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Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

reuters.com

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Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#81

Post by cryo32 »

cassianoleal wrote: post #63
pjc50 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you generally but the RAF are part of the state and not meaningfully "capital". If you attack the military then yes obviously you are going to get the book thrown at you. That does _not_ justify going after the people with signs.

They painted the aircraft.

They actually hacked holes in the things with a crowbar too. That didn't do as much damage as expected though.

And they videoed themselves doing it and published that.

And the aircraft weren't usable in the Israel-Palestine conflict but were in the Ukraine one. You have to wonder considering the Russian connections of the principal sponsor of Palestine Action: Fergie Chambers. Worth reading up on him.

Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#82

Post by pjc50 »

hn_throw2025 wrote: post #75
pjc50 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This wouldn't start a civil war. Many of the Brexit voters are already dead and most of the rest are retired.

Lovely comment thread. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the “democrats”…

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/2016-leave-majori...

Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#83

Post by bluescrn »

cassianoleal wrote: post #13
bluescrn wrote: post #4

And he'll be just as powerless to solve any of the big problems as the last half a dozen PMs.

There is one thing that might be in his power: to stop censoring and arresting people protesting against genocide. Edit: lol thanks HN for the usual downvote! :) I love this place!

Locking up placard-wavers is stupid, but so is intentionally waving a placard with the name of a proscribed group, when just about any other message supporting the cause would be fine.

If you do a million pounds in criminal damage and attack a police officer with a sledgehammer, you can't just write it off as 'direct action', you deserve a tough jail sentence whatever the cause.

Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#84

Post by pjc50 »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #80
pjc50 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The police swerved hard into deploying state capacity against exactly the wrong people: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/12/more-women-arres... Meanwhile ignoring the actually violent far right to the point that we had arson attacks in Belfast and a stabbing spree killer in Edinburgh.

> to the point that we had arson attacks in Belfast Not to argue against the point you're making but these aren't good examples. Policing in both Northern Ireland and Scotland are fully devolved and operate independently of the government in Westminster.

True. The modern far right is both a social media and traditional media driven phenomenon, internationally, and I don't have great suggestions for dealing with it other than "maybe the government should boycott Twitter before they ban sixteen year olds from it".

Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#85

Post by pjc50 »

ulfw wrote: post #50
dabeeeenster wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rejoin the EU, single market, customs union, drop sterling and take the Euro. This would almost certainly start a civil war in the UK (I am not being dramatic) but its what is needed. Brexit was -8% GDP, according to Bank of England.

Yea no will never happen. Only way into the EU is way you described. Full on Schengen, EUR, no more special UK exceptions etc. Will never fly.

EEA like Norway would be both a significant improvement, and does not require Euro. I do think we have to get to the point where we can say that actually Schengen was good and we should have been part of it before we get economically overtaken by Poland.

Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#86

Post by bluescrn »

cassianoleal wrote: post #63
pjc50 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you generally but the RAF are part of the state and not meaningfully "capital". If you attack the military then yes obviously you are going to get the book thrown at you. That does _not_ justify going after the people with signs.

They painted the aircraft.

Vandalised military assets on a miltary site.

Actions of a traitor or enemy saboteur. Lucky they didn't get shot.

Some of these protesters seem to think they're invincible these days because they support a popular cause (Palestine or climate, usually). They need to get a grip on what reasonable 'direct action' is. Obstructive protests are generally OK, Destructive protests aren't.

Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#87

Post by soco »

DarkNova6 wrote: post #38

Starmer was the UK version of Joe Biden. He was the right guy to get Labor back on track and sort out the financial disaster left by the Tories. But he couldn't build a convincing vision of the future. But replacing it with another guy that has no mandate is a fatal mistake. What Labor needed was an internal contest to fight for the best ideas, even if the winner was already pre-determined. A single local poll can't…

Provided you do have more than one candidate for the job - Streeting already said nah...

Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#88

Post by asplake »

ulfw wrote: post #50
dabeeeenster wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rejoin the EU, single market, customs union, drop sterling and take the Euro. This would almost certainly start a civil war in the UK (I am not being dramatic) but its what is needed. Brexit was -8% GDP, according to Bank of England.

Yea no will never happen. Only way into the EU is way you described. Full on Schengen, EUR, no more special UK exceptions etc. Will never fly.

Michel Barnier (EU's Brexit negotiator and later PM of France) suggests otherwise.

Exclusive: Former chief Brexit negotiator says staying out of euro and Schengen area would be ‘perfectly possible’" https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/18/uk-could-ke...

Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#89

Post by alsetmusic »

> Here's a look at his 'Manchesterism' vision and economic model for Britain, which he describes as "business-friendly socialism"

I admit to knowing very little (close to nothing) about UK politics. But I'm happy to see the use of "socialism" in up-front talking points. It's at least a nod in the right direction.

> He says years of privatization and deregulation have not only stripped the government of control over its costs and services but also saddled it with inefficiencies.

Ok, also seems reasonable.

> Burnham campaigned for Britain to stay in the European Union at the time of the Brexit referendum in 2016.

Yes, still good (on the surface, anyway).

> Farage's party has been well ahead of Labour in opinion polls for many months.

Unrelated to the stuff directly above but still disappointing. Dems and Labour need to do a better job or disaffected people will continue to listen to the siren song of fascists telling them that their problems are caused by THE SPOOKY OTHER.

Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#90

Post by bbg2401 »

pjc50 wrote: post #52
OgsyedIE wrote: post #14

Whilst the value of the pound and NHS backlog did slowly improve under Starmer, my favourite part of his term was the 2024 interview where he described himself as not dreaming or having internal thoughts. I don't expect huge improvements under Burnham but I hope for at least some police manpower numbers to recover. There have been intermittent stories of planning, FSA and trading standards personnel being threatened…

The police swerved hard into deploying state capacity against exactly the wrong people: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/12/more-women-arres... Meanwhile ignoring the actually violent far right to the point that we had arson attacks in Belfast and a stabbing spree killer in Edinburgh.

The stabbing spree killer in Edinburgh? How many people were killed?
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