@flying_rodent It's obvious there's some kind of arrangement in place with the Mandelson wing. And Starmer's just a front man so if Burnham says he'll come in and do exactly the same with a particle of charisma, why not keep being the power behind the throne?
@echetus If your bosses boss asks for your phone number because he reckons you're 'delicious' and would like to get to know you internally should your boss give it to him? Mandelson is Streeting and Starmer's boss in this situation, and could destroy your career if you don't please him.
@JuliaHB1 It's not a VIP line, it's a line for a call centre that deals with civil servants, people with markers for security reasons and anyone with an ID change. So military would call this number.
This has also been the case since 2005, how is it hurting you?
@keepsayingitok@vitt2tsnoc@marksandspencer Literally a fully enclosed lockable cubicle. So all this 'forcing people to get changed in front of each other' is literally made up, and it's just about harassing people for a completely legal policy of providing lockable cubicles that sidesteps the genital police stuff.
@miaaowing It's not VIP, but if you have a restriction like an ID change (so witness protection being the obvious example) or you are an existing civil servant you use the same line.
Given the risk posed to trans people by GCs if they find their information, they need protection.
@flying_rodent The podcast format is normally a smart guy explains something to a dumb guy, but they've pioneered the two dumb guys who don't understand anything format, so they deserve some credit.
@NewStatesman I take it they don't ask her about dark money donations or reporting journalists investigating the dark money to the security services and pretending they're Russian agents in partnership with client 'journalists'?
@AllyFogg They're literally rerunning the 2019 election plan. Let's redo the 2019 election, worked out great for Labour. Whatever Burnham says will cost him votes, and alienate some of his supporters, and the Mandelson faction can reactivate all the People's Vote stuff to attack him.
@whitford747 The penalty system has been made significantly less punitive compared to 40 years ago. There are honest mistake (no penalty) and various bands above that.
@TheNicheWhisper@HitpoSimon There's a whole transient population of boaters, who if they pay council tax, councils are responsible for housing. They pay mooring fees, marinas pay business rates. You don't pay council tax for living in a hotel would be a good analogy.
@AllyFogg Yeah he's 1% less right wing that the Streeting/McSweeney/Mandelson mob, and didn't take part in the wrecking during Milliband and Corbyn, so they'll hate him forever. He's incredibly like them, just willing to make small concessions to society functioning.
@AllyFogg Theoretically they could also just delay the by-election for a huge length of time, or point out there's two by elections in Scotland he could apply for.
@maiamindel Yeah in the Sun article he told them it's about making you feel better about what you've got, but then they hypnotised some women and the Sun claimed it worked.
@flying_rodent I'm actually going to challenge this, as giving national profiles to people with a minibus full of followers was something done a lot in the 2000s.
@PolitlcsUK Yeah, Reform have a path to power rallying with the Tories and Labour, but Plaid and the Greens just don't have the numbers. Reform, Labour and the Tories will be able to join forces and block anything constructive happening.
@PhilipProudfoot Hackney is literally 'weigh the votes' territory, Diane won the last election with 65% of the vote and had hit 75% in 2017. If Hackney has gone Green there are essentially no safe Labour seats.
@SectionNein@esjesjesj Yeah, an important part of grooming is grooming the witnesses so if someone does come forward there's plenty of people to go 'well he never molested me, he just showed me his room of manequins dressed as boy scouts and the fun fair he has at his house'.
@RespectIsVital It's a joke based on exactly the sort of thing Starmer would say. Croydon is notorious for corruption and four Croydon Labour people were recently arrested for rigging selections. Starmer will of course have never met them.
@Stsantek The media have successfully made this all about the Palestine protests because they want them banned and those people arrested. But it's looking very like it's about a crumbling mental health system releasing someone who shouldn't have been with little to no supervision.
@Stsantek It makes the police look bad that someone who stabbed someone, with a history of stabbing people, recently released from a mental hospital, made their way across the most surveilled city in the country and stabbed more people hours later.