BS: Brexit & other UK political topics

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 05 Oct 21 - 08:52 PM

Well, Nigel, in each of the last four or five years, proven cases of electoral fraud have been in single figures every year (very checkable).

The very fact that you accept that there are proven cases is also acceptance that your earlier claim: there's no electoral fraud in this country was untrue. And according to you it was "very checkable". Obviously, as on previous occasions, you committed yourself to print without checking your facts in the belief that a strongly asserted statement would be accepted as 'fact'.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Oct 21 - 09:00 PM

Single numbers per annum out of an electorate of forty-odd million. Congratulations, Nigel, on your greatest nitpick ever! Excellent, even for you!

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 05 Oct 21 - 09:31 PM

Stop squirming and admit that your original claim was wrong.
To 'a scientist' the difference between 'none' and 'some' should be significant.
The fact that there are some proven cases, even if only a few, does not preclude the possibility of other cases not brought to light. But it does preclude the possibility that there's no electoral fraud in this country.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Rain Dog
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 03:44 AM

Proven cases of electoral fraud are small. There would appear to be little to no evidence that it is a problem in the UK. I would suspect that if it does occur it is more likely to do so in local elections but, like the government, i do not have any evidence to support that suspicion.

Of course it was a Labour government that floated this idea before. Indeed they introduced it in Northern Ireland in 2002. I don't know how people over there have taken to it. I am not aware that it is a major issue.

BUT.

The following text is taken from Channel 4 website.

++

In Northern Ireland, voters who didn’t have the right documents could apply for a free photographic electoral ID card from their local council.

This went some way to answering the objection that people who could not afford the application fee for a driving licence or passport might be priced out of voting.

When the government first announced this bill in the Queen’s Speech in 2019, it explicitly said it would follow the Northern Ireland model, saying: “Any voter who does not have an approved form of ID will be able to apply, free of charge, for a local electoral identity document.”

This assurance is missing from the notes that accompany the 2021 Queen’s Speech, and we haven’t been able to pin the government down on whether they still plan to offer free ID cards to people who don’t have them.

On the question of funding, a government spokesman simply told us: “We will set out detail in due course.”

++

The devil is in the detail. If people have to pay for voter id, it will hit the poorest hardest. They are probably more likely to vote labour rather than tory.

If the government try to push this through before the next general election, i think that even the less cynical among us will suspect their motives for doing so.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 04:01 AM

Possibly a step towards compulsory National Identity Cards?

(For the record, I’m ambivalent about compulsory National ID cards - they seemed to be acceptable during WW2 and in the few years afterwards, maybe they’d be fine now?).

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 04:11 AM

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 04:44 AM

This country does not own me, and what I carry around, or not, to identify myself should always be fully my decision. I never go anywhere (whether driving or not) without my driving licence. My decision. I need it (or something similar to identify myself), quite rightly, to pick up my wine order at Waitrose click and collect, and I need it this morning to pick up an order at the local Argos. I've been caught speeding several times, and that has taught me that it's always a great idea (though it isn't obligatory) to carry the licence with me as it means I don't have the inconvenience of having to go to a police station to show it later. Those are my choices, and I will not carry ID just because a government tells me to. I haven't got a problem with certain convicted criminals wearing tags, but that's the only acceptable exception as far as I'm concerned.

Nigel, dear fellow, there is no discernible problem with voter fraud that even remotely requires a law obliging us to carry voter ID. That's the argument, if you're making it, that you've lost. So nitpick away, I'm finished with that avenue of enquiry.

On a different tack, here's a comment from a reader under a Guardian opinion piece about the motorway protests. I'm reproducing it because I agree with every word.

One of my closest friends is involved in the Insulate Britain protests. In over 30 years of environmental activism she has sacrificed so much, at considerable personal cost. To hear her dismissed as an “irresponsible crusty” by Johnson brought home to me how little thought he actually puts into what he says. As long as he gets in a cheap ad hominem dig and gets to play to the gallery it’s job done. That’s the extent of his involvement.

