Off Topic Politics Thread

[Puck]

Alright fair enough, I guess. But to clarify-- I'm not saying that things have to be exactly the same. I'm saying that to me claiming an election is rigged or corrupt vs expressing your displeasure for the election results are 100% entirely different and therefore to me there is not even the faintest whiff of hypocrisy here.

But we disagree, that's cool

To some extent you're right and it's not everybody. I'd be more inclined to agree with you if these were simply peaceful marches on particular issues or general points (tolerance, say) but I think the reaction on street has gone a bit past that. For me riots, flag burning, setting fire to rubbish in streets etc takes this a bit beyond the pale.

Then on Twitter you had reactions like the one attached. It's crazy.

 

[Onionman]

I hesitate to imagine what the scenes on the streets would have been if Hillary had won the presidency while losing the popular vote. It really doesn't bear thinking about.

Vin

 

[Whiteley Saint]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37946420

Can you imagine it? Farage as a go between to Trump. I don't think so.

 

[Puck]

I hesitate to imagine what the scenes on the streets would have been if Hillary had won the presidency while losing the popular vote. It really doesn't bear thinking about.

Vin

Quite. I'm not a Trump supporter and I have no doubt his supporters would have been worse if the roles were reversed.

 

[San Tejón]

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Trump's response is typical of a bully, who has been challenged. Boo hoo

 

[San Tejón]

By Harry Leslie Smith (writer and political commentator)
I WAS born in 1923, so I know all too well that if you live long enough history will repeat itself.

What I never expected to see were the economic and social conditions that gave rise to Hitler and Nazism return not only to continental Europe but also to America and Great Britain.

The world has suddenly become a very dangerous place because the US elected a new president who spent the last 18 months telling his fellow citizens a wall must be built across their southern border to stop droves of Mexican rapists and drug dealers from swarming into their nation.

Now words like that don’t remind me of Lincoln, Kennedy or even Nixon – but of Adolf Hitler.

When politicians of division like Nigel Farage in the EU referendum produce a poster campaign portraying refugees in Europe because of war in their own country as an uncivilised mob out to steal our benefits I think of Hitler, not Churchill.

But as globalisation and austerity has stolen the middle class dream, some politicians would rather incite hate than impose fair taxation on the wealthiest 1%.

It is why I am more than concerned by the political rhetoric that spawned Brexit and made Donald Trump a superpower’s president – I am scared.

Hitler, like Lenin and all authoritarian leaders, came to power because there was not only great economic inequality but also because there was a moral vacuum that allowed evil to supplant reason.

Now I am not saying Trump is Hitler or Farage is a fascist. What I am saying is our politics, like healthy cells in our body, have a greater potential to turn into a lethal cancer if exposed to a toxin. And that should make us all more vigilant on the politicians we choose to represent us.

 

[San Tejón]

VIRGIN is tobecome the first private firm to run adult social care after winning a controversial £700million contract.

A Tory-led council last night agreed Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Care could run more than 200 NHS services.

But campaigners fear it is the start of the health service being sold off.

Cllr Eleanor Jackson said: “Make no mistake about it, what has happened here is the beginning of the privatisation of the NHS in this country.

“The Tories have let us all down and everyone should be horrified about this decision. Woe betide you getting ill in this area if you are old, disabled or have learning difficulties in the next seven years. It is just a horrifying decision.”

Protesters in the council chamber booed as Bath and North East Somerset councillors voted in favour of the landmark deal. The decision was approved with 35 votes to 22. It came after a unanimously favourable vote by the council’s NHS Clinical Commissioning Group.

The decision has been the subject of controversy for months. One protester who descended on the Guildhall in Bath before last night’s vote said: “This could be a huge watershed for healthcare in this country and finally realise the Tory dream of killing off the NHS once for all. We will be vocal in our outrage.”

Hundreds of campaigners, including I, Daniel Blake film director Ken Loach, marched last month against the deal.

Public health nursing and speech and language therapy are also included in the contract. The council said it will have a clause requiring any financial surplus to be reinvested in services.

But Ruth Allen, of the British Association of Social Workers, said: “How long will that last, and how will surpluses be defined?”

