UK Politics #6

[Moth]

'Far right' means a party is extreme. It's, increasingly, a term that's used by the likes of Owen Jones to describe anyone who doesn't agree with him. Right leaning isn't 'far right.'

'Far right' isn't quantifiable, it's a subjective and largely a comparative term. So 'right leaning' is a pretty useless description unless you're going to qualify it by saying that a party is right leaning and another party is leaning a bit more to the right than that party while another is leaning even further!
While 'far right' is historically only used to denote fascism or Nazism, in a modern sense it encompasses groups that primarily espouse radical conservatism, ultra nationalist and authoritarian thinking e.g the 'alt-right' in the US. You can't have missed Liz Truss cosying up to the 'face' of the Alt-right i.e. Steve Bannon and how many member of the current Tory party still support her and her ultra 'free-market' libertarianism. When you also consider some of the policies that recent Tory party has adopted e.g limiting the right to strike, the right to protest, seeking to limit human rights it is hard not to come to the conclusion that the Tory party are now further 'right' than they have been. Parties like Reform (previously the Brexit party) and before that UKIP are just as economically right -wing as the Tories but socially (even) more authoritarian which places them closer to what 'far right' has traditionally been held to mean.

 

[Ennui]

Heads should roll. They won't.

 

[Ndrangheta]

Although I didn't vote for Blair, I thought the country as a whole felt a more positive place to live in when he was PM (at least at the start). He did far more damage to Iraq than he did to the UK imo. I don't actually know who did the most damage, it's a pretty complex question. I know which one I loathe the most though ... Cameron, closely followed by Johnson. Big round of applause for Eton College ... really doing some great fucking work! (Also producing Osbourne).

 

[FenellaTheWitch]

Some people only seem to demand by-elections when the person involved deflects to a party they don't favour.

If to a party they do favour, then a by-election shouldn't be called, or the need for one is downplayed.

I don't recall seeing the same levels of 'by-election now', when Christian Wakefield deflected to Labour.

I personally believe any deflection should trigger a by-election, regardless of political party

100%. I don't care who's defecting where. If you change parties then it should automatically trigger one.

 

[Moth]

Just a few more mile markers on this government's plummet into the depths of totalitarianism. Braverman wants to make it illegal for the homeless to live in tents and fine charities that hand them out as she believes it's "a lifestyle choice". Perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise. After all it was all the way back in the late 1980s that Tory Minister (and now Tory peer) Sir George Young notably said "The homeless? Aren’t they the people you step over when you came out of the opera?" and there is no possibility that Tories have become more compassionate since then.

Braverman has also now said unequivocally that every single person who takes part in the marches in support of Palestine is "hateful".

Oh and there's the not at all worrying revelation that the government plans to broaden the definition of who they consider to be 'extremists' to include anyone who (in their opinion) “undermines” the country’s institutions and its values.

I'm just eternally grateful that I don't have the kind of twisted mindset that could contemplate this never ending stream of incompetence, contempt, corruption and coercion and think "Yes, I might vote for more of that".

 

[Moth]

We don't owe anybody anything except we owe council tenants the opportunity to buy their council house at a knock down price not available to other people who haven't been lucky enough to get a council house and thus reducing their chances of getting one in the future.

Selling off council houses wasn't anything to do with giving people an opportunity to be a homeowner, it was to reduce the state's responsibility for housing. Same as selling off council houses to housing associations.

 

[BaxterBillions]

Why do people want to vote for reform? I know a few people who do too

It's just a receptacle for the far-right, xenophobe, homophobe types who worked up about stuff like "woke". There's always been somewhere for them and the last 20 or so years Farage has been a beacon for them.

 

[Moley1]

Now we hear that the Rwanda farce has cost another £100m on top of the ££140m already spent with another £50m going there next year! As Keir Starmer said in PMQs this week, all that money and they have only managed to send 3 Home Secretaries there so far!
Honestly, you couldn’t make it up. This government are beyond parody.

 

[Merpedy]

Braverman's letter is a bit of a giggle. Rishi isn't taking enough risk and isn't decisive enough. She took a risk with the statement on homelessness (or they both did) and the police stuff and it clearly ended in disaster. Perhaps it's a sign that her suggestions weren't very good to begin with?

 

[Bobby Chariot]

Galloway's a shyster, sees a gap in the market opportunity & stands for election, a complete & utter chancer, it wasn't that long ago he was a pro-brexit, UK- first bullshitter, now he's re-branded as George's Workers Party of GB or whatever.
What a state UK politics is in, lol.

