What the Fuchs?

And who exactly are ‘all the right people’? Certain people in the Labour Party should be apologising to the people who desperately need a Labour government for actively campaigning for the Tories in 2017 and 2019, like those two wastes of space who endorsed Johnson and were given peerages by him, despite supposedly being Labour MPs for years. People like them enabled this sh1tshow of a government and hurt the very people the Labour Party is supposed to protect.

Been playing as SK Brann in the Norwegian league on Fifa and I chose a pretty terrible time to check on them - despite being one of the biggest teams in Norway they’ve been battling relegation and recently been under police investigation for 12 of the players staging a Thailand style orgy on the pitch. They managed to scrape a last minute equaliser against the champions Bodo/Glimt and a win at home on the final day to set up a relegation playoff with Jerv from the league below. In crazy fog the game finished 4-4, with Brann getting a red card and missing 2 penalties, all for them to lose 7-8 in a penalty shoot out to suffer relegation. So Norway’s second biggest city’s team will be in the second division next year….small consolation for them I’ll probably end up winning the Champions League with them 😂 Check out the video, despite the fog it was an incredible game

They are authoritarians, many of the bills and rhetoric they spew border on fascism with no exaggeration - this is why it scares me how so many people are blinded by the Tory supporting press enough to say “there’s no alternative”. We are literally having our rights and quality of life stripped away by an authoritarian populist government committed to removing accountability, modern freedoms and enriching themselves and their friends. We look more and more like we are governed by the Republicans in the US every day, and let’s face it a lot of the anti democratic, anti rights, anti immigrant bile is reminiscent of Germany in the early 1930s. Anyone who is still supportive of what this government has been doing to destroy your rights, never mind the corruption and ignoring of its own rules while laughing at you behind your back, is as bad as they are, because if they get their legislative way this country will become a one party police state, where all the power is at the top, none for you and me to protest against the government, or even to challenge the government in court. Everything they do they calculate as keeping themselves in power indefinitely, because if they’re not in power the gravy train might end. And that is no joke, unlike the funny hair of good old harmless, quirky, liberty loving Boris who has conned a large proportion of the population.

Like I say I’d love to live there Probably belongs in another thread but I’ve had chronic bronchitis for months and months and I reckon it’s all the passive smoking I’ve had from people smoking in my house at all hours, (and from my dad growing up), 4,000 cancer causing chemicals in second hand smoke, 30% increase in chance of lung cancer, stroke, heart disease etc. If half of the things in cigarettes were in paint fumes, or in insulation for instance it would be banned, but the fact people are smoking it and paying a fat lot of tax to the government it’s allowed despite it being incredibly bad for the health of others and the smoker them self. It’s like asbestos is illegal in houses, but if people rolled it up and smoked it it’s suddenly fine lol. When I was a kid I was told to crawl on the floor and avoid breathing in smoke in a fire, not stand up and gulp it in 😂

You only have to look at somewhere like New Zealand to see what a fair, tolerant, progressive, democratic and happy country we could live in if a large portion of the electorate were not the playthings of billionaire press barons as they are in this country. Let’s face it people like Murdoch rely on a certain lack of critical thinking to achieve their aims and maintain their interests, and they wouldn’t do it if it didn’t work.

I will never understand what was so scary about having someone in charge who wanted to help struggling people and not just billionaire donors. What was so scary about making the obscenely wealthy pay their fair share of tax, and pursuing policies based on justice and equality? Instead we’ve got a government mired in corruption, incompetence, contempt for the public, and in constant pursuit of dangerous authoritarian legislation to limit the accountability of the government and curtailing the rights and freedoms of citizens. England made the wrong decision in 2019 that’s for sure, the history books will prove it, it’s becoming increasingly evident to people of all political persuasions that this is the worst government in living memory. Standards have never been lower.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/01/imprisoned-51-weeks-protesting-britain-police-state As well as being the worst in modern history this government is also the most dangerous. They really have a thing for seeking to dismantle checks and balances and the rights of UK citizens. I thought right wing parties were supposed to support liberty, when in fact their attacks on democracy are downright fascist - cue some more Kill the Bill protests which the right wing tabloids will spin to allow Patel to justify more authoritarian power grabs. So corruption and abuse of public office is fine, but the ability to protest effectively and hold the government to account is not apparently. Scary times.

