BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Sep 18 - 03:08 PM

There you go Keith -too much for one mouthful


Subject: RE: BS: Muslim prejudice
From: Keith A of Hertford - PM
Date: 23 Jun 11 - 02:44 AM

The full post selectively quoted by Jim.
: 13 Feb 11 - 07:10 AM
Don, no one on this thread has claimed any of those things.
Don I do now " believe that all male Pakistani Muslims have a culturally implanted tendency" but only because of the testimony of all those knowledgeable people, and always acknowledging that only a tiny minority succumb.
Do you dismiss all that just because it does not fit your preconceptions, or do you have some powerful evidence to the contrary that you have not shared with us?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 09 Sep 18 - 03:20 PM

A mention of the 'left wing Guardian' should tell us all we need to know about the mindset in action here. As someone else commented, perceptions have shifted so far to the right that they think the Daily Mail is the norm. To the UKIP brigade that currently infest these threads anyone slightly to the left of Adolph Hitler is a communist.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Sep 18 - 03:23 PM

well.....if you're right. we'll have a labour government.

i hope you're right.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Iains
Date: 09 Sep 18 - 03:34 PM

Keith he has no idea what he is on about.
"or support the selling of fighter planes to terrorist states"
Ah Yes. That was labour under blair and the loon brown.
The Observer
Richard Wachman

Sun 16 Sep 2007 15.45 BST
First published on Sun 16 Sep 2007 15.45 BST

Aerospace giant BAE is part of a consortium that has clinched a £40bn contract to supply 72 Eurofighter Typhoons to Saudi Arabia in the world's biggest defence deal.

or described travellers as "slave owners"
Ah Yes the Rooney traveller family tried and convicted of both fraud and slavery


https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/840002/Lincolnshire-police-Rooney-traveller-family-slaves-shocking-conditions-dirty-caravans

Do you ever check your facts?

Ewa Jasiewicz your potted background was a tad selective. She worked as a union organizer for Unite the Union,activist and writer involved in various anti-capitalist, climate and solidarity campaigns including Fuel Poverty Action, No Dash for Gas, the Polish Campaign of Solidarity withPalestine and Witness Syria. and of course guilty of desecration.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Sep 18 - 06:06 PM

"If you thought it couldn't get any worse for Labour well it just has.

Utterly shameful. Another to add to the long list of Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-Semitic associations...blah blah yadda yadda..."

A word in your shell-like, you obsessive little tosspot. I specifically asked that antisemitism be kept out of this thread of mine. Know why? Because I happen to think that populism vs alleged centre-ground politics is a current issue worth discussing. I don't give a monkey's bloody mickey whether you agree with that or not. But if you want to discuss antisemitism, twat, START YOUR OWN BLOODY THREAD. Did you catch that, or would you like it in semaphore/on a billboard/screamed from the rooftops? You wanna discuss antisemitism? Grand! START YOUR OWN BLOODY THREAD!

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Sep 18 - 06:11 PM

The attempt to make America a one party nation has backfired.


Instead many new parties are forming and obscure the middle like the;
Asslickans, Whackocrats, Bite Suprema Cysts, Fat Panthers, Litigious Preservatives, Not See Party and the Unseen Party along with the existing Green Party, Democrats, Republicans, Socialists and Libertarians.

England may soon have the House of Gorge, Shove It Party and my favorite The Flavour Party.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: robomatic
Date: 09 Sep 18 - 09:22 PM

Uh, a word in your shell Steve, but we had a thread specifically about the subject which shall be nameless, and with no warning it not only got abruptly terminated by a mod, but the last few messages including one of mine that I had spent time over, and was non invective, got truncated.

So kindly do some research on an emotion which some of the rest of us call compassion and maybe you can salvage this tread.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 09 Sep 18 - 10:02 PM

From: Steve Shaw - PM
Date: 09 Sep 18 - 06:06 PM
"If you thought it couldn't get any worse for Labour well it just has.
Utterly shameful. Another to add to the long list of Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-Semitic associations...blah blah yadda yadda..."
A word in your shell-like, you obsessive little tosspot. I specifically asked that antisemitism be kept out of this thread of mine. Know why? Because I happen to think that populism vs alleged centre-ground politics is a current issue worth discussing. I don't give a monkey's bloody mickey whether you agree with that or not. But if you want to discuss antisemitism, twat, START YOUR OWN BLOODY THREAD. Did you catch that, or would you like it in semaphore/on a billboard/screamed from the rooftops? You wanna discuss antisemitism? Grand! START YOUR OWN BLOODY THREAD!

