Be Excellent To Each Other

Aye. Alright if you're mobile, but not so much for the elderly or housebound.

Or are disabled. Or are reliant on public transport. Or don't live in a city or large town. It'll be terrible, yes.

Title

The fare collector* that just sold me a ticket on the train had an RMT badge on saying "keep the guard on the train".

*It was a man. Had it been a pretty lady, it woyld have been fair collector.

"It's also how facism moves in", MaliA said, perhaps, slightly too, cheerfully.

I've never heard of this chap before now.
I must say, he sounds a bit of a knob - to put it mildly.

He's vile.

He's anti-PC though. Surely you are bedfellows?

"He's behind you!!1" etc.

Oh no he *gunshot*

Too soon!

Well played, sir!

I think Myp's the crocodile.

With a silent R

So, a by election caused by a resignation. Labour majority of about 2,500. Surely the best time to put a massively pro Corbyn candidate up and snash it to bits! The revolution starts!

Or, they'll drop to third, at best.

Hard to tell. UKIP are targeting it hard, and so are the Tories, so it splits the vote. If one or the other stood aside it'd be a landslide against Labour, but both want the seat quite a lot so they won't.

Labour need a pro Nuclear and pro Union candidate as that's their strength in the local area.

The key may well actually be the actions of the Lib Dems and the Greens. They both pushed hard for a Progressive Alliance in Richmond, and whilst Labour did stand there, it was a half hearted effort. If both the LDs and Greens stand down here, that could be enough for Labour to win.

That said, it's a heavily pro-Leave area, so how much support that will equate to is questionable (though there are obviously still, like, a third of people who voted Remain there, and their votes are worth as much as any other, especially in a 3 horse race).

R4 said another 12 labour MPs could also resign. I think it's a good move (as leadership contests are not productive to unseat him), as those supporting Corbyn would have to sit and take note when the parliamentary seats go, and it forces their reselection plans forwards. Forwards to their prefeered candidates who would lose, and then maybe come 2025 we might have an opposition.

Aside: I could have probably done without all the images of the dead Russian ambassador starfished on tbe floor with his killer stood by him. I think there should be respect and dignity at times like these. I fear the media is getting a bit too explicit.

Let's face it: Labour's only chance here is to field Ed Balls, in a bid for the telly-obsessed thicko vote (never mind he was one of the worst Chancellors in history and a key architect of 'the financial crisis', he's a 'good sport', not self promoting at all etc etc).

I wonder if they can persuade him to stand?

There again, it'll probably be another Tory win.

I agree, it's all getting to be a bit too much like the spoofed Robocop news bulletins, some respect for the dead and their families, and a little decorum is called for, I think I we can all join the dots and know what a dead body looks like. Still, journalists eh.

To be fair on Ed Balls, he wasn't ever Chancellor. Economic Secretary to the Treasury for a year, and Shadow Chancellor for a while but I think you're hard pressed to blame him for much there. Brown and Darling, of course, different story.

You're not reading two posts.

Everyone on that list was a worst chancellor than Ed Balls, end of.

Fair do's I stand corrected but clearly he was highly influential on Brown during the key post 2002 era when most of the damage was wrought.

But anyway, by-election and impending Labour lossage. Christmas cheer all round

Delayed posting there.

ISIS have apparently immolated a couple of Turkish conscripts and released a film of it. The soldiers were taken in Syria.

Yeah, we should just carry on letting post offices cost the public tens or hundreds of millions every year in losses, eh.

I honestly think some people will never, ever grasp the concepts of affordability or priorities; for them there's surely an endless pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (and any suggestion otherwise is met by teenage strops and 'evil Tories' memes, and knee-jerk going out on strike at the most calculated, vulnerable times like it's fucking 1978 all over... but thank fuck, the world has moved on and the wrong people to be trying shit like that with are firmly in power, now and for the next decade minimum).

Honestly? It's almost child-like. IMO of course. "Number crunching"? More like "toilet training", I'd say.
Look, Socialism has inarguably run its course. Byeeeeee!

Oh, christ.

