The British Politics Thread - The Bear and Badger

Armitage_Shankburn

Andy wrote:

Armitage_Shankburn wrote:

Capisce?

I don’t know what you think you’re achieving with this, but if it’s anything other than trying to look like a total fanny, it’s failing.

It means understand, in Italian. It's an expression.

In this case, Yoss went to the trouble of editing one of my posts, really quite a short post.

Here is what it said..

Armitage_Shankburn wrote:

All remainers have to examine themselves over this latest turn. This fetishizing of the EU is nonsense, it did not exist before the referendum and it should not exist now. We live in a country, one country. If you've had it sweet for years with a nice job and hols with the family, home ownership creating money out of thin air and a tax free isa, and you're worried that your niece Polly can't go work in Europe for a year and your house prices will go down so let's remain at any cost, you're being a fucking tit. You've not heeded the wake up call the referendum result was. We have a chance to heal the country, let's take it, instead of burying our head in the sand and hoping this all goes away.

But here's how it looks edited.

Yossarian wrote:

Armitage_Shankburn wrote:

All remainers have to examine themselves [...] If you've had it sweet for years with a nice job and hols with the family, home ownership creating money out of thin air and a tax free isa.

That’s far from all remainers.

What kind of comment is that? Not all remainers? What does that add, how does it affect in anyway what I'm saying there? I never said all remainers. So in response I explained what I meant. All remainers have to examine themselves over this latest turn - the revoke art 50 campaign - and examine themselves. If you find certain things, you're a tit.

I personally don't think this clarification was needed. I don't think I have to add "not all remainers" when I caricature one type. And use words like "examine" and "if" before saying that. So I did some quick explaining and made my view that this explaining was unnecessary rather clear.

Capisce?

monkey

Revoking article 50 is the right move at an election but ONLY combined with the required economic and public service reforms that drove the discontent in the first place. Lib Dems aren’t going to give you that, especially with all those Tory votes up for grabs.

Armitage_Shankburn

monkey wrote:

Revoking article 50 is the right move at an election but ONLY combined with the required economic and public service reforms that drove the discontent in the first place. Lib Dems aren’t going to give you that, especially with all those Tory votes up for grabs.

I agree, but increasingly suspect that it will take years of redressing the balance to win over the north, Welsh valleys etc.

poprock

For the first time in a while, I think you’re wrong on some of this Gonz.

We do not ‘live in a country, one country’. And being ‘worried that your niece Polly can’t go work in Europe for a year’ might be small potatoes but is still a valid concern.

Me, and anybody living here who’s younger than me, has been born into the EU. And the UK. And our ‘one country’. We live in all three of those. And removing one of them cancels a whole bunch of the rights, abilities and advantages we were born and brought up with. That is going to hurt.

As for my fictional niece Polly, let’s make that my very real (pain in the arse) niece Holly. Her right to go work anywhere in the EU is to be taken from her. She’s a barmaid, for fuck’s sake. She’s exactly the sort of ballsy young woman who could decide to walk out of her job tomorrow and move to Berlin for a year on a whim. Not now, she can’t. Not without the ability to pick up a bar job over there as easily as over here. She’s not some posh bird without a care in the world. She has rent to pay and a baby to feed. No freedom of movement without freedom to work.

My generation, and those below … we’ve been brought up with a bunch of privileges that are about to be removed. Why would anyone expect us to take that on the chin without complaint? Especially if we genuinely believe that those privileges are as beneficial for the country as a whole as they are for us personally.

Me, I want what I’ve always wanted. To stay in the EU, keep our leading role within it, and use that to effect some change from within. Try to fix what’s broken about the EU, rather than throwing toys out of the pram and fucking off. Hell, that’s exactly why I voted for Scotland to stay in the UK as well. I’d rather try to improve the UK than leave it behind. But fucking hell, our leaders are determined to destroy everything for their free-market tax haven, aren’t they? And we’ll never have any respect within the EU again. That’s fucked for good, already.

hunk

Armitage_Shankburn wrote:

Revoking article 50 is the right move at an election but ONLY combined with the required economic and public service reforms that drove the discontent in the first place. Lib Dems aren’t going to give you that, especially with all those Tory votes up for grabs.

