Politics Thread (encompassing Brexit) - 21 June 2017 onwards

[Guest MattP]

8 minutes ago, The Guvnor said:

Greece for years had a black economy and inevitably it  bit their arse. It does make you wonder what type of scrutiny  Countries with a history of this type of Economy have before being accepted to join.. The EU fcuked up certainly with that one.

The EU are desperate to prevent one of the 27 leaving as it would be a sign of abject failure , (the massive bail out from Germany may have something to do with it as well) but  I wouldn't be surprised if Greece do opt for indepedance in the near future.

It's possible, but the EU really does have Greece by the balls unfortunately. 

 

If I was to be I'd say Italy is the next country to leave.

[Guest MattP]

This guy was a Labour MP. 

 

Edited 18 August 2018 by MattP

[The Guvnor]

26 minutes ago, MattP said:

It's possible, but the EU really does have Greece by the balls unfortunately. 

 

If I was to be I'd say Italy is the next country to leave.

The level of debt Greece are in is staggering with Bob Hope of paying it back , as you say Italy not far behind then who next? and they will continue to throw money at them.

The EU's crocodile tears at our departure have fook all to do with brotherly love , they need our dollar dollar.

[Buce]

30 minutes ago, MattP said:

This guy was a Labour MP. 

 

 

 

'Was' being the operative word.

 

He seems to be quite disingenuous, though -  'he was appointed as a Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Ministry of Defence. He resigned this post on 9 August 2006 in protest at the Government's policy on the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, particularly the permitting of aircraft carrying US weapons for Israel to refuel in the UK.' (Wikipedia)

[leicsmac]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-45229850/ex-met-terror-chief-extreme-right-infiltrating-politics

 

Perhaps not so much a problem as in other places, but something that needs to be talked about/taken more seriously?

[AlloverthefloorYesNdidi]

 

[urban.spaceman]

 

[Sharpe's Fox]

1 hour ago, AlloverthefloorYesNdidi said:

 

Dr Bastano once again spot on. Some of these cranks on the right of the party use so many double standards on the antisemitism problem in the Labour Party. Margaret Hodge is allowed to compare a disciplinary process against her when she abused another MoP to Nazi Germany but when a Holocaust survivor compares the forced removal of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland yo Nazi Germany its not allowed. Apparently the right of Jews to self determination is sacred but extending the same right to Palestians isn’t even a part of the conversation. 

 

Fair play to Sky News also for having these discussions. The BBC can barely have a debate about the correct pronunciation of scone these days.

[Buce]

14 minutes ago, Sharpe's Fox said:

Dr Bastano once again spot on. Some of these cranks on the right of the party use so many double standards on the antisemitism problem in the Labour Party. Margaret Hodge is allowed to compare a disciplinary process against her when she abused another MoP to Nazi Germany but when a Holocaust survivor compares the forced removal of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland yo Nazi Germany its not allowed. Apparently the right of Jews to self determination is sacred but extending the same right to Palestians isn’t even a part of the conversation. 

 

Fair play to Sky News also for having these discussions. The BBC can barely have a debate about the correct pronunciation of scone these days.

5

5

 

There's no debate to be had.

 

It's skəʊn, of course.

 

 

Edited 18 August 2018 by Buce

[Fox Ulike]

21 minutes ago, Sharpe's Fox said:

Dr Bastano once again spot on. Some of these cranks on the right of the party use so many double standards on the antisemitism problem in the Labour Party. Margaret Hodge is allowed to compare a disciplinary process against her when she abused another MoP to Nazi Germany but when a Holocaust survivor compares the forced removal of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland yo Nazi Germany its not allowed. Apparently the right of Jews to self determination is sacred but extending the same right to Palestians isn’t even a part of the conversation. 

 

Fair play to Sky News also for having these discussions. The BBC can barely have a debate about the correct pronunciation of scone these days.

I think what’s also interesting is all these tit-for-tat Twitter Wars over “he said/she said” seem to have taken the place of actual politics. Real politics just does not seem to be big news anymore. I mean, do the media regard things like the Environment, Transport, Economics etc any more? Or is it all now second fiddle to "Extreme Political Correctness" and what you can and cannot say??

 

I don’t follow politics in as much detail as most on here – but I do find it bizarre that so many are obsessed about precisely where Corbyn laid a wreath, whether or not Boris can compare Muslim women to letter boxes, or if Margaret Hodge is right to think that her disciplinary letter is equivalent to being a German Jew in the 1930s.

