Your assumption is correct. This will not be an easy it a smooth path. And it will happen in a few months. They’ve been talking about needing 10+ years to deliver their goals. But they need to show enough progress in about 4 or 5.

This was an interesting election.

• Labour won in a landslide, but voter turnout was low (lots if thoroughly disillusioned people).
• A lot of the new seats they won were by narrow margins, indicating that while they have a mandate, it’s not as emphatic as the MO count might suggest.
• Regardless of their policies/objectives, Reform made good gains for a new party. Not many MOs to sit for it, but they will feel invigorated by how many races in which they outpaced the Tories.
• The Liberal Democrats has a fantastic night, increasing their MP count by something like x7.
• The Scottish independence cause took a hit with the collapse of the SNP.
• This election was a spectacular culmination of missteps (both individual and organizational) for the Tories. And this might have been a mortal wound for a nearly 200 party that will massively change British politics. Such a collapse hasn’t been witnessed for centuries. If they survive it might be as a nationalistic husk within which the Reform party takes up residence. Though nothing is certain for the Tories at this point. They might come back from the brink of death; they might shuffle back to the centre; they might become a third party for the next couple of decades; etc. Labour had to do a huge rebuild over the last 5 years and managed it. But their situation is very different from the Tories, so that analogy isn’t the best.

Yes Sunak failed dismally as a leader. Though there are other factors at play as well. He inherited a poisoned chalice, due to the several factors, some of which were:

• The Tories had been in power for too many years, and were at the end of the natural cycle of power that occurred in the parliamentary system.
• The decisions of some of his incompetent predecessors that hung over him (especially those of Liz Truss).
• The rise of nationalism/extreme right wing politics, and UKIP/the Reform party eating into the Tory voter base (which has been happening for many years but has escalated in recent years).

He did, however, manage to expedite his own political demise with his clueless detachment from what regular citizens are dealing with and the aftermath of Brexit (which his party was mostly responsible for).

I don’t think that strategy for testing is purely a Chinese thing. When my kids were little and before they could read, they did eye tests with those same characters. And I’m in America.

Exactly. They will probably send all the citizens they want to get rid of knowing that they will likely die. It’s a win-win for Rocket Man: he gets to eradicate any ‘inferior’ or ‘disloyal’ peons while ingratiating himself to Putin.

Considering all the ways they’ve been ridiculously incompetent in their invasion of Ukraine, I could actually see this incident being due to ineptitude.

She’s got the crazy eyes for sure.

For those who don’t get the reference, I think this is referring to the Mark of Cain teaching in Mormonism. This resulted in black members of the church being seen as lesser or inferior by many white members. The church officially abandoned it as an official teaching in 1978. But the stigma for black members still persists to some degree unofficially, with some white church members still believing it today.

Russia reminds me of the black knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. He has all his limbs cut off by Arthur, to the point where he’s just a useless torso perched on the ground. But he’s still defiantly insulting Arthur and looking for a fight.

The beatings will continue until morale improves!

He’s been listening to his pal Trump too much. But the pro-Russian contingent is less significant in the UK than it is in the US.

“I start kissing them. You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful ancient texts. I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the tablet. You can do anything.”

I’m surprised Alito went with the majority on this one. And a little surprised Kavanaugh did too. I’m also surprised it was an 8-1 ruling.

I’m not at all surprised Thomas was in the minority.

Dell announced a new return-to-office initiative earlier this year. In the new plan, workers had to classify themselves as remote or hybrid.

Those who classified themselves as hybrid are subject to a tracking system that ensures they are in a physical office 39 days a quarter, which works out to close to three days per work week.

Alternatively, by classifying themselves as remote, workers agree they can no longer be promoted or hired into new roles within the company.

Holy corporate oppression, Batman! That’s a shitty deal no matter which option you choose.

I’m glad they’ve got themselves into a sticky situation.

Also, this observation was funny (in a sad way):

One person said they’d spoken with colleagues who had chosen to go hybrid, and those colleagues reported doing work in mostly empty offices punctuated with video calls with people who were in other mostly empty offices.

Oh there’s still far too much adulation. All those Tesla bros, for example. Given what an insufferable turd Musk is, and the crumby reputation Teslas have, I don’t understand it. And I don’t think I ever will.

Nope, he can’t manage that. Because he’s an attention-whoring malignant narcissist.

I can’t wait for the bubble of mystique to pop on this arsehole, if only so we don’t have to ever hear from or about him again. Sadly, there are still plenty of rubes in his cult of personality and greedy investors willing to ride his coattails. So I’m not holding my breath.

His whole Western obsession/trope is getting really old. I wish they’d quit with these shitty western movies starring dollar store Eastwood.

I’m pretty sure I know what his play book said, based on his career up to this point…

Step 1: be a total shitheel in college so everyone there hates you.

Step 2: enter politics through family connections, but make sure to lie about your name so you sound more Caucasian and win over your racist voter base.

Step 3: grandstand so much over stupid shit that you become the target of meme conspiracies.

Step 4: run for the presidency against a vindictive, malignant narcissist conman. Make sure to disparage him at every turn to try to make yourself look better.

Step 5: grovel and ingratiate yourself into abject humiliation to said vindictive malignant narcissist conman when he beats you to the party nomination and unleashes political hell on you (and calls your wife ugly).

Step 6: become despised by your own children for continuing to be a total shitheel and a failure of a parent.

Step 7: run away to Cancun during an emergency and when your constituents need you most. Side note: make sure to drag your kids there with you in case it makes them hate you any less. (Spoiler alert: they will just hate you even more for doing that, but oh well!)

Step 8: align yourself with the lunatic fringe of your party, even though they despise you and mock you behind your back.

Step 9: cling on desperately to your current political office for the rest of your pathetic career, knowing you have already peaked and that nobody outside some gullible constituents currently or will ever like or respect you.

Oh he was a total shitheel to so many different people. Very effective wartime leader, but a horrible human being.

That is a very fair point!

There’s already a strong emotional connection between Irish and Palestinian people (as shown by Ireland being one of the first European countries to officially recognize Palestine recently). Now there’s another association - Churchill and Netanyahu’s loathing for their respective people.

Comparing himself to Churchill defending the UK from the Nazis has got to be the shittiest analogy I’ve heard in a long time. You aren’t Churchill in this situation, Netanyahu. You’re the invader hell-bent on wiping out a population.