General Election, June 8th

[Alf Bentley]

19 minutes ago, Webbo said:

It isn't a smear if it's true.

 

19 minutes ago, Webbo said:

The former chairman of Troops Out, Richard Stanton, described the Brighton bombing as a “justifiable act of political warfare” and said “the Republican movement is entitled to use force against the British state as part of the war we started”

 

 

So Corbyn supported an organisation, a one-time official of that organisation justified bombings - and that proves that Corbyn supports terrorism? 

 

On that basis, you support the Tory Party, the leader of that party supported the invasion of Iraq - so that proves that you supported the illegal killing of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. 

 

 

[Webbo]

Just now, Alf Bentley said:

 

 

 

So Corbyn supported an organisation, a one-time official of that organisation justified bombings - and that proves that Corbyn supports terrorism? 

 

On that basis, you support the Tory Party, the leader of that party supported the invasion of Iraq - so that proves that you supported the illegal killing of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. 

 

 

You walked straight into that one Alf. It's supposed to be me who never reads people's posts.

 

Again with Iraq, you're obfuscating. we're talking about the IRA.

[Foxxed]

Also, the basis for all good political campaigns is to give a positive vision to the country.

 

Labour have up until fairly recently arguably failed miserably.

 

But it seems the Tories are reverting to negative tactics. It could still work though.

 

But if the Tories main message is "We're doing u-turns on all kinds of things and the opponent is a commie terrorist" and Labour's message is "We'll nationalise rail, utility companies and various thing" Labour's message is actually more positive, which is not something I would have expected.

[Carl the Llama]

1 minute ago, Webbo said:

You walked straight into that one Alf. It's supposed to be me who never reads people's posts.

 

Again with Iraq, you're obfuscating. we're talking about the IRA.

No he's taking your logical fallacy and putting you through the same logic in the hopes it makes you realise what you're saying.

[Webbo]

Lets be honest here. If I had a signed confession from Jezza you'd still say it wasn't proof.

 

I don't care really, nobody ever changes their mind on here. It's just the "our shit doesn't stink" attitude that bugs me. Accusations of all sorts of evil but bombing civilians? that doesn't count.

[Alf Bentley]

5 minutes ago, Webbo said:

Give me a selection of the successful counters. What faults have you found in Telegraph or Times article?

 

Here, for the third time, are the counters that I posted this morning, which you've largely chosen to ignore.

 

 

31 minutes ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

- May is on record as supporting fox hunting; 

- you are guilty of slander in accusing Corbyn of supporting knee-capping;

- Corbyn's arrest was during a protest for fair trials and the terrorist in question had yet to be convicted;

- this was a time when a lot of innocent Irish people were in jail for crimes they hadn't committed;

- Corbyn supported Troops Out & a united Ireland, but not terrorism...unless you have proof to the contrary?

- Thatcher (& Major & Blair) authorised negotiations with the IRA,

 

 

I'd prefer to concentrate on the real election issues, though: Brexit, the economy, living standards, tax and spend, health & social care, immigration, NHS, future trade deals, education, ISIS - and, yes, Ireland now. The issue of the Irish border should be a major issue in the election - one that could affect us all in future if it goes badly wrong. It is certainly set to be a big issue early on in the Brexit negotiations.  

[Webbo]

1 minute ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

Here, for the third time, are the counters that I posted this morning, which you've largely chosen to ignore.

 

 

 

 

I'd prefer to concentrate on the real election issues, though: Brexit, the economy, living standards, tax and spend, health & social care, immigration, NHS, future trade deals, education, ISIS - and, yes, Ireland now. The issue of the Irish border should be a major issue in the election - one that could affect us all in future if it goes badly wrong. It is certainly set to be a big issue early on in the Brexit negotiations.  

Actually I edited 5 or 10 minutes ago , my replies are up there.

[Alf Bentley]

5 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

No he's taking your logical fallacy and putting you through the same logic in the hopes it makes you realise what you're saying.

 

Thanks, Carl. Exactly.

 

A + B = C in both statements

If Corbyn's a proven supporter of terrorism, Webbo is a proven supporter of murderous illegal wars.....of course, both are logical fallacies, as you say, based on guilt by association.

[Webbo]

1 minute ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

Thanks, Carl. Exactly.

