General Election, June 8th

[Webbo]

1 minute ago, Finnaldo said:

 

Is there real evidence pointing to collusion or support for the IRA proper though? And that's a genuine question, I've done my own research and the most I can find is support for the Republican cause which is not the same thing. 

 

In terms of May, it's pretty much in the open she's selling weapons to the global centre of Wahhabism and Salafism, and asked for a second vote on fox hunting in the present. The worst of the troubles were 30 years ago, and even had he been supportive, there's a good chance his world view has changed in retrospect. If you asked Theresa May her views on gay rights 30 years ago, having grown up thoroughly Christian, should that be used as a criticism tool? I'd say no, if she has expressed a change in her views since. However if you've got evidence to prove collusion I'd be happy to condemn him.

If you look on the previous page I've put up a link.

[Buce]

1 minute ago, Webbo said:

I was para phrasing something Carl used to say a lot.

 

Oh, right.

 

Too subtle for this time of the morning, Webbo, I need more caffeine.

[Nick]

8 minutes ago, Webbo said:

If you look on the previous page I've put up a link.

Which doesn't prove collusion.

 

Sure the security services would have a file on any politician who worked with representatives of either side of the conflict.

 

Corbyn is a wet lettuce pacifist one week and a pro bombing kneecapping gunman supporter the next?

 

It took a Labour government to come to the table and get peace permenant if I remember rightly? This is an article about the article which appeared in the Telegraph which actually says nothing other than there was a file....

 

Corbyn comes from from a background of peace and talks - he wants to try that in places where there is current conflict too.

 

It's a fair point to raise but this is substanceless mud slinging hoping something will stick from what I'm reading.

[Webbo]

8 minutes ago, Swan Lesta said:

Which doesn't prove collusion.

 

Sure the security services would have a file on any politician who worked with representatives of either side of the conflict.

 

Corbyn is a wet lettuce pacifist one week and a pro bombing kneecapping gunman supporter the next?

 

It took a Labour government to come to the table and get peace permenant if I remember rightly? This is an article about the article which appeared in the Telegraph which actually says nothing other than there was a file....

 

Corbyn comes from from a background of peace and talks - he wants to try that in places where there is current conflict too.

 

It's a fair point to raise but this is substanceless mud slinging hoping something will stick from what I'm reading.

I never claimed he was a pacifist, people who show solidarity with murderers can't really be described that way.

 

Also, I didn't bring the subject up, I was responding to Carl . I've no interest in mud slinging, you can vote for who you like. If you're comfortable supporting someone who thinks murdering political opponents is legitimate fair enough, just don't get on your high horse when others do the same.

 

Btw, John Major started the peace process , the IRA ended their ceasefire in the run up to the 97 election.

[Nick]

Just now, Webbo said:

I never claimed he was a pacifist, people who show solidarity with murderers can't really be described that way.

 

Also, I didn't bring the subject up, I was responding to Carl . I've no interest in mud slinging, you can vote for who you like. If you're comfortable supporting someone who thinks murdering political opponents is legitimate fair enough, just don't get on your high horse when others do the same.

 

Oh Webbo

 

1. I'm criticising the argument and the source not you.

 

2. Solidarity with murderers and supporting murdering political opponents - that's liablous ignorant slander at best. And that's from a moderator!

 

3. I'm not on a horse I'm just commenting that the source you provided doesn't demonstrate collusion.

 

4. I'm well aware I can vote for whom I like - thanks for that aggressive touchy response - I'm not a supporter of Labour or Corbyn particularly, I'm just saying that your rhetoric in here is substanceless.

 

 

[Webbo]

1 minute ago, Swan Lesta said:

 

Oh Webbo

 

1. I'm criticising the argument and the source not you.

 

2. Solidarity with murderers and supporting murdering political opponents - that's liablous ignorant slander at best. And that's from a moderator!

 

3. I'm not on a horse I'm just commenting that the source you provided doesn't demonstrate collusion.

 

4. I'm well aware I can vote for whom I like - thanks for that aggressive touchy response - I'm not a supporter of Labour or Corbyn particularly, I'm just saying that your rhetoric in here is substanceless.

 

 

There's an MI 5 file on him, he was quoted in a Sein Fein newspaper as attending a rally and sharing a platform with a wanted murderer, he was arrested outside the high court protesting against the trial of the Brighton bomber. How much evidence do you need?

[davieG]

As is usual with me the longer the election campaign with all its childishness and petty campaigning the less I feel like voting as the less I believe in or agree with the parties after my vote.

