Politics Thread (encompassing Brexit) - 21 June 2017 onwards

[Fox Ulike]

9 minutes ago, Foxin_mad said:

No it would not be more cost effective. Currently it is run to make a profit. Under Labour it would be run at the whim of the Unions, when a pay rise is demanded there would be strikes, if an employee was sacked there would be strikes, if they thought conditions were unfair there would be strikes. Post would never be delivered and the costs of keeping up with constant demands for pay rises would cost billions.

 

Its not unhinged and uninformed, Corbyn and McDonnell have both admitted that they are socialists and that they believe the teaching of Marx. This is their own admission, I think its those leaning to Labour that seem to be misinformed!!

 

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/labour-party/jeremy-corbyn/news/85762/jeremy-corbyn-backs-john-mcdonnell

 

This is exactly the sort of mis-information I'm complaining about!

 

You've sent me to a link as evidence of your statement that "they believe the teaching of Marx". What Corbyn actually said was:

 

"All great economists influence all of our thinking. Yes I have read some of Adam Smith, I have read some of Karl Marx. I have looked at the words of Ricardo. I have looked at many many others... you learn from everybody. Don't close your mind to the thoughts of others."

 

Can you honestly say that you read what Corbyn said and felt that he "believes the teaching of Marx" was an accurate reflection of those words?

 

 

[SMX11]

11 minutes ago, Fox Ulike said:

But why couldn't the Government run it to make a profit too?

Because the government makes a mess of almost everything?

[Fox Ulike]

6 minutes ago, toddybad said:

Or not make a profit and cost less at the point of use. 

Exactly. Pass the savings on to the consumers rather than going to private investors.

 

That doesn't really sound like Marxism to me!!!

 

3 minutes ago, Foxin_mad said:

Or cost more, because the unions have everyone over a barrel and competition is banned!

Groan.

 

Do you have another link in which Corbyn screams "I am going to ban ALL competition"...?

[Fox Ulike]

3 minutes ago, SMX11 said:

Because the government makes a mess of almost everything?

Possibly. The Royal Mail made a profit of around 600m in 2016. An incompetent Government Department could reduce this certaintly - but so could an incompetent Private Sector CEO.

 

Would it be better for a messy Government to keep a smaller profit, or for the shareholders to get their share of a bigger one?

[Guest Foxin_mad]

4 minutes ago, Fox Ulike said:

This is exactly the sort of mis-information I'm complaining about!

 

You've sent me to a link as evidence of your statement that "they believe the teaching of Marx". What Corbyn actually said was:

 

"All great economists influence all of our thinking. Yes I have read some of Adam Smith, I have read some of Karl Marx. I have looked at the words of Ricardo. I have looked at many many others... you learn from everybody. Don't close your mind to the thoughts of others."

 

Can you honestly say that you read what Corbyn said and felt that he "believes the teaching of Marx" was an accurate reflection of those words?

 

 

All depends on your interpretation, I think its shows he strong believes in the followings of Marx. But you believe otherwise that is up to you.

 

You are entitled to your beliefs but one day the roosters will come home to roost. Corbyn and McDonnell are dangerous men.

[Buce]

 

Sigh.

 

Whoever invents a way to slap someone over the internet is going to make a fortune.

[Fox Ulike]

4 minutes ago, Foxin_mad said:

All depends on your interpretation, I think its shows he strong believes in the followings of Marx. But you believe otherwise that is up to you.

 

You are entitled to your beliefs but one day the roosters will come home to roost. Corbyn and McDonnell are dangerous men.

It's not really an interpretation. What he said was that he'd read Adam Smith and Karl Marx. That's the fact.

 

You said he follows the teachings of Marx. That was a Lie. Pure and Simple.

 

They may be dangerous men, but creating lies about them puts them in a stronger position, and weakens your own. I will find it very hard to believe anything else that you say about either of them.

[Guest MattP]

Great article from Philip Collins (labour member) in today's Times.

 

Touches on how there is now a new party in British politics that has borrowed the name Labour, the most extreme faction it has ever had has now wrestled control of it. I mentioned the moderates yesterday but he goes a stage further saying they are limp, unprincipled and pathetic, they all still believe Corbyn will be a disaster as PM but they are going to campaign for it to happen now anyway. Take the route of Hunt and Reed, show some backbone. 

 

Expect little to change, the policy will get more radical, female journalists will still need bodyguards and honesty will cease to exist.

[Guest MattP]

7 minutes ago, Fox Ulike said:

It's not really an interpretation. What he said was that he'd read Adam Smith and Karl Marx. That's the fact.

 

You said he follows the teachings of Marx. That was a Lie.

 

He's on video saying "I'm a Marxist" ffs.

