BS: UK politics

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Jan 20 - 08:36 AM

Dot Cotton was a bloke in Line Of Duty...

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Jan 20 - 08:15 AM

No, a URL

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Jan 20 - 08:03 AM

Dot Cotton is a bloke...!!!?????

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Jan 20 - 07:41 AM

I thought it was DC comics. Superman vs the civil service? Batman's latest enemy - BoJoker? Green Lantern turns red?

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 23 Jan 20 - 06:57 AM

Can't wait to see DC sink his fangs into it!

Why bring me into this?

DC
;-)

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Jan 20 - 06:41 AM

I studied moral philosophy / moral education as a component of my deree nearly 40 years ago..

It's too long ago to remember much, but conservative ideas didn't come out of it too well..

So when conservatives appropriate moral philosophy and claim the moral high ground,
we can be sure something dodgy is afoot...

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Jan 20 - 05:13 AM

Thanks Monique. I got a fair way through that and hope to get back to it when I have more time. What I did see was that Haidt is referring to the American concept of conservative and liberal, not, getting back to the topic, the British political categories of left and right.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Mr Red
Date: 23 Jan 20 - 04:37 AM

One of my ways of rationalising UK politics it to see the voters' spectrum as a Gaussian hump for Tory and another for Labour. Their relative positions are currently polarized and far apart such that the overlap leaves little room for any consensus.

We clearly have a ruling figurehead who is prepared to say anything to get and maintain his leadership. In short a turncoat.

The other figurehead has been a person who didn't strive for the job and was given as concession to pity.

Labour has a record of choosing the wrong leader Michael Foot, the wrong Milliband etc. The only leaders that did win elections have been vilified as opportunists. Wilson and Blair. BUT to be effective you have to be in power. The person has to be pretty, as well as pretty effective.

You may ask why isn't Boris pretty. Well to some, Jack the Lad (emphasis on Jack) - is evidence of ruthlessness. So it turncoaterie (sic). Pretty is as Pretty does!

And it all depends on the choices. We have just had a campaign with certain/"us not them" flavour on one side and a uncertain/"what about Johnny foreigner" on the other. Pretty comes in many flavours, don'tya know?

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Iains
Date: 23 Jan 20 - 04:20 AM

Here ya go! The dangers of the blob!
Can't wait to see DC sink his fangs into it!

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/01/22/now-never-boris-must-beat-blob-suffocated/
A massive cull of civil servants is long overdue - they are nothing but a fifth column. They are employed to implement policy, not make it or frustrate it.
Dominic is going to be a busy boy.
Perhaps he is Vinnie the enforcer to Boris the blade!

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Monique
Date: 23 Jan 20 - 04:20 AM

Rule #1 in sociolinguistics: Who speaks?.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 23 Jan 20 - 04:16 AM

The most abusive posters on this thread, and many others like it, are the Right-Wing element. We don’t need any quack-psychology, there’s evidence a-plenty in black and white.

Like Dave, I believe the death of this thread is imminent - killed of by the usual Right-Wing wreckers. It’s a shame, some of us thave been trying to keep it on track.

Anybody see Emma Thornberry on The Neill Prog? Any views?

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Jan 20 - 04:07 AM

Once we get Bonzos "Leftwaffe" comment and silly generalisations about faux psychology to demonize an entire section of society we know that enough is enough. I suspect more deletions or thread closure are imminent unless you can stick to proper political argument. You did it earlier. Why spoil it?

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: BobL
Date: 23 Jan 20 - 03:57 AM

Well yes, the lefties still accuse Tory supporters of being motivated by greed, but the righties don't accuse Labour supporters of being motivated by envy (though they once did).

