Not The Politics Thread.

[Zear0]

22 minutes ago, Strokes said:

Without Blair, a conservative in your eyes, Labour have not won an election for nearly 50 years.

Its impossible to know what characteristics they hold, they’ve reinvented themselves 4 times in my lifetime and bounce from one side to the other.

How do we know what Labour Party we will be getting?

Might be worth posing this question to the litany of Conservative apologists here who trot out "but the Labour Party..." every time the incumbent government, for the last 11 years, display whatever their daily dose of blatant negligence, corruption, cronyism or incompetence is. 

 

The issue with Blair in these leaks is that they show tax avoidance (legal but highly questionable) for personal gain. The leaks pertaining to Mohamed Amersi and Viktor Fedotov show political donations, used to win elections, from money sourced through corruption (not legal). If people's political bias is preventing them from distinguishing between those two examples, then I give up frankly. Neither are great, but they're incomparable and not worthing of "political" discussion. 

 

Not aimed at your Strokes, and more a wider observation on the debate here. Either side of the floor could elect the most repulsive candidate (which they have in recent years and thankfully the red one has gone but the blue one is, somehow, our PM) and the loyalist weirdos would still fly their flag on hypotheticals.

 

It just baffles, but I shouldn't be surprised, that given the content of the Pandora papers, the discussion has predictably gone to "but but the Labour Party". 

[Strokes]

10 minutes ago, Zear0 said:

Might be worth posing this question to the litany of Conservative apologists here who trot out "but the Labour Party..." every time the incumbent government, for the last 11 years, display whatever their daily dose of blatant negligence, corruption, cronyism or incompetence is. 

 

The issue with Blair in these leaks is that they show tax avoidance (legal but highly questionable) for personal gain. The leaks pertaining to Mohamed Amersi and Viktor Fedotov show political donations, used to win elections, from money sourced through corruption (not legal). If people's political bias is preventing them from distinguishing between those two examples, then I give up frankly. Neither are great, but they're incomparable and not worthing of "political" discussion. 

 

Not aimed at your Strokes, and more a wider observation on the debate here. Either side of the floor could elect the most repulsive candidate (which they have in recent years and thankfully the red one has gone but the blue one is, somehow, our PM) and the loyalist weirdos would still fly their flag on hypotheticals.

 

It just baffles, but I shouldn't be surprised, that given the content of the Pandora papers, the discussion has predictably gone to "but but the Labour Party". 

I’m just asking why this should change my vote? Nothing of this sort has been any different no matter who has been in charge in my lifetime. So why now, what’s different?

[RoboFox]

1 hour ago, What the Fuchs? said:

 

I agree that Blair was involved in some dodgy deals and schmoozing the rich and powerful, but we all know he was not an ordinary Labour leader - moulded by Thatcherism and 18 years of the Tories gaining power by schmoozing these very same people, their natural ally. But let’s not pretend that Labour and Conservative parties are in any way similar in their history of involvement and supporting of billionaire interests: the Tories’ raison d’etre throughout history has been to protect the interests of the wealthy, to prevent land and wealth distribution that would harm the financial interests of its donors in any way possible, whether that’s denying voting rights, or neglecting improving the lives of workers.
 

What we have now is a government ran by the obscenely rich and powerful elite, for the rich and powerful elite - it’s no coincidence that these billionaires secretly meet with Johnson and Sunak every month, and the government seek to address economic troubles by raising national insurance contributions to harm ordinary people and prioritise cutting Universal Credit, instead of going after the billionaires and corporations paying little or no tax here, many of whom happen to be Tory donors. Sunak was asked if he was ashamed that London is now the capital for money laundering, and he essentially said no. This is Tory and Brexit Britain - our government relishes deregulation and tax avoidance so much it is not shameful to cosy up to the interests of the elite as long as they fund their media disinformation campaigns to keep the ordinary people being harmed by the their duplicity on side. (Brexit just allows more of this deregulation) No wonder their supporters stick to whataboutery even when confronted with the starkest evidence that this government, never mind the Tories in the past, are for the interests of their billionaire donors, not you, me or anyone on this forum.
 