 

 

[Buce]

2 minutes ago, MattP said:

Great article from Philip Collins (labour member) in today's Times.

 

Touches on how there is now a new party in British politics that has borrowed the name Labour, the most extreme faction it has ever had has now wrestled control of it. I mentioned the moderates yesterday but he goes a stage further saying they are limp, unprincipled and pathetic, they all still believe Corbyn will be a disaster as PM but they are going to campaign for it to happen now anyway. Take the route of Hunt and Reed, show some backbone. 

 

Expect little to change, the policy will get more radical, female journalists will still need bodyguards and honesty will cease to exist.

 

You mean the kind of honesty we see from the Tories?

 

Fvcking priceless.

[Guest Foxin_mad]

7 minutes ago, Fox Ulike said:

It's not really an interpretation. What he said was that he'd read Adam Smith and Karl Marx. That's the fact.

 

You said he follows the teachings of Marx. That was a Lie. Pure and Simple.

 

They may be dangerous men, but creating lies about them puts them in a stronger position, and weakens your own. I will find it very hard to believe anything else that you say about either of them.

He does its not a lie, he has admitted we have 'a lot to learn' you interpret that in you own way which is up to you. He certainly has not denied being a Marxist, mainly because he is. People don't see what is in front of them. Its funny because lefties are always waxing lyrical about how the right are thick neanderthals yet they refuse to acknowledge other views, that is discrediting for the left IMO.

[Guest MattP]

1 minute ago, Buce said:

You mean the kind of honesty we see from the Tories?

 

Fvcking priceless.

Are you going to contribute anything worthwhile to the debate at any point?

 

No party has played the public, used more prestidigitation or spoke to both sides of the fence more than this lot over the last two years.

[Buce]

1 minute ago, MattP said:

Are you going to contribute anything worthwhile to the debate at any point?

 

No party has played the public, used more prestidigitation or spoke to both sides of the fence more than this lot over the last two years.

 

It isn't a debate - it's just you and foxin-moron spouting your anti-Labour rhetoric in every post.

 

You become more boring and predictable the drunker you get.

 

 

[SMX11]

33 minutes ago, Fox Ulike said:

Possibly. The Royal Mail made a profit of around 600m in 2016. An incompetent Government Department could reduce this certaintly - but so could an incompetent Private Sector CEO.

 

Would it be better for a messy Government to keep a smaller profit, or for the shareholders to get their share of a bigger one?

The latter because on aggregate individuals make better decisions about how to spend their money than a bureaucrat and if mistakes are made they are faster at correcting them.

[Guest MattP]

1 minute ago, Buce said:

It isn't a debate - it's just you and foxin-moron spouting your anti-Labour rhetoric in every post.

 

You become more boring and predictable the drunker you get.

A junkie taking the moral highground over intoxication.

 

Fvcking priceless. 

[Buce]

1 minute ago, MattP said:

A junkie taking the moral highground over intoxication.

 

Fvcking priceless. 

 

Smoking weed makes me a junkie?

 

Do we have to go down the route of quoting your cocaine use?

 

 

 

 

[Guest MattP]

1 minute ago, Buce said:

 

Smoking weed makes me a junkie?

 

Do we have to go down the route of quoting your cocaine use?

If you want too, try everything once in life Buce.

 

Now run along you anonymous little troll.

[Fox Ulike]

2 minutes ago, SMX11 said:

The latter because on aggregate individuals make better decisions about how to spend their money than a bureaucrat and if mistakes are made they are faster at correcting them.

Yeah I think certainly for the Royal Mail, I don't regard it as a key public service which provides people's primary needs. I could understand the rationale behind nationalising water and energy - but i'm struggling to understand the benefits of doing it for the Royal Mail.  I think it could end up struggling to compete with the private sector.

 

I think what a lot of people would be hoping was that these new nationalised  industries would be somehow different to the nationalised industries of the 1970s and 1980s. I think the onus is on Labour to demonstrate how this would be so, and to my knowledge they haven't done that.

[Carl the Llama]

4 hours ago, Fox Ulike said:

 

No this isn't about me. To recap, we came into this when you said “the left wing press is equally guilty of publishing polarised and heavily exaggerated opinion pieces.”

 

“Equally guilty”. Your words. I asked you to find even a single piece of evidence to support this against the Conservative Party. And you have absolutely failed to do so.

 

What’s alarming about this though is that you seem now to be even more entrenched in your belief that you were before – even though you don’t have a single shred of evidence to support it. In fact, on a day when we’re talking about a news headline of the “poisoned heart of the Labour Party”, I am genuinely interested to know how  you can arrive at the conclusion that the main problem is actually with “leftist harassment campaigns”!! Can you talk about how that happens?? 

