General British politics discussion thread

Leroy42 · 29-01-2023 2:04pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120172666#Comment_120172666

As you say yet again Sunak is proved to be on the wrong side. He claimed he wanted 'integrity' but at every turn he always goes with doing nothing rather than look to make a stand.

The guy has a massive majority and yet seems terrified of doing anything that might remotely upset any of his party.

It didn't take Nostradamus to forecast where the Zahawi story was heading. it was perculating the background for months and then it all blew up. Sunak could still have come out on top had he taken decisive action. Instead he actually told the house the matter was settled, which either means that he didn't bother to even question Zahawi, questioned him but Zahawi lied, or felt that the answers were perfectly alright.

If Zahawi lied, Sunak should have fired him immediately the truth came out. With that he could have still saved some leadership.

But he ends up in the worst position. Nothing new has come out except someone else actually wrote a report showing how bad it all was.

Sunak is a weak leader, I would even go as far as say he is leader in name only.

Strazdas · 29-01-2023 2:12pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120173153#Comment_120173153

Yes, he's more like a middle manager type who has somehow found himself in the position of running the country. He's a bit of an enigma - I'm sure many people must be wondering why a multi millionaire with a background in finance and who married into a billionaire family ended up as an MP and then party leader.

pixelburp · 29-01-2023 3:00pm

Sunak is weak, and has been shown thus in what must be record time. Nothing but an Empty suit full of platitudes and limp photo-ops with no actual backbone. What odds of another leadership contest?

breezy1985 · 29-01-2023 3:03pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120173014#Comment_120173014

NIMBYism certainly and also a culture of demonizing large public works. As soon as an idea is floated the "waste of money" stuff begins.

ancapailldorcha · 29-01-2023 4:23pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120173369#Comment_120173369

Exactly. I think Dorian Lynskey sums it up nicely:

https://twitter.com/Dorianlynskey/status/1619668679876300802

As for another leadership contest, no chance. Maybe in 6-12 months once the election gets closer. There are several MPs clearly yearning for Johnson. He can't win a GE but he's the best hope they have.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120173388#Comment_120173388

It's why I thought Liz Truss' "anti-growth coalition" thing was another level of stupid altogether. Britons don't want growth. Same for their NHS. They'll go on and on about it only to vote for the exact opposite.

Podge_irl · 29-01-2023 7:53pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120170738#Comment_120170738

Because it is desperately needed.

They have made a mistake in focusing the branding so much on the "high speed" aspect, but the extra capacity is vital to improve regional passenger and freight rail.

ancapailldorcha · 29-01-2023 7:58pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120174531#Comment_120174531

I don't disagree on the necessity of it. Heck, I'd say that it's not nearly enough. We need a whole raft of investment in social housing, infrastructure, green energy, insulating homes, skills training, etc. Constantly cutting bits of it off like this just skews the cost-benefit ratio to the point where the whole thing is just a waste of cash relative to the cost.

Capt'n Midnight · 30-01-2023 1:15am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120170738#Comment_120170738

They could have the clock run down on Hinkley-C and let the French and Chinese government take the financial hit. Instead they've extended the price guarantee by another three years.

It's almost as if they want to empty the coffers to undermine a future Labour government.

FrancieBrady · 30-01-2023 9:29am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120174531#Comment_120174531

Is there not a school of thought that it will just take from the pool of users of the existing rail users and cause problems for it?

breezy1985 · 30-01-2023 9:47am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120176183#Comment_120176183

It seems to have worked for practically all other major European countries so I would say the idea is sound.

You have high speed for the major city hub to hub travel and the existing trains still operate because most on them are going to intermediate stops not end to end.

Podge_irl · 30-01-2023 1:30pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120176183#Comment_120176183

No, the current rail lines are massively oversubscribed and they can't put on any more trains, and can't put on regional trains sharing the line with long distance ones. You have a lot of politicians who should (or quite likely do) know better saying HS2 should be cancelled and the money spend on improving regional services when HS2 is the way to improve regional services!