 

[Bobby Chariot]

Peter Bone's 18,000 Tory majority in Wellingborough wiped out.
The biggest swing in any post-war election.

 

[CrackingOwlSanctuary]

I suspect if Suella was PM she wouldn't have rehired herself after her first sacking.

 

[CrackingOwlSanctuary]

The most frsutrating thing about this shit show is they are basically voting on whether there should be a stop the war poster on the wall in the common room. Israel is ignoring America so it definitely doesn't care what our government comes out with.

As much as the situation over there is terrible I'm afraid the average voter won't care either way when it comes to the polls.

 

[thegirlscout]

I can't stand Hoyle. The other day he was going on about how concerned he was about the safety of MP's ... Dianne was directly affected by this very thing and he ignored her? Just let the woman say her piece you 'twatwaffle'.

Yes, it was ridiculous he ignored her when the whole conversation they were having was about her!

 

[aulty]

It has broken my heart to see the demise of our country, the fact that poppy sellers were mobbed and we could not respect our fallen during a sacred event without the attention being diverted.

If you are referring to the news stories about poppy sellers being mobbed, like the one that supposedly happened in a train station in Edinburgh, they have been looked into and no evidence was found.

 

[Ndrangheta]

I posted this in another thread (LBC Chit Chat) and it's not strictly UK Politics but as whatever happens in the US invariably affects us so I thought I'd post it here because it's important (at least to me).

... Trump was convicted by a grand-jury of sexual-assualt against a woman (by fingering her in a department store without consent), he then defamed her by saying essentially 'she loved it and it made her famous' and was subsequently found guilty by a jury of 12 members of the public and ordered to pay millions of dollars. Ask yourself, how would YOU feel if you daughter or loved-one was sexually assualted? Ask yourself about the kind of person who normalizes this sort of stuff by defending Trump by not mentioning it.

Trump has been declared bankrupt numerous times. He has numerous cases of corruption pending. He incited an insurrection and still contends the last election was a fix. Anyone who defends him in the media is doing so for one of two reasons: (a) They want to be paid and are liars or (b) they have a psychiatric disorder. Anyone who normalizes him is complicit in his crimes. Admittedly, that last bit could be viewed as extreme, but that's how I feel personally. The man is utterly vile. He also wears a diaper and shits his pants, but I haven't got the evidence for that right now.

I do agree though, LBC, like all commercial media outlets sows seeds of division. If it bleeds, it leads. Whatever Nick Ferrari may say, the legacy media (Global in this case) exist for one reason and one reason alone: to make a profit for their shareholders. The best way to create profit is not to broadcast reasonable, fair-minded, non-divisive, educational material. That's BORING, no one wants to listen to THAT. THAT doesn't make MONEY.

 

[Piff paff puff]

I feel bad for the people of Rochdale. George Galloway speaking now having won and the first thing he says is about Gaza. So the grooming gangs and local issues wont be addressed and dealt with and instead more inflaming of extremists of a war in another country.

 

[Moth]

The letter from Braverman is not so much revealing as confirmation of what many people already believed. Braverman was a disgrace to her office, a national liability, a hate monger, a vicious prejudiced ghoul who did nothing but harm. Sunak was prepared to tolerate and even encourage her simply to gain her support for his own venal purposes. Government and democracy are the last things at play here.

 

[HelloStereo]

I think a lot of these working age people not working due to mental health, ADHD, autism (those with anxiety) is due to their consuming 24/7 doom and gloom news.
They're worrying about overseas wars and seeing graphic images and being brainwashed by the eco nuts saying the world will be on fire. That kind of thing must really affect growing brains.
When I was a kid all there was was TV and newspaper, my family didn't listen to radio and when the news came on I went out to play as it was very boring to me. Though I seem to recall a couple of sensational headlines that worried me at the time. As an adult I've never sought out news but obviously you can't avoid it all the time.

Maybe, it doesn't help that many of us are glued to our phones all the time now.

I think it's a perfect storm of a number of things. There seems to be a less positive outlook on the world now, coupled with a high cost of living, seemingly rubbish job market.

You go to uni only to be rejected for a job at McDonald's, saddled with crippling student debt and paying hundreds in rent, knowing you will never be able to afford your own home.

It's all really very depressing. Anyway, happy Wednesday. Looking forward to saving my 2p in National Insurance contributions.

 

[FenellaTheWitch]

Re vaping ... I'm no expert (obvs) but it just seems obvious to me that inhaling anything your body doesn't need is not going to be good for it. It will be interesting to see the statistics in 10 years time about damage done by vaping eg mouth cancers.