Getting Poll Tax vibes from this, who’d have thought the Tories would consistently devise policies that disproportionately impact poorer people? Some might be forgiven for thinking they weren’t all that bothered about them 🤔 Still, if they didn’t force less well off people to pay more tax, they might have to force their billionaire donors and some of their MPs to start paying some, and we can’t have that in Tory Brexit Britain!

Going to see Chvrches in March and Aurora in April in Brixton - haven’t been there since we saw Morrissey in 2011 at the time of the London riots and we had to ring the police to ask if it was safe to go! 🥶 Anyone been to the O2 in Brixton recently or seen either of those two artists live, what should we expect?

This is absurd, explains a lot…”I love money…why, because you need money, with money you can make more money, and if you’ve got money you can buy things that you want - I could buy this Rolls Royce, something like that. Lovely…” Little Jacob has learned a lot since then!

Ah yes, we really benefit as a country by encouraging the people through right wing tabloids that Rees Mogg is some sort of hero for taking £6 million in undeclared sweetheart loans from his own company so he can get away with paying zero capital gains tax on top of the zero he pays in income tax with his dabbling in tax havens and the Paradise Papers. The man has made millions from Brexit, moving large parts of his businesses to the EU despite lying through his teeth about ‘sovereignty’ to the gullible fools who like the taste of Etonian boots because they equate an absurdly posh accent and privileged upbringing with intelligence and integrity. Where would we be without tax evaders like him telling us how ‘uplifting’ foodbanks are and how the people who died at Grenfell should have more ‘common sense’, or trying to facilitate the legalisation of corruption? The part of the population that sees him as anything as an out of touch grifter have a serious inferiority complex or some weird cultic obliviousness to their Stockholm Syndrome - people like him should be nowhere near politics but as we’ve seen in recent years if you push the right buttons in the right accent the herd will follow allowing people like him to abuse his position and enrich himself all while maintaining an impression among the plebs he’s a thoroughly corking old chap don’t you know. https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/14/labour-demands-investigation-into-jacob-rees-mogg-6m-of-loans

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/conservative-party-corruption-lords-seat-b1952962.html?amp Surprising, wouldn’t have thought the Tories would be selling seats in the Lords to their donors when they’re already selling their MPs to the highest bidder and selling access to cabinet members to dictate party policy. Thought it was only the prime minister’s relatives, friendly media moguls, sycophants and nice billionaires who pay for his holidays that Johnson did favours for, I was mistaken!

A bit like how they persist in calling themselves the ‘Conservative and Unionist Party’ when they are the driving force propelling independence movements in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and polls suggest that a large percentage of their membership and voters couldn’t care less if Scotland leave the union

I think this is the motive for this, this scandal has less to do with Owen Paterson than it does with the fact that many more Tory MPs engage in similar corruption, on the boards of fossil fuel companies and the like. Johnson has faced and is facing probes into his accepting of gifts, Tory MPs such as Matt Hancock buying shares in companies before giving them hundreds of millions of pounds in untendered contracts, billions being handed out to their mates in similar circumstances, ministers like Robert Jenrick doing backroom deals with billionaire Tory donors and giving them special treatment, pork barrel politics blackmailing constituents with withholding of funding if they didn’t vote conservative, misuse of public money on planes, yachts and the likes of Jennifer Arcuri being normalised, the Pandora papers and their links to a clique of billionaires essentially running the Tory party…the list goes on. Johnson is trying insulate himself and the government from being held accountable for corruption and cronyism by an independent body, because he knows if he can create his own he will get off scot free. This is a pattern of behaviour of the modern Tory party as we’ve seen with judicial reviews, parliamentary scrutiny, media scrutiny, the electoral commission, academia, environmental standards and so on: if something is providing checks and balances stopping them from acting with complete impunity, they just get rid of it and replace it with a new system run by themselves to protect their private interests. We are really sliding into a tinpot dictatorship. At least we now can all see in the cold light of day what “taking back control” really meant!