As for the benighted Home Secretary. I was listening to her speech today. She shifted seamlessly from the word “protestor” to the word “criminal”, almost as if they were synonyms. She is a menace. She is a threat to all protest …... a threat to decency.

I accept that Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain really piss people off. That’s part of the point. Is it counter-productive? Well, we’re all talking about it, so on an important metric they are succeeding in what they’ve set out to do. After decades of activism with little to show, these are the tactics which finally seem to have broken through.

But be under no illusion that this doesn’t come at some personal cost for the protestors. Don’t fall for the bullshit of focusing on who the protestors are. Focus on the issue and its ramifications. Because if you think you’re inconvenienced now, just wait until you see what’s in store if we all continue as we are.

We should be just grateful that there are people willing to put themselves on the line for the sake of the rest of us.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 04:53 AM

So, you already have an ID card Steve. Fair enough. Has anyone suggested that, should an ID card system be introduced, it would be compulsory to carry it at all times? If so, I must have missed it.

And my suggestion that a ‘Voter ID’ document might be a stealth step by a less-than-up-front Tory government towards the introduction of an ID card system was just that - not in any way a recommendation or indication of my belief in such a thing, I thought I’d made it perfectly clear that I don’t care either way.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 04:58 AM

But I carry it out of choice, generally dictated by convenience. I don't carry it because I've been ordered to by a government. I will never do that, because, as I said, this country doesn't own me. That was my point. Give me an ID card and tell me that I can carry it if I want to. No problem with that.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 05:05 AM

Hence my question. Has it been suggested that, should an ID card system be introduced, carrying it at all times would be compulsory? It may have been, but I don’t recall it if it has..

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 05:09 AM

I was responding to your post that used the word "compulsory" twice, and your musing as to whether they'd be fine now. that's all!

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 05:17 AM

As I’ve now said three times, it was a rhetorical question about the possible intentions of a government with a reputation for behaving dishonestly, not an indication of support, and I don’t care whether they’re introduced or not.

Alles klaar?

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 06:54 AM

"Is it counter-productive? Well, we’re all talking about it, so on an important metric they are succeeding in what they’ve set out to do."

It is ok for good lefties to call that out as utter bollocks...!!!

What 'we're' talking about is the fanatical numpty useful idiot protesters..

They are an annoying distraction from talking about the actual issues which matter more than just about any others
to the survival of our planet..

Issues which ARE already being widely discussed because of their vital importance to our future..

NOT because of vain protesting fools and their uncritical naive supporters claiming credit
for such timely current crucial discussions...

.. and what a joke if the Home Insulation industry is discovered to be covertly controlling Insulate Britain puppets...???

They got as far as legally tolerable with dodgy call centre tele sales teams
promising free govt money grants for shoddy home insulation products...

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 07:44 AM

I’m broadly with you, pfr - I’m all for peaceful protest, but I feel that the Insulate Britain crowd are following a self-defeating policy by going too far and, thus, alienating many people who would otherwise have supported their protest.

Having been rushed by ambulance to hospital with life-threatening conditions a number of times, I know that Mrs Backwoodsperson would have torn a few heads off if my survival had been threatened by by demonstrators delaying the ambulance’s progress to the hospital.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 09:40 AM

"They are an annoying distraction from talking about the actual issues..."

Well you certainly hit the nail on the head there. We've spent the last forty or fifty years "talking about the issues" and DOING next to bugger all about them. Carbon dioxide emissions still rising year on year, for example. I think I read somewhere this morning that the UK has the draughtiest, most poorly-insulated houses in Europe... All the talking-about-the-issues is just hot air. Literally. These folks are DOING something. The long history of protests is that if you do them quietly or politely or by signing a petition on Change.org you get ignored.   

So tell me of any cases you know of in which someone has suffered or died in an ambulance at the protests. Do you think that if protesters let ambulances through we would even get to know about it? I have my doubts...

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 09:48 AM

And just a word on this:

"...alienating many people who would otherwise have supported their protest..."

Let's see then.

"Insulate Britain are making a very valid point about the poor state of housing which results in seriously higher emissions. Now that I can support!"

"Hang on. They're sitting on the M25! I would have supported their cause* if only they hadn't done that!"

