Election Results as they happen...

[Zak33]

right.. lets leave it as this result:

Top Gun and Outwar are entirely correct and everyone else is mainly wrong, and in some cases entirely wrong, especially everyone.

It's easier that way.

I am sorry that you both feel that I'm not very clever, unable to argue or debate correctly or with enough inteligence to compete with your combined intellects and worldly knowledge -I'm clearly heavily biased and possibly even voted for a racist government, and worse still I know racist people because they're northerners.

I'm also sorry that the Conservatives won and I truly wish that Jeremy Corbyn was our leader - that his ideas were actually genius and that the majority of the UK were wrong to not vote for his party. As they were also wrong to vote for Brexit.

I'm quite jealous that I don't live in London as it's clearly a lot nicer than everywhere else and especially Reading which is slightly less important that the shed in my tory voting garden

I hate that I'm wrong about so many things tbh... I am actually not worthy of this debate and i STRONGLY suggest that many of you others aren't either.

I think the best thing we can do is to decide if this entire forum board is actually suitable for the majority of us. Because with debate this good,... I'm humbled and I feel like I'm not up to the job. I clearlty don't know muslim enough muslims as they voted the wrong way. and that tars me with a horrendous brush.

I, as they say, am out of this debate.

I will moderate it though ... as that's the job.
Please everyone be nice and for goodness sake.... dont argue or offend anyone like I did.

[Top_gun]

Then you clearly haven't been looking, else you'd conclude the opposite. Your choice, though.
And what is 'ethnic', other than a debatably racist and outdated term for non-white people?
Moreover, why are you deliberately alluding to racism being the domain of only white people, particularly when other posts here have pointed out how there is just as much racism within and bewteen these "ethnic" groups (arguably more) as there is between white and non-white... especially in London, since London "has the biggest ethnic population"...?
Seems it's not only Northerners who can shoot themselves in the feet...
So London is even worse than reported? Glad I left, then!
Does it need those in order to have significance? Outside of your demonstrably blinkered and unfounded opinion, I mean...
Reading is a major commerce hub, particularly for insurance and IT and people commute in as well as out. PwC assert that "It is ranked the UK's top economic area for economic success and wellbeing, according to factors such as employment, health, income and skills"... which beats London, in that regard, and that's one o' them thar smart London companies saying so!!
And yes, Reading does have culture, music festivals, Michelin starred restaurants and so on. Plenty to do even for pretentious graduates looking to pretend they understand intellectual matters.
It's significant enough that you felt the desperate need to bring it up as a flawed comparison... and have still failed in that regard.
So?
Once again, racism is NOT limited to white against non-white, and is often far from it.
One of the most successful statistics databases in the world, and you've never heard of them?
Oh well.
It's not difficult to discover those answers... There's this thing called The Internet, you see.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statista
What?
You mean the 'lying Tory' government that we should not trust? You don't trust an independent site because their data doesn't match what the 'lying Tories' say it should?
Yeah, OK, that's all I needed to hear....
Err... Statista is using Police data.
Not so random. We have accounts with Statista, as we're one of their clients on the finance side.
I've neither confirmed nor denied what my degrees are in, though from your remarks, I presume you do have such a degree... or at least wish us to think so?
Given how often you've ignored context and failed to even use any data at all, you hopefully have enough sense to at least have started the RMA process on it.... Does DSR even allow for refunds on downloaded PDFs?

Reading can never match London no much how much you dress it up.

London provides 25 per cent of the UK's taxes. What ever positives you make up about Reading is neither here or there.

As for Reading having Michelin star restaurants. Note the plural restaurants as used by Tasky. I'm afraid Reading has only one Michelin star restaurant. Not several as depicted by Tasky. And that Michelin star restaurant has only one star.

It seems what ever Reading has got to offer in terms of culture can be absorbed in less than a day on a trip.

The only positive thing I see about Reading is that they employ Londoners, I assume because they're highly educated compared to the local population in Reading after checking Reading's stats on education.

I see that you are unable to view the racist stats in population context. London has a much larger population compared to the rest of the regions. It has a higher population density and higher population interactions compared to the other regions. I mean, it's very difficult to be racist to your next door neighbour if they live a mile away.

Also it's laughable that Statista has some mythical quality when it fact the same data is available for free from other sources. It's not as if Statista compiled the stats themselves.