Apparently it happens when I try to be even handed and point out that op-ed =/ news and somebody gets really upset about it and misrepresents my argument.  By the same token I could ask you how on a day when Labour is coming under a lot of pressure about the way it appears to be struggling to deal with antisemitism in its ranks, you make out that the biggest problem is a hyperbolic opinion piece on the matter.  I defend the left wing press a lot on here, it's only fair that I hold the same standard for the right wing press too.

 

4 hours ago, Fox Ulike said:

And genuinely, I don’t have any political agenda on this. The day that the Guardian publishes a headline saying that “Once in the shadows, Racism is now entrenched in the poisioned heart of the Conservative Party” – believe me I will react to it in a similar fashion!

 

I did ignore your claims of harassment campaigns that stem from the Left. True. But, seriously, are you claiming that the Daily Mail’s propoganda is balanced out by a few leftie political blogs read by a couple of old hippies, and all the nutters on Twitter?? Really?  You believe that this problem exists only on the left??

I have been highly critical of the DM on here in the past, I make no excuses for their often vile headlines, but you aren't being fair when you talk as though their only counterpart is "a few leftie political blogs read by a couple of old hippies, and all the nutters on Twitter".  Not too long ago I was defending the Guardian from attack by our right-wing members but I can't deny that some of the pieces they publish come across as left wing propaganda.  I would argue that the DM is more culpable on that front but I can't be sure that's not because of my own inherent biases.  I'm pleased you've retracted that final sentence since posting it so I don't need to address it. 

 

5 hours ago, Fox Ulike said:

You give me Laura K’s harassment, I give you the death threats to Gina Miller. The abuse given out to Gary Lineker for speaking out on behalf of refugees. The Twitter abuse given out to Lily Allen when she tried to speak out on behalf of people who’d been burnt to death in a Government accommodation. The racist and sexist abuse given out to Dianne Abbot for no reason other than she’s black and female and Labour.  She's abused for doing her job, same as Laura K. Why mention Laura K but not Diane Abbot?

I'm surprised you didn't mention Jo Cox, for all my criticism of how the left likes to shut down debate at least they haven't murdered any politicians recently.  I didn't mention Diane Abbott because you asked me to give examples of attacks coming from the left.  I've already said that it's becoming more of a problem from the right but that's no excuse for not addressing the problems of the left.

 

4 hours ago, Fox Ulike said:

You referred to yourself as ‘open-minded’. But anyone who speaks of "online leftist harassment", rather than just "online harassment" has no open-mindedness that I can see.

Why?  Can we not address it without saying 'but they do it too"?  I don't approve of any online harassment but you get the distinct impression that when the left start a campaign that endangers freedom of speech and democratic justice it's almost seen as acceptable behaviour, for instance when we had that petition not to let President Trump (ugh) visit the UK or when we had that post-referendum petition to change the rules of what constitutes a winning majority in light of the narrow margins.  It's been my opinion for a while now that the left has a serious problem with accepting alternative views and thinks it can hide it by condemning other peoples' hatred.

 

And yes I realise that last sentence has probably just blown the mind of any posters who have previously accused me of calling all right-wingers racist.

[Guest MattP]

16 minutes ago, Foxin_mad said:

He does its not a lie, he has admitted we have 'a lot to learn' you interpret that in you own way which is up to you. He certainly has not denied being a Marxist, mainly because he is. People don't see what is in front of them. Its funny because lefties are always waxing lyrical about how the right are thick neanderthals yet they refuse to acknowledge other views, that is discrediting for the left IMO.

He denied it on Marr, which was bizarre given we have videos of him openly saying it.

 

Like I say though, people like Corbyn and McDonnell can never tell the truth, they can't achieve their aims without hiding it.

[Fox Ulike]

2 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

Apparently it happens when I try to be even handed and point out that op-ed =/ news and somebody gets really upset about it and misrepresents my argument.  By the same token I could ask you how on a day when Labour is coming under a lot of pressure about the way it appears to be struggling to deal with antisemitism in its ranks, you make out that the biggest problem is a hyperbolic opinion piece on the matter.  I defend the left wing press a lot on here, it's only fair that I hold the same standard for the right wing press too.

Yeah fair point. Sadly my first response these days whenever I here something anti-Labour is "How true is this?" "How can I get an honest assessment of what's actually gone off?"

 

The Mirror claim that:

 

"Israeli-American author Miko Peled told a conference fringe meeting Labour members should support the freedom to “discuss every issue, whether it’s the holocaust, yes or no, whether it’s Palestine liberation - the entire spectrum"

 

If that what's happened, do you think that the Mail's response is proportionate? If (big if) the Mirror's report of the incident is accurate, then I maintain my view that the Mail's response is opportunistic propaganda, and should be called out as such.