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Iains
Date: 23 Jan 20 - 02:55 AM

In the light of the sad passing of Terry Jones It is now time for something completely different:
Not long ago there was a vogue for the work of the American experimental psychologist, Professor Jonathan Haidt. The professor writes about the psychology of moral and political beliefs. Part of his thesis is that left-wing and right-wing sentiments are not symmetrical. He says if you get a group of right-leaning folk to write down in factual terms what they think their left-leaning opponents believe, you will find they can on the whole give a passable exposition of them; they can describe views which they do not share, and identify points of difference. They can respect their opponents’ rationality, even while reaching different conclusions. However, if you ask a group of left-inclined folk to write down what they think their opponents believe, they cannot do this in factual terms, falling instead into derision and scorn. The professor claims this as more than a mere impression; he says it is an experimental finding.

It certainly seems to be true on this forum!

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Iains
Date: 23 Jan 20 - 02:16 AM

"Cooperation morphed into domination. Sovereignty morphed into superstate. And that is why Britain is going..."
Anne Widdecombe
The Government has announced its official plans to commemorate Britain leaving the EU at 11pm on 31st January, however a new victory has been won after minister Nigel Adams signed off on the Union Jack being flown down the Mall to celebrate Brexit.

In addition to the Union Jack flying in Parliament Square, a light display will be in Downing Street and a countdown clock will be projected against No. 10.

The House of Lords has opted to end its legislative tussle with the Commons, as peers vote in favour of passing Boris Johnson's Brexit Bill. The unelected peers bowed to the will of the Commons after MPs overturned five amendments to the divorce deal. The Bill now goes forward for Royal Assent.(they finally wised up to the 1911 Parliament Act)

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 06:21 PM

Bonz - I'll take the money option thanks..
though I wouldn't mind some guns as well..

They'll probably be allowed on sale in Britain soon enough
as Boris apes Trump's USA politics...

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 06:17 PM

All I know is my wife couldn't afford to keep both of us on her public sector salary before tory austerity..
and we're in a damn sight more debt now
because I'm forever excluded from claiming any benefits because she earns a salary...

Don't even know if or when I'll ever get a pension.
Not raising my hopes if Labour continues to fuck up for another decade or more...

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 06:11 PM

Send lawyers, guns and money to deal with the leftwaffe!!!

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 06:00 PM

”As I said in my previous post governments of ALL persuasions have manipulated the figures.”

Errrmmm...no, you didn’t say that - read your post again!

But you’re correct, numbers are ‘massaged’ by governments no matter whether Left or Right, and the goalposts for measuring these stats are changed from time to time, which makes comparisons of different time-frames difficult, if not impossible, for mere mortals like us.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Raggytash
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 05:07 PM

As I said in my previous post governments of ALL persuasions have manipulated the figures.

I am merely highlighting the additional 88,000 thousand people, and their families, who are now faced with trying to get some support from the PRESENT government.

What price Universal Credit eh ............. !!

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 04:51 PM

they never count me - I'm one of the hidden who know's how many
who got fed up jumping through hoops and having my life taken over
just to claim NI contributions...

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 04:29 PM

The OECD says the TRUE unemployment number should be three million higher - over four million, or 13%.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Raggytash
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 04:16 PM

I posted in December that the official unemployment figure was 1,218,000.

Yesterday the figure was 1,306,000.

An additional 88,000 people.

Hmmm ................ universal credit anyone?

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 03:07 PM

”Subject: BS: UK politics
From: Dave the Gnome - PM
Date: 20 Jan 20 - 01:58 PM

We have been given the thumbs up for a new politics thread. The rules are no personal abuse and no trolling. These actions will only result in thread closure. Any comments on how the current administration is performing? Good or bad. Any views on the Labour leadership contest? Anything else related to politics would be fine. Any attempts to start a fight or abuse fellow Mudcatters will be frowned upon.”

Just a reminder...

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 02:26 PM

Too much reliance on, hiding behind, surveys and statistics
enables uncaring petty officious people to distance themselves into an abstract view of society,
even further removed from having to consider the realities of ordinary people
and their stressful problem bound lives...

Hence tory benefit regulations and bureaucracy, etc,
and at worst the pernicious banal evils of right wing governments...