 

A + B = C in both statements

If Corbyn's a proven supporter of terrorism, Webbo is a proven supporter of murderous illegal wars.....of course, both are logical fallacies, as you say, based on guilt by association.

Labour started the Iraq war, the tories voted on a false prospectus. I've never made a big deal about Iraq anyway.

[Carl the Llama]

8 minutes ago, Webbo said:

Lets be honest here. If I had a signed confession from Jezza you'd still say it wasn't proof.

Let's be honest here.  If we had comments from the last couple of pages putting your arguments to shame you'd argue in circles and end with telling us that if you had a signed confession from Jezza (confession to what exactly?) we'd still say it wasn't proof.

[Foxxed]

We talking about the Irish border and Brexit?

 

I was going to post this in t'other thread. But here we go.

 

Quote

Yet it has outlasted the Iron Curtain; it is older than other contested frontiers, such as the border that divides the two Koreas, or India and Pakistan. And in two years’ time, this squiggle on the map, which divides not just the island of Ireland but the ancient province of Ulster, will become the very thing Chichester-Clark insisted it was never meant to be — a major international frontier. When the UK leaves the EU, the 500km of curves and swerves that snake from Carlingford Lough west to Lough Erne and north to Lough Foyle will be its only land frontier with a member state of the EU. It will be one union’s defining external limit with another union.

 

The Brexit campaign was fuelled by the slogan “Let’s take back control of our borders”. But the implications of that for Ireland were barely mentioned before the referendum last June. Now, with Brexit negotiations about to begin, the conundrum of the Irish border, long obvious to the Irish, is becoming starkly clear to the British.

 

Most Irish people — north and south — do not want the border to change much from its current, mostly invisible state. The prospect that a hard Brexit could turn it into a 500km-long customs post with queues, paperwork and perhaps even the presence of armed security is real, however. That would disrupt growing cross-border trade, which runs to about €3bn a year. It is also redolent of the Troubles, when the border was fortified with military installations, patrolled by helicopters and manned by soldiers with guns.

 

Opposition to the prospect has ignited protest movements. Theresa May, the UK prime minister, has said there will be “no return to the borders of the past” in Ireland after the UK leaves the EU. She envisages a post-Brexit border “as seamless and frictionless as possible”. Whether those promises are compatible with the pledge to “take back control” will be tested to the limit in Ireland.

 

A border, by definition, is the point at which the authority of the states on either side of it abruptly ends. In the Irish case, this has created a contested space. For the British, the border is (or was) a question of security; for the Irish, the border was (and is) artificial and temporary, something imposed by outsiders. Peter Leary, the author of Unapproved Routes, a new book about the border, says: “The interesting thing about the Irish border is that it was never designed to control the movement of people, but of things — cattle, guns. On an island-wide basis, it seemed to make sense to the people who created it, but that is much less the case up close. The closer you get to the border, the more complicated it becomes.”

 

[Webbo]

5 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

Let's be honest here.  If we had comments from the last couple of pages putting your arguments to shame you'd argue in circles and end with telling us that if you had a signed confession from Jezza (confession to what exactly?) we'd still say it wasn't proof.

You're still not given me those successful counter arguments. All I've had is" that's not proof." This isn't a court of law, for an internet forum quotes from people involved in the peace process as good as it gets.

 

Quote

 

Corbyn has claimed he was seeking peace. However, Seamus Mallon, deputy to John Hume, the former Social Democratic and Labour Party leader and the architect of the peace process, told The Sunday Times: “I never heard anyone mention Corbyn at all.

“He very clearly took the side of the IRA and that was incompatible, in my opinion, with working for peace.”

Lord Maginnis, the former Ulster Unionist MP, said: “I was central to the peace process and Corbyn had no participation in it that I was aware of.”

 

Are you saying that Seamus Mallon was lying when he said Corbyn was on the IRA's side?

[Foxxed]

8 minutes ago, Webbo said:

You're still not given me those successful counter arguments. All I've had is" that's not proof." This isn't a court of law, for an internet forum quotes from people involved in the peace process as good as it gets.

 

Are you saying that Seamus Mallon was lying when he said Corbyn was on the IRA's side?

So we have proof that Seamus Mallon said Corbyn was on the IRA's side.

 

We don't know how reliable Seamus is. Or his own opinions on the subject. If you can get research showing what Corbyn said or what he did rather than just what someone said about him it'd help.