Its a necessary increase in capacity. And if you're going to build a new rail line you may as well make it high speed

ancapailldorcha · 30-01-2023 3:59pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120177199#Comment_120177199

As I said before, there is a highly pronounced NIMBY culture here. The MPs to whom you've alluded know that there are easy votes gotten by promising to block developments of any kind. It's a problem that will continue to bedevil any government interested in serious economic growth. It's just how things are here.

I recall a by-election in Uxbridge or thereabouts. The Lib Dem ousted the Tory by running a NIMBY campaign along with capitalising on Labour and Green withdrawals. It's just how the UK is.

Sam Russell · 30-01-2023 4:42pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120177931#Comment_120177931

The current MP for Uxbridge is the Completely disHonorable Al (Boris) Johnson.

ancapailldorcha · 30-01-2023 4:46pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120178117#Comment_120178117

It's annoying me because I'm at a conference. It was somewhere in outer London.

Edit: It was Chesham & Amersham. I got confused because they're all terminal points for the Metropolitan line.

Podge_irl · 30-01-2023 4:58pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120177931#Comment_120177931

Oh for sure (huge part of the housing issue with the refusal to touch green belts etc also). Do not think its fundamentally different to Ireland in that respect but it is a serious barrier on progress.

I'm more or less used to politicians pandering to NIMBYs, but for whatever reason going the extra step to demand the very improvements you are forestalling is enough to send me over the edge.

I'm not even going to get into the bloody Greens being against trains in the UK 🙄

ancapailldorcha · 30-01-2023 5:29pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120178202#Comment_120178202

I don't know how similar they are. I read Pat Leahy's Showtime last year and he described all manner of deals with TDs to get things built in their constituencies - bringing home the bacon as it were.

The Greens here are also anti-nuclear. Go figure.

Shelga · 03-02-2023 9:17pm

Anyone listening the the News Agents’ interview with Jeremy Corbyn? He’s been out of the spotlight for a while but it’s the first time I’ve thought how fragile his ego is, he’s really coming across as very petulant.

He gives it a bit of lip service but clearly takes very little responsibility on a personal level for the 2019 GE results. He seems to have quite a victim complex and blames the media representation of him and smears by other elements of the Labour Party. There is no doubt that the Murdoch-dominated media were extremely negative and biased in their reporting on him and the party, but he seems so childish in how he views certain things, and wastes energy taking personal offence at things when he should be trying to communicate a vision for the country. A decent politician would be well able to rise above that crap at this stage.

The invasion of Ukraine was the first time I really understood why he was so disliked by a lot of the electorate in Britain. Viscerally disliked, as opposed to Starmer, who is just called boring, but no one seems to really despise.

Maybe he thought he’d be given an easier time on this podcast but he’s really coming across terribly, especially in his indignation about the anti-Semitism issue, 90% of which is indignation at his own personal treatment, not the utter hate that was directed at Jewish Labour MPs by Momentum supporters.

I agreed with a lot of his domestic policies, but the UK really did have a terrible choice in 2019. He’s an awful leader, he is not suited to it at all.

Shelga · 03-02-2023 9:20pm

And he pretends he’s devoid of ego “I don’t like attention on myself” which makes him even more annoying.

Oh here comes his “Russia is wrong but” bit 🙄 Good riddance!

ancapailldorcha · 03-02-2023 9:45pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120198196#Comment_120198196

Seen this clip. Not a good look for him:

https://twitter.com/TheNewsAgents/status/1621576888777936897

He was supposed to represent a different kind of politics but it's exactly the same albeit with a different flavour. That said, there was absolutely a media campaign against him but he's no innocent:

https://twitter.com/lucianaberger/status/977183210051338241?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E977183210051338241%7Ctwgr%5Edfc527eea2cf30fb60f674afa30c3620a17a71ef%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fuk-politics-43523445

Any sort of prominent place in politics comes with pressure. He knew that. It should be better but it isn't and we all have to reckon with that.

I honestly dread to think what would have happened were he PM when Russia invaded Ukraine.

Tom Mann Centuria · 03-02-2023 11:01pm

He was treated terribly, by all media, including the BBC l, the establishment and by his own party machine and it was made very personal, and continues to be so, so he's correct, now he's no longer in any position of authority, to say f*ck you all. He was considerably more restrained than I would be. Baddiel, on a BBC show, claimed almost 30% of Corbyn's voters were Antisemitic so I imagine that would annoy me too since it's total bollocks.

