Subject: British Politics thread Tue Apr 05, 2011 3:19 pm
Long overdue.
What's your stance on the coalition, their approach to foreign policy, and the future of Nu Labour? Are the Lib Dems well and truly buggered in the next several elections, for their broken promises?
Lazzers, Ambler, Bork, Aural, Hilly, Blunt Instrument, G Section, Bork, Willy, Harry, Klown, and even M - What's your take? It also be nice we if got some thoughts from outsiders. Yanks, Mainlanders, Mounties and Aussies.
Blunt Instrument 00 Agent
Posts : 6390 Member Since : 2011-03-20 Location : Propping up the bar
Well ... I will say that David 'not exactly short of a few quid' Cameron's 'We're all in this together' about the recession/recovery did kinda make me wanna vomit.
What will 'Dave' be doing to economise, I wonder? Cutting back on the swan burgers?
Hilly Administrator
Posts : 8077 Member Since : 2010-05-13 Location : Chez Hilly, the Cote d'Hampshire
Don't even know where to start. Admittedly I voted Tory, some of what I think lines up that way even if what they're doing is going to affect me eventually and my family soon. There are problems but personally I'm glad it's not Labour, had enough of them and having enough of their sniping. I understand as Opposition they have to but none of them seem to grasp some of the mess they made. As for AV, I'm not swayed by what I've seen.
My main bugbear right now is George Monbiot's abrupt conversion to nuclear power. Black is white, Eurasia is Eastasia, Rave is the Blessed Virgin Mary.
My main bugbear right now is George Monbiot's abrupt conversion to nuclear power. Black is white, Eurasia is Eastasia, Rave is the Blessed Virgin Mary.
What's even worse, is the spurious logic Monbiot's Fukushima article is hinged on, though I suppose that's a given for The Grauniad. Not once does he bring up the futility of building of nuclear power plants on any faultline, yet alone the Ring of Fire.
Ravenstone Head of Station
Posts : 1471 Member Since : 2011-03-16 Location : The Gates of Horn and Ivory
Well, it's not real secret - I hate Tories, always have. Old enough to remember the bitch Thatcher, and coming from a mining area, that's about all it needs. LibDems have proven themselves to be Tory Lite, and whoring themselves out for the slightest whiff of power doesn't exactly improve their stakes in my estimation.
Well, it's not real secret - I hate Tories, always have. Old enough to remember the bitch Thatcher, and coming from a mining area, that's about all it needs.
She was a vile c***.
There's a saying in my family. 'If Thatcher was on fire, I wouldn't piss on her to put her out.'
I'm an odd fish. I'm a centre right conservative, yet I'm mostly drawn to Old Labour, which was far further to the left than any current party.
Nu Labour IMO, is just a diluted, more statist, relative of Thatcherism, in a Trojan Horse .
I hate the slums. I've lived in Hackney in all life, and that's my reference point. Yet I'm not running on self-pitying hubris, or acting like some wigga.
Bitch please.
Though I appreciate the attempt at humbling me. Dead Kennedys was a neat choice.
Last edited by Sharky on Tue Apr 05, 2011 7:39 pm; edited 1 time in total
Michael Foot may have been a figure of ridicule, but he was a bloody clever man. And an honourable one.
Who stood idly by while his wife was raped by Arthur Koestler.
Quote :
The incident happened in 1952 when Koestler called at the Foot home in Hampstead while Michael was away. He attacked Foot's wife, Jill, and raped her.
He growled: 'This is going to happen whether you like it or not.'
'I was worried about my life, not my honour,' Jill later recalled.
Afterwards, Koestler got up with the parting words: 'I thought you always had a bit of a yen for me.'
When asked years later what he would have done if Jill had told him of the rape at the time, Michael said: 'I don't know. I think I would have written him a letter - something like "our friendship is at an end." '
Though I appreciate the attempt at humbling me. Dead Kennedys was a neat choice.
