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DJ Barry Hammond

Politics Thread (encompassing Brexit) - 21 June 2017 onwards

By DJ Barry Hammond, in General Chat

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Guest MattP

Guest MattP

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, bovril said:

Mutt you bring up these awful puns in every thread? 

Leave him alone he's had a ruff week.

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Alf Bentley

Alf Bentley

Posted
Posted

Partly involve speculation, but 2 interesting articles on attempts to get a Brexit deal through parliament:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/oct/05/may-secretly-woos-key-labour-mps-to-back-her-brexit-deal

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/oct/05/eu-may-offer-post-brexit-trade-flexibility-to-help-may-secure-deal

 

First article reckons the Govt has been schmoozing Labour backbenchers for ages to win some over for the deal May hopes to get done shortly. 

Two different Lab groups being schmoozed: Remainer pragmatists keen to avoid No Deal & MPs from Leave constituencies keen not to be seen as going against the wishes of their constituents

 

Second article reckons the EU is set to make the provisional agreement on future EU-UK trade relations more flexible, so that different options would be open to negotiation over the transition period (assuming divorce deal finalised).

 

It now seems that a compromise solution to the Irish border issue is possible (though the DUP might still be an obstacle). So, if different options remain open for the deal on future relations, it could make it easier for May to get Parliament to approve the divorce deal & the provisional deal on future relations....which seemed impossible until recently. She still might not have the votes, but if she keeps the DUP onside, reduces the number of ERG MPs voting against and gets a decent number of Labour MPs to support it, she has a chance: e.g. if the DUP supported the deal and only about 25 Brexit hardliners voted again, she could get it through Parliament with the votes of about 20 Labour MPs..... Whips doing careful sums already, I imagine.

 

The EU agreeing to a flexible declaration (a fudge) on future relations would serve its own interests, as its urgent priority is to agree a divorce deal and a solution for Ireland. There would then be another 2 years to finalise a deal over future EU-UK relation. If no deal was possible on that, it would mainly be the UK that stood to lose out, whereas both the EU and the UK have a lot to lose if there's no divorce deal and a cliff-edge Brexit in March.

 

That sort of flexibility over the deal on future relations could be tempting to several different groups: ERG types will think that they could get rid of May and do a Canada-type deal, while Labour Remainers will think that they might be in Govt within 2 years and might be able to do a deal that kept the UK in, or much closer to the Single Market & Customs Union. Meanwhile, May will think that doing a deal would boost her popularity with the public and might keep her in her job!

 

I said before the politics of this was turning into a high-stakes poker game, but it's more like high-stakes poker crossed with 3-dimensional chess. :D

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Guest MattP

Guest MattP

Posted
Posted (edited)

A man of his word as well, here he is bin dipping a couple of decades ago...

 

 

Edited by MattP
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Alf Bentley

Alf Bentley

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, MattP said:

A man of his word as well, here he is bin dipping a couple of decades ago...

 

 

 

His Scottish accent was stronger back then.

 

Your post sent me to Wiki re. his early life:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Gove#Early_life_and_career_outside_Parliament

I presume this footage dates from when he was a journalist on Scottish TV.

 

Didn't know that he was a closet red socialist tree-hugging Venezuela-loving commie, though..... :D

"He briefly joined the Labour Party in 1983 back in Aberdeen,  but by the time he left to go to Oxford, he stated that he was a Tory".

"He became a trainee reporter at The Press and Journal in Aberdeen, where he spent several months on strike in the 1989–1990 dispute over union recognition and representation"

 

So, he joined the Labour Party under Foot, presumably inspired by the "longest suicide note in history" - or under Kinnock?

Then he was on strike for months over union recognition, just when Maggie had spent years destroying the unions.......clearly a commie double agent! 

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Guest MattP

Guest MattP

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Posted

Not uncommon I don't think!

 

I went to an evening with Michael Portillo and he used to go to Labour meetings with his parents, he became a Conservative when going to university. 

 

A lot of the male intellectual right - him, Gove, Peter Hitchins, Douglas Murray are all ex-left, I always look at young lefties now and wonder which ones will on my side in 20 years.

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Alf Bentley

Alf Bentley

Posted
Posted
11 minutes ago, MattP said:

Not uncommon I don't think!

 

I went to an evening with Michael Portillo and he used to go to Labour meetings with his parents, he became a Conservative when going to university. 

 

A lot of the male intellectual right - him, Gove, Peter Hitchins, Douglas Murray are all ex-left, I always look at young lefties now and wonder which ones will on my side in 20 years.

 

Am trying to think of anyone who started off on the dark side but saw the light.

 

There was Paul Weller, who supported Thatcher in 1979 but then became a Red Wedge stalwart. But I think his 1979 stance was more of a Mod style statement.

As @purpleronnie will tell you, scratch the surface of a Mod and you find an aspirational working-class Tory.... :ph34r:

 

Must go....

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purpleronnie

purpleronnie

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Posted (edited)
20 hours ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

Am trying to think of anyone who started off on the dark side but saw the light.

 

There was Paul Weller, who supported Thatcher in 1979 but then became a Red Wedge stalwart. But I think his 1979 stance was more of a Mod style statement.

