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UK Politics: The Beast From The East


Hereward

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13 hours ago, Werthead said:

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 old boys networks that affect Britain and London particularly are a separate problem that probably does create some undue influence.  However, the BBC is not directly funded by the state as other public broadcasters are.  That is the only point I made and I've had to make it three times now.

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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.

Oh yeah, sorry.  I meant the Mash Report, a BBC satirical programme in a newsroom format, subject to the same rules on bias as Newsnight.  I don't see why satire should be the defining line though.  Newsnight isn't allowed to be satirical?

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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.

The origin of the substance was determined through expert testimony, exactly the kind of thing used in a court of law.  Russia is responsible for their own weapons, regardless of who used them.  I'm not sure why you think the courtroom analogy is applicable.  Accusations are not criminal charges.  In any case nobody has accused Russia of anything other than failing to control their own materials.

I also don't see how accusing Russia of violating the Treaty on Chemical Weapons would be a sounder political strategy, as you and Spockydog seem to think.  That would be even more likely to indicate that Britain believed Russia to be the perpretrator of an attack.

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1 hour ago, Shryke said:

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

Ironic that he's expected to be spineless and give up on his own convictinos to be considered a good leader. A good leader isn't just someone doing what you want.

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2 hours ago, Shryke said:

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

To be fair though, getting Brexit right seems an impossible task for either party, to get a soft Brexit freedom of movement is going to have to stay on the table, which is something a lot of voters(wrongly in my opinion) who voted for it arnt going to stand for, if it doesn’t we could well crash out and ruin the economy.

I can’t help but think as the deadline draws closer the desire for a second referendum will increase.

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2 hours ago, Shryke said:

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



I don't like how Corbyn's approaced Brexit (not just where he stands, but the mealy-mouthing about it trying to not put off any side), and there are other things I'm not happy or not sure about him as a leader too, but there's far more going on in the country right now than just Brexit and turning the comparison between the two into just that is simplistic and in my opinion somewhat dangerous (since it allows May and the Tories to get away with more shit than they should).

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2 hours ago, mankytoes said:

Ironic that he's expected to be spineless and give up on his own convictinos to be considered a good leader. A good leader isn't just someone doing what you want.

No, he's supposed to not have shit positions to be a good leader. Hitler had convictions too. So did Stalin. So does Trump.

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1 hour ago, Lord Sidious said:

To be fair though, getting Brexit right seems an impossible task for either party, to get a soft Brexit freedom of movement is going to have to stay on the table, which is something a lot of voters(wrongly in my opinion) who voted for it arnt going to stand for, if it doesn’t we could well crash out and ruin the economy.

I can’t help but think as the deadline draws closer the desire for a second referendum will increase.

It's easy to get Brexit right: don't. Done. But Corbyn won't make that case because as we learned during the run up to the referendum, he's pretty much ok with Brexit.

 

40 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

I don't like how Corbyn's approaced Brexit (not just where he stands, but the mealy-mouthing about it trying to not put off any side), and there are other things I'm not happy or not sure about him as a leader too, but there's far more going on in the country right now than just Brexit and turning the comparison between the two into just that is simplistic and in my opinion somewhat dangerous (since it allows May and the Tories to get away with more shit than they should).

Bullshit. There is nothing more important to the future of the UK right now. The whole thing is a fucking clusterfruitcake that would be gut-bustingly hilarious if it wasn't going to be so devastating. And Corbyn is doing nothing about it. Not even taking a fucking stand.

 

Frankly, it seems like his main strategy is to just let the disaster happen and then ride that wave into office.

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16 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Nothing being more important doesn't mean it's the only important thing.

No, but it means his stance on the issue is defining.

"Sure, he's pro-the-giant-meteor-hurtling-towards-the-earth, but I think he's got good ideas for education reform"

He's a shitty leader. He's got no answer to the biggest issue barreling down on the UK beyond riding it out.

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31 minutes ago, Shryke said:

It's easy to get Brexit right: don't. Done. But Corbyn won't make that case because as we learned during the run up to the referendum, he's pretty much ok with Brexit.

 

 

I’m in full agreement there, sadly I think that ship has sailed, Brexit is going to happen, it’s just going to be damage limitation now unfortunately.

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Just now, Lord Sidious said:

I’m in full agreement there, sadly I think that ship has sailed, Brexit is going to happen, it’s just going to be damage limitation now unfortunately.

If it has sailed, he was fucking standing on shore huffing and puffing. He's never made a real case for Remain. He whipped the fucking vote on Article 50. The guy is on board with this disaster. He's the official opposition and he's abandoned any duty to actually oppose May's government's insane farcical agenda that they are pursuing with all the competence of a particularly mentally deficient stoat.

He sucks as a political leader.

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22 minutes ago, Shryke said:

No, but it means his stance on the issue is defining.

"Sure, he's pro-the-giant-meteor-hurtling-towards-the-earth, but I think he's got good ideas for education reform"

He's a shitty leader. He's got no answer to the biggest issue barreling down on the UK beyond riding it out.



Yeah, but you can think he's a shitty leader but you said 'just like Theresa May' and that's just cobblers. If there was a leader who was against Brexit you could make that your defining position but since they're both for (and both incoherent, although Corbyn is at least not apparently committed at ramming through the hardest possible Brexit), you have to look at what they're like on other stuff. They're not the same.

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17 minutes ago, polishgenius said:



Yeah, but you can think he's a shitty leader but you said 'just like Theresa May' and that's just cobblers. If there was a leader who was against Brexit you could make that your defining position but since they're both for (and both incoherent, although Corbyn is at least not apparently committed at ramming through the hardest possible Brexit), you have to look at what they're like on other stuff. They're not the same.

