For all your faults, I doubt that you were that bad.
Westminster Politics
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
For all your faults, I doubt that you were that bad.
Except it is working, right now, in country after country. In Britain Labour and the Liberals before them have introduced pensions for all, free basic health care, free education to 18, housing benefits for those that wouldn't afford anything otherwise, benefits for the sick, the disabled and the unemployed, the list goes on and on, and all paid for out of taxes, nothing else, just taxes. Yes the left would like to go further and the right would like to reverse it a bit, but the fact is a great many left-wing principles have been won, are here to stay, and rightly so.
So true. "Ian Duncan Smith in an afro." made me chuckle.
If it is working, what are you all still moaning about then? You’ve never had it so good to coin MacMillans phrase.
On a more serious, less flippant note.
Yes, the left have introduced some pillars of modern society as you say (though the quality and maintenance of some of these are questionable through lack of income/investment/affordability) & we aren't sending kids down the Coal mines any longer. But it’s still nowhere near approaching an egalitarian British society or wider world is it?
...and those elites are still there just as they have been for hundreds of years.
I get what you're saying but yeah... The elites in Germany during Hitler's rise were the landed vassals and nobility but also it was a phrase used to try and turn the public against the Jewish community. Not to mention Germany's elite class throughout the years after WW2, when the class opened up, has been filled by those who have worked to gain the status. Not inherited wealth and class isolation such as the generation after generation of old wealth families that exist in what predominantly is referred to as this country's "elite".
But, aye, you of course have a very good point. People have and always will be distracted and coerced into believing that their party are awesome and the rest are all evil scheming wankers. I used to naively think that about Labour and then the SNPs.
A lot of people, it seems sadly. Andrew Langley and then Jeremy Hunt have had no problems carving up the NHS for their own personal gain. Labour, for all their bluster have been no better since the rise (and fall) of New Labour, when they opened up the public service to foundation trusts and letting private companies access commissioning. My dad always loved the say "99% of people are good, 99% of the time". There's no denying that across the political landscape people are making money off of every policy - even the ones that we think are completely altruistic. After all, you don't get anything for free.
Maybe that's where the divide ultimately is. We all know that those at the top are always going to make money, and we all have things that we excuse because they benefit us. The difference is whether those things benefit you to the detriment of others or if they have the potential to benefit everyone. Sometimes, however, the things that might solely benefit some to the detriment of others (private healthcare that puts millions of Americans into debt every year) benefits everyone (public healthcare services like ours using medical procedures and medicines for free that were created by those same US private companies that put some of their profits into R&D).
It did work, it was the 90s. It wasn't perfect but...
...we had a balance that was fairer. Maybe not perfect but it was more evenly spread out. All that's happened in the years following the crunch is rhetoric about how "nothing can be fixed" as if we're meant to forget about what happened before. It's also a clever way of trying to divert our attention from what incompetent behaviours and practices caused the whole thing to collapse in the first place. Rather than rebuild and learn from our mistakes we've just shifted back to class warfare and soundbites.
This has made me think though... we should build our own country. You can handle trade, finances, all the day to day politics and I'll eat chips on a lounge chair.
No. They just aren't driven blindly by one ideology unlike those that stick strictly to the right and left. Hey, the day I figure out how to divine the course I'll let you know.
That's exactly why I used the examples I did. All newspaper readers read what they read because they like their views reflected back at them and they all soak them up.
I actually believe clumsy and inappropriate rhetoric doesn't always make someone inherently racist. I may get lambasted for that view but hey. We don't know if he is actually racist any more than we know Jeremy Corbyn is anti-semitic. It's just conjecture for those that want to believe it.
I would have come back with, 'and I'm not confident that you won't cut a deal with the Tories and vote for what ever they tell you as long as they give you a seat on the cabinet but we've got to rise above that if we want to stop Brexit.'