 

I've never felt the need of a local MP so am generally not persuaded by them unless they come across as completely unacceptable.

So I'll either find an independent  or spoil  the ballot paper.

Never felt more disillusioned about politics and I've seen a few. I feel like hibernating until it's  all over but as my son says, not long for you now Dad 

[Nick]

6 minutes ago, Webbo said:

There's an MI 5 file on him, he was quoted in a Sein Fein newspaper as attending a rally and sharing a platform with a wanted murderer, he was arrested outside the high court protesting against the trial of the Brighton bomber. How much evidence do you need?

Something that actually links him to murder before saying he supports murder rather than protesting, attending a rally and being arrested?

 

I really thought you were better than this Webbo... 

 

 

[Nick]

And you talk about the Irish conflict like there were good guys and bad guys. Cowboys v Indians - It was a terrible and disgusting conflict with guilt, unfairness and blood on the hands of both sides. And it proved in the end conflict didn't sort it - talking did.

[Guest]

52 minutes ago, Webbo said:

You can talk to people without attending their rallies, he didn't attend any UVF rallies. He was arrested outside the high court protesting against the trial of an IRA bomber. This " he was just promoting peace" is rewriting history, deep down I don't think any of you truly believe it.

I certainly don't think he believes in violence or war. Ultimately, peace was achieved by putting to one side the atrcities that were committed and talking. I think corbyn was probably on the right side of history though i can understand it looking great, especially at the time. 

[Nick]

I also don't think for a second he was directly promoting peace - I think he was a political activist attempting to draw attention to the hypocrisy and corruption of the situation by criticising the actions of the government.

[Alf Bentley]

1 hour ago, Webbo said:

Theresa May supports a free vote on Fox hunting, howls of indignation and accusations of vicious cruelty.

 

Jeremy Cornyn supports the kneecapping of Irish Chatholics and it's " nobody's perfect".

 

Theresa May on fox hunting (less than 2 weeks ago):  “As it happens, personally I have always been in favour of fox hunting, and we maintain our commitment, we have had a commitment previously as a Conservative Party, to allow a free vote".

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-fox-hunting-bring-back-ban-repeal-conservative-tories-general-election-rural-vote-a7726506.html

So, the Tory Party supports a free vote - but May herself supports fox hunting....and it's the Theresa May Party standing for election, isn't it?

 

Technically, unless you have evidence, claiming that "Corbyn supports kneecapping" could constitute a crime of defamation. Even the Mail doesn't sink that low.

I assume that Corbyn supported Troops Out (of N. Ireland), a united Ireland, fair trials and political status for IRA terrorists etc. 

(To introduce a bit of levity, what are "Irish Chatholics"? Are they Irish people who spend all day posting in General Chat? Gaelic Fox, I'm looking at you!)

 

It seems Corbyn was arrested (but not charged) for obstruction outside a court, protesting for a fair trial for various people - including someone who was SUBSEQUENTLY convicted of terrorism (i.e. he was "innocent until proven guilty" at the time). That hardly constitutes "support for kneecapping". Some context, too: this was when numerous completely innocent Irish people (Guildford 4, Birmingham 6), subsequently exonerated, were still banged up for years, having been framed by corrupt police & biased courts.

 

Corbyn did have discussions with political Republicans (Sinn Fein) and supported various of their causes - but that doesn't mean he supported criminal violence carried out by its military wing (the IRA).

I appreciate that there is a difference between talking to someone and supporting their causes, but there's also a difference between supporting "the ends" and supporting "the means" of a particular group.

 

Would you condemn Thatcher for negotiating with terrorists - and thereby "supporting kneecapping"? 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/oct/16/northernireland.thatcher

"Margaret Thatcher gave her personal approval to secret talks between government officials and the IRA leadership in 1990, setting in a train a dialogue which led to the Northern Ireland peace process which she now regularly denounces.

In one of her final acts before she was deposed as prime minister, Lady Thatcher allowed her Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Brooke, to talk to republicans through a secret "back channel" after MI5 advised the government that the IRA was looking at ways of ending its terrorist campaign".

 

If Corbyn is to be asked to single out particular groups for condemnation, would you like to condemn the British Army for murdering innocent civilians at Bloody Sunday? Don't mention the IRA, just condemn the Army in isolation? Personally, I condemn anyone who engaged in terrorism or carried out illicit violence, be they IRA, UVF, Army, whoever. When you get into insurgents and soldiers killing one another in action, that's an accepted risk for both parties - with the insurgents also running the risk of imprisonment by the state. You need to decide whether you attack Corbyn as a bloodthirsty supporter of terrorism or a lily-livered pacifist. I'm not sure either is fair, but there's certainly a lot more credibility for the latter accusation.