As @purpleronnie will tell you, scratch the surface of a Mod and you find an aspirational working-class Tory.... :ph34r:

 

Must go....

weller said it as a joke to wind up strummer and the likes who he was on tour with.

 

Funny how once you get a few quid or have any ambition peope assume you have to be a tory.. that or some Champagne socialist, but politics is full of assumptions and generalizations.

Edited by purpleronnie
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Alf Bentley

Alf Bentley

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19 minutes ago, purpleronnie said:

weller said it as a joke to wind up strummer and the likes who he was on tour with.

 

Funny how once you get a few quid or have any ambition peope assume you have to be a tory.. that or some Champagne socialist, but politics is full of assumptions and generalizations.

 

I'd genuinely never heard that explanation of Weller's early comment. Looks like you're right, though: http://www.ijamming.net/Jammingmagazine/PaulWellertranscript.html

 

I assumed Weller made that comment as an early, misguided attempt to distinguish the image of The Jam from other bands labelled as "punks", given The Jam's Mod influences....before quickly realising his error.

Admittedly, my comment was also a gratuitous - and unsuccessful - attempt to wind you up about Mods. ;)

 

Yep, too many assumptions and generalizations. The "Champagne Socialist" tag is partly a means of discrediting anyone famous or influential who expresses left-wing views....though unfortunately some lefties (only some, not all) do come across as out-of-touch or hypocritical, which only helps those flinging the mud.

 

But voting patterns and surveys do support the idea that on average people become more conservative and less radical as they age. Multiple reasons for that, I suppose - and when does a sensible scepticism about the dangers of revolution become a fear of change? Some of it is just down to age and vulnerability. If you're a physically fit bloke of 20, with no dependents and ready to take any job that's going, the prospect of economic risk, chaos or even street violence might hold no fears for you. I see this with some of the younger blokes who support Brexit. The idea that a chaotic Brexit might lead to lost income, lost opportunities, social conflict or the risk of street violence doesn't bother them in the slightest. When I was 20, the potential for a left-wing govt to have that impact wouldn't have bothered me (partly because I'd have been too partisan to admit the possibility, but partly because I had little to lose and no fear). Life looks a bit different in middle-age, particularly if you have children/elderly parents and/or physical/economic vulnerabilities to consider....even more so if you're frail and elderly, I assume, with the impression that everything you knew and assumed is being changed around you, with a society and races that seem alien to you etc.

 

Just thinking aloud there, not seeking some left/right, old/young or Leave/Remain debate.....things to do. 

 

 

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Guest MattP

Guest MattP

Posted
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4 hours ago, purpleronnie said:

Funny how once you get a few quid or have any ambition peope assume you have to be a tory.. that or some Champagne socialist, but politics is full of assumptions and generalizations.

 

3 hours ago, Alf Bentley said:

Yep, too many assumptions and generalizations. The "Champagne Socialist" tag is partly a means of discrediting anyone famous or influential who expresses left-wing views....though unfortunately some lefties (only some, not all) do come across as out-of-touch or hypocritical, which only helps those flinging the mud.

It's perfectly fine to be successful and be a socialist. It will get on peoples nerves though when those people start hoarding wealth whilst complainging about how poor others are or lecturing about the housing crisis while owning their own second properties etc - practice what you preach is a cliche but it's a fair point.

There is a lot of hypocrisy on the left that needs exposing, it seems everyone in Hollywood is happy to fly into the Oscars on their private jets to give us a speech about Global Warming, in the current Labour party Chakrabati, Abbott and Thornberry all send their kids to private or selective schools whilst then criticising them.

Many people just want to know why this is all OK for them to do it but not for us to do it.

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davieG

davieG

Posted
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1 minute ago, MattP said:

 

It's perfectly fine to be successful and be a socialist. It will get on peoples nerves though when those people start hoarding wealth whilst complainging about how poor others are or lecturing about the housing crisis while owning their own second properties etc - practice what you preach is a cliche but it's a fair point.

There is a lot of hypocrisy on the left that needs exposing, it seems everyone in Hollywood is happy to fly into the Oscars on their private jets to give us a speech about Global Warming, in the current Labour party Chakrabati, Abbott and Thornberry all send their kids to private or selective schools whilst then criticising them.

Many people just want to know why this is all OK for them to do it but not for us to do it.

Is it possible to be an MP and a party political member following the party whip and not be a hypocrite?

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Guest MattP

Guest MattP

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Just now, davieG said:

Is it possible to be an MP and a party political member following the party whip and not be a hypocrite?

If you are bound by collective responsibility I have some sympathy, none of this is really under the force of a party whip though.

I mean Diane Abbott's excuse when questioned on why she sent her children to private school was something along the lines of that "black mothers go to the wall for their children" - which is as ridiculous as something can get.

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davieG

davieG

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Just now, MattP said:

If you are bound by collective responsibility I have some sympathy, none of this is really under the force of a party whip though.

I mean Diane Abbott's excuse when questioned on why she sent her children to private school was something along the lines of that "black mothers go to the wall for their children" - which is as ridiculous as something can get.

Oh I appreciate it's not all to do with the whip but never the less if you're bound to the whip but disagree with it then the choice seems to be hypocrisy or treachery.

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