It's as old as democracy itself. The originators of democracy, the Athenians, made some utterly moronic decisions when influenced by populist politicians who were more interested in their own agenda than serving the public.
I don't see how the current problems get fixed no matter who is in charge.
With the exception that I have never seen or heard Corbyn say anything that is the equivalent of Johnson saying "watermelon smiles" or "piccaninnies" or how Obama had an "ancestral dislike" for Britain as he was "part-Kenyan" or calling burkhas "letterboxes" or those who wear them looking like "bank robbers" or how 'Papa New Guinea style' is "orgies of cannibalism and chief killing" or how the rise in Malaysian women attending universities was so that they could find husbands.
Let's spread it out into general bigotry while we're at it. Since Johnson has called gay people "tank topped bumboys" and equated gay marriage to being the same as "three men and a dog".
At what point do we stop calling all of these "bluster" and fobbing them off as being simple slips of the tongue, and start facing the reality that these are things he genuinely believes? You don't keep saying this stuff accidentally unless you think there's truth behind it.
Seriously? I know he said the second part of the sentence about gay marriage.
Edit. Just read the quote
Boris doesn't have the political capital to survive that process, nor the time or patience in parliament to attempt it.
It was you moaning as I recall, not me
I don’t know who this guy is, but I said basically exactly this just a week or so ago. He’s clearly a plagiarizing cnut.
Although actually his conclusion is wrong. Boris doesn’t want an election before the leave date, he wants it after the Remain parliament has forced a new referendum. Then he gets to both avoid the damage of leaving AND channel the anger of the leave crowd.
I'm surprised Boris hasn't pledged to stop these filthy hot North African temperatures migrating to Britain.
In reverse order: had Corbyn at any point referred to yids or some such you may have a point. He has not. It seems to me to be a distinction beyond meaning to suggest that those who speak like a racist are not. But then I lack the clarity of mind of a centrist. I think a high profile politician such as Johnson is beyond the point where clumsy language is an acceptable excuse.
I understand that people will read media that reflect their views. However, to compare the Guardian to the Mail is ludicrous. There is not an equivalence due to their politics.
There's no point trying to talk sense, Johnson cares about nothing apart from his own political career and how he can advance it. Now he's going to do all he can to cling on to power for as long as possible.
I can't believe I saw BJ claiming this will be the best place on earth. Since when did British Exceptionalism become a thing? I thought that went after the 50s.
I don't disagree that a high profile politician should be unaccountable for their words and I'm not excusing Boris. I'm just not totally convinced he's inherently a racist person.
And i'm not making a comparison or equivalence between the guardian and the mail. Just stating that the readers of both will choose to believe what is written in them simply because they want to. To each set of readers it is their truth.
I don’t know who this guy is, but I said basically exactly this just a week or so ago. He’s clearly a plagiarizing cnut.
Although actually his conclusion is wrong. Boris doesn’t want an election before the leave date, he wants it after the Remain parliament has forced a new referendum. Then he gets to both avoid the damage of leaving AND channel the anger of the leave crowd.
I think this attributes far more machinations to Boris' strategy than is realistic or accurate. This is a man who got knifed by Michael Gove ffs.
And there are massive gaps in this supposed strategy:
1. to eat the brexit party vote you'd have to go to the country on a manifesto that promises no-deal within that parliament - that is a strategy that probably tops you out at 30% of the vote
2. the strategy relies on parliament stopping no-deal. something it actually failed to do in April, Theresa May just bailed.
Basically I think its far more likely that he should be read at face value: he is going to ask the EU for things they cannot give, when they refuse he is going to pursue no-deal Brexit.
It's one thing to do this when you can promise all things to all people. When you are actually in government and have to choose a type of Brexit, it won't work
If that were true, Remain would’ve won by an absolute landslide.