She added: “How can they provide sustainable value on public money and highest quality when they need to show dividend returns to shareholders?”

Cllr Vic Pritchard, Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Health said the council followed “the recommendation of a wide range of service users, carers and subject matter experts who have dedicated hundreds of hours to scrutinising the bids and really understand how services need to change”.

A Virgin Care spokesman added: “We have been providing community health and care services for a decade, working with a range of partners to look after more than a million people a year.”

Services will be transferred from not-for-profit social enterprise Sirona to Virgin Care next April.

[email protected]

 

[ImpSaint]

You are wrong. There is not only NOT a big push for repeal of gay marriage by the electorate, the majority of them are in favor of allowing it.

And where did I say I thought that Trump or the electorate would push for repeal? I said I think it will remain as it is and that Trump won't try and change it?

 

[ImpSaint]

Society finally progresses at the pace of the slowest. But we need people in the vanguard to show the way. It has always been the case.

YE but the vanguard also need to realise that sometimes they are pushing too fast as well as thinking they have been succesful when they have not achieved as much as they thought they had.

 

[Archers Road]

Not your best analogy considering the simply huge numbers of church goers in the USA. As a more mature society, the UK realises that answers to questions that don't actually exist, are not to be found while kneeling down in a building so as to feel better about onesself.

In your opinion.


Just because you have never tried prayer is no reason to mock those people who, for a variety of reasons, may have come to rely on it

 

[ImpSaint]

To some extent you're right and it's not everybody. I'd be more inclined to agree with you if these were simply peaceful marches on particular issues or general points (tolerance, say) but I think the reaction on street has gone a bit past that. For me riots, flag burning, setting fire to rubbish in streets etc takes this a bit beyond the pale.

Then on Twitter you had reactions like the one attached. It's crazy.

reactions like those from Van Jones' on CNN which he continued yesterday as well don't help. The power of words to stir trouble is a problem of both sides here and Van Jones has pushed his "whitelash" comments. Not very constructive. America seems all about abusing demographics on both sides TBH. I don;t think anyone over there cares what problem it causes as long as their point is heard.

 

[Archers Road]

I hesitate to imagine what the scenes on the streets would have been if Hillary had won the presidency while losing the popular vote. It really doesn't bear thinking about.

Vin

None of this bears thinking about. Poor America..

 

[Whiteley Saint]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37944473

Some MP's to vote against triggering Article 50, but not enough to stop it happening - assuming there is a vote of course.

 

[Puck]

If I were in Theresa May's position (assuming the appeal in the Supreme Court is lost) I would call a vote of confidence in the government's policy on leaving the EU.

Win the vote and she proceeds as she wishes, lose and we get a general election where the Conservatives can argue for hard Brexit, Labour for soft Brexit and the Lib Dems changing our mind and staying. The people can decide (again) and we would have a government with a clear mandate to do whatever they campaigned for.

 

[ImpSaint]

If I were in Theresa May's position (assuming the appeal in the Supreme Court is lost) I would call a vote of confidence in the government's policy on leaving the EU.

Win the vote and she proceeds as she wishes, lose and we get a general election where the Conservatives can argue for hard Brexit, Labour for soft Brexit and the Lib Dems changing our mind and staying. The people can decide (again) and we would have a government with a clear mandate to do whatever they campaigned for.

Labour won't give them the support for it. Corbyn's lot will because they are pretty safe but most of the Labour party are not so safe anymore and will already be worrying about 2020 let alone now. 170 odd Labour MPs + the SNP (who aren't going to risk losing any of their "whole of Scotland" seats) puts a stop to any thought in reality of getting the 2/3 of parliament.

 

[I Sorry I Ruined The Party]

And where did I say I thought that Trump or the electorate would push for repeal? I said I think it will remain as it is and that Trump won't try and change it?

Trump has no power to repeal gay marriage. It was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, so only the Supreme Court can change it.

The original decision was 5-4. Ginsberg, Kennedy and Breyer voted in the majority but are 83, 80, and 78. If they retire or die, then Trump's appointees will almost certainly go the other way. At that point, a state will challenge the law and it will be overturned. So the electorate's views on this specific issue is irrelevant, as are Trump's.

