General British politics discussion thread

Not sure it's a new topic, but the suppression of protest is really grim reading. Will there no longer be people standing on crates giving out in Hyde Park? What about the lad with the speakers outside Westminster? I imagine he's champing at the bit to have a go at the new PM.

One article I saw said a protester with a blank sign was told by the police he could be arrested depending on what he eventually put on the sign. In England. FFS. Don't they still live in the past glorifying the last time they stood up to tyranny and repression? How is this even slightly o.k.? Will the Monster Raving Loony party be banned now?

Will there be any political consequences for Britain having a new monarch?

Probably not much as the monarch has little real political power.

The rest just seems like theatre and the Brits do it quite well.

My 2c:

I'm overweight now and currently dieting to try to lose weight.

Chocolate is a painkiller and supermarket strategists are very sneaky to put cheap chocolate next to the tills. But the whole of modern society is built around excess consumption.

This was seen in the lockdowns where there was no serious effort to promote change to healthy lifestyles even though the common combination of high cholesterol and inflammation was classified as an 'underlying condition'. There would not have been such a large 'vulnerable' population otherwise, so it was a junk-food crisis in one sense.

Imo calorie counts on menus are a bit shambolic since if you want a caloric deficit it will most likely be gained through the types of foods you eat, which in turn affect how hungry you get. You control your appetite with certain healthy foods that regulate glucose and avoid others.

In restaurants they give you plentiful bread, chips and rice because these are cheap to produce.

Every layer of the food industry puts profit first. It will never be properly regulated, and even if this particular regulation goes through you would still have to pass through multiple supermarket aisles of garbage to get to fruit, vegetables, meat, nuts, dairy (aka real food).

Sellout celebrities market junk like Pepsi (promoted by professional athletes!) and worthless protein powders (not a good substitute for eggs, lean meat, vegetables, cheese.)

I remember David Cameron toying with the idea of banning chocolate at tills. That must have been around ten years ago. So I would say the political strategy is to hem and haw about one slight change while allowing the overall commercial strategy pursued by the upper management of supermarkets and every other big player in the food industry to continue unabated.

un-paywalled. Nice quote about it being a Brexit benefit.

They lost a council by-election seat in Bolton (Rumworth) last week, must be a huge issue with the candidate they put up, their vote share was down 35%, and Tories up 44%! I know council elections often give weird results but that is just deranged.

Yeah clearly a local issue with that size swing to Tories, (it'd would have made more sense if it was a swing to independent with some particular local interest like an A&E closing or the like) would love to know the ins and outs of it.

Shame she won't see the supportive twitter #

#GoNads any more then.

No, I don't think so :pac:

UK Treasury refuses to publish UK Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecast alongside a budget coming out this week from Liz's "Friend with benefits" Kwasi Kwarteng:

Treasury office says "Nothing to see here, we'll publish the 2 forecasts we do here. We're doing a great job and not to worry, just trust us."

No disguise with this budget.

fuck the poor and middle classes & give massive tax breaks to the rich and Tory donors.

They don’t care for the consequences as they will be out of power in 2 years blaming Labour for the state of the economy.

It's not a budget though, that's why they can avoid budgetary oversight and not publish financial estimates from the treasury.