No whistling though.

I haven't been keeping an eye on this. What has he done?

afgavinstan wrote:

Saying nothing because I'll get branded a fucking tory again, which says a lot about current political landscape. Please can we just get an adult in charge, please.

who Branded you a Tory?  that's a bit harsh.  Who would you like to see in charge?

b0r1s wrote:

I haven't been keeping an eye on this. What has he done?

He decided to break up the pact between the SNP and the Green party that put the SNP into a minority government, which seemed to have been done on a whim rather than being properly considered. It's caused a ruckus and now we have Douglas Ross thinking he'll possibly be first minister now.

His most shocking thing is he held his hands up and resigned. I guess I'm so used to politicians doing what the fuck they want without consequences. Of course it's gained attention from the RW lovelies calling him an anti white racist.

Dunno what it means for future. Douglas Ross has released a statement claiming the credit for his removal, though of course, if he actually had any loyalty to Scotland, then he wouldn't really have wanted the upheaval caused by another leadership vote. Ironically, if he got his way and forced another election in Scotland, there's a strong chance a lot of the Tories would be wiped out. Ross himself is only in parliament because of the list vote, not because he won anything.

What does Ross want a medal or a chest to pin it on?

I must admit after being a Labour supporter for years they lost me after it was clear they were very comfortable with working with the Tories at a council level. With their current views on Scotland in general, and them being terrified of criticising Israel, and their welcoming of SEZ and freeports in the UK, plus the lack of anything that doesn't suggest they're anything more than a branch of Westminster Labour, I'm pretty much done with them.

Still don't understand Starmer and his refusal to try to raise the slightest amount of hope in people. There's million more voters on his side, and it seems like the easiest game in the world to rally the public into backing him. I remember the hope that Blair was bringing in with him. Cunt had a theme tune for goodness sake, and now we have unexciting WanKeir.

Personally I'm quite happy to have somebody as dull as ditch water.
Interesting politicians over the past decade have not been any good for us.

Politics in general needs to become a lot more boring.

fucking austerity man. Osborne still out there claiming the argument is won! amazing

The problem at the moment is there is little talk of austerity (deliberately) because all the talk is of Rwanda or Trussenomics which was worse than Osbournomics, or an endless stream of MPs getting handsy, or any other number of nonsense spouted.
Boring opens up the actually useful conversations.

LivDiv wrote:

The problem at the moment is there is little talk of austerity (deliberately) because all the talk is of Rwanda or Trussenomics which was worse than Osbournomics, or an endless stream of MPs getting handsy, or any other number of nonsense spouted. Boring opens up the actually useful conversations.

I'll take that. normalising politics into the complicated business of competently running a country or four would be most welcome especially if it changes the conversations from 'they took r jobs' to 'is this really the optimum investment strategy and what are our short term housing tactics' etc

There's been a fundamental change in electioneering over the last couple of decades.  In the past, each party would precisely lay out what they stood for and what they would do (remember what manifestos used to look like?).  This is no longer the case.  Political parties now realise that taking no position means they have nothing to be attacked over.  They'll throw out some vague, common sense ideas that are easily supported but nothing with any substance.

This means that election messaging is now a simple "trust us, we'll do a good job and don't trust them because they won't".  It all stems from how Putin got and maintained power a couple of decades ago, the politics of chaos.  Give your opponent nothing to pin you down over and rely on public relations to smear your opponent enough to win an election.

Labour are in a strange place right now.  Everyone knows they've pretty much got the next election in the bag as long as they don't fuck it up.  They are clearly terrified of taking a strong position on anything in case that's the issue which moves the needle.  In the meantime the tories are throwing mud around in the hope that something sticks and making a lot of noise over small issues to try and get a rise out of labour.

The whole thing is frustrating for the informed voter.  What do labour stand for?  No idea.  What do the tories stand for? again, no idea other than general statements that immigrants and benefits claimants are bad and don't worry about the last decade and a half of poor governance because that was different tories.

FFS take a position and stand by your principles.  Show us what you stand for and why.  Sadly, I think Corbyn losing was the death rattle of that sort of politics.

Pseudoscot wrote:

Sadly, I think Corbyn losing was the death rattle of that sort of politics.

I often wonder how much happier we would all be if he had won. 
the current wave of cruelty politics favours the right wing. As we all have less money to spend, i see more people turning on those who need the help most. I remember during the Blair years, when I had more money in the back pocket that things just seemed to be a lot nicer.