However, people are panicking over this somewhat unnecessarily. It would only occur if/when 2 justices leave. It might never happen. If it does, it will take some time, and attitudes towards gay marriage are trending towards allowing it. 37 states had already legalized it before the S. Ct. made it legal nationwide. So even in that scenario, it would still be legal in the vast majority of states.

As far as liberal causes that are in serious trouble right now, this one ranks very low on the totem pole.

 

[davecg69]

Trump has no power to repeal gay marriage. It was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, so only the Supreme Court can change it.

The original decision was 5-4. Ginsberg, Kennedy and Breyer voted in the majority but are 83, 80, and 78. If they retire or die, then Trump's appointees will almost certainly go the other way. At that point, a state will challenge the law and it will be overturned. So the electorate's views on this specific issue is irrelevant, as are Trump's.

However, people are panicking over this somewhat unnecessarily. It would only occur if/when 2 justices leave. It might never happen. If it does, it will take some time, and attitudes towards gay marriage are trending towards allowing it. 37 states had already legalized it before the S. Ct. made it legal nationwide. So even in that scenario, it would still be legal in the vast majority of states.

As far as liberal causes that are in serious trouble right now, this one ranks very low on the totem pole.

And the Republicans will soon own the Supreme Court - Pence has already said he will act to repeal Wade vs Roe, so no woman in the US will have the choice for abortion no matter what. He is also likely to do all he can to repeal any laws protecting LGBT people - as he says "I am a Christian first ....." - however, in my experience, radical Christians are as dangerous as any other radical religious zealots. Only what they say is right and they will not listen to anyone else.
I worry big time for the world now - I hope I am proven wrong ........................

 

[The Ides of March]

I think there is a genuine fear that Western World values have lurched back decades and to the far right wing. So it seems that significant numbers of people have never got the idea that we are all one, in the end. According to the world that we presently live in, we might be charitable when celebrities encourage us to be, when it suits them. We can give and receive presents at Xmas, and chocolate at Easter, and selectively at birthdays, because that's what you do at those times, and that's the extent of our thoughts towards others. In all other senses we think of ourselves and we try to make sure we are at the top of our particular pile and **** everyone else. During the post-WWII labour movement, and especially during the 1960's, we began to lose that last sentence. We began to be inclusive. We began to make our first steps towards a maturity in society. And now what was previously and progressively being erased but was merely hidden, is now out in the open. Not only that, the attitude of "us first, us only, me first, me only", has been officially endorsed in 2016. Well, not by me.

Harold Wilson, best PM ever. Got to give Heath credit for his vision in taking us into what is now the "EU."

By contrast, Cameron's Tories took the UK backwards in many respects including the way he tried but failed to reunite the Cons with the Ulster Unionists. All that is left for May to do is to complete the job of going back to the 1920s which was the decade that Fascism began making headway.

 

[Beef]

To some extent you're right and it's not everybody. I'd be more inclined to agree with you if these were simply peaceful marches on particular issues or general points (tolerance, say) but I think the reaction on street has gone a bit past that. For me riots, flag burning, setting fire to rubbish in streets etc takes this a bit beyond the pale.

Then on Twitter you had reactions like the one attached. It's crazy.

Rather all of that then violence towards people. Already been reports of gay people being beat up, transgenders being abused etc etc.

 

[Puck]

Labour won't give them the support for it. Corbyn's lot will because they are pretty safe but most of the Labour party are not so safe anymore and will already be worrying about 2020 let alone now. 170 odd Labour MPs + the SNP (who aren't going to risk losing any of their "whole of Scotland" seats) puts a stop to any thought in reality of getting the 2/3 of parliament.

If the government loses a vote of confidence they have two weeks to win another one and that's what I was thinking of. However, a bit more research suggests the vote of no confidence has to be worded fairly specifically so I'm not sure my idea would work.

It would probably still be enough to get all the Conservative MPs to vote for her. Basically the same thing John Major did over Maastricht.