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Politics 2023 (Read 465774 times)

TobyD

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#2075 Re: Politics 2020
May 04, 2022, 09:17:30 am
For people who normally don't really care about local elections, I'd just like to point out that on Thursday you have the chance to make Boris Johnson's life much worse. Do it for spite.

Unfortunately I don't think there's a chance that the local elections will spell the end of Johnson, as they're spinnable for all the parties whatever happens.
I'd certainly agree that the Conservative government has gutted local government budgets, and is directly responsible for poor public services and all associated ills; therefore don't vote for them.

Any amount of lying by Johnson also seems to be tolerated, depressingly.  However if Conservative MPs think that hes likely to screw up again in a way that cuts through to the electorate, he'll be out pretty quickly.  If it were me, I'd say that the risk of him doing something that stupid again before the next election was extremely high, given that the pattern of his life so far is for him to do something stupid,  illegal or deeply offensive on a regular basis.  Its a real shame for politics that the Conservative party has shed most of its more intelligent,  capable MPs. Its lost Dominic Grieve,  Rory Stewart etc and now has the likes of George Eustice and Priti Patel on the front bench. 

Which was all a long winded way of agreeing,  definitely don't vote Conservative. 

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#2077 Re: Politics 2020
May 04, 2022, 03:19:06 pm
Its a real shame for politics that the Conservative party has shed most of its more intelligent,  capable MPs. Its lost Dominic Grieve,  Rory Stewart etc and now has the likes of George Eustice and Priti Patel on the front bench. 

Is there not a route back in for the likes of Stewart once Johnson finally gets the shove?

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#2078 Re: Politics 2020
May 04, 2022, 04:39:03 pm
For people who normally don't really care about local elections, I'd just like to point out that on Thursday you have the chance to make Boris Johnson's life much worse. Do it for spite.

Unfortunately I don't think there's a chance that the local elections will spell the end of Johnson, as they're spinnable for all the parties whatever happens.
I'd certainly agree that the Conservative government has gutted local government budgets, and is directly responsible for poor public services and all associated ills; therefore don't vote for them.

Any amount of lying by Johnson also seems to be tolerated, depressingly.  However if Conservative MPs think that hes likely to screw up again in a way that cuts through to the electorate, he'll be out pretty quickly.  If it were me, I'd say that the risk of him doing something that stupid again before the next election was extremely high, given that the pattern of his life so far is for him to do something stupid,  illegal or deeply offensive on a regular basis.  Its a real shame for politics that the Conservative party has shed most of its more intelligent,  capable MPs. Its lost Dominic Grieve,  Rory Stewart etc and now has the likes of George Eustice and Priti Patel on the front bench. 

Which was all a long winded way of agreeing,  definitely don't vote Conservative.

Oh, I don't think the local elections will be an insta-kill for him. But they're absolutely going to be used as a gauge of whether his misdeeds are cutting through to the electorate, and if so, I suspect the Tories will be trying to dispose of him a.s.a.p..

Unfortunately all the rivals for Tory leadership are equally terrible, so it's not like it'll be an improvement; I just really want to see Boris "let the bodies pile high in their thousands" Johnson suffer.

TobyD

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#2079 Re: Politics 2020
May 04, 2022, 05:39:23 pm
Its a real shame for politics that the Conservative party has shed most of its more intelligent,  capable MPs. Its lost Dominic Grieve,  Rory Stewart etc and now has the likes of George Eustice and Priti Patel on the front bench. 

Is there not a route back in for the likes of Stewart once Johnson finally gets the shove?

I don't think he's interested actually, on his podcast, he makes a very well argued point that being a constituency MP is actually pretty powerless as a political position. They don't have a budget, and can make very few independent decisions. Mayors and council leaders in many ways have more actual power, as they can spend money and make direct decisions. Most MPs only have one vote out of six hundred odd others on pieces of legislation. Of course, ministers and the PM have a lot more than that, but the majority, not so much.

TobyD

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#2080 Re: Politics 2020
May 04, 2022, 05:41:35 pm
I just really want to see Boris "let the bodies pile high in their thousands" Johnson suffer.

Don't we all. Unfortunately, it seems that there is no justice in the world.

