UK General Election/Politics

First topic message reminder :

Here's a possible thread for it all, despite the lack of political input from me to start it!

Mods if you want to/can cut and paste the recent obviously political "discussions" from the Anything Goes, here might serve?

Diggers, you sound like an American trying to defend the 2nd amendment whilst simultaneously refusing to admit three is a gun problem.

"Why should I find it more difficult to have a gun just because we have a mass shooting every week?"

it doesn't matter that you are law abiding just because you say so. If there was no threat to the country, I'd agree with you, but we don't live in those times anymore, and in terms of stopping events like yesterday, knowledge is power, and if that means that a computer analyses your data for patterns, so bloody what.

The perpetrator yesterday was known to the security services and was not perceived to be a threat. Knowing that he has a familial history of crotch rot would not have helped. Only the feeble minded and Theresa May are still peddling that one.

MontysMerkin wrote:The perpetrator yesterday was known to the security services and was not perceived to be a threat. Knowing that he has a familial history of crotch rot would not have helped. Only the feeble minded and Theresa May are still peddling that one.

Perhaps they didn't have enough data to consider him a risk? Perhaps the authorities will decide they need more information.

Things like crotch rot aren't the things they will be monitoring. It will only flag up certain things. How gullible are you lot?

super_realist wrote:Diggers, you sound like an American trying to defend the 2nd amendment whilst simultaneously refusing to admit three is a gun problem.

"Why should I find it more difficult to have a gun just because we have a mass shooting every week?"

it doesn't matter that you are law abiding just because you say so. If there was no threat to the country, I'd agree with you, but we don't live in those times anymore, and in terms of stopping events like yesterday, knowledge is power, and if that means that a computer analyses your data for patterns, so bloody what.

When has there never been a threat in this country either internally or externally, arguably (in many ways) it's less now than it ever has been. Clearly the media would never put forward that viewpoint.
And just to point out, if they have already been monitoring the data...unfortunately it didn't stop the attack. So just how effective is the monitoring, obviously we will get told that it does stop countless attacks (which we never get any details of). Maybe it does, but either way it makes sense to perpetuate that belief. (At this point you can roll out for the nth time your tin foil hat meme should you wish)
The point here is at what stage do you choose to accept that there is a stage when enough is enough in terms of state monitoring, you have your opinion: certainly doesn't make you correct, I have mine: ditto.
I think we have different views of what constitutes a democracy.

I didn't mean it literally.

Don't you think the services would find the ingredients being bought for IRA much easier to track down to the perpetrator these days than pre internet?

Yes, this attack didn't happen, but how many have or could have been stopped with better intelligence?
Your desire to keep your Bergerac box set secret shouldn't get in the way. I'm sure if your school you work at got blown up you wouldn't be so pious.

Super

You seem confused. I am not saying it would not be possible to come up with a method to collect and analyse the data, but doing it would be very expensive. As someone who is worried about paying a little extra tax or spending more of welfare I assume you don't like large government spending projects? And hence you would be against GCHQ etc having a large enough budget increase to cover the costs of a huge national computer surveillance project?

I do think these days that we do need to be a little less precious about surveillance and state invasion of privacy and data collection. We reluctantly accept that it's a complete ball ache to get in to an airport departure lounge these days compared to say 30 years ago. Why? Because we accept it's for our safety, does it come with a 100% guarantee? No it doesn't, it just substantially reduces the risk. Ditto in terms of data, what they have now is a lot more sophisticated than it was even 5 years ago, in 5 years time it'll be much better than it is now. Big Data science is relatively new but growing fast.

super_realist wrote:I didn't mean it literally.

Don't you think the services would find the ingredients being bought for IRA much easier to track down to the perpetrator these days than pre internet?

Yes, this attack didn't happen, but how many have or could have been stopped with better intelligence?
Your desire to keep your Bergerac box set secret shouldn't get in  the way. I'm sure if your school you work at got blown up you wouldn't be so pious.

Yes, because schools in the UK are being blown up on a regular basis.
You should get a job for the Mail Super, you could peddle your terror theories for them.

Another point is that I don't see that we should look at this policy in isolation. It's clear to me, regardless of May's nonsense about no ideology, that this Govt has a clear right wing agenda.
Lo and behold this is yet another policy that restricts civil liberties, it should rightly be held up and examined and questioned because it's clear given any opportunity they will keep pushing and pushing these type of policies.