 

Does any of this stuff actually matter? Has anything important actually happened?

 

Does the main body of the electorate even take any notice of all these confusing and convoluted Twitter-based scraps:

 

It seems to me that politics is just being trivialised by all this.

 

What I do find interesting however is that Ten or so years ago the media and politicians generally just would not get involved in the middle-East conflict. So it’s now bizarre that the two mainstream parties now seem to be splitting along these lines.

Dr Bastano does make a very legitimate point about how the Israeli ‘version-of-the-truth’ somehow seems to have become our version too. How and when did this happen?

[Fox Ulike]

12 minutes ago, Buce said:

 

There's no debate to be had.

 

It's skəʊn, of course.

 

 

 

I always explicitly say both:  "Would you like a Skon stroke Skone?" That way I ensure I don't offend anybody.

[leicsmac]

13 minutes ago, Fox Ulike said:

I think what’s also interesting is all these tit-for-tat Twitter Wars over “he said/she said” seem to have taken the place of actual politics. Real politics just does not seem to be big news anymore. I mean, do the media regard things like the Environment, Transport, Economics etc any more? Or is it all now second fiddle to "Extreme Political Correctness" and what you can and cannot say??

 

 

 

I don’t follow politics in as much detail as most on here – but I do find it bizarre that so many are obsessed about precisely where Corbyn laid a wreath, whether or not Boris can compare Muslim women to letter boxes, or if Margaret Hodge is right to think that her disciplinary letter is equivalent to being a German Jew in the 1930s.

 

 

 

Does any of this stuff actually matter? Has anything important actually happened?

 

 

Does the main body of the electorate even take any notice of all these confusing and convoluted Twitter-based scraps:

 

 

 

It seems to me that politics is just being trivialised by all this.

 

 

 

What I do find interesting however is that Ten or so years ago the media and politicians generally just would not get involved in the middle-East conflict. So it’s now bizarre that the two mainstream parties now seem to be splitting along these lines.

 

Dr Bastano does make a very legitimate point about how the Israeli ‘version-of-the-truth’ somehow seems to have become our version too. How and when did this happen?

 

At a fundamental level, it really depends on whether or not you think a thousand year old book of allegory should set modern social policy today (or if you don't but feel obliged to pander to those who do).

 

That seems to be the rule rather than the exception in most places with influence on the world.

[urban.spaceman]

I’m not going to get involved in whether Margret Hodge was right or wrong but it does make me giggle that the exact same people who wrongly liken Boris to being a Nazi, don’t take too kindly when their behaviour is likened to the Nazis.

 

It's almost like they should be learning something from it. But they won't. 

[Fox Ulike]

28 minutes ago, urban.spaceman said:

I’m not going to get involved in whether Margret Hodge was right or wrong but it does make me giggle that the exact same people who wrongly liken Boris to being a Nazi, don’t take too kindly when their behaviour is likened to the Nazis.

 

It's almost like they should be learning something from it. But they won't. 

So that's literally no-one on here then. 

 

If you want to respond to something that's been said on Twitter then your best bet is to do so by using Twitter. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[urban.spaceman]

30 minutes ago, Fox Ulike said:

So that's literally no-one on here then. 

 

If you want to respond to something that's been said on Twitter then your best bet is to do so by using Twitter. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. I wasn’t referring to anyone on here. 

2. I was simply making a general observation and expressing it on this thread. 

[DANGEROUS TIGER]

10 hours ago, MattP said:

It's possible, but the EU really does have Greece by the balls unfortunately. 

 

If I was to be I'd say Italy is the next country to leave.

Yes, Italy does seem to be very unhappy, and I also think they will be the next to leave Others will follow, I'm sure.

[breadandcheese]

20 hours ago, Sharpe's Fox said:

Dr Bastano once again spot on. Some of these cranks on the right of the party use so many double standards on the antisemitism problem in the Labour Party. Margaret Hodge is allowed to compare a disciplinary process against her when she abused another MoP to Nazi Germany but when a Holocaust survivor compares the forced removal of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland yo Nazi Germany its not allowed. Apparently the right of Jews to self determination is sacred but extending the same right to Palestians isn’t even a part of the conversation. 