It was disgusting to see the stomach churning Rees Mogg stand there and use the death of Paterson’s wife to exonerate him of corruption, that he and the majority of the Tories were essentially blaming Kathryn Stone and the committee of public standards for her death, and not the shameful and corrupt actions of her husband. The Conservative Party has sunk to lows that even I didn’t know they were capable of. I feel sick to the stomach. Previous corruption and cronyism has left me feeling angry and exasperated that so many people were letting them get away with it. Now they have become so emboldened by apathy towards their attacks on democracy and standards of public life they are prepared to act in this way in public with the assumption that people don’t care. One rule for the Conservative Party, another for everyone else, this has been going on for a long time, only this time their hubris has lead them to bite off more than they can chew. The way they continue to rub our noses in it with lie after lie after lie leads me to believe - and hope - that this is some kind of turning point when the British public can gain some self respect and kick out these parasites. Because that’s all they are, enriching themselves and their donors - that’s all they know how to do. Their hypocrisy and sheer brazenness reminds me of the Republicans under Trump. Shameful and skin crawling.

I’ve been saying for almost 2 years that this is the most dangerous government we’ve had in modern times, totally without morals or principles other than shallow nationalistic and populist optics to disguise their devotion to donor and billionaire interests, dumbing down political discourse to slogans, smears and dogwhistles, Machiavellian in its desire for self preservation and attacks on democracy, flagrant ignoring and rewriting of rules and the law, normalisation of open corruption, cronyism and lying, attempts to avoid scrutiny and accountability, lowering of public standards to historic lows, staggering incompetence at every turn - and more. Today the Tories have just voted to legalise corruption and bribery of elected officials, and because they’ve whittled down one by one the institutions and conventions designed to prevent abuses of power and preserve a semblance of trust in the political system, the public have been conditioned to shrug their shoulders, because Tory sleaze is now a normal and accepted part of national life. Surely there has to be a point when rational people say enough is enough. It’s not an exaggeration to say there are dark precedents for the sort of ‘state capture’ we’ve seen over the past 2 years, the dilution of Freedom of Information, the political weaponisation of the judiciary, the attacks on freedom of speech, the independent electoral commission and the committee for the standards of public life, the rule of law, and many more - too many that should be deemed acceptable by a rational well informed electorate. It’s truly unbelievable and terrifying what is happening - and being allowed to happen - in this country at the moment, the sinister path we’re going down. Some on the right of the political spectrum need to wake up and see what’s going on here, because this can only end very, very badly. If they treat parliament, the ministerial code and corruption watchdogs with this much contempt, imagine how much contempt they have for you and me.

This is the sort of attitude which is screwing us all over, too bad the government don’t care about these issues seriously enough either

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59062696 Wow the Tories under De Pfeffel Johnson really embracing the Trumpian post truth era - Sunak: “making internal flights cheaper will actually help the environment.” 🤦‍♂️ It’s like the majority of the English public like being lied to

That doesn’t even seem real, that MP should hang his head in shame. Not that many Tory MPs have any shame, people should be more aware of the frankly disgusting voting records most of them have in parliament, this latest vote on dumping sewage into rivers being the latest instance. Reminds me of the time Matt Hancock tweeted about how great it was that a bill to protect victims of domestic violence had passed, then someone pointed out to him that he had actually voted against it. How we can even pretend to be serious about this climate conference is absurd when we have such a party in charge - even Johnson is now setting it up to fail by saying it might. Not that they care, plenty of them on the payroll of fossil fuel companies, and they even put Christopher Chope, a climate change denier and all round scumbag on the Environmental Committee, along with a bunch who voted against the sewage bill, and have been told to “stare down” figures such as Caroline Lucas and Barry Gardiner to dissuade them from suggesting measures that would actually preserve our environment. Honestly conservatism is not going to save the planet, all this ideology does is slow down progress and hinder any real attempt to pursue legislation that improves the environment, let alone democracy and equality. Being ‘conservative’ is literally the opposite of what we need to meet the existential crises we’re going to face this century.

