BS: Conservative Leadership Contest

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: DMcG
Date: 09 Jul 19 - 02:11 AM

Comments about Labour's Brexit policy belong on the Brexit thread, not the Conservative Leadership Contest thread. I will respond there.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Jul 19 - 08:50 PM

whereas the the tories disinterest in material wealth is legendary.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Iains
Date: 08 Jul 19 - 03:11 PM

DMcG IT seems compo corbyn has been dragged off the fence by his union paymasters. Is that how democracy works for labour? The biggest checquebook dictates policy? Oh Dear!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: DMcG
Date: 08 Jul 19 - 02:11 PM

I wonder how that post will look by the end of the year.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Iains
Date: 08 Jul 19 - 02:05 PM

Back to the thread title. A resounding summary from Boris the Blessed, the scourge of the left, darling of the right. He is the man to reclaim our sovereignty. The federalisation of Europe can continue without us.

https://brexitcentral.com/no-more-fake-brexit-deadlines-we-must-leave-the-eu-on-31st-october-come-what-may/

None of the wishy washy will we won't we of kama sutra corbyn, the only man in Christendom that can find fifty ways of straddling a fence. Hopefully it is topped with thorny wire.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 08 Jul 19 - 02:32 AM

The Pension Protection Fund was set up after the Maxwell scandal to stop that kind of thing ever happening again.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 09:01 PM

Try not to be daft. Just read the post before mine.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 07:00 PM

From: Steve Shaw - PM
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 06:36 AM
Well for tens of thousands of people, or more, it stopped arriving. A large number died as a result. A pension never stops arriving.

Following the numerous benefits/payments discussed in this thread, would you care to state what "it" refers to?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 02:31 PM

The exception that proves the rule: even Sir Philip Green can't manage it these days.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 02:03 PM

You've obviously never heard of Robert Maxwell.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 06:36 AM

Well for tens of thousands of people, or more, it stopped arriving. A large number died as a result. A pension never stops arriving.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 06:12 AM

the point is that loot changed hands under dubious circumstances so that Thatch could isolate and subborn the ranks of miners unions massed against her. And as you say, as soon as the battle was won, she stopped the payments.

As a recipient of benefits for my long term disabled wife, I have no interest in what they call the money as long as it arrives. Sometimes it doesn't - but I've never been fastidious enough to turn it down, whatever they call it.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 05:25 AM

David, I got what Al meant. He meant ‘miners who were, in their spare-time, paid musicians’ - ‘semi-pro’ because music wasn’t their main paid occupation.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 03:41 AM

Whats a "semi pro miner" Big Al?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 08:29 PM

Incapacity benefit was not a disability pension. Nothing like it. I know this because I was on both at the same time. Your post is seriously unfocused. When you want to make serious points you should choose your words reasonably carefully. Making offensive and cheap-shot remarks relating to Keith says quite a lot about you. I suggest that you try again in the morning when you're fresh.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 07:30 PM

I can't see substantially that's much different from what I said. Skullduggery. A way of bribing and thinning out her enemies.

You're beginning to sound like dear old Keith. Prove that the 1st world war generals weren't a gang of homicidal maniacs. You can't! THey were skilled military commanders....


Never did ptove it to him...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 05:18 PM

They were not on "disability pensions." They were put on incapacity benefit in their tens of thousands (or more) for the simple reason that they wouldn't thereby appear in the unemployment statistics. A decade or two later, when they were all ageing men and women, huge numbers of them were thrown off that benefit, or its successor ESA, by Iain Duncan-Smith's resort to the French company ATOS, who pretended to employ "health professionals" whose only brief was to kick people off the benefit that had baled Thatcher out. Thousands per annum are still dying of severe illness even though they have been deemed fit for work. Do recognise Tory Britain for what it really is.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Raggytash
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 05:01 PM

That's not good enough Al. If you are going to make such statements it is expected that you can back them up with solid facts.

Merely saying my cousins, mothers friend knew someone ....... etc etc.

Facts, please, facts.



Having said that I fully anticipate that you will not provide such because basically it is a fallacy.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 04:57 PM

You should have gone to Specsavers, Al.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 04:31 PM

Well I lived in Nottinghamshire. Gigging Notts, Derbyshire, Yorkshire. Country and western gigs. A lot of the places I gigged were miners welfares - most of which had a country and wesren night. My roadie was a miner whohad a heart attack down the pit. A lot of the other folkies/ musos were semi pro miners you were pretty much living cheek by jowl wuth their community. I lived in a mining village.

THeres not much to tell. Thatch was determined to close the pits after Scargill/Saltley.

