Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Tamas]

Short time ago?

Yes.  It was not just fountain pens that were messy.  Even today some pens can be messy but the problem is not as marked as it once was.

Btw, when was the last time you wrote something of any length using a pen?

CC your "the young of this world" shtick has really ramped up the last couple of days, you might want to self-reflect on that a bit. Especially when you want to do the "oh you young people" thing on a guy in his mid-40s who grew up in a village behind the Iron Curtain, so I am pretty sure my youth was spent with fewer comforts than yours.

[Josquius]

[Tamas]

 

Yes we have reached that stage.

[Syt]

Working with folks in their 20s every day now and having lunch with them, some of them literally half my age, I often have to hold back the urge to go "Well, back in my day ..."  

[Sheilbh]

Starmer's first pitch on social media, which I think is good:
https://x.com/keir_starmer/status/1793581014456918218

But also struck that all of this is reinforcing the message that Starmer's been repeating for about the last two years. People who follow politics are bored of it - but they're also freaks, so most normal people won't have really listened but the groundwork for the message is there.

That's in contrast to Sunak who seems to have been doing his "plan" for about six months and is reportedly planning to run on security which is an idea they've been floating for like two months. It just all feels undercooked (and perhaps that's inevitable, when things go badly you cut and change all the time trying to find something that sticks).

Edit: Incidentally interested in Canadian views on that clip as Labour have also apparently taken an interest in Poilievre and wonder if it shows - I feel like there might be emphasising background and fight v (in our case) possibly the richest PM ever.

[Josquius]

Tories really heavily pushing that with Starmer its going back to square one whilst with the Tories it's continuing what has been started and so on.
Like... Things are going great? Hopefully people find this just as painful as I do.

And yep. All very boring but maybe that's whats needed.
The video though is shit. That corporate inspiration music. And uneven sound mix.

[Tamas]

Tories really heavily pushing that with Starmer its going back to square one whilst with the Tories it's continuing what has been started and so on.
Like... Things are going great? Hopefully people find this just as painful as I do.

And yep. All very boring but maybe that's whats needed.
The video though is shit. That corporate inspiration music. And uneven sound mix.

Yeah it's ridiculous, continuing what exactly? The aimless drifting while problems slowly pile up?

[Sheilbh]

Sunak campaign event in Wales and he asks if they're looking forward to the football this summer. Scotland and England have qualified for the Euros, Wales have not.

Doesn't mean anything really but from everything I've seen of Sunak he's really bad at retail politics and I think there's an underpriced risk for the Tories that his campaign ends up making Theresa May look like Britain's Obama

[Gups]

Danny Finlestein in the Times pointed out that a good reason for Sunak choosing July is that Reform are entirely unprepared - lots of places where they don't have candidates and they won't be able to vet them so will be subcontracting to the media

In other news Frage will stay out of it, Corbyn will stand as an independent.

[crazy canuck]

Short time ago?

Yes.  It was not just fountain pens that were messy.  Even today some pens can be messy but the problem is not as marked as it once was.

Btw, when was the last time you wrote something of any length using a pen?

CC your "the young of this world" shtick has really ramped up the last couple of days, you might want to self-reflect on that a bit. Especially when you want to do the "oh you young people" thing on a guy in his mid-40s who grew up in a village behind the Iron Curtain, so I am pretty sure my youth was spent with fewer comforts than yours.

I think you are projecting some insecurity.  We are talking about pens and you proved my point by not understanding they can be messy.


And you have no idea about how difficult my youth was so fuck right off.

[garbon]

Maybe one point in favor of pencils is like with hotels. People are less likely to want to take a pencil home with them.

[Tamas]

I think you are projecting some insecurity.  We are talking about pens and you proved my point by not understanding they can be messy.

Yes. I do not understand the messiness of pens. It is a concept beyond my meagre abilities and my 30+ years experience of using pens.


Anyways, I am not going to lose sleep over the use of pencils for voting, but you guys have failed to propose a reasonable argument for them. Can pens run out? Sure. And pencils can be dulled. Could they be stolen? Sure, but 1) the pencils were I voted had been tied to the table already, and I am thinking there's more point to stealing pencils. I have many pens in my household, but, not having an old enough kid I guess, only one maybe two pencils.

You can smear with a pen and invalidate your vote. I guess. I mean, nowadays it'd have to be a really shitty pen but I don't want to antagonise Old Man CC here further so let's take that as a valid point. But how does that balance out the increased risk of somebody destroying your vote due to malice? Sure people can't go crazy with erasers but is it really that hard to quickly damage your pencilmark so it can be set aside as invalid?

I mean, can you sign contracts with pencils? Or rather, would you lawyers advise your clients to sign contracts with pencils? Didn't think so.

It's the same attitude like not requiring voter ID. "there's barely any cheating it doesn't matter". Sure. But those few cheated-away votes individually worth as much as your and everyone's individual vote. So if you dismiss one vote as pointless, all votes are pointless.

[Sheilbh]

A contract would still be legally binding if signed in pencil (they don't even need to be signed at all). But in general I would say use a pen

But isn't your final point also true of pens? How many otherwise valid votes being accidentally discounted is tolerable? For me I think the bigger risk is in people coming out to vote and it then being not counted because ink rubbed off when they folded the paper. But it is the same with ID (although I actually don't have much of an issue with the scheme) - I think the risk of people not being able to exercise their right is a bigger risk than fraud.

[Tamas]

Am I reading it right that Sunak is cancelling the last excuses they wanted to pass as work like the Rwanda bill, etc?

[Josquius]

Would my vote be valid if I did it in blood?

I guess so given the wank, not wank, vote of a few years ago.

Given I'm in one of the safest labour seats going I'm thinking to vote green incidentally. Send a tiny message on a few fronts.