The British Politics Thread - The Bear and Badger

Diluted Dante

Unless you worked for Labour, then anyone they suspected of leaking that you said that would be prosecuted.

SpaceGazelle

Another day, another load of shite about which party is the most racist. You hate Jews! No, you hate Black people!

ZMM

Sunak compared racist abuse to someone calling someone else scum, apparently, or something. They can all get in the sea at this point. They should all pipe down, do some fucking work and tax the fucking rich.

ZMM

Stephen Flynn's comments though, were spot on. What a legend.

davyK

Hard to stomach the thought that this zombie government will rumble on into November.

djchump

Ah you never know, they might do a vote of no confidence and we’ll roll the dice with *another* PM and cabinet in time for the election!

monkey

The only thing keeping Sunak in his job is that they've already switched leaders twice. But with the polls as bad as they are, it's now in 'what have we got to lose?' territory.

monkey

I think we're going to have to wait til January 2025. Ruining everyone's Christmas as their last act is too on brand for them.

davyK

Sunak is probably hoping something "will happen" that gives them some miraculous boost , or , more likely, that will fuck Labour over enough to return a hung parliament.

I do get the feeling that the Labour train's wheels are a bit dodgy but that's really clutching at straws.

GurtTractor

Michael Gove suggests Tory donor's comments would not be deemed 'extremist'

Michael Gove has suggested a Tory donor’s alleged call for an MP to be “shot” would not be referred to the government’s new extremism taskforce, reports the PA.

Businessman Frank Hester is alleged to have said that Diane Abbott, Britain’s first black female MP, made him “want to hate all black women” and that she “should be shot”, in comments the prime minister described as “racist” after initially refusing to do so.

Gove described the remarks as “horrific” but said he was exercising “Christian forgiveness” after the entrepreneur had “shown contrition”. It came as the cabinet minister unveiled the government’s new definition of extremism on Thursday.

Speaking ahead of a speech to the Commons, Gove said it was not up to him to rule whether Hester’s words were extremist. “It is important that any decision about individuals and organisations is taken after a rigorous assessment of evidence and a consistent pattern of behaviour,” he told Times Radio, saying an “expert team of civil servants” would be running that process.

He went on to indicate that “an individual comment” would not be enough to be examined by the team.

The senior Tory told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:

"We have to be clear, we’re looking at organisations with a particular ideology. The individual concerned said something that was horrific. I wouldn’t want to conflate those motivated by extremist ideology with an individual comment, however horrific, which has quite rightly been called out and which has quite rightly led to an apology.”

Gove noted that he took “these issues incredibly seriously” as someone who was targeted by an extremist who went on to kill Sir David Amess MP.

Amid continuing calls for the Tories to return the £10m Hester has donated to the party, the communities secretary reiterated the government’s line that Hester’s apology should be accepted.

Asked whether the businessman’s apology was genuine if he did not acknowledge his remarks were racist, Gove told Sky News: “I haven’t spoken to Mr Hester, but I think that when someone says that they are sorry, and I understand he’s deeply sorry for these remarks, then my natural inclination is to exercise Christian forgiveness.”

Abbott has accused the Conservatives and Labour of failing to tackle racism. In newspaper articles on Wednesday, she said the “reluctance to call out racism and sexism” was “shocking, but hardly surprising”, and warned the Conservatives would “play the race card … ruthlessly” at the next election.

- Guardian

monkey

They're choosing a hell of a week to try this. Couldn't have picked a worse one really.

SpaceGazelle

I think he meant "white Christian forgiveness".

monkey

My new porn is reading articles where Tories realise, two years after everyone else, how deeply they've fucked it and propose wrong-headed, inadaquate, counter-productive solutions.

It's a niche category but growing fast.

https://www.politics.co.uk/news/2024/03/14/lord-frost-warns-conservatives-party-is-hurtling-towards-terrible-defeat-at-next-election/

Speaking to LBC on Wednesday, Lord Frost appeared to echo Clarke’s concerns, saying: “You only have to look at the polls, obviously we’re hurtling to defeat, we’re hurtling towards a terrible defeat.”
“Every poll one looks at says the same thing, we’re going to lose and we’re going to lose bad, and the only debate is how bad.
“So, we have to do something to change the story and bring our voters back and at the moment, we’re not doing that.”
However, Lord Frost also told LBC that he still believes the PM can transform the Conservative Party “into the kind of Conservative Party that I would like to see”.
“I believe he stands for a lot of those things himself, but he has the problem that the party is a very broad church”, he claimed.
He argued that the prime minister has tilted “to the left of the party”, and suggested that he should “make sure we’re offering things that deal with the real problems of the country and try and bring back some of those who represent that view within the party.”

'Sunak is too left-wing' is an amazing take.

SpaceGazelle

Not sure what that says about public perception of Starmer.

SpaceGazelle

It makes you wonder why some of the public swing so much. I could never vote Tory but seemingly the public are happy to just swap. But based on what?

SpaceGazelle

I mean, its rarely close these days is it?

