UK Politics: The Beast From The East

[Spockydog]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

No, he couldn't. He doesn't have it in him. If he did, you wouldn't have to be indulging in what-ifs.

 

Let's just see what happens after the next election, eh?

[Rorshach]

On 16.3.2018 at 10:16 AM, Hereward said:

What did Norway do?!

Well, we’ve had a week or so of trying to get our Minster of Justice to apologize for posting on Facebook that the biggest opposition party (Labour) is more interested in protecting the rights of terrorists than making our nation safe and secure. 

She is now trying to tell us - still on Facebook - that she never dreamed of people connecting that little Trump-inspired (no, she didn’t say that - my interpretation) post with the fact that we are six years removed from the attack on Labour’s youth camp by a terrorist.

Our Prime minister has so far refused to do much about it. 

Also, on a comlete tangent, but gas-related: Statoil is changing its name to Equinor.

[Jen'ari]

3 hours ago, Spockydog said:

I agree that Corbyn is a terrible politician. But he could be a truly inspirational leader. If he'd enjoyed a level media playing field during the election, I believe he'd already be in Downing Street.

He couldn’t, he’s terrible, in fact the only reason he made the gains he did at the election is that May is worse, if it had even been Cameron he was running against instead of her I expect he would have lost seats instead.

The idea that he is a ‘prime minister in waiting’ might be a statement declared true by some media outlets but it isn’t one shared by the Country.

Labour could well win the next election but I doubt they will with Corbyn in charge, equally the Tories have a decent chance of winning it IF they get rid of May and don’t completely bungle Brexit(which I don’t hold much hope of, and didnt want in the first place)

 

 

 

[Spockydog]

1 hour ago, Lord Sidious said:

The idea that he is a ‘prime minister in waiting’ might be a statement declared true by some media outlets but it isn’t one shared by the Country.

Oh, all right then. Guess I'll just shut up and bow to your omniscient feckin' view inside the minds of 48 million British voters.

[Spockydog]

36 minutes ago, Lord Sidious said:

Labour could well win the next election but I doubt they will with Corbyn in charge, equally the Tories have a decent chance of winning it IF they get rid of May and don’t completely bungle Brexit(which I don’t hold much hope of, and didnt want in the first place)

The ONLY reason that Rees-Mogg (please, please, please, let it be him) or Johnson, or Gove or any of those other treacherous fuckwits hasn't yet stuck the knife into May is because that will force another election. An election they know they will lose.

No, the Men in Grey Suits will keep her in situ as long as they possibly can, in the hope that Corbo pops his clogs and the Labour Party elects David fucking Milliband, or some such calamitous bullshit.

[Spockydog]

6 hours ago, mormont said:

This is fucking Newsnight, people. Its audience is almost entirely middle-class people with an interest in current affairs. Smart people. People who understand irony.

This is the fucking BBC, people. The class, intelligence or irony filters of its audience matters not one jot. They are supposed to be impartial. It's in their fucking Charter. This was a cheap, craven move, especially coming in the wake of the Ben Bradley fiasco. Some no-mark, who-the-fuck-are-you, Tory MP tweets some scandalously libelous allegations of treason against Corbyn. Actual fucking treason, of the sort that used to get you hanged.

Of course, the usual usual suspects were quick to repeat the lie and splash it all over their front pages. Newsnight gave oxygen to the lie, as well as the Sunday morning sofa shows, and next thing you know you've got people like Theresa May telling reporters that Bradley has 'raised important questions,' the Defence Secretary claiming that Corbyn has betrayed his country, and Tory grandees comparing him to Kim Philby, one of the most treacherous bastards ever to betray this country.

ETA: Andrew Neil is a bone fide badass.

[Werthead]

Quote

It doesn't matter what the BBC's attitude to the Government is.  It's irrelevant to my point.  There's less improper contact between the BBC and the state than is the case for most public broadcasters.