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 01:46 PM

In the meantime, some interesting news from Vancouver Island, BC. concerning Jackson and Zoë...

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 01:21 PM

.. or for the most part just ignore surveys and statistics,
which usually only serve to confirm prior bias,
and underpin propaganda..

"But instead talk and listen to a widest range of people
with as open a mind as possible,"
before arriving at our own intelligent independent evaluations..

But then, I'm not a pseudo political scientist...

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 12:40 PM

And there's nothing random about YouGov. You can join it on their website and you get paid in points to fill in their "surveys." Eventually you can covert the points into money. Random surveys shouldn't be able to be completed by self-selected people who are in it for the dough. Looking into this as someone who's never joined a polling company, I now realise why I've never been polled about anything in my whole life. I'm beginning to understand why opinion polls have been so unreliable in recent years...I think...

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 12:30 PM

YouGov appears to be a conservatively-owned site that has bought shares in enough legitimate polling sites that when you try to search on opinions OF YouGov you only hit YouGov's results about itself.

Alarm bells should be going off when that site appears as the source of data.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 12:23 PM

BWM - of course.. we'd be too decent and honourable to gloat...

while grinding their faces into the mire of their own making,
as putrid dark evil fluids ooze from every pore of their skin,
and all orifices of their rotting living dead carcasses...

ermm.. ..ummm. excuse me.. what were we saying..
ah yes.. we'd be much kinder to them as they realise their mistakes...

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 12:09 PM

Pfr - the 31st January wont be the end of Brexit- it is just the start. That’s when the Brexiteers will begin to understand the depth of their gullibility, and the full measure of their stupidity.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 11:46 AM

Will folks stop blathering on about brexit after this month..

Or is the obsession too deep set and pathological...???

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Iains
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 11:30 AM

The particular yougov survey in question merely repeats what any rational political "analyst" knows anyway. If young beccie is a corbyn clone it is no surprise that she is adhering to the ideology of the leader. If her acolytes also adhere to the leader's utterances then electability is doomed.
No skin off my nose, Labour is obviously finished. Their days of frustrating brexit are now over.

it really is none of your business. you have no positive interest in the party or its members,
Labour has wasted nearly 4 years frustrating brexit. That is very much my business.
It is not my problem you do not like my analysis of Labour's failure.
Try and show me any error! I an confident that as long as labour places ideology above popularity they will never become a serious political entity. That is very much your problem, not mine. I find the idea of Labour consigned to the wastelands a very attractive proposition.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 11:12 AM

I am polled by YouGov periodically. Anyone who asks my opinion should not be trusted :-)

However, there are occasions where their surveys can be useful. Particularly when no one else is providing any statistics.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 11:03 AM

Just as I thought, a plethora of dirt-digging and/or leading questions. A useless survey, meant to feed into the confirmation bias of brainless Mail readers. The extremely misleadingly-named YouGov (doesn't that sound so official!) is a private polling/market research company founded twenty years ago by a pair of Tory politicians. Just so as you know. "Oi, I'm talking to you, guv" would be more respectable.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 10:31 AM

Well.. a purpose iains serves for me is saving me wasting too much time keeping up
with the vilest right wing youtubers,
who i absolutely detest.

He at least provides a daily condensed round up of 'propaganda briefings' of the day
in a slightly more tolerable format...

By now I [some of us..??] can infiltrate and pass accepted amongst them talking their language..
which could be handy in knowing and fighting the enemy...???

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 09:42 AM

Can't the new Labour leader be selected on the basis of a performance review
after 12 months probation...???

Which gives a year to seriously search the party for a better and more charismatic replacement in waiting...