 

 

 

 

[Carl the Llama]

2 hours ago, Webbo said:

Theresa May supports a free vote on Fox hunting, howls of indignation and accusations of vicious cruelty.

 

Jeremy Cornyn supports the kneecapping of Irish Chatholics and it's " nobody's perfect".

 

This is what happens when you support a political party like a football team. You ignore its faults ,make ridiculous excuses and get offended by legitimate criticism.

The veracity of your first 2 points has already been covered so I'll not add further there.

 

As to the final paragraph: I've never voted labour at a GE (much to my parents' chagrin I'm sure) and rather than ignore his faults I've raised the issue precisely to find out whether he really was at fault here.  It's a tricky one and no doubt more nuanced than my own comments have done the issue justice but yes, I have concluded based on the evidence I've seen *so far* that in this case Jeremy isn't nearly as guilty as that interviewer or yourself have tried to make out.  I've been pretty consistent in complaining about some of the things he has done as head of labour so it's a bit unfair for you to now be making out like I'm unwilling to criticise a man who is still far from victorious in the battle for my vote. Show me where he provided help and not just sympathy and I could be swayed on this debate yet.  One suspects we'd know about it if his dossier included any such proof.  I feel that the football team analogy is precisely why you're coming down so hard on him in the absence of any real evidence while simultaneously appearing entirely unfazed by our incumbent's provable provision of means of oppression to violent authoritarians.  But to be fair I only raised that last bit to provide context and I'd be lying if I said I had any certainty that a Corbyn government would stop us selling firearms to the Saudis... Indeed I have a horrible feeling it's the sort of 'special interest' bollocks that will continue happen regardless of who's in government.

[Sharpe's Fox]

Once again Alf doesn't start the argument but he comes in and finishes it. Bravo sir

[Finnaldo]

24 minutes ago, Webbo said:

There's an MI 5 file on him, he was quoted in a Sein Fein newspaper as attending a rally and sharing a platform with a wanted murderer, he was arrested outside the high court protesting against the trial of the Brighton bomber. How much evidence do you need?

 

To go through your points:

 

 

1) You'd imagine at the zenith of IRA activity, any politician or influencing individual who are known to have a pro-Republican would have a file with MI5, it would have been a safeguard.

 

2) In terms of this platform with a wanted IRA killer, it just seems to be a claim rather than anything substantial, if there was a name and a place and time, some actual context, it would be a lot more reliable but it just seems like a bare bones accusation.

 

3) I'm not going to argue against this because in retrospect it was a poor decision that means the above accusations bear a lot more credibility. I mean you can debate his intentions at a rally but regardless being the Brighton Bomber it was the an insensitive and unsuitable place to rally. 

 

However again what I will say is this was around 1984/85, he'd been an MP only for a couple years and likely still held a strong set of Marxist beliefs that he tried to directly apply to his politics, as he'd been allowed to in the low level local politics he'd been involved in before. Like I said before, I think after thirty years of parliamentary duty, whilst he's still a radical compared to the standing of the Labour Party, he's obviously become a lot more moderate in his politics and is a lot more open to compromise. I've wrote something similar on this forum before but if we took some of humanity's biggest 'heroes' in regards to their past, Nelson Mandela led a terrorist bombing campaign and Gandhi was a race supremacist who believed in White-Indian supremacy over blacks; those with bolder and radical political doctrines often walk a very thin line.

 

Ultimately, I trust that Corbyn has matured enough as a politician to have become more aware of extremely radical movements, and that he never had enough involvement to truly be affiliated with the IRA anyway. I'm confident his politics have evolved adequately since then.

[Jon the Hat]

I find myself rather uncomfortable going into this election.

Fair play to May she has not gone with a simple manifesto, she has put herself and her views out there to be shot down.  Hopefully some of them will be shot down, as I feel she is taking the party too far down the path of austerity right now, and not thinking of the consequences.

I agree with the economic fundamentals of the manifesto - low tax, scrap the triple lock, get rid of silly commitments which tie your hands on tax & NI increases if needed.

I also agree we need to do something to fill the huge whole in the social care budget, and that is probably reasonable for those who have more resources to pay more for their care, but I am struggling with the fairness of the proposed scheme;  much as I dislike pulling out one example and beating it to death, this point about luck being the deciding factor in whether you leave behind assets for your kids is a fair one.