I see the cost of free breakfasts to replace free lunches is a further strong and stable c..k up! Good job Tories know about the numbers!

The breakfasts thing is quite clever, sounds good in some ways...then you factor in time and staff and it's a beyond retarded idea.
School would need to start at 6.30 and teachers would be making toast as nobody could afford the extra budget for staff.
Seriously, seriously dumb policy as any teacher could have told you in about 30 seconds.
Our own head of governors, a staunch Tory councillor, is utterly incandescent about it.

She's unravelling. While I hate to say it Manchester has given her a breather when the pressure was building.

Completely agree, they have ran a piss poor, arrogant campaign. May literally refusing to cost their manifesto pledges, saying they were beyond being held to account on the economy.
If it wasn't for the horrors of Monday I was beginning to believe that a hung parliament might just be a possibility. Can't see it now (to clarify, I am not suggesting any form of conspiracy Super) .

Govt have been resisting, since 2013! FOI request for release of detail from Andrew Lansley's departmental diary from his time "reorganising" the NHS. Appeal court decision today in favour of full release. Nothing expected until after the election - but why were they so resistant? Another thread begins to unravel?

I don't think May's U-turns are enough to make Corbyn's headless chickens more likely to be popular.

Members of the party might like him, but the electorate doesn't. May could probably do just about anything right now and the Tories would still get in.

Probably right Super, but he's definitely growing in popularity. Everyone I've spoken to has been impressed and surprised by how eloquent and calm he had been throughout.
Equally they all think May had been shocking, and this isn't just Labour voters either.
It's a small sample but the polls are increasingly backing that view as well.

Too far behind and not enough time to pull it back I would think. Stranger things have happened I suppose and in some ways we've got a situation every bit as bad as America had. Are Cruella De Ville and Steptoe really the best we can do?

I think the Labour team is an issue, I'm a big Corbyn convert but Abbott as a big player, no way. I like McDonnell a lot and some of the junior ministers as well. Not a lot of depth though.

Abbot was never good and is a liability. I get the feeling she's only there because she's a black female and if she was a white male she'd have been out ages ago. She's clearly not up to the job but no doubt she'll get a peerage, which is probably where she ought to retire to.

She was my MP for 4 years in Stoke Newington, she does that well, I always struggled that she sent her lad off to private school.
I have no problems with private education to be honest, but it's a tad hypocritical for her. Corbyn gets the same grief for his kids going to a grammar, difference being it was a big reason for his marriage break up.

I'm never surprised by hypocrisy in politics Digs, they're all at it.

That Farron looks like a lunatic.

It's just much easier being a hypocrite when you're a leftist.

I reckon some politicians are cynical, hypocrites, but many are good people trying very hard. It's the fact we generalise them as hypocrites, and worse, which stops more good people getting involved. I don't think Jo Cox was "at it" but I don't hold my own MP in very high regard - mind you, he does know that!
They're a bit like teachers and managers - you never forget the good ones!

I have never been a Corbyn fan, I dont think I am far left enough, I am a bit middle ground liberal. But as this campaign has gone on he has started winning me round. His policies are good, and they are wiping the floor with the tories during the campaign in my view. Its interesting that the polls are closing the gap. I saw a video on twitter from 2003 of him saying that bombing in Iraq will just cause problems, and he has been proven right, obviously.

Its funny, that people will still not vote for him based on his personality or how he comes across, which is whats wrong with politics, because it should be what he says not who he is.

I get the feeling that this will be a win for the Tories, but not what they were expecting or hoping for.

Still people also needs to feel confidence in the person they vote for. I don't think you can look past the personality.

The thing is that May makes Corbyn look like Mr Charisma.

I love the fact that the media are calling him a lefty. His policies are middle ground at best. Just shows what the press can do to an uncritical population.

From the LSE:
Our analysis shows that Corbyn was thoroughly delegitimised as a political actor from the moment he became a prominent candidate and even more so after he was elected as party leader, with a strong mandate. This process of delegitimisation occurred in several ways: 1) through lack of or distortion of voice; 2) through ridicule, scorn and personal attacks; and 3) through association, mainly with terrorism.

All this raises, in our view, a number of pressing ethical questions regarding the role of the media in a democracy. Certainly, democracies need their media to challenge power and offer robust debate, but when this transgresses into an antagonism that undermines legitimate political voices that dare to contest the current status quo, then it is not democracy that is served.