Going well for Corbyn, then.

“If you listen to what he says, he’s just like that white noise in the background”

Frankly I'm surprised it's only two-thirds of people!
With Labour, it really is a case of the lunatics have taken over the asylum; it's all now well beyond parody, and beyond words. For me, it's one thing predicting outcomes like this, but actually seeing this stuff *actually happen* is just incredible: Labour's abject humiliation and increasingly inevitable disintegration as any sort of political force, before my very own eyes.

I want to feel sympathy but shit, I'm sorry, I _just_can't. Corbyn: the gift that just keeps on giving.

Corbyn seemed ok to start with, but now he's faded away into nothing. Maybe it's because nobody's reporting what he says any more. I haven't seen anything except on this forum about what he's up to.

He was never any good. Totally unsuited to be leader of a mainstream political party in terms of competency and charisma, and regardless of one's political leanings, you have to admit he's from a small faction of the Labour Party that swing voters tend not to like. His sole gimmick was being more left-wing than any Labour leader basically in the history of the party, and that seemed enough to get him his own personality cult which he really didn't deserve.

Happy New Year guys!!

Yes. Yes, indeed.

Mali's blacked out.

I can only assume it was a picture of him with some middle aged celebrity.

/or a sink.

In my town there are no Banks, the last one closes this year.

The post office is needed for folks to access the money.

But you want socialised healthcare.

@Kov

Are we seriously saying that here and now, in 2017, we can't manage without queuing up in draughty old Post Offices for some grumpy old gimmer to manually count and hand us physical cash? Let alone contactless payments and the fact that everyone now accepts card payment, we have banking via telephone, smart phone app, computer, even bloody chequebook, what's wrong with 24-hour ATMs that don't ever close, go on strike or cost the taxpayer tens of millions every year, if you insist on using physical cash?

I'm sorry mate but in this day and age it's just such hogwash. I wouldn't mind if Post Offices paid their way but they absolutely do not, precisely because they're so laughably obsolete and outmoded. I'm not saying there are absolutely no benefits for anyone, but it's that boring priorities thing again. There are better ways of spending our money.

@Doc I can't see that, sorry. You must be quoting the person on my ignore list.

I'm a regular user of the Post Office as a business owner. Not everyone is cashing their giros and my local PO is almost always busy. They do a good range of services for all members of society. I wouldn't know what I'd do without it.

Essential to have a post office nearbyif you want to send a parcel, too.

I can see that moving to corner shops as a service, as an extension of collect+

Yes. I am.

Lots of accounts need you to go into a bank.

Do you expect folks in the 80s and 90s to use the internet.

Also where do you expect us to take our parcels or large letters.?

Look, it's really simple IMO. If I rely on a service for my business, say hiring specialist equipment or paying for banking services, I pay the full commercial rate. I don't expect the taxpayer to pick up a large slice of the tab - that money should be being spent on building new schools, hospitals or whatever.

It isn't about what "I expect people in their 90s to do about their parcels", it's about finite resources and priorities - concepts that many here have great difficulties getting their heads around admittedly.

You know, well within my lifetime (and I'm not even 50), people used to queue in line whilst the shop keeper fetched and weighed every item on each individual's shopping list while everyone else waited patiently in line. It's how they'd done it for decades. When new fangled "self service" came along, people scoffed but how ludicrous does it all look now? It's the same deal with conductors on buses (or trains )... conservative forces will always resist change.

Sorry to say though, like it or not, Post Offices are the 2017 equivalent of the pre self serve shop; they are utterly anachronistic. If people love Post Offices so much, let them bloody well pay for them. They've lost over £150,000,000 in two years... that's about 50 state of the art schools!

Everyone understands finite resources, but some would suggest that, for example, Trident replacement funds or the redecorating of the home of the wealthiest household in the country would keep a lot of post offices open.

And I, of course, as a lifelong and oft stated republican and totally anti nuclear individual would wholeheartedly agree, as you fine well appreciate. See also bank subsidies....

Other than the banking part of the Po

Where would you suggest the other services go?