But I never claimed that. I never said anything about him being the same as May. I just said he's a shitty leader. May is also a shitty leader. They are not equally shitty, sure, but they are still both shitty.

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46 minutes ago, polishgenius said:



Yeah, but you can think he's a shitty leader but you said 'just like Theresa May' and that's just cobblers. If there was a leader who was against Brexit you could make that your defining position but since they're both for (and both incoherent, although Corbyn is at least not apparently committed at ramming through the hardest possible Brexit), you have to look at what they're like on other stuff. They're not the same.

Corbynn seem to be getting out in the public more the Theresa May  He does seem to have the common touch with the public and in an election , that can be a significant factor in whether you win or lose.  Unfortunately, for May, she comes across as  distant and disinterested in the public, that may be one factor witch could cost her an election. 

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1 hour ago, Shryke said:

If it has sailed, he was fucking standing on shore huffing and puffing. He's never made a real case for Remain. He whipped the fucking vote on Article 50. The guy is on board with this disaster. He's the official opposition and he's abandoned any duty to actually oppose May's government's insane farcical agenda that they are pursuing with all the competence of a particularly mentally deficient stoat.

He sucks as a political leader.

He’s more Eurosceptic than many in the Tory party, to be honest the current leadership on both sides is making me miss Cameron and Osbourne.

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31 minutes ago, Lord Sidious said:

He’s more Eurosceptic than many in the Tory party, to be honest the current leadership on both sides is making me miss Cameron and Osbourne.

Cameron's attempt to disable the Eurosceptic wing of his party has plunged this country into the greatest political crisis since at least Suez. George Osbourne had the political nous and economic capacity of an anal wart and together, by pursuing an unnecessary and economically naive programme of austerity, they've severely damaged the economic health of this nation, possibly (when combined with Brexit) for forty years to come. Both can go fuck themselves in a blender.

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Newsnight isn't allowed to be satirical?

It's a not a satirical programme. It can have satirical elements (and has done from time to time), but when presenting a serious news item, no, it should be not presenting it under the aegis of government-friendly propaganda.

 

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It's easy to get Brexit right: don't. Done. But Corbyn won't make that case because as we learned during the run up to the referendum, he's pretty much ok with Brexit.

 

Whilst I'd be happy for someone to cancel Brexit, it's difficult to do that when a referendum was held and the majority argument was in favour of Brexit. So either we go through with it, have a second referendum (which, even if Remain won, would probably just divide the country even more) or simply decide not to do it and tell the people who did vote for it to go fuck themselves. There's not an easy way out there in any case.

As the dominoes on Brexit keep falling ever more in favour of the result being chaos for Northern Ireland, the economy, our security and future relations with other countries, the argument for a second referendum becomes ever stronger, though, and I hope that if it becomes overwhelmingly clear that that there is strong support for it, Labour move to support it.

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2 hours ago, Werthead said:

Cameron's attempt to disable the Eurosceptic wing of his party has plunged this country into the greatest political crisis since at least Suez. George Osbourne had the political nous and economic capacity of an anal wart and together, by pursuing an unnecessary and economically naive programme of austerity, they've severely damaged the economic health of this nation, possibly (when combined with Brexit) for forty years to come. Both can go fuck themselves in a blender.

 

Maybe, still either is preferable to May or Corbyn.

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6 hours ago, Shryke said:

No, he's supposed to not have shit positions to be a good leader. Hitler had convictions too. So did Stalin. So does Trump.

I'd like to think you're invoking Godwins with at least a bit of tongue in cheek there, though I'm less confident that you were being deliberately hypocritical in saying we should ignore the will of the people, then bringing up dictators.

You have more faith in Trump than me, anyway. I don't think he has convictions. This is a man who was a registered Democrat until 2009. His main conviction is that he wants the name Trump to be everywhere.

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16 hours ago, mankytoes said:

I'd like to think you're invoking Godwins with at least a bit of tongue in cheek there, though I'm less confident that you were being deliberately hypocritical in saying we should ignore the will of the people, then bringing up dictators.

You have more faith in Trump than me, anyway. I don't think he has convictions. This is a man who was a registered Democrat until 2009. His main conviction is that he wants the name Trump to be everywhere.

No clue wtf you are on about here. Strong convictions to do stupid and/or terrible things are not a plus. I demonstrated this by listing examples of people with strong convictions who are terrible, terrible people. It's a straightforward logical argument.

Corbyn's adherence to his shitty, stupid positions on Brexit if nothing else make him a shitty leader. I don't know why you'd argue that him deciding to hold to "Hey, maybe we should set the UK on fire just for kicks" should be admired. Pushing back on Brexit doesn't make him spineless, it would make him not a shitty moronic political leader.

Frankly, you've got few choices here. Either he's pro-Brexit and thus a moron or he's anti-Brexit but doesn't want to actually say or do anything about that and thus he's spineless or it doesn't matter which and his only concern is letting the Tories crash and burn along with the UK when Brexit happens so that he can win the next election and thus he's a terrible terrible person.

 

 

Also, Trump absolutely has convictions. White Supremacy, trade protectionism and "law and order" being the most obvious political positions he has held for decades now. 

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With regard to Corbyn and the election, I could (and almost did) go into detail about how and why the idea that Labour's performance was a personal triumph for Corbyn isn't supported by the evidence, complete with citations, but honestly that would just get us into a serious derail. Suffice to say that, to the extent that the result lent Corbyn some momentum (heh), he's squandered it. Labour are level at best in the polls, Corbyn's approval ratings are underwater (comparable to Theresa May's), and his political positions are unclear (can anyone explain what a 'jobs first Brexit' is or how it's different to the Tory position?)

All of which is to say, sorry, I don't think Photoshopping his hat has really undermined what would otherwise be a winning position.

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