For someone who wants to keep anti-Semitism out of the discussion you're not doing very well so far. Apart from your second post, asking that it not be mentioned, the next was by David Carter, which you responded to:

From: Steve Shaw - PM
Date: 08 Sep 18 - 07:25 PM

"Chukka usually talks some sense, but on this I don't know what he is on about. People at risk of deselection, and rightly so, are the likes of Field, Stringer and Hoey, brexit apologists propping up the tories. And Joan Ryan who is trying to equate being anti-Israel with being antisemitic. I do not know of any genuine moderates facing deselection."

Absolutely right, David. And why should anyone see anything sinister in constituency parties having the power to get shot of MPs who they see as no longer representing their interests? I call that the very epitome of democracy!

If you really want to keep anti-Semitism out of the discussion you will have to try a lot harder to control your own responses. Not much chance there then!

Perhaps you might wish to ask the mods to close this discussion, as you are unable to follow your own guidelines for the discussion.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 03:19 AM

"Perhaps you might wish to ask the mods to close this discussion, "
Nigel has a point - but not the one he is trying to make I think
Every discussion we attempt to have on proper subjects are now being hi-jacked - largely by two not particularly intelligent extremists who are somewhat overburdened by their own problems and insist on inflicting them on the rest of us
Imagine taking seriously people who are deeply inflicted with their own racism and cultural hatred when they accuse the Labour Party of the same thing - yet we do so - every time
Keith's extremist Islamophobie is writ large in his notorious quote, yet we allow him to overwhelm thread after thread by taking him seriously and responding to him
Iains is an ill-mannered bully who has used this thread to promote a leading hate campaigner whose activities go back at least as far as the Brievik murders
Yet we feel it necessary to defend Labour from his attacks as if what he says is important
Why should we take accusations of extremism from twd of the most extreme posters to this thread seriously - yet we do, time after time after time.....
It's not even as if they say what they have to say well - they have no well-thought-out or original arguments... just media garbage repeated

By entering into discussion with these people we allow them to make our threads extensions of their hate campaigns and those in the media and on the streets, instigated by Tommy Robinson and his ilk .

Now Nigel wants us to close the thread - why wouldn't he - we might get around to discussing the farcical behaviour of his party at the present time - their destructive incompetence, their clownish in-fighting, their racist leading politicians and their own accusations of cultural hatred that they have always refused to deal with.

This is a perfectly good subject - we either get on with discussing it or we continue to allow it to be wrecked by the same two people who have wrecked topic after topic by simply behaving like two fractious brats running around the room and making nuisance of themselves until someone pays them the attention they seek
We either get on with it or we let them wreck another thread - simple as that
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 03:20 AM

Perhaps it's time for a thread about returning serious discussion to this forum
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 03:39 AM

Correct Jim, and I've been saying precisely that (as has our pet Gnome) for a very long time, summed up in four short words - Don't Feed The Trolls.

But the same few otherwise intelligent people (and I include myself, I get sucked in too) simply cannot resist feeding them!

We all know who the thread-wreckers, the nit-pickers, the forum-vandals are. So, repeat after me - DON'T FEED THE TROLLS.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 03:40 AM

It really is dead simple. Don't respond to the trolls. They will still post but with a one sided conversation they will soon look like what they are - the nutters in the bus that talk nonsense.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Iains
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 03:57 AM

You have made great sport over Boris and his bit of skirt, but seriously who cares about what sexual antics an mp gets up to providing it does not break the law? Do you think they have some sort of angelic existence? I would have thought that using tax payers money to clean out moats would have destroyed that perception long ago, for all but the most naive.
    But when the police are called in to investigate claims of what must not be mentioned concerning the labour party, then the response is denial. That 200 complaints on the same subject, that must not be mentioned, lie uninvestigated there isnot a whimper. But to slap every Jewish person in the face, despite the ongoing sore that was supposedly settled last week Labour comes up with its pièce de résistance by inviting a professional troublemaker who vandalised one of the last remaining walls of the Warsaw ghetto to speak at a Momentum event alongside the Labour Party conference this month.

