Today's discussion about the news

Where do I say that? You're imagining stuff again.

Well you seem really gleeful that Macron is in difficulty, but Le Pen is the only realistic alternative.

He's starting to move more to the left in his political views.

Feels odd that the Taliban are significantly cutting supplies when it makes them so much money. It’s not like messing up the health and lives of Westerners is a big worry for them.

It already has. Fentanyl and other synthetic opioids are already rife in major cities in the UK. It's easier to make. Far cheaper to import as the purity is very high so less quantity is required before it is cut. It's also harder to detect and once a method of detection is found by then the formula has changed so it's back to square one.

Heroin has had its day it seems. A bit like Squidgy Black or Soap Bar etc whereas now it's just Skunk.

You keep forgetting that you don't care 😁

It's probably a result of how politics has evolved over the centuries, but I really do hope that we can take a step back from the increasingly poisonous partisanship of current politics: it does not do societies any good to be at war with themselves. I'm really not sure why 'centrism' is so difficult to embrace & foster.

I suppose we should be glad we're still not as far gone as the US...

Oh yes, is that the DoJ that Joe Biden controls?

You're getting confused between Macron and Brexit in your attempt to be a smartarse 😉

The more I think about it, the more I think the Macron move is stupid.

Far right supporters don't necessarily get put off by the far right once they have been in power. Look at Trump. The things they f*ck up just make the narrative for them easier. They thrive off things not being good. They, specifically, seem to thrive in eras of high inflation and or low/no wage growth.

I assume the thinking is that many of those who voted for them aren't really supporters and that it was little more than a protest vote that won't be repeated in a 'proper' election. It's far easier to vote them into a parliament where you don't see their policies at work every day. If the assumption is right it is probably a good move as it cuts any right-wing claims of legitimacy off at the knees.

What if it's not just a protest vote?

Not that long ago voting Macron was seen as a protest vote.

Amusing article about Europe's shift to the right:

Quote:

"Following the EU referendum, some commentators announced they would be moving to continental Europe to escape “far-Right” Britain. You wonder how they are doing now. Probably with heads still in the sand. At the heart of this mindset is to see Brexit Britain as backward, a pariah state. 

Never mind that remarkably similar policies to those pursued here are being put into practice on the Continent. Meloni recently struck a Rwanda-esque deal with Albania, expected to be operational within a couple of months. But it’s not just the milder face of European populism; the EU itself has funded a scheme moving asylum seekers from Libya to Rwanda.

Social Democratic Denmark, meanwhile, has pursued some of the toughest immigration policies in Europe in recent years. Danish lawmakers insist on integration in ways that would be anathema to leftish British sensibilities; migrants who commit serious crimes can lose their social housing, for instance. Interestingly, Denmark’s harder line on migration appears to have shielded its government from the fate of many other centre-Left parties. It’s almost as if voters reward you for listening to them."

😊

That's my point - he is gambling that it is. Time will tell whether the gamble is brave or foolish it could be his equivalent of Cameron offering a Brexit vote to shut up the internal dissenters.

more self-satisfied telegraph nonsense for the delusional, especially the whining straw man argument, it's really quite pathetic

eu citizens didn't get their rights taken away by brexiters, and it's unlikely they'll lose their rights under echr, which is what the tories are threatening uk citizens with

immigration is an issue whether in the eu or out of it, brexit was never going to be a solution

the euro right wingers saw the damage of brexit and have no desire to follow suit