Not The Politics Thread.

[Dahnsouff]

1 minute ago, StanSP said:

'current Labour party'. It's vastly different to back then surely?! 

Do not get me wrong, the Tory party has disgraced themselves during this tenure, but how can anyone forgive what Blair and Brown did is utterly beyond me, it was THE ultimate betrayal.

 

But yes, it is not the same Labour party, and they do deserve their chance and we will see how it goes.

[st albans fox]

21 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

Just remember when we are paying the rise in tax 

 

 

There is a context to the bank levy tax cut which I read at the time - I believe it’s going to be a neutral change ref the tax take …. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong 

 

of course any change that allows you to be beaten around the head is not a good change to make 

[HighPeakFox]

If you're voting without hope, or with despondency, or with lazy cynicism, then the people that want you to give in have got their way. 

 

Those that don't vote because the system makes it pointless, I can have a lot of sympathy with. 

[Bert]

31 minutes ago, StanSP said:

@Bert what have you seen in the current Labour Party that makes you think they will be just as deceiving and corrupt?

 

This current Tory government have set some ridiculously new levels of how to be those things. Not sure what there is about this Labour party that makes you think it'll be the same.

 

I don't hold that many politicians in high regard either but genuinely don't think anyone could be as prominently and severely misguided and ignorant as the current lot. 

It’s just how I feel. You’re right they probably won’t be as bad but anyone thinking that a huge change for everyone and that they’ll go through with all their promises happen should give their heads a wobble. Nothing will change my mind, the majority and especially the ones at the top of the chain are only in it for themselves. 

[Bert]

30 minutes ago, Christoph said:

I hate this argument. Labour might be shit but we've had over ten years of tory shit. Its probably worth a punt going for a different shit sandwich for now.

You’re right it might be. But until their actions speak louder than words absolutely nothing will change my mind. 

 

If I went to vote labour my constituency would still be Labour. If I went to vote Conservative my constituency would be still be Labour. If I went to vote Lib Dem. My constituency would still be Labour.

 

As mentioned my interest and knowledge on/in politics is very minor and I think a lot of it is all down to the bullshit that’s been spun since I was old enough to know my own mind. 

[Facecloth]

3 minutes ago, Bert said:

It’s just how I feel. You’re right they probably won’t be as bad but anyone thinking that a huge change for everyone and that they’ll go through with all their promises happen should give their heads a wobble. Nothing will change my mind, the majority and especially the ones at the top of the chain are only in it for themselves. 

I think there's a world of difference between attempting to do the things you promised and ultimately failing, and just not bothering to even try and do the things you've promised, or cancelling them before even trying. The tories have pulled the plug on numerous election pledges before they've even attempted to honour them.

[CosbehFox]

Btw anyone thinks well if I vote x, it’s going to be x. That’s exactly what happened where I lived and it was a Tory for the first time in twenty years. 
 

At first he impressed me, appeared happy to be out and about. Didn’t fit the Tory stereotype - openly gay for one. 
 

Since then his opinions and voting record is foul. In particular the position he took on free school dinners despite a very public campaign by a number of street food providers in the same area. 
 

Came out to defend Boris a couple of days ago

[Mike Oxlong]

Whilst Starmer lacks charisma he strikes me as being one of the more morally principled party leaders that we have had  for many a year 

[st albans fox]

9 minutes ago, Mike Oxlong said:

Whilst Starmer lacks charisma he strikes me as being one of the more morally principled party leaders that we have had  for many a year 

One of those gets you elected and one of those doesn’t ………….sadly we know which way round they are …..

[SpacedX]

 

[Alf Bentley]

11 hours ago, HighPeakFox said:

Apologies for what might well be a remarkably naive question, but what the actual f**k does 'levelling up' mean? My guess is it's nonsense that sounds good.

 

I think that you're right here. Not least because the concept of "levelling down" existed in political discourse before the concept of "levelling up".

 

If anyone with a Leftish tinge suggested raising taxes on wealth/high incomes to fund redistribution or public services, one frequent accusation was that this would be "levelling down".

So, when according to legend, Robin Head "took from the rich and gave to the poor", he was guilty of "levelling down".

 

I reckon that to some extent the electoral marketing slogan came before the policy. The Tories had a large bloc of voters who'd always vote for them out of belief, tradition or self-interest.

But to get a majority, they needed other voters - particularly as their chances have receded in most cities, university towns etc. In 2019, Brexit was their main vote winner in the "red wall" seats they successfully wooed, but it was twinned with the "levelling up" concept - that towns/areas neglected and in decline for decades (mainly since the Thatcher era) would get more jobs, money, infrastructure, facilities etc.

 

Past Tory accusations that demands for fairer wealth redistribution are motivated by envy and a desire to "level down" seem to have been pretty successful with voters.

So, I can just imagine some Tory electoral strategist/marketing bod proposing the "levelling up" concept as a vote-winner.

 

As to what it means in practice, it seems to involve....