Good luck to him, and whatever popularity he has or hasn't got, should he choose to stand again as an MP he'd walk it in his constituency.

Oh and incidentally many Jewish Members have been expelled or threatened with expulsion (including recently a long standing member who was a concentration camp survivor) since Starmer took over. The wrong kind of Jew it seems.

breezy1985 · 03-02-2023 11:44pm

Nothing says things are going wrong for the Tories like dragging up Jeremy Corbyn

pixelburp · 04-02-2023 9:02am

The subject of Jeremy Corbyn seems to be a smell that won't go away in terms of UK politics: is it just recency bias, but I wonder why he keeps popping up ahead of all the other failed Labour leaders who couldn't wrestle control away from the Tories. Is it just the Bernie Sanders Effect where he seemed like the standout ideological candidate at the time, armchair activist's pouring their hopes into this throwback?

Despite being so left these days I'm fully in the Eat the Rich camp, Corbyn has become nothing more than Yesterday's Leftist IMO; one that's so entrenched in an automatic anti NATO/US stance, he's finding himself at odds with the prevailing mood. One of those so left of centre that their Pavlovian criticism against anything "Western", they're coming across like Russian shills. I don't think a single issue should define a person, let alone a politician, but I've grown tired of those 70s socialist types who are so inflexible, so self-loathing of their own comfortable status, they find themselves trying to contextualise a Russian invasion where someone else is the real evil.

“Pouring arms in isn’t going to bring about a solution, it’s only going to prolong and exaggerate this war,” Corbyn said. “We might be in for years and years of a war in Ukraine.”

He added: “This war is disastrous for the people of Ukraine, for the people of Russia, and for the safety and security of the whole world, and therefore there has to be much more effort put into peace.”

Said back in August 2022, and exactly the kind of limp, frankly distasteful rhetoric of the kind of Leftist who is incapable of nuance. One who speaks of concern for Ukraine, but not enough to amend their worldview, and support the necessary evil of war to fight the barbarians at the gate.

Sam Russell · 04-02-2023 11:03am

Corbyn is a boomer - born after WW II, and lived through the 'never had it so good' times of MacMillan. Then the wheels came off the British economy, and a long spell of Britain being the 'sick man of Europe', refused entry to the EU - not once but thrice.

No wonder his view of the British political world is skewed, and he feels screwed. Times have changed, but his view of the world remains stuck in those times of Britain's financial ruin and humiliation - when a Labour PM had to devalue the British pound but not 'the pound in your pocket' - a basic lie from Wilson. Wilson had to try to steady a leaky barge left by the Tory Gov of MacMillan/Home.

It is a wonder he stayed to fight the good fight.

Tom Mann Centuria · 04-02-2023 11:04am

^^^^

Saying the war is a disaster for the people of Ukraine and Russia and a risk to world security is "limp and distasteful"? Or is more effort put into peace "limp and distasteful" I can't believe that is an actual quote you meant to use. How could you, or anyone argue against that? I agree 100% with him on that.

"The necessary evil of war to fight the barbarians at the gate" is probably the exact same kind of sh*te rhetoric Putin is spoon feeding his people too as he sends young conscripts to die.

So you want nuance in discussion from those on the Left but have no interest in context, how would one go about that? How can an argument be nuanced if you're not allowed to contextualise something without being accused of "whataboutery".

Putin bad, Ukraine good is very easy, if that's what you're after there's plenty of it.

Boris Johnson spent a year saying just that and photo op at every opportunity.

Corbyn still gets air time because he gives full answers and not just the soundbite de jour. He's also usually consistent, an MP who's never supported any war, anywhere, doesn't support this war. Colour me surprised.