The scandal not long ago where Richard Desmond got a corrupt backroom deal with Robert Jenrick at a Tory fundraiser was met by the Tories with the claim: ‘everyone has the same access to ministers as Desmond’. So basically you want a favour, a tax break, inside tips? Pay a fortune to go to a Tory party fundraiser, maybe pay millions for a tennis match with Johnson - or just donate a few million and you can pretty much dictate government policy behind closed doors; the choice is yours. This is what makes me sick every time I’m up north and see my neighbours reading the Express or the Mail - papers like these and others are literally the voice of these same people in the Pandora Papers, filtered in ways to manipulate readers who really have nothing in common with their interests into believing they do.

These are important points. Johnson's - and by extension - this Tory regime in general's biggest success has been both turning the working classes of this country against each other, and convincing them that their problems were caused by a big, nasty, foreign entity.

 

He realised that he had no chance of becoming Prime Minister unless he lead the leave campaign, and won the referendum.

 

His agenda was never about Brexit, "Building Back Better" or any other of the hundreds of nonsensical platitudes that come out of his mouth, and I guarantee he doesn't believe most of it either.

 

It has always been about De Pfeffel Johnson. 

 

Edited 5 October 2021 by RoboFox

[Dunge]

8 minutes ago, RoboFox said:

These are important points. Johnson's - and by extension - this Tory regime in general's biggest success has been both turning the working classes of this country against each other, and convincing them that their problems were caused by a big, nasty, foreign entity.

 

He realised that he had no chance of becoming Prime Minister unless he lead the leave campaign, and won the referendum.

 

His agenda was never about Brexit, "Building Back Better" or any other of the hundreds of nonsensical platitudes that come out of his mouth, and I guarantee he doesn't believe most of it either.

 

It has always been about De Pfeffel Johnson. 

 

I don’t think this is accurate. Johnson has done what a lot of ‘leaders’ have done throughout history: He’s seen which way the mob’s heading, run to the front and shouted “follow me!”

[leicsmac]

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-58792261

 

A good target to aim for, but talk is cheap.

[What the Fuchs?]

3 hours ago, Strokes said:

Without Blair, a conservative in your eyes, Labour have not won an election for nearly 50 years.

Its impossible to know what characteristics they hold, they’ve reinvented themselves 4 times in my lifetime and bounce from one side to the other.

How do we know what Labour Party we will be getting?

I don’t think Blair was a conservative, he was a centrist with many centre left policies that led to improvements in animal rights, democracy, workers rights and so on that the Tories would never have done, such as the minimum wage. However what made him different to other Labour leaders was that he was a pragmatist, and a highly competent one. He knew from watching Labour losing elections they shouldn’t have lost on paper he couldn’t achieve anything without getting key figures in business and the media on side; however the difference was these figures weren’t benefited by New Labour to the detriment of ordinary people, because if you look at all indicators the lot of average people improved drastically in those years, from public services, prosperity and education initiatives, NHS funding, ameliorative legislation etc. There seemed to be a kind of balance which suited everybody. This current government doesn’t have the same competence and air of not just acting for the super rich as those governments did, and no matter what people think of Blair I don’t think anyone could honestly say he wouldn’t have handled the issues we’ve faced in the past few years a lot better than they have been.

 

I think it was @Sampsonwho made a really good point quite a while back that Labour leaders face a constant scrutiny directed largely by the right wing media that label them as too ‘far left’ or ‘red Tories’ or ‘champagne socialists’, that really imprints in the minds of voters that there is no sweet spot, that they’re inevitably repulsive to someone for different reasons, when there is no such scrutiny or judgement of Conservative politicians. Everyone expects them to be arseholes, so when Jacob Rees Mogg holds fox hunting meets at his mansion; multi millionaire landlords like Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax MP vote against making public housing fit for human habitation; and Christopher Chope MP blocking efforts to criminalise up skirting or FGM, or denying climate change despite being on the Environment Committee; no one says ‘they’re out of touch and I’m not voting for them’. The fact is most of the press have no interest i printing this stuff anyway, because their main goal is dissecting the Labour Party and attacking individuals with the sole purpose of getting readers to say “no matter how bad the Tories are, the alternative is worse”. No wonder every election they run nasty and negative campaigns - the last one 88% of online Tory advertising was found to be false or misleading. Personal attacks and inflammatory statements are the norm, right from Churchill saying Attlee would introduce a socialist Gestapo; headlines saying Ed Miliband’s dad ‘hated Britain’; and Tory MPs saying Corbyn sold state secrets to the USSR. This is how they have to operate to get poor people to vote for them, because if they knew who and what the Conservative party actually stood for, they wouldn’t for for them. Best to keep them ignorant and distract them with stories of commies, champagne socialists, immigrants and how big someone’s poppy or Union Jack is.

