Off Topic Politics Thread

What do we get for that 2,094? If things improve in terms of public services then that is a price worth paying

also what are the chances this cost is also what the Tories will cost us regardless due to Brexit border checks and so it will be the same with either party?

 

She’s a popular local MP, as is JC. No arguments there.

 

Buried in amongst all the election news I saw a comment saying that both HMRC and Stockport Council have confirmed that Angela Rayner does not owe any Capital Gains tax.
What a waste of police time.

 

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Can’t believe people are still talking about Dianne Abbott, Jesus wept.

She’s an utter imbecile. Any sane country would want someone that thinks like her nowhere near power or decision making.

All she has to cling to is her ridiculous race-baiting, divisive comments & virtue signalling. For some reason doing this constantly, seems to get suckers to like her.

i hope labour do suspend her purely because I hope I never have to hear her stupid opinions on anything ever again.

 

She won’t be anywhere near power or decision making

And she is mostly being talked about because she is making a lot of noise and it’s being reported by the press because it’s one of the few obvious sticks to beat Labour with at the moment - claims that the party is racist etc

 

The oddest thing is Abbott insisting she's been banned from standing and the Labour leadership saying she hasn't without (from what I've seen, I may have missed something) definitively saying she can. It's just very odd.

I don't think race is the issue so much as that Labour have been playing on "Tory incompetence" and Abbott saying she's been banned from standing while some of the Labour leadership say she hasn't and others refuse to comment looks quite chaotic. If Abbott is right (and my guess is she isn't) then questions will be asked about Labour's competence - "If Starmer doesn't know who's allowed to run as a candidate for his own party how can he be trusted to run the country?" etc. In the end I don't think it'll make much difference but it's quite a surprising, entirely self-inflicted problem.

 

I think Abbot is right and Starmer is right. But at the core of it Abbot is right.

Starmer has not banned Abbot from standing. However, I don't think he intended to endorse her as a candidate. Therefore, she would have been unable to stand but not technically banned. It would have been very easy for him to say: We intend to endorse her as a candidate! But he did not.

On the BBC they seem to think Starmer expected her to retire and this has all slapped him through a loop.

 

I’ve not been taking much notice of the Dianne Abbott kerfuffle but by putting it out there that Labour won’t be allowing her to stand at the election, she has created a situation where Labour has had to respond.
The response I have seen is that she hasn’t been stopped from standing which kind of puts Starmer in a position where he either sticks by that decision or he reneges on it and DOES block her, which shows him in a negative light.
From Abbott’s point of view I think she is in a win/win situation as she will, if blocked, probably stand as an independent and potentially take a lot of the votes from Labour, maybe opening up the door for another party to sneak in, although I have no idea if that last comment is a possibility.

 

Those posts both make a lot of sense. I'm not fully up to speed on the internal workings of the Labour party. I thought there might be some committee still reviewing her position.

I agree she may follow Corbyn's lead and stand as an independent candidate. She got over 70% of the vote last time so I'd be amazed if anyone except her or another Labour candidate won that seat.

Interestingly, I'm in a Whatsapp group with a lot of north London Labour members/voters and opinion there is split as to whether a "purge" would be a good thing or not.

 

Having everyone with exactly the same viewpoint and the same ideology is the very basis of democracy... apparently...

 

Unfortunately, the UK have had an imbécile, not only oñe, but three of them-Cameron, Johnson and Truss!!

 

Meanwhile in Question Time tonight we have .....

 

All the noise about the Diane Abbott situation is the Tory compliant media hoisting a microphone at a particular branch on the left of the Labour Party.

They are so short of dirt on Labour that they are fishing through factional disputes that noone outside of politics geeks (like some of us) care about and they are trying to put it on loudspeaker to the public that 99% don't care at all in the hope it sticks.

I predict that depending on the outcome Diane Abbott will become the following over the next couple of days;

1. If Diane Abbott isnt selected she will be a trailblazing Labour Grandee bullied out of her rightful position because her face no longer fits. 'Labour has a racism problem'.

2. If Diane Abbott is selected, she will be back to being treated as a moron with borderline racist and anti-semitic opinions. 'Labour has let back in an anti-semite'.

Starmer will be held personally liable for both.

 

Those as PM, there's a few more to add to that list Braverman, Patel, mad Nad Dorries, thirty P Lee, the awful Cofrey, Gatemouth gobshite Farage. the list goes on and on and on. Diane Abbott a shining light against the imbecility of the righteous right.

 

My take on the whole Abbott ban story is that Starmer should have made it clear that she would be welcome to stand as a candidate. Angela Rayner has said today that she sees no reason why Abbott shouldn’t stand. Abbott clearly got the wrong end of the stick when she read reports, presumably on social media, that she was banned. These reports may have come from the Labour left, as people like Owen Jones are rubbing their hands at something else to bash Starmer about. These idiots would rather the Tories stay in power so they can keep polishing their ideological purity as Britain burns to ashes.

Quite honestly the Corbynistas can **** right off, keep ****ing off, and when they have got there, **** off some more. The only thing any Labour supporter should be worrying about right now is making sure the Tories are voted out of office for at least 2, preferably 3 terms, and ideally for ever.

 

Abbott going off unconfirmed reports and then kicking up a very public stink about it (if this is what happened) is part of the reason why many want rid of her. It’s absolutely absurd behaviour. And I gather that even as it’s come out that she hasn’t been banned from standing, rather than eating humble pie and admitting to making a mistake she has stuck the boot in over other deselected people. She’s working against the party and you’d be forgiven for thinking she actually wants to be deselected. Which doesn’t seem to be the case. So it’s all rather bizarre

 

Parties have procedures for choosing candidates. As they do for suspensions, re-instatements etc. It's not just at the whim of the leader.

Having said that, Starmer probably did hope she'd retire. And now she's decided she isn't going to, but she seems to be negotiating via the media, which isn't helpful. No wonder plenty in the party want rid.

 

I am conflicted about Abbott because of her iconic status as the first ever black female MP, which in itself guarantees her place in British history. On the other hand she is behaving like a petulant child over what appears to be a completely superfluous issue, to such an extent that most other candidates of most other parties would be shown the exit door.