I might be going against the flow here, and I have no special knowledge, but it wouldn't surprise me if the result was very close with Labour winning. Remember how no one expected the Tories to win when they did? Or even a hung parliament.

Diggers wrote:The fact main worry is that it's small increments of change, as with everything the goal posts are slowly moved and what is deemed acceptable is judged not from the starting point, but from the last change.

Now that is a very good point.

beninho wrote:I have never been a Corbyn fan, I dont think I am far left enough, I am a bit middle ground liberal. But as this campaign has gone on he has started winning me round. His policies are good, and they are wiping the floor with the tories during the campaign in my view. Its interesting that the polls are closing the gap. I saw a video on twitter from 2003 of him saying that bombing in Iraq will just cause problems, and he has been proven right, obviously.

Its funny, that people will still not vote for him based on his personality or how he comes across, which is whats wrong with politics, because it should be what he says not who he is.

I get the feeling that this will be a win for the Tories, but not what they were expecting or hoping for.

A lot of people have some feeling for many of the things in the Labour Manifesto, but it's easy to offer the stars if you aren't realistic and honest about the cost. I haven't seen anyone saying what they're offering is properly costed. Yes, I know the Tories are (apparently) so dumb they didn't feel the need to put any numbers at all in theirs.

Afternoon all I came on to ask if anyone else was having problems with the PGA website cant even get wenters leaderboard up.
But on the politics May will win and therefore Labour can say/promise anything they like regardless of cost and consequences.Offering students free tuition at the last minute was a cheap shot my daughter is starting in Sept and even she saw it for what it was.Corbyn and his deputy are a disaster area and Diggers is surprising me.This country has had an attitude of trying to look after all of the people all of time and its not possible.If ypu cannot send your child of to school with a breakfast inside them and a decent packed lunch then Im sorry we cannot help. I have had to spend a bit of time recently as an NHS outpatient and treated well more than enough staff no issues but we have people in the same room who have only lived here for a couple of years.Probably never happen but some sort of personal account system for the NHS
would be possible.i have paid NHI for 45 years and now having to pay for private treatment to get me back to work and some life quality cannot be correct.

I'm never wrong wrote:I might be going against the flow here, and I have no special knowledge, but it wouldn't surprise me if the result was very close with Labour winning. Remember how no one expected the Tories to win when they did? Or even a hung parliament.

In some ways I hope you are right IMW, then I think whoever inherits trying to unravel Brexit has mission impossible. The problem is this may be Labours last chance to return a moderately socialist government, if they fail I can see someone like David Milliband coming riding in and a return to centerist policy. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather that than May, but I don't think it would bring any sweeping changes.

Hi Digs no offence at least we have an opinion and we aren't going out to blow anyone up

Unless you live in the middle east.

None taken fella, good to hear from you. I get where you are coming from, I just think that keeping May will basically spell the end of the NHS, so many huge chucks are being sold off.
I'm like you, I've paid a pretty decent rate of tax all my life and haven't really asked for a lot back. Since I've switched to teaching I can see just how different every persons life chances are, now that's not an excuse for people to do nothing (I hate state scroungers as much as anyone) but I would like to see a fairer chance for everyone.
I genuinely think the Labour manifesto wants to do that, I don't agree with everything. VAT on private school fees will probably drive more people back into the state system which won't be a benefit (that said I believe private schools are exempt from VAT because they have charitable status, that status does seem bizarre to me for a private enterprise).
But there is a lot there, it may well be impossible to achieve (part of me is slightly past caring) but I just think it is time for something different.

Diggers wrote:

I'm never wrong wrote:I might be going against the flow here, and I have no special knowledge, but it wouldn't surprise me if the result was very close with Labour winning. Remember how no one expected the Tories to win when they did? Or even a hung parliament.

In some ways I hope you are right IMW, then I think whoever inherits trying to unravel Brexit has mission impossible. The problem is this may be Labours last chance to return a moderately socialist government, if they fail I can see someone like David Milliband coming riding in and a return to centerist policy. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather that than May, but I don't think it would bring any sweeping changes.

Think it more likely there'll be a huge split in Labour, with many leaving to become a more centrist (new?) party or having a word with what's left of the LibDems (will need a new name in any case as they're done for).

navyblueshorts wrote:

Diggers wrote:

I'm never wrong wrote:I might be going against the flow here, and I have no special knowledge, but it wouldn't surprise me if the result was very close with Labour winning. Remember how no one expected the Tories to win when they did? Or even a hung parliament.

