BS: David Cameron is execrable

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 05:02 AM

"and folk music in general, should be to so considerable an extent a haven for lefties"
Those who got the music noticed way back when considered it the music of 'the common people' - social rather than political.
Personally in forty years of researching, I've never had any reason to challenge that concept, you only had to spend five minutes talking to Walter Pardon or any Traveller to confirm this.
Fine to separate that music from its roots if that's what turns you on, but surely you can have no objection to others who would do otherwise.
"quasi·Marxian agendas."
I would expect no other response from those on the right, who would rather regard working people as a cultureless "salts of the earth".
"True, but they do not think it is."
Doesn't alter the fact that it is - proof of the pudding.
Don't know where 'The Mirror' enters into this - just as much a right-wing bumwipe nowadays.
As I said - Lady Gagga and Corrie are indications of mass taste nowadays - effects of Capitalism controlling our media.
A few years ago I started taking 'The Times' (for Codeword) - slightly better written, but a pale shadow of 'The Thunderer' it once was.
Recently, the sewer level they have stooped to in political debate (particularly about Corbyn) has confined me to Codeword and The Crossword.
"Sorry, but left wing views are a minority,"
The level of interest in parliamentary politics and the well-desrved contempt that all politicians are held in by the mass of the people as a whole is the majority view nowadays - minority governments elected by a minority of the electorate is a reflection of the state of democracy today.
Come back Edward Gibbon - we need you!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: akenaton
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 05:14 AM

The folk musicians and singers that I grew up listening to, were home grown and far from "left wing"...They had a pride in themselves, sang of their joy and sorrow, they revelled in life and all its facets.

Long before folk music was adopted by the political left.
In fact I think Dixieland Jazz was more of an influence than folk music as it led on to the better understanding of black "culture" and political involvement in the civil rights movement.
Reading about the history of the American traditional jazz players certainly gave me my first political insight.

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 05:19 AM

I know nurse said you shouldn't get excited, but I am going to risk it by partially agreeing with you.

One working class hero (a public schooled solicitor in leafy Kent) said in one thread that I can't appreciate folk music because I'm not "working-class" any more. Put aside what that means, and presumably, I'll have to put my flat cap and greyhound on eBay....

Of course, you get two dimensional ignorance at all ends of the pendulum. Take Keith's hilarious stance above that because The Daily M*il sells more than The Daily Mirror, it reflects public opinion.

He really should get out more. (Sorry, good people of Hertford.)

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: TheSnail
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 05:28 AM

Backwoodsman, I'd rather be sworn at than called a Tory supporter. I see it's downgraded to an assumption now. Apparently disagreeing with something you said makes me "an obvious Tory supporter".

How would you describe it otherwise?

Democracy. You still haven't answered my question. If you don't like democracy what are you going to put in its place?

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: akenaton
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 05:30 AM

Don't see anything "hilarious" in what Keith said, sales of both papers reflect and influence public opinion it's just that the Mail reflects a much larger percentage of the population's views than the Mirror.

Personally, I do not take a newspaper,

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 05:31 AM

because The Daily M*il sells more than The Daily Mirror, it reflects public opinion.

It does reflect the opinion of its readers, and its circulation is second only to The Sun.

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: akenaton
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 05:38 AM

Sorry, I made a mistake in the immigration figures earlier, the figure of 330,000 was NET Migration, the difference between those coming to the UK and those leaving the actual number coming into the UK was 650,000.

Apparently, I in 8 people in the UK were born abroad.

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 05:46 AM

Meanwhile back at the beer festival we also sampled Poachers (Hykeham) Trembling Rabbit at 3.4% and Portobello (London) VPA at 5.5%

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: Stu
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 05:51 AM

"Sorry, but left wing views are a minority"

Depends who your friends are. I'm lucky in having friends that are scientists, musicians of all types, visual artists and designers and writers (including poets) as good friends and they are overwhelmingly what you might call 'left wing', although I would suggest it's something different.

These people all have one thing in common: they are curious about the world, how and why it works and see the value in people; they also tend to be less short-termist and interest in acquiring wealth and status. Very few of these people (there are always exceptions of course) are what some might consider 'right-wing'. Many are doctors and folk who work with those less advantaged in life and understand human suffering can be avoided by working as a cohesive society.

