Ah yes, the tankie triad, forever pushing everybody away from their shitty takes with snide comments

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When did Kamala Harris stab or boil anybody?

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Sometimes that means recognizing there’s nobody worth voting for in a given race and agreeing - collectively - that you’re not going to support anyone.

I guess I personally don’t really agree with that approach. People are free to take that approach of course. But it reminds me of people refusing to vote for Kamala Harris because her Israel policy wasn’t quite perfect, when all this did was help Trump, who quite clearly was always going to take a much more pro-Israel position.

Just going out and slapping buttons and saying “Okay what’s next?” is a sucker’s gambit.

One vote doesn’t make a big difference I guess. But like you said, you can join organisations, and those organisations can have much bigger political impacts. Maybe voting is necessary but not sufficient if you want to bring about political change.

Fair point, but I wouldn’t want to be the tallest thing in a field when there’s a thunder storm nearby. Maybe it depends on the area you live in as well. Some areas will be very safe, so letting your kids walk to school in those areas wouldn’t be so bad, but other areas might not be so safe.

Voting can definitely bring change. Look at Zohran Mamdani in NYC. The reason he’s mayor, instead of someone else, is because enough people voted for him.

But if you’re not satisfied with voting alone then you can get more involved with politics. Join a party, or start a party. Join a trade union, or start one, if you want. Things like that.

As a Brit, I’m in favour of:

• European digital sovereignty, to reduce dependence on the US, given how unreliable they now are
• The UK being part of efforts for European digital sovereignty

I think you’re right that crime rates are lower now. But crime does still happen, so I can understand parents wanting to keep their kids safe.

Low taxes on wealth I expect, and deregulation of crypto in order to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Something along those lines probably.

I find him funny but maybe his style isn’t for everyone. Like when he repeats things a lot. I guess I’m okay with that because maybe the repetition shows how absurd a situation is. But some people might not like that.

I’m not sure it’s very democratic if one person is able to give a hugely obscene amount of money to a political party, while ordinary people don’t have the ability to do that.

In a democracy, maybe it’s best if each person has a roughly equal amount of political influence. Large donations distort that.

I think some Americans seem to be decent people who like Europe, but many Americans, including the current US government and all their supporters, clearly would be completely happy to see Europe invaded or destroyed.

I’m not saying I agree with people who have “concerns about immigration”. I might agree with them on some very limited points, while disagreeing on many points.

I’m just saying that Burnham and Labour need to have broad appeal among different kinds of British voters if they’re going to keep Reform out of number 10. So I guess that’s why Labour are trying to take a view of “yes we recognise concerns about high immigration, e.g. regarding pressure on public services, and we plan to deal with immigration in a fair and humane manner”.

Fair enough. I still think the massive, for-profit social media platforms are harmful to many people though. They push stuff you want to hear so you’ll keep watching and engaging, and you end up in an echo chamber. It’s not like real life where you might come across someone with a bit of a different view, and you think “okay, I can see where they’re coming from”, and then your own views become a bit more moderate.

I know it’s a cliche to say it, but I think the tech billionaires bear a lot of responsibility for this. A lot of Brits are consuming hateful content on things like Facebook and YouTube, because a profit-maximising algorithm is pushing that content. It radicalises people to the point where they feel it’s justified to assault a woman because she voiced opposition to the right-wing.

True yes, but then there are workers much lower down with “email jobs” who spend a lot of time dealing with emails, while also dealing with lots of pressure, and stress, and low pay

Nobody has mentioned this guy yet

It warms my heart

Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium…

I guess the reality is that a lot of people in this country have concerns about immigration. I don’t have the same views as many of those people, but they exist. So I guess Burnham is trying to take a line of “concerns about immigration are okay, and Labour are trying to reduce illegal immigration, but we don’t believe the tactics of recent protestors are a good thing”.

Perhaps the polls are indicating that Labour needs to win over both of these types of voters in order to keep Reform out of number 10:

• Voters with very few concerns about immigration who are worried about protestors in balaclavas blocking roads
• Voters who do have concerns about immigration and slightly sympathise with anti-migrant protestors, but perhaps they don’t like Tories/Reform because they see those as parties for rich people (which they are)