British Politics
Been on holiday for a few weeks, surprised to find no general discussion of British politics so though I'd kick one off.
Tory leadership contest is quickly turning into farce. Trump has backed Boris, which should be reason enough for anyone with half a brain to exclude him.
Of the other candidates Rory Stewart looks the best of the outsiders. Surprised to see Cleverly and Javid not further up the betting, but not sure the Tory membership are ready for a brown PM.
https://www.oddschecker.com/politics/bri...
Regarding the LD leadership contest, Jo Swinson is miles ahead of any other candidate (and indeed any of the Tory lot). Should be a shoe in.
Finally, it's Groundhog Day in Labour - the more serious the anti-Semitism claims get, the more Corbyn's cronies write their own obituary by blaming it on outlandish conspiracy theories - this week, it's apparently the Jewish Embassy's fault...
Jalfrezi does tie himself in knots over immigrants and immigrant populations being criminals/mass rapists.
He's think it's expected for an indigenous population to tolerate and shut up and not be bothered when immigrant populations systematically groom and rape hundreds of girls, and show the same pattern in many many places, as long as at least one indigenous gang is doing the same.
We get it. We just think, to put it kindly, he's not right.
Telling people what they believe in contrary to what they've written is the most diebitter of diebitterest things.
And we were discussing crime in general, not your obsession with rape crime that's finally given you the excuse to be openly anti-immigration that everyone could see underpinned your Brexit-mania.
How is your Brexit going, by the way?
Well, I'm very happy to live in a democracy where it's possible to vote out those who don't do a good job governing. So much better than being stuck with useless twats you can't vote out.
The downside, of course, is still being stuck with twats you can vote out and they're still useless anyway.
And we were discussing crime in general, not your obsession with rape crime that's finally given you the excuse to be openly anti-immigration that everyone could see underpinned your Brexit-mania.
Look in a mirror, you will see obsession there, old bean. Consider for a second that I might be right about that. Go on.
And dude, I am sick of reading about the subject day after day. I drop in every day, hoping something actually about what's happening this week might be occurring, but no, still the Pavlovian responses to Luciom's troll-bait. I blame the assorted twats on here for actually replying to Luciom's trolling that keeps any discussion of what's currently going on now in British politics from occurring.
I'm amazed how many people don't realise he's just trolling to keep the agenda to what he wants to talk about, and so many keep getting suckered into it. Hell, myself included now, so I'm just as bad lol.
Interesting points in the Guardian from Polly Toynbee about how Labour might want to consider actually doing something with some haste (think bigger, think faster). I disagree with some of the targets for their effort (rejoin EU blah blah), but I do otherwise think she's right. They should just DO SOMETHING that doesn't take years to actually have an outcome
The message from this is that school bullying is very bad and should be stamped out, and also that the bullying of kids far along the autism spectrum with a family history of being the victims of the worst genocide since WW2 is fairly likely to result in some bad outcomes if the kid is excluded from school and rarely seen outside their bedroom.
WTF IS THIS
LOL
Interesting points in the Guardian from Polly Toynbee about how Labour might want to consider actually doing something with some haste (think bigger, think faster). I disagree with some of the targets for their effort (rejoin EU blah blah), but I do otherwise think she's right. They should just DO SOMETHING that doesn't take years to actually have an outcome
there isn't necessarily anything a government can do (with positive results).
sometimes you have to accept the best the government can do is to stop digging the grave for the country and let the country be what it can be. which sometimes is "not very much".
Well, I'm very happy to live in a democracy where it's possible to vote out those who don't do a good job governing. So much better than being stuck with useless twats you can't vote out.
The downside, of course, is still being stuck with twats you can vote out and they're still useless anyway.
Wasn't your reason for wanting to leave "sovereignty" because you felt we were tied to the EU and were unable to leave? Now that we've proved, by leaving, that it's possible to be part of the EU and still have sovereignty by your own metric shouldn't we rejoin?
Interesting points in the Guardian from Polly Toynbee about how Labour might want to consider actually doing something with some haste (think bigger, think faster). I disagree with some of the targets for their effort (rejoin EU blah blah), but I do otherwise think she's right. They should just DO SOMETHING that doesn't take years to actually have an outcome
The real lesson for Labour, which it seems determined to ignore, is from Kamala Harris's campaign and its attempt to wrest the few percent of votes from Trump she needed for victory by copying some of his most divisive rhetoric and policies only to find that voters saw through it as desperate and insincere and decided that instead of voting for the tribute act they may as well vote for the real thing.
It's hardly surprising that Reform are neck and neck with the government in the polls now.
Wasn't your reason for wanting to leave "sovereignty" because you felt we were tied to the EU and were unable to leave? Now that we've proved, by leaving, that it's possible to be part of the EU and still have sovereignty by your own metric shouldn't we rejoin?
I was concerned we were getting to a point we just wouldn't be able to, so wanted to get out while we could.
Rejoining that monstrous anti-democracy is not something I'd ever want to do.
Hmmmm
That could have been achieved by waiting until the relevant leg-iron legislation was on its way, couldn't it? And the UK being joined in that protest by several other states would have meant that said legislation wouldn't have appeared.