Almost all of the major BBC news and political journalists are either former members of the Conservative Party, campaigned for them when younger or have worked for them in a major capacity. Andrew Neil used to work for the Conservative Party's research department and works for the Telegraph and Spectator. Former BBC political editor Robbie Gibb had a plumb job lined up as Theresa May's Director of Communications for months before he left his role, explaining why the BBC's political coverage of the Tory Party versus Labour up until his departure last summer was hilariously lopsided (he didn't want to upset the apple cart). Cameron and Johnson (as London Mayor) both appointed senior BBC personnel to their staff as well.

The BBC has an extremely strong bias towards the Conservative Party at this time and has done for some years. After Gibb left and the Tories shit the bed on the election and kept screwing up Brexit so badly it couldn't be denied, it looked like we were getting some fairer coverage, but that's been eroded for a while now and it looks like it's back to kicking Corbyn again because it's the path of least resistance. Look at his funny beard and funny hat! Listen to his views that disabled people should be treated with dignity and not left to die because it's too hard to find them a place to live! Let's imply he's a Communist! It's demeaning to the organisation and to the viewer's intelligence.

Quote

I don't think Newsnight viewers are quite the morons you seem to think them.  It's an image that illustrates the story they're about to tell.  If the Daily Mash had broadcast that image, would it also be a case of outrageous bias?

I agree that Newsnight viewers are, generally speaking, not morons. The BBC does, on occasion, talk down to its audience and misjudge them, as it appears to have done on this occasion.

The Daily Mash is a humorous and satirical website that uses gross exaggeration for comical effect. It is not a serious news journal and is not held to the same kind of journalistic standards that the BBC should be. Your invocation of it is therefore a non-sequitur in terms of this discussion.

Quote

What evidence are we waiting for?  The evidence is there for the steps that have been taken.  Corbyn's intractability is just his approach to politics but it seems uncalled for here.

The evidence of the perpetrator, their motives and means. The things that would stand up in a court of law. Russia is also correct in that Britain has not followed OPCW procedures and guidelines in how they have dealt with this matter.

Quote

The big clue was the use of the Russian weapon.  Seems pretty justified in saying "Hey, Russia, what's up with that?"  If the investigation reveals more salient details then you carry on accordingly.  Anyway, a bit of a diplomatic slap fight is surely preferable to declaring a violation of international treaty or, apparently, nuclear war.

Samples of the Russian weapon are also held in outside facilities, including (allegedly) British and NATO ones as part of disposal efforts after the end of the Cold War. We also know that in the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, some of the USSR's stockpiles of WMDs were not as kept as secure as might wished.

Whilst Russia developed this weapon, still presumably have the largest stockpiles of it and therefore have the most convincing means to carry out this attack, it is not 100% certain that they did it (although it seems likely) and it is not 100% proven that the Russian government ordered it done (although they have form).

Quote

It really hasn't. The fact that people say this does not make it true.

The BBC has taken a much more cautious approach to covering the government of the day ever since 2003. It's taken potshots and grown some spine when it's felt overwhelmingly safe to do so (most notably when it's the furthest away from charter renewal discussions), and when it's blatantly obvious that the government has massively fucked up, but the rest of the time it's softballed discussions, avoided covering massive protests against the government, refused to run stories on the thousands of people who've died as a result of government policy and has refused to challenge blatant lies when pedalled by government officials.

The BBC stills does good journalism, but it's generally on a much surer ground when it comes to overseas coverage and coverage of non-partisan stories.

Quote

It really doesn't. It's just a bit of an ironic illustration.

It's simply the BBC resorting to Appeal to Ridicule when it doesn't have anything else to fall back on. I'd hoped we'd seen the end of it after the election last year, but apparently it's back in vogue.

Quote

This is fucking Newsnight, people. Its audience is almost entirely middle-class people with an interest in current affairs. Smart people. People who understand irony.

Statistics would suggest that half of those people who watch the programme also voted for Brexit and over a third of them are Conservative voters, which suggests that irony is not among their strong suits.

Quote

 

This is a storm in a teaspoon (a teacup would be giving it too much credit). Get some perspective on this.