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Iains
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 07:26 AM

FYI
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/01/21/five-more-things-we-discovered-about-labour-member

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 07:06 AM

Keir Starmer's supporters don't need to compromise anyway. Keir is a massive compromise on legs. I haven't looked but it sounds to me like a whole bunch of leading questions might have been asked.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Iains
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 06:57 AM

An interesting article from guido concerning a yougov poll.
It makes for frightening reading for "thinking" labour supporters:
New YouGov polling has found that one third of Rebecca Long-Bailey’s supporters are “completely unwilling to compromise any Labour values, even if this means the party is unelectable.” Only 5% of Keir Starmer’s supporters refuse to compromise with the voters and just 4% of Lisa Nandy’s supporters prefer purity in opposition. Emily Thornberry did not have enough supporters to be polled…

Conversely, just 1% of RLB’s supporters are “willing to see large compromises on some Labour values if this makes the party more electable.” This compares to 16% of Starmer’s supporters and 19% of Nandy’s.

I did see a comment from another site describing Labour as a "circular Firing Squad". Kinda hard to dispute!

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 05:37 AM

Nicola Sturgeon is a wily and sure-footed politician who is a strong and charismatic leader. That's the way to do it.

Promising the electorate what you think the electorate wants ends up with massively stupid things such as a contest as to who can plant the most trees. It doesn't work. Hired "reality checkers" will soon pick the bones out of things like that. You don't have to do too much of stuff like that before your opponents have all the ammunition they need in order to make you look ridiculous. Here are some things you don't do: promise a four-day week. You'll never do it so don't say it. Score Corbyn out of ten. That's a really silly game and you could be nailing your flag to a mast that's falling down. Tell people that you'll nationalise everything that moves. You won't and can't anyway, it's not exactly popular, the enemy has lots of examples of why it often didn't work so why screw yourself by saying it? Forget to let people know that you've made your mind up. The most iconic moment for me in the campaign was Johnson driving a JCB through a wall, demolishing it at a stroke with "get brexit done" emblazoned on the front. The Tories know that the electorate are stupid and they make full use of the fact. If you actually read any manifesto you are a rare exception. The message has to be unsubtle and crude, not convoluted inside a hundred-page document that makes you hostage to fortune. It can still reflect your honest aspirations without sending people into a bored torpor. When I was a green-behind-the-ears young teacher, I applied for a head of science job at a school in Lytham. I "came second." After the interview the headmaster came up to me and told me he'd wanted me for the job but the governors had overruled him because they'd felt that I was trying to tell them what I thought they wanted to hear. The bloke who got the job had gone in and told them that the the department was in a shambles and needed a bloody good shake up. Which I suppose it did. He went in there and impressively cowed the governors. I know that because the head told me. That's how you win things. If Starmer gets the job he'd better grow a pair very quickly is all I can say.

I hear to my dismay that there may be ructions and splits behind the scenes in RLB's camp. She'd better get that sorted otherwise she's stuffed.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Rob 'Mad Jock' Wright
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 04:32 AM

No matter who you vote for The Governnment always gets in.

In the battle for leadership of the Labour Party there is no clear choice of leader so whoever wins will be treading a narrow line as those who did not support the choice will be looking for an opportunity to oust them and replace with their preferred choice.

The SNP had Sturgeon waiting in the wings and she got full support of the party and the voters when she took over.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Iains
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 04:11 AM

Corbyn placed ideology above pragmatism. For that arrogance he deserved to lose. As a committed marxist he no doubt feels the electorate are answerable to him, rather than the other way about. BIG MISTAKE !!

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 03:54 AM

A good article indeed, DMcG. Let’s hope the truth begins to dawn on the majority of LP members very soon - you can’t do anything in opposition, to bring about change and impose your policies you need to be elected, and to get elected you need to get a leader and a message that’s attractive to voters.

Trump understood that, and he’s now POTUS. Dom & Dumber understood it too, and the result is an 80-odd majority.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: DMcG
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 03:31 AM

Jess Phillips realises folly of speaking truth to out-of-power

Quite a good article, I think. It takes the same stance I and BWM are taking about the pointlessness of determinedly standing for things if you can't get elected. For example he suggest Jess's internal monologue might include:


She was too centrist. Too obsessed with trying to get Labour back into power rather than preserving its ideological purity. The very idea that Labour might have to change! Didn’t she know it was the voters who needed to change? How could she have been so stupid as to fail to understand that the best way to help the poorest members of society was to remain in permanent opposition?


