General British politics discussion thread

hotmail.com

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118996868#Comment_118996868

Opinions you don't like or agree with need evidence. I see.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118996900#Comment_118996900

Opinions that are clearly ridiculous need evidence. You accused me of smearing you earlier when I asked a question so you'll understand my scepticism.

Nate--IRL--

Stating something as fact, should require evidence, no?

Nate

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118996677#Comment_118996677

You keep repeating this as if this is proof of...I don't know what really except it seems to be a spin off from you being unwilling to criticise any Tory ministers. If a minister from an ethnic minority pushes policies that actively hurt ethnic minorities that doesn't make the policies any better for them. Case in point is Priti Patel creating rules that, had they been in place when her parents wanted to come to the UK, would have prevented them from doing so. It's pulling the ladder up after you.

And since you brought it up, comparing Ireland and the UK's diversity within the political class is not a fair comparison. Ireland only really starting becoming a destination for emigrants in the mid-to-late '90s whereas the UK has been since the '60s. All of those ministers are the children of that first wave of emigrants (Patel and Sunak's parents emigrated from east Africa and Kwasi Kwarteng's emigrated from Ghana - all in the 1960s). It is a lot easier for first generation immigrants to rise to the top of society then it was for their parents. Give it 30 years and then you can make a fair comparison between our political representation and the UKs. I suspect that then we will have politicians who speak with Irish accents but who come from our Polish, Nigerian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Pakistani and Brazilian communities.

hotmail.com

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118997425#Comment_118997425

Yeah that's a good point. The UK was far more multi cultural and diverse much earlier than this country. As usual, we're behind the curve.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118998015#Comment_118998015

Well, most of the 'multi cultural' input was from people from the colonies (British Empire dominions and colonies) coming to live in GB, usually with the right to do so. As their numbers increased, various British Nationality acts were put through to limit them, each more restrictive than the last. For example, those living on the Falklands Islands would not have the right to migrate to GB prior the Falklands-Malvinas War with Argentina.

Is it 'multi cultural' to have people from the former Empire moving to the 'motherland'?

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118998015#Comment_118998015

Cuntries that didn't go rape and pillage the known world in later years had less of the conquered moving in.

Ireland is behind no curve for a country of it's historic circumstances.

Don't see what any of this Ireland whataboutery has got to do with British politics except for you to create another rabbit hole

put_the_kettle_on

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118996879#Comment_118996879

I think that for the vast majority their opinions remain cast in tablets of stone. Those who complain bitterly about post Brexit conditions were remainers originally. Those who don't complain were Brexiteers.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118998303#Comment_118998303

There are a number of Brexiters on record complaining about Brexit.

put_the_kettle_on

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118998354#Comment_118998354

There's a few, I'm sure, but I was really talking about the majority. That's just been my experience of the referendum living in the uk.

PommieBast

Looks like Neil Parish has decided to walk. That is going to be another uncomfortable by-election..

Sudden Valley

Seems to be a safe seat for the conservatives. With their thumping majority it's just another in a long line of embarassing events.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118998939#Comment_118998939

"The situation was that – funnily enough it was tractors I was looking at. I did get into another website that had a very similar name and I watched it for a bit which I shouldn’t have done.

“But my crime – biggest crime – is that on another occasion I went in a second time"

Sometimes, all you can do is laugh in the face of such nonsense. Tractors indeed. Who does he even think to fool - or indeed convince?

PommieBast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118999068#Comment_118999068

Yea I get the feeling this is not going to be another North Shropshire, even though there's historically a heavy swing against parties when someone does a runner.

Brussels Sprout

I'm not sure if there is any such thing as a safe seat for the Tories in the current environment but a seat with a 24k majority really should be. Having said that, they lost the North Shropshire by-election in December after having a 23k majority in that! The Lib Dems have a history of winning seats in the past in nearby constituencies so perhaps they can make this one competitive.

Sam Russell

All it would take an ousted former Tory MP to split the vote, and the LibDems would be in.

Perhaps Lord Buckethead might win.

breezy1985

Seats like this aren't about the win but the margin. A big dent in the majority will scare the shte out of marginal MPs who will pile the pressure on Johnson.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119002890#Comment_119002890

But a LibDem victory would be delicious.

Itssoeasy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119002929#Comment_119002929

A Lib Dem victory would test the plumbing in Westminster alright. The local elections are important but the bye elections would by more of a indication of the national politics.