He's already going full speed for the Brexit party voters. He's packed his cabinet with hardcore leavers and set out a very clear stall for no-deal (with the silly caveat of 'we'll ask for a deal they cant give us first!'). He knows damn well though that parliament will not allow a no deal. There is no version of the parliamentary maths that supports that. So at some point they are going to step in and prevent it, and barring cancelling Brexit (which they certainly don't have the balls to do) the only realistic options are either a no confidence vote or a vote on a referendum.
The remain Tories are much more likely to vote for a referendum than they are to simply toppling their own government, and both options require Tory votes, so it seems logical that they'll push in that direction, and it seems equally likely that Boris won't fight too hard to prevent such a vote, given that the alternative would be an early departure from Downing Street for him (plus he really doesn't care about Leave ideologically).
So if it goes to a referendum, Britain will likely vote to stay after all that's happened and the polling over the last year. Boris then gets to furiously denounce everyone who supported a new referendum, steal back all the Brexit Party voters by channeling their rage, and very likely quickly hold (and win) a new general election with some vague promises (lies) about looking again at EU departure/some new referendum blah blah.
Boris is not a stupid man, and neither are the Tory strategists. They can read the political winds and polling perfectly competently and right now there really aren't many paths to Boris remaining as PM for very long. The above is one of the few choices he has available. It's risky as hell, and could collapse around his ears, but it could also work.
The Uk economy is highly dependent on imports from the EU and the UK manufacturing industry is highly dependent on the supply chain from the EU. Furthermore, the majority of the House of Commons had already voted against a no deal Brexit. If the EU & BoJo are true to their word about the backstop and BoJo is true to his word about leaving the EU on the 31st of October come what may, then the UK will head towards a constitutional & economic crisis after the 31st. Furthermore, devolution of the UK will become ever more likely. The good news about these scenarios is that BoJo should be out of a job within 12 months.
How did parliament vote against no deal? I thought they only voted against being shut down right before the extension expires?
Maybe I’m not familiar with all the technicalities, but I was under the impression that parliament voted against a no deal Brexit under any circumstances on the 13th of March?
Afaik that one was just UK politicians chasing unicorns again:
In a night of high drama in the Commons, MPs surprised the government and voted by 312 to 308 to reject a no-deal Brexit under any circumstances.
The vote is not binding - under current law the UK could still leave without a deal on 29 March.
[...]
A European Commission spokesperson said: "There are only two ways to leave the EU: with or without a deal. The EU is prepared for both.
"To take no deal off the table, it is not enough to vote against no deal - you have to agree to a deal.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-47562995
What are the consequences of the government going ahead with a no deal Brexit on the 31st despite parliament voting against a no deal Brexit?
That's what people don't seem to understand. Goverment doesn't have to go ahead with anything. No deal brexit was already set in motion years ago, when art 50 was triggered, it's not an active decision that anyone has to take anymore. It's the automatic default. To prevent it you have to ratify May's deal, which parliament themselves refused three times.
I would expect a vote of no confidence in government is there only option. Legislation is alreafy in place for no deal. Its the default. To change that no legislation needs to be put forward before 10th September for it to make it on the books in time I understand. I doubt it would pass in any case.
Snoop Mogg in action!
Didn't realise Rees-Mogg was a Bill and Ted fan.
As Moggy doesn't like the metric system the UK won't be shipping anywhere as all international shipping documents have to be in metric. Firkin Hell.
Look into the 'context' of their spending if you like. Look into the increasing rate of national debt over the last 9 years too. Then add the context of reduced corporation tax. China being handed the keys to a nuclear power plant in Somerset. The shambles that is Brexit (whether you want in it out you can't argue it has not been an absolute shambles).
If you think Conservatives are the sensible option for the economy after the last 3 years of uncertainty you must be high off Tory kool aid.
Olde man yells at ye cloudes
That seems like great advice.
Especially the double spaces and no commas after and.
Especially the double spaces and no commas after and.
Same. What is this meant for? A typewriter?Double space
The Oxford comma is great. Double space, however, is shit.