I agree, but increasingly suspect that it will take years of redressing the balance to win over the north, Welsh valleys etc.

You use facts and reason to come to this conclusion.
When you're a (lowly educated?) daily mail reader you don't do that, the narrative is spoonfed to you from above by Murdoch and fb. And as a loyal daily mail reader you're expected to swallow that narrative whole with gratitude.

'It's the EU, it's the liberal elite. They're swarming the nation with foreigners! They're taking our jobs, raping our wifes and childeren. They're swarming us, raping us, suffocating us. Can't breathe. Stop raping us. Save our Brexit, please we beg of you, save....us......Boris...Hellpp us, our saviour...!!! Need ...strong man....smash.....HULK....Boris....DO IT!!!!'

poprock

The tabloid press have taken the sins of our Governments and blamed them on immigrants, and then the EU, for decades. That can’t be repaired in a hurry, if it can at all.

It feels like the festering of that mindset has accelerated because of social media, but I think it’s just been made more visible.

Lord_Griff

Is it the tabloids fault, or is it just human nature to blame everything shitty on minority/different groups?

Armitage_Shankburn

Lord_Griff wrote:

Is it the tabloids fault, or is it just human nature to blame everything shitty on minority/different groups?

The latter. Brexit referendum has been a conduit to unprecedented otherisation, hence my deriding the EU flag waving Europeans who popped up after the referendum.

RedDave2

Lord_Griff wrote:

Is it the tabloids fault, or is it just human nature to blame everything shitty on minority/different groups?

I think a bit of both. I can sort of understand someone who is struggling in life feeling aggrieved towards the perception of someone else getting a dig out. When it's someone who is coming from outside the community it probably feels worse. Certainly certain media use it in a weaponised form but I think it would be there anyway. It's not even with people struggling.

I'm certainly not struggling but a friend of ours is unashamedly riding the Irish social welfare scene for all its worth. Both her and my wife are polish and it really annoys my wife. We pay a mortgage, tax, health insurance and sometimes have to put off luxury things when we have to (and that's fine) yet this friend gets a nice house paid for by the government, medical card, social welfare payments and works a cash in hand job and takes 2 holidays a year.

I understand my wife's annoyance although I always try to just focus on my own life than comparing to others. Sure this person is getting a free ride, but it's not like we are don't have a good life. It just feels we have to work harder for it, just because we are doing things the 'honest way'

JonB

There's always going to be resentment. Who gets the blame for it depends greatly on the major narratives doing the rounds. Tabloid media has definitely been a contributing factor there.

LivDiv

The EU Parliament have just voted on whether to accept an extension if requested. The men from Brussels, they say Yes.

So that avenue is closed to Boris now.
If he asks they say yes, legally he must ask.

So we have a deal, we have an extension or our PM breaks the law.

ChopperByrne

Armitage_Shankburn wrote:

Lord_Griff wrote:

Is it the tabloids fault, or is it just human nature to blame everything shitty on minority/different groups?

The latter. Brexit referendum has been a conduit to unprecedented otherisation, hence my deriding the EU flag waving Europeans who popped up after the referendum.

Nobody expected Leave to win.

People didn't need to wave the flag of the EU, they were just getting on with their lives, and the rights and benefits that EU membership brings.

Now that it's all threatened, there is a need to shout from the rooftops how good you have it being an EU member, and how bad it will be if the UK leaves.

Also, Northern Ireland, and Scotland, majority voted to remain in the EU, but they're being dragged along in this mess anyway.

Brexit will lead to people losing their lives, due to lack of medicine, civil unrest, and unfortunately in Northern Ireland, domestic terrorism.

acemuzzy

So the government has, in court, given up any pretense that it was a normal prorogation, or that BoJo didn't lie to the queen. Solely arguing it's legit to prorogue for purely political means. I mean we kinda knew that's what they were doing, but they're now basically admitting they openly lied about it...

Armitage_Shankburn

acemuzzy wrote:

So the government has, in court, given up any pretense that it was a normal prorogation, or that BoJo didn't lie to the queen. Solely arguing it's legit to prorogue for purely political means. I mean we kinda knew that's what they were doing, but they're now basically admitting they openly lied about it...

