The British Politics Thread - The Bear and Badger

Roujin

AW YEA LETS GO BOYS!!!

Roujin

Still the pagechampest.

Diluted Dante

The Yorkshire Post tried to speak to someone Northern Powerhouse / Levelling Up department, only to be told by No 10 that there isn't one.

LivDiv

Roujin

Haha yusssss.

LivDiv

The Speaker has denied the motion to vote on the Tory Rebel's demands to have parliamentary votes on Covid measures.

Laura Kronenburg reckons a deal has been made with Brady and co anyway.
The question is was this a deal to debate matters in parliament and deliver changes to regulations in a more organised manner or the more likely scenario where No.10 has convinced them any new measures will not be restrictive to business.

LivDiv

Hancock saying Covid measures that effect the whole of England or the UK in significant ways will be voted on if there is time to do so.

Limp as fuck.

Tempy

LivDiv

Lol

poprock

Ridicule is all he’s good for.

g.man

...but I thought ridicule is nothing to be scared of?

poprock

Bastard. I was thinking exactly that but couldn’t find a way to make it relevant. I’m very much earwormed though.

LivDiv

poprock wrote:

Bastard.

Charming

poprock

The point stands. And delivers.

JonB

You seem adamant.

Funkstain

So in the correct thread, I wanted to explain to Monkey why I (and perhaps Gonz, don't want to speak for him) object so much to Keir "rule of law" Starmer whipping his MPs to abstain on this shitty shitty shitty bill on immunity from torture and crime, and this video popped up and explains it better than I ever could:

You watch that, and you tell me with a straight face that this is just "lib baiting" pure and simple, and that Starmer should ignore it as he is doing, and I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this. But my position is that Starmer should be objecting to this bill with all his force and making it clear why and making a strong moral stand. Anything else is craven at best

Armitage_Shankburn

Of course it's not lib baiting. It's not Cummings, it is a long-standing stain on this country's reputation. The blacklists, the infiltration of green movements, left movements and so on. All that is political espionage, worthy of a tinpot Republic. Then there is NI.

These actions have all been to the detriment of progress and political stability in this country. The death of the working class in the north, the breaking of the unions - direct, straight line to Brexit. A direct fucking line there. And the rise of the right. The zero hours contracts, the piss taking.

Same, green movement, and how shit we have been at slowing down climate change.

We have peace in NI. It's a fucking miracle given the shenanigans that went on there. The sanctioning and use of criminals and terrorists did not help, it was a reactionary measure that slowed the advent of peace and threatens it to this day.

No to police informants acting as agents provocateurs. No to police acting undercover except in terror cases or drugs or whatnot. No to infiltrating Lawrence family, BLM, Extinction Rebellion, except to gather information. I'm ok with spying, in principle, on internal movements. But no to law breaking, no to any of that.

We are in a deep fucking hole, humanity. Our only salvation will come through communitarian movements. Having conversations, about cars, about food, about work, about standard of living, about how we raise our children and make sure they can prosper. No, fuck no, to sanctioning any kind of infiltration of these movements that is intended to bait them into law breaking, disrupt them, in order to stamp them out. Because that means, we go on as we are, and I don't see how that leads us to anything other than misery and disaster, almost certainly in our lifetimes but definitely in our children's if not.

The Cummings 5D chess thing was a lol, is a lol, and will always be a lol. This is a disgraceful mistake by Starmer, and evidence of what I said about him - he is a trained professional, a moderate, and his instincts are to conform. I suspect this because I am the same, it's an established professions thing.

acemuzzy

VOTE OZNO!

Armitage_Shankburn

It is an emotional topic now, but I used to find it fun. Britain invented internal espionnage, and there is some fun stuff there. Oliver the Spy and the Cato Street Conspiracy, and the Duke of Wellington's ill-judged plan to wait, sword in hand, in cabinet, for the saboteurs, and cut them down. But it's not funny anymore. It's actually quite serious.

monkey

If, as I assume, Labour's amendments fail and they end up voting against it on the third reading, then none of this matters does it? If they still abstain, then it would change my opinion. So I'd rather just park this specific thing until then.

But in general, Labour have to be more savvy and can't just denounce everything on sight. It's just used against them. Why should Starmer be objecting to this 'with all his force?'. What good will that do? The bill will pass regardless. The more attention Starmer draws to it, the more the Tories can use it to drive a wedge between him and the Red Wall voters (who won't give a shit about this bill, and will wonder why Starmer is banging on about this instead of battering the government over Covid). Don't have the fights the Tories want you to have. On the ground they want to have it. It's all optics with those guys. They don't give a shit about this. They want to look tough and they want Labour to look weak and that's it. There's nothing Johnson wants more than for Starmer to get obsessed with some human rights stuff, while he's "keeping the country safe from terror" or whatever. There's no possible route to victory there. Why have the pointless fight? Have the fights you can win, that people in the country actually care about. Don't be Sean Bean, be Robert De Niro.

Funkstain

I understand all the real politik stuff. I just disagree with you. I think you can engage people, voters and non-voters, you can inspire them with radical honesty, radical integrity, radical policies. You can make all those people who keep saying "they're all as bad as each other" (a narrative these sort of shenanigans support), the disillusioned the disenfranchised believe in something again by being the leader you can be, rather than just playing the game again.

Accuse me of naïveté, accuse me of benevolent charismatic dictator syndrome, I guess I'll have to take it. But people want something to believe in and Starmer isn't giving them anything. Instead Johnson gives them immigrants are bad, EU is bad, lefties are bad, woke is bad. What's the alternative, Labour?

mistercrayon

It’s perhap too early to be offering an alternative. People have only just voted in boris Johnson less than a year ago in massive numbers while simultaneously rejecting whatever politics Jeremy corbyn has to offer.

I know there was a big hoo ha about Starmer getting to 40% a few weeks ago but that only brought him to level pegging. That would suggest to me that the Majority of people aren’t ready to hear or want alternatives at the moment.

So I’d ask: who is he offering an alternative to a number that is a losing number? And how is anything palatable findable in between what people really really wanted (Johnson) and what people really really rejected (Corbyn) at this moment.

You could make a case about corbyn being popular in numbers but a bit like the electoral college the game here is to appeal to more than the densest pops.

The pandemic is a gift for Starmer as it accelerates the focusing lens on the government but I think at this time there’s no way he could be offering the same as the previous Labour admin when the evidence is clear that people rejected really recently.

He needs to find his own idea of what works and hope that is what gets people on board but I think also that is going to be done later on.

monkey

Funkstain wrote:

I understand all the real politik stuff. I just disagree with you. I think you can engage people, voters and non-voters, you can inspire them with radical honesty, radical integrity, radical policies. You can make all those people who keep saying "they're all as bad as each other" (a narrative these sort of shenanigans support), the disillusioned the disenfranchised believe in something again by being the leader you can be, rather than just playing the game again. Accuse me of naïveté, accuse me of benevolent charismatic dictator syndrome, I guess I'll have to take it. But people want something to believe in and Starmer isn't giving them anything. Instead Johnson gives them immigrants are bad, EU is bad, lefties are bad, woke is bad. What's the alternative, Labour?

No one wants to hear Labour's 2024 manifesto during the middle of an economy-wrecking pandemic. Focus on the thing at hand. Labour are actually winning that fight for once.

Funkstain

Which is a very long way of saying that, he shouldn't be ashamed to merely abstain on this terrible bill? 2nd reading, 3rd reading, it doesn't matter to me. This is a terrible bill, putting into law prosecution protections for UK citizens "in the pursuance of their duty" (set by whom? whose agenda? in whose name?? OURS!) who commit crimes up to and including torture of civilians and murder.

I want a leader who stands for at least something. At least this: against a law that promotes, tacitly encourages, torture and murder in our name

regmcfly

Every time I see Robin mentioned I summon gonzo and Darthjim to discuss the colour of the boathouse.

davyK

The law is the law. No-one can be above it.

Sticking to that is one of the many requirements of being a "better" country.

It might feel like a disadvantage playing with a straight bat but it in the long term it isn't. Any dalliance with that nonsense doesn't work anyhow - not in the long or even medium term. The arrogance of ignoring history's lessons - it's breathtaking really. The effects of "Groupthink" on this government are incredibly damaging at the minute and we aren't even a year into it.

Start messing about with that and you are moving into rogue state territory. We are already on that road. Breaking the law isn't our only problem here.

GooberTheHat

It's not a new thing though. It's codifing stuff they've done for years.

RedDave2

GooberTheHat wrote:

It's not a new thing though. It's codifing stuff they've done for years.

Thats a pretty shake defence though. Not sure there is much for labour to gain, but I see funks point on those

GooberTheHat

I'm not defending it, just replying to Davy.

mistercrayon

If this is the thing the codify what is the line for acceptably secret?
(Just rhetorical)

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