The Politics Thread 2020

[Jon the Hat]

2 minutes ago, jammie82uk said:

Full statement is here 

 

https://www.durham.police.uk/news-and-events/Pages/News Articles/Durham-Constabulary-press-statement--.aspx

key word in bold, no where in the statement do they say he has broken any rules or laws 

Durham Constabulary have examined the circumstances surrounding the journey to Barnard Castle (including ANPR, witness evidence and a review of Mr Cummings’ press conference on 25 May 2020) and have concluded that there might have been a minor breach of the Regulations that would have warranted police intervention.

So no worse than the odd person driving to take the dog for the walk is it?  What a waste of time all this was.  Utter media driven bullshit nonsense.  If he had been stopped they would have asked him to go home.

No mutiple trips, no contact with his family, staying in a seperate property, didn't stop on the way... all the original tenets of this story are false aren't they?

 

[Dahnsouff]

1 minute ago, bmt said:

I actually disagree.

 

For me - it wouldn't convince me to do something I thought dangerous, but it could convince me to ignore the rules/law when I am confident a situation isn't dangerous. 

I find that quite astonishing.

So you will wilfully ignore advice from a democratically elected government in favour of an unelected individual (who happens to work for said government) ?

[StanSP]

 

 

[Chocolate Teapot]

9 minutes ago, jammie82uk said:

Full statement is here 

 

https://www.durham.police.uk/news-and-events/Pages/News Articles/Durham-Constabulary-press-statement--.aspx

key word in bold, no where in the statement do they say he has broken any rules or laws 

Durham Constabulary have examined the circumstances surrounding the journey to Barnard Castle (including ANPR, witness evidence and a review of Mr Cummings’ press conference on 25 May 2020) and have concluded that there might have been a minor breach of the Regulations that would have warranted police intervention.

What @StanSP said....

[Stan]

10 hours ago, Stan said:

Could any of the many Johnson supporters on here explain which of his leadership qualities they admire most?

Is it too much to expect an answer? 

[Innovindil]

6 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

But yes, I'm sure they were all very law-abiding (even when flouting lockdown regs) and so thoroughly deserving of kid gloves rather than the treatment the protestors got yesterday.

I saw a post on reddit today whilst browsing through randomly from some gun nut sub. Actually made a fairly compelling point between the 2 situations. I know barely anything about murica in general so took it with a pinch of salt, but he seemed to believe that the reason the armed to the teeth bunch were allowed to go about their ranting was because... Well they were armed to the teeth. 

 

Obviously the only way to prove such a theory would be to send the other group out armed to the teeth and hope it doesn't descend into the wild west... 

[Dahnsouff]

1 minute ago, Stan said:

Is it too much to expect an answer? 

Would not know, he is not my MP

[Guesty]

5 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Fair enough, I'd like a corroborative source but that article seems detailed enough - as for Mr Ngo, perhaps I wasn't clear, I said reliable sources (as in ones that probably don't have their own axe

Haven't paid proper attention to this convo and couldn't get that link to work properly - so if I've missunderstood sorry. But if you want a corrobrative reports about the looting this is a journalist's twitter feed who was on the ground. He looks legit, but I haven't researched him. His whole feed was quite eye opening (not just this tweet or thread). All the big fires, looks like someone hit him at one point. There's videos and pictures. 

 

 

[Stan]

3 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

Would not know, he is not my MP

But he is the UK's PM. 

[Innovindil]

5 minutes ago, Stan said:

Is it too much to expect an answer? 

Yes. Especially without saying please. FeelsBadMan. 

[Stan]

1 minute ago, Innovindil said:

Yes. Especially without saying please. FeelsBadMan. 

Please. 

[Dahnsouff]

Just now, Stan said:

But he is the UK's PM. 

Yes he is, but two things render this irrelevant

1. The inarguable fact that we have no capacity to frame a comparison to other potential PMs
2. We live a weirdy beardy first past the post system, so we vote for the MP. If people don`t like how stuff is going, you complain to your MP, we are not in a presidential system

[David Guiza]

14 minutes ago, StanSP said:

 

 

Yeah but Guido Fawkes thinks the qualified QC is wrong, and he would know about legal procedure as a man who's been charged with two counts of drink driving .

 

It's going to be the Supreme Court ruling all over again with masses of Twitter accounts suddenly becoming QCs.  

[Facecloth]

2 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

Yes he is, but two things render this irrelevant

1. The inarguable fact that we have no capacity to frame a comparison to other potential PMs
2. We live a weirdy beardy first past the post system, so we vote for the MP. If people don`t like how stuff is going, you complain to your MP, we are not in a presidential system

All that is true, but it doesn't stop people thinking he's a good leader. People were chomping at bit for him to replace May, before he actually fought an election. So I think it's a perfectly reasonable question to ask those people, who wanted him to be PM, even though they couldn't directly vote for him as an MP, why they wanted it, and what they saw in him that thought he make a good leader.

[Innovindil]

3 minutes ago, Stan said:

Please. 

I'd say you'd find most of the "Boris fans" on here are actually brexit fans. Boris was and is a decent tool to that end. Don't think anyone could look through a Brexit fan lense and not see Boris as a decent leader for it, he managed to unite a tory party falling apart at the seems and ridiculously stomp a general election without so much as breaking a sweat. 