- Infrastructure spending on a small scale compared to either the "levelling up" of the former East Germany or other UK projects (e.g. spending on dodgy PPE contracts for their mates in business)

- The re-announcement of pre-existing spending

- What the Yanks call "pork barrel politics": i.e. spending targeted so as to win particular seats - most of their spending on the Towns Fund is targeted on marginal constituencies and not equally deprived areas that have a large Labour majority

- The re-promotion of Free Ports, which existed previously in both UK and EU, as a means of "levelling up" deprived port towns - although there's the risk that it merely shifts economic activity from inland areas to ports, while cutting tax income. However, it does come with the bonus for Tories of being able to suggest that it is a "Brexit benefit", despite such economic free zones/ports existing and being allowed within the EU

 

[Finnegan]

57 minutes ago, Bert said:

It’s just how I feel. You’re right they probably won’t be as bad but anyone thinking that a huge change for everyone and that they’ll go through with all their promises happen should give their heads a wobble. Nothing will change my mind, the majority and especially the ones at the top of the chain are only in it for themselves. 

 

I can understand this sort of cynicism for the most part, the nature of a two party system with such short terms is that neither really wants to take much by way of risk or change. There's not an enormous amount of difference normally when the centre left party is in power compared to the centre right party. Especially if / when they do flip quite frequently. We, the average Joes in the street, see so little difference (normally) to our day to day life that I totally understand people's apathy towards politics. 

 

We have two problems at the moment though that make the situation a little different. 

 

The first is that we don't have a moderate centre right government, we have quite a worryingly right wing government that are interested in pandering to populist, fear mongering sentiment and most worryingly of all are extremely self serving. 

 

They lack competence, they lack experience in government, they lack leadership, they lack morality, (because the Conservatives with those qualities are the aforementioned centre right that have been chased out), they lack interest in reaching across to cooperate. Worst of all, record numbers of them are taking suspicious payments from lobby groups to look after their interests which aren't the interests of the general public. They don't care as long as they stuff as much as they can in their pockets whilst in office and get out with a seven figure salary at Massive Multinational Corp Ltd when they go. 

 

This is all enabled by the second problem we have in that they've become entrenched. The reason the Tories are usually fairly moderate, Cameron and May were a bit socially Liberal, fairly centre right (relative to this lot) is that the threat of a Labour government kept them in check. Just as the threat of a Conservative government forced the creation of "New Labour", a centre to centre left ideology. It leaves a country fairly balanced in a middle ground most of us can tolerate.

 

But we don't have that now because Labour haven't been an effective opposition for far too long. Granted they aren't helped, in fact they're fairly crippled, by the likes of Rupert Murdoch whose media machines own the message at unprecedented levels, but they also don't help themselves. An erosion in their credibility started with student fees that broke a campaign promise, began to accelerate in to the alienation of their traditional base a la Gordon Brown's "bigoted woman", the ridiculous obsession with Momentum, the limp wristed stance against antisemitism in their own ranks, the meddling interference of egotists like Mcluskey and Co. Its a mess front to back. 

 

The Tories can get away with a lot of scandal because most of the tabloids have their back, Labour have to be better, they have to beyond reproach and they're far, far from it. 

 

But a vote for them is still a vote that says Johnson's administration is a step too far towards something we can't tolerate as a people. It's still worth your time and energy because, quite frankly, we're butt sliding towards looking like the Americans a little bit more every day and that's alarming. 

 

Just as Biden's administration has done hilariously little other than "not be Donald Trump", its likely that a Starmer government wouldn't really bring about much by way of drastic change in a few years in power. But what they would do would be stop the rot, stop the butt slide. Not just by being there but by telling the Tories "Boris Johnson and his cronies were way too far."

[FoxyPV]

Vote to raise NI but cut banking tax........

 

Tories are *****

[Alf Bentley]

2 hours ago, Dahnsouff said:

Like taking us into an unjustified war? Come on, politicians at the highest level are coniving and duplicitious. I will concede they cannot be as feckless as this lot though.

 

As a Labour voter usually, I completely agree with you over Blair's "unjustified war". That was 1 of 2 reasons why I switched to the Lib Dems in 2005.

If Blair said: "I tried to get UN agreement and confirmation of WMDs, but when the chips were down, I decided that UK-US relations mattered more than any justification for the Iraq war", I still wouldn't agree, but I'd have more respect for him.

It's worth remembering, though, that the Tories fully backed that war - indeed some of them criticised Blair for even bothering with the UN resolution & WMD search. That's not to take responsibility away from Labour - they were the Govt at the time.

But a substantial minority of Labour MPs (and very few Tories) joined the Lib Dems - to their credit - in opposing the final decision. Unfortunately, the majority of Labour MPs and almost all Tories supported it.

 

Some politicians have always been conniving and duplicitous, to varying degrees. But only some, I'd like to think - and only a tiny minority from any party have been as morally corrupt, cynical, dishonest and utterly incompetent as this current bunch.

It really is on quite a different scale to anything we've ever seen before from any governing party - notwithstanding the horrendous consequences of massively wrong decisions like Blair's over Iraq.

[Voll Blau]

2 hours ago, HighPeakFox said:

If you're voting without hope, or with despondency, or with lazy cynicism, then the people that want you to give in have got their way. 