 

As the one incident goes, sure, but it is also indicative of a more serious problem that the British media has a weird kneejerk reaction to demonising this leader of the opposition in an unprofessional and demeaning manner at every turn (more notable in this cause because it comes after a relatively long stretch when it felt like they'd given up on that) rather than engaging seriously with his policies. Possibly because when they do engage with those policies, it seems to backfire because people like them.

Quote

Even if it were not, I'm really tired of the idea that Jeremy Corbyn is secretly a great leader held down by unfair media coverage. Hey, you know what's not fair? Politics. It's not fair and it never has been. The job of a politician is to get their message across anyway. That's what good politicians do. That is the fundamental goddam skill of a politician. If Jeremy Corbyn doesn't have it - and he demonstrably doesn't - he is just not very good at his job.

Really? Corbyn got his message out very successfully despite every major TV station and every newspaper (including most of those supposedly supporting the left-wing position) and more than half of his Parliamentary party being vehemently opposed to him during the election. He made up a 20-plus-point deficit and came far closer to winning than anyone thought even remotely possible.

Given the forces in opposition, this was an overwhelmingly impressive achievement. His skills of communications and getting his message across are in fact proven to be highly effective in the one major field test he's faced so far. So your claim he "demonstrably" doesn't is simply erroneous. He just demonstrated he does, very well.

Quote

And he really, really isn't, you know.

Again, the fact that people say this does not make it true. It is your opinion and one that, as we've just explored, is directly contradicted by his performance in the last election. We may get to the next election and discover that was a flash in the pan and Labour collapse altogether. Or we may get to the next election and he wins by a landslide. As it stands, repeatedly saying "he isn't good at his job and doesn't have leadership skills despite winning two leadership elections in a row (with an increased majority the second time), closing a titanic gap in the polls in a just a month, executing the biggest party vote swing since 1945 and expanding the Labour Party's membership to its largest in 40 years" seems a little unfair.

Quote

The problem with the 'dodgy dossier' comparison is that it's comparing apples with oranges. In the current case, the evidence is leading the government to a conclusion that they are, on balance, reluctant to reach but can't avoid. You can't have it both ways: if Corbyn is right and the Tory party are corrupted by Russian money, they should be desperately trying to concoct a 'dodgy dossier' pointing to someone else.

I don't think Corbyn alleged that the Tories were completely corrupted by Russian money and in Putin's back pocket. What he said was that there was a lot of Russian money floating around London and British politics, some of which ended up in the pockets of the Conservative Party (and I wouldn't be surprised if we looked at the 1997-10 period and found some of it in the pockets of Labour, either) and that is a subject warranting further consideration.

It's also not logically inconsistent. The Conservative Party has been facing a lot of blowback and anger over Grenfell and the London property bubble issue in general. A situation where they can seize the significant amount of Russian-owned property in London and turn it over to other people at no cost to themselves could be politically useful for them, especially if it makes them look tough and tougher than Labour (who did jack shit over the 2006 incident).

Quote

He couldn’t, he’s terrible, in fact the only reason he made the gains he did at the election is that May is worse, if it had even been Cameron he was running against instead of her I expect he would have lost seats instead.

Whilst May is not an inspiring leader, I think the seven years of declining living standards, a collapse in the NHS, the deterioration of the British job market to its lowest ebb in generations (masked by the amusing way the government baldly reports the figures with zero context), the mounting public debt, growing crime rates, homelessness growing at astonishing rate, a failing military and atrocious economic performance at a time when pretty much every other country in the West is doing much better than we are, all probably had a lot more to do with it, and no Tory figure, not Johnson or Gove or the resurrected zombie corpse of Thatcher, could reverse all of that.

[mormont]

59 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

This is the fucking BBC, people. The class, intelligence or irony filters of its audience matters not one jot. They are supposed to be impartial.

We all agree on that. What we don't agree on is whether photoshopping someone's hat on a late-night current affairs programme is a VRY SRIUS BREACH OF THA BBC CHARTER or, y'know, a piece of meaningless trivia.

ps I've met Andrew Neil. Got drunk with him, actually. Not a badass, bona fide or otherwise.