 

Honestly everyone on here who considers voting Tory on Election Day, just google Christopher Chope and look at his Wikipedia page. Awful, bigoted man, just look at his Twitter account making fun of women who are victims of upskirting. This is the sort of man who wins re election every time as a Tory MP, with that voting record. He makes Rees Mogg look like a down to earth modern guy.

Edited 5 October 2021 by What the Fuchs?

[Dunge]

32 minutes ago, What the Fuchs? said:

I don’t think Blair was a conservative, he was a centrist with many centre left policies that led to improvements in animal rights, democracy, workers rights and so on that the Tories would never have done, such as the minimum wage. However what made him different to other Labour leaders was that he was a pragmatist, and a highly competent one. He knew from watching Labour losing elections they shouldn’t have lost on paper he couldn’t achieve anything without getting key figures in business and the media on side; however the difference was these figures weren’t benefited by New Labour to the detriment of ordinary people, because if you look at all indicators the lot of average people improved drastically in those years, from public services, prosperity and education initiatives, NHS funding, ameliorative legislation etc. There seemed to be a kind of balance which suited everybody. This current government doesn’t have the same competence and air of not just acting for the super rich as those governments did, and no matter what people think of Blair I don’t think anyone could honestly say he wouldn’t have handled the issues we’ve faced in the past few years a lot better than they have been.

 

I think it was @Sampsonwho made a really good point quite a while back that Labour leaders face a constant scrutiny directed largely by the right wing media that label them as too ‘far left’ or ‘red Tories’ or ‘champagne socialists’, that really imprints in the minds of voters that there is no sweet spot, that they’re inevitably repulsive to someone for different reasons, when there is no such scrutiny or judgement of Conservative politicians. Everyone expects them to be arseholes, so when Jacob Rees Mogg holds fox hunting meets at his mansion; multi millionaire landlords like Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax MP vote against making public housing fit for human habitation; and Christopher Chope MP blocking efforts to criminalise up skirting or FGM, or denying climate change despite being on the Environment Committee; no one says ‘they’re out of touch and I’m not voting for them’. The fact is most of the press have no interest i printing this stuff anyway, because their main goal is dissecting the Labour Party and attacking individuals with the sole purpose of getting readers to say “no matter how bad the Tories are, the alternative is worse”. No wonder every election they run nasty and negative campaigns - the last one 88% of online Tory advertising was found to be false or misleading. Personal attacks and inflammatory statements are the norm, right from Churchill saying Attlee would introduce a socialist Gestapo; headlines saying Ed Miliband’s dad ‘hated Britain’; and Tory MPs saying Corbyn sold state secrets to the USSR. This is how they have to operate to get poor people to vote for them, because if they knew who and what the Conservative party actually stood for, they wouldn’t for for them. Best to keep them ignorant and distract them with stories of commies, champagne socialists, immigrants and how big someone’s poppy or Union Jack is.

 

Honestly everyone on here who considers voting Tory on Election Day, just google Christopher Chope and look at his Wikipedia page. Awful, bigoted man, just look at his Twitter account making fun of women who are victims of upskirting. This is the sort of man who wins re election every time as a Tory MP, with that voting record. He makes Rees Mogg look like a down to earth modern guy.

I think there is something to say for the following idea:

 

If the left is cr*p and the right is also cr*p, the right wins. Why? Because part of the selling point of the right wing is self-sufficiency, that it’s your money to do with what you want, that you’re not reliant upon the state or its competence beyond a basic level. I admit I have a lot of sympathy with that viewpoint. I also accept that, unfortunately, this means there’s an awful lot of political gain to be made for the right in denigrating their opponents rather than demonstrating their own competence, while the left have to demonstrate that they can be trusted enough to have power handed to them, not from the right wing party, but from yourself.