I am also concerned on funding for schools in particular, and would much rather the policy said that free school meals funding is to be handed to schools for them to use as they see fit.  I support the free schools program, but it is not being applied very well when a new primary school is to be built 100 metres from an existing one in the same village in place of building one new school on the site, all becuase funding is there only for a free school, for which the existing school could not apply.  Nuts, and I am sure there are other examples.

 

Its times like this I wish we had a real liberal party.  Boo.

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

I find myself rather uncomfortable going into this election.

Fair play to May she has not gone with a simple manifesto, she has put herself and her views out there to be shot down.  Hopefully some of them will be shot down, as I feel she is taking the party too far down the path of austerity right now, and not thinking of the consequences.

I agree with the economic fundamentals of the manifesto - low tax, scrap the triple lock, get rid of silly commitments which tie your hands on tax & NI increases if needed.

I also agree we need to do something to fill the huge whole in the social care budget, and that is probably reasonable for those who have more resources to pay more for their care, but I am struggling with the fairness of the proposed scheme;  much as I dislike pulling out one example and beating it to death, this point about luck being the deciding factor in whether you leave behind assets for your kids is a fair one.

I am also concerned on funding for schools in particular, and would much rather the policy said that free school meals funding is to be handed to schools for them to use as they see fit.  I support the free schools program, but it is not being applied very well when a new primary school is to be built 100 metres from an existing one in the same village in place of building one new school on the site, all becuase funding is there only for a free school, for which the existing school could not apply.  Nuts, and I am sure there are other examples.

 

Its times like this I wish we had a real liberal party.  Boo.

Fair enough if you don't want to answer this but do you think you'll vote tory anyway? I only ask as there's obviously a split on here between left and right but over the course of the last couple of weeks - particularly since the tory manifesto dropped - even the traditional tory supporters/voters do seem to be struggling to find many positives about them. It concerns me that people will still vote for them even if they don't actually agree with what they are doing. 

[Strokes]

14 minutes ago, toddybad said:

Fair enough if you don't want to answer this but do you think you'll vote tory anyway? I only ask as there's obviously a split on here between left and right but over the course of the last couple of weeks - particularly since the tory manifesto dropped - even the traditional tory supporters/voters do seem to be struggling to find many positives about them. It concerns me that people will still vote for them even if they don't actually agree with what they are doing. 

I will not vote for them I've made that decision now, my only dilemma now is whether to vote against them or abstain.

[Buce]

17 minutes ago, Strokes said:

I will not vote for them I've made that decision now, my only dilemma now is whether to vote against them or abstain.

 

[Sharpe's Fox]

Dementia Tax fallout is really ramping up now. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot, this is shoving a grenade down your trouser leg.

[Strokes]

Just now, Sharpe's Fox said:

Dementia Tax fallout is really ramping up now. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot, this is shoving a grenade down your trouser leg.

It's absolutely abhorrent, what are they thinking?

[Sharpe's Fox]

Just now, Strokes said:

It's absolutely abhorrent, what are they thinking?

I know. Can't believe they didn't put a cap on the costs at least. Thatcher talked about a property-owning democracy, probably the one redeeming feature about her, but now we've gone full circle with the Tories seemingly giving themselves a 'Right-to-By' back the properties they sold decades ago.

[Strokes]

1 minute ago, Sharpe's Fox said:

I know. Can't believe they didn't put a cap on the costs at least. Thatcher talked about a property-owning democracy, probably the one redeeming feature about her, but now we've gone full circle with the Tories seemingly giving themselves a 'Right-to-By' back the properties they sold decades ago.

 

[Strokes]

3 minutes ago, Sharpe's Fox said:

I know. Can't believe they didn't put a cap on the costs at least. Thatcher talked about a property-owning democracy, probably the one redeeming feature about her, but now we've gone full circle with the Tories seemingly giving themselves a 'Right-to-By' back the properties they sold decades ago.

We might as well support euthanasia if this policy ever sees the light of day, what's the point of dignified death if it's invoice is presented at the funeral.

[Sharpe's Fox]

Just now, Strokes said:

We might as well support euthanasia if this policy ever sees the light of day, what's the point of dignified death if it's invoice is presented at the funeral.

It's amazing how this policy has been decreed as awful from both sides. Labour saying it's the death of universalism and the idea of pooled risk in society and Conservatives decrying it as an attack on responsible savers and property owners.