I don't think that's quite right, the argument being put is in the nature of an "even if". Justiciability is the question whether an issue is for the courts to adjudicate upon. Eadie's argument is that, even of prorogation was for a political purpose other than the one presented as a reason, it isn't justiciable. But there are coded words there, hints, eg modern politics is includes presentation to the public. As I read it, he is saying : politics involves overstating, exaggerating, and in some cases dissembling... So what? If you intervene here, you'll have to adjudicate on these questions: the opposition will have its own take. You'll never win. You'll be dragged down into the mud. Leave off.

Yossarian

Amazing:

https://twitter.com/davidschneider/status/1174294117481951234

LivDiv

Longer version
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-49740419/boris-johnson-confronted-on-east-london-hospital-visit

Lord_Griff

Yes, but we can buy more doctors with the money currently paying for the foie gras in Brussels.

hunk

Boris: everything will be better after privatisation, just you wait.

Lord_Griff

He doesn't care about the soylent majority, any way.

Armitage_Shankburn

Yossarian wrote:

Amazing:

https://twitter.com/davidschneider/status/1174294117481951234

Holy Brexit, I know this guy. Very well. Did PPE my year. I'm sorry his son is unwell.

Spoiler:

Diluted Dante

They already have.

Laura Kuenssberg also posted "Turns out the man who challenged the PM is also a Labour activist", as if it's at all relevant.

LivDiv

Surely it adds weight to his rant as somebody likely clued up on the situation and not only a distraught parent (not that that isnt enough).

Yossarian

Diluted Dante wrote:

They already have.

Laura Kuenssberg also posted "Turns out the man who challenged the PM is also a Labour activist", as if it's at all relevant.

Not just Kuenssberg:

https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1174320861349892096

Tempy

The audacity of the man to have planned all this for a press stunt.

LivDiv

Tempy wrote:

The audacity of the man to have planned all this for a press stunt.

There was no press there.

Tempy

I feel like you've missed the point of this story Liv, it's that "labour man bad"

Armitage_Shankburn

Yossarian wrote:

Diluted Dante wrote:

They already have.

Laura Kuenssberg also posted "Turns out the man who challenged the PM is also a Labour activist", as if it's at all relevant.

Not just Kuenssberg:

https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1174320861349892096

Spoiler:

Minnesänger

Armitage_Shankburn wrote:

Yossarian wrote:

Diluted Dante wrote:

They already have. Laura Kuenssberg also posted "Turns out the man who challenged the PM is also a Labour activist", as if it's at all relevant.

Not just Kuenssberg: https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1174320861349892096

Spoiler:

he quit politics after the Miliband defeat, he struck me as skeptical of labour under Corbyn. He is a ed Miliband type. He became a lawyer, solicitor. Maybe he still campaigns on the side but he is clearly speaking from the heart there. Not a plant.

Yeah, but "balance".

LivDiv

Tempy wrote:

I feel like you've missed the point of this story Liv, it's that "labour man bad"

He probably made his kid ill to be there.

davyK

I'm with @Armitage_Shankburn.

The nation is very much broken. Too many comfortable people (and I include myself in this) just looked the other way when faced with a large portion of the population being shanghai-ed by successive governments with austerity being the last straw.

We need time and space to do this and I don't think leaving the EU at this point in time is a good idea. I don't think we are going to get the time and space to do that because of the furore. As much as I dislike Johnson he is probably the only one who might be able to talk the heat out of this. But he is rapidly running out of credit, and the shadow of the Brexit Party looms large.

I'm not really for kicking the can down the road until January either.

A GE is probably better than a 2nd ref provided there are sensible options represented by viable parties or alliances. A ref outcome would require a majority in the House to see it through. A clean GE has a better chance of success.

Revoke vs May's deal vs No deal.

If we don't find a way after that then the default is to leave , without a deal if necessary, but give ourselves enough time to plan as graceful a crash out as possible - even if it means cushioning the less well off with our EU payments until the dust settles. There has to be an end to this madness, even if it's ending up in another state of madness.

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