The real lesson for Labour, which it seems determined to ignore, is from Kamala Harris's campaign and its attempt to wrest the few percent of votes from Trump she needed for victory by copying some of his most divisive rhetoric and policies only to find that voters saw through it as desperate and insincere and decided that instead of voting for the tribute act they may as well vote for the real thing.
It's hardly surprising that Reform are neck and neck with the government in the polls now.
I agree, there should be a clear division between labour and reform, and labour shouldn't try and ape that bunch of knobheads.
Hmmmm
That could have been achieved by waiting until the relevant leg-iron legislation was on its way, couldn't it?
Yep, but it might be someone cosy with the EU was in charge at that point and we just wouldn't have the option via referendum in time. Maastricht and Paris 2004 treaties were both non-choices for the population, remember, and should have clearly been referenda.
When opportunity knocks, open the door.
Yep, but it might be someone cosy with the EU was in charge at that point and we just wouldn't have the option via referendum in time. Maastricht and Paris 2004 treaties were both non-choices for the population, remember, and should have clearly been referenda.
When opportunity knocks, open the door.
Open the door to....Donald Trump? Do you now consider he might make a worse ally than the EU?
No I was referring to the brexit vote as the opportunity to leave the EU after you wondered wouldn't it be better to wait till just before we had no means to escape.
I wouldn't trust weasel politicians to play fair or democratic over such a thing. They didn't in 1992 or 2004.
Right, but the net effect of leaving the EU is opening the door to Trump. Look at how he's trying to poach Greenland from Denmark, an EU member, and imagine how he might feast his eyes on the UK's healthcare market and other sectors when there's no EU to stand up for us as they are with Denmark.
And now it's no longer up on the government mouthpiece BBC website lol.
And as you very well know correlation does not mean causation.
The cause is widely understood to be poverty, a group that Caribbean-heritage people are vastly over-represented in.
Saying "Blacks are criminals" is racist.
Black people in Britain have a much higher arrest rate than white people, or the average, or any other ethnic group. There might be various reasons for this, but I don't think 'poverty' is known to be one of them, as Bangladeshis are often relatively poor but have a below-average arrest rate. (Pakistanis come out just ahead of white people, Indians some considerable way behind.) There is presumably a cultural factor which may or may not be connected to 'poverty'.
The surprising thing in the bar graph shown on that government page is the huge arrest rate for 'Black Other' (that is, other than Black Caribbean or Black African, as if black British people could come from anywhere but the Caribbean or Africa, since we don't have a whole lot coming in from Brazil), when Black Other only account for 0.5% of the population per the 2021 census. But this is probably to do with self-declaration and people considering themselves Black British, which wasn't an option so they had to tick 'Black Other'. At any rate there is a problem in evidence-gathering and analysis there.
Right, but the net effect of leaving the EU is opening the door to Trump. Look at how he's trying to poach Greenland from Denmark, an EU member, and imagine how he might feast his eyes on the UK's healthcare market and other sectors when there's no EU to stand up for us as they are with Denmark.
You obviously see the EU as some sort of protective gang where everyone has a better life if they submit to the EU's vision of how it thinks Europe should be, whilst I see it as a parasite that wants to control and absorb the host, with a long-term aim to eventually dissolve (or at best, make irrelevant) the nation-level democratic apparatus.
We're not going to agree, are we.
If you really want a whipping-boy for who is responsible for letting in the likes of Trump and the various near-nazis throughout Europe, then the EU and its clear inability to actually listen to what people want is a good place to start.
Black people in Britain have a much higher arrest rate than white people, or the average, or any other ethnic group. There might be various reasons for this, but I don't think 'poverty' is known to be one of them, as Bangladeshis are often relatively poor but have a below-average arrest rate. (Pakistanis come out just ahead of white people, Indians some considerable way behind.) There is presumably a cultural factor which may or may not be connected to 'poverty'.
Sure, but poverty is a major driver of crime. Some factors known to mitigate against it are strong family/community ties etc. and no two sets of ethnic groups will be the same in these regards, making analysis quite difficult.
You obviously see the EU as some sort of protective gang where everyone has a better life if they submit to the EU's vision of how it thinks Europe should be, whilst I see it as a parasite that wants to control and absorb the host, with a long-term aim to eventually dissolve (or at best, make irrelevant) the nation-level democratic apparatus.
We're not going to agree, are we.
No, I certainly don't agree to submitting to the EU - I believe in driving it in the direction that confers economic and working advantages onto its members while providing a buffer between the increasingly hostile US and China. We aren't going to agree if we don't understand each other.
Being in the EU = submitting to the EU. When veto was got rid of except for the most crucial things, that was the only direction of travel in town. Veto kept the federalist/unification agenda well at bay.
Do I have to rehash the stuff about primacy of EU law etc etc again?
I can't be bothered, let's just agree to disagree.
I would like a Europe united in trade, science, education, transport, defence, etc but definitely definitely not how the EU operates.
European-level decision-making should be for environment, trans-national infrastructure, trade standards, science and education. Those all seem correct for supra-national decision making and policy. Everthing else should be at national or regional decision-making imo.
Fair enough. I just don't want us to be picked off by a malignant US while Starmer or whomever succeeds him mouth off about the "special relationship". Pass the sick bucket.
I suspect we'll be revisiting this before long, having read Mr Hardcore Brexit Frost's words today.