[Galant]

Is this where I can sign up for Northerner's Anonymous?

Hi, my name's Galant and I'm a northerner. I've been struggling with feelings of xenophobia and racism, but also confusion. I had planned to move south in hopes it would improve my IQ along with a better outlook on things, but when I went to visit no one wanted to talk to me. Understandable really, I wouldn't want to talk to me either.

Thanks for listening.

[Top_gun]

I hate that I'm wrong about so many things tbh... I am actually not worthy of this debate and i STRONGLY suggest that many of you others aren't either.

It's not that I think that you are unworthy to take part in this debate. It's more to the fact the discourse of politics is flawed by the lying Tories and their chums in the press.

Billionaires Control the Media

[[GSV]Trig]

Michelin stars mean little, I mean, come on Mountsorrel has one ffs..

And a Waitrose come to think of it....

[Ttaskmaster]

Labours costing made sense actually large businesses what they owed and use that money to invest in the country. Nationalising isn't something he just pulled out of nowhere it's something more successful european countries do to bring down costs and let their citizens get around easier for work etc.

If Labour was making sense, why were they not instead looking to improve regulation, as a far simpler and easier solution?

Our industry has billions in cash.
We'd LOVE to invest it and we keep trying to do so, but the government regulator will not allow it. Instead, we have to cut bills, reduce investment even further, reduce borrowing and pretty much run the industry on naff-all, while sitting on a massive excess of cash. The only thing that can actually be done with that cash is to pay it out as dividends to the shareholders... except customers will start getting upset if we do, even though those shareholders comprise a lot of those customers' private pension funds.
Oh, and Corbyn insisted he was going to buy the industry at something like 30% of its market value (yeah, right) before nationalising it and somehow improving it without access to the billions of private investment necessary just to keep things ticking over.
I say without, because most companies would rather relocate to more tax-friendly areas (kinda the reason they came to us in the first place) than pay up and there's nothing he could do to stop them. Several of our contractors relocated the day after Brexit was declared. They're all German now...

That is why this election wasn't people voting for the Tories, but people voting against Labour.

[kalniel]

It is certainly bringing more people in to those professions. People are drawn from unemployed/underemployed in to unskilled work, and can then afford/leverage training toward more skilled work, thanks to the higher pay.

A builder now needs (and can afford) to hire a labourer to keep up with the extra work he has to pay enough to keep the labourer, who then has the money for training in, er, building, etc..

Nurses become CCRN's, to Nurse Practitioners, while unskilled workers have motivation toward education.

It's making these jobs in to viable career paths, and discouraging people from leaving the profession.

That assumes that we have unemployed people ready/able to enter, which we don't in the UK. And leaving the profession tends to be driven more by factors like workload than pay - which the lack of immigrant workers is making worse, not better.

[[GSV]Trig]

That is why this election wasn't people voting for the Tories, but people voting against Labour.

Or people voting for Brexit, different people had different reasons for voting the way they did based on their morals, opinions etc.

[Ttaskmaster]

Reading can never match London no much how much you dress it up.

Indeed, and we're very happy about it - London is a festering cesspit. That's not something to be proud of, or a worthwhile aspiration. It is, however, one of many reasons to leave London and go live places where you're not next door to drug dealers, or getting racial harrassment from everyone else.

London provides 25 per cent of the UK's taxes. What ever positives you make up about Reading is neither here or there.

I'm pretty sure Reading provides a proportional amount, else there'd be an awful lot of arrests for tax evasion, here.

As for Reading having Michelin star restaurants. Note the plural restaurants as used by Tasky. I'm afraid Reading has only one Michelin star restaurant. Not several as depicted by Tasky. And that Michelin star restaurant has only one star.

The Woodspeen, L'Ortolan, and most recently The Blackbird I believe... Now I'm sure you have a degree in counting and abacus operation (theory only), so will be quite aware that this makes three, which is a plural.
Worth noting also that 40% of the UKs 3-starred restaurants are right next door to Reading, rather than being in London.

It seems what ever Reading has got to offer in terms of culture can be absorbed in less than a day on a trip.

And yet most Londoners have never bothered absorbing that which is on their very doorstep, anyway, so your point is blunted.