She sweetened the deal for the miners by offering disability pensions. In South Wales - it was said you were bound to be disabled if you'd worked down a pit. The miners were in a rough spot (kinnock was like Corbyn now - quite unpopular and unlikely to be elected). So it was a question of getting what they could out of a dofficult situation.

As you say, shattered communities. The dodgy disability deals were part of the general chatter - like the green jackets policing the picket lines. I doubt its in any history of the period.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Raggytash
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 04:20 PM

Me rich !!!!

Chance would be a fine thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 04:04 PM

"Big Al's Chips" sounds like a great brand name...

I'd buy 'em.. and if they did potato wedges as well...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 03:54 PM

No point, Raggytash. Al believes that the working class, such as him, are all anti-EU. It is only the rich intelligentsia such as you and I that want to stay. He has a well balanced view. Having a chip on each shoulder ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Raggytash
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 03:47 PM

Go on then Al, tell us all you know about 'phoney medical retirement packages for miners'. Tell us the numbers of miners involved, tell us how much money they received. Tell us all you know.









Then I'll tell you about shattered communities, local amenities shut down, shops closing, empty pubs and thousands of people with no hope, no prospects, no futures, two or three generations sold down the river with **** all help from the government.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 03:00 PM

Wow! That was not they grey man from Spitting Image! I agree with everything said above about the John Major interview. You really do need to watch it for yourselves but if there are a couple of messages that come across they are, the good of the country should always come above the good of the party and you cannot totally ignore the views of 48% of your electorate. Powerful stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 02:44 PM

well he had a rough time of it as Chancellor and then PM.

it was a poison chalice. Thatch had spent nearly ten years indulging her beliefs about monetarism. all the money from north sea oil had been squandered on phoney medical retrement packages for minners, etc. as had the money saved by stopping subsidising industries.

the same old story - tax breaks for the rich, no investment in new industry or infra structure.

its unlikely anything he did would have counterracted the stupidity of the previous ten years. However what he did do was a disaster - a little adventure called the Exchange Rate Mechanism. Apparently a bloke called George Sorros did well on the deal.

Major's not a bloke with faultless instincts. Apparently Thatcher pleaded with him not to do the ERM thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 02:37 PM

Sorry Big Al, "if I were a conservative". If I were a conservative, I would hope that my relatives would be kind enough to have me committed to the nearest psychiatric hospital.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 02:26 PM

I honestly don't remember much about him as PM..
But it's a shame he's not now...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 02:20 PM

”You will be able to get it on 'catch-up' television Al.
It is worth the effort.”

The link worked fine for me, and it is indeed worth watching.

It’s very rarely that I find myself admiring and wholeheartedly agreeing with a Conservative but, having watched it, this is one such occasion. A thoroughly decent man, speaking the absolute truth.

Just a shame that so many are so brainwashed, or stupid, or both, to follow him.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Raggytash
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 12:19 PM

You will be able to get it on 'catch-up' television Al.

It is worth the effort.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 12:16 PM

I can't get it to work. Its not downloading.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 11:56 AM

Al - check out the John Major interview I mentioned a couple of posts back...


https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0006yxz/hardtalk-sir-john-major-former-british-prime-minister

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Raggytash
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 11:56 AM

John Major's interview on the BBC Hardtalk is well worth a listen. I cannot recall ever seeing him so passionate about a subject, or so honest.

Nor can I ever remember agreeing with so much of what he has to say.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 11:46 AM

if you were a conservative, i wonder what you would make of the choice.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 11:18 AM

Some crueler folks might say..
the tories couldn't get even more f@cked up if somehow they accidently voted
Jeremy Corbyn to became their leader...

what a bunch of spivs and incompetents...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 11:18 AM

Vote early and vote often, eh? But Tories can, of course, be trusted not to vote twice, sez Central Office. Sure. At least in Peterborough when the Tories were kicking up about postal votes it was just an MP being elected. This is the bloody prime minister of the whole country...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: DMcG
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 02:47 AM

From BBC:
Some Conservative members have been issued with more than one ballot paper to vote for the next party leader and prime minister, the BBC has learned.
One party insider estimated that more than a thousand voters could be affected.
Members are warned that voting twice will mean they are expelled, the Conservatives said.

One example given was when a person lives and works in different areas and joins the membership in both areas.    I have my doubts that, having failed to identify these in the first place, they will now identify them if two ballots are received. If there is a great difference between the votes for the two candidates it may not matter, but if they are within the estimated 1000 potential duplicates the result could be challenged, and the appointing of the new PM further delayed as a result.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 06:46 PM

Interesting interview with John Major on BBC News Hardtalk...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: DMcG
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 06:20 PM

So the EU did not insist on scrapping free ports, then. A call for a proposal is many steps away from that. And as to why, the very paper you refers to answers that: concerns about fraud and other financial malpractice.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Iains
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 05:16 PM

Can you give a link to an EU or other official document showing the EU - not, for example, May's Chequers proposal - banned these in April?

