UK Politics

[Honey Honey]

What an idiot John McDonnell is, giving a speech to a load of communist flag wavers and a few Stalin sympathisers during an election campaign. 

Think it through you tit.

[Panflute]

I have sympathy for Jeremy Corbyn, but the modern left is ultimately shit. Not that the tories are any better, mind.

That said, Corbyn was 100% right on Chávez, and comments like that show that there is some old-school socialism left in labour, even if it was buried under thick layers of neocon and eurocrat shilling.

[Vegan Kel]

Nailed on Tory win

[Vegan Kel]

Just now, Cannabis said:

I've not seen it but apparently Diane Abbott had an absolute car crash of an interview this morning on BBC News.

Couldn't happen to a better person.

If the sentence had ended with car crash I'd be delighted

[Fairy In Boots]

oh it's glorious 

[Stan]

 

 

[Toony]

On 02/05/2017 at 4:25 PM, Fairy In Boots said:

oh it's glorious 

Not seen that before

She is an absolute pompous fool

[The Artful Dodger]

Looks like it's basically going to be London, Liverpool and Manchester against the rest at this rate. Depressing.

[Spike]

Don't know too much about the UK's political landscape. However I'm under the impression there is still a huge hole in employment due to the end of the industrial sector and elimination of many government sectors under Thatcher. The first is contentious at best but a cut to bloated government sectors is always positive, no? (not to those employed of course).

Such a huge flip from blue to white-collar industry would be the main cause of working-class youth disenfranchisement, correct?

[Honey Honey]

Awful turnout for this new "mayor" bollocks.

A 3rd of people in Manchester bothered. 22% in tees valley, 26% in Liverpool.

Pathetic. Its embarassing to see political party's claim some sort of pride from this.

Scrap these Tory northern poorhouse mayors that vanity Labour metropolitan clowns support.

Andy Burnham gets to be the celebrity he always wanted to be.

These elections are for no one but the badge wearing political thinkers. Ordinary people don't give a shit and it's the ordinary people who the badge wearers hate anyway because they can swing from party to party which they just cannot fathom why.

[Honey Honey]

2 hours ago, Spike said:

Don't know too much about the UK's political landscape. However I'm under the impression there is still a huge hole in employment due to the end of the industrial sector and elimination of many government sectors under Thatcher. The first is contentious at best but a cut to bloated government sectors is always positive, no? (not to those employed of course).

Such a huge flip from blue to white-collar industry would be the main cause of working-class youth disenfranchisement, correct?

A cut to the government sector isn't always good. Some government spending has better fiscal multiplication than the market can provide. Additionally not all areas are equal but are forced to share the same currency, government resources need to be allocated appropriately to areas that cannot compete. The £ has been vastly overvalued for most of the North since the discovery of oil and the steroids London has been on due to financial liberalisation.

What Thatcher and Blair got wrong with the working class is when the industries were closed down the government's job should have been to step in and retrain these people. They didn't because they were influenced by 1970s textbooks that were littered with the libertarian philosophy of the day so thought that the "market" would and could take of everything.

Great in theory, failed in practice. So they have used corporate welfarism to try and hide the disaster ever since.

 

[Spike]

3 minutes ago, HoneyNUFC said:

A cut to the government sector isn't always good. Some government spending has better fiscal multiplication than the market can provide. Additionally not all areas are equal but are forced to share the same currency, government resources need to be allocated appropriately to areas that cannot compete. The £ has been vastly overvalued for most of the North since the discovery of oil and the steroids London has been on due to financial liberalisation.

What Thatcher and Blair got wrong with the working class is when the industries were closed down the government's job should have been to step in and retrain these people. They didn't because they were influenced by 1970s textbooks that were littered with the libertarian philosophy of the day so thought that the "market" would and could take of everything.

Great in theory, failed in practice. So they have used corporate welfarism to try and hide the disaster ever since.

 

I see interesting. The market requires innovation to replace older industry and when that doesn't exist the market cannot shit out a new industry on the whim. Did Thather and Blaire bet on banking and computer sciences to be the 'new' industry of the UK? That is all well and good but it's far more technically difficult than labouring in a mineshaft. A thirty year-old Welsh miner probably can't hammer out DOS code on his IBM.