 

Note that I’m not commenting on the fairness of the situation here, just an idea about it.

 

 

Edit: *At least in this country, where a significant proportion of the population traditionally value high degrees of self-sufficiency as a virtue. It’s possible that will change in generations to come if the current trends among the young are maintained. But I think there will always be an element of this around.

Edited 5 October 2021 by Dunge

[leicsmac]

19 minutes ago, Dunge said:

I think there is something to say for the following idea:

 

If the left is cr*p and the right is also cr*p, the right wins. Why? Because part of the selling point of the right wing is self-sufficiency, that it’s your money to do with what you want, that you’re not reliant upon the state or its competence beyond a basic level. I admit I have a lot of sympathy with that viewpoint. I also accept that, unfortunately, this means there’s an awful lot of political gain to be made for the right in denigrating their opponents rather than demonstrating their own competence, while the left have to demonstrate that they can be trusted enough to have power handed to them, not from the right wing party, but from yourself.

 

Note that I’m not commenting on the fairness of the situation here, just an idea about it.

 

 

Edit: *At least in this country, where a significant proportion of the population traditionally value high degrees of self-sufficiency as a virtue. It’s possible that will change in generations to come if the current trends among the young are maintained. But I think there will always be an element of this around.

Which is accurate, but unfortunately both fallacious in terms of what life entails (people really don't understand how much their own lives rely on the acts of other people, even at a basic self sufficiency level) and inimical to the long term survival of civilisation if used as a be all and end all.

[CosbehFox]

8 hours ago, Strokes said:

It’s not like the Labour Party were short on dodgy dealings during their 13 years in power.

Just from memory I can count the F1 donation for tobacco sponsorship, cash for passports, cash for access, altered dossiers etc etc.

Thats without looking into TBs own dodgy behaviour in the paradise papers. The country is, was and always will be corrupt from the top down. Take what you can where you can.

Not actually that dodgy when you read behind the headline. 

[CosbehFox]

Out of interest, as the Pandora Papers further confirm, how come Russians invest so much dollar into the Tory party? We currently have a Russian lord as a result. Considering it's been an argument to avoid Corbyn etc....yet Boris quite literally goes on holiday with a Russian billionaire. 

Edited 5 October 2021 by Cardiff_Fox

[Strokes]

2 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

Not actually that dodgy when you read behind the headline. 

Im not sure what levels of dodgy there are? It either is or it isn’t. They bought an offshore company and subsequently avoided paying stamp duty.

Thats dodgy in my book, even if legal. I doubt you’d be quite so understanding if it was a former conservative MP.

[CosbehFox]

2 minutes ago, Strokes said:

Im not sure what levels of dodgy there are? It either is or it isn’t. They bought an offshore company and subsequently avoided paying stamp duty.

Thats dodgy in my book, even if legal. I doubt you’d be quite so understanding if it was a former conservative MP.

The company was on sale, not the property. A quick internet trawl suggests that the company owned a portfolio of properties.  will be paying tax and stamp duty subsequently on the premises. In the process, they have put the company back into UK control which it never was previously.

 

Working in the area the sale of companies as opposed to the premises is sometimes easier for the logistical reasons for service charge management, lease assignment, even warranties etc from fit-out/refurbishment (look here - https://www.taylormorrisonltd.co.uk/portfolio/grade-ii-listed-office-strip-out-and-refurb-harcourt-st-london/). 

 

The fact Mrs Blair moved her companies into the building suggests that there is genuine reason for the purchase as opposed to creaming off property values. 

[Strokes]

9 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

The company was on sale, not the property. A quick internet trawl suggests that the company owned a portfolio of properties.  will be paying tax and stamp duty subsequently on the premises. In the process, they have put the company back into UK control which it never was previously.