 

Even the Home Secretary at the times of The Troubles called himself "more green than red" when he comes to the problems in Northern Ireland in his bio and someone could then argue that meant he was on the IRA's side.

 

But you'd need a lot more proof to prove that about Roy Jenkins and so too with Corbyn. It's possible, but "this person said this about this person" is rarely a good argument unless that person has an agreed great reputation.

[Alf Bentley]

36 minutes ago, Webbo said:

- May is on record as supporting fox hunting; So what, so do I? Earlier, you stressed that May had only called for a free vote; in reality she supports fox hunting

- you are guilty of slander in accusing Corbyn of supporting knee-capping; You're judged by the company you keep. By that logic, as Thatcher associated with Savile, this means she supported paedophilia?

- Corbyn's arrest was during a protest for fair trials and the terrorist in question had yet to be convicted; That makes it alright? Lots of people are arrested for obstruction, rightly or wrongly; he was protesting, was arrested and wasn't charged - clearly an issue of no importance

- this was a time when a lot of innocent Irish people were in jail for crimes they hadn't committed; I don't see the connection? He was at a protest demanding fair trials for those accused of IRA terrorism - dozens of people wrongly convicted of such offences (and later exonerated) were still banged up after getting UNFAIR trials....how can you not see the connection?! 

- Corbyn supported Troops Out & a united Ireland, but not terrorism...unless you have proof to the contrary? See above Have already pointed out the illogicality of your argument - unless you accept your guilt by association for Iraq

- Thatcher (& Major & Blair) authorised negotiations with the IRA, Negotiating with your enemies isn't the same as cheer leading for them. Corbyn cheer-led for a united Ireland, Troops Out & Republican aims (not my politics, but that's a different matter). If you have evidence demonstrating that he supported IRA terrorism, you should quote it - if not, it's just guilt by association. Plenty of people (maybe including you?) supported the North remaining British or troops staying put without supporting loyalist terrorism or Army misdemeanours like Bloody Sunday. 

 

Now let's move on from smear stories about the past to the very real issues of the present, eh?

[Carl the Llama]

10 minutes ago, Webbo said:

You're still not given me those successful counter arguments. All I've had is" that's not proof." This isn't a court of law, for an internet forum quotes from people involved in the peace process as good as it gets.

 

Are you saying that Seamus Mallon was lying when he said Corbyn was on the IRA's side?

Not really, no, Mallon says that Corbyn sympathised with the IRA's grievances and that in his opinion doing so was not conducive to peace.  That's not mutually exclusive to Corbyn condemning violence or wanting fair trials.  Corbyn has himself declared that he disagreed with the IRA (again from what we can gather he means that he disagreed with the means rather than the ends) so are you calling him a bomb-happy liar?  It's well documented that Corbyn was pro-Irish independence, what's not so well documented and what you haven't shown is that he approved of using violence to get one's way.

[Carl the Llama]

Back to reality:  Just reached the point in the May vs. Neil interview where he asks her how exactly she's on the side of the 'JAM's if she's squeezing their income, cue babbling about increasing "good school places", I'm sure the poorest people in this country will be ecstatic to see more middle class families getting their kids a decent education.

[Foxxed]

Vince Cable seems to support a United Ireland as well.

 

Quote

I do not see much upside in Brexit, but one is the opportunity for a more rational immigration policy. First, it will involve legitimising the position of EU nationals already here. It must involve a more sensible way of dealing with overseas students, who are not immigrants and benefit the UK. The permeability of the Irish border must lead to a united Ireland in Europe. 

Am I being helpful with the IRA/United Ireland discussion? I hope I'm being helpful.

 

If we're going for the Corbyn is a terrorist line can't we find something in Palestine? Commmmeeeoooonnn there's gotta be summut!

[Carl the Llama]

"I called an election on this whole issue of trust because the decision that people have to make is who do they trust"

 

 

I guess she wants out then.

[Alf Bentley]

57 minutes ago, Webbo said:

 

Are you saying that Seamus Mallon was lying when he said Corbyn was on the IRA's side?

 

Mallon was an honourable politician, as far as I could tell. If I'd been living in N. Ireland, I'm sure that I'd have been voting for his lot (SDLP), not Sinn Fein.

His views would have been in support of a united Ireland but against the use of violence - and in favour of a better deal for Catholics within the North (much anti-Catholic discrimination).