My words were I wonder why the EU insisted on scrapping them in April?

The EU words were: European Parliament resolution of 26March 2019 on financial crimes, tax evasion and tax avoidance (2018/212
Calls on the Commission to bring forward a proposal for the urgent phasing out of the system of free ports in the EU.


http://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/162244/P8_TA-PROV(2019)0240.pdf

Section 2-11

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 03:39 PM

What if they did a job share as a double act...???

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 03:33 PM

they're both really posh boys.

its a funny political party that ends up with a choice like that.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: DMcG
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 02:27 PM

From the BBC website:

====
Reality Check verdict: It is not true to say you can't have free ports or tax-free zones if you are a member state of the EU. There are more than 80 such zones across the Union. It would be easier to take advantage of potential benefits outside the EU.

====
Can you give a link to an EU or other official document showing the EU - not, for example, May's Chequers proposal - banned these in April?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 02:21 PM

I suppose the election of a prime minister by 160,000 mostly white, mostly old, mostly rich, mostly men in an electorate of forty-odd million is the epitome of democracy then, is it?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 02:19 PM

"Boris has struck on a winner with free ports."

I don't drink port...

I gulped down a bottle on an empty stomach on my 25th birthday,
fell down the stairs,
and ended my celebrations bent retching over the bog...

No more tory port for me.. ever again...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Iains
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 02:13 PM

Anyway back to serious issues. Boris is still the leading favourite to become PM 57% and Hunt on 29%.

I notice the new EU leaders have been appointed. Can anyone explain in what way their appointments were blindingly clear, transparent and truly democratic? Convince me and I will become a remainer

Boris has struck on a winner with free ports. It could transform the NE. I wonder why the EU insisted on scrapping them in April? Seems a win win to me. Cock a snoot at the EU and bring prosperity to the north east. Magic!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 01:25 PM

Extreme remainers turned on me,
when I once expressed a little understanding for folks who voted for brexit
because they were conned into believing there would be genuinely positive benefits for all of us;
though had later reconsidered and regretted voting leave...

But more usually I see tirades of hostile abuse aimed at anyone who didn't vote leave..

It's all gone to shit.. it really has...

The richest tories don't care who they sell off our sovereignty to,
even if it destroys their own party...

They can afford to bugger off to any exclusive gated resort they like anywhere else in the world...

That's how loyal they are to GB / UK...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 12:59 PM

well that's it exactly Steve.

The insults and abuse just obscure what is a really difficult subject to comprehend.

I don't much like a lot of the brexit gang, but I'm deeply dissatisfied with the EU. I don't think its its capable of reform - I'm not sure it was ever the right place for England.

20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing, but even so - i think many of us had grave doubts and felt we were abandoning firm allies in the commonwealth back in '74, for people who were frankly dubious.

Back in the 1960's, there was a forum on our projected possible membership of the EEC in Encounter magazine, which was THE intellectual forum for debate at the time. I remember John Osborne, the playwright putting it very succinctly. He said, the EEC may start out as an economic project - but it will of necessity turn first into a legislative body and then devolve into an international power bloc like Russia and America And this will mean Germany having a nucleat deterrent. And that will be the seeds of the WW3.

Osborne may have got the particulars wrong. But the emerging of the pacific markets show that the world is not developing as anyone predicted. The sheer unpredictability of the world make this EEC totally impractical. We have no right to tell Europe how to deal with their problems, and they don't care sufficiently about our very specific problems.

you may not understand my concerns, but they are real and they are sincerely held.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 12:54 PM

Al, have you ever been called a traitor for the way you voted? Have you ever been told you should be taken out and shot? Have you ever been told that you should fuck off and live elsewhere if you don't like it? Brexshiteer is not a term I use either but I think you are getting off lightly. I have used the term brexitaliban but only to describe those who tell me if I do not like it I am a traitor, should be shot etc. You are not one of those are you? As those you support are so fond of saying. Get over it.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 12:46 PM

If someone who voted for BrexShit doesn’t like being called a BrexShitter, I find it impossible to feel any sympathy. Remainers certainly don’t have a monopoly on abuse - I’ve been called a Remoaner, a Remainiac, a Leftard, a Fucktard, a Snowflake, and a ‘Traitor who should be arrested, marched out, and shot for treason’ by BrexShitters.

Whilst I may have hurt one or two people’s feelings, I’ve never, ever resorted to death-threats the way BrexShitters have, on a significant number of occasions, against me (and on a forum where my true identity is public).