 

 

2 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

 

I have been highly critical of the DM on here in the past, I make no excuses for their often vile headlines, but you aren't being fair when you talk as though their only counterpart is "a few leftie political blogs read by a couple of old hippies, and all the nutters on Twitter".  Not too long ago I was defending the Guardian from attack by our right-wing members but I can't deny that some of the pieces they publish come across as left wing propaganda.  I would argue that the DM is more culpable on that front but I can't be sure that's not because of my own inherent biases.  I'm pleased you've retracted that final sentence since posting it so I don't need to address it. 

 

I'm surprised you didn't mention Jo Cox, for all my criticism of how the left likes to shut down debate at least they haven't murdered any politicians recently.  I didn't mention Diane Abbott because you asked me to give examples of attacks coming from the left.  I've already said that it's becoming more of a problem from the right but that's no excuse for not addressing the problems of the left.

 

Why?  Can we not address it without saying 'but they do it too"?  I don't approve of any online harassment but you get the distinct impression that when the left start a campaign that endangers freedom of speech and democratic justice it's almost seen as acceptable behaviour, for instance when we had that petition not to let President Trump (ugh) visit the UK or when we had that post-referendum petition to change the rules of what constitutes a winning majority in light of the narrow margins.  It's been my opinion for a while now that the left has a serious problem with accepting alternative views and thinks it can hide it by condemning other peoples' hatred.

 

And yes I realise that last sentence has probably just blown the mind of any posters who have previously accused me of calling all right-wingers racist.

Fine. I think I understand you better now. I don't think I've ever seen a piece in the Guardian that I would call propaganda. Biased certainly - but always reasoned, always an interpretation of the facts not a re-invention of them like the Mail.

 

The Daily Mail is publishing propaganda on a frequent basis, and on a level that can't be compared to the Guardian.

 

Ironically though, it pushes me towards Labour rather than away from them! If billionaire media moguls are trying desperately to convince me not to vote for Corbyn, then I know that they are doing it because they have they own best interests at heart.

[Fox Ulike]

38 minutes ago, MattP said:

 

He's on video saying "I'm a Marxist" ffs.

 

 

That's John MacDonnell. Not Jeremy Corbyn - unless we've moved into the Room 101 nightmare stage of "1984" and you're about to tell me that 2+2=5

[Guest MattP]

17 minutes ago, Fox Ulike said:

I don't think I've ever seen a piece in the Guardian that I would call propaganda. Biased certainly - but always reasoned, always an interpretation of the facts not a re-invention of them like the Mail.

 

The Daily Mail is publishing propaganda on a frequent basis, and on a level that can't be compared to the Guardian.

https://somuchguardian.tumblr.com/

 

Always reasoned

 

Tea being a national disgrace and the hate crimes of Thomas the Tank Engine are my personal favourites. 

Edited 29 September 2017 by MattP

[Fox Ulike]

2 minutes ago, MattP said:

https://somuchguardian.tumblr.com/

 

Always reasoned

 

"Can fois gras ever be ethical?"

 

It's the burning issue of our times.

[davieG]

New UKIP Logo looks familiar......

 

 

......and they don't like Lineker

 

Ukip’s attempt to rebrand itself for the post-Brexit era experienced an early hiccup on Friday after a new party logo bearing a lion’s head prompted reports the Premier League was investigating whether it was too similar to its emblem.

The logo replaces the longstanding yellow and purple pound symbol, and was chosen by party members at Ukip’s annual conference in Torquay.

Its unveiling brought immediate comparisons with the Premier League’s logo, which also depicts a lion’s head.

The league said it had no immediate comment, but it is understood its internal legal team was aware of the issue and was looking into any potential breach of copyright.

Gary Lineker re-tweeted the logo with an eye-rolling emoji and the message: “The Premier League will be thrilled.”

 

A Ukip spokesman said: “Gary Lineker is a very well-known, somewhat sanctimonious, extremely well-paid TV celebrity who has his own opinions.”

Guardian Today: the headlines, the analysis, the debate - sent direct to you

 

From the Merc

 

A Sky News reporter also shared a unique comment that another UKIP source had shared on their thoughts on the Leicester lad.

Lewis Goodall tweeted: "On Gary Lineker's criticism of new logo, senior UKIP source tells us Lineker is "a sanctimonious overpaid over-feathered skunk."

Speaking in the third person, Lineker shared this tweet and said: "And like pretty much everyone else, he's "over UKIP".

The Metro has reported that the Premier League's internal legal team is believed to be looking at the logo.