Off Topic Politics Thread

I'd say a united Ireland was probably inevitable at some point. Could still be a long way off though, & will depend to a large extent on changing demographics and changing social attitudes. The decline in influence of the Roman Catholic Church in Irish society may reassure the next generation of protestant Unionists that they have nothing to fear from that direction.

Brexit may actually hasten the process, but maybe not if the UK govt continues to pump money into the region while the rest of the UK is starved of funds. Generally speaking the RoI has done very well out of EU membership, & if the impact of Brexit on the UK economy is as bad as feared, the people of NI may begin to see a brighter future away from Britain.

In the end, money always talks.

 

Hong Kong is different to those examples though for practical and legal reasons.

In legal terms there's a coherent argument for the UK retaining the other two. The Spanish government signed a treaty ceding Gibraltar to the UK in perpetuity. Yes that was 300 years ago but it's still legal. The Falklands is more complicated but the UK case is basically that we originally settled the islands before Argentina existed and that Argentina has accepted this in the past. Some may think Argentina and Spain have stronger claims but the UK undoubtedly has a case. Those areas are also largely self-sustaining, which Hong Kong wasn't and isn't.

In the case of Hong Kong the territory was split - some of the territory was ceded in perpetuity so the UK could technically have retained it but the New Territories were on a 99 year lease and there was no legal argument for keeping that area once the lease expired in 1997.

The practical point then comes into play. Hong Kong isn't militarily defensible and drinking water is relatively scarce. Hong Kong toilets flush using sea water to save fresh water. The vast majority of Hong Kong's food and water comes from either the New Territories or is imported from China itself. So if the Chinese had invaded we couldn't have fought them off and if they'd turned off the water supply the residents of Hong Kong would have been screwed. That being the case the UK tried to do a deal that would preserve Hong Kong's special status. Could the UK have done more? Perhaps, and I suppose holding (and winning) a vote might have strengthened their negotiating hand but I don't think keeping Hong Kong was ever a realistic option.

 

The right wing media are ****ting themselves, they are not content with having 90% of the press supporting them and it's funny that nobody ever mentions ITV who are painfully supportive of the right.....Boo hoo Rupert, suck it up...

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/38987...r-implications-for-britain-and-needs-to-stop/

I loved Chrissie Hynde at Glasto, when explained why she has lived here for 44 years, she said, "Where else in the world would you get someone shouting to Murdoch, **** off you ****, we're the majority now!"

(This will get Imps going...)

 

I have been pondering the impact of newspapers, on how the more elderly, non computer savvy, pensioners vote.
It is generally considered that the silver vote is a vote for the Tories, but I am wondering if this might change, in the future, as those who only get there political news via a newspaper or the news bulletins, shuffle off and are replaced by a generation of oldies who can get news from wider areas.
My dad was a perfect example. Never touched a computer in his life, other than to clean under or around one, but read, I'm sad to say, the Sun. His political views were very much shaped by Murdoch, and his oft repeated lies and half truths and the misrepresentation of comments by failing to report them in the context in which they were made.

 

Sure....

 

The influence of newspapers may be on the wane now but they've been heavily influential in the past and that seed sets, unless people actually think anew before they vote. So Murdoch's awful legacy influence will live on for years. But never mind those Murdoch lovers, with SKY you get a centre right influence and with Fox News in the States, Murdoch is drumming up something not far short of Fascism.

It's not surprising that The Sun prints a spectator journalist article on the BBC. The BBC is a balance against Murdoch. It produces high quality at reasonable cost per annum. Forget ITV and the rest for the moment. Let's consider SKY. Here you have a channel which uses advertisements for funding AND expects you to pay a subscription too watch them, which generally, after less than 6 months at the cheapest rate, easily tops the licence fee. And they provide nothing like the broad quality of service the BBC provides. And ITV, CH4 and the rest actually want the BBC licence fee to continue, because they know that the BBC provide the benchmark fro quality programming, and because there is only so big an advertising pot to go round, and they know full well that the BBC would take a massive chunk of it if they were to advertise. The thing is, we take the Beeb for granted. I've lived in another country which only had commercial TV and Radio channels. It's ****ing awful, believe me.

