices, there will always be the edge cases. Happens in all societies I would imagine. So any system needs to keep that lifestyle choice to a minimum, and some will fall through the cracks.

Even if that is the case for some of them, she is, IMO, stirring up hatred towards the homeless as a whole, just like she (IMO) stirs up hatred towards the liberal left, Palestine demonstrators, and asylum-seekers.
Thus, in my own personal opinion, she is an extremist who is on the point, certainly, of crossing the border into the far-right.

She is certainly a nasty, poisonous bully who is abusing her position of power to pick on people weaker than her.

And your views would be seen by some as far-left.......

 

[Purple Train]

And you're the person accusing Braverman of stirring up hatred? Ummm... have you read your own words (quoted above)?. Because describing someone as a 'nasty, poisonous bully' or telling someone to '... off' definitely looks to me a lot more hate-filled than anything I'm aware of Braverman having said.

Context surely does have a part to play though - Braverman is the Home Secretary, ie someone with lots of power, direct and indirect, over the people she speaks about, so her language could (and should) be less inflammatory than someone like @nw1 (assuming that @nw1 is not an MP!) - similarly, a random person from down the road telling migrants to "[expletive] off back to France", while still a dreadful thing to say, is less dreadful than the Deputy Chairman of the governing party saying it.

 

[ainsworth74]

I came across someone recently who had been placed into a hostel by the local council homelessness team as they'd lost their home (been made redundant from memory, but that's not central) and been unable to secure accommodation themselves. Problem was that it was full of those abusing drugs and other substances. This individual themselves was clean but had in the past misused them and now being around it again was proving extremely hard as they knew that the temptation was right there and quite strong. The council wouldn't move them from the hostel as they claimed there was nowhere else to move them to, they weren't a priority for rehousing into social housing (or not enough of a priority to get anywhere anytime soon) and were struggling to find affordable private accommodation.

Eventually they gave up and went to stay with a friend a few towns over to get away from the drug usage. However that didn't work for very long so they ended up back where they started. This time the council attitude was one of "we found you suitable temporary accommodation, you left it for no good reason, good luck for the future but we're not going to do anything else for you". The last I heard the individual had been living under a bridge and I learned that from the police who enquired if we knew anything about them as they were following up a missing person report.

Was living under a bridge a lifestyle choice? Or were they failed by an overwhelmed and uncaring system?

 

[SuspectUsual]

but there's no way she is 'stirring up hatred'.

I believe she is

She is speaking from a position of very considerable power, making generalisations about both the homeless and their impact on those around them, and seeking to demonise them. It is intended to turn one part of the population against another, and as others have said she has a lot of form for this, as do others in her party and her government

 

[nw1]

Eh? Stirring up hatred? Did you actually read what she said before posting that: Let's look at it:

(Full quote in this Guardian article)

Now I think what she's saying is problematic: She's focusing exclusively on the problem of some people choosing to beg, while ignoring that many people are homeless through no fault of her own, and there needs to be much more support to get those people off the streets. Saying "the government is working with local authorities...." is laughable when the Government has caused such a massive strain on local authority finances. But despite all that, I don't see any words of hatred in what she has written: She's wrong in her focus, but there's no way she is 'stirring up hatred'. And her point about aggressive begging and people causing a nuisance is absolutely true. I've seen that myself on multiple occasions.

I hadn't read the article admittedly - fair enough. I was going off comments I'd heard on the radio and on here.

But it still doesn't look good and, even if she isn't quite as bad as I originally thought on this particular issue, the labelling of Palestine marches as "hate marches" is absolutely beyond the pale and, IMO, stirring up hatred towards people that go on those marches. Most of the people on the marches, I suspect, don't particularly like Netanyahu blowing up apartment blocks in Gaza. Braverman might disagree on that point, but there is no need for her to call them "hate marches" as if all the march participants want to destroy the state of Israel, which is absolutely untrue. But it's all part of her apparent intense dislike of those who align themselves with causes seen as left-wing.

And you're the person accusing Braverman of stirring up hatred? Ummm... have you read your own words (quoted above)?. Because describing someone as a 'nasty, poisonous bully' or telling someone to '... off' definitely looks to me a lot more hate-filled than anything I'm aware of Braverman having said.

