UK politics thread – meet the new boss, same as the old boss

Pocket

jumbled pile of person
Citizen
Our government has spent a lot of money on anti-smoking propaganda that was probably more effective than they intended at making them look like incompetent cowards for not shutting down the tobacco industry altogether. I know there was a period in the 2000s where internet lolbertarians would try to make the "prohibition doesn't solve anything" argument, but the FDA has banned plenty of medicinal drugs over the years when they turned out to be dangerous. I don't see a thriving underground scene trafficking fen-phen or Celebrex.

...Ah, for the good ol' days when the continued existence of the tobacco industry was the most outrageous thing going on in US politics.
 
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wonko the sane?

You may test that assumption at your convinience.
Citizen
Good luck kiwi bro. Lord knows it'll never happen up here: quebecers still smoke like it's a cure for cancer, but they're switching over to vaping instead of actual smokes.
 

Anonymous X

Well-known member
Citizen
I think it has been a huge yet often overlooked quality of life improvement that tobacco use has virtually disappeared from public life here in Britain. I’m old enough to remember the bad old days when you couldn’t get on a bus or go to the cinema or go basically anywhere serving food without getting a lungful of secondhand smoke. Certainly don’t miss those bad old days at all.
 

abates

unfortunate shark issues
Citizen

Anonymous X

Well-known member
Citizen
Plaid Cymru won the Welsh parliamentary election for the first time, while Labour collapses into third place, having been the largest party in the Senedd/parliament since it was founded in 1999. Unfortunately, the far-right Reform came second, and did well enough to deny a majority to Plaid. (Plaid is a Welsh nationalist party, which aims to make Wales an independent republic. It’s progressive and to the left of Labour.)

The SNP have won again in Scotland and quite strongly, although again fall short of a majority so can’t enact another independence referendum. Labour and the far-right bastards are joint second place, and the pro-independence Scottish Greens (a separate party from the Greens of England and Wales) third.
 

Pocket

jumbled pile of person
Citizen
If the Greens are also pro-independence, shouldn't SNP be able to cooperate with them to enact a referendum? Together they would constitute a majority.
 

Steamed Hams

Well-known member
Citizen
If the Greens are also pro-independence, shouldn't SNP be able to cooperate with them to enact a referendum? Together they would constitute a majority.
It didn't work out well for either the last time that happened.

Their only real hope is a drive for English parliament or assemblies and a louder voice for English independence from the rest.
 

Anonymous X

Well-known member
Citizen
I wish he’d just drop dead, to be honest.

I say that as someone who joined the Labour Party when he was leader/PM.

Utterly destroyed his own legacy by backing the Iraq invasion, and by since politics all he does is use his right-wing Saudi-funded think tank to spew out toxic policy takes.

(Very telling that whenever Gordon Brown makes rare public comments, it’s nearly always about issues like tackling poverty and illiteracy, while Blair pops up once a month to push right-of-Tory poison.)
 

Anonymous X

Well-known member
Citizen
The BBC platforming a white nationalist/great replacement conspiracy theorist on their lunchtime news programming. Great.
 


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