In some ways I hope you are right IMW, then I think whoever inherits trying to unravel Brexit has mission impossible. The problem is this may be Labours last chance to return a moderately socialist government, if they fail I can see someone like David Milliband coming riding in and a return to centerist policy. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather that than May, but I don't think it would bring any sweeping changes.

Think it more likely there'll be a huge split in Labour, with many leaving to become a more centrist (new?) party or having a word with what's left of the LibDems (will need a new name in any case as they're done for).

Yep, could be that outcome as well Navy, from my point of view I think I'd find that preferable. You would think it would take years to come back from that, then you look at France having a President who created a party only a year ago. So who knows!

And now Trump indicates US looking for trade deal with EU, worried about impact on world economy from Brexit, and any Deal with U.K. after EU. Suppose he could say something different tomorrow, but sounds like it might be squeaky bum time for the intellectual leaders of Brexit!!!!!

Not a surprise to anyone with more than a single synapse in their head - still, it is Trump saying this so who knows? If it comes out that this is the reality, it'll be the fault of anyone and everyone except those that advocated and voted for Brexit. We'll see.

I'm never wrong wrote:I might be going against the flow here, and I have no special knowledge, but it wouldn't surprise me if the result was very close with Labour winning. Remember how no one expected the Tories to win when they did? Or even a hung parliament.

Much as I would like to see I don't think it'll happen. When the polls are wrong they're always wrong in the same direction....too many people too embarrassed to admit they vote Tory

beninho wrote:His policies are good, and they are wiping the floor with the tories during the campaign in my view. Its interesting that the polls are closing the gap. I saw a video on twitter from 2003 of him saying that bombing in Iraq will just cause problems, and he has been proven right, obviously.

His policies are "good" because he's promising all sorts of things that people don't have to work for. Loads of handouts without really thinking through the practicalities or the consequences.

You hardly have to be Nostradamus to predict that bombing Iraq would cause problems. If he was around in 1939 would you be amazed at his insight for saying going to war against Germany "will just cause problems"?

It's just a shame that a few of those who could predict the problems didn't have the cojones to actually vote that way.

You can have a go at him for lots of reasons, but his voting record shows consistently he had integrity. How many politicians can you say that about. Certainly not May, that lady is very much for turning.

Digs most golf courses are also exempt from VAT.
Tories just had to call the election and keep quiet to win no idea why they came out with the care policy.What has happened in the last few days has taken all the heat out of campaigns and I feel joe public might not want a new corbyn led group in charge of our seciruty service.Saying that the current structure is going to be under scrutiny as more detail comes out.
Still cant get PGA website working

About time a party made a call to tax religions. They make billions every year and pay bugger all tax whilst sitting on billions of assets.

beninho wrote:His policies are good, and they are wiping the floor with the tories during the campaign in my view. Its interesting that the polls are closing the gap. I saw a video on twitter from 2003 of him saying that bombing in Iraq will just cause problems, and he has been proven right, obviously.

His policies are awful pandering to the common man with nothing to back them up, scrapping tuition fees is a horrendous and diabolical idea but it's easy to promise the world when nobody thinks you'll win. If by some miracle he does get elected you'll see a very sharp u-turn as he and McDonnell both know they can't follow through with their manifesto.

Yeah, scrapping tuition fees is horrendous. Bringing back grammars and scrapping free school meals (whilst blatantly lying about costings) is on the other hand fantastic.

Diggers wrote:Yeah, scrapping tuition fees is horrendous. Bringing back grammars and scrapping free school meals (whilst blatantly lying about costings) is on the other hand fantastic.

First sensible thing you've said. Scrapping tuition fees is horrendous and bringing back grammar schools is fantastic, i'm guessing you lacked the intellect to get into one?

Why not try actually giving comments to justify your views, rather than just throwing a few random adjectives around. I'd be happy to debate any argument around education policy.
I like to think I've had a go at giving some explanation for my opinion, I've even balanced it with listing policy and personnel I don't support.
Why don't you start by explaining why the free breakfast policy will work, Id really like to hear a reasoned argument.
We didn't have a grammar in the town I grew up in so I can't answer that question, sorry.

Though it may be worth noting that I'm 50. You are judging my intellect based on an exam I would have taken around 40 years ago.
You've done a great job of highlighting a fundamental flaw with the grammar system. Well done you, even without any kind of basic level of justification you've actually made a relevant point.