SpaceGazelle

I suppose it could be the way the voting is partitioned out.

davyK

What does left even mean anyway? It's long gone beyond meaning a leaning toward more state involvement.

SpaceGazelle

Corbyn wasn't that long ago!

monkey

davyK wrote:

What does left even mean anyway? It's long gone beyond meaning a leaning toward more state involvement.

In the context Frost is using it, it means he blames the One Nation Tories for stopping the rest of the party sink ever further into racism and demagoguery. Frost's main boy was Boris Johnson, who chucked more public money around than any of them. The spending commitments he made mean the Tories can't now cut taxes as aggressively as they want. But he doesn't seem to care about that. He's not a coherent or serious person. But his brain farts do carry some weight in Tory circles for some reason.

monkey

State involvement is still what it means I think. Obviously that comes with tax and spend implications. The right of the Tories are completely pre-occupied with shrinking the state. It's not popular and that's why they use culture war nonsense as cover. But state-shrinking underlied Brexit, it's why they're pushing to leave the EHRC, it's why they're addicted to tax cuts even when they aren't working (economically or politically). It's greed and some weird ideology they've dreamt up to justify it.

ZMM

Another fantastic video by DDN

davyK

I just find using left and right as very blunt terms. As if no-one on the left could be a racist for example, or that no-one on the right believes in properly funded and efficiently run public services.

monkey

Yeah probably. It's not very relevant to describing voters. But politicians like to categorise and group themselves so it's a useful short-hand.

b0r1s

I'm not a fan of Diane Abbott, she's never come across as particularly bright to me, but then again, neither have nearly all of the current Tory government. But her difference is clearly because she's black and a woman. And that has already led to massive abuse and then, when the abuse surfaces, the reinforcement of that abuse is that when she, as the abused, tries to speak about it in the House, the speaker chooses not to recognise her. That is the most upsetting part if all this shit that has happened this week. Yes, we know Tory donors are more likely to be racist than any other donor, but we shouldn't expect the person who has been racially abused to be ignored. It speaks volumes about the whole system of "equality". It's all surface level to gain votes in a changing demographic.

SpaceGazelle

Yeah that was a disgrace. Sitting listening to people talk about you and not being allowed to join in was frankly disgusting.

davyK

b0r1s wrote:

I'm not a fan of Diane Abbott, she's never come across as particularly bright to me, but then again, neither have nearly all of the current Tory government. But her difference is clearly because she's black and a woman. And that has already led to massive abuse and then, when the abuse surfaces, the reinforcement of that abuse is that when she, as the abused, tries to speak about it in the House, the speaker chooses not to recognise her. That is the most upsetting part if all this shit that has happened this week. Yes, we know Tory donors are more likely to be racist than any other donor, but we shouldn't expect the person who has been racially abused to be ignored. It speaks volumes about the whole system of "equality". It's all surface level to gain votes in a changing demographic.

She came across quite well with Portillo on Andrew Neil's show on a Thursday night after Question Time.

I can remember her having a car crash interview or press briefing - forget which - think it ended up having a medical explanation.

No matter. What was said was vile and it shows that we have now got to the point where money has never talked so loudly or so blatantly brazenly; nor has our government ever been exposed as to its absence of any principals or decency. This election can't come soon enough. The boil needs lanced.

Every day it exists knocks the reputation of this country down another peg.

Knight

In light of the left vs right thing re the conservatives I thought I’d chip in with what I’d like to see from a conservative party given it’s probably my more natural home (although there’s no chance I’d vote for them this time). I know I’m in a huge minority on this forum so be gentle! I’d want the conservatives to be more to the ‘left’ economically than some wings of the party are and more to the ‘right’ (ie socially conservative) than pretty much every wing of the party is (aside from a small number who are derided). So for example, I’d like women to be free to stay at home with their kids if they want to and the state to make that as easy as possible (ie through economic incentives). I’d like immigration to be controlled much more than we are doing so that a. wages aren’t depressed for the poorest. I know this is contested, I just don’t accept the idea that very high levels of immigration like we’re seeing won’t depress wages in certain sectors, usually the ones that the poorest in society are more likely to work in) and b. the already creaking public services and housing provision (especially for the poorest and most vulnerable) don’t fall apart even more than they are doing. Id like the empty and sometimes cruel rhetoric around immigration to end and the state to be both far more compassionate to outsiders AND far more effective at controlling immigration numbers. I’d like the state to find ways (realistically, economic ones) to promote marriage and come up with genuine pro-natal policies. Why are we capping child tax credits at 2? Has anyone noticed the fertility rate? It depresses me that our political system makes it almost impossible to vote for a party like this.

b0r1s

Sounds like you want to vote for a different party mate. If your views change over time I don’t see why you need to worry about trying to change a party that doesn’t meet your views. Just look elsewhere. Appreciate this is difficult, especially with FPTP, as there isn’t much to choose from.

Brooks

I will never entirely understand why people migrate here. It's a pretty rubbish country.

Howdy, Stranger!

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