The Politics Thread

The Tories are pro-fox hunting and want to censor the internet. Lovely.

 

What gets me about the Tory manifesto is that the Beeb reported it as "radical"(same as they used for Corbyn's). Other than the energy market changes, which we already knew about, there doesn't seem to be any departure from normal Conservative service and is more dull than anything else. If anything's radical about it, it's that it's all so opaque but again that's something we're getting very used to under Chairman May.

I really worry about this country if we vote for another 5 years of Conservativism but it's looking increasingly likely unless we see a major scandal in the coming weeks.

 

It works for Kim Jong-un.

Which is the perfect opportunity to post this: http://canyoutrusttheresa.com/

...and then mention the site doesn't go anywhere near deep enough, and that tells you all you need to know.

 

Trump: Firing FBI chief 'eased pressure'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39983257

Dumpf calls Comey 'a nut job'!! Clearly they won't be exchanging Xmas cards!!

 

It seems a Russian has offered an American a vast sum of money to take control of a once unmatched but now rather decrepit and strife-riven organization.

Also, Usmanov has offered to buy out Kroenke for 1.3 billion.

 

Courtesy of Steven on the Prem board....

 

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Sections of the American right-wing media have been pushing a conspiracy theory about Seth Rich's death this week.
The suggestion is that he leaked the DNC emails to Wikileaks, so Hillary Clinton had him killed.
Who's decided that's something worthwhile to tweet about?

 

Here is Ol' Swivel Eyes' quite remarkable meltdown posted on her Facebook page this morning in full - which I would call the longest suicide note in history, but that was the Tory manifesto...

If I lose just six seats I will lose this election, and Jeremy Corbyn will be sitting down to negotiate with the presidents, prime ministers and chancellors of Europe:

For anyone with any doubts about the importance of this election, the events of the past week should have put them to rest. With the publication of the Labour Party’s manifesto on Tuesday, and the launch of my own plan on Thursday, it is clearer than ever just how much is at stake.

Labour’s plan – with its fantastical promises and utopian vision – would drag this country back to the past. It would undo all the progress we have made, return us to the days when the trade unions held sway, and put our economic security at risk.

It is a despairing document from a divisive party, written and shaped by a leader who doesn’t understand – or like – our country.

Jeremy Corbyn has spent decades apologising for Britain. He accuses me of wanting to wrap myself in the Union Flag, as if that were a term of abuse. It’s little wonder that even traditional Labour voters look at what he believes in and are appalled.

He has disowned and rejected the core values of Labour’s most loyal supporters to put his own extreme ideological obsessions first. The prospect of him walking through the door of Number 10, flanked by John McDonnell and Diane Abbott and propped up by the Liberal Democrat and nationalist parties, should scare us all.

And make no mistake, it could happen. The cold hard fact is that if I lose just six seats I will lose this election, and Jeremy Corbyn will be sitting down to negotiate with the presidents, prime ministers and chancellors of Europe.

Yet with his manifesto this week, he has demonstrated that he is simply not up to the job of leading Britain through the critical years ahead.

Manifestos are a test of leadership. They force leaders to choose their priorities, reckon with great challenges and face up to difficult decisions.

Jeremy Corbyn has failed that test. His shambolic prospectus ducks all the difficult decisions we face as a country, threatening to bring chaos to Britain and selling future generations short.

I believe in being upfront and straight with people. We face some great challenges as a nation. How to make sure our economy stays strong; how we ensure Britain emerges from Brexit stronger, more united and more confident than ever before; how we overcome social divisions, spread opportunity and make Britain the world’s Great Meritocracy; how to restore the contract between generations, providing security for older people while being fair to the young; and how we seize the opportunities on offer in a digital world.

We cannot wish these challenges away. But with a government that steps up, shows leadership and takes the big, sometimes difficult decisions that are right for Britain in the long-term, we can see them as opportunities instead.

The Government I lead will be that active government. A mainstream government that delivers for mainstream Britain. We will leave the European Union and the single market, and take control of our borders, our money and our laws – because we respect the will of the British people and recognise that, however they voted, people just want us to get on with the job of delivering Brexit.

We will bring net migration down to sustainable levels to tens of thousands rather than hundreds of thousands – because when immigration is too fast and too high, it is difficult to build a cohesive society.

We will ensure taxes are low and money is targeted on the right priorities – because Conservatives know it is taxpayers’ money and we have a duty to spend it well.

And we will invest in the future to ensure each generation is able to do better than the last.

We will fund the new schools – including a new wave of selective schools – that will give young people the best start in life. We will invest in a new generation of technical institutions to give them the skills they need to succeed. We will build the homes required to help them get on the housing ladder. And we will continue to pay down our nation’s debts, because it is wrong to pass to future generations a bill you cannot or will not pay yourself.