 

As for a leader during a pandemic, or after Brexit is "complete", I don't think he possesses many decent leadership qualities for either, and I'd want him replacing with someone sat firmly on the centre circle of the polical spectrum (or just to the right ) 

[leicsmac]

7 minutes ago, Innovindil said:

I saw a post on reddit today whilst browsing through randomly from some gun nut sub. Actually made a fairly compelling point between the 2 situations. I know barely anything about murica in general so took it with a pinch of salt, but he seemed to believe that the reason the armed to the teeth bunch were allowed to go about their ranting was because... Well they were armed to the teeth. 

 

Obviously the only way to prove such a theory would be to send the other group out armed to the teeth and hope it doesn't descend into the wild west... 

I've actually seen arguments in favour of this in places too - and while I'm not sure at all about how such a thing would end up I can see why people would find the argument compelling. An intriguing part of it all is that the last time black people armed themselves for the purpose of protest en masse (Black Panthers) the response of the establishment was to draft and pass gun control legislation as quickly as they could. How un-American.

 

 

3 minutes ago, Guesty said:

Haven't paid proper attention to this convo and couldn't get that link to work properly - so if I've missunderstood sorry. But if you want a corrobrative reports about the looting this is a journalist's twitter feed who was on the ground. He looks legit, but I haven't researched him. His whole feed was quite eye opening (not just this tweet or thread). All the big fires, looks like someone hit him at one point. There's videos and pictures. 

 

 

Thank you for the additional work!

 

It does look pretty damn ugly - bad business all round. That being said (and maybe this is whataboutery, but hey) but a single person with a pen/paper/computer screen can be much more successful at looting - legally - than a thousand protestors ever could be.

[Spudulike]

BBC 1 o'clock news today. The presenter (don't know her name) reads out that Durham police say that DC 'might' have broken the lockdown rules. Over to the reporter live at Westminster (Fergus Walsh?) says that Durham police have said that he 'did' break the rules.

 

Will the BBC ever learn??

[martyn]

The wording of that Durham police statement is confusing, particularly in regards to the use of the word "might".

 

Lawyers on twitter seen in agreement it definitely was a breach of lockdown, and that the "might" bit refers to police intervention, rather than the breach itself.

 

I imagine they'll be getting asked for clarification of that.

[Dahnsouff]

Just now, Facecloth said:

All that is true, but it doesn't stop people thinking he's a good leader. People were chomping at bit for him to replace May, before he actually fought an election. So I think it's a perfectly reasonable question to ask those people, who wanted him to be PM, even though they couldn't directly vote for him as an MP, why they wanted it, and what they saw in him that thought he make a good leader.

Because the fact Boris is PM can quite easily have no relation to people wanting him to be PM.

I realise I am being a contrarian, and for that I apologise (and to you @Stan) so will just respond as someone who is indifferent, as PM he is 

Find it hard to be critical or impressed, hard to say how other Governments or leaders would have done.

[martyn]

Just now, Spudulike said:

BBC 1 o'clock news today. The presenter (don't know her name) reads out that Durham police say that DC 'might' have broken the lockdown rules. Over to the reporter live at Westminster (Fergus Walsh?) says that Durham police have said that he 'did' break the rules.

 

Will the BBC ever learn??

Wording of the Durham statement is confusing. Needs clarifying.

[Finnaldo]

Durham Police sound like they don’t want anything to do with it really. Done the investigation to avoid accusations they let it fly because it was a government official, but they’ve released a fairly light statement on it. I can’t blame them, right now the last thing you’d think they’d want to be dragged into is a political scandal.

[Facecloth]

1 minute ago, Dahnsouff said:

Because the fact Boris is PM can quite easily have no relation to people wanting him to be PM.

I realise I am being a contrarian, and for that I apologise (and to you @Stan) so will just respond as someone who is indifferent, as PM he is 

Find it hard to be critical or impressed, hard to say how other Governments or leaders would have done.

Maybe he's not asking you then. He did ask the people who thought he'd make a good leader why they thought that, so if you didn't you really didn't need to answer.

[Dahnsouff]

Just now, Facecloth said:

Maybe he's not asking you then. He did ask the people who thought he'd make a good leader why they thought that, so if you didn't you really didn't need to answer.

Sorry, I just don`t like the presidential style referencing.

[Lionator]

This is basically just descending into if you're a Tory then you believe he's done nothing wrong and everything is the fault of lefty scum, or if you're not a Tory then he needs hanging.

 

This is exactly why Starmer wants to move the conversation on, he needs to destroy this ridiculous tribalistic, take a side at all costs attitude in order to have any chance in 2024. For Cummings this is perfect, he wants the us v them narrative. 

[StanSP]

8 minutes ago, Innovindil said:

I'd say you'd find most of the "Boris fans" on here are actually brexit fans. Boris was and is a decent tool to that end. Don't think anyone could look through a Brexit fan lense and not see Boris as a decent leader for it, he managed to unite a tory party falling apart at the seems and ridiculously stomp a general election without so much as breaking a sweat. 

 

As for a leader during a pandemic, or after Brexit is "complete", I don't think he possesses many decent leadership qualities for either, and I'd want him replacing with someone sat firmly on the centre circle of the polical spectrum (or just to the right ) 

Interesting you mention this. 

 

Keir Starmer seems to have united a Labour party in disarray and found valid points to target his opposition with so far but when he did it, it was 'easy pickings' and expected of him, with little credit attributed to him. 

 

With Boris doing the same for the Tories (galvanising them) and stomping a general election where, let's face it, wasn't exactly difficult when Corbyn is the opposition leader, he's commended for it and praised, being a 'decent leader'. 

 

I think if Boris is a decent leader in just the aspect of Brexit, I think Starmer has to be given similar credit for how he's handled the job so far at a time like this.