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UK Politics: Trumpy Cat Trumpy Cat Where Have You Been?


mormont

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On Sunday, March 19, 2017 at 7:14 PM, Notone said:

In which reality is Corbyn winning an election in 2020. I'd wager a beer Corbyn is gone by then.

Wow, a whole beer, you must be really confident. I'd wager my wife and our first unborn child. And I think the man is amazing.  

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4 minutes ago, SeanF said:

https://www.icmunlimited.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/2017_guardian_march17_poll2.pdf

This is the worst poll for Labour that I can remember.  While one must always be cautious about sub-samples, it even has Labour trailing the Conservatives among the unemployed.

Epic stuff.

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1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

Wow, a whole beer, you must be really confident. I'd wager my wife and our first unborn child. And I think the man is amazing.  

My allegedly British genes are apparently not very dominant, thus I am not really a betting man (as I have mentioned a few times). Anyhow, served with a nice Chianti I assume?

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17 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Wow, a whole beer, you must be really confident. I'd wager my wife and our first unborn child. And I think the man is amazing.  

I actually don't think Corbyn will be gone by 2020. It's very important to centrist Labour MPs and members that Corbyn is now allowed to fail on his own terms, and that means letting him stick it out until the public can have a say on him and his leadership, particularly so after winning two leadership elections and the second more comfortably than the first.

Corbyn also can't simply step aside and allow an appointed successor to take over. Quite aside from the fact that he and his team have so far failed utterly to get any of their preferred candidates chosen for by-elections, there is no scenario under which the Labour PLP will make the same mistake (as they see it) in choosing a left-wing candidate "to widen the debate". Only Corbyn is guaranteed to be involved in any future leadership challenge.

There is only one scenario under which I can see Corbyn stepping aside before 2020: if the Labour Conference votes to reduced the required nominations for a leadership contest from 15% of MPs and MEPs to 5%. Under that threshold, the left-wing of Labour should be able to guarantee a presence on any future leadership contest, and Corbyn might decide that's good enough for him.

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It's a tough one. There's no question that McGuinness was, for a big chunk of his life, a terrorist. But he was also instrumental if not critical in building a lasting peace. What makes it harder is that he never really apologised for the former, and it wasn't clear (to me, anyway) whether that was because he felt that politically he couldn't, or whether he didn't regret what he'd done. In the nature of NI politics, it's likely very few people could answer that question now he's gone.

I did hear this morning a story about how when Ian Paisley (senior) was ill, McGuinness would pray with him. I don't offer that as a character reference, so much as an illustration of how far NI has come over the last couple of decades.

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36 minutes ago, mormont said:

It's a tough one. There's no question that McGuinness was, for a big chunk of his life, a terrorist. But he was also instrumental if not critical in building a lasting peace. What makes it harder is that he never really apologised for the former, and it wasn't clear (to me, anyway) whether that was because he felt that politically he couldn't, or whether he didn't regret what he'd done. In the nature of NI politics, it's likely very few people could answer that question now he's gone.

I did hear this morning a story about how when Ian Paisley (senior) was ill, McGuinness would pray with him. I don't offer that as a character reference, so much as an illustration of how far NI has come over the last couple of decades.

It is interesting how the narrative about him has changed over the years. Growing up he was always the villain, a terrorist, but you wouldn't know any of that reading the news stories today. 

If a murderer and terrorist stops murdering and blowing people up and gets many of the things he wants by stopping, does that suddenly make him a good guy? I know its more complex than that, but imagine if Osama Bin Laden had brokered a peace deal in Iraq and created a stable government there... would we be saying nice things about him after he died? 

If you have to do terrible things in order to create something good, does that make you a bad or a good person, and does that wipe out your crimes?

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4 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

It is interesting how the narrative about him has changed over the years. Growing up he was always the villain, a terrorist, but you wouldn't know any of that reading the news stories today. 

If a murderer and terrorist stops murdering and blowing people up and gets many of the things he wants by stopping, does that suddenly make him a good guy? I know its more complex than that, but imagine if Osama Bin Laden had brokered a peace deal in Iraq and created a stable government there... would we be saying nice things about him after he died? 

If you have to do terrible things in order to create something good, does that make you a bad or a good person, and does that wipe out your crimes?

In his case, he didn't have to do terrible things.  Most people in Northern Ireland managed to avoid doing so.

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9 hours ago, mormont said:

I did hear this morning a story about how when Ian Paisley (senior) was ill, McGuinness would pray with him. I don't offer that as a character reference, so much as an illustration of how far NI has come over the last couple of decades.

I think the comments from different generations of politicians rub this in - Blair and Cameron were both praising his role in the peace process, while Norman Tebbit was basically dancing on his grave.

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5 hours ago, SeanF said:

In his case, he didn't have to do terrible things.  Most people in Northern Ireland managed to avoid doing so.

In fairness to C4JS, they weren't saying his actions were justifiable. But that the peace process had to involve significant figures from the IRA, so we'd still be talking about someone who had been culpable in bombings. The fact that he was involved in violence is what lent his voice the weight it had.

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25 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

Up to a dozen people have been injured by a knifeman who rammed his car into them outside the Houses of Parliament.

As of now, the BBC are confirming only that a policeman has been stabbed and the perpetrator shot by armed police. There are reports of five people being injured by a car but these aren't yet confirmed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39355940

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Am watching this with great anxiety for all of you in London. The damn announcers keep talking about the tactic of diversions before the main event and the anniversary of the Brussels attack.  I hope this is another example of a lone wolf, and not a pack. My condolences for the family of the woman who died and my thoughts are with the injured.

I will be booking my flight for Worldcon in the next few days and have been thinking of flying through London and spending extra days there or through Brussels and spending extra time with the friends I'll be sharing digs with in Helsinki. Sadly, these are not care free decisions these days. :(

ETA: I see now 4 people have died. I assume one is the attacker. My condolences to all who are grieving, including the family of the attacker.

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8 minutes ago, polishgenius said:


Seems unlikely. If you were planning a more major attack why would you put the entire nation on high alert before you did it?

Any additional attack would have come very soon after, so I am assuming at this point the attacker was a lone wolf. But yes, multiple attacks occurred in Paris and two attacks in Brussels. Draw all eyes to one place and when reports come in from others about incidents, there's confusion with regard to what is being referred to. And resources are split.

I had been watching CNN - they go into high terror alert mode quite quickly. It is London, another capital like Paris and Brussels, and it is the one year anniversary of Brussels. The concern is not surprising.

ETA: And I'm sure the police were worried about the idea as well.

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It's going to be a long summer, I suspect. I regularly cut across that bridge when in London, part of my normal walk...usually pretty crowded with tourists taking shots of BB or the Eye in the other direction. 

Also, in that we apparently can't stop reacting exactly as the terrorists want us to react, the fact that French schoolgirls were among the victims might have significant effects on Le Pin's campaign. 

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