The Politics Thread

[ALBIONSAINT]

Interesting, up until now I had this guy down as a spineless yes man who would sell his granny to get into number 10. However it appears he can see that to be PM you need to lead for everyone. He might just make a decent PM. Pity we don’t have the same in Bute house. 

[faraway saint]

On 11/15/2023 at 6:01 PM, shull said:

 

I heard him on the radio and he was "blaming" his children, what a snake. 

[Cookie Monster]

If it was 2 The Rangers games, you wouldn't have mentioned a thing. [emoji14]

[faraway saint]

20 minutes ago, Cookie Monster said:

If it was 2 The Rangers games, you wouldn't have mentioned a thing.

If it was a Conservative you, and others, would be all over it. 🤣🤣🤣

Free for 23......better be quick. 🤣

[Cookie Monster]

If it was a Conservative you, and others, would be all over it. [emoji1787][emoji1787][emoji1787]
Free for 23......better be quick. [emoji1787]

Yip, red or blue. [emoji14]

So do the perverted tories want to check a child's browsing history. They would know what the dodgy sites are as they're never off them. They even watch porn whilst sitting in parliament. "I was looking at a tractor website" yeah that'll explain the sheep.

[faraway saint]

27 minutes ago, Cookie Monster said:

Yip, red or blue.

So do the perverted tories want to check a child's browsing history. They would know what the dodgy sites are as they're never off them. They even watch porn whilst sitting in parliament. "I was looking at a tractor website" yeah that'll explain the sheep.

🤣🤣🤣

Their all the same but I do enjoy when the "whiter than white" SNP show their true colours. 

Free for 23.....hurry up. 🤣

[Slarti]

I agree with Billy Connelly, "The desire to be a politician should bar you for life from ever being one.".

[antrin]

25 minutes ago, Slarti said:

I agree with Billy Connelly, "The desire to be a politician should bar you for life from ever being one.".

Who he?  

[Slarti]

1 minute ago, antrin said:

Who he?  

It's Billy Connolly with a speech defect.

[antrin]

Or…

…”a spooch dofoct”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I need to get out more….

[Slarti]

Just now, antrin said:

Or…

…”a spooch dofoct”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I need to get out more….

Nah, ye just need to suffer a power cut - for a couple of months. 

[antrin]

I’ve never had power.

(nor sought it).

[stlucifer]

Last week, at the height of the bitter debate over Saturday’s huge London march for a ceasefire in Gaza, the Royal British Legion – the organisation that supports and speaks for all the UK’s military veterans, (maybe not ALL) – issued a statement that should perhaps have attracted more attention than it did. In a few short paragraphs, the statement simply defended the right to protest as one of the freedoms for which British troops have fought and asked that the weekend’s marches and demonstrations should pass off peacefully, without disruption to Armistice Day or Remembrance Sunday events.

In a weekend replete with symbolism, it was, of course, a few demonstrators from the political far right, claiming to “defend the Cenotaph”, who came closest, on Saturday, to desecrating the UK’s plain and beautiful national war memorial; but amid all the sound and fury, the Legion’s words came as a salutary reminder of how the voice of reason and decency might sound, and of a time when the idea of British patriotism had not yet been quite so thoroughly hijacked by the political right.

It stated,

"For the great irony of the Trump and Brexit years, in British and US politics, is that the people who now present themselves as the great patriots of the West – those who want to make America or Britain “great again”, who prattle about Empire 2.0, and who despise international law and institutions – are precisely those whose actions are now weakening Western countries internally from day to day, and all but guaranteeing the decline of Western influence and credibility on the global stage.

That process has now reached a visible crisis, in the Western response to the catastrophic conflict in southern Israel and Gaza; where largely right-wing pressure to offer uncritical support to the Netanyahu government has begun to blow back in the faces of Western leaders who seem to have underestimated both the diversity of opinion in their own societies, and the extent to which the Global South has now lost patience with Western powers which so frequently – when it suits them – ignore the principles of international and humanitarian law that they preach to others.

The UK Government, for example, is in the hands of a party whose chairman thinks it clever to talk about simply ignoring the UK Supreme Court’s ruling on the Rwanda asylum scheme; while the Prime Minister shamelessly refers to that venerable international institution, the European Court of Human Rights, as a “foreign court”.

And the situation in the United States is worse, in that 2024 presidential election risks the return to the White House of a politician who claims to defend American values, while taking a sledgehammer to every constitutional principle that ever made the idea of America worth defending. The levels of pseudo-religious irrationality and extremism now prevalent in Trump’s Republican party are terrifying, and increasingly incapacitating to any kind of practical or effective domestic politics; while, on the world stage, the same people promote a delusional isolationism in which it somehow makes sense for the United States to withdraw from Nato, and to remove support from Ukraine in its vital struggle against Russian aggression.