I'm not the only one on the forum doing that; someone else called her "evil to the core" which is even stronger. Even I wouldn't go that far
Anyway, as I've told you several times before whenever you bring this up, I am not in a position of authority, unlike the likes of Braverman who needs to rein in what she's saying and start respecting those of us who are politically different to herself. My view of Braverman, based on what I see before me, is what I said, I am afraid. We absolutely have the right to hold whatever opinions we like about people in authority, good or bad.


== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Nov 2023 ==

I don't at all agree with much of what Elon Musk is saying and I don't have a high regard for him, but how is commenting about things in the UK 'meddling in our affairs'? After all, we frequently comment on or express our disapproval of stuff that goes on in the USA (funnily enough, you can see an example of that in what I quoted of Braverman above). Does that amount to us meddling in US affairs or us 'sticking our beaks in where they are not welcome'?

Again, Musk is a powerful individual and owner of a social media platform with immense power to do such things as steer opinion in advance of the upcoming election. If some random person from the UK comments on Trump that's scarcely the same thing.

 

[GS250]

Was living under a bridge a lifestyle choice? Or were they failed by an overwhelmed and uncaring system?

Homelessness is sadly fairly misunderstood. There are unfortunately a high number of cases where mental health issues have led to someone becoming homeless. This not helped by the fact drug addiction has played a part.

The scenario you described regarding shelters being dominated by some pretty unpleasant individuals is sadly true. This environment can be a real shock for those from your average background who simply can't settle there. Your average bloke who's lost their job, lost their family and then lost their home is surely more likely to end up in a tent than wanting to put up with what goes on in shelters.

 

[birchesgreen]

So TOUGH on crime blah blah, longer sentences. Pity the prisons are already full but hey ho!

Rishi Sunak’s king’s speech to include hardline criminal justice measures

PM to announce tougher sentences for rapists and killers ahead of upcoming general election

www.theguardian.com

but let me comment on this bit with a little story...

Other measures include giving police the power to enter a property without a warrant to seize stolen goods, such as phones, when they have reasonable proof that a specific stolen item is inside.

That could mean using a device’s GPS tracking capability to lead police to where it has been hidden.

Some years ago i heard a loud banging on the door, some bloke was there and shouted at me that i had stolen his phone and demanded it back or he would call the police. Not being a criminal i of course did not have his phone but the tracker on his wife's phone said it was on my premises. I did try to explain to him that those things were not that accurate (indeed if i look at my phone's tracker it is apparently in the factory unit opposite my house and not on the table next to me). Though he apparently had installed the app himself so ..er.. yeah.

Long story short the police did come. I invited them in to search for the phone (i didn't have to of course). They found nothing obviously and left and that was the end of it. (No apology from the bloke natch). But i hope in these future incidents Old Bill will go on more than dodgy phone tracking to be honest...

 

[AM9]

The big news today is that the King's speech at the opening of parliament will focus on law and order legislation. Controversially it will include provision for police to enter private homes without a warrant, needing only 'strong suspicion' that stolen property lies within, an low hurdle to surmount.

 

[Yew]

So TOUGH on crime blah blah, longer sentences. Pity the prisons are already full but hey ho!

I don't care if measures to prevent crime are tough, I care if they are effective.

 

[nw1]

The big news today is that the King's speech at the opening of parliament will focus on law and order legislation. Controversially it will include provision for police to enter private homes without a warrant, needing only 'strong suspicion' that stolen property lies within, an low hurdle to surmount.

Yet another sign that the Conservative Party is becoming the Authoritarian Party.

They seem to be doing everything in their power to get people to detest them with a passion.

They aren't doing enough about the real problems in this country, such as:

- the broken NHS
- poor work conditions for many, which has led to industrial action
- cuts, leading to poor public services (the railway being a good example)
- water companies being allowed to get away with poor maintenance

Basically they don't seem to care about any of this. All they care about is fighting culture wars.

All libertarians, left and right, should reject this authoritarian, controlling, interfering party at the ballot box.