 

Those that don't vote because the system makes it pointless, I can have a lot of sympathy with. 

 

The thing is though, what will change about that system if people just stay at home? It's all very well saying you don't vote because you don't have a real choice in your area, but that "real choice" remains even further from grasp if you don't bother to register your feelings at the ballot box via a protest vote or spoiling your ballot.

 

The more votes recorded (whether for any party or none at all), the more people elected MPs then become accountable to. If you genuinely want a better system then you're not going to get it by just sitting on your settee.

[SpacedX]

4 minutes ago, Alf Bentley said:

It really is on quite a different scale to anything we've ever seen before from any governing party

[Finnegan]

8 minutes ago, Alf Bentley said:

I completely agree with you over Blair's "unjustified war". That was 1 of 2 reasons why I switched to the Lib Dems in 2005.

 

And this is exactly what I'm talking about.

 

There's an extremely clever game going on in mass and social media right now where bad actors are pumping enormous money and effort in to turning politics in to something resembling sporting fandom. You pick your football team and stick with it for life and that's exactly what they want you to do with your politics. They want us to have clear, hard divides and to not shift from them. To support our political parties like they're our teams.

 

I've got enormous respect for anyone who, in their lifetime, has made informed choices to vote for various parties based on context.

 

A lot of lifetime Labour voters went to the polls after Blair's regime to say "we don't tolerate the direction you've gone in", made protest votes for the Lib Dems or alternative left wing parties, plenty will have even gone Blue. 

 

The onus now is on a lot of Conservative voters to go to vote in the next election and say "this is too far." You might have conservative beliefs and you aren't being asked to change them but voting for another party to let the Tories know you expect better isn't a betrayal or some sort of heresy. They're the ones that have betrayed you. Let them know.

[Alf Bentley]

3 hours ago, Bert said:

Which is why I don’t vote. People say oh “well if you don’t vote you don’t have a right to moan”. As mentioned I don’t really care enough. Also my vote if I was to vote wouldn’t change a thing in my constituency. 

 

Which will be exactly the same if another party got into power. They’re all as bad as each other. Lie to get into power. Don’t follow up their promises. Do what suits them and not what suits the people that have voted for them. 

 

I sympathise with that bit in bold. But maybe it's an argument for you to contact your MP to demand a fairer voting system?

The timing could be right as an increasing number of Labour Party members and MPs are supportive - not least out of self-interest (increasingly difficult for Labour to win a majority under the current system).

Of course, yours is just one voice, but a lot of voices together make a noise that might be heard......more chance of things changing than through cynicism and disengagement.

 

I genuinely don't think any other party - or the Tories of the past - would be as bad as this one, even if they would all tell a few lies to get into power and not fulfil some promises.

 

But I do think that the voting public bears some responsibility for this.

An honest centre-left party would say: "We'll redistribute wealth a bit and spend more on public services, but that will require people to pay a bit more tax".

An honest centre-right party would say: "We'll cut tax and allow people to spend more of their own money, but that will require cutbacks in public services".

But voters won't support either argument. They want to hear: "I'll be able to get better public services while paying less tax". So parties have to get close to that stance. They have to lie and make impossible promises to get elected....

[Alf Bentley]

10 minutes ago, Line-X said:

 

Please clarify briefly, if you can. 

 

Heath was PM between when I was 8 and when I was 12, so I don't remember his regime too well - and I'm one of the older posters. 

[NasPb]

Labour are again a social liberal party, they won't ever touch power again if they're just tories lite, no matter how corrupt and weak the Tories are. And i dislike the Tories more than anyone but you beat these lot with strong conviction and actual policies. Labour took way too long to even call for boris to resign.  No leader is perfect but starmer is absolutely awful. His policies show no ambition like when he falls into talking about tax breaks instead of actual public spending on the most necessary things in society. 

 

It's funny, now a days an actual keynesian social democratic party and policies are considered radical. When you let the right wing dictate everything since thatcher and later blair then there's no surprise we are where we are. Whether it's with brexit or economic policies. Simple as that. 

Edited 3 February 2022 by NasPb

[Finnegan]

2 minutes ago, NasPb said:

Labour hasn't even called for mr boris to resign.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[fox_up_north]

Well...come April we'll have...

 

NI increase

Council tax increase

FIFTY FOUR PERCENT energy price increase

Interest increase

 

All the effort to "save Pret" and there'll be no fuching Pret to save because everyone is freezing to death.

[Finnegan]

12th

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/pmqs-boris-johnson-resign-keir-starmer-downing-street-party-1396695

 

15th

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/15/boris-johnson-mired-in-deceit-and-unable-to-lead-says-keir-starmer

 

26th

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-60140153

 

1st Feb

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/keir-starmer-boris-johnson-sue-gray-report-public-mugs-saving-skin-1434803

[rachhere]

I will openly say I have voted Conservatives in the past. How anyone could begin to support THIS Tory government right now is beyond my comprehension. 

[NasPb]

12 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

My apologies hadn't Seen the videos yet. Regardless took them way too long