These folk aren't saints by any stretch, but they seem to form their opinions less by hitching themselves to someone else's ideology and more by considering actual evidence and circumstance.

The difference between 'left' and 'right' appears to me to be something to do with how you view the world in terms of understanding that science and art can reveal fundamental truths that are essentially independent of any ideology (for instance, geologists don't give a shit if you don't believe in schist; it's there whether you do or not). This translates into a deeper questioning of the nature of life and how we can exist with both each other and everything else we share the planet with; compassion arises naturally as a result of understanding our uniqueness and interconnectedness.

The modern 'right' simply doesn't engage with these questions on any level. It's adherents actively avoid ANY deeper attempt to understand anything that counters their own ideology. This simplistic, nihilistic philosophy is now endemic in the political class, a self-centric worldview that has spread from the excesses of our unregulated corporate culture and now essentially runs the world. Tories, Labour, LibDems, they're all part of the problem. Bilderberg anyone?

This is why Corbyn strikes a chord with so many people and has frightened the politicos of Labour; his core arguments that people should come first, society matters and should be inclusive and equitable are an anathema to the corporate shills that run the country: to them, making a profit is all that matters regardless of the consequences. They have abandoned any pretence of upping the social responsibility that comes with employing lots of people and gathering resources in a sustainable way.

Unregulated, greed-is-good capitalism has failed as surely as communism did in Russia, and people are suffering and dying in numbers across the globe because of this failure. Time to rid the world of this absolutist left-right dichotomy and turn to evidence-based policy formation unencumbered by simplistic ideologies and unthinking, intellectually lazy corporate drones. Time for a change.

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: akenaton
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 05:58 AM

I think that is more or less what I have been saying Stu, with a few reservations.
While in transition, we still have to feed ourselves take care of the infrastructure, keep law and order.......this has always been the stumbling block as so many with just "a little bit to lose", will obstruct.

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: akenaton
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 06:02 AM

That is extremely interesting Raggytash, but I'm not sure what it has to do with British politics?

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: akenaton
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 06:04 AM

Stu has written a careful and sensitive post on the subject under discussion, it is insulting to interrupt the flow of the thread by printing something completely off topic.....even if it is extremely important to you?

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 06:22 AM

I think you will find that Stu posted AFTER I did, if you want to have a go at me fine, but at least get your facts correct.

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 06:30 AM

"The folk musicians and singers that I grew up listening to, were home grown and far from "left wing""
The people who stated the present revival were left wing and the brought a social consciousness to the music - as did, in a different way, the people who took the music and used it to make something else incuding the'beautiful people' in the swinging sixties.
You can certainly enjoy folk songs without acknowledging its social significance if that's your choice, but it's only eating a part of the apple, as far as I'm concerned - and having a social interest in folksong as having "quasi·Marxian agendas" is indicative of an agenda, in my experience.
"Long before folk music was adopted by the political left."
It was never "adopted" by the political left - it was brought to the public's attention by cultural let wing groups such as The Workers Music Association, and later by MacColl and Lloyd, whose love of the music for itself has always been unquestionable.
"It does reflect the opinion of its readers, and its circulation is second only to The Sun."
There isn't a shred of evidence that this is the case - neither of them can claim a political following, nor ever have.
The third in line is 'The Mirror' then The Evening Standard.
The bottom of the pile if 'The Independent', which probably reflects the general view of the British people more than any of them.
It's interesting to look down the lists of readership period in the long term.
Between 1950 and 1999, the Mirror was second popular paper in Britain, behind the Sun most recently, before that, behind the Daily Ezpress.
As the Mirror's politics swung to the right, its readership declined.
The Mail has always been right wing (at on time, its owner, Lord Rothermere, was an open supporter of the Nazi regime)
One of the facts of British interest in the media, people no longer rely on the press for information - if they want that, they go to the broadsheets, or those who still eschew broadsheet standards - rapidly diminishing in the hands of Rupe the Drongo and his ilk.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 06:40 AM

I think David is doing a fantastic job, I look forward to ten years of a Conservative government in which we will see the end of a benefits culture, teen party house rewards for becoming pregnant, a massive reduction in immigration to the UK, Eastern Europeans refused benefits and the British taxpayer paying family allowance to half of Poland.