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#2081 Re: Politics 2020
May 06, 2022, 09:48:47 am
Anyone who isn't really concerned about the online safety bill should be. In summary, it is likely to result in the potential for state censorship of online content by proxy, as the potential for online providers being ruled against will ensure that they're likely to use bots to remove anything which might cause them difficulty, where it isn't specifically illegal. It's an awful piece of legislation being championed by a DCMS minister who appears to have no understanding of her brief, or that such a law effectively allows a future government to restrict the publication of anything it chooses to.

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#2082 Re: Politics 2020
May 24, 2022, 08:36:49 am
“All beliefs, habits, tastes, emotions, mental attitudes that characterize our time are really designed to sustain the mystique of the Party and prevent the true nature of present-day society from being perceived.”

"The man in this photograph is definitely not at a party, despite holding a glass of wine in a busy room, in front of a table covered in bottles."

"The government worked tirelessly to get refugees out of Afghanistan."

Spot the quote from the dystopian novel.

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#2083 Re: Politics 2020
May 24, 2022, 09:18:29 am
I guess a)

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#2084 Re: Politics 2020
May 24, 2022, 09:32:54 am
Forgot d) ‘I don’t really care’.

To offer a counter to the ‘dystopian misuse of language’… use of the word ‘party’ in this whole affair is also disingenuous and a misuse of language - it might fit a dictionary definition but it’s a pretty shit party that looks like a works leaving do.
But ‘works leaving do’ allows for nuance and more people may understand the context, despite it still being against the rules, while ‘party’ is a much more damaging weapon of strategic communications, designed to achieve an objective. A bit like ‘WMD’.

What was that about dystopian novels..

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#2085 Re: Politics 2020
May 24, 2022, 03:47:52 pm
Forgot d) ‘I don’t really care’.

To offer a counter to the ‘dystopian misuse of language’… use of the word ‘party’ in this whole affair is also disingenuous

It certainly is as party was never a feature of the legislation which, the defenders of Johnson have been good at dragging the discussion into a semantic argument about the meaning of party when it's utterly irrelevant. I too don't care whether this was a party or not, I care that Johnson lied, lied to parliament, broke the spirit of the rules, broke the law and that the the people who are meant to hold the govt to account have been asleep on the job.

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#2086 Re: Politics 2020
May 24, 2022, 06:04:50 pm
Pete, this isn’t some confected middle class liberal guardianista pseudo-outrage to satisfy the chattering classes.

It’s the PM and entourage self-evidently having zero regard for the laws which that administration passed and which the police enforced, sometimes very zealously. Most people know when they’ve been taken for fools and have little tolerance for it.

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#2087 Re: Politics 2020
May 24, 2022, 06:15:43 pm
Afraid you (or me) don't get to define what it does or doesn't mean for other people JR. I'd add as a general comment that there's a very big difference between knowing and caring.

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#2088 Re: Politics 2020
May 24, 2022, 06:44:10 pm
That’s all fine, but I am not doing that. The terminology isn’t important here. As Teaboy observed, terminology been a go-to semantic red herring for Johnson’s supporters when the legislation is pretty clear that it’s numbers, not beverages, which constitute an infraction.

As John Lyndon asks at the end of the Great Rock n Roll Swindle:
Quote
Ever feel like you’ve been had?

A lot of people do.

There really isn’t a sunny side to this.

petejh

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#2089 Re: Politics 2020
May 24, 2022, 06:55:22 pm
I'm not sure what 'there isn't a sunny side' means.
I broadly agree BoJo's a fool and a liar and the country is unfortunate to have him as apparently the most desirable option for tory PM. However I honestly cannot get interested or upset by a bunch of adults who spent lockdowns by working every day in each others' close company during working hours, spending time in each others' close company in the same rooms of the same building once the clock ticked past end of work hours. If that makes me a terrible person who's been taken for a fool, so be it.
I'm probably biased by knowing of various upstanding decidedly non-tory-voting academics and professionals who spent lockdown continuing to have dinner parties agasint the rules of the time. Really I couldn't care less, especially now the pandemic's over, despite thinking I wouldn't (and didn't) chose to act that way myself.

mrjonathanr

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#2090 Re: Politics 2020
May 24, 2022, 09:07:02 pm
I'm not sure what 'there isn't a sunny side' means.

No, me neither  :)

Excuse the long post.

I am trying to express that there's nothing minor enough to dismiss about this.

The problem isn’t exactly what they did, but exactly who did it. It’s part of a serious slide in public standards (lawmakers freely disregarding rules they set for others to abide by) and that matters imo.