 

However he did have an axe to grind in that Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Republican movement, was the main electoral rival to his party within the Catholic community.

So, he obviously wouldn't have approved of Corbyn hanging out with Adams & co. He might have been speaking loosely in referring to "on the IRA's side" - or with resentment of Corbyn's support for Sinn Fein (SDLP was Labour's twin party).In any case, you cannot base a case for someone's beliefs on what someone from a rival party said about them! You need evidence or their own statements.

[Alf Bentley]

1 hour ago, Webbo said:

Labour started the Iraq war, the tories voted on a false prospectus. I've never made a big deal about Iraq anyway.

 

Certainly, Bush & Blair bear the main responsibility, as the ones in power.

But assigning no blame to the Tories is to deny that they had a responsibility to be a good opposition.

 

There was widespread rejection of the government position.

- 1-2 million people protested on the streets of London.

- Robin Cook gave one of the greatest speeches in parliamentary history, demolishing the argument for immediate war

- 139 Labour MPs, 15 Tory MPs, all 53 Lib Dem MPs & various others voted against the motion: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2862397.stm

- John Major had already warned of the dangers: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2265761.stm

2002: "Major said Parliament now needed to discuss issues like the exit strategy, who would replace the Iraqi regime and how long coalition troops would remain in Iraq after a conflict.

He delivered an implied rebuke of Iain Duncan Smith, the current Conservative leader, for not asking key questions about the aftermath of a war.

Asked why Mr Duncan Smith was not asking those important questions, Mr Major replied: "You had better ask Iain that."

 

So, millions of people knew it was a false prospectus. So did a third of MPs, including 15 Tories. The former Tory PM had raised major concerns. Corbyn, for all his faults, knew it was a false prospectus.......but Theresa May lacked the judgment to know what so many others knew. Not a great recommendation for election as PM to handle a national crisis. 

[Kopfkino]

I hope and would expect all campaigning to be suspended for today at least

[Brizzle Fox]

It's almost as if the Tories were finding things so easy that they've tried to make the election more interesting. Love them or hate them they've always been a very slick election fighting machine but the ineptness of this campaign for them so far has been, well very Labour (excepting the Campbell years). Either that or they're so arrogant / confident that they'll win that they've got lazy and just decided the electorate is so thick (possibly a sound tactic after the Euro referendum) that they can do / say whatever they want and everyone will blindly stumble into the voting booth and stick their cross against them anyway.

 

So amateurish that even me a life long Tory is thinking that it would make me feel dirty voting for them this time.

[Webbo]

6 hours ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

Certainly, Bush & Blair bear the main responsibility, as the ones in power.

But assigning no blame to the Tories is to deny that they had a responsibility to be a good opposition.

 

There was widespread rejection of the government position.

- 1-2 million people protested on the streets of London.

- Robin Cook gave one of the greatest speeches in parliamentary history, demolishing the argument for immediate war

- 139 Labour MPs, 15 Tory MPs, all 53 Lib Dem MPs & various others voted against the motion: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2862397.stm

- John Major had already warned of the dangers: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2265761.stm

2002: "Major said Parliament now needed to discuss issues like the exit strategy, who would replace the Iraqi regime and how long coalition troops would remain in Iraq after a conflict.

He delivered an implied rebuke of Iain Duncan Smith, the current Conservative leader, for not asking key questions about the aftermath of a war.

Asked why Mr Duncan Smith was not asking those important questions, Mr Major replied: "You had better ask Iain that."

 

So, millions of people knew it was a false prospectus. So did a third of MPs, including 15 Tories. The former Tory PM had raised major concerns. Corbyn, for all his faults, knew it was a false prospectus.......but Theresa May lacked the judgment to know what so many others knew. Not a great recommendation for election as PM to handle a national crisis. 

You're drawing an equivalent between a democratic govt and a terrorist organization. You're say that supporting a party that voted for war is the same as campaigning for war, the same as deliberately targeting civilians, the same as sharing a platform with criminals. Democratic govt don't kneecap their opponents, they don't  beat people up in there own community.

 

I'm trying to be polite but it's a desperately poor argument.

[Nick]

6 minutes ago, Webbo said:

 

I'm trying to be polite but it's a desperately poor argument.

 

Wow

[Webbo]

Just now, Swan Lesta said:

 

Wow

You think the IRA and the Blair govt are morally equivalent?