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 06:56 AM

"...nowadays - minority governments elected by a minority of the electorate is a reflection of the state of democracy today".
.,,.

That "nowadays" and "today" are tendentiously misapplied, Jim: in that it has never been any different. There has never been a government elected by an absolute majority of those voting, let alone with a majority of the electorate as a whole [with poss exception of 1945, when figures were skewed by all sorts of extraneous factors -- and then it was only just - about 51·5% iirc]. Our constituency-based/1st-past-post system demonstrably doesn't lead to governments elected by a statistical majority; but all surveys & referenda, the last very recently, have consistently demonstrated this to be the system preferred by most voters. Sorry if it doesn't lead to the governments that that-lot-over-there would prefer; but as this system as practised is clearly the preference of the demos, and as they claim to be democrats, they will just have to live with it, eh?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 07:14 AM

"Jim: in that it has never been any different."
Contempt for politicians has reached new levels
That governments have nearly always been elected by a minority is probably true - parliamentary democracy has always been a misnomer, but as our media has swum#ng more and more to the right and out political choice has become virtually indistinguishable one from the other, so our 'democracy' has become less and less democratic.
"preferable"??? - we are set fair for yet another economic crash - never managed to get my head around Marxist theory, he did project the idea that capitalism would decline into more and more crises leading to more and more repression, particularly of the less well-off in society - it seems to be "all happening now", as the song said.
Perferable to those least likely to be affected, maybe!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 07:22 AM

Talk all you want, but Conservatism is here for the next decade thank God

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 07:36 AM

Mollusc - stop being disingenuous. You posted the comment, "I think that has to be the most repulsive statement I've ever seen on Mudcat", completely without context, completely without any explanation as to why you thought that. In the absence of context, it is perfectly natural for anyone reading it to place their own context on it. To pretend that's not the case is, at the very least, disingenuous, at worst, dishonest.

I've already explained that I fully support democracy, Your persistent failure to understand that, or perhaps it's your pretence that I don't, says far more about you than it does about me.

In case you're still unable to understand what's written in plain English, I'll set it out once more in as simple terms as possible:-

I'm a strong, lifelong believer in the principles of democracy.

I'm a strong, lifelong believer in honesty.

I'm a strong, lifelong believer that democracy and honesty are inextricably linked.

I'm a strong, lifelong believer that, without honesty, democracy cannot truly exist.

I believe that the Conservative Party's campaign at the last GE lacked substance, in the form of policies it was prepared to announce and stand by.

I believe that the Conservative Party's campaign at the last GE was based on scare-mongering and lies designed to undermine their opponents, rather than providing truthful information and involving open and honest debate in order for the electorate to make San informed decision for the good of the nation as a whole.

I believe that the conduct of their campaign in that way by the Conservative Party destroyed democracy at the last GE, because undecided voters who were unable to see through the smoke-screen thus laid by the Conservative Party and its media-poodles were unable to base their judgment on truth.

Got it now?

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 07:49 AM

"Conservatism is here for the next decade thank God"
Can't as I don't subscribe to primitive superstition, but if it is, so are unacceptable levels of unemployment, further economic crises, increasing homelessness, poverty and a widening gap between haves and have nots (look at the figures) - all of which, under the Conservatives (by whichever party) is doled out in bucketfuls - talk all YOU want (obviously not about the reality of the situation - your side never do)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 07:53 AM

Or, to put it another way, I don't propose anything to 'replace' democracy - I propose that parties determine to work honestly and steadfastly within existing democratic principles.

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 07:54 AM

How did the train trip go Raggytash? Sorry I couldn't join you. Mind you, the smoked fish I brought back has found a good home, (belly) and the session I went to Sunday lunchtime was possibly my favourite of the festival.

Apparently they sell more kippers than smoked haddock at that small Whitby smokery so the whole of The UK prefers kippers. Now there's a fact worthy of Keith's logic...

Perhaps Keith's assertion that because The Daily M*il sells the most, followed by The S*n, can be more easily explained by the type of lazy reactionary who only reads what agrees with him. Says more about their intellect than the excellent business model of the tabloids. The Indescribablyboring shows us that those who read newspapers don't want facts, they just want to justify their own bigotry. Hence the failed business model, propped up only by those who like a good read but don't want shallow idiots on the train with Keith's mindset judging them by their choice of comic. (Prejudging is the word to use of course.)

