In the news

Everyone knows American candy is fucking horrible, so the reason there's loads of shops clearly has nothing to do with people wanting to buy it

It melts my head how the UK political landscape and the attitudes are so out of step.

Labour is not really going against it either, all thanks to some newspapers?

There's been a few interesting articles on the American sweet shop boom and Westminster in particular seem to be gunning hard for them.

Landlords keen to fill empty stores to avoid business rates liability. The suggestion is that the majority of American sweet shops have complex shell company setups that are hard to pinpoint who the actual occupier is and/or they easily disappear.

Interesting times for high streets which are completely depleted.

You'd think that the Uk was a hugely intolerant place if you just look at Twitter.

One good example is trans rights. You'd think that voters are really against trans rights if you see how poisonous the Twitter debate is.

However, when you actually go out and poll opinions well over 70% of the country is either in support or neutral on trans rights. The whole "Labour can't tell you if a woman has a penis" thing basically only exists in a weird corner of the internet.

I'm sure I heard something about it being part of an organised crime vat scam thing.

American sweet shop boom

Whatever happened to the Golf Sales?

Alex Jones / his company now owes nearly $1.5 billion to Sandy Hook victims' families in damages...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/alex-jones-sandy-hook-shooting-lies-infowars-b2222546.html

More than 30 of them on Oxford Street https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/04/us-sweet-shops-rip-off-customers-business-rates-owners

Gumballs > Golf balls

I went to Oxford St the other weekend and even though the weather was shit I was still shocked how empty it was.

When I think how rammo it would have been on a sat afternoon when I was younger it seems unbelievable.

I think the American Sweet shop thing has been hard for councils to crack down on. A bunch are getting done for having fake goods rather than any other stuff is what I saw in an article I think. Like Al Capone getting done for tax evasion in the end.

Edit: probably that guardian article a couple posts above is one of the places I read it

Also interesting that the article is written by a local councillor.

Thanks to our booming small scale hydroponic grows we are a net cannabis exporter

Some what laughable when he talk about the amount owed whilst in the shadow of £13b PPE fraud.

You'd think that the Uk was a hugely intolerant place if you just look at the nonsense talked by Braverman and the rest in Westminster too cowardly to really speak up and fire her? ;)

Twitter is not a good place for research, the population on IT is not very representative, it is like walking in a Wetherspoon and asking what they think of the EU :)

Lots of BS talked in The Netherlands as well, but I don't get why Labour isn't willing to REALLY defend immigrants and refugees if the UK is so tolerant. Maybe the raging twitter voters swing the elections...

Maybe the raging twitter voters swing the elections

Probably not the Twitter ones, but I think there is trying to appeal to the swing voters rather than most people going on. Hopefully with the Tories being so very, very shit at the moment they can focus less on focus groups of swingers and actually say the right things.

The swing voters surely aren't very liberal if that's what they have to do?

I mean if 70% of people in the UK is quite chill about where people are from, are they constantly playing to the 30% and those make up the swing voters?

I guess...that's what going on then? Unless people tell porkies in surveys (it happens) or the DailyMail and others can really radicalize those swing voters...

I dare not hope atm...as the GE is not upon us yet. Until I see the Cons losing the election badly, I really don't dare to have any hope as since 2016 that turned out to be just disappointing me more :)

I'd be pretty confident that in a survey people are all yeah build houses and have immigrants.

Then it happens next door and the opinion changes.

Until voter turnout in 18 -44 age range gets to the same level as 44+, it doesn't matter how liberal/tolerant the people who answer polls are.

If you're a swing voter you're considering voting for the Tories, not just doing it because you're rich or a natural cunt, you're actually thinking about it and choosing to possibly vote Tory, pandering to someone like that probably means considering some shitty ideas and saying some shitty stuff.

If you are considering "voting" tory, you might as well be ending your own life of your own free will.

Angela Rayner or the Green Party Leaders will be a better "pm" than anyone.

18-30 are not as politically aware as anyone over 30. Hence the mess of these tory losers trying to murder citizens.

The answer is Angela Rayner or the Green Party in "government".

Oh, it is. Very much is.

I sometimes wonder if Angela Raynor is the answer. Anyone else feel the same?

Then again, I 've forgotten what the question was.