No idea what you're on about, Sharky. I was going to send the PPE grads to Cambodia not you. Though I'm sure there's room for one more on my Tardis if you insist.
Anyway, my political views are informed by experience: right-wing women are a better screw, and Rave is all mouth and no trousers. Hang on, that sounds pretty good ...
Ravenstone Head of Station
Posts : 1471 Member Since : 2011-03-16 Location : The Gates of Horn and Ivory
I feel the need to defend the between-the-sheets-standards of my fellow left-wing sisters, but something tells me that's exactly what Ambler would like.
HJackson 'R'
Posts : 465 Member Since : 2011-03-18 Location : Cambridge, UK
I'm a Labour Party member, but their inability to take bold political risks does annoy me to no end. Watching Diane Abbott try to defend Labour's current position on the cuts last Thursday on Question Time was cringe-worthy - they should drop the 'we'd cut slightly less' nonsense and embrace Ed Balls' vastly more sensible pro-growth approach. Invest, invest, invest. Don't cut deeply now.
As for AV, I'll be voting no. Partly out of protest, partly out of a desire for strong government. I'd rather a majority Conservative government than the coalition we have. The amount of compromise both ways leads to a programme of policies that nobody voted for at all, and I'd rather suffer through what 36.1% of people actually voted for.
Ravenstone Head of Station
Posts : 1471 Member Since : 2011-03-16 Location : The Gates of Horn and Ivory
Well, as a benefits assessor, I have a vested interest in the cuts, obviously. And sufficient experience to know that Universal Credit is right up there with the Emperor's New Clothes. Replaced 52 benefits with two? Hmmmm... yes.... right. And those two benefits will have 51 different components, premiums, applicable amounts etc.
The reason the benefits system is so complex is - quite simply - because each case is dealt with on an individual basis. You cannot shoehorn people into one bracket or the other. There are always exceptions. That is what makes benefits so complicated. And if you scrap all that, then you're just starting again with the whole basis of precedents and law. Simply throwing the baby out with the Child Benefit.
Having had a meeting recently with our local MP, where we had to explain all the policies he's supposed to have voted for, really doesn't do anything to increase my faith in the utter chinless wonder waste of space bastard. We had to call the meeting to tell him to stop writing us shitty letters complaining about the benefits we were paying his constituents when he voted them in in the first place.
Shitbag bastard.
Anyway. In another nine months, the shit will really hit the fan. Because at the moment, everyone thinks that none of these changes will affect them. Because the Government and media are constantly saying that the benefit reforms are to affect the workshy, the lazy, and the general wastes of space. And everyoneknows that doesn't mean them. It's everyone else who's a fraudulent scrounger. But when they start to realise that - yes - it does mean them, and everyone else - then it's going to get interesting, to say the very least.
The majority of 'incorrectness' in benefits is caused by misadministration. Which in turn is caused by centralising assessment and 'simplifying' the system. Where the staff don't exist to ask the questions, the questions don't get answered, and that's how millions and millions of pounds are wasted every year. Not by fraud; not by scroungers - not even by incompetence. Simply by not having the tools to do the job properly
It is a well known fact that it is cheaper - in the short term - pay all benefit claims than it is to check them before putting them into payment. And of those put into payment, the manpower only exists to check a very small percentage indeed for 'incorrectness'.
Anyway - I digress. I won't be voting 'yes' on AV either. I don't believe, having read the blurb, that it serves any practical purpose whatsoever. A lot of people don't understand how voting works now - they'll understand it even less after all that.
CJB 00 Agent
Posts : 5538 Member Since : 2011-03-14 Location : 'Straya
Subject: Re: British Politics thread Wed Apr 06, 2011 1:12 am
Sharky wrote:
I'm an odd fish. I'm a centre right conservative, yet I'm mostly drawn to Old Labour, which was far further to the left than any current party.
I'm sort of in the same boat when it comes to the Australian Labor Party. I respect the ALP that existed from Federation to the 1940's. It was a genuine, patriotic working class party until it was overrun with Communists in the 50's and chardonnay liberals in the 70's. Now it's brimming with, as one senior player put it, the dregs of the middle-class.