Both at home and abroad, in other words, it is difficult to imagine a more effective recipe for national decline. And meanwhile, in the UK, it becomes ever more clear that 40 almost uninterrupted years of right-wing economics has likewise ushered in an age of decline. The real-terms pay of ordinary British workers has been flatlining since 2009; while the cult of austerity in public spending has hollowed out our communities and cultural life, and impoverished and degraded our public services. And of course, the resentment produced by such hard times also led to the disastrous act of economic and human self-harm that was Brexit.

Yet all of this has come to you courtesy of those most likely to wrap themselves in the flag, and to claim love of their country as their motivation; whereas the truth about their ideology is that it is deeply destructive, fundamentally misconceived, and based on a shameful failure to learn or respect the lessons of recent history. It is, sadly, more than a quarter of a century since the late, great Robin Cook, as Tony Blair’s Foreign Secretary, first announced his proposed “ethical foreign policy”, informed by the basic principles of international law. He was much mocked at the time, notably by crusty old reactionaries who opined that international affairs is all about brute force and “realpolitik”, narrowly defined.

Yet today, as South Africa takes a case against Israel’s actions in Gaza to the International Criminal Court, Ukraine desperately appeals for Western help in upholding the ideas of freedom and democracy against Putin’s bloody dictatorship, and many Israeli citizens and the Palestinian people themselves appeal to those principles for the justice, peace and security they seek, we can surely see that it is not the principles themselves that are at fault, but our own short-sighted failure to defend them with the seriousness they deserve, and which the people of the Global South now increasingly demand.

What the West needs now, in other words, is government that will stand up for the best that our civilisation has produced, rather than the worst; for civility, welfare and social justice at home, and for the principles and institutions enshrined in the UN Charter abroad. At this time of crisis for humankind and the planet, nothing less will do. Donald Trump will not do. Rishi Sunak will not do. And increasingly, centre-left leaders like Keir Starmer and Joe Biden will not do either, unless they can begin to shift their positions away from old, discredited loyalties, towards a new commitment to those values of peace, justice and humanity which we all claim for our own, but which are universal, or they are nothing".

Edited November 17, 2023 by stlucifer

[ALBIONSAINT]

8 hours ago, stlucifer said:

Last week, at the height of the bitter debate over Saturday’s huge London march for a ceasefire in Gaza, the Royal British Legion – the organisation that supports and speaks for all the UK’s military veterans, (maybe not ALL) – issued a statement that should perhaps have attracted more attention than it did. In a few short paragraphs, the statement simply defended the right to protest as one of the freedoms for which British troops have fought and asked that the weekend’s marches and demonstrations should pass off peacefully, without disruption to Armistice Day or Remembrance Sunday events.

In a weekend replete with symbolism, it was, of course, a few demonstrators from the political far right, claiming to “defend the Cenotaph”, who came closest, on Saturday, to desecrating the UK’s plain and beautiful national war memorial; but amid all the sound and fury, the Legion’s words came as a salutary reminder of how the voice of reason and decency might sound, and of a time when the idea of British patriotism had not yet been quite so thoroughly hijacked by the political right.

It stated,

"For the great irony of the Trump and Brexit years, in British and US politics, is that the people who now present themselves as the great patriots of the West – those who want to make America or Britain “great again”, who prattle about Empire 2.0, and who despise international law and institutions – are precisely those whose actions are now weakening Western countries internally from day to day, and all but guaranteeing the decline of Western influence and credibility on the global stage.

That process has now reached a visible crisis, in the Western response to the catastrophic conflict in southern Israel and Gaza; where largely right-wing pressure to offer uncritical support to the Netanyahu government has begun to blow back in the faces of Western leaders who seem to have underestimated both the diversity of opinion in their own societies, and the extent to which the Global South has now lost patience with Western powers which so frequently – when it suits them – ignore the principles of international and humanitarian law that they preach to others.

The UK Government, for example, is in the hands of a party whose chairman thinks it clever to talk about simply ignoring the UK Supreme Court’s ruling on the Rwanda asylum scheme; while the Prime Minister shamelessly refers to that venerable international institution, the European Court of Human Rights, as a “foreign court”.

And the situation in the United States is worse, in that 2024 presidential election risks the return to the White House of a politician who claims to defend American values, while taking a sledgehammer to every constitutional principle that ever made the idea of America worth defending. The levels of pseudo-religious irrationality and extremism now prevalent in Trump’s Republican party are terrifying, and increasingly incapacitating to any kind of practical or effective domestic politics; while, on the world stage, the same people promote a delusional isolationism in which it somehow makes sense for the United States to withdraw from Nato, and to remove support from Ukraine in its vital struggle against Russian aggression.