Of course, Keith is also making the mental leap that to read it is to agree with it. I should read The S*n then, because I'd rather stare at a pair of tits than read the bollocks in their editorial.

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 07:55 AM

Sorry Jim, that was for our tame mollusc, not you.
It's difficult when there are multiple conversations running, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: GUEST,Dave
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 08:29 AM

Very good post by Stu above. Backwoodsman, the main problem is that the media have distorted the political debate, and there is a good case for enforcing a duty of impartiality on the printed press as well as the broadcast media. Especially when so much of the media is owned by foreign interests. The lies of the conservatives, the paranoia, the xenophobia (of which the Scottish seemed to be amongst the primary targets) not only echoed conservative thought, but fuelled it. Would Hammond or May or Javid or Hancock be espousing such extreme viewpoints if not egged on by the Murdoch and Dacre press? I have no doubt that Gove and IDS would, they really believe this stuff, but I am not so sure about the others. We either have to have a restriction on foreign ownership, or a duty of impartiality, or both.

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: GUEST,Roger Knowles
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 09:27 AM

So are virtually all politicians.

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 09:42 AM

The folk musicians and singers that I grew up listening to, were home grown and far from "left wing"

This from a man growing up in Scotland and, presumably, listening to local folk music in, what? 50s? 60s? 70s? Music inspired by names like Dick Gaughan, Hamish Imlach and Hamish Henderson?

Either lying about Scottish folk music, never heard it or is an idiot. I would go for all three.

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 09:49 AM

"It's difficult when there are multiple conversations running, eh?"
You talkin ta me, huh?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: TheSnail
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 09:53 AM

Backwoodsman
I've already explained that I fully support democracy

Dismissing everyone who didn't vote the way you wanted to as feeble-minded is incompatible with democracy. Everything you say about the Tory party and the right wing press is true. It's your contempt for the electorate that I have trouble with.

What does it achieve? Do you think they are sat there in Labour Party HQ thinking "All those Tory voters are obviously feeble-minded so there's nothing we can do about that."? I imagine they are looking for ways to win them back.

Your accusation that I was "an obvious Tory supporter" was not based on anything I actually said. My accusation that you are anti-democratic is based on precisely what you said.

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 10:32 AM

I can't be arsed to argue with you any more. I don't have contempt for the electorate, I have contempt for liars and deceivers who prey on those who can't or won't think it through for themselves.

And I have contempt for keyboard warriors like you who are spoiling for a fight from the anonymity of their computer.

Sorry, fun's over, you'll have to find another victim.

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: akenaton
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 10:35 AM

I don't usually respond to trolls, but I can't miss this one.
An English resident of Polish origin lecturing me on Scottish folk music.....:0)

My time was before Gaughan, Imlach, or Henderson. Although I knew Big Hamish pretty well and respect the writing of Hamish Henderson, I wouldn't describe either as very "left wing".

No you cheeky little troll, I was brought up on Gaelic song a culture all on its own in which the intricacies of labour relations or gender "equality" never intruded. Life was simple joyous and often hard.....but "that's what makes it worth while" as my disabled uncle used to tell me.

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 10:40 AM

I believe that the Conservative Party's campaign at the last GE was based on scare-mongering and lies designed to undermine their opponents, rather than providing truthful information and involving open and honest debate in order for the electorate to make San informed decision for the good of the nation as a whole.

That just does not stand up.
Labour put their own case and attacked the Tory case.
Labour, Lib Dems, SNP and UKIP and the broadcasters would expose any "scare-mongering and lies" of the Tories.

The electorate of England is just not very left wing.
That does not mean that they must be exceptionally gullible, and easily hoaxed by "scare-mongering and lies."
You kid yourself.

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 10:44 AM

Xenophobic to boot..

I doubt the likes of the Scottish political performers would wish to align themselves with the confused ramblings portrayed on here.

Anyway, Gaughan supports SNP, which makes you politically way off his radar...

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 10:50 AM

Rag, there is a current thread actually devoted to beer anecdotes.
You have made just one post on it, and not even about beer!
Do you even read thread titles?

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: akenaton
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 11:08 AM

The troll said I was "Either lying or an idiot", but I am neither a liar nor an idiot.
The troll is both. In my youth Gaughan, Imlach and Henderson were unheard of. He knows nothing of Scottish folk music.