The only positive thing I see about Reading is that they employ Londoners, I assume because they're highly educated compared to the local population in Reading after checking Reading's stats on education.

And as always you assume much, substantiate nothing and just carry on wittering... Most Reading commuters are from further West and North, especially Oxford. Most London workers are smart enough not to actually live in London and pay the ridiculous prices for housing.

I see that you are unable to view the racist stats in population context. London has a much larger population compared to the rest of the regions. It has a higher population density and higher population interactions compared to the other regions.

So you want that applied to the racism stats (which it already was), but are unwilling to be consistent in such methods when making other comparisons, such as.... maybe comparing the town of Reading against the cities (lower case, plural) of London and the towns and townships that comprise it?
Cool, that's all I needed to hear.

I mean, it's very difficult to be racist to your next door neighbour if they live a mile away.

So what you're saying is that people who live outside of London are too far away to be racist... all the more reason to leave London, then!!
You're right - Londoners are smarter than everyone else... at least the ones who leave it. Hopefully they exhibit better geospatial awareness, as well...

Also it's laughable that Statista has some mythical quality when it fact the same data is available for free from other sources. It's not as if Statista compiled the stats themselves.

Whoever said it was mythical.. apart from you?
I merely asserted that it uses valid data from valid sources. It's no different to finding that same data via Google, or Bing or whatever other method takes you to the same sources, although it is arguably more convenient.

[Top_gun]

The Woodspeen, L'Ortolan, and most recently The Blackbird I believe... Now I'm sure you have a degree in counting and abacus operation (theory only), so will be quite aware that this makes three, which is a plural.
Worth noting also that 40% of the UKs 3-starred restaurants are right next door to Reading, rather than being in London.

The Woodspeen is based in Newbury and the Blackbird is based in Bagnor. Both restaurants not even in Reading. Nothing wrong with my counting or geography for that matter.

All of the 3 star Michelin restaurant (based on wikipedia) are either in London or closer to London than it is to Reading. Goes to show how much stuff you are actually making up to prove a point.

I won't reply to the rest of your post for reasons given before. Instead I leave a quote:

"Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."
— Samuel Johnson

True now as it was then.

[DanceswithUnix]

The only positive thing I see about Reading is that they employ Londoners, I assume because they're highly educated compared to the local population in Reading after checking Reading's stats on education.

I'm not a big fan of Reading, but I have to fact check that one for you...

It is because when they opened the Oracle shopping center in Reading the unemployment rate is so low locally that they had to employ people from London to work the tills.

But the upside to that, Reading helped London's unemployment statistics, so that's a win.

[Top_gun]

I'm not a big fan of Reading, but I have to fact check that one for you...

It is because when they opened the Oracle shopping center in Reading the unemployment rate is so low locally that they had to employ people from London to work the tills.

But the upside to that, Reading helped London's unemployment statistics, so that's a win.

The fact check doesn't make any sense to me. A train ticket to Reading cost me £20 for the day and that was 8 years ago. I'm pretty certain it is not worth it to travel to Reading to earn minimum wage on the tills.

ETA: The Oracle shopping centre hasn't inspired me to shop there either.

[Ttaskmaster]

The Woodspeen is based in Newbury and the Blackbird is based in Bagnor. Both restaurants not even in Reading. Nothing wrong with my counting or geography for that matter.

Nothing wrong? Oh, then in that case you'll be very aware that both have Reading postcodes and, being in West Berkshire, come under Reading Borough Council. They also have the same Reading MP as me, even though we're right on the edge of Wokingham, which is off to the South East of Reading...

All of the 3 star Michelin restaurant (based on wikipedia) are either in London or closer to London than it is to Reading. Goes to show how much stuff you are actually making up to prove a point.

Bray is host to two such restaurants (according to the Michelin guide itself), The Fat Duck and The Waterside Inn. I recommend the latter, being a fan of the Roux family myself, and if you speak nicely to Alain or Diego, they may let you take the launch out for a spin.
Bray is about 8 miles from Reading, and about 17 miles from London.

I won't reply to the rest of your post for reasons given before.

What, because I still require you to substantiate your own assertions before you baselessly try to dismiss mine?
No no, that's fine, you go ahead and abstain.

Instead I leave a quote:

So you, of all people, are quoting a devout Tory, now?

