Politics Thread (encompassing Brexit) - 21 June 2017 onwards

[Captain...]

16 minutes ago, Webbo said:

That poll is who'd make the best PM not which party. Matt's poll shows that the 2 main parties have over 80% between them.

Voting intention is different, you don't have a free choice. Tomorrow I would still vote Labour, but that is because they are the only alternative to the Conservatives not because of any great love for JC and co. Give me a credible third option then I would certainly consider voting that way.

[Webbo]

3 minutes ago, Captain... said:

Voting intention is different, you don't have a free choice. Tomorrow I would still vote Labour, but that is because they are the only alternative to the Conservatives not because of any great love for JC and co. Give me a credible third option then I would certainly consider voting that way.

Liberals?

[Captain...]

3 minutes ago, Webbo said:

Liberals?

I said credible

[Guest MattP]

13 minutes ago, Captain... said:

Voting intention is different, you don't have a free choice. Tomorrow I would still vote Labour, but that is because they are the only alternative to the Conservatives not because of any great love for JC and co. Give me a credible third option then I would certainly consider voting that way.

Amazing that as I would completely pigeon hole you as a traditional Liberal Democrat from your posts.

 

Our voting system means we are going to be left with C v L for quite some time now.

[Guest]

Nothing happens in politics until September. The months ahead will be intetesting:

- can the labour surge continue

- how far from sitting duck can tm make herself look

- can the tories avoid losing any significant votes

- primarily, how do the brexit talks progress

- economic indicators all over the place - in which direction will it go

 

Things could look very different 12 months from now

[Webbo]

People always want an alternative to the mainstream parties but when they get one, i.e. Trump everyone is upset. Macron's approval ratings are dropping like a stone.

 

Certain people are attracted to politics, whatever these new parties call themselves or say they stand for they'll all be staffed by the same people.

[Captain...]

11 minutes ago, MattP said:

Amazing that as I would completely pigeon hole you as a traditional Liberal Democrat from your posts.

 

Our voting system means we are going to be left with C v L for quite some time now.

I used to vote LD, but there is literally no point where I live now they barely bother with a candidate, it was a Labour marginal but ended up being a strong Labour seat in the GE and I did agree with a lot of the Labour Manifesto and my MP is very anti Brexit I would vote for her and for the manifesto, but I still can't fully back Corbyn.

 

As for the LDs, I definitely used to agree with Nick, but found Tim Farron to be a bit of a weasel and I don't think Cable will do much to reverse the Lib Dem's fortunes, they needed a bigger change to get some momentum back.

[Guest Kopfkino]

Just been looking at Activate, the Conservative answer to Momentum, and it has reaffirmed my belief the party has absolutely no future talent. A large number of active young conservatives I have ever come across are completely the 'wrong sort', have absolutely no idea of the world beyond the middle classes, and the general culture is unpleasant. Activate is proving it already. A membership option priced at £500 is ludicrous. Launched seemingly unprepared, policy goals of we want everything with no suggestion of any mechanism to achieve that, support for JRM, and shit memes. 

 

I get that there is a feeling that there's needs to be a grassroots fightback but trying to match Momentum is daft. For a start, Momentum is distasteful and unpleasant, not an example to follow. But it sums up the Conservatives as a whole at the moment really; reactionary, expectant and unimaginative. Activate shows me it's not going to change. The old, stodgy, uninspiring section of the party will be replaced by younger, clueless, uninspiring folk who grew up in their bubble. And the sadly for Labour, if they had any semblance of competence and normality, they could batter this lot for years to come.

[Carl the Llama]

15 minutes ago, KingGTF said:

Just been looking at Activate, the Conservative answer to Momentum, and it has reaffirmed my belief the party has absolutely no future talent. A large number of active young conservatives I have ever come across are completely the 'wrong sort', have absolutely no idea of the world beyond the middle classes, and the general culture is unpleasant. Activate is proving it already. A membership option priced at £500 is ludicrous. Launched seemingly unprepared, policy goals of we want everything with no suggestion of any mechanism to achieve that, support for JRM, and shit memes. 

 

I get that there is a feeling that there's needs to be a grassroots fightback but trying to match Momentum is daft. For a start, Momentum is distasteful and unpleasant, not an example to follow. But it sums up the Conservatives as a whole at the moment really; reactionary, expectant and unimaginative. Activate shows me it's not going to change. The old, stodgy, uninspiring section of the party will be replaced by younger, clueless, uninspiring folk who grew up in their bubble. And the sadly for Labour, if they had any semblance of competence and normality, they could batter this lot for years to come.

In defence of their £500 membership which sounded so ridiculous that I've just had a look on their website:  You have a choice of paying £10, £25, £50, £100, £250 or £500.  There's nothing on there to indicate a difference in status between the different options so for now I assume it's more of a 'pay £10 to be a member but if you want to support the movement you can pay more' kind of deal, not the exclusionary fee it appears to be at first glance.