Folk music existed long before it was taken up by the left, in fact, even many of the revival groups and singers were in no way left wing.
"Protest songs" were the first intrusion of politics into folk music, it gradually killed the genre and after a transfusion of financial aspiration and education, it is completely extinct.

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 11:55 AM

so err.. What protest songs were they?

I have many in my repertoire from The Chartist movement, anti war songs from Crimean and even Napoleonic, many others lamenting conditions in the heat of the industrial revolution...

MacColl collected many Scottish protest songs from a hundred or two years back, thinking on. Many of them in that guttural language they used to use.

You do talk bollocks, even when not denigrating others.

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 11:57 AM

Oh. Beers come and go, but I was delighted last night to see Old Peculiar on at a pub we were playing at, and I wasn't driving. Granted, couldn't tuck in properly till after the second set, but a good nostalgic sup.

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 12:42 PM

I haven't drunk alcohol since December 2005 (health issues), but I have fond memories of Tom Woods bitter and Bateman's XXXX.

but I'd take a couple of tots of Highland Park or Bunnahabheinn over any beer. Or perhaps as well as...

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 12:44 PM

"Folk music existed long before it was taken up by the left,"
Of course it did, but it lay pretty dormant for quite a while until the left started up the club scene and drew the attention of those outside the communities to it.
"....Henderson were unheard of."
You must be blood old - Henderson was one of he pioneers in Scotland, collecting songs and writing about them in the forties,
He was the main organisers of The Peoples' Concerts in Edinburgh, which introduced Jeannie Robertson, Flora McNeil, Jessie Murray, Jimmy McBeath.... and many other field singers to urban audiences.
"revival groups and singers were in no way left wing."
The instigators were - Lomax, both in the States and in Britain; he was recoding songs in the penitentiaries, with his father, and later he came to Britain and persuaded the singers here to stop pretending they were cowboys, and take a look at their own repertoire.
Organisations like C.N.D. played an immeasurable part in popularising our repertoires.
You'll be telling us Rabbie Burns voted Conservative next!
"were the first intrusion of politics into folk music, it gradually killed the genre "
They most certainly were not - MacColl and Lloyd were working on Industrial songs (in Bert's case, mining songs for the N.U.M.) in the forties) and MacColl was involved with the BBC, , with producers such as Bridson and Gilliam as early as the depression in the thirties.
What with Blair Peach, and now the left in folksong, you are what they call over here in Ireland 'a begrudger' - you certainly are the strangest 'socialist', I have ever encountered.
Far from ruining folk song, it's politics invigorated it - if anything killed the genre - it was the 'milk-and-water' approach that divorced the songs from their social roots.   
You really do need (desparately) to decide which side of the political divide you are on.
I suggest you follow up Muskies excellent point about the Chartists et al - a collection of the earliest known songs (in Latin and in Old English) goes back as far as King John (see Thomas Wright's 'Political Songs of England from the reign of John to that of Edward II'.)
In your own part of the world, the Jacobite movement was pushing inspiring songs as if they were going out of fashion and as for Ireland.... political songs form an enormous part of the traditional repertoire.
You appear to be as uninformed about folk songs as you are about left politics - if that were possible!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: The Sandman
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 01:11 PM

I agree with you Jim, 99 per cent, Burns[ as i am sure you know] however was an exciseman, a Tax collector. I agree he wrote songs and poetry which were not status quo and questioned the status quo.
But was only able to do so by earning his living as a tool of the eablishment., much worse he was a feckin freemason.

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 01:12 PM

Now where had I got up to.

The next we sampled were Rebellion Brewery (Marlow) Jolly Roger at 4.2% and then a Prowler Pale 3.6% from the Red Cat Brewery (Winchester)

In the next instalment I'll tell you of my favourite beer of the day.

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 01:20 PM

Musket, It's a pity we couldn't meet for a chat and a pint.

The train trip was wonderful (as always) More than fifty of us gathered in the pub in Glaisdale away from the horde of day tourists in Whitby. A wonderful array of singing and some great tunes. A very mixed bag of styles, everything you could want in a session.

We rattled the can for the Rescue Boat at Runswick and on Tuesday I will pay over £140 into their account.