Though I don’t see any real point in opening this argument again, the incident you refer to was more a lapse of judgement or naivety rather than antisemitism, one he apologised for once he was made aware of the details of the mural. Is that really evidence of someone being antisemitic though? Certain political figures have declared allegiance to antisemitic parties in Eastern Europe and have written about Jews controlling the media and more, and they don’t come from the Labour Party - the party historically of civil rights and equality. History and polls suggest right wing parties and voters tend to be more tolerant of all forms of racism and discrimination, but this is pretty obvious if you just look at the average daily mail reader. People don’t expect the Conservatives to be whiter than white or even be particularly nice, so there is no media furore when they don’t meet expectations, because there aren’t any, relatively speaking. All this is compounded by the fact that much of the media has no interest in scrutinising the Conservative party in the same way on these issues, firstly because they and their voters aren’t expected to be the party of tolerance and equality, but also because it’s not in the interests of right wing media to report on antisemitism and racism within the Tory party in the same way it benefits them to create narratives about Labour to hurt them electorally. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thelondoneconomic.com/opinion/the-conservative-party-anti-semitism-crisis-nobody-talks-about-169874/amp/ https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/tories-exploiting-jewish-fears-antisemitism/

This is exactly the point that always irks me - “Labour are a bunch of champagne socialists, so I’m gonna vote for the likes of Jacob Rees Mogg, cos you know these public school millionaire landlords on the boards of oil companies and the like are just like me”

Perception, narratives and their impact on memory and intuition are more important than reality in politics, unfortunate but true. The Tories are more easily able to control these narratives historically through friendly media outlets and astronomical funding from millionaires and billionaires looking to defend their interests. There’s a reason why every election the burden is on Labour to offer transformative policies while the Tories run on negative “elect us otherwise Labour will do this” or “Labour can’t be trusted with the economy etc” platforms, even though the Conservatives in reality usually leave us with more debt and volatile economies with less rights for workers. Narratives are more impactful on voters than reality. Though I still don’t think that many people think of things that happened almost 50 years ago when elections happen nowadays.

On the same day the Tories cut Universal Credit for the most vulnerable plunging many into poverty, Tory MP Sir Peter Bottomley claims MPs face a “grim” struggle and it’s “desperately difficult” living on an £82,000 salary and that they should be paid at least £100,000-115,000 a year. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/tory-mp-sir-peter-bottomley-grim-82k-pounds-pay-rise-b959174.html%3famp

It’s a matter of opinion of course, I’ve defended Callaghan on here before, and according to the experts he was not a bad prime minister - joint rating alongside Major and Churchill (1951-55) - but was largely a victim of circumstances much the same way as Jimmy Carter is viewed nowadays by historians. Anthony Eden was far worse. Funnily enough May and Cameron are near or at the bottom, Johnson will probably go the same way as he’s certainly not better than them, to put it mildly https://www.psa.ac.uk/psa/news/theresa-may-joint-worst-post-war-prime-minister-say-historians-and-politics-professors

Except the Tories stand for self sufficiency and ‘rugged individualism’ for the poor, but socialism and state support for the rich. These oligarchs don’t donate vast sums to the Tories and have secret meetings with them behind closed doors for nothing. They rely on the Tories protecting their interests, making sure they can continue getting away with paying next to no tax and whatnot. It’s sure as hell cheaper for them to cough up a few million here and there to the Conservative party, or pay for Johnson’s luxury holiday or to decorate his flat than it would be if they had to pay their fair share like everyone else does. The Conservative party is a business, one that works very well for the donors getting all those public contracts and tax breaks etc and the politicians like Hancock with all those shares in these donors’ companies. Their trick is to convince the plebs they care more about Union jacks, royal yachts, national songs and bringing back pounds and ounces etc than they do about keeping their business ‘in business’.