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General British politics discussion thread

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    #8702
    pixelburp
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 36,292 CMod ✭✭✭✭pixelburp


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120479816#Comment_120479816

    Just a point of order but I don't think the right wing press are representative of the UK populous. This is part of the problem of "populism", or indeed the irony in its name, it isn't necessarily popular with the people.

    What papers have been throwing a strop then? Sounds like above all else, these cohorts are feeling the sting of isolation in the wake of their self sanctions. Expecting the world to come flocking to this new, independent UK and instead have received broad apathy. So all they can do now is lash out at the rest of the world getting on with it

    Post edited by pixelburp on


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    #8703
    Meself
    Registered Users Posts: 227 ✭✭Meself


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120479816#Comment_120479816

    Very true.. it is utterly pathetic. Schoolyard bully stuff. I can't help but think that hard-line unionists are in the background stoking up this barely concealed bigotry.

    Let them at it



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    #8704
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 17,378 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2023/04/14/his-hatred-of-the-uk-has-hardly-been-concealed-how-british-press-covered-bidens-visit/

    An article summarising some of it.



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    #8705
    ancapailldorcha
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 38,442 CMod ✭✭✭✭ancapailldorcha


    If only the UK was in some sort of international commanding position, say, being a leading member of a globally powerful trading bloc which projects power over the globe...

    Another day, another pointless diatribe...

    We sat again for an hour and a half discussing maps and figures and always getting back to that most damnable creation of the perverted ingenuity of man - the County of Tyrone.

    H. H. Asquith



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    #8706
    Sam Russell
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,631 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    In the IT article, there are two pictures of the coffee/tea encounter between Sunak and Biden. In neither is Biden making eye contact, and in only one is Sunak - and in that Biden has his hands on his ears. They are like two strangers who have nothing to say to each other.

    Now who is snubbing whom?



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    #8707
    breezy1985
    Registered Users Posts: 25,627 ✭✭✭✭breezy1985


    It just shows the sad state of affairs for this "world power" if they are getting jealous of Ireland.

    Reminds me of a section of society over there that used get angry about cultures celebrating national holidays like Paddy's Day or Chinese New Year as if there was some devious plot stoping them celebrating their own culture.



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    #8708
    Guildenstern
    Registered Users Posts: 277 ✭✭Guildenstern


    I would have many friends and acquaintances across the UK, connections built up over many decades. And they come from many different backgrounds.

    None of them would have any traction in what the right wing media types have been trolling this week. They express to me a fondness to Ireland and some of them would have links as tenuous as Biden's!! Heard from a view this week. All very positive.

    Alas, it is the power of the media and its commentators, and their ability these days to get into everyone's living rooms, or their phones. They have such clout (they probably always have had) but then give of the image that they reflect the whole country's views.

    https://www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2023/0415/1377029-biden-ireland-uk/

    Thought RTE gets it about right in this piece this morning.



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    #8709
    breezy1985
    Registered Users Posts: 25,627 ✭✭✭✭breezy1985


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120480420#Comment_120480420

    Also quite likely that the part of the country these tabloid views represent are not in your sphere because they don't go making connections.

    They are stewing away in some fading home counties or former mining town blaming everyone else for their problems. The reports all my friends had about their home towns of Margate, Wakefield or similar are grim.



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    #8710
    Sam Russell
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,631 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    Biden quoted the old joke - 'The world can be divided into two groups - those that are Irish, and those that wished they were!'

    Now that would get up the noses of any Tory that disparaged the Biden visit to Ireland.



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    #8711
    Strazdas
    Registered Users Posts: 18,477 ✭✭✭✭Strazdas


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120480420#Comment_120480420

    I suspect though the far right rags are increasingly losing touch with the English population (apart from the bigoted / racist OAPs who they seem to covet). Coverage of the visit was very generous on the BBC and Sky News. It was mainly the likes of the Mail, Express, Telegraph and GB News who were throwing their toys out of the pram and describing Joe Biden as 'an enemy of Britain'.

    One thing that strikes me is how insecure and paranoid the English nationalists are. They don't seem comfortable at all in their own skins.



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    #8712
    breezy1985
    Registered Users Posts: 25,627 ✭✭✭✭breezy1985


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120480693#Comment_120480693

    The insecurity is huge. To expand on what I was saying earlier about national holidays I hear the same argument with music. They think the fact we have trad and other cultures have similar is evidence of a conspiracy against English culture and not the fact that England has such an advantage and the culture is so strong that their music becomes World culture.

    The idea that people around the world don't want to celebrate English culture or envy the English is bollix. I've met so many Mediterranean Europeans and South Americas in London who are obsessed with Beatles, Bowie, swinging sixties culture and English football.

    But for English nationalists that not enough nor is it the point. The "culture" they speak of is the rest of the world accepting the notion they were thought as kids that the Empire was a lovely association beneficial to the world.