 

Working in the area the sale of companies as opposed to the premises is sometimes easier for the logistical reasons for service charge management, lease assignment, even warranties etc from fit-out/refurbishment (look here - https://www.taylormorrisonltd.co.uk/portfolio/grade-ii-listed-office-strip-out-and-refurb-harcourt-st-london/). 

 

The fact Mrs Blair moved her companies into the building suggests that there is genuine reason for the purchase as opposed to creaming off property values. 

They acquired the property in 2017, at what point are they subsequently paying stamp duty?

[filthyfox]

 boris doesnt care about us plebs...

just remember that 

[CosbehFox]

47 minutes ago, Strokes said:

They acquired the property in 2017, at what point are they subsequently paying stamp duty?

Okay, they will be paying capital gains tax on it subject to the size

Edited 5 October 2021 by Cardiff_Fox

[Strokes]

21 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

Okay, they will be paying capital gains tax on it subject to the size

Maybe I’m being naive here but wouldn’t they have been subject too capital gains tax had they bought the building using Chrie’s business in a way that didn’t avoid stamp duty?

[LVFox]

There was a really good first episode of a series on Blair and Brown on the BBC last night. As someone who wasn’t old enough to have a clue what was going on in the 90s politically and only really knew of Blair as the guy who took us into Iraq, it was really interesting to see how much energy he had, and how much of a political heavyweight Gordon Brown was.

 

Also a fair amount of comparisons between the Labour Party now and in 1992

[What the Fuchs?]

6 hours ago, Dunge said:

I think there is something to say for the following idea:

 

If the left is cr*p and the right is also cr*p, the right wins. Why? Because part of the selling point of the right wing is self-sufficiency, that it’s your money to do with what you want, that you’re not reliant upon the state or its competence beyond a basic level. I admit I have a lot of sympathy with that viewpoint. I also accept that, unfortunately, this means there’s an awful lot of political gain to be made for the right in denigrating their opponents rather than demonstrating their own competence, while the left have to demonstrate that they can be trusted enough to have power handed to them, not from the right wing party, but from yourself.

 

Note that I’m not commenting on the fairness of the situation here, just an idea about it.

 

 

Edit: *At least in this country, where a significant proportion of the population traditionally value high degrees of self-sufficiency as a virtue. It’s possible that will change in generations to come if the current trends among the young are maintained. But I think there will always be an element of this around.

Except the Tories stand for self sufficiency and ‘rugged individualism’ for the poor, but socialism and state support for the rich. These oligarchs don’t donate vast sums to the Tories and have secret meetings with them behind closed doors for nothing. They rely on the Tories protecting their interests, making sure they can continue getting away with paying next to no tax and whatnot. It’s sure as hell cheaper for them to cough up a few million here and there to the Conservative party, or pay for Johnson’s luxury holiday or to decorate his flat than it would be if they had to pay their fair share like everyone else does. The Conservative party is a business, one that works very well for the donors getting all those public contracts and tax breaks etc and the politicians like Hancock with all those shares in these donors’ companies. Their trick is to convince the plebs they care more about Union jacks, royal yachts, national songs and bringing back pounds and ounces etc than they do about keeping their business ‘in business’.

Edited 5 October 2021 by What the Fuchs?

[StanSP]

Is he actually this thick? 

 

 

 

[Voll Blau]

 

 

Absolutely fvcking mental that he can - and will - get away with repeating a line this dense about where meat comes from as if that's what farmers are complaining about.

 

I know it's a cliche but imagine if Diane Abbott, or to be honest, anyone else in the country kept saying something this stupid on air.

[filthyfox]

11 minutes ago, Voll Blau said:

 

 

Absolutely fvcking mental that he can - and will - get away with repeating a line this dense about where meat comes from as if that's what farmers are complaining about.

 

I know it's a cliche but imagine if Diane Abbott, or to be honest, anyone else in the country kept saying something this stupid on air.

WHAT A BLITHERING IDIOT!

 

Let's just kill pigs for the sake of it, shall we?

The bloke is an absolute embarrassment.

 

If I found that one of the pet shops I licensed had this kind of attitude, I would probably shut them down.

 

"Have you ever flushed your goldfish down the toilet?....  At that point, the goldfish was not alive".