[Spockydog]

7 minutes ago, mormont said:

ps I've met Andrew Neil. Got drunk with him, actually. Not a badass, bona fide or otherwise.

Booo. How disappointing. Care to elaborate? 

[Jen'ari]

13 hours ago, Spockydog said:

Oh, all right then. Guess I'll just shut up and bow to your omniscient feckin' view inside the minds of 48 million British voters.

Or you could actually listen to what people think about him, outside of certain members of the Labour Party and the Guardian readership, which don’t constitute nearly enough of that 48 million to give Corbyn the keys to number 10.

A very left leaning government is not a popular option, Labour won elections by occupying the centre ground.

He couldn’t win an election against someone as inept and unpopular as Theresa May, how on earth do you think he’ll manage if someone more competent is at the helm in 2022?.

For the record I don’t dislike Corbyn, I think he has a great deal more integrity that most politicians, I just don’t agree with his stance on certain things and I don’t think he would be a good PM.

 

[Werthead]

 

41 minutes ago, Lord Sidious said:

Or you could actually listen to what people think about him, outside of certain members of the Labour Party and the Guardian readership, which don’t constitute nearly enough of that 48 million to give Corbyn the keys to number 10.He couldn’t win an election against someone as inept and unpopular as Theresa May, how on earth do you think he’ll manage if someone more competent is at the helm in 2022?.

In order to outright win the 2017 general election, Labour would have had to have won 94 seats in one go - which was perhaps doable (Cameron won 96 extra in 2010 and Blair 147 in 1997) - but it would have also required a percentage vote swing to Labour that would be (according to back-of-the-napkin math) the highest percentage swing since Stanley Baldwin won for the Conservatives in 1931, which seems both impractical and unrealistic given the timescale involved. Labour had to make a up a colossal and statistically improbable amount of ground to get where they were, let alone win outright. However, if the campaign had continued for another several weeks, and Labour continued to make the gains they had, a Labour victory was probable. That's why this being a snap election, rather than one widely anticipated for months and years running up to it, probably saved May's skin.

It's true that the Tories blamed both May's lacklustre leadership style and refusal to take part in the debates (if she had, I suspect she would have been curb-stomped and her team knew that) for their loss, not to mention the spectacularly awful manifesto, but there's also the issue that seven years of austerity and weak governance had left Britain in a poor state, and no amount of flashy booklets or Johnson buffoonery could hide that fact. 

Quote

 

A very left leaning government is not a popular option, Labour won elections by occupying the centre ground.

 

Labour won elections by turning into a Diet Coke version of the Conservative Party. Yes, they were better than the Conservative Party (we can overlook the military interventionist bullshit because a Tory government would have done exactly the same thing), but that's not exactly hard. It's unsurprising that people want a genuine choice between significantly different ideologies, not two mildly differing versions of the same thing.

Quote

 

For the record I don’t dislike Corbyn, I think he has a great deal more integrity that most politicians, I just don’t agree with his stance on certain things and I don’t think he would be a good PM.

 

I think what you mean is that Corbyn is not a typical politician and doesn't try to be. He doesn't play the game that everyone else has for 40-odd years and that infuriates the media and political chattering classes, but it goes down massively well with a large portion of the electorate. It's the Bernie - or, less charitably, Trump effect. Smooth-talking, styled politicians like Blair and Cameron are no longer particularly trusted or liked.

[Werthead]

Boris Johnson has admitted that he played tennis with the wife of a former Russian minister after she donated £160,000 to the Conservative Party, which is interesting.

[Spockydog]

1 hour ago, Lord Sidious said:

Or you could actually listen to what people think about him, outside of certain members of the Labour Party and the Guardian readership, which don’t constitute nearly enough of that 48 million to give Corbyn the keys to number 10.

A very left leaning government is not a popular option, Labour won elections by occupying the centre ground.

He couldn’t win an election against someone as inept and unpopular as Theresa May, how on earth do you think he’ll manage if someone more competent is at the helm in 2022?.

For the record I don’t dislike Corbyn, I think he has a great deal more integrity that most politicians, I just don’t agree with his stance on certain things and I don’t think he would be a good PM.