This is simply pouring oil on the flames.

It makes a total mockery of the attempts by labour to put the issue to bed. If Ewa Jasiewicz, a British anti-Israel activist, is encouraged to give this speech it will come back to haunt labour in future elections for decades. Stupidity does not begin to describe it.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 05:21 AM

Dave,
A mention of the 'left wing Guardian' should tell us all we need to know about the mindset in action here.

Of course it is a Left Wing paper, and universally recognised as such.
Your perceptions are so far to the Left that you think it is the norm. To the Hard Left brigade that currently dominate these threads anyone slightly to the Right of Kim Jong-Un is a fascist.

NY Times when Guardian changed its format,
"The Guardian, Britain’s Left-Wing News Power, Goes Tabloid"

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 05:27 AM

Jim,
Keith's extremist Islamophobie is writ large in his notorious quote, yet we allow him to overwhelm thread after thread by taking him seriously and responding to him

There is no Islamophobia in that or any other quote of mine.
The people who I said I believed were mostly Muslim and all Left Wing.
You lied.
And, my short, few posts hardly overwhelm threads dominated by a whole gang of you like minded Far Left extremists.
You lied.

Instead of launching lying personal attacks on me, address the thread subject and what I actually say in this thread. If you can!

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Iains
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 05:30 AM

Iains is an ill-mannered bully who has used this thread to promote a leading hate campaigner whose activities go back at least as far as the Brievik murders.

In the interest of accuracy it is Jim Carrol that keeps repeatedly promoting the subject of tommy robinson. BUT, never let facts get in the way of a good story! What are we at now? 5 times you have raised the subject? The reality is that jimmie is promoting young tommy, by repeatedly referring to him. I presume the oxygen of publicity is a concept beyond your grasp!

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 05:36 AM

All of you, calling me a troll does not address the fact that I merely quote your own MPs.

The same ones I used to vote for and who used to achieve Labour governments by actually winning elections.

They are saying that the Labour Party is being taken over by Hard Left entryists, like you.
Unfortunately they also link those entryists to the anti-Semitism that has arisen in the party since the take over started.

The two issues are inextricably linked, unfortunately.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 05:48 AM

"It really is dead simple. Don't respond to the trolls. "
Quite agree Dave (and I am as guilty as any of breaking the rule), but you have to admit they do have their uses.
The importance of this subject, it seems to me, is that Britain - in fact, a large slice of the planet is entering into crisis - a failing system which is allowing politicians to prey on legitimate fears by using racist scapegoating - "it's not us - it's all those foreigners" type of thing
Iain's has just summed that up beautifully in a few words.
Britain's use of racism is reflected in its racist foreign secretary.
Ian's summation of this is "Boris and his bit of skirt" - a defence of racism and a piece of blatant misogyny, two features of today's British Establishment summed up in six words.
We really should be grateful for these trolls and the examples of modern society they provide.
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 05:52 AM

Some recent quotes of moderate Labour MPs,

"Angela Smith, MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, who sits on the representative body of MPs, the parliamentary committee, said the atmosphere in the party was so negative it raised questions about its ability to survive: “It is time for Jeremy to show some leadership by making it clear he will not support measures to deselect Labour MPs. The mood within the party is unbelievably tense and threatens its very existence."

"Frank Field, who recently quit the parliamentary party, citing the handling of the antisemitism row and bullying in local constituency parties,"

" former shadow business secretary, Chuka Umunna, said Corbyn should “call off the dogs”. He said Labour’s tradition of fighting discrimination was under threat. “There is now a clear and present danger that this tradition is driven out of our party.” "


https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/09/jeremy-corbyn-in-party-row-purging-labour-mps-who-criticise-leadership

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Iains
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 06:03 AM

"Ian's summation of this is "Boris and his bit of skirt" - a defence of racism and a piece of blatant misogyny,"

Keep the jokes coming, It makes a pleasant change from your normal behaviour. You do like to bring up the term racism every chance do you not? Is it some sort impediment you suffer from, akin to Tourettes?