Both at home and abroad, in other words, it is difficult to imagine a more effective recipe for national decline. And meanwhile, in the UK, it becomes ever more clear that 40 almost uninterrupted years of right-wing economics has likewise ushered in an age of decline. The real-terms pay of ordinary British workers has been flatlining since 2009; while the cult of austerity in public spending has hollowed out our communities and cultural life, and impoverished and degraded our public services. And of course, the resentment produced by such hard times also led to the disastrous act of economic and human self-harm that was Brexit.

Yet all of this has come to you courtesy of those most likely to wrap themselves in the flag, and to claim love of their country as their motivation; whereas the truth about their ideology is that it is deeply destructive, fundamentally misconceived, and based on a shameful failure to learn or respect the lessons of recent history. It is, sadly, more than a quarter of a century since the late, great Robin Cook, as Tony Blair’s Foreign Secretary, first announced his proposed “ethical foreign policy”, informed by the basic principles of international law. He was much mocked at the time, notably by crusty old reactionaries who opined that international affairs is all about brute force and “realpolitik”, narrowly defined.

Yet today, as South Africa takes a case against Israel’s actions in Gaza to the International Criminal Court, Ukraine desperately appeals for Western help in upholding the ideas of freedom and democracy against Putin’s bloody dictatorship, and many Israeli citizens and the Palestinian people themselves appeal to those principles for the justice, peace and security they seek, we can surely see that it is not the principles themselves that are at fault, but our own short-sighted failure to defend them with the seriousness they deserve, and which the people of the Global South now increasingly demand.

What the West needs now, in other words, is government that will stand up for the best that our civilisation has produced, rather than the worst; for civility, welfare and social justice at home, and for the principles and institutions enshrined in the UN Charter abroad. At this time of crisis for humankind and the planet, nothing less will do. Donald Trump will not do. Rishi Sunak will not do. And increasingly, centre-left leaders like Keir Starmer and Joe Biden will not do either, unless they can begin to shift their positions away from old, discredited loyalties, towards a new commitment to those values of peace, justice and humanity which we all claim for our own, but which are universal, or they are nothing".

Just for clarity…….the first part of this post is from the Royal British legion (the right to protest) the rest of the post is from an article from The Scotsman. 

 

[stlucifer]

1 hour ago, ALBIONSAINT said:

Just for clarity…….the first part of this post is from the Royal British legion (the right to protest) the rest of the post is from an article from The Scotsman. 

 

No matter what you profess it doesn't alter the veracity of the piece.

Edited November 18, 2023 by stlucifer

[ALBIONSAINT]

10 hours ago, stlucifer said:

No matter what you profess it doesn't alter the veracity of the piece.

I think you were the one professing when you made the post, I was merely noting that it wasn’t from The Royal British legion but from The Scotsman newspaper. As for the veracity of the piece? well that would be your opinion rather than undisputable fact. The piece appears to suggest that the democratic process in both the US and U.K. is failing to produce a magical land where poverty, distrust and power don’t exist. The section below is very strange as it appears to suggest that U.K. economic modelling is right wing? I wonder what Mr Blair and Mr Brown were thinking. 
 

“Both at home and abroad, in other words, it is difficult to imagine a more effective recipe for national decline. And meanwhile, in the UK, it becomes ever more clear that 40 almost uninterrupted years of right-wing economics has likewise ushered in an age of decline. The real-terms pay of ordinary Britishworkers has been flatlining since 2009; while the cult of austerity in public spending has hollowed out our communities and cultural life, and impoverished and degraded our public services. And of course, the resentment produced by such hard times also led to the disastrous act of economic and human self-harm that was Brexit”

 

 

 

 

[Slarti]

I think you were the one professing when you made the post, I was merely noting that it wasn’t from The Royal British legion but from The Scotsman newspaper. As for the veracity of the piece? well that would be your opinion rather than undisputable fact. The piece appears to suggest that the democratic process in both the US and U.K. is failing to produce a magical land where poverty, distrust and power don’t exist. The section below is very strange as it appears to suggest that U.K. economic modelling is right wing? I wonder what Mr Blair and Mr Brown were thinking. 
 
“Both at home and abroad, in other words, it is difficult to imagine a more effective recipe for national decline. And meanwhile, in the UK, it becomes ever more clear that 40 almost uninterrupted years of right-wing economics has likewise ushered in an age of decline. The real-terms pay of ordinary Britishworkers has been flatlining since 2009; while the cult of austerity in public spending has hollowed out our communities and cultural life, and impoverished and degraded our public services. And of course, the resentment produced by such hard times also led to the disastrous act of economic and human self-harm that was Brexit”
 
 

 
 

Blair and Brown were right of where the centre used to be. New Labour's shift rightwards moved the centre line.

[stlucifer]

7 hours ago, ALBIONSAINT said:

I think you were the one professing when you made the post, I was merely noting that it wasn’t from The Royal British legion but from The Scotsman newspaper. As for the veracity of the piece? well that would be your opinion rather than undisputable fact. The piece appears to suggest that the democratic process in both the US and U.K. is failing to produce a magical land where poverty, distrust and power don’t exist. The section below is very strange as it appears to suggest that U.K. economic modelling is right wing? I wonder what Mr Blair and Mr Brown were thinking. 
 

“Both at home and abroad, in other words, it is difficult to imagine a more effective recipe for national decline. And meanwhile, in the UK, it becomes ever more clear that 40 almost uninterrupted years of right-wing economics has likewise ushered in an age of decline. The real-terms pay of ordinary Britishworkers has been flatlining since 2009; while the cult of austerity in public spending has hollowed out our communities and cultural life, and impoverished and degraded our public services. And of course, the resentment produced by such hard times also led to the disastrous act of economic and human self-harm that was Brexit”

 

 

 

 

I was not professing. I was merely relaying what I believe is an accurate reflection of those who are in control of our countries. I don't see any issue with the statement. Both Blair and Brown were most definitely right of centre. They believed in "trickle down economics" which, by its very nature, will NEVER work to the benefit of the actual workers. Those who actually produce the wealth.

[antrin]

6 hours ago, Slarti said:

11 hours ago, ALBIONSAINT said:

I think you were the one professing when you made the post, I was merely noting that it wasn’t from The Royal British legion but from The Scotsman newspaper. As for the veracity of the piece? well that would be your opinion rather than undisputable fact. The piece appears to suggest that the democratic process in both the US and U.K. is failing to produce a magical land where poverty, distrust and power don’t exist. The section below is very strange as it appears to suggest that U.K. economic modelling is right wing? I wonder what Mr Blair and Mr Brown were thinking. 
 
“Both at home and abroad, in other words, it is difficult to imagine a more effective recipe for national decline. And meanwhile, in the UK, it becomes ever more clear that 40 almost uninterrupted years of right-wing economics has likewise ushered in an age of decline. The real-terms pay of ordinary Britishworkers has been flatlining since 2009; while the cult of austerity in public spending has hollowed out our communities and cultural life, and impoverished and degraded our public services. And of course, the resentment produced by such hard times also led to the disastrous act of economic and human self-harm that was Brexit”
 
 

 
 

Blair and Brown were right of where the centre used to be. New Labour's shift rightwards moved the centre line.

Thank you,

I couldnae be bothered responding to the gobshite.

[stlucifer]

34 minutes ago, antrin said:

Thank you,

I couldnae be bothered responding to the gobshite.

More likely incapable of counter argument

[Slarti]

More likely incapable of counter argument

Counter argument? Do you mean a disagreeable abacus?

[ALBIONSAINT]

14 hours ago, antrin said:

Thank you,

I couldnae be bothered responding to the gobshite.

Charming, you were probably too busy scouring the rest of BAWA forum looking for FS and Shull content to put in your little Gulag thread to answer me. Little Soviet 🤭

[ALBIONSAINT]

18 hours ago, stlucifer said:

I was not professing. I was merely relaying what I believe is an accurate reflection of those who are in control of our countries. I don't see any issue with the statement. Both Blair and Brown were most definitely right of centre. They believed in "trickle down economics" which, by its very nature, will NEVER work to the benefit of the actual workers. Those who actually produce the wealth.

Fair point. It would appear that no matter who is in charge of the country (left or right wing) capitalism will always be the model we use and such the workers only have their Labour to sell. Don’t know how this will all pan out when AI takes over all the trades and professional roles? 

[Slarti]

21 hours ago, ALBIONSAINT said:

Fair point. It would appear that no matter who is in charge of the country (left or right wing) capitalism will always be the model we use and such the workers only have their Labour to sell. Don’t know how this will all pan out when AI takes over all the trades and professional roles? 

I don't think AI could take over my job as I don't think anyone would want to write a program that does nothing.

[W6er]

On 11/18/2023 at 12:32 AM, ALBIONSAINT said:

Just for clarity…….the first part of this post is from the Royal British legion (the right to protest) the rest of the post is from an article from The Scotsman. 

 

I'm actually glad you clarified that, as I was about to waste my time verifying it. I would have found it difficult to believe something like that would come from the British Legion.