 

Short video from 1984, warning of the potential danger, with regards to cladding tower blocks.
It also indicates that cladding began during Thatcher's reign and not, as May has claimed, under Blair.

http://evolvepolitics.com/theresa-m...ding-tower-blocks-thatcher-heres-proof-video/

 

Strikes are going to happen now.

 

What a despicable bunch they are. Inflation is around 3% and still the public sector is on an annual 1% pay rise. Their income has dropped by around 14% in real terms since 2010, and still only hints from the government that anything is going to change. Theresa May is indeed a dead woman walking.

 

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5 Tories and 6 Labour abstained.

Hunt not making things better:

Hunt is pressing his point that Labour want to use the NHS “as a political football” and as a way to “milk votes”. He calls the “Conservative party the party of the NHS”.

Sure

 

Read my post above, Hunt is on meth

 

Recently been on a Youtube channel hosted by Owen Jones. He interviews people who are in the news or who have something significant to say. Here's one:

About the Grenfell Tower fire. The other day I suggested that it might have been a consequence of putting profit before people, and of austerity measures. I didn't quite realise how closely my instincts related to groundswell opinion.

 

Now that Mrs May has secured the support of the DUP, she should replace BJ with Arlene Foster.

 

If the UK had decided it wanted to remain in the EU, and had joined the euro at its inception, the border between NI and the Republic would have in reality, ceased to exist.

 

[QUOTE="Beefy, post: 10690311, member:

Hunt not making things better:

Hunt is pressing his point that Labour want to use the NHS “as a political football” and as a way to “milk votes”. He calls the “Conservative party the party of the NHS”.

Sure [/QUOTE]

The NHS IS a political football.
When you have one party set on improving it and maintaining it for future generations, and another set on undermining it, in preparation for privatisation, how can it not be political?

We already have families having to make daily decisions as to what they can or cannot afford to spend money on.
We already have reports of children going to school without having breakfast.
We have parents going without meals, in order to feed their children.
We have people, young and old, having to decide between heating or eating, during the winter months.
The way the NHS is being "managed" by Hunt, there is, IMO, every likelihood that our grandchildren will be faced with the same dilemma our grandparents had, pre-NHS - can they afford to pay for medical care.

 

[QUOTE="Beefy, post: 10690311, member:

The NHS IS a political football.
When you have one party set on improving it and maintaining it for future generations, and another set on undermining it, in preparation for privatisation, how can it not be political?

We already have families having to make daily decisions as to what they can or cannot afford to spend money on.
We already have reports of children going to school without having breakfast.
We have parents going without meals, in order to feed their children.
We have people, young and old, having to decide between heating or eating, during the winter months.
The way the NHS is being "managed" by Hunt, there is, IMO, every likelihood that our grandchildren will be faced with the same dilemma our grandparents had, pre-NHS - can they afford to pay for medical care.[/QUOTE]
There probably aren't many, if any, people on this forum who can remember what life was like before the NHS, when every visit to the doctor had to be paid for, so many people literally couldn't afford medical care unless they "went on the panel", which was a humiliating experience by all accounts. I've no idea what the full cost of a 10 minute GP consultation would be nowadays, let alone any kind of hospital visit, but you would definitely have to make lifestyle decisions to afford it. Even if, as is likely, the whole business was insurance-based, the monthly premiums would be far higher than we currently pay through taxation and National Insurance.

Lest we forget, the National Health Service was brought into being by the post-war Labour government, against Conservative opposition. The Tories have never, from the very beginning, bought into the idea of a healthcare system free at the point of need. That isn't making the NHS a political football, that's historical fact.

 

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And I bet they knew it at the time, but didn't expect to be called to account.

 

Powerful documentary from BBC III, called, Don't Deport Me, I'm British: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p055x5kr/dont-deport-me-im-british
Eye opener as to our attitude.