Really??

*("but done nothing...")

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 09:52 AM

"We've spent the last forty or fifty years "talking about the issues" and DOING next to bugger all about them."

You seem to underestimate the active conviction and call for immediate change from young folks..

- 50 years younger than us...

They are the generation who will inherit the dire consequences of their elders inactivity, or outright denial of impending doom...

They are the effective instruments of real positive change;
who are coming of age and will soon occupy positions of responsibility and power..
Hopefully before it's too late...!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 10:01 AM

"Insulate Britain are making a very valid point about the poor state of housing which results in seriously higher emissions. Now that I can support!"

Yeah.. right..

Like that idea would never have occurred to anyone else,
if it wasn't for a bunch of crusading habitual nuisance duffers
disrupting transport systems at a time of national crisis...!!!???

At least they've got us all talking about it.. bollocks...!!!


I'm dismayed at the uncritical support from elelments of the left
for these tools...

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 11:44 AM

You seem to underestimate the active conviction and call for immediate change from young folks..

- 50 years younger than us...

You mean the ones that insist that we drop them off at school and take them everywhere in cars? Or the ones who seem incapable of conversation without hand held electronic devices? Or the ones who must have the latest phone while the old one goes into landfill? Let's compare that to when I was in my teens shall we? Walked to school. Went further afield on the bus. Bought stuff in paper bags. Took bottles back to the shop to get the deposit back. Went to the phone box to call people but only if they happened to have a phone. Need I go on? :-D

As to 'elements from the left'. Just who are these elements? Is support for fixing climate change limited to those on the left of the spectrum? I think not.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 11:52 AM

DtG - I'm not a dad..
So I don't have to put up with those kinds of spoilt little shits..

Like many other frightened young lefties in the early 1980s,
I decided I couldn't bring any kids into the world of thatcher/reagan
and the kremlin,
poised to bring on nuclear apocalyse..

So I ended up marrying an infant school teacher who loves kids,
but has had enough of other people's little brats at wotk..

Obviously, you know the kind of intelligent activist 21st century yoofs I'm actually talking about...

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 12:03 PM

.. and regarding uncritical lefty support for misguided road protesters...

Of course anyone with any sense supports fighting climate change,
but most folks object to the fanatical methods of road protest obsessed attention seeking zealots.
Apart from a vociferous pandering minority of liberals/greens/lefty useful idiots...

Yep.. they're a definite gift for pityless patel and her justifications
for harder harsher laws...

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 12:07 PM

"Like that idea would never have occurred to anyone else..."

This is not about ideas occurring to people (who then sit on their hands). It's about provoking/shaming the powers-that-be to DO something. It's all very well "ideas occurring to us," but "ideas occurring to us" hasn't stopped us from becoming one of the worst-insulated nations in the western world...

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 12:22 PM

We can't get our NHS flu jabs. We had our appointments, which we'd made three weeks ago, cancelled two days ago. We got alternative appointments but they were cancelled this afternoon with the message "try again in early November." What a bloody shambles.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 12:33 PM

Obviously, you know the kind of intelligent activist 21st century yoofs I'm actually talking about

I don't I'm afraid. Please enlighten me. One of the biggest secondary schools in North Yorkshire is about 500 yards from my front door and most of the pupils seem to be dropped off and picked up by their parents and seem to have an unhealthy pre-occupation with mobile devices. There may be the odd Greta Thunberg but judging by the general behaviour the "active conviction and call for immediate change" takes second place to home comforts. I'm not saying they are bad kids or that they don't care. I'm sure they care about the environment as much as the next person but I think that maybe you are overestimating their commitment rather than anyone underestimating anything. Maybe your wife can confirm that the generation in her care all walk to and from school and do not use mobile devices?

I also still don't know which "elelments of the left" give uncritical support to these "tools"

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 12:37 PM

We'll probably pay for flu jabs at the chemists again..
We were texted and notified of free jabs by our GP weeks ago,
but heard nothing else since.

Last winter we weren't offered free flu jabs until the flu season was nearly over.
By then we'd already paid up for injections well before xmas...