By the way you seem to have a total misunderstanding of what a troll is. This is what wiki says on the subject:(not the last word, but good enough)
In Internet slang, a troll is a person who starts quarrels or upsets people on the Internet to distract and sow discord by posting inflammatory and digressive, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the intent of provoking readers into displaying emotional responses and normalizing tangential discussion, whether for the troll's amusement or a specific gain.

Now you are constantly making defamatory statements about people, trying to provoke a reaction and the rest of your little coterie wander off topic when it suits in order to provoke a response.
   Now by contrast my behaviour here is that of reasoned argument backed by plentiful links, rejecting some of the more asinine statements by some and correcting factual errors by others.

You can bend and twist definitions to your little hearts content, but nowhere will you find me trolling. If the truth hurts I suggest you try therapy instead of starting slanging matches!

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 06:05 AM

Right.

Nigel. I have no powers to proscribe the word "antisemitic." When David used the word he was not trying to revive the issue in this thread. There is a context in which remarks by MPs may be germane to the wider discussion about centre-ground politics but without making their remarks the topic of discussion themselves. You know that full well. Please contrast that with the repeated attempts by Troll Keith, see above, to get us burbling on about it again. He is a complete obsessive. David is not.

Robo. You've be quite nice lately. Let me tell you summat, mate. I have had HOURS' worth of posts deleted, largely at the end of closed threads when the mod has deleted great lumps of posts. I've done long posts to threads open when I started typing which were closed by the time I'd finished. A lot more of this has happened to me than to you, of that I'm almost certain. So go and tell it to the marines, please. It's just what happens here.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 06:10 AM

Steve, re. that subject, unfortunately it is inextricably linked to the subject you gave this thread.
The Centre ground Labour MPs are saying that the Labour Party is being taken over by Hard Left entryists, like you.
Unfortunately they also link those entryists to the anti-Semitism that has arisen in the party since the take over started.

Thus the two issues are inextricably linked, unfortunately.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 06:10 AM

Steve, re. that subject, unfortunately it is inextricably linked to the subject you gave this thread.
The Centre ground Labour MPs are saying that the Labour Party is being taken over by Hard Left entryists, like you.
Unfortunately they also link those entryists to the anti-Semitism that has arisen in the party since the take over started.

Thus the two issues are inextricably linked, unfortunately.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 07:06 AM

For the first time, for nearly as long as I can remember, Labour is now offering an alternative the the horrendous career and profit-driving that now passes for British politics and has been its driving force for far too long.

Labour has got where it is by an influx of 'new-brooms' who have embraced the old ideals of Labour-Party Socialism - never extreme, as is being described by the trolls (unless you believe improving the lot of all as "extreme", as these people obviously do)
It is little wonder that is has been subjected to several years of attacks by those who support and benefit from the status-quo
Genuinely New' Labour (as distinct from Blair's 'New Labour') is bound to make mistakes - it has done already - they are largely green at the game, but at least the appear to have a principled objective rather than more of the same.

What has been significant in all these discussions is that the Troll-Supported parties are guilty of all the things they are accusing the Labour Party of - in spades
Extremism (how extreme is it to bung a sectarian Party £1 billion in order to stay in power, or to sell arms to stades engaged in genocide?)
Racism/cultural hatred (how racist is it to blame immigrants and refuges for economic failures, or appointing a racist foreign secretary?)
Incompetence and in-fighting (the right dares to accuse anybody of this while the present Government Circus hasn't given us its star turns yet !!!)