Is this an insult because he was pretty hateful of Scotland, a test on whether I see through his Tory lies, or just more foundering?

I'll leave you three. One for each Michelin starred restaurant of the Reading Area:

"There's a hole in the world like a great black pit,
and the vermin of the world inhabit it,
and its morals aren't worth what a pig could spit,
and it goes by the name of London".
- Stephen Sondheim

"The truth is, that in London it is always a sickly season. Nobody is healthy in London, nobody can be".
– Jane Austen

"I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air — or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be. Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained".
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

True now as it was then.

In other words, outright Tory lies and to be utterly ignored...

The fact check doesn't make any sense to me. A train ticket to Reading cost me £20 for the day and that was 8 years ago. I'm pretty certain it is not worth it to travel to Reading to earn minimum wage on the tills

.
Firstly, yes £20, because people who travel First Class are that easily fleeced...
Secondly, depends which shops of the Oracle you work in. Many of the big London brands will pay London wages, which is why Reading is increasingly popular as a commuter town and becoming increasingly expensive to live in.
Many employers will arrange a heavily discounted season ticket. Additionally, most commuters will travel outside of peak hours, when it's markedly cheaper, or use the direct coach services.

Incidentally, a ticket to Reading direct from Peckham should cost you about £17.50...

ETA: The Oracle shopping centre hasn't inspired me to shop there either.

It's a retail centre. It's like every other retail centre, including everything in London. It isn't for the locals, but to bring in those from outside... and it's rather good at that.
However, since the last fire in Stables Market, there is no shop in London I would care to visit and all those I once considered local to me and worth a damn are now online businesses anyway... including Sister Ray.

[outwar6010]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...box=1576775971

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/po...e-party/19/12/

[Top_gun]

Nothing wrong? Oh, then in that case you'll be very aware that both have Reading postcodes and, being in West Berkshire, come under Reading Borough Council. They also have the same Reading MP as me, even though we're right on the edge of Wokingham, which is off to the South East of Reading...

Bray is host to two such restaurants (according to the Michelin guide itself), The Fat Duck and The Waterside Inn. I recommend the latter, being a fan of the Roux family myself, and if you speak nicely to Alain or Diego, they may let you take the launch out for a spin.
Bray is about 8 miles from Reading, and about 17 miles from London.

What, because I still require you to substantiate your own assertions before you baselessly try to dismiss mine?
No no, that's fine, you go ahead and abstain.

So you, of all people, are quoting a devout Tory, now?

Is this an insult because he was pretty hateful of Scotland, a test on whether I see through his Tory lies, or just more foundering?

I'll leave you three. One for each Michelin starred restaurant of the Reading Area:

"There's a hole in the world like a great black pit,
and the vermin of the world inhabit it,
and its morals aren't worth what a pig could spit,
and it goes by the name of London".
- Stephen Sondheim

"The truth is, that in London it is always a sickly season. Nobody is healthy in London, nobody can be".
– Jane Austen

"I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air — or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be. Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained".
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

In other words, outright Tory lies and to be utterly ignored...
.
Firstly, yes £20, because people who travel First Class are that easily fleeced...
Secondly, depends which shops of the Oracle you work in. Many of the big London brands will pay London wages, which is why Reading is increasingly popular as a commuter town and becoming increasingly expensive to live in.
Many employers will arrange a heavily discounted season ticket. Additionally, most commuters will travel outside of peak hours, when it's markedly cheaper, or use the direct coach services.

Incidentally, a ticket to Reading direct from Peckham should cost you about £17.50...

It's a retail centre. It's like every other retail centre, including everything in London. It isn't for the locals, but to bring in those from outside... and it's rather good at that.
However, since the last fire in Stables Market, there is no shop in London I would care to visit and all those I once considered local to me and worth a damn are now online businesses anyway... including Sister Ray.

So now you moved the goal post to include Reading Borough Council area. Still, that doesn't change my view at all. Reading or Reading Borough Council, whatever name you want to use, is still insignificant. As for the restaurants in Bray, I guess it depends where you draw the line but I would say Bray was closer to London than it is to Reading Town centre after looking on google maps. Anyway, going to the restaurant in Brays can be risky to your health according to this Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeands...viris-outbreak

I already knew about the journey from Peckham to Reading but it's not a direct journey at all and takes longer to travel than the direct route via Paddington. I'm please to say I shall save the £17.50 for better things like the 70 odd Michelin star restaurants in London.