The only hiccup was that the train back was VERY late but we got round that by singing on the station platform. A good day all round.

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: The Sandman
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 01:24 PM

Robert Burns was initiated into masonic Lodge St David, Tarbolton, on 4 July 1781, when he was 22.

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: GUEST,Dave
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 02:44 PM

Keith says:

"That just does not stand up.
Labour put their own case and attacked the Tory case.
Labour, Lib Dems, SNP and UKIP and the broadcasters would expose any "scare-mongering and lies" of the Tories."

Except that they didn't. There were quite robust rebuttals, which were just not reported. The print media is entirely in the tories' pockets (including apparently the Guardian these days), the BBC is bound by a duty of impartiality (and completely hamstrung by tory complaints even when they are impartial), and Sky is owned by a far-right foreign demagogue. So the prevailing narrative was of fear that the Scottish would have undue influence, whereas the alternative, and far more justified narrative that the city of London has undue influence was suppressed. There is no independent press, the press and Sky/ITV do a more thorough job of pushing the tory viewpoint than Pravda ever did for the Soviet communist party.

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 03:07 PM

"Robert Burns was initiated into masonic Lodge St David,"
So?
BURNS FREEMASONARY
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: The Sandman
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 03:33 PM

So?
IMO Freemasonry is the epitome of cronyism, the sort of attitude that is prevalent amongst most establishment political parties, so IMO Burns had something in common with many Conservatives, a belief in secret societies, freemasonry, IMO has nothing to do with socialism nothing to do with equality, but more in common with capitalism,cronyism.
we will never know how he voted, but since the meaning of Tories here
2The Tory political faction originally emerged within the Parliament of England to uphold the legitimist rights of James, Duke of York, to succeed his brother Charles II to the throne. James II was a Catholic, while the state institutions had broken from the Catholic Church—this was an issue for the Exclusion Bill supporting Patricians, the political heirs to the nonconformist Roundheads and Covenanters. There were two Tory ministries under James II; the first led by Lord Rochester, the second by Lord Belasyse. A significant faction took part in the ousting of James II with the Whigs to defend the Anglican Church or definitive protestantism. A large but dwindling faction of Tories held sympathy for Catholic Stuart heirs to the throne from the accession of the first Hanoverian monarch in 1714, many of which supported Jacobitism, the military campaigns of which saw them lost and castigated. Although only a minority of Tories gave their adhesion to the Jacobite risings."
it would appear Burns had much in coMmon with Tories

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: akenaton
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 04:14 PM

Of course Burns was a conservative, most people are conservative and 200years ago everyone was conservative.

You are confusing Party politics with social mores....again.

That is a fatal mistake and the reason all you so called lefties are running around like headless chickens.

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: akenaton
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 04:29 PM

I have read Burn extensively and believe that his ideas on universal brotherhood were not political, but religious in nature.
The teachings of Christ sing sweetly throughout his work, He despised the hypocrisy of the establishment, but he held a deep faith until his death......He was a social conservative without doubt, we could do with more like him and the idiocies of present day "liberalism" would be "grist tae his mill"

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 04:38 PM

Funny fucking communist.

The problem with omov democracy is that it depends on the concept of the informed vote, much as the central fallacy of capitalism is "effective demand".

We have mostly a misinformed vote.

If that was the pub I think it was, I did not enjoy the Old Peculier there. I was saddened not to be able to get a Tetley's Imperial anywhere. And I kept an eye out for a Rainsong and did not see one, and also kept an eye out for Lowdens and only saw one and that a lefty. More sensible than it's owner eh?

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 05:01 PM

First and foremost, let me make it clear that I hold no candle for freemasonry. It stinks. But judging people who lived 200 years ago, and who were masons, by the standards of today is just ridiculous. Freemasonry, like many other institutions, has evolved, in its case rather badly. It would be quite instructive to investigate whether any of your historical heroes were masons. At least two of mine, Haydn and Mozart, were masons, and not secretively so. Have a quick google and you might just find yourself feeling a little uncomfortable about some of your heroes who just happened to be masons. That is, if you absolutely insist on judging them by today's standards. Alternatively, just cut the old guys a bit of slack, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: David Cameron is execrable
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 28 Aug 15 - 06:53 PM

Richard, the Black Horse has Tetleys Imperial on 7 days a week 52 weeks a year.