Not a word about covid boosters yet ?

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 12:41 PM

DtG - have a look round.. they pop up, easily spotted in social media...

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 12:44 PM

.. one quick identifier is variants on the slogan "At least they get people talking about it"...

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 01:01 PM

Who are easily spotted? Leftist elements or intelligent activist 21st century youths? No good looking on social media as all that provides is proof of how many armchair warriors exist. Real activists get out and do something. Most often anonymously as they don't want to get arrested!

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 01:16 PM

I had my flu jab at the doctor’s surgery a couple of weeks ago.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 01:25 PM

That hot bed of left wing support, The Spectator, has just published this article on BoJo's Walter Mitty act. If even The Spectator can admit he is the shitiest leader we have ever had, how come the right wingers on here are still supporting him?

There's nowt so queer as folk...

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 01:52 PM

"Most often anonymously"..

nail on the head time...???

Now that might get more effective real results done
than the "Ooh, look at me, I'm a heroic protester" showboaters...

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 01:54 PM

”If even The Spectator can admit he is the shitiest leader we have ever had, how come the right wingers on here are still supporting him?”

It’s a combination of the power of psychological conditioning (a.k.a. ‘Brainwashing’), and the Goebbels Philosophy.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 01:57 PM

Bugger! Try again…

It’s a combination of the power of psychological conditioning (a.k.a. ‘Brainwashing’) by the Right Wing media , and the Goebbels Philosophy.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Oct 21 - 08:27 PM

Well I've just watched one of those Portillo railway episodes, one in which he visited Manchester. There was a detail of three women, suffragettes, who walked into an art gallery and attacked the glass fronts of several paintings (some of which were those of pre-raphaelite tossers) with little toffee hammers. No messing about talking about it, no worries about public condemnation. And guess what. Eventually, women got the vote. Learn from history, or, as the yanks would say, go figure...

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 07 Oct 21 - 12:21 AM

Mind you, the suffragettes didn't have the internet in them days...

.. we now live in the 21st century...!!!

It's still daft chucking yerself under a race horse...

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 07 Oct 21 - 03:50 AM

Each pressure group has its genuine cause that it is trying to gain support for and some in those groups may resort to civil disobedience to bring their cause to public attention. However, I believe that some of those marching down Whitehall, chaining themselves to railings or gluing themselves to the M25, in support of the latest protest to hit the headlines, are there for that very reason - it's in the headlines. They don't really care about the cause. They are there to cause mayhem because they can. If I were to start a protest against the Teletubbies in some headline grabbing way, it wouldn't be long before the anti-brigade were marching shoulder to shoulder with me, at least until the next fad came along.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: DMcG
Date: 07 Oct 21 - 04:06 AM

But that is a tricky link to make, Steve. The attack on the art was in 1913, then the during the war most suffragettes suspended action "in the national interest". In 1918 some women over 30 were granted the vote in 1918, with most not getting the vote until 1928.

We need to avoid the pro hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Oct 21 - 05:06 AM

Well I think that keeping yourself in the headlines always has a good chance of getting you somewhere. Of course I know that attacking paintings didn't get women the vote, but it put their cause in the headlines, just one of many strategies. Then you have to convince the people who you've made indignant that while they may disapprove of what you're doing, it shouldn't mean they have to disapprove of your cause. Which they are now aware of because of what you are impolitely doing. Being polite means writing to your MP or signing petitions, and we know how far that gets you. Not living near the M25 means that I haven't had the opportunity to be inconvenienced by the protesters, so by all means call me Mr Smug. Lastly, let's try to avoid tarring every road protester with the same brush. They are individual human beings with their own perspectives, not necessarily all sinister middle-class ex-student union rabble-rousers. If you don't know them personally, you simply can't say. That's not being a leftie. That's being fair-minded.

By the way, DMcG, the logical fallacy you refer to is POST hoc...