 

 

 

[Jen'ari]

48 minutes ago, Werthead said:

 

In order to outright win the 2017 general election, Labour would have had to have won 94 seats in one go - which was perhaps doable (Cameron won 96 extra in 2010 and Blair 147 in 1997) - but it would have also required a percentage vote swing to Labour that would be (according to back-of-the-napkin math) the highest percentage swing since Stanley Baldwin won for the Conservatives in 1931, which seems both impractical and unrealistic given the timescale involved. Labour had to make a up a colossal and statistically improbable amount of ground to get where they were, let alone win outright. However, if the campaign had continued for another several weeks, and Labour continued to make the gains they had, a Labour victory was probable. That's why this being a snap election, rather than one widely anticipated for months and years running up to it, probably saved May's skin.

It's true that the Tories blamed both May's lacklustre leadership style and refusal to take part in the debates (if she had, I suspect she would have been curb-stomped and her team knew that) for their loss, not to mention the spectacularly awful manifesto, but there's also the issue that seven years of austerity and weak governance had left Britain in a poor state, and no amount of flashy booklets or Johnson buffoonery could hide that fact. 

Labour won elections by turning into a Diet Coke version of the Conservative Party. Yes, they were better than the Conservative Party (we can overlook the military interventionist bullshit because a Tory government would have done exactly the same thing), but that's not exactly hard. It's unsurprising that people want a genuine choice between significantly different ideologies, not two mildly differing versions of the same thing.

I think what you mean is that Corbyn is not a typical politician and doesn't try to be. He doesn't play the game that everyone else has for 40-odd years and that infuriates the media and political chattering classes, but it goes down massively well with a large portion of the electorate. It's the Bernie - or, less charitably, Trump effect. Smooth-talking, styled politicians like Blair and Cameron are no longer particularly trusted or liked.

Corbyn made good gains for Labour at the last election, the results speak for themselves but I’d say the Tories fielding May as leader and, as you say their awful manifesto contributed somewhat to those gains.

If Cameron were still in charge would you be as confident in him making those same gains?, also there’s the question of how many of those votes to Labour were a form of anti Brexit protest.

I think Corbyns gains in the last election could be more due to a set of freak circumstances than any long lasting shift in the electorates idealology, I suppose we will see in 2022, who can predict where the political landscape will be by then.

Its apparent the media dislike him and will more than likely continue to which I don’t think is particularly fair, but in some respects he doesn’t help himself in that regard, keeping McDonnell on as shadow chancellor being one of them.

Personally I respect Corbyn for not being big on spin and speaking his mind, I don’t dislike him as a person at all I just don’t think he’s the right person to lead the Country.

On the same note I don’t think May is either, i didn’t vote in the last election because I was unhappy with either choice, and at the time lived in a traditional Tory seat that fell to Labour by about 20 votes.

 

[Spockydog]

9 minutes ago, Lord Sidious said:

I think Corbyns gains in the last election could be more due to a set of freak circumstances than any long lasting shift in the electorates idealology, I suppose we will see in 2022, who can predict where the political landscape will be by then.

By 2022, many people who voted Tory in 2017 will be in the ground, with tree roots growing through the holes where their eyes used to be.

[Jen'ari]

13 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

 

 

A very informative tweet, Owen Jones is very impartial, certainly no one could accuse him of any sort of political bias.

[Spockydog]

2 minutes ago, Lord Sidious said:

A very informative tweet, Owen Jones is very impartial, certainly no one could accuse him of any sort of political bias.

Just because he's biased, doesn't mean he's wrong. 

[Jen'ari]

Just now, Spockydog said:

By 2022, many people who voted Tory in 2017 will be in the ground, with tree roots growing through the holes where their eyes used to be.

And many 18-21 year olds will have grown up somewhat.

[Jen'ari]

1 minute ago, Spockydog said:

Just because he's biased, doesn't mean he's wrong. 

In this case, it more than likely does, I guess we will see in 4 years.

[Shryke]

Until he decides he's not interested in driving the UK off the Brexit cliff, Corbyn will remain a shitty leader just like May.