 

Fair play to Sky News also for having these discussions. The BBC can barely have a debate about the correct pronunciation of scone these days.

I think your post has summed up the current problem of the hard left with antisemitism and Israel.

 

No one has suggested the above? It seems to be the hard left who have made it into an either or approach? If anyone wants peace in the Middle East, there needs to be self determination for both Jews and Palestinians i.e. two countries. 

 

When the hard left starts talking about historic factors from the war of 1948 and the refugees right of return, they're talking about the delegitimatisation and destruction of Israel through weight of numbers. It's not a basis for peace and it's no wonder that the left ally with some wholly unsavoury people.

[Lionator]

20 hours ago, Fox Ulike said:

I think what’s also interesting is all these tit-for-tat Twitter Wars over “he said/she said” seem to have taken the place of actual politics. Real politics just does not seem to be big news anymore. I mean, do the media regard things like the Environment, Transport, Economics etc any more? Or is it all now second fiddle to "Extreme Political Correctness" and what you can and cannot say??

 

 

 

I don’t follow politics in as much detail as most on here – but I do find it bizarre that so many are obsessed about precisely where Corbyn laid a wreath, whether or not Boris can compare Muslim women to letter boxes, or if Margaret Hodge is right to think that her disciplinary letter is equivalent to being a German Jew in the 1930s.

 

 

 

Does any of this stuff actually matter? Has anything important actually happened?

 

 

Does the main body of the electorate even take any notice of all these confusing and convoluted Twitter-based scraps:

 

 

 

It seems to me that politics is just being trivialised by all this.

 

 

 

What I do find interesting however is that Ten or so years ago the media and politicians generally just would not get involved in the middle-East conflict. So it’s now bizarre that the two mainstream parties now seem to be splitting along these lines.

 

Dr Bastano does make a very legitimate point about how the Israeli ‘version-of-the-truth’ somehow seems to have become our version too. How and when did this happen?

 

We're in an era of personality politics I believe which is completely wrong but the population aren't educated enough to fully analyse policy. In my opinion both parties should be consistently talking about the renewable energy sector and the job opportunities that this could produce tying in with the biggest issue the world is facing over the next 100 years; the environment. Even Brexit seems to have been forgotten about in the past two weeks as we fly towards no deal and a national disaster. The whole of the railway network in the North of the country has descended into chaos and needs to be taken back into public hands but this goes unmentioned in the media. Corbyn won't be Labour leader in 5-10 years when these issues will really hit home but we're so entwined in a society where everything is in the here and now and personality/celebrity is everything that we overlook the true issues that we face no matter what your political views are. 

[leicsmac]

1 hour ago, breadandcheese said:

I think your post has summed up the current problem of the hard left with antisemitism and Israel.

 

No one has suggested the above? It seems to be the hard left who have made it into an either or approach? If anyone wants peace in the Middle East, there needs to be self determination for both Jews and Palestinians i.e. two countries. 

  

When the hard left starts talking about historic factors from the war of 1948 and the refugees right of return, they're talking about the delegitimatisation and destruction of Israel through weight of numbers. It's not a basis for peace and it's no wonder that the left ally with some wholly unsavoury people.

I am assuming you're referring to purely on FT when you say that "no one has suggested the above", because I don't think it too difficult to find an Israeli opinion (or indeed one from the fundie Christian talking heads in the US that support them unconditionally) that the Palestinians don't deserve any kind of self determination - same as it isn't very hard to find opinions among the Palestinians and hard left that Israel cease to exist.

[breadandcheese]

7 hours ago, leicsmac said:

I am assuming you're referring to purely on FT when you say that "no one has suggested the above", because I don't think it too difficult to find an Israeli opinion (or indeed one from the fundie Christian talking heads in the US that support them unconditionally) that the Palestinians don't deserve any kind of self determination - same as it isn't very hard to find opinions among the Palestinians and hard left that Israel cease to exist.

I am indeed referring to Foxestalk, but it could equally be applied to Britain.  The right in Britain subscribes to a two state solution. The hard left doesn't. Jeremy Corbyn says he does, but is disingenuous as he insists upon the right of all Palestinian refugees and their descendants to be allowed to return. This is tantamount to destroying Israel through numbers. So really, it's only the hard left that denies self determination to both sides.