So, for example, when Steve says "[Nandy's] voting record on brexit makes her a Tory-lite", he misses that her voting record could be one of the things in her favour with the 'Red wall' areas, since it matches theirs. Ditto the 'Tory-lite' to some extent. These people did vote Tory and the party needs to face up to that. Iains is right when he says the Labour party needs to regain the trust of the voters. Without that, the party will never get elected. I am not so convinced about how long it will take though: that depends on how the current Parliament plays out as much as anything.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Iains
Date: 22 Jan 20 - 01:53 AM

The major problem labour has is that has lost the trust of the electorate.
Labour called for the referedum, reneged and supported Remain.
In January 2017, Corbyn announced that Labour would impose a three-line whip to force Labour MPs in favour of triggering Article 50.
In the 2017 Election Labour said the result must be honoured, and is aiming for a "close new relationship with the EU" with workers' rights protected.
In December 2019 If it won the election, Labour wanted to renegotiate Mr Johnson's Brexit deal and put it to another public vote. It said it would achieve this within six months.

Labour said its referendum would be a choice between a "sensible" Leave option versus Remain.
Totally incoherent policy shifts purely to try to grab power. This is how the electorate saw the situation and refelects how they voted.
It does not matter who becomes leader, the party needs to regain trust.
That is going to be some mountain to climb. At least two parliamentary terms, probably far longer. It is clear that Labour has tried to deny the will of the people ever since the referendum. They paid the price at the polls, and deservedly so. In the US the Democrats are set firmly on the same path. Annihilation beckons!

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Jan 20 - 07:34 PM

Growing into the job of party leader is a very unpredictable trajectory. In the particular case of the Labour Party the overriding need right now is for a strong, decisive, charismatic LEADER with the guts to tell demurrers where to get off. Blair did it and Thatcher did it. For years I worked in a decent school with a very weak head teacher. The upshot was a bunch of middle-order department heads and a couple of senior teachers running the bloody place like a Mafia. Discontent was rife, pulling together for the common good didn't exist and there were a dozen little kingdoms and a load of energy-sapping competition. Ruinous for the school ethos. A strong leader can rattle cages without the whole shebang splitting into pieces. That kind of shambles is what we've just had in Labour. A bunch of talented people being allowed to be constantly at each other's throats and undermining the leader with impunity, all of it giving succour to the gleeful gutter press. That can't happen again. It's very difficult to pick the potential strongest out of this four. We can rule Thornberry out in any case. Nandy scrubs up well for photoshoots but she is easily the most divisive one still standing, and her voting record on brexit makes her a Tory-lite. Starmer might cut it, but his vacillation on brexit and his fence-sitting makes him look worried and indecisive and will come back to bite him. That leaves me with, well, a true socialist at least...

...And a woman. There, I've said it. First job, kick Momentum into touch. Then she could just be a breath of fresh air. As I said, it's all very unpredictable. As long as she gets on the ballot I won't be changing my mind.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: peteglasgow
Date: 21 Jan 20 - 02:18 PM

'she liked that Ruth Davidson'!? clearly she is not the woman you think you knew, she has changed into something awful and dangerous. carefully go upstairs and pack a bag very quietly. 'I'm just taking the dog out....bye' run and run for a very long way...don't look behind you.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 21 Jan 20 - 01:02 PM

Funny you should say that..

My mrs would be delighted if Nicola Sturgeon became Labour leader...

.. but then again, she also liked that Scottish tory leader Ruth Davidson who resigned...

My wife is a Welsh Valleys Labourite, and she has a peculiarly strong female celtic bias...

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: peteglasgow
Date: 21 Jan 20 - 12:51 PM

hmmm.....with caroline lucas as environment secretary, nicola sturgeon at the foreign office and jo brand at culture and media?