 

So, pig farmers rear pigs for their penchant for indiscriminate murder?

 

DICKHEAD!

Edited 6 October 2021 by filthyfox

[FoxyPV]

Every time Johnson speaks the less respect I have for anyone who supports.

 

The man is a walking cluster****

[filthyfox]

30 minutes ago, FoxyPV said:

Every time Johnson speaks the less respect I have for anyone who supports.

 

The man is a walking cluster****

Shall we kill all mysogenisy pigs?

[Alf Bentley]

21 minutes ago, Voll Blau said:

 

 

Absolutely fvcking mental that he can - and will - get away with repeating a line this dense about where meat comes from as if that's what farmers are complaining about.

 

I know it's a cliche but imagine if Diane Abbott, or to be honest, anyone else in the country kept saying something this stupid on air.

 

I don't for a minute think he's so dense he doesn't understand the difference between:

(a) A pig reared for profit, sent to an approved slaughterhouse, ending up in a bacon sandwich and bringing profit to the farmer.

(b) A pig that cannot be slaughtered due to a labour shortage and ends up being slaughtered and burnt/buried on a farm, yielding no bacon sandwiches and a loss to the farmer.

 

I think it's worse than that. He absolutely understands but has contempt for the public, so he lies, dissembles, distracts, blusters....and gets away with it. He did the same on Marr.

 

He believes, probably correctly that:

1) Many of the "oiks" are so dense they won't understand the difference or won't give a shit about it.

2) A significant proportion of the public are animal lovers, veggies or guilt-ridden carnivores, who'll be distracted by his dishonest analogy.

3) Pig farmers probably won't want to make a public fuss as they won't want to attract animal rights protesters and media to their farms.

4) The BBC won't go in hard on his dishonesty as they've been cowed by his government's threats.

5) Most other media (except "antis" like The Guardian & Mirror) will also hold back as they or their owners are supportive of the Govt (note how Newton-Dunn, an excellent journalist, asks the question but backs off in the face of blustering lies)

6) Labour will not challenge him too hard on this for fear of being seen as anti-Brexit and losing votes

 

His arguments on the HGV driver shortage are similarly ridiculous. He claims that higher pay and better conditions will attract more Brits into lorry driving. Now, in the longer-term, that might or might not work. But it certainly won't work in the short-term as it takes time for drivers to be trained and tested, haulage firms to reorganise, better truck stops to be built etc. I'm sure BJ is well aware of that - he has multiple character defects rendering him unsuitable to be PM, but stupidity isn't one of them. But he knows that his Govt (and May's) failed to plan properly for the post-Brexit transition - and that it'd be politically unacceptable to his voters to resolve the short-term problem by trying to persuade qualified EU drivers to return via masses of longer-term visas. His gamble is that he can blame the hauliers and/or Covid, bluster some populist rhetoric about higher pay after Brexit and "the oiks" are so thick they'll be fooled.

 

This isn't simply due to Brexit. It's at least conceivable that a Govt could have successfully made proper plans for post-Brexit changes, the mass departure of EU labour etc. But they didn't make proper plans to replace EU nationals working as lorry drivers, slaughtermen, care workers, nurses, seasonal agricultural workers etc.

 

A simple example of this incompetence: British exporters already face EU border checks on their goods, but EU exporters can send their goods to the EU without such checks. Because the EU made proper plans for the post-Brexit era, while the UK didn't, despite being the ones who'd wanted Brexit. As a result, EU traders are better able to compete for sales in the UK than UK traders are in the EU.....that's not about Brexit, it's about astonishing incompetence. But, hey.... "Labour's woke", "Kieth is boring", "Diane Abbott can't add up", "the Tories are patriotic and the natural party of govt", "they got Brexit done and are levelling up" and "Boris is one of us with his Eton debating club bluster and he was really funny on Have I Got News For You".....

[Dunge]

18 minutes ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

I don't for a minute think he's so dense he doesn't understand the difference between:

(a) A pig reared for profit, sent to an approved slaughterhouse, ending up in a bacon sandwich and bringing profit to the farmer.

(b) A pig that cannot be slaughtered due to a labour shortage and ends up being slaughtered and burnt/buried on a farm, yielding no bacon sandwiches and a loss to the farmer.