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 Oct 21 - 05:24 AM

It's still daft chucking yerself under a race horse... quote really we all have to die sometime.and it gets you remembered,and contributed to women getting the vote. .....please somebody tell me the point of protest if it has no effect.
perhaps it is not as daft as dying while on the back of a horse fox hunting. or dying like the rector of stiffkey,
or like a neighbour of mine trying to get in to his own house through a lavatory window that was too small and dying of suffocation

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Oct 21 - 05:54 AM

Was it the nasty bog smell wot suffocated him then? Should he have given it twenty minutes before trying to get in?

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: DMcG
Date: 07 Oct 21 - 07:01 AM

By the way, DMcG, the logical fallacy you refer to is POST hoc|/i>

Quite correct, my mistake. It happens!

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 Oct 21 - 07:08 AM

I’m astonished no-one seems to have commented on our esteemed (NOT!) PM’s speech to his band of adoring worshippers at the end of the Annual Tory Love-in and Piss-up yesterday. John Crace, as ever, sums it up perfectly…

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Oct 21 - 08:17 AM

In case anyone wondered, here is Bozzer's speech fact checked.

And there are STILL people willing to support him!

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Rain Dog
Date: 07 Oct 21 - 09:02 AM

"If  you don't know them personally, you simply can't say."

I have never met Boris so all that follows is based on my own observation. I think that he is a pathological liar and a fantasist. I think he has little interest in politics and is most likely not even a tory. He appears to know little or nothing about business and shows no inclination to learn anything about it. His mantra seems to be 'fuck business'. Oh and he also seems to like rewriting history, but not in a woke way.

And yet, and yet he is the prime minister. Such are the times we are living in.

He just wants to be liked and will say whatever he thinks people want to hear.

A lot of the tory party members, especially the mps, are just riding on his coattails, hanging on for dear life. They are in for a bumpy ride, as is the rest of the country. Fuck knows when and where it will all end.

I did see mention of a comment in his speech about Brexit helping to put an end to the plans for the ESL. Who would have thought that?

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Oct 21 - 09:39 AM

Yep, yet another Bozzer fantasy says Gary Lineker

Maybe we should have footballers running the country?

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 Oct 21 - 11:27 AM

On another forum a poster said, “I find it really hard to understand how people can swallow the bullshit that gushes from Johnson’s mouth”.

My reply was, “They believe it because it’s what they want to hear. Johnson is a past-master in the dark arts of gaslighting and dog-whistling (as, indeed, are his sycophantic acolytes in the Parliamentary Party), and he knows the truth embodied in the Goebbels Philosophy.”

It’s the founding principle of the Populism now espoused by our Far-Right party-in-government, and I see no evidence of any of the other parties having the faintest notion of how to combat it.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Rain Dog
Date: 07 Oct 21 - 12:01 PM

Boris says that he has sorted social care. Well he hasn't BUT at least he has made a start unlike all the previous governments. As usual there are no details yet apart from the planned NI increase next year. We will have to wait and see if he follows through on that. His plan at the moment is more concerned with people preserving their wealth rather than how social care is organised and paid for.

In an ideal world all the parties would get together to come up with a long term plan for social care. I don't think i will live long enough to ever see that happening. As it is, Boris has not even bothered consulting his own party about social care.

So we end up with a tory party proposing to raise taxes to pay for the NHS and social care, and the labour party voting against it. Who saw that coming? Now Labour might well think that there is a fairer way to raise the money. Why haven't they told us? You would hope that they had given the matter some thought before Boris announced his so called plan.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Oct 21 - 01:13 PM

"If you don't know them personally, you simply can't say."

Er, when I said that I wasn't referring to politicians in the public eye but to the dozens/hundreds of road protesters, who are very likely a disparate bunch of people with all manner of perspectives. I doubt that you, Doug, pfr or I know a single one of them. That's why I don't like the application of the broad brush.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Oct 21 - 01:22 PM

I think the Labour party do have alternatives to taxing the poor, Rain Dog. Higher taxes for Rich. Make sure the big corporates pay their whack. Close the offshoring legal loopholes. They have espoused many such. Trouble is the mega rich own the media and most politicians dance to their tune. Sadly, that now includes the current Labour executive so we cannot expect them to oppose the reverse Robin Hood policies currently in favour.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Oct 21 - 01:23 PM

Oh. 2000! :-)