Off Topic Politics Thread

You are doing the current political trick of using dates to suit your argument. Why have you started your exchange rate in 2015 at £1.41? You have picked a high point that was not representative of where the exchange was over the past decade. I remember in the mid noughties the exchange rate was in the 1.40 region but that was not typical in recent years. It has been under 1.20 for the majority of the past decade.

Why have you presented it in that way?

To play devil's advocate The beginning of that rise where you have taken your 2015 high point is from 2013..........when David Cameron first announced the likelihood of a referendum being in the Tory manifesto in his infamous "Bloomberg speech."

 

Fair enough, I wasn't aware of the context and there was a debate about it on the radio (backing up Imps' point about the media making an issue about it). You are right, he couldn't really duck the question and wasn't scathing in his assessment of Churchill.

 

I have been following a "spat" between Andrew Neil (yes the BBC chap) and Chris Giles from the financial times.

It started when Andrew Neil was questioning the way the "slow" 1.3% growth of the UK was being presented when compared to the Eurozone, other EU major countries and most of the large nations other than Canada/US.

Chris Giles jumped in on it banging on about the UK being lower than the rest of the EU however, even I could see that to begin with he was using forecasts for Eurozone/Germany for the Q4 period as that had not been announced yet and I have said on here for a while the forecasts were way out.

Anyway, Lots of name calling going Andrew Neil's way....then Germany's Q4 figures came out at zero, which all of a sudden showed Neil was spot on, bang on the money.

Then Chris Giles chose a different line of attack going on about how Brexit was holding the UK back by up to 2% (think it was 2% he stated.) This of course again was from forecasts and treasury reports etc.

So the knub is that a senior FT journalist is trying to say that despite the UK having higher growth than the Eurozone and all of the G7 (apart from US / Canada) that somehow we would have been on much higher growth than all of them to the tune of up to 3.3%

This is why people are not listening to the "experts." Because they are quite happy to bang on the drum ignoring the numbers coming out in favour of their own made up numbers:



I have no problem with people forecasting things might happen but when the numbers come out and they continue to dispute they mean what they do, change their line of attack, alter to a different measure (Q4 2017 vs Q4 2018) if it suits their argument better then it all becomes meaningless and quite obviously agenda driven.

We are still hearing daily that the UK was "being left behind" by Germany in the past couple of years when the reality they ignored was that Germany had only just caught up in Q2 and have since fallen behind the UK when you look at a longer period from the financial crisis onward.

Similar to the post above r.e. the exchange rate. People (from all sides) are constantly selecting the same data but using different metrics or periods to say different things. In the end they are all wrong and the numbers show that no-one has actually gained or lost (other than Greece etc.) and the numbers don;t really show much if you aren't acccounting for the periods when governments were printing money, when they stopped printing money etc.

Going by the exchange rate example I could easily argue that when Obama was in charge I could get $2 to £1 so he must have been absolutely rubbish.

 

The human population is now 7 billion and it seems that the lefties and the righties are split 50/50. If you believe in Adam and Eve or the origin of the human species from Africa, there seems to a 50/50 split in the genetic differences between lefties and righties. Neither have gained a majority. In the UK, labour and conservatives have swapped power since voting was allowed. If it was just the rich that voted conservative and the poor that voted labour, labour would win every election, but they don't. There's something in the genes. Throughout history the righties are famed for their battles for their countries, the lefties for their care of their countries inhabitants. I can't see it changing. As long as it remains 50/50 we'll struggle on. Personally, I'll be a lefty til I die xx

 

"Throughout history the lefties are famed for their care of their inhabitants?" Are we deciding that the ones that didn't were actually righties? And no I am not just meaning that particular one.

Is Maduro (for example) suddenly a rightie because he isn't taking care of his country's inhabitants?

 

I'm a Humanist and I care much more about the species as a whole than I do about invisible ancient boundaries and national identities.

 

Random, just picked a year before, I should have done more research, that graph is a better indicator but I do believe the rate has suffered from the brexit negotiation farce. We follow the euro - Indonesian rupiah rate that, until I retired, was our main transfer market.