I agree. The government took their jobs away, I don't think it the government should have 'employed' by artificially creating them occupations but they definitely should have created programs for the working class to train themselves in other industries. It's naive to expect a man that has spent his entire life working a single 9-5 job to pick up another when that industry has been closed.

[The Artful Dodger]

1 hour ago, HoneyNUFC said:

Awful turnout for this new "mayor" bollocks.

A 3rd of people in Manchester bothered. 22% in tees valley, 26% in Liverpool.

Pathetic. Its embarassing to see political party's claim some sort of pride from this.

Scrap these Tory northern poorhouse mayors that vanity Labour metropolitan clowns support.

Andy Burnham gets to be the celebrity he always wanted to be.

These elections are for no one but the badge wearing political thinkers. Ordinary people don't give a shit and it's the ordinary people who the badge wearers hate anyway because they can swing from party to party which they just cannot fathom why.

They had a very similar turnout in the first London Mayoral elections and look how big the turnout is now.

I am dubious about the viability of Mayors, I'd much rather see a fully elected local government of sorts. However, with the prospect of devolution I'm behind it in this guise for the now. 

[Honey Honey]

16 minutes ago, Spike said:

I see interesting. The market requires innovation to replace older industry and when that doesn't exist the market cannot shit out a new industry on the whim. Did Thather and Blaire bet on banking and computer sciences to be the 'new' industry of the UK? That is all well and good but it's far more technically difficult than labouring in a mineshaft. A thirty year-old Welsh miner probably can't hammer out DOS code on his IBM.

I agree. The government took their jobs away, I don't think it the government should have 'employed' by artificially creating them occupations but they definitely should have created programs for the working class to train themselves in other industries. It's naive to expect a man that has spent his entire life working a single 9-5 job to pick up another when that industry has been closed.

There was no betting on an industry. There was just a liberation of finance and destruction of labour movements.

It should be stressed we don't have mass unemployment. We have mass underpaid underemployment and job insecurity. To make up for that everyone got loaded with debt thanks to financial liberalisation. Credit cards, mortgages, overdrafts, car loans. This was upper middle class stuff 40 years ago. It's everyone now and it makes people very anxious. It allowed corporations to not have to bother paying their staff properly. If a bank will happily print money out of thin air and give it out then they don't need to bother with wage rises. The bank gives the wage rise out for them, the corporations make more profit for the people at the top.

There's another argument to be had about the psychological impact of replacing tight knit communities with insecure market forces and insecure debt junkie lifestyles, but perhaps that is for another day.

 

2 minutes ago, The Artful Dodger said:

They had a very similar turnout in the first London Mayoral elections and look how big the turnout is now.

I am dubious about the viability of Mayors, I'd much rather see a fully elected local government of sorts. However, with the prospect of devolution I'm behind it in this guise for the now. 

I would guess any rise is probably down to the role being turned into a celebrity post. Boris Johnson's popularity despite the pollution, money laundering, sky high rents etc. suggest that I think. I can't think of much good he did unless you like bicycles. He gave funny speeches though so people in offices started talking about him.

Andy Burnham will do his best to turn the Mayor of Greater Manchester into a celebrity role. It is all a New York copy. It'll be me me me on the tele all the time. Probably a walk on part on corrie and a spot on the podium at the Europa League Final.

Turnout in Tees Valley is unlikely to improve. It will probably go down. They're not the celebrity type in chemical factories in Middlesbrough. Some Insurance company office in Manchester will enjoy the mayorality celebrity "banter" though.

In terms of political action, Sadiq Khan has broken several election promises and no one has batted an eyelid. George Osborne is clearly buttering himself up to be London Mayor one day.

[Fairy In Boots]

6 hours ago, The Artful Dodger said:

Looks like it's basically going to be London, Liverpool and Manchester against the rest at this rate. Depressing.

I'm not surprised the West Midlands went Tory, I think that the pockets of Sutton, Solihull coupled with the fact The West Midlands are waking up to the fact that despite being a labour heartland Labour councils have been fucking us repeatedly since the 70's. 