The most significant thing of all is that the few Government supporters here refuse totally to discuss what is happening to Britain at present - not just the Troll Brothers Trio, but even the half-decent ones.
I invariably disagree with Nigel, but I do respect his articulacy and his obvious dedication, yet even he would rather see a thread closed than see these things discussed rationally - pity.
These discussions need a bit of intelligent balance - no takers so far
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 07:32 AM

Just shut up and start a new thread, Keith. Naturally, you know that your reputation here is so rock-bottom that it'd be shut in no time. Your problem. Keep your shite out of this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 07:38 AM

It is not my shite.
It comes from Labour MPs.
They are the ones who say the two issues are inextricably linked.
Read what they say Steve. I am just repeating it for you.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 08:34 AM

Leave it and move on
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 08:35 AM

While we are still able to
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 08:40 AM

For the record - it has just been announced that Boris Johnson will possibly get the support of around 80 Tory MPs on Thursday for his opposition to May
Britain now faces the possibility of having an openly racist Prime Minister - an educated Donald Trump without disgusting charisma (but getting there) or money
And Labour has troubles!!!!!
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Iains
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 08:44 AM

Poor old Corbyn the Boundary Commission has released its final recommendations for cutting down the number of Parliamentary constituencies from 650 to 600 and it’s bad news for the Absolute Boy with his Islington North constituency getting the chop. Will Comrades Thornberry, Abbott or Starmer make way for the dear leader by letting him take one of their neighbouring seats?

Mayhap the runes are trying to tell him something.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: bobad
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 08:49 AM

By the way you seem to have a total misunderstanding of what a troll is.

You should know by now that to this cabal of blowhards a troll is anyone who puts forth an opinion contrary to theirs. It has always been thus. Ignore it.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Iains
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 09:01 AM

Bobad believe me. I do. The usual suspects provide a laugh a minute. They take themselves far too seriously. They think their opinions matter. How arrogant is that?

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 11:44 AM

On the topic of the thread. I agree that the centre ground should be reclaimed. Politics has moved much to far to the right as is witnessed by what is happening here on Mudcat, in the UK, in the USA and, from what I see on the news, worldwide.

It could well be to do with the previous "iron curtain" countries rebounding from the throes of communism.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 12:09 PM

More to do with our system running its natural course, I would have thought
Some of the worst examples of 'a free society' have come from former communist (sic) states; Russia, Former Yugoslavia... and plunged into a dog-eat-dog world
I think Brexit and Trump started the ball rolling seriously
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 12:43 PM

"I'm a moderate. I'm in the centre ground. Come and join me, you moderates of left and right. Let's retake this centre ground..."

Anyone remember the SDP? They tried it. Not only did they fail, deservedly so, but they contributed to two more terms of Thatcherism, which meant industries shut down and whole communities wrecked. Oh, and the poll tax. Nice work. The same will happen if a bunch of disaffected Labour MPs, along with probably very few if any Tories, start to hover around the joke known as the LibDems, who, not having been satisfied with propping up Cameron for five years and helping to bring on brexit, then losing nearly all their seats, want to have another crack at it. They are opportunist wastrels with no vision and no integrity. Follow them and the Tories will be in until most of us here are pushing up daisies. That'll be good, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 12:48 PM

Sadly, Steve, and much as I'd like to have grounds to differ, I'm afraid I have to agree with you.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 01:11 PM

Dave, there has been no move to the Right on Mudcat.

On politics, there are only a few of us moderates questioning the extreme views of your Far Left gang that now dominate all political threads.

The EU is certainly lurching to the Far Right.
They have no place in UK politics but are massively on the rise in France, Belgium, Germany, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Italy,......

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Iains
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 02:01 PM

"....... they contributed to two more terms of Thatcherism, which meant industries shut down and whole communities wrecked."

Good soundbite, but as with the pontifications on the decline of the coal industry in the uk seen on here, it is simply not true.

The relative decline of manufacturing,as a share of both output and employment, has been apparent in all advanced economies,particularly since the 1960s - but the decline has been more rapid in the UK compared to the other advanced countries. Thishas led some to argue that this reflects a process of historical evolution, as advanced conomies are characterised by a large services sector and a small manufacturing sector. Nigel Lawson when, as Chancellor of Exchequer, stated: ‘there is no amantine law that says we have to produce as much in the way of manufacturing as we consume... If it does turn out that we are more efficient in world terms at providing services than at producing goods, then our national interest lies in a surplus on services and a deficit on goods’

Plenty of graphs and data out there to support this view, with the same outcome being seen in France, Germany and the US. Thatcher may have had a monetary policy that it could be argued exacerbated the situation, but did not alter the underlying trends, merely the timescale. There are also statistical illusions from reconfiguration. Simply,many activities that were undertaken by manufacturing firms (and so were classified as manufacturing) – such as R&D, design, transportation and logistics have been subcontracted or purchased from external suppliers, and as a result are now classified as services) Automation and increased efficiency also reduces labour numbers - This is ongoing and will likely wreak havoc among certain professions before long.( Accountancy being a prime candidate.)