 

I think it's worse than that. He absolutely understands but has contempt for the public, so he lies, dissembles, distracts, blusters....and gets away with it. He did the same on Marr.

 

He believes, probably correctly that:

1) Many of the "oiks" are so dense they won't understand the difference or won't give a shit about it.

2) A significant proportion of the public are animal lovers, veggies or guilt-ridden carnivores, who'll be distracted by his dishonest analogy.

3) Pig farmers probably won't want to make a public fuss as they won't want to attract animal rights protesters and media to their farms.

4) The BBC won't go in hard on his dishonesty as they've been cowed by his government's threats.

5) Most other media (except "antis" like The Guardian & Mirror) will also hold back as they or their owners are supportive of the Govt (note how Newton-Dunn, an excellent journalist, asks the question but backs off in the face of blustering lies)

6) Labour will not challenge him too hard on this for fear of being seen as anti-Brexit and losing votes

 

His arguments on the HGV driver shortage are similarly ridiculous. He claims that higher pay and better conditions will attract more Brits into lorry driving. Now, in the longer-term, that might or might not work. But it certainly won't work in the short-term as it takes time for drivers to be trained and tested, haulage firms to reorganise, better truck stops to be built etc. I'm sure BJ is well aware of that - he has multiple character defects rendering him unsuitable to be PM, but stupidity isn't one of them. But he knows that his Govt (and May's) failed to plan properly for the post-Brexit transition - and that it'd be politically unacceptable to his voters to resolve the short-term problem by trying to persuade qualified EU drivers to return via masses of longer-term visas. His gamble is that he can blame the hauliers and/or Covid, bluster some populist rhetoric about higher pay after Brexit and "the oiks" are so thick they'll be fooled.

 

This isn't simply due to Brexit. It's at least conceivable that a Govt could have successfully made proper plans for post-Brexit changes, the mass departure of EU labour etc. But they didn't make proper plans to replace EU nationals working as lorry drivers, slaughtermen, care workers, nurses, seasonal agricultural workers etc.

 

A simple example of this incompetence: British exporters already face EU border checks on their goods, but EU exporters can send their goods to the EU without such checks. Because the EU made proper plans for the post-Brexit era, while the UK didn't, despite being the ones who'd wanted Brexit. As a result, EU traders are better able to compete for sales in the UK than UK traders are in the EU.....that's not about Brexit, it's about astonishing incompetence. But, hey.... "Labour's woke", "Kieth is boring", "Diane Abbott can't add up", "the Tories are patriotic and the natural party of govt", "they got Brexit done and are levelling up" and "Boris is one of us with his Eton debating club bluster and he was really funny on Have I Got News For You".....

Funnily enough, this particular oik did give a shit about it.

 

I thought what he said about the pigs was one of the worst things he’s ever said. I’m a carnivore, I eat pigs quite happily because they have the misfortune of being utterly delicious. I’m at peace with that and don’t mind it. But I do still expect them to be valued, which many, many farmers do. The idea that you just go “oops” and slaughter them for nothing leaves not a delicious taste but a very sour one. And that’s before we get to the economics of the situation that you rightly point out. And as you say, it’s a gigantic lack of planning. And entirely lacking in empathy.

 

I don’t entirely blame Boris’s government for this - given the previous Brexit gridlock and then the all-hands-to-the-pump pandemic situation there was always going to be some difficulty. And I fully expected some problems following Brexit. But he and his government do have to take more of the blame for these things the further we get from Brexit day itself, and it’s quite clear that his policy has been to wing it, and that he doesn’t really understand what Brexit’s about either. Which is frustrating when I get the impression that his chancellor does.

 

I don’t go for @What the Fuchs?’s argument above that the Conservative party is entirely corrupt, and I think any party will be in hock to its funders in ways that others won’t like. (That’s a whole other can of worms about how political parties are funded.) But Boris does look particularly susceptible to it. At best he can get himself in trouble too easily. At worst he’s entirely complicit. The Conservative party really needs to start looking beyond him, because I think he’s going to start putting more and more people off as the pandemic subsides.