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    #8713
    Strazdas
    Registered Users Posts: 18,477 ✭✭✭✭Strazdas


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120480755#Comment_120480755

    One other thing that may be contributing to their insecurity and paranoia is the fact that Brexit is clearly failing and failing badly (as are the Tory Party). This means they have no sense of certainty about anything and with uncertainty comes insecurity. The nationalists are definitely not in a good place at the moment : Brexit has turned into a colossal s---show.



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    #8714
    pixelburp
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 36,292 CMod ✭✭✭✭pixelburp


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120480693#Comment_120480693

    The OAP demographic is coveted cos they're the only ones buying newspapers, in all likelihood. Older folk are probably more like to be subscribing to the online versions too.

    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120480795#Comment_120480795

    This is probably the nub of it. The one great swing by English Nationalism towards some fantastical idea of sovereignty, turned out to be utter self-sabotage, while been taken for a ride by charlatans such as Johnson or Reese-Mogg. Their only ally has been the toadying by religious zealots in a province they never liked, while almost no economic prediction has planned out - probably not helped by a pandemic that further neutered an already wobbly economy.



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    #8715
    ancapailldorcha
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 38,442 CMod ✭✭✭✭ancapailldorcha


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120480795#Comment_120480795

    It's like the cliché quote from Dean Acheson about finding a new role. All the Tory right and their colleagues in the press have done is to gaslight the public about the EU. Now that we're out, there's nothing else. Brexit is treated like a religion because it passed on almost the bare minimal of margins and there's no intellectual reason to defend the idea of it.

    This insecurity is toxic for them. Most of the reason Johnson was elected was so he could "get Brexit done" and "level up". Neither have been delivered so there's no basis for any sort of confidence for next year.

    We sat again for an hour and a half discussing maps and figures and always getting back to that most damnable creation of the perverted ingenuity of man - the County of Tyrone.

    H. H. Asquith



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    #8716
    Strazdas
    Registered Users Posts: 18,477 ✭✭✭✭Strazdas


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120481005#Comment_120481005

    As an ideology, Brexit was always doomed to abject failure. It was based on bogus notions of 'sovereignty' and 'independence'. As Fintan O'Toole put it in his book, they were trying to win imaginary freedom from an imaginary oppressor. The payoff has been the nationalists have effed up their economy and left the country in a far worse state than it was in before.



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    #8717
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    I know there are plenty over there who do have the small minded mentality covered here, but I still maintain the majority really don’t care too much.

    I sent an article to a group chat with my mates at home referencing Biden and his ‘beat the black and tans’, like me they all thought it was funny and not one of them would care Biden spent a few days here.

    I think the majority realise we are a middling economy, with a middling armed forces, reputation etc, America or china we are not and I think most of us are fine with that.



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    #8718
    Sam Russell
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,631 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    How does Biden's 'Black & Tans' remark compare with Truss's 'TEE Sock' reference, or Patel's aim to 'starve the Irish Republic' for missing the point?



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    #8719
    martingriff
    Registered Users Posts: 10,855 ✭✭✭✭martingriff


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120481522#Comment_120481522

    Because those 2 knew what they were saying and meant it while Biden was an error to meant to say All Black's.

    All who don't have an agenda here the UK and New Zealand would have known what he meant to say.



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    #8720
    Strazdas
    Registered Users Posts: 18,477 ✭✭✭✭Strazdas


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120481725#Comment_120481725

    The important thing is that nearly everyone took it very humorously, especially the way he phrased it - 'Rob Kearney beat the hell out of the Black and Tans' is something that would be almost impossible to be offended by.



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    #8721
    breezy1985
    Registered Users Posts: 25,627 ✭✭✭✭breezy1985


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120482640#Comment_120482640

    Don't know about that. Some of them Leinster players would be from strong Black & Tan families 😝

    I would question the legitimacy of any English persons "outrage" about a Black & Tans reference because they would clearly have first needed to go out of their way to learn what a Black & Tan was to find something to be outraged about.



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    #8722
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,410 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus



    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120479816#Comment_120479816

    The whole thing is pathetic. The notion that Biden is anti-UK because he is pro-Ireland is laughable; most US Presidents are pro-Ireland and nobody has ever suggested before that this makes them anti-UK. The "He's anti-UK" idea basically depends on the notion that not having enough zeal for hard Brexit is inherently anti-UK. But if that's true, then Biden being anti-UK is the least of their worries; most of the UK is anti-UK.



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    #8723
    pixelburp
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 36,292 CMod ✭✭✭✭pixelburp


    There'd be a lot of right leaning outlets ready to pounce on any gaff by Biden in the first place; that it was at the "expense" of the UK probably only fed the ready to go "Outrage".

    Doubt the average English person has even heard of a Black and Tan, without getting a prod from someone eager to make a meal of it all. They barely have a good grasp fo their own history, let alone others'.

