Off Topic Politics Thread

Yeah, nationalism is a backward looking, divisive and foolish concept on which to build a political movement. And no, the Scottish Nationalists are not the "good" nationalists, just because their tribalism is implicit rather than explicit.

 

Possibly the best depiction of Brexit I have seen.

 

Happy St Andrew`s day everyone !!

 

That has certainly been the case with spaffer and his cohorts regarding British nationalists and Brexit.

 

Received this today, reference the Good Law Project taking the government to court.

Good Law Project


Hi Badger

To bring judicial review proceedings you have to establish you have an arguable case. Courts have, in recent times, interpreted this as imposing a relatively high bar for judicial review proceedings; think of it as being shortlisted for a job. And if they think you cross that bar they give you ‘permission’.

We are pleased that we have now heard – in relation to two more sets of claims – that the High Court thinks our claims are arguable.

Last week we learned the Court has given Good Law Project and EveryDoctor permission to bring our challenge against its decision to award contracts to Pestfix, Ayanda, and Clandeboye. The Court gave us permission on some – but not all – of our grounds of complaint. So we have asked the Court for a short oral hearing in which we will make the case to be given permission on the others. That hearing will take place this Thursday 3rd December.

A few days later we heard we’ve also been granted permission to bring our challenge against the lucrative public affairs contract given to long-time associates of Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings at Public First.

In the Government’s summary grounds of defence, they do not even bother to contest that their decision to award the contract without competition was lawful. And their conduct does not seem to have thrilled the Court:

“The Defendant has provided no substantive response to the Claimant’s challenges, whether by way of pre-action correspondence or his Acknowledgement of Service, other than to state his intention to challenge the Claimant’s standing…The Defendant ought to have been able to indicate the general nature of his grounds of resistance in the Acknowledgment of Service.

“It is arguable that there was, at 3 March 2020, no extreme urgency within Regulation 32(2)(c) in respect of a contract for services of this nature”.

This case will be heard next year.

The Government’s arguments are wearing thin. Now it will have to come clean about what really happened.

It is only with your backing that we can continue to hold Government to account. Thank you for your continued support.

Jolyon Maugham QC
Director of Good Law Project

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Excellent news. Jolyon Maugham is shaping up to be my favourite person of 2020!

 

I 100% agree with that.

However despite the SNP being wholly more palatable in their methods, they belong to the same political movement as the Johnsons and the Farages.

I think there is a relatively good chance Scotland will go independent, but I’m still convinced the best possible outcome is to get the U.K. back into the EU in one piece, which I think is theoretically possible in around 10-20 years time, when you consider under 35s in every part of the U.K. are overwhelmingly pro EU and I don’t see Brexit convincing any new voters in the future.

Conversely I can also see England becoming one of the most pro-EU regions of Europe in a couple of decades as the younger generations react against the ****show they have been subjected to by the majority (but not all) of their elders.

 

The look more like the Dumb Belles to me.

 

Apparently, some Tory back benchers are now referring to Johnson as Advent Calendar, because his days are numbered.

 

Matt Hancock really does like lying doesn’t he.

 

What a bunch of incompetent gobshites make up the cabinet, it's hard to rank them.

 

It’s not just the incompetence, it’s the deliberate lies, which are given too much airtime and/or column inches without someone of stature exposing the lies.
As the lies are most likely to be printed, unchallenged, in right wing papers I take some consolation in knowing that they think that their supporters are stupid enough to believe them.

 

Our corrupted press is a real problem for this country.

Contrast the way the US media responded to Trumps ‘election rigging’ claims by cutting him off and immediately noting that the claims were unfounded, even the Murdochite right wing sensationalist press.

If a Conservative Prime Minister here made a similar claim after an election, I really don’t have any faith that our media would set the record straight, or challenge the politicians involved. The likes of the Mail, Express and the Telegraph would repeat the Prime Ministers claim and stoke the fire, the BBC would passively broadcast the remarks and then get some talking heads to debate it, not seeing it as their place to ‘rock the boat’.

Combine it with the atrocious standard of education for the majority of England and Wales in the ‘tripartite’ era and you have populist dynamite, the likes of which caused Brexit.

 

Is brexit a conspiracy to hinder our surge to Champions league glory?
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...-under-18-signings-in-post-brexit-regulations

 

Just to follow this up, funnily enough the BBC were doing exactly that regarding the governments ‘Brexit sped up the vaccine approval’ lie this morning on 5 Live.

Basically they said that some have debated the Governments claim but ‘it’s fair to say there has been a lot of trumpeting on both sides’, then left it there.

It is a hard fact that Brexit has nothing to do with the vaccine approval process, but the BBC are presenting it as a matter of opinion.

 

I no longer watch the BBC news bulletins because of this type of presentation. They should be calling out the blatant lies, for what they are and they need to start using the words lie and deliberate deceit/deception to make it clear to the public.
And for purposes of neutrality, this should apply to all political parties and political reporters, including their own.
They should already be carrying a subtitle stating that much of Laura Kuenssberg’s comments are her opinion and not necessarily the facts.
Something else I have wanted for a long time is to do with political programmes.
The guests are always introduced with their political affiliation stated.
The same should be done for the person hosting the programme, stating whatever interaction they may have with the political parties. I think this is important to help viewers understand why the host is often more helpful towards certain guests and more hostile to others.
The odds are that pretty much 100% of them are affiliated, in some way, to the Tory party, which generally means the show being skewed in support of the Tories.

 

Brexit put the BBC into an invidious position. Their commitment to remain impartial and balanced meant that, every time they interviewed an individual with an informed, rational observation, they had to give equal airtime to the emotional ravings of an opinionated buffoon, for balance.

That’s because there never was a rational argument for Brexit, only an emotional one. Brexit has helped to usher in a new, post truth era where the coverage of any assertion is determined not by it’s rationality or veracity, but by how loudly and widely it is being trumpeted.

Of course it doesn’t help that, on both sides of the Atlantic (until recently), the most irrational assertions are frequently coming from within government.

 

Absolute child.

 

That will get cheers from some quarters