 

Still, their donations page made for a good chuckle:

Quote

 

Top Donors

1. Theresa May is wildly incompetent	£ 2.06
2. Shaun Gill	£ 2.04
3. Andrew Moir	£ 1.00
4. John Crichton	£ 0.90
5. Stewart Hannan	£ 0.64
6. Harold Shipman	£ 0.49
7. Euan Fergusson	£ 0.35
8. sean boon	£ 0.28
9. Jimmy Savile	£ 0.25
10. Communism Will Win	£ 0.25

 

 

 

[Guest MattP]

Kezia Dugdale resigns, surprising that given the success in Scotland. 

 

Hounded out?

 

Be interesting to see they select as replacement, I'm sure they'll be attempts to insert a hard left leader.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, MattP said:

Kezia Dugdale resigns, surprising that given the success in Scotland. 

 

Hounded out?

 

Be interesting to see they select as replacement, I'm sure they'll be attempts to insert a hard left leader.

Hounded out? Her resignation talked of watching her friend die and realising what's important. 

[Sharpe's Fox]

11 minutes ago, MattP said:

Kezia Dugdale resigns, surprising that given the success in Scotland. 

 

Hounded out?

 

Be interesting to see they select as replacement, I'm sure they'll be attempts to insert a hard left leader.

Scot Lab is by all accounts a joke but Kez didn’t help. Any seats increase was down to JC and with the indy movement floundering expect the central belt to be in play again. They should ditch any talk of independence and unionism and mirror any campaigns to the UK ones focusing on social justice. By that I mean bring in a Corbyn lackey who won’t bang on about past-it constitutional issues like unionism and Brexit.

[Guest MattP]

9 minutes ago, Sharpe's Fox said:

Scot Lab is by all accounts a joke but Kez didn’t help. Any seats increase was down to JC and with the indy movement floundering expect the central belt to be in play again. They should ditch any talk of independence and unionism and mirror any campaigns to the UK ones focusing on social justice. By that I mean bring in a Corbyn lackey who won’t bang on about past-it constitutional issues like unionism and Brexit.

How are you going to manage any sort of political campaign in Scotland without mentioning indy? Just not going to happen. That's all the scene is up there now.

 

A hard left figure would great for the Tories, have them and the SNP fighting on the that and Ruth can continue to pick up the centre and right. 

[Sharpe's Fox]

13 minutes ago, MattP said:

How are you going to manage any sort of political campaign in Scotland without mentioning indy? Just not going to happen. That's all the scene is up there now.

 

A hard left figure would great for the Tories, have them and the SNP fighting on the that and Ruth can continue to pick up the centre and right. 

No it’s the other way round. Let Butch Davison slag off Sturgeon over indy (she hasn’t got any other play in her book) and slang it out while Labour comes in talking about actual issues (housing, the economy ect) looking like the adults in the room.

 

There have been two general elections already fought over the constitutional issue as well as the referendum and it won’t go on forever. Now there is a narrative about Labour having a likelihood of forming a government it allows the social justice and anti-neoliberalism arguments to be squarely in Labour’s court without Sturgeon going on about how it will never happen in the Westminster parliament.

Edited 30 August 2017 by Sharpe's Fox

[Guest MattP]

47 minutes ago, Sharpe's Fox said:

No it’s the other way round. Let Butch Davison slag off Sturgeon over indy (she hasn’t got any other play in her book) and slang it out while Labour comes in talking about actual issues (housing, the economy ect) looking like the adults in the room.

 

There have been two general elections already fought over the constitutional issue as well as the referendum and it won’t go on forever. Now there is a narrative about Labour having a likelihood of forming a government it allows the social justice and anti-neoliberalism arguments to be squarely in Labour’s court without Sturgeon going on about how it will never happen in the Westminster parliament.

Is social housing even an issue in Scotland? I don't think I've ever heard it mentioned at FMQ,  I think this is the danger now for you, London Corbynistas start deciding they are going to form political policy for Scotland without actually having a clue about the country. Give Scotland has a higher deficit to GDP than Greece I'm not sure McDonnell's economic arguments up there could even be passed off as serious.

 

Although if they want to start promising to lavish even money more on Scotland, the Tories would have to be hopeless even beyond the last campaign not to capitalise on that in England.

[Guest Kopfkino]

4 minutes ago, MattP said:

Is social housing even an issue in Scotland? I don't think I've ever heard it mentioned at FMQ,  I think this is the danger now for you, London Corbynistas start deciding they are going to form political policy for Scotland without actually having a clue about the country. Give Scotland has a higher deficit to GDP than Greece I'm not sure McDonnell's economic arguments up there could even be passed off as serious.

 

Although if they want to start promising to lavish even money more on Scotland, the Tories would have to be hopeless even beyond the last campaign not to capitalise on that in England.

 

They have no idea about most things but I was astounded whenJezza himself said: 

"Could you have a separate economic and legal system in different parts of the UK? I think that becomes difficult and very problematic. I want a Labour government that is going to legislate better working conditions for everybody across the UK."

[Guest MattP]

33 minutes ago, KingGTF said:

 

They have no idea about most things but I was astounded whenJezza himself said: 

"Could you have a separate economic and legal system in different parts of the UK? I think that becomes difficult and very problematic. I want a Labour government that is going to legislate better working conditions for everybody across the UK."

