My friend was the victim of a scam ......................

[SydneyRover]

No not me, George Monbiot. It's compelling stuff.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/12/laws-protect-scams-enforcement-gutted

[BobG]

Christ Sydney... And we actually continue to vote for this.

I'll make a long range prognostication: we will continue to have Conservative governments for a very long time. The Labour Party is very close to unelectable without Scottish MPs. So, unless and until either the Tories make such a humungous faux pas that people decide to teach 'em a lesson, or the fractured centre left join together in a  Lib/Lab/Green/Nat pact, we will continue to recieve the benefits of Tory misrule.

If you look 10 or 15 or 20 years hence, to the days when it is possible to envisage a health service that works only for those with money, when education, broadcasting and transport are the same. When services, like those described in the article have continued to be cut away, when social care no longer exists, when global warming impacts most on the poor and the needy without the means to buy the security blankets bought by the better off, when hope itself has been privatised, then we will see we really are, once again, Two Nations. And even the 19th century Conservative Party saw the catastrophic danger of that.

BobG

[Bentley Bullet]

Bob, may I ask what whisky you drink?

[SydneyRover]

Christ Sydney... And we actually continue to vote for this.

I'll make a long range prognostication: we will continue to have Conservative governments for a very long time. The Labour Party is very close to unelectable without Scottish MPs. So, unless and until either the Tories make such a humungous faux pas that people decide to teach 'em a lesson, or the fractured centre left join together in a  Lib/Lab/Green/Nat pact, we will continue to recieve the benefits of Tory misrule.

If you look 10 or 15 or 20 years hence, to the days when it is possible to envisage a health service that works only for those with money, when education, broadcasting and transport are the same. When services, like those described in the article have continued to be cut away, when social care no longer exists, when global warming impacts most on the poor and the needy without the means to buy the security blankets bought by the better off, when hope itself has been privatised, then we will see we really are, once again, Two Nations. And even the 19th century Conservative Party saw the catastrophic danger of that.

BobG

I think their maybe a reckoning coming whereby all those too busy pulling up the drawbridge, sandbagging and too mean to support nurses with a wage commensurate with the daily risk and skill required will be saying ..........'hang on a minute ........ we dint vote for all this levelling up malarkey we dornt want this, we are right wing conservatives we get the spoils.

that's of course if that new age lefty hippy johnson keeps his word, snort

[BobG]

It's all a question of weltanschaung BB. The point of view. Me? I am able to view trends over time. There are quite a few we can see today. The direction of travel is very clear. I'm re-reading 'August 1914' right now. Nearly finished it actually. The picture of careless, unknowing, unseeing and unknowingly doomed middle and artisanal classes is quite striking you know.

Happy fiddling (There'a a prize for getting that one!)

Cheers

BobG

[BillyStubbsTears]

Wow that takes me back Bob. I read that about 30 years ago. Masterful and heartbreaking as I recall.

[SydneyRover]

I've been reading ''The Sleepwalkers'' by Christopher Clark, historian, extremely well researched.

It's about the lead up to 1914. Unfortunately the detail is so vast I had to take notes on who was who and what they did so only got a quarter way through.