    I wonder how much these English Nationalist types expected Ireland just to play the good follower and meekly accompany the UK into a brexit of our own? Not like our history hasn't informed this bias of course. The resentfulness as much towards Ireland being a happy and productive EU partner, if not functional frontline in the whole ERG fiasco as it was towards America. Just another iteration of "the Irish problem", where once more we weren't doing what we were told.



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    #8724
    Sam Russell
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,631 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    It was not 'the Irish problem' that devilled the Victorian politics but 'the Irish question'. It was always a question requiring an answer.

    The problem with 'the Irish question' was that once the British polity had got close to the answer to 'the Irish question', the Irish politicians would emerge anew from the Irish bogs and towns with a new question with new demands, so it could never be given a definitive answer.

    They gave various land acts, tried to solve the encumbered estates, gave more land acts that transferred ownership of the land to the tenants, did not introduce conscription in Ireland but did in England, etc. etc. and still there was a new Irish question. They gave home rule in 1914, but immediately rescinded it in the face of an army mutiny and the threat of armed rebellion in Ulster.

    Then the shooting started in 1916, and resulted eventually in the current independent republic - Ireland - member of the EU, sitting at the security council of the UN, best friend of the USA, and fiercely militarily neutral.

    Now they have a new question - they want a United Ireland!

    That was all we ever wanted!



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    #8725
    ancapailldorcha
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 38,442 CMod ✭✭✭✭ancapailldorcha


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120483193#Comment_120483193

    That's exactly what they did during the post-Brexit debacle. They pulled the same colonialist bull on India as well, stating that the post colonial subject would meekly sign up to whatever trade deal the government deigned to offer them.

    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120482957#Comment_120482957

    I remember when Nike launched a Black & Tan shoe and having to explain to English people who the Black & Tans were.

    image.png


    We sat again for an hour and a half discussing maps and figures and always getting back to that most damnable creation of the perverted ingenuity of man - the County of Tyrone.

    H. H. Asquith



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    #8726
    Sam Russell
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,631 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    I would imagine the Biden would need to have been informed by Rob Kearney who the 'All Blacks' were.



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    #8727
    Strazdas
    Registered Users Posts: 18,477 ✭✭✭✭Strazdas


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120483451#Comment_120483451

    In fairness to Biden, the term 'All Blacks' wouldn't even register with him or most Americans. I'd say 99% + of the US population have never even heard of the NZ rugby team and wouldn't have a clue what All Black meant.



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    #8728
    breezy1985
    Registered Users Posts: 25,627 ✭✭✭✭breezy1985


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120483821#Comment_120483821

    Cheering on the beating of all blacks is a good way to win over Trump voters in fairness.



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    #8729
    Igotadose
    Registered Users Posts: 13,445 ✭✭✭✭Igotadose


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120483821#Comment_120483821

    I just looked it up and learned some survey was done and stated 33million Americans are 'somewhat interested' in Rugby - placing it firmly in 16th place out of the top 20. Bocce was 20. US Football was unsurprisingly first. Not the greatest article here:

    https://sportytell.com/sports/top-10-most-popular-sports-in-america/


    Still, that's a lot higher number than I would've thought, though Rugby is a sport at a lot of Universities. Might be more than 1% know who the All-Blacks are.

    I visited NZ on holiday from the US in 1999 and bought an All-Blacks jersey. None of my sports-watching friends had any idea who they were (TBF, neither did I prior to the trip.) Seems like things might've changed.



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    #8730
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 17,378 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Even the Times are at similar.

    Biden’s special relationship with Ireland is as big a sham as Britain’s with the US

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bidens-special-relationship-with-ireland-is-as-big-a-sham-as-britains-with-the-us-0kn2j73j2

    "Devoid of a meaningful history of their own, though, the Americans like to borrow one. Ireland fits the bill well because, as everybody knows, despite being uppressed by the Bruddish for a t’ousand years, they are a plucky and ineffably cheerful people, forever dancing jigs in their peat bogs and advising us all to enjoy the “craic”. This is the dim-witted, boilerplate US view of Ireland, as evidenced every time one of its benighted politicians opens his mouth."


    The language.


    And a load of nonsense about nuclear research and all the rest about terrorists not being extradited etc.

    Abysmal rhetoric. I feel like maybe I'm missing some joke or satire. But it does at least challenge the idea of a special relationship and somewhat bizarrely implies that the UK following the US into these wars should grant it a greater status.

    What on Earth is going on.


    Archived: https://archive.ph/jZG3v

    If I'm missing some satire of recent news, tell me.



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    #8731
    breezy1985
    Registered Users Posts: 25,627 ✭✭✭✭breezy1985


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120484078#Comment_120484078

    Liddle is an absolute muppet in fairness. Just spouts.purposly edgy stuff for the clickbait.

    Been doing the "I know I'm not allowed say it" but does it anyway before it was cool



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