Seth Brundle

Drip drip drip

https://twitter.com/AngelaRayner/status/1520655778067230720?t=-OgKv3nIFgvDLGUx3c-8sQ&s=19

breezy1985

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jul/17/boris-johnson-seventy-two-virgins-novel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119002999#Comment_119002999

Some musing on Boris Johnson's novel 72 Virgins

The novel’s attitude to women is so sexist that, if Johnson fails to gain the premiership, he could be a good bet to screen-write the recently announced new string of Carry On movies. I counted 20 occasions on which women enter the narrative. Each time, the narrator or a character looks them up and down, phwoaring over, to take a representative selection, “tits out”, “lustrous eyes”, “long legs”, “a mega-titted six-footer”, “loads of pretty white teeth”, “good teeth and blonde hair”, and an “unambiguously exuberant bosom”. One woman’s comment is attributed to “premenstrual irrationality”. In this context, appearances from a “girly swot” and a woman who looks “like a lingerie model, only cleverer and, if anything, with bigger breasts” count relatively as feminism.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jul/17/boris-johnson-seventy-two-virgins-novel

Also plenty of talk about "pikeys, half-castes and hook noses"

Seth Brundle

This sleaze really wont stop - I spotted a tweet from businessman and former Brexit Party & Tory MEP Lance Foreman who is wanting to get himself sued...

https://twitter.com/LanceForman/status/1520660850259943425?t=sRLCqf-6k5avaWBhe9llgQ&s=19

Brussels Sprout

Those Brexit Party and UKIP MEPs really were drawn from the dregs of society.

I know that we aren't covering ourselves in glory with Daly & Wallace but that should be corrected at the first available opportunity. The Brits sent the worst of the worst for years.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119005081#Comment_119005081

Not unrelated, but the UK's 2019 turnout was 37.18%, though Ireland not exactly stellar either at 49.70%. there's a demonstrable engagement problem with the EU elections, that as you point out results in demagogues and populists getting in. Cos you end up with more protest candidates and respective demographics electing (say) Nigel Farage, an anti-democratic charlatan who pocketed taxpayers money to do F all. And if not them, then the perception is of Brussels as some kind of gravy train for failed TDs.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/election-results-2019/en/turnout/

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119005168#Comment_119005168

I would not class Farage being elected as anything but a stitch up. The UK always use a FPTP system but when the EU insisted in a more representative system, they went for a list system, which is as close to FPTP that could be devised.

In the FPTP system, the party selects the candidate, which in a safe seat is selecting the winner. In a list system, the party selects the list, and most importantly, it selects the order of election. So the first candidate on the list is elected even if there is only one actually elected. So again the party selects the winner. In neither system does the electorate actually get to choose the winner and the voter cannot vote against a candidate in either system.

Farage never made it to be an MP.

devnull

Daily Mail has now sunk to a new low, as well as their new strategy of people being 'guilty until proven innocent' on this mornings front page, they've now using fake 'proof' in order to get their points across.

Since the Daily Mail don't have any actual photos of Keir Starmer eating curry at the event that they claim to have happened, they have clearly now dug through their library and looked for photos where he was doing just that.

So they managed to dig this up

However, first of all I thought it was pretty strange that Starmer looked very different in this curry photo from the way he did in the other photos. I also felt it was quite odd how they cropped another person out. Could there be any reason for this?

Yes, the photo is from a Guardian article SEVEN YEARS ago and includes Frank Dobson, who died 3 years ago so there is no way this could have been from the same event that the Tories could be talking about.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/20/general-election-keir-starmer-dream-labour-seat

It's ironic that a newspaper is claiming to ask other people to tell the truth, whilst misrepresenting pictures and then presenting them as evidence. This is the kind of thing that undermines the free press that the Daily Mail keep banging on about.

O'Neill

Nadine Dorris tweeted the photograph apparently 🤦‍♂️

https://twitter.com/MrJohnNicolson/status/1521092894987325445?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1521092894987325445%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=

pixelburp

This is the Jimmy Savile thing all over again: they know it's false, they know it's bullshít and the intentional cropping proves it ... but that's the point. A sturdy lie becomes guilt by the ludicrousness of simply having to prove one's innocence. Starmer will waste time defending himself, playing into the cynical reading how all political explanations sound false and self-serving to an extent. Christ I can already hear Dorries simply denying the reality that Frank Dobson died in 2019. It's post truth: I refute reality and substitute my own.

PommieBast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119005168#Comment_119005168

Well the BBC's "impartiality" has not exactly helped:

devnull

More bad press from the Daily Mail, according to the MP for Durham, 'journalists' from the Daily Mail have been harassing the family of her staff and doorstepping their children.

https://twitter.com/marykfoy/status/1521179849666273281

https://twitter.com/marykfoy/status/1521179851633434625

I can only imagine what is going to come out over the next few days as we get closer and closer to the elections. The Mail are getting more and more desperate in order to try and help the Tories. They are desperate to destroy Labour because their non dom ownership knows a successful Labour party means they might have to pay tax rather than avoid it.

On Thursday for the elections, are the media banned from campaigning or are they able to run whatever they want on the morning of local elections? I really fear that the Daily Mail will go for the nuclear option with something completely wild and outlandish.