We're also hard Brexit we're very industrious working class, faffing EU loving politicians aren't wanted round here. You drive through what is Birmingham heartlands and where in the 60's & 70's you had a truly great world industrial centre you now have brown field sites and mass immigration. There's real anger and Labour still not reading their vote on Brexit has come home with these elections. 

Nasty Corbyn's mob will be out cowering decenting politicians so he'll limp into the GE and get slaughtered.  Abbot has apparently  dropped another bollock today to. I'm a Tory voter but this is a mess you need a strong opposition. 

 

[Fairy In Boots]

Best troll on twitter, the fact he's been published in the Guardian several times when they take him seriously is brilliant. 

[Honey Honey]

 

To be fair that's a total dick move by the journalist but he has exposed her bullshit.

[Fairy In Boots]

3 minutes ago, HoneyNUFC said:

 

To be fair that's a total dick move by the journalist but he has exposed her bullshit.

The Lib Dems have given up  I actually admire his honesty, little rat that he is.

 

[Fairy In Boots]

😂😂😂😂

[SirBalon]

Got to get rid of Labour in the North Ward of Islington for the first time since before the coronation, so I'm gonna vote away from the Green Party for the first time in many an election.  I'm definitely going with the Libs.

[Honey Honey]

44 minutes ago, SirBalon said:

Got to get rid of Labour in the North Ward of Islington for the first time since before the coronation, so I'm gonna vote away from the Green Party for the first time in many an election.  I'm definitely going with the Libs.

Labour doner Michael Foster said the other day he is standing against Jeremy there.

Neither the Labour nor the Lib Dem candidate in my constituency has passed my assessment of their Twitter feed.

Waiting to see which 3rd party's will stand.

[SirBalon]

1 minute ago, HoneyNUFC said:

Labour doner Michael Foster said the other day he is standing against Jeremy there.

Neither the Labour nor the Lib Dem candidate in my constituency has passed my assessment of their Twitter feed.

Waiting to see which 3rd party's will stand.

We've got practically the whole of the Highbury Quadrant sector voting Lib Dems this time around and I can tell you that's a first.  One of my neighbours will be voting Libs for the first time in history including upto his great grandparents who always voted Labour.

[Kowabunga]

Just now, SirBalon said:

We've got practically the whole of the Highbury Quadrant sector voting Lib Dems this time around and I can tell you that's a first.  One of my neighbours will be voting Libs for the first time in history including upto his great grandparents who always voted Labour.

Europhile filth!

[SirBalon]

9 minutes ago, Kowabunga said:

Europhile filth!

hahaha... 

You know...  It's taken me every single month since the referendum to get back into my neighbour's good books.  I was the only one who voted "leave" and since then I've seen the errors of my ways.  To be honest, I don't blame May for her rhetoric ever since although she's been lying through her teeth ever since when you take into context what her position and speeches were before the referendum...  What else can she have done?  But then again she's the leader of the nation and hypocrisy is part of the job title unfortunately.

I can only support repentance and never continuance or a throne chaser.

[Kowabunga]

2 minutes ago, SirBalon said:

hahaha... 

You know...  It's taken me every single month since the referendum to get back into my neighbour's good books.  I was the only one who voted "leave" and since then I've seen the errors of my ways.  To be honest, I don't blame May for here rhetoric ever since although she's been lying through her teeth ever since when you take into context what her position and speeches were before the referendum...  What else can she have done?  But then again she's the leader of the nation and hypocrisy is part of the job title unfortunately.

I can only support repentance and never continuance or a throne chaser.

Cleanse, cleanse!! Crush infidels!!!

I am not the most learned about it. Just giving an outside perspective. If I was innocent I would think of the existence of a certain level of denial in the tory brexit campaigners about some of their points that is unraveling by now.  If I were less innocent I would think a decent number of britons have been trolled into UK becoming a giant laboratory of policies for an all-powerful tory government. A possibly authoritarian redressement with a british flavour that given the rather civic political history in the Isles so far, has some of its references in especulative scifi dystopias rather than an actual point in the history of the UK.