If you see this as discrete events it’s possible to feel contempt but just  shrug your shoulders.

As.a process, it’s more worrying.

Increasingly people feel there’s one tule for them, another for us. That’s not me projecting,!it’s what we all see and what every survey reinforces. ‘They are all the same’ Except they aren’t and that undermines us all.

For democracy to flourish we need public buy in. Lacking that, the disaffection leaves room for  populism and increasing authoritarianism. That quote of Hermingway’s about collapse happening “slowly, then suddenly” should be a sobering thought. You can see it over the Atlantic, increasing erosion of trust in institutions and increasing influence of loony authoritarianism. If we like the security our institutions bring, we need to look after them and that includes in little ways as well as big ones ie in the culture we create. To think political authoritarianism can’t happen here is naive in my view, another form of British exceptionalism.

If the PM can mislead parliament with impunity, where does that take us?

Another reason it matters is British soft power. The more we are seen abroad as tawdry, hypocritical and untrustworthy, the weaker British influence grows.

And because I give a stuff. These aren’t the values I want to see in  public servants, the whole mind set is incompatible with the role. I fear these values (no seriousness or integrity) projected from government becoming more normalised in society. People, including young people, watch, listen and draw their own conclusions about what they think is permissible.

So to me it’s not just a few boozy laggards where people of integrity should be; it’s the seeping affect on society more broadly.
« Last Edit: May 24, 2022, 09:13:56 pm by mrjonathanr »

mrjonathanr

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#2091 Re: Politics 2020
May 24, 2022, 09:21:48 pm
And the next there’s a pandemic or some crisis where government asks the public for restraint, what adherence will there be after this lot?

TobyD

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#2092 Re: Politics 2020
May 24, 2022, 10:44:56 pm
As others have said,  its not exact details of parties that remotely matters, it's that Johnson is clearly capable of lying to parliament if he feels it's to his advantage. He is probably too incompetent and self interested to be a truly successful autocrat, but if Conservative MPs allow him to get away with it,  the next PM could potentially be as dishonest,  and more competent.  It says something that Johnson's administration has passed almost no meaningful legislation in 2 and a half years, despite holding a large majority and without a powerful opposition. 


Having said that, we had those rules to try to somewhat limit the number of people dying of a disease,  and a small number of people clearly didn't give a shit.  That matters to me,  at least.  Most people took lockdown seriously in 2020, it affected many children's education,  people's mental health,  employment,  businesses etc, but the PM thought it was all a bit beneath him. That sickens me. 

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#2093 Re: Politics 2020
May 25, 2022, 10:31:09 am
Number ten has now been given the Sue Grey report, what is the chance they'll redact the bit where she says that the PM is fully culpable and should resign?

On a slightly different note, there seem to be rumours circulating extensively on Twitter that the PM's wife is enjoying carnal relations with a prominent conservative who is not her husband. This doesn't seem very credible, but it would be a degree of screwed up justice.

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#2094 Re: Politics 2020
May 27, 2022, 11:50:23 am
You thought it couldn't get cringier than Gove's Scouse accent.

https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2022/05/27/nadine-dorries-raps-about-online-safety/

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#2095 Re: Politics 2020
May 27, 2022, 01:19:44 pm
Oh. Good. God.

Just when you thought Nadine Dorris couldn't discredit herself with the sector any more....

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#2096 Re: Politics 2020
May 27, 2022, 02:35:10 pm
Nadine Dorries? A rap? You had my hopes so high.

Quite apart from the bill being crap, that wasn't that bad, and it pains me to say that because Nadine Dorries can normally be relied upon to be horrendous at every turn.


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#2098 Re: Politics 2020
May 27, 2022, 05:56:09 pm
Hard to believe it's not actually an onion article. Satire is truly dead!

This was the best bit.

"Johnson has also rewritten the foreword to the code, removing all references to honesty, integrity, transparency and accountability."

Tells you everything really.

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#2099 Re: Politics 2020
May 27, 2022, 10:23:24 pm
Hard to believe it's not actually an onion article. Satire is truly dead!

This was the best bit.

"Johnson has also rewritten the foreword to the code, removing all references to honesty, integrity, transparency and accountability."

Tells you everything really.

"Man caught obviously lying repeatedly changes rules to say lying is kind of more or less ok really ". Does that cover it?

 

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