As far as British politics goes...all I can say is God help you all.
Guest Guest
Subject: Re: British Politics thread Wed Apr 06, 2011 8:49 am
CJB wrote:
As far as British politics goes...all I can say is God help you all.
I agree. Despite what it says on my passport, these days I tend to think of myself as a sovereign individual.
As Rave's posts suggest, on the whole, today's British are a bunch of workshy bastards not fit to lick the boots of their imperial predecessors. There's nothing left of the country or people that so recently ruled a third of the world; nowadays they can't even provide for themselves. Hurrah for the socialists and their welfare state gerrymander.
(I'm always this bitter after the end of the financial year when I see where all my money went.)
Largo's Shark 00 Agent
Posts : 10588 Member Since : 2011-03-14
Subject: Re: British Politics thread Wed Apr 06, 2011 11:36 am
ambler wrote:
Sharky wrote:
Though I appreciate the attempt at humbling me. Dead Kennedys was a neat choice.
No idea what you're on about, Sharky. I was going to send the PPE grads to Cambodia not you.
Sorry, I assumed that was some veiled attack on me.
Not that I am middle class or an Oxbridge PPE grad, which I why I was a little angry. :bom:
As for today's work ethic, I blame the evisceration of Judeo-Christian religion (particularly forms of Protestantism - whether it be Anglican or Lutheran), along with the removal of conscription, and the grammar school.
As for today's work ethic, I blame the evisceration of Judeo-Christian religion (particularly forms of Protestantism - whether it be Anglican or Lutheran), along with the removal of conscription, and the grammar school.
The post was down to me having a bad morning. Oppers had a 'headache'.
Ravenstone Head of Station
Posts : 1471 Member Since : 2011-03-16 Location : The Gates of Horn and Ivory
As Rave's posts suggest, on the whole, today's British are a bunch of workshy bastards not fit to lick the boots of their imperial predecessors.
If that's what I suggested, then it wasn't my intention.
What I intended to suggest, rather, is that the British public have been sold this idea that everyone on benefits are workshy bastards. When the truth is considerably more complicated. But the point is, for the sake of a small percentage of workshy bastards (whom no-one would employ if their lives depended on it anyway) everyone suffers. But no-one thinks it will be them, because they know they're not workshy.
To be honest, the biggest shitbag stirrers you deal with on benefits are the landlords and the ones with money. The ones who immediately start with the "so I've worked all my life and scrimped and saved and you're saying I don't qualify for benefit". Those are the ones I'd willing bitch slap into oblivion. They have no concept of reality. They'll sit on hundreds of thousands of pounds and don't see why they should touch them.
To be honest, the biggest shitbag stirrers you deal with on benefits are the landlords and the ones with money. The ones who immediately start with the "so I've worked all my life and scrimped and saved and you're saying I don't qualify for benefit". Those are the ones I'd willing bitch slap into oblivion. They have no concept of reality. They'll sit on hundreds of thousands of pounds and don't see why they should touch them.
Why should anyone work, pay taxes, save or provide for themselves if the welfare state rewards those who are perfectly able yet squander their wealth?
I used to know an old woman (long dead) with a small wool shop on the Commercial Rd. She lived frugally and saved, but when she could no longer cope for herself and was placed in a home the state took all her assets and money to pay for it. Fair enough you might say, but no one else in the place had bothered to set money aside for their keep. Not only did they not understand why she had, but they seemed a lot better off than her. Towards the end of her life she came round to their point of view: only the stupid save in a system that encourages and favours the feckless. (I'm sure there's a pun in there but I have no concept of reality.)
The British colonists said no taxation without representation. Surely the opposite follows? If you are of sound mind and of age yet don't pay tax or act in a fiscally responsible manner, you shouldn't expect a say in any reasonable society.
Home 
Events 
WIN! 