On the wider UK political point he should have gone before 2019, after realising what he faced from the Labour Party machine and the left would have had at least a fighting chance on appointing a vaguely radical successor then. His mistake was to stay and destroy that chance, and we're left with several front benchers who'd sit comfortably on the Tory ranks and a party machine that enforces the rules to suit.

ancapailldorcha · 04-02-2023 12:01pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120200355#Comment_120200355

A portion of the British left were extremely dodgy on Ukraine when the war broke out, spouting guff about NATO Imperialism and the like. Same with your disingenuous "Ukraine good, Russia bad" framing.

As for consistency, don't make me laugh. His office were happy to sabotage Labour's remain campaign and Corbyn himself spent decades voting against pro-EEC and pro-EU legislation and then had the nerve to pretend to be pro-EU. He was also the first to call for the triggering of article 50. Funny how Lynch, McCluskey, Corbyn and co are more than happy to f*ck the working classes when it suits them.

Don't even start me on the red tory trope. The man was an unmitigated disaster who turned his party into a hotbed of antisemitic racism.

Labour now have a competent if lacking leader and a real chance to win and actually effect change. All the Labour left have done since 2019 is prove how toxic they are. Good riddance.

pixelburp · 04-02-2023 12:25pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120200355#Comment_120200355

No. Saying we shouldn't arm Ukraine to defend itself against invasion is distasteful. Those weapons are a large reason Ukraine still exists and not as some flattened puppet state. Tutting from the sidelines about American imperialism and so on, while Ukraine's existence as a sovereign nation lies in the balance, is itself a degree of western hubris, ironically: that we have the power to help the country in need - but won't because oh, won't we please think of peace instead? Or some guff about Ukraine as a mere pawn among superpowers (itself a patronising attitude robbing Ukraine of its own say in things)

Funny how the most against the war have been the furthest from its frontlines. You see no hand wringing and equivocation from the Poles, Finns or Swedes. Corbyn is an old socialist who still thinks in terms of Cold War politics. His time is past, he was never the answer to Labours continued inability to lead. Mind you, nor is Keir Starmer.

Sam Russell · 04-02-2023 12:26pm

The labour Gov from 1945 to 1950 changed the firmament of the British political scene by introducing many socialist structures. The longest lasting - still supported - was the NHS. It made health affordable for all and was an incredible achievement.

Nationalisation withered on the vine, but maybe its time is coming again. Rail, water, energy, postal services, out-sourced services - are all coming back into the reckoning for rethinking for bringing back into the Gov remit.

Labour need to include constitutional reform into the agenda - not just restricted to the FPTP/STV reform, but to include reform of the HoL, a new written constitution, and an oversight of all politicians that has real teeth.

I doubt the current Labour party could carry that into No. 10.

ancapailldorcha · 04-02-2023 12:46pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120200599#Comment_120200599

The problem with electoral reform is that it'll be either the Tories or Labour that do it, should it ever come to pass and that would mean kicking down the ladder they climbed to power on. The moral case for it remains no less absolute, however.

Nationalisation won't solve all of Britain's issues but in some cases, such as water, private monopolies make no sense save for the shareholders. Reforming the Lords isn't and shouldn't be top priority. For me, that should be electoral reform and housing. My gripe with a written constitution is who gets to write it. We've also already seen that the Tories have no scruples about gaslighting the public to effect disastrous constitutional change.

Sam Russell · 04-02-2023 12:54pm

I take your point about a written constitution, but we have trialled successfully the Citizen's Assembly that solved Gordian knot of Irish politics - abortion.

That should be the start of any political reform of any nature. It has the beauty of being outside current politics and is easy to deny any political interference.

But may be too purist for the UK.

ancapailldorcha · 04-02-2023 1:00pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120200689#Comment_120200689

Maybe I've spent too much time reading history books but attempting to overturn a constitutional settlement, much of which is almost a millenium old is going to generate serious resistance, particularly given the red and blue vested interests in the status quo. Nobody here really talks about it in any serious way. Just before 2010, all three parties backed Lords reform and then the two that got elected backed down awfully quickly.

To be clear, I wholly endorse PR-STV, an elected upper chamber or serious HoL reform, throwing out the decrepit institution that is the monarchy and citizens' assemblies but most of this is completely alien to most people here. Look at 2011. Less than half the electorate even turned out for that. I know AV isn't PR but it's a start and the electorate didn't care.

General British politics discussion thread

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