 

Not sure if Corbyn is actually just thick or just lives in such a World of how own this sort of stuff passes him by. Even your average politics student should know that Scotland has a seperate legal system.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, MattP said:

How are you going to manage any sort of political campaign in Scotland without mentioning indy? Just not going to happen. That's all the scene is up there now.

 

A hard left figure would great for the Tories, have them and the SNP fighting on the that and Ruth can continue to pick up the centre and right. 

Quite the opposite. The snp banging on about indy is what cost them and ruth davidson did little more than highlight the obsession. Tories won big in Scotland as nobody thought labour had a cat in hells chance. Given labours historical position in Scotland there's a good change of a fightback and indy is precisely the issue to forget about. 

[Guest MattP]

17 minutes ago, toddybad said:

Quite the opposite. The snp banging on about indy is what cost them and ruth davidson did little more than highlight the obsession. Tories won big in Scotland as nobody thought labour had a cat in hells chance. Given labours historical position in Scotland there's a good change of a fightback and indy is precisely the issue to forget about. 

The Tories won big in Scotland for very different reasons, although tactical voting was huge, fishing waters was massive in the Moray and Gordon seats, I don't think it was anything to do with Labour not having a chance though as they won plenty of seats themselves. Tactical voting was the big reason though, people switched all over the place to stop the SNP.

 

Labour were never going win seats like Moray etc, they weren't even competitive in these seats when Blair was winning landslides. Even I'd vote Labour in a two horse race with the SNP and many Labour voters voted Tory if it was the other way around. I expect that to continue at the next election

 

Good look shitfting the debate off Indy, I think it will be hard given the SNP are still committed to one within 4 years and as @KingGTF says at the minute Labour has a leader in Corbyn who doesn't even know the frigging basics about Scottish politics.

Edited 30 August 2017 by MattP

[Guest]

21 minutes ago, MattP said:

The Tories won big in Scotland for very different reasons, although tactical voting was huge, fishing waters was massive in the Moray and Gordon seats, I don't think it was anything to do with Labour not having a chance though as they won plenty of seats themselves. Tactical voting was the big reason though, people switched all over the place to stop the SNP.

 

Labour were never going win seats like Moray etc, they weren't even competitive in these seats when Blair was winning landslides. Even I'd vote Labour in a two horse race with the SNP and many Labour voters voted Tory if it was the other way around. I expect that to continue at the next election

 

Good look shitfting the debate off Indy, I think it will be hard given the SNP are still committed to one within 4 years and as @KingGTF says at the minute Labour has a leader in Corbyn who doesn't even know the frigging basics about Scottish politics.

Cant see another indyref happening. Polls all indicste no appetite for indy and snp just got walloped. If they keep bleating about it they'll get the same in hollyrood.

[Guest MattP]

9 minutes ago, toddybad said:

Cant see another indyref happening. Polls all indicste no appetite for indy and snp just got walloped. If they keep bleating about it they'll get the same in hollyrood.

If there is going to be one you would imagine after Brexit negotiation is complete but Sturgeon obviously couldn't go there at the minute as the economic case has collapsed.

[Guest]

Brexit negotiation won't be complete for around 5/6 years imo.

Indications are that part of labour's recent move to a transition involving continued single market, immigration, ecj etc is that during there talks with eu it was apparent there is no time to agree a bespoke transition deal - its seen as about as complex as the bespoke final deal for all the same reasons. I don't think tories are being realistic or honest with their current approach. Seems to me they're trying to both keep the eurosceptic wing of the party happy by talking tough - such as no deal as an option and also trying to bluff the fact they want to talk about the final deal now so they can blame the eu when they end up with exactly what labour is proposing. Its all very sad that such a huge issue is basically being dealt with for party. 

[Strokes]

4 minutes ago, toddybad said:

Brexit negotiation won't be complete for around 5/6 years imo.

Indications are that part of labour's recent move to a transition involving continued single market, immigration, ecj etc is that during there talks with eu it was apparent there is no time to agree a bespoke transition deal - its seen as about as complex as the bespoke final deal for all the same reasons. I don't think tories are being realistic or honest with their current approach. Seems to me they're trying to both keep the eurosceptic wing of the party happy by talking tough - such as no deal as an option and also trying to bluff the fact they want to talk about the final deal now so they can blame the eu when they end up with exactly what labour is proposing. Its all very sad that such a huge issue is basically being dealt with for party. 

So what you are saying here is, the Tories are trying to get a bespoke deal to suit our interests but by bluffing and at worst case will end up with what Labour are proposing anyway? The absolute bastards, I can see why you hate them. 

[Guest]

27 minutes ago, Strokes said:

So what you are saying here is, the Tories are trying to get a bespoke deal to suit our interests but by bluffing and at worst case will end up with what Labour are proposing anyway? The absolute bastards, I can see why you hate them. 

I'm not sure i used the word hate. 

My point is that they're not being honest with the public because they have to keep internal factions happy. If you think that's fantastic then well done to you. 

[Guest]

Terrible. Ridiculous.

 

MPs attack ejection of 'underperforming' sixth-formers

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/aug/30/mps-attack-ejection-of-underperforming-sixth-formers?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard