Prices of the electricity we use to charge

Ghost1951

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jun 2, 2024
1,555
606
If Trump and Biden are the best of the USA then the western world is definitely doomed. RFK is also not good.
Yes
How the system left in the eighteenth century by the founding fathers, could come to this is unfathomable.
 

Ghost1951

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jun 2, 2024
1,555
606
Quite how some unimportant, nutter of a canvasser for Reform can come to be the big discussion is rather weird. It shows how desperate the media is to rubbish right of centre politics. This fellow is a complete NOBODY who walked in off the street and offered to knock on doors.
 

Ghost1951

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jun 2, 2024
1,555
606
It's weird. A few hours after the debate with Trump, Biden was a completely different person when he delivered his speech in Carolina.

Watch Biden's first speech after shaky debate performance - BBC News

Isn't the difference that in Carolina, he was reading from an auto cue, whereas in the debate the incomprehensible drivel was coming from his own head? In dementia, not all faculties rot away at the same speed. Biden can still read.... Thinking though.... Not so good.
 

Woosh

Trade Member
May 19, 2012
20,346
16,861
Southend on Sea
wooshbikes.co.uk
He was breathing with difficulties as though through his mouth. He wasn't fit to debate anyone in that state. It's really time for him to pull out gracefully. His doctor can explain heart conditions or micro stroke dementia. Nobody will think less of him.
Trump is not far behind. He has similar symptoms.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ghost1951

Ghost1951

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jun 2, 2024
1,555
606
He was breathing with difficulties as though through his mouth. He wasn't fit to debate anyone in that state. It's really time for him to pull out gracefully. His doctor can explain heart conditions or micro stroke dementia. Nobody will think less of him.
Trump is not far behind. He has similar symptoms.
Joe and his wife think he is doing well. Quite a number of prominent Democrats are also talking him up. What planet are they on? That country is in trouble. Trump is a psychopath and an inveterate liar. A man of no moral standing with no regard for reality or the truth. The choice is between a dementia patient and a scoundrel. How did they get there?
 

Woosh

Trade Member
May 19, 2012
20,346
16,861
Southend on Sea
wooshbikes.co.uk
The choice is between a dementia patient and a scoundrel. How did they get there?
Ask Zuckerberg. I reckon it's his FB that emphasises a weak human trait.
 
  • Agree
Reactions: flecc

flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
53,163
30,581
When people accuse me of spreading conspiracy theories when I mention that strange forces are controlling the world today, all I have to do is point to Biden and ask them how that guy became leader of the free world, when he doesn't even know which way up he's standing, and now I have an even stronger defence when I ask how are they expecting to get him re-elected. What are these strange forces that create this situation, and don't say stupidity?
Joe and his wife think he is doing well. Quite a number of prominent Democrats are also talking him up. What planet are they on? That country is in trouble. Trump is a psychopath and an inveterate liar. A man of no moral standing with no regard for reality or the truth. The choice is between a dementia patient and a scoundrel. How did they get there?
I might add how did a known liar and incompetent like Boris Johnson ever become PM or a crazed eccentric like Jacob Rees Mogg get consistently re-elected and have such power in his party?

The simple answer is that it is the public who are responsible, not any hidden force

A few posts ago Ghost1951 quoted Churchill on Democracy, but that and his view at the time were historic and no longer apply today. The public are now radically changed from just few decades ago. You are both too young (yes really) to understand just how obedient and bound to convention the public were prior to 1960, but hopefully old enough to remember the Monty Python "Class System" sketch.

That was how Britain, and indeed the world, were in the 1940s and early '50s and for centuries before, obedient and somewhat servile, but that has totally changed since. The huge change of mobility from 1960 on that the car gave, brought with it a sense of power to the masses never before experienced, hence in part the upsurge in popular culture of the 1960s and '70s.

And then personal computing and the World Wide Web followed, today giving equal expression and its power to everyone, regardless of fitness or competence. Hence the strange results you comment on and I add to above.

The simple fact is that today's public are no longer fit to elect their leaders or decide on the way forward, and that is why I am as fundamentally opposed to populism as Woosh is and opposed to your view that governments should implement the public's choice.

Democracy in its present day form is no longer acceptable and needs to be seriously rethought.
.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Steed and Woosh

Ghost1951

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jun 2, 2024
1,555
606
The simple fact is that today's public are no longer fit to elect their leaders or decide on the way forward, and that is why I am as fundamentally opposed to populism as Woosh is and opposed to your view that governments should implement the public's choice.

Democracy in its present day form is no longer acceptable and needs to be seriously rethought.
Chilling remarks really.

There has always been a snooty, paternalism among some left activists who are in my view fundamentally anti-democratic, but they are rarely as open about it as this.

Yes - ordinary people - you are not fit to have the vote you were given. We do not need to take your vote seriously, even when you are in the majority. " We know best little man. Go away and be quiet, while we decide about things you are unqualified to think, or speak about. Leave politics to your betters."

The same sentiments are expressed by every dictatorship on the planet.
 
Last edited:

saneagle

Esteemed Pedelecer
Oct 10, 2010
6,797
3,133
Telford
Quite how some unimportant, nutter of a canvasser for Reform can come to be the big discussion is rather weird. It shows how desperate the media is to rubbish right of centre politics. This fellow is a complete NOBODY who walked in off the street and offered to knock on doors.
You're missing the point. The story is that he wasn't a nobody. It's that he was an actor working on behalf of Ch4 so that they could make a story that there are right wing extremists in the Reform party. He used his acting voice on Ch4, not his real voice, which is how he was exposed as acting the part and not just being himself.
 

Ghost1951

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jun 2, 2024
1,555
606
You're missing the point. The story is that he wasn't a nobody. It's that he was an actor working on behalf of Ch4 so that they could make a story that there are right wing extremists in the Reform party. He used his acting voice on Ch4, not his real voice, which is how he was exposed as acting the part and not just being himself.
No - I know all that. I am not as sure as you that it was an actual plot, but I will await more evidence.

My point was this - a canvasser who walks into a campaign and offers to help knock on doors is NOWHERE in the party hierarchy. Even taken at face value as presented, it is ludicrous to harangue Farage and the Reform Party because some low level grunt spoke unpleasantly on a doorstep while being recorded by a spy. You might as well harangue Starmer because a cleaner at his party HQ said an unpleasant thing while mopping the floor. Of course this is ONLY front page news because the media concerned is stuffed with foaming at the mouth lefties, intent on discrediting Farage at any price. I don't admire or like Farage by the way. He is a bombastic fellow.

EDIT: I do accept that IF it is proved that a conspiracy took place to put this actor in with a brief to say horrible things, that takes this matter to a serious place in terms of dirty tricks and misinformation. There is no PROOF that I am aware of other than that a spy was planted to seek out bad copy for Reform, and that this guy happens to be a voice actor.
 

Peter.Bridge

Esteemed Pedelecer
Apr 19, 2023
1,252
579
You're missing the point. The story is that he wasn't a nobody. It's that he was an actor working on behalf of Ch4 so that they could make a story that there are right wing extremists in the Reform party. He used his acting voice on Ch4, not his real voice, which is how he was exposed as acting the part and not just being himself.
Have a look at the tweets written by Farage, Tice, Oakenshot, Banks and particularly the exchange between the Daily Mail's Dan Hodges and Oakenshot. None of them accuse, just leave it up to Reform's credulous supporters. Anyway Farage has moved on to complaining about the BBC today (which is pretty funny - he's never off it despite never being elected as an MP - he might not even be one after Thursday, the way Reform is imploding) He'll be whinging about something though, it's never his fault. It's the Trumpification of UK politics
 
  • Like
Reactions: flecc and Woosh

Ghost1951

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jun 2, 2024
1,555
606
Have a look at the tweets written by Farage, Tice, Oakenshot, Banks and particularly the exchange between the Daily Mail's Dan Hodges and Oakenshot. None of them accuse, just leave it up to Reform's credulous supporters. Anyway Farage has moved on to complaining about the BBC today (which is pretty funny - he's never off it despite never being elected as an MP - he might not even be one after Thursday, the way Reform is imploding) He'll be whinging about something though, it's never his fault. It's the Trumpification of UK politics
One thing you have to give to Farage is this ->



This ain't bad either ->

 

flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
53,163
30,581
Chilling remarks really.

There has always been a snooty, paternalism among some left activists who are in my view fundamentally anti-democratic, but they are rarely as open about it as this.

Yes - ordinary people - you are not fit to have the vote you were given. We do not need to take your vote seriously, even when you are in the majority. " We know best little man. Go away and be quiet, while we decide about things you are unqualified to think, or speak about. Leave politics to your betters."

The same sentiments are expressed by every dictatorship on the planet.
I didn't expect you to treat my post seriously and I am certainly not a left wing activist since for much of my life I voted Conservative and still always do for certain specific purposes, such as borough council governance in London. In other words I vote sensibly in accordance with the facts to suit the need, not according to any permanent political bias.

My post wasn't about not treating peoples votes seriously, it was about making their votes more effective to better their lot. But perhaps you prefer the hopelessly ineffective, sham no-choice democracy we have had for a long time now, since it has suited the right wing elite so perfectly and cost the "ordinary" people so dear.
.
 

lenny

Esteemed Pedelecer
May 3, 2023
2,584
767


 
  • Like
Reactions: MikelBikel