A bit of a gross simplification but sufficient to show the total absurdity of trying to blame Thatcher for a situation comparable to Canute and the tide.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 02:18 PM

I think the collapse of communism and subsequent slide into the mire of corruption created the global conditions for the likes of Trump, Johnson and Farage to thrive, Jim. I would never subscribe to the type of economy founded behind the iron curtain but maybe the threat of it was enough the keep the excesses of the right in check. Once it became obvious that Russia's communist economy was in shreds the sharks moved in. On seeing that the sharks were winning, the bottom feeders tried their hand.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Iains
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 02:40 PM

"I think the collapse of communism and subsequent slide into the mire of corruption created the global conditions for the likes of Trump, Johnson and Farage to thrive, Jim. I would never subscribe to the type of economy founded behind the iron curtain but maybe the threat of it was enough the keep the excesses of the right in check"

What a peculiar belief system. I would be extremely worried if many shared the same view.

I suppose you think the way the economy ran was rubbish but the political system and the KGB were ace!
How very dangerous, but for someone that denies the gruniard is leftwing
I suppose anything is possible

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 03:15 PM

Germany and the US make stuff. You and your shortening of the timescale - even if trashing manufacturing in this country was inevitable, which I don't accept for a single second, the "shortening of the timescale," (a euphemism for kicking the working classes in the guts for daring to have strong trade unions and using their only weapon, strike action, to get fair wages and conditions for their labour) was brutal and inhuman and it threw millions on to the scrapheap of unemployment or bogus "incapacity benefit" (which made the unemployment figures look so much better) in a short time. I do enjoy reading your carefully-constructed revisionism. Clearly, temporal distance lends enchantment to your view. By the time Thatcher had finished, we had yuppiedom, be-a-millionaire-in-a-day and government by spiv. Maybe you were a spiv yourself so you missed out on all the adverse effects.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 03:27 PM

To be accurate and to correct the errors that 'playing telephone' produces,
I originally said "TO A FASCIST the Guardian is left wing"

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 03:43 PM

"TO A FASCIST the Guardian is left wing"

Spot on Donuel. If it os so apparent from all the way across the Atlantic I am pretty sure that is obvious to many others. Thank you.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Iains
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 03:48 PM

" even if trashing manufacturing in this country was inevitable, which I don't accept for a single second,"

Denial is a wonderful thing!


https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2005/09/29/industrial-metamorphosis

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Iains
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 04:00 PM

Wiki on the gruniard.
May not always be right but I am sure someone here would have corrected the entry by now if it was inaccurate.

The paper's readership is generally on the mainstream left of British political opinion. The newspaper's reputation as a platform for liberal and left-wing editorial has led to the use of the "Guardian reader" and "Guardianista" as often (but not always) pejorative epithets for those of left-leaning or politically correct tendencies.

The extreme left here may think the gruniard is center but the rest of humanity, barring Donuel, accepts it is a leftist rag.

Even more of you in denial. Is it contagious?

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 05:21 PM

Jaysus, there's a bad smell in here.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Raggytash
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 05:52 PM

Hmmmm .......... when did being Liberal ever equate to being left wing ............. except of course in the minds of those of an extreme right wing persuasion.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Stanron
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 06:02 PM

Of course Lib Dems are left wing. Why else did the gang of four go there?

Labour's recent lurch to the left leaves a moderate left of center position available for the Libs. They are currently almost leaderless so whether or not they actually go there is not certain. They will be fighting for some of that space with the current government which has partially moved into that vacuum. Although that will no doubt be contested by the UK Lefties on this forum.

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Iains
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 06:05 PM

If you cannot accept wiki, try this for size.
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/03/07/h

Another in denial!

Tis a terrible affliction!

Subject: RE: BS: Let's reclaim the centre ground!
From: Raggytash
Date: 10 Sep 18 - 06:14 PM

Page not found Iains ............