[leicsmac]

8 minutes ago, breadandcheese said:

I am indeed referring to Foxestalk, but it could equally be applied to Britain.  The right in Britain subscribes to a two state solution. The hard left doesn't. Jeremy Corbyn says he does, but is disingenuous as he insists upon the right of all Palestinian refugees and their descendants to be allowed to return. This is tantamount to destroying Israel through numbers. So really, it's only the hard left that denies self determination to both sides.

Hmmm...I disagree that the right as a whole in the UK subscribes to a two-state solution, ditto that the hard left as a whole doesn't tbh - there will be some elements within the right in the UK (as there are in the US) who are very happy to see the Israeli situation exactly as it is and the question of a Palestinian state never answered.

Were what you are saying the case, I think there would be more diplomatic pressure from the UK to get the Israeli hardliners to consider it themselves.

Quite frankly, like a lot of other situations of its type, IMO the whole sorry mess has for the longest time been sabotaged by zealots and hardliners on both sides that would prefer the matter to be settled once and for all through extreme violence (and perhaps wholesale genocide) and short of a miracle I don't see that changing for the foreseeable.

 

Edited 19 August 2018 by leicsmac

[breadandcheese]

2 hours ago, leicsmac said:

Hmmm...I disagree that the right as a whole in the UK subscribes to a two-state solution, ditto that the hard left as a whole doesn't tbh - there will be some elements within the right in the UK (as there are in the US) who are very happy to see the Israeli situation exactly as it is and the question of a Palestinian state never answered.

Were what you are saying the case, I think there would be more diplomatic pressure from the UK to get the Israeli hardliners to consider it themselves.

Quite frankly, like a lot of other situations of its type, IMO the whole sorry mess has for the longest time been sabotaged by zealots and hardliners on both sides that would prefer the matter to be settled once and for all through extreme violence (and perhaps wholesale genocide) and short of a miracle I don't see that changing for the foreseeable.

 

I obviously can't say the whole of the right in the UK, but it is a very unpopular opinion not to subscribe to a two state solution and believe that the Palestinians should have a state.  It is, however, a growing opinion on the left to deligitimise and hope to see the demise of Israel (whether it is hidden behind the Palestinian right of return or more explicit).  Movements like BDS make no attempt to hide that they are not trying to see a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders but about all of Israel.

With regards diplomatic pressure, I can only speculate as I'm not a diplomat but I imagine that there has not been so much pressure because there has not been a Mandela equivalent of the Palestinians who can deliver a peaceful Palestinian state, and you're now in a position where neither side (Netanyahu, Abbas and Hamas) have the will or capability to deliver.  So better the devil you know than the devil you don't. 

Edited 19 August 2018 by breadandcheese

[Sharpe's Fox]

Politically irrelavent centrists: wtf I love colonial settler ethnostates now

[leicsmac]

55 minutes ago, breadandcheese said:

I obviously can't say the whole of the right in the UK, but it is a very unpopular opinion not to subscribe to a two state solution and believe that the Palestinians should have a state.  It is, however, a growing opinion on the left to deligitimise and hope to see the demise of Israel (whether it is hidden behind the Palestinian right of return or more explicit).  Movements like BDS make no attempt to hide that they are not trying to see a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders but about all of Israel.

With regards diplomatic pressure, I can only speculate as I'm not a diplomat but I imagine that there has not been so much pressure because there has not been a Mandela equivalent of the Palestinians who can deliver a peaceful Palestinian state, and you're now in a position where neither side (Netanyahu, Abbas and Hamas) have the will or capability to deliver.  So better the devil you know than the devil you don't. 

Interesting. I would have thought the position of at least some of those within the right (in the US and the UK) is that this issue is a single part of a wider rush to prevent the further encroachment of what they believe to be radical Islam (or any Islam at all come to that) and so any Palestinian state would be seen as a concession to "the enemy" and so couldn't be tolerated.  There's certainly movements of what you speak of in the left; I would argue that similar "absolute solution" movements exist and have at least some legitimate popular support on the right.

WRT the second paragraph: if the UK are taking their current position because of the realpolitik reasons you suggest, I don't like it at all but I can understand it. It's most certainly the case that neither side in the situation has the will or capability to deliver a solution right now and it's it's rather sadly symbolic of the way that some grown adults can get bent out of shape over words written in a book a while back and how relevant they are now.

[Izzy]

Where’s @toddybad these days? Hasn’t posted in a while.

Maybe he’s ran off with @Rogstanley