I assume you are talking about the Stables Market in Camden Town. I've been there before the fire and they sell nothing but overpriced second hand junk for unsuspecting tourist. But I guess you are full of junk judging by the nonsense you put out!!!

Never rated Sister Ray, much prefer Soul Brothers in Putney which caters for people in the know.

Thanks for letting me know about the quotes. I shall console myself knowing that I live in 11th coolest place in the world by Timeout magazine. And oh, my property price isn't doing too badly either.

[Ttaskmaster]

So now you moved the goal post to include Reading Borough Council area.

Of course, you'll recall I first referred to it as the Reading Area back around page 7 or 8, when you first decided to compare it to London... with good reason.
But yes, the borough is one such definition of the area and the extent of the town. It's well known as the largest town in the UK and is bigger than some cities.

If you like, we can limit it just to the inner town itself and forget the suburbs, sub-districts and anywhere else that considers itself Reading... But that would require a consistent approach and so, being in the borough of Southwark (which is technically Surrey), you as a Peckham resident would not actually be a Londoner...!!

Still, that doesn't change my view at all.

No-one cares about your view, as that was evidently set in stone from the moment your opinionated perspectives appeared in this thread.
I'm just making sure you're aware of your intentional ignorance.

As for the restaurants in Bray, I guess it depends where you draw the line but I would say Bray was closer to London than it is to Reading Town centre after looking on google maps.

So you decide one boundary but conveniently forget the other?
Even being very generous and putting the limits around the county of Middlesex area (which doesn't like to consider itself London), that still gives you about 12 miles to Bray, which is further than the distance to Reading, even according to Google.

Anyway, going to the restaurant in Brays can be risky to your health according to this Guardian article:

Since more than three-quarters of British-grown oysters contain norovirus, it was fairly inevitable such a high-volume seller of local produce would get hit, and yet that still didn't dissuade tens of thousands of people who seemed to understand the risk of going anywhere that serves oysters... at least according to that same article from almost a decade ago. Worth nothing that the FD did not lose its stars as a result of the incident, either... Meanwhile in London, The Araki, formerly a 3-star until this year, was completely deleted from the Guide.

I already knew about the journey from Peckham to Reading but it's not a direct journey at all and takes longer to travel than the direct route via Paddington. I'm please to say I shall save the £17.50 for better things like the 70 odd Michelin star restaurants in London.

There is one change at Clapham... and since you don't live in Paddington, you'd have to make at least one change using that route too.
But while that cash won't buy you much in a London restaurant, and likely not even cover the taxi fare, you'd at least get a full five or seven course for less using it to go outside of London and from higher rated restaurants.

I assume you are talking about the Stables Market in Camden Town. I've been there before the fire and they sell nothing but overpriced second hand junk for unsuspecting tourist. But I guess you are full of junk judging by the nonsense you put out!!!

Overpriced? In London? Surely not?
So you missed all the things like the tailors and bespoke leatherware, then? I'm not surprised. You don't seem very interested in looking at any details closely before forming your opinion.

Never rated Sister Ray, much prefer Soul Brothers in Putney which caters for people in the know.

Depends on preferred genre, but if you were in the know, you'd be going to Brighton anyway.

Thanks for letting me know about the quotes. I shall console myself knowing that I live in 11th coolest place in the world by Timeout magazine. And oh, my property price isn't doing too badly either.

Property price is even better in Reading. Must be all those commuters who'd rather live here than in London.

I'm more entertained by the idea that you need a magazine to tell you what is cool!!

Moreover, you pick one that prefers to pretentiously call itself a "content powerhouse" instead of a magazine, is well known for shilling dubious ticket deals and business marketing support packages, treats its staff badly, lacks editorial integrity and is motivated solely by money... in fact, the more I read about it, the more it sounds like a Tory agitprop rag for the Civil Service.

Honestly, one would think that from all the Tory embracing going on, you'd actually be happy that they won.
I mean, we have all these smart graduates, even from the not-London places like Cambridge, Oxford, Durham, St Andrews, Lancaster, Bath, Loughborough, Exeter, Birmingham, Warwick... and as a collective they still voted Tory.