Rishi #Sunak is an idiot. Most of the things he is promising to deliver are completely outside his control. There's no way he can deliver on these five #promises.
It would only be more ridiculous if he'd had them carved in stone.
Moreover his party have been in power for *12 years*. Does he think he's really fooling anyone pretending that it was like this when he got here?
They're just taking the piss now.
@jayarava
A close friend is from Birmingham and has dual citizenship. He lives here in Arizona ten months out of the year, going back each year for two month-long visits in England and Wales to visit with family and friends.
UK-related topics are a frequent focus of our talks, as he's taken it upon himself to explain and flesh out the news that makes it to me from your adopted country. (Does New Zealand ever tempt you to return?) Despite having never been to the UK, I feel an affinity towards it and have read a fair amount of its history. I have almost nothing at stake in what goes on where you are, yet somehow can't be unaffected and am a little horrified at what has gone on since, say, Thatcher.
We surely do live in interesting times.
@AndyLowry The basic dynamic UK politics is perfectly described in The Life of Brian.
I grew up watching US TV like Sesame St, so I'm fluent in US culture, but have no stake. Lately I've been watching a lot of NFL, which is perhaps the most entertaining contact sport ever invented.
Thatcher and Reagan. Different in many ways, but part of the same movement of neoliberalism shading into fascism. Reading about the history of liberalism was an eye-opener!
@jayarava
If you're ever curious as to how it happened that big-business, supposed conservatives
(often partly to promote their religious views) managed to capture the US government in many ways, Kurt Anderson's "Evil Geniuses" makes it clear without becoming a polemic. He's a great writer about society-- an earlier work, "Fantasyland," is a history of how gullible Americans tend to be.
I'm mostly anti-sports, since my country likes to pervert what could be excellent educational facilities into sports-money-generators. (I grew up where Ohio State is located.) And then the hopes of most college players are dashed on graduation, and then they might die later of traumatic brain injury. But other than that, I guess it's okay. (Both parents went to Ohio State and are fierce supporters of their teams, so we had to negotiate a truce when I lived at home.) 😉
If there's a comparable book or two about how the Tories managed a similar capture, I'd be glad to know about it!
@AndyLowry I cycle ~150 miles per week mostly on roads. Chances are very high that I will die of a traumatic brain injury or at least be maimed by some idiot in a car. I just hope its quick.
All my graduation hopes of being a scientist were dashed by mental health problems that have never stopped. So I don't win on that score either.
And I didn't get paid $millions for putting up with this shit. I barely survive. 🙄
@jayarava
I guess I wouldn't feel right about clicking "favorite" on that. 🤔
I'm very familiar with how existence can be when trying to have a normal life while also having and being treated for mental illness. Over a two-year period in my early thirties, I was hospitalized in psychiatric lockups four times. Diagnosis was major depression with panic disorder. It was severe enough to involve some occasional psychoses (mostly just aural and visual hallucinations). I was lucky that it happened at a time when inexpensive health insurance commonly covered mental health, so at least I didn't have to add financial ruin to what was already going on.
I can also relate to scraping by-- my plan on retirement was to keep working for a few years, but then Covid happened. 🙄 And now that I'm sick, any sort of employment I'm qualified for can't really happen. I have to keep an eye on what I spend for food, but there's enough if I'm careful that I can have a coffee or small meal with friends now and then. It's the social connections, and the presence of my wife, that keep me going. (I'm in AA and other recovery groups, so I have a ready-made group of people that was easy to become friends with. Yeah, it's cheating. 😉 )
Speaking of which, I'm amazed at how much I've gotten out of this here Mastodon thing. I've met several very interesting people here whom I feel I can be quite open with-- you're one of them-- and that's the first time that's happened in this sort of medium, going back all the way to AOL chat.
@jayarava
(I should mention that I'm not very good at detecting and evaluating the possibility that I'm over-sharing to the point of annoying people, so please feel free to let me know when to shut up! I wouldn't take it as an insult.) 🙏
@AndyLowry There's no shortage of gullibility anywhere in the world, eh?