 

oh come on, Hitlers party was called the National Socialist German Workers' Party

 

I take my hat off to you and others for the detail you often provide. I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that your point re stats being manipulated for particular arguments is a good one though not a new phenomenon. The FT has not hid its passion for us to remain, neither has the Independent, as for the TV/radio media, it’s a mixed bag but probably leaning to a remain position. I don’t take the Mail but it too has changed it’s tone recently, becoming more supportive of the deal already there, though I do not support the effort it puts in re Corbyn. Much as I disagree with his policies that is not a reason to enjoy the vilification of him.

Regrettably we’ve reached the point where few if any are being persuaded by whatever arguments or data, to change their minds. It is my firm belief we must have a deal and the sooner the MP’s can get their house in order on that we can move on.

 

Let's wander back through recent history (the bits that have some evidence). 2000 years ago, the Roman empire, I don't speak Latin but do like pasta (although that came much later) The Ottoman Empire, I do like Turkish delight (but that came much later). The British Empire (yes I love curry!). They all fizzled out because once you've spent all your money conquering some poor countries they fight back and kick you out. Now all the French speak French, the Italians Italian, the British English, the Indians Indian (apart from those that learnt English and now run most high tech industries). So, if we had not fought the second world war, saving millions of lives, would we be goose stepping around speaking German or by now would we have voted Brexit?

 

I was trying to stay away from the obvious one. I was just inquiring how "throughout history" could be applied to the "left looking after the people of their own country" when so many (supposedly) left did the opposite unless they are immediately consider right and not left if they veer off the path.

 

I'm talking about people like Aneurin Bevan. I expect you can find something to slag him off about

 

Lost me on the reasoning there intentionally I suspect

 

but it's a funny old world, I started work in a factory. I joined the union. Within 10 years I was promoted to top management. I still went to the union meetings. The shop floor said "why is the management in our meeting?". The directors said "why are you in their meeting?" ah **** it. I took redundancy

 

probably lost myself too! but you're fun Imps!

 

Newspapers do have a limited reach, but the people most likely to read them are those that were brought up with the daily newspaper being their main source of information- the elderly.
Is it a coincidence that the majority of the elderly statistically buy right wing newspapers and vote for the Tories?
And that they are the age group most likely to vote at every election?
I don’t think so.
If you spend your life reading a paper that continually says Tories good, Labour bad, AND you have no other way of refuting what is said, I think it is fair to say that the readership will become indoctrinated into believing what they read.
The internet has broken, to an extent, the hold the newspapers have, especially on young people who don’t buy papers as often, if at all, as the previous generations. People reading the internet now have different viewpoints, PLUS videos, which enables them to build a more balanced view.
My generation is probably the last one which was brought up with a daily newspaper, but our access to the internet means that we can take what is written at face value, should we want to, of course. It might already be too late, for those that have bought into the right wing diatribe to accept a view different to what they read for 30 years or so.
And if you really want to dispute how powerful papers are, in influencing voters, just go back to the days when Murdoch switched allegiance from the Tories to Tony Bliar and Labour won by a landslide.
Since he switched back to the Tories, he has poor people voting for their own destruction, in voting for the Tories and giving them free reign to introduce policies that are harmful to them.

 

No, not that I've really done any "in depth" research into Nye Bevan.

So we are talking post war left wing in this country only?

 

Oh stop your squawking, Imps. That nice Mr Stalin took care of people!

 

Sorry if this has already been posted, but why isn't anyone allowed to criticise Churchill for his actions in Tonypandy?

I know he's a national hero, and all that. But it is the re-writing of history that allows people to say that Stalin was a good bloke and we have to ignore the mistakes he made that led to him murdering millions of his fellow citizens.

As far as I'm concerned old Winnie was a hero in WW2 and should be acknowledged as such. But that doesn't mean he should be canonised and his cock-ups not be included in his biography.

 

Nye Bevan is both a hero of the left, for being the father of the NHS and the Welfare State, and also a villain for opposing unilateral nuclear disarmament.