The next five years will be critical for Britain. Our future prosperity, our place in the world, our economic security and the opportunities we want for our children – and our children’s children – all depend on getting the best Brexit deal for Britain.

That will require leadership from a prime minister who is strong enough to stand up for Britain, and a government that is stable enough to steer the country safely through the negotiations ahead.

With his manifesto this week, Jeremy Corbyn has shown he is simply not up to that task.

For that reason, and because of the chaos his plans would unleash on this country, I will redouble my efforts in the weeks to come to earn every vote. That will strengthen my hand when I negotiate in Europe and help me build a stronger, fairer, more prosperous Britain.

A country our children and grandchildren are proud to call home.

 

Really? You don't say? You've never mentioned that before.

 

She believes in being upfront and straight with people....... Except when that means facing direct questions. Unless of course that's on the One Show........

 

Right, let's get to the dirty business of tearing that deluded, self-serving rant that you could paste into that Downfall meme and it genuinely wouldn't look out of place...

If I lose just six seats I will lose this election, and Jeremy Corbyn will be sitting down to negotiate with the presidents, prime ministers and chancellors of Europe:
Right out of the gate this rant is incredibly deluded, for the simple reason that she won't be losing six seats as she's only seeking to defend one, namely her Maidenhead seat. Now if the Tories lost six seats it might be a different matter...until it was pointed out that the maths don't add up on this one, as the Tories losing nine seats is what would tip the balance, not six. In other words, like so many others within her party (as well as spreading propaganda on their behalf) the figures are incorrect.

In her opening gambit she's given us two reasons to worry about her negotiating with the presidents, prime ministers and chancellors of Europe - and that's before remembering her negotiating strategy mainly consists of empty threats and...more empty threats.

For anyone with any doubts about the importance of this election, the events of the past week should have put them to rest. With the publication of the Labour Party’s manifesto on Tuesday, and the launch of my own plan on Thursday, it is clearer than ever just how much is at stake.
Says the leader of the party with a policy of Die Now, Pay Later in their manifesto...

Labour’s plan – with its fantastical promises and utopian vision – would drag this country back to the past. It would undo all the progress we have made, return us to the days when the trade unions held sway, and put our economic security at risk.
First of all, when did striving for a "utopian" society become a bad thing? Considering the opposite would be a dystopian society, a favourite subject of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, shouldn't we as a society be looking to avoid living in a world that can be compared to anything in their various works?

Secondly, if we're going to hark on about one party dragging this country into the past, which party is adamant in their support of such 21st century issues as grammar schools and bringing back fox hunting, while also overseeing the lowest levels of house-building since the 1920s and slowest post-crisis recovery since the 1720s? Because if we're going to talk about dragging the country kicking and screaming into a past era, the Tories are winning that game of Top Trumps hands down.

Finally, considering the pound's been dropping like a stone since last June (and there will be more on this soon, trust me...) which party has done the most to damage our economic future?

It is a despairing document from a divisive party, written and shaped by a leader who doesn’t understand – or like – our country.
Can somebody remind me which political party has been so divisive that an internal party squabble somehow mutated into a national crisis as Britain was dragged out of the EU on a tsunami of outright lies? Does that sound like a party that likes this country?

Jeremy Corbyn has spent decades apologising for Britain. He accuses me of wanting to wrap myself in the Union Flag, as if that were a term of abuse. It’s little wonder that even traditional Labour voters look at what he believes in and are appalled.
Where have I heard that before? Oh yes, I remember...

Are you sure there's nothing in the last hundred years of British history that we should think that maybe, just maybe, we should apologise for? Nothing at all?

Also, the term "wrapping yourself in the flag" is a criticism, as it's used to describe people who try to hide behind patriotic bluster in order to deflect and/or silence criticism, a tactic used by a lot of politicians who lean on triumphalistic bluster to cover their lack of policies - so either Ol' Swivel Eyes is unaware of this, or she merely thinks the electorate are stupid.

It's also pretty damn insulting to try and position yourself as a patriot when the Tories sold off most of this country's infrastructure to foreign corporations or even governments, which is the exact opposite of being patriotic considering the British taxpayer has to pay through the nose while other countries get rich off of them.

He has disowned and rejected the core values of Labour’s most loyal supporters to put his own extreme ideological obsessions first. The prospect of him walking through the door of Number 10, flanked by John McDonnell and Diane Abbott and propped up by the Liberal Democrat and nationalist parties, should scare us all.
On the first point...just **** off. Rejecting the core values of Blairism is not rejecting the core values of the Labour party - it's embracing the core values of the Labour party, which is what John Smith was also trying to do before his untimely passing. There's a reason that Margaret Thatcher herself said her greatest success was New Labour, and that's because New Labour was red Tory and little more.

If that wasn't insulting, the second part of this paragraph certainly is.

The fact that she claims that Labour would get into power propped up by the Lib Dems is the worst kind of revisionist claptrap, considering the only reason she was Home Secretary between 2010-16 was due to the Tories getting into power due to the Lib Dems propping them up and letting them run roughshod over the country for five years - or how they've had their trojan horse by the name of UKIP split the vote for several years since.

As for the undesirables walking through the door of 10 Downing Street with the Prime Minister, I'll counter that with the following list:
George Osborne
Jeremy Hunt
Michael Gove
Iain Duncan Smith
Boris Johnson
Theresa May
Michael Fallon
Amber Rudd
Phillip Hammond
Chris Grayling
Nikki Morgan
Justine Greening

And make no mistake, it could happen. The cold hard fact is that if I lose just six seats I will lose this election, and Jeremy Corbyn will be sitting down to negotiate with the presidents, prime ministers and chancellors of Europe.
The cold, hard fact is that you;re repeating yourself, and you have not corrected the six seat/nine seat error.

Yet with his manifesto this week, he has demonstrated that he is simply not up to the job of leading Britain through the critical years ahead.
A manifesto where that contains over fifty items where there is no suggestion of how much they will cost or where that funding is coming from is "weak" - and that doesn't describe the Labour manifesto (or, for that matter, the Lib Dem manifesto) as every item in their is fully costed. As for the Tory manifesto, apparently we'll be planting a forest of magic money trees to pay for everything.

Manifestos are a test of leadership. They force leaders to choose their priorities, reckon with great challenges and face up to difficult decisions. Jeremy Corbyn has failed that test. His shambolic prospectus ducks all the difficult decisions we face as a country, threatening to bring chaos to Britain and selling future generations short.
...and in your case, those priorities include butchering wild animals while they're still alive and snatching food from the mouths of children. As priorities go, that's ****ed.

I believe in being upfront and straight with people.
Yeah, we remember you on the leader's debate the other night...

We face some great challenges as a nation.
Such as nurses and members of the police force having to use food banks.

How to make sure our economy stays strong; how we ensure Britain emerges from Brexit stronger, more united and more confident than ever before; how we overcome social divisions, spread opportunity and make Britain the world’s Great Meritocracy; how to restore the contract between generations, providing security for older people while being fair to the young; and how we seize the opportunities on offer in a digital world.
It wouldn't be a Theresa May statement if it didn't contradict a previous Theresa May statement, as one minute she's talking of "critical years" for our economy, the next she's saying the economy is "strong" - which is utter bollocks.

The rest of that paragraph, meanwhile, is utter gibberish: social divides are greater now that at any point in the past fifty years, and meritocracy simply does not exist because the majority of people in this country cannot afford to buy their first house (which they could in the 1970s, that decade the Tories and their attack dogs keep saying Corbyn is dragging us back to...)

The last couple get a little extra scrutiny, because both of them are easily smashed to pieces by the Tories' own policies.

Starting with the "opportunities on offer in a digital world", saying this a week after the NHS was crippled by ransomware because the Tories were so keen to seize opportunities available in the digital world they had the NHS running on Windows XP (launched in 2001) and thought it would be better to save the £5.5m needed to offer adequate security for the whole system would be bad enough, but one of the Tories' core policies is to dismantle internet encryption because of reasons...which not only makes it a lot easier to have your internet activity snooped on (so if I suddenly stop posting her, you can guess why) but also subjects people across the country to similar attacks as it's actively removing a layer of protection from all internet users in the country, and how the hell can you "seize" opportunities when any half-decent hacker can just pop onto your computer, steal your work, then brick your computer with some high-level malware?

As for security for the older generation, to claim that you offer this a couple of days after unleashing means tested winter fuel allowance, let alone the Dementia tax, is an outright lie.

We cannot wish these challenges away. But with a government that steps up, shows leadership and takes the big, sometimes difficult decisions that are right for Britain in the long-term, we can see them as opportunities instead.
...and we're back to doom-mongering again, even though in the previous paragraph we were told the economy was "strong"

Also, has anyone counted how many times the phrases "big decision" and "difficult decision" have appeared in this claptrap? It's like they;re testing new soundbites that don't mean anything.

The Government I lead will be that active government. A mainstream government that delivers for mainstream Britain. We will leave the European Union and the single market, and take control of our borders, our money and our laws – because we respect the will of the British people and recognise that, however they voted, people just want us to get on with the job of delivering Brexit.
****'s sake, now that "will of the people" drivel is sticking its head above the parapet...

And since when did "getting on with the job" consist of spending nine months doing nothing but drop meaningless soundbites that might as well have been her saying "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious means Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" for as much good as they did, and having triggered Article 50 rather than "getting on with it" instead she called a snap general election (despite saying she wouldn't) which meant she would spend another two months doing anything other than "getting on with it"?

