The British Politics Thread - The Bear and Badger

Wookienopants

My local MP, Alistair Stratham, is going door to door in my area.
We had a fairly decent conversation about some local concerns and he seems fairly switched on compared to the Tory MP who was opposing him.

He's doing a far better job than Nadine Dorris was but then that's not exactly a high barrier to jump

monkey

The two policies of this government are salting the earth and hoping they can trick enough pensioners to make their defeat respectable.

Rev

Rishi Sunak really called Scottish Nationalists one of the dangerous elements threatening the UK. I despise that little shit.

poprock

Rev wrote:

Rishi Sunak really called Scottish Nationalists one of the dangerous elements threatening the UK. I despise that little shit.

Jeez. One step away from declaring us terrorists, eh?

LivDiv

He says this stuff and it just undermines his point.
He starts off by rattling off Russia, ISIS or whatever, fine.
Then add a China, maybe.
Then its off the rails with anyone who disagrees with whatever angle he is pushing this week.
Corbyn, Corbyn, Corbyn.
Starmer doesn't have a plan.

Fin

LivDiv

Somehow he pitched himself as the future and Starmer as the past yesterday while celebrating 14 years of Tory accomplishments.

He also got really tetchy when Beth Rigby implied by Sunak saying there will be a hung parliament and that the Cons wont work with another party he has ruled himself out of being PM after the GE. He didnt like it at all, got a right strop on.

The mans a joke who we unfortunately have to suffer until November or January or whenever he is put out of his misery.
I would try not to get too upset about anything he says however insulting it is.

poprock

What he means is that Scottish nationalism is a dangerous element threatening Tory hegemony.

And if you take out the word ‘dangerous’, he’s right.

monkey

He's going to be a shit show in TV debates.

davyK

There was a slime spewing mouth of Sauron on BBC Ulster this morning. Had to turn the radio off.

Rwanda isn't compatible with the Good Friday Agreement apparently. High Court in Belfast has ruled on it. So NI can be a new goal to avoid the planes. And then of course there's a soft exit into the RoI and EU. There's rumbles in the RoI about immigration levels/housing as it is.

It's yet another fuck up in other words.

So some government mouthpiece was on spouting that Parliament has agreed that Rwanda is safe and that the UN sent people there so they say it's safe too. To call that disingenuous is to be charitable. I started shouting at the radio. Daughter #2 appeared and ignored me as she got ready for work.

LivDiv

He said yesterday, in a fiery response to an unrelated question, "I'll debate Starmer anytime, as many times as he wants".

Which I assume left everyone with the question "Yeah but when".

It was a bizarre response for someone who cant commit to when a GE will be other than a vague timescale 6 months in the future. It was also clearly forced and likely off script, his handlers probably had a word after. They arent going to let him do multiple debates, he'll do one because he has to do one or it looks like he is running away but he'll high horse it like Johnson did pretending that the PM is in a position where one is enough despite all leaders being equal once that GE is called.

Rev

davyK wrote:

There was a slime spewing mouth of Sauron on BBC Ulster this morning. Had to turn the radio off. Rwanda isn't compatible with the Good Friday Agreement apparently. High Court in Belfast has ruled on it. So NI can be a new goal to avoid the planes. And then of course there's a soft exit into the RoI and EU. There's rumbles in the RoI about immigration levels/housing as it is. It's yet another fuck up in other words. So some government mouthpiece was on spouting that Parliament has agreed that Rwanda is safe and that the UN sent people there so they say it's safe too. To call that disingenuous is to be charitable. I started shouting at the radio. Daughter #2 appeared and ignored me as she got ready for work.

The Shit is going to hit the fan in December when the GPSR kicks in and getting goods into NI is going to turn into a shit show.

Rev

Basically means if you sell into NI then your goods will not only need to have a named manufacturer on them but you'll need a named EU responsible person to deal with any compliance issues. But because of the EU / NI set up it means that even if you don't sell into the EU, you'll still need this all set up just to sell into NI. Amazon are insisting on it for all of their sellers. It's going to hurt the ecommerce sector.

davyK

Yep - we are still in a state of transition and the full consequences of leaving the EU are still to bite.

We went through a period of lots of amazon sellers not delivering to NI. It's eased off a bit but I can see it biting again.

And of course every time an EU requirement changes, it may affect us.

ZMM

I hope that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland can become independent in my life time.

Surely this must be the eventual aim of devolution? Or was the English parliament just presenting these powers as token gestures to try and stifle the desires of independence?

davyK

Devolution is about regions addressing region specific problems. I think there's still an argument for a national government.

Problem is there's no English devolution so English issues become national issues.

Creating an English assembly is one way to address it with a smaller national parliament. Having an English assembly outside London would be a good idea.

ZMM

That's a good shout, actually, would be good positioned in the North of England.

LivDiv

Hopefully post GE Labour will use the 10/11 Mayors they have, ideally with the 11th guy as well to take a step in that direction.

LivDiv

Pure gold.

There was a Lib Dem motion voted on today that would mean any MP arrested for serious offences such sexual harassment or violence would be excluded from the Commons automatically.

It was a free vote.
The Tory whips got in a flap and it passed.

The Tories wanted to amend it to Charge over Arrest but fucked it up and the amendment was beaten by 1 vote.

Now the Tories are raging because they aren't allowed to be wronguns. WhatsApp messages leaked show anger.

https://news.sky.com/story/tory-mps-share-despair-at-pms-top-team-over-commons-vote-in-leaked-whatsapps-13135829

RedDave2

Imagine voting against that in your work place...

Gremill

RedDave2 wrote:

Imagine voting against that in your work place...

And everyone being able to see what you voted!

Unlikely

I'm missing something I think. I completely agree with the suggestion that being charged with a crime should lead to immediate suspension but "just" being accused seems open to abuse.

Unlikely

Sorry, arrested, not accused.

LivDiv

Arrest is it's own fairly high bar above just being accused.

Edit: simultanepost

Unlikely

Yeah, misread it. My bad.

LivDiv

I did the same thing when I first read the article

GooberTheHat

What's the important difference between arrested and charged, in layman's terms?

Arrested is where there is a reasonable suspicion that you've committed a crime, and charged is where there is enough evidence to prosecute?

Wookienopants

Correct

GooberTheHat

Thanks. So playing devil's advocate, what happens if someone is arrested for one of these listed reasons, is banned from parliament, but is never charged (or the investigation takes months before the decision whether to charge or not is made)? When does the MP be allowed to return to parliament to do their job representing their constituency?

Wookienopants

No idea. I would imagine it's the same as any workplace would be. Suspend whilst the investigation is ongoing and then banned/removed once charged.

At this point I don't care, the amount of Tory Mps accused of sexual offences and wrongdoing at this point just makes me happy for any reason to remove them

Rev

Take it Brendan Clarke has been a naughty boy considering he called it an attack on civil liberties. I'm guessing he's worried he might get fingered.

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