We will bring net migration down to sustainable levels to tens of thousands rather than hundreds of thousands – because when immigration is too fast and too high, it is difficult to build a cohesive society.
I remember a certain Home Secretary make a similar promise back in 2010, only to oversee the highest level of net migration in British history. The name of that Home Secretary? Theresa May...who recycled that pledge ahead of the 2015 election, to similar results.

We will ensure taxes are low and money is targeted on the right priorities – because Conservatives know it is taxpayers’ money and we have a duty to spend it well.
So why did you break the 2015 manifesto pledges to not raise Income tax or national Insurance? A subsequent u-turn on the latter doesn't make it better, it makes it a reason to not trust you.

And we will invest in the future to ensure each generation is able to do better than the last. We will fund the new schools – including a new wave of selective schools – that will give young people the best start in life. We will invest in a new generation of technical institutions to give them the skills they need to succeed. We will build the homes required to help them get on the housing ladder.
...as long as that future involves attending a grammar school. For those that don't, you'll be going to an overcrowded and underfunded public school on an empty stomach, and when you graduate you'll find less technical colleges and adult education centres than there were a decade ago so you will have less chances of learning new skills, when you join the workforce you will be getting paid less than people who graduated ten years ago, and if you're lucky you may be able to buy a house by the time you're fifty - which we'll sell from under you when you need care in your old age.

And we will continue to pay down our nation’s debts, because it is wrong to pass to future generations a bill you cannot or will not pay yourself.
George Osborne said the deficit would be paid off by 2015.
Theresa May claimed it would be paid off by 2020 when she snuck into power.
More recently, she has claimed the deficit will be paid off by 2022.

They're already halfway to passing it off on a future generation in the space of seven years.

The next five years will be critical for Britain. Our future prosperity, our place in the world, our economic security and the opportunities we want for our children – and our children’s children – all depend on getting the best Brexit deal for Britain.
If those years are so critical, why are you bellowing "No deal is better than a bad deal" at every opportunity? That directly affects our economic security, which directly affects future prosperity, which directly affects opportunities we want for our children, and our children's children...and are any of them going to get a free breakfast?

That will require leadership from a prime minister who is strong enough to stand up for Britain, and a government that is stable enough to steer the country safely through the negotiations ahead.
Oh look, she said "strong and stable" - even though, after this meltdown, the word "stable" really needs to be quietly removed from all election rhetoric. Slight problem with that: the idea of a Tory government being (to borrow a Cameronism) robust enough to do anything but line the pockets of them and their friends is based on lies, damn lies and...wait, there's as many statistics in this as there are costings in your manifesto.

With his manifesto this week, Jeremy Corbyn has shown he is simply not up to that task.
Still waiting to hear how you're funding the things in that manifesto...

For that reason, and because of the chaos his plans would unleash on this country, I will redouble my efforts in the weeks to come to earn every vote. That will strengthen my hand when I negotiate in Europe and help me build a stronger, fairer, more prosperous Britain.
As opposed to a party who not only unleashed chaos upon this country with the aforementioned inter-party squabble that mutated into Britain being dragged out of the EU, chaos which was exacerbated by a complete lack of contingency plan in case the referendum voted Leave rather than Remain. There's no hand to strengthen, she wasn't dealt a single card and yet she's acting as if she has a royal flush - and those presidents, prime ministers and chancellors can all see through her.

A country our children and grandchildren are proud to call home.
"Mummy, why is granddad crying?"
"It's because granddad has had his assets seized to pay for his social care."

Is that a scenario that our children and grandchildren would be proud to face up to?

 

Wow.That's a lot of stuff to think about,Human. I think every voter in GB should toss a coin on voting day and if it lands sideways........

 

I particularly liked this slant. I fully believe that most electors don't realise who owns the formerly nationalised industries.

My conspiracy paranoia thingy for today is news that the General Medical Council is worried about Brexit's impact on the GP service:
http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/your-pr...0-existing-gps-due-to-brexit/20034412.article
The paranoid bit is that the Tories realise this but might deliberately not give them the right to work, passing it off as "what we voted for" in Brexit, thus tipping the NHS further into disaster only to be "rescued" by a privately funded system.

 

Certain industry sectors should have to pass what I informally
call the 'war test' . The NHS is one of them.

 

A new week, and we've already had two senior Tories stumble over their figures and massively contradict themselves: https://www.theguardian.com/politic...r-damian-green-boris-johnson-tory-marr-peston

 

If this affects you directly (or someone you know), please share and come along if you can.

 

"I agreed with the shooting of British soldiers and believed the more who were killed the better" - Maria Gatland, Tory councillor for Croydon and former member of the IRA

...but go ahead, Tory Central Office, tell us about how Jeremy Corbyn was so pro-IRA.

 

Trump's clearly a secret Muslim.
I thought this was a criticism, but he was obviously celebrating the fact: