And every man and their dog is piling into labour about it . From the conservatives of all people.
The party that has decimated our armed forces over the years.
Off Topic Politics Thread
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The party that has decimated our armed forces over the years.
Generally speaking, claims that national political figures create violence by talking about problems or issues are nonsense. In almost all cases the problem is a failure to address whatever issue the public are angry about, not people talking about the issue the public are angry about. The public are more than capable of thinking for themselves and suggesting they've somehow been brainwashed into violence by some political figure or other is frankly insulting. I don't blame Farage for what's happened over the last couple of weeks any more than I blamed Starmer or Lammy or anyone else for the BLM riots. Not talking about these things is probably more likely to cause violence - I suspect the majority of people involved in the violence are involved at least partly because they're politically disengaged and believe that voting makes no difference, leaving violence/"direct action" as their only option. I'm also fairly sure that Farage has far less influence in Northern Ireland than he does in England.
It's not a surprise that disorder in Northern Ireland is more serious. They have a history of identity-based political violence and my understanding is that, for all the talk of peace, many of the paramilitaries moved into organised crime once the Troubles ended so they still have the knowledge and likely the weapons to do a lot of damage. I wouldn't be surprised if there were Loyalist paramilitaries involved. I wouldn't be surprised if there were Nationalist paramilitaries involved. In the last year groups like the New Republican Movement and the Irish Citizen Army have released videos threatening violence in response to mass immigration. I think serious civil unrest in western Europe is becoming more and more likely and if I had to guess which country is most likely to see serious violence, perhaps even a sort of civil war, I'd probably go for Ireland.
If I was going to blame anyone for the environment that's been created I would blame the series of recent governments that have adopted policies that led firstly to hundreds of thousands of children being raped and tortured because they were white and weren't muslims, while the authorities looked away because they were too scared of being called racist, and more recently led the police to arrest and handcuff a young white man while he was dying, because his non-white killer had accused him of racism. These are the people who now pretend talking about this is a problem and say violence isn't the answer while refusing to do anything to address the problem people are angry about. If nothing changes I think there will be more violence. I thought Elon Musk was talking nonsense when he predicted civil war 18 months ago. I'm not so sure any more.
I agree with sections of this, but lay off the sensationalism.
100s of thousands of children raped by non white people? Come off it.
Also, people can’t think for themselves. There are lots of people who are easily led, and to believe otherwise is questionable on your part.
Well, sure, nobody actually knows the number and the current government seems to have very little interest in investigating so we may never know for sure. Hundreds of thousands is towards the high end of the estimates but it's not ridiculous. Sarah Champion once suggested it could be a million and other MPs have suggested hundreds of thousands. Given that conservative estimates for towns like Rotherham and Telford are over a thousand each I have no doubt it's at least in the tens of thousands. Quibbling over the exact number really isn't important though. It's a lot.
I also referred to "the public", not all people. Of course some individual people can be influenced, but democratic societies are based on the idea the public will ultimately make the right decisions. The discussion is about whether Farage is somehow responsible for this violence. It's a ridiculous suggestion put forward by people who want to avoid discussing the real issue because their ideas don't stand up.
iirc, the USA are still investigating how a U.S. built tomahawk missile designed to be fired from a U.S. warship hit a girl’s school in Iran.
You really can’t see how that gurning ****weasel Farage has been gaslighting the worst elements of our society for years?
If there’s a civil war btw, it’ll be because Musk used his open sewer of a platform to provoke it.
The vile Farage and Musk certainly help pull the thread that unravels things, and do so in an opportunistic way. But the thread is there to be pulled upon.
If you mean people are pissed off and angry in general, and immigrants are an easy target for their misplaced rage, then yeah. I agree.
It’s a bit ironic when Farage talks about broken Britain, when he did more than anyone else to break it.
History shows it's usually unwise to underestimate the influence an experienced orator can have on the "mob" - especially if there is an easy and emotional target to get them fixated on...
I think that Puck's post is well -thought out but I do not agree with a lot of it. It is an avoidable truth that people are fed up with immigration yet I think that there is a massive disconnect when it comes to association immigrants with criminality. The news item today about the two individuals associated with raping under aged girls in Doncaster underscores Puck's point of view but I have not heard any viewpoint posted on line about the fact that most Muslims do not consume alcohol and it is considered as haram in Islam. I do not think that the behaviour of these individuals was at all typcial of the Muslim community which is certainly as outraged by this as as the "white patriots."
For me, the issue is not about race or religion but simply a matter of criminality. The people perpetrating this crimes are just on a different scale from those protesting in Southampton last week. There is an issue that is spread across all races and religions. The arguments presented by Farage, Lowe , Yaxley-Lennon and Musk are all odious to various degrees and all fail to recognise that the problems were are now witnessing are a direct consequence of liberating the free market and letting life be directed by economic factors. If retail was more viable in high streets in these times and people could benefit from proper careers and not just the gig-economy, I am sure society would benefit and we would see less dodgy shops on our high streets and fewer young jobless people being exploited.
It is shocking to see that, in my youth in the early 1980s, it was the Left that were the radicals looking to change society. I cannot believe that is is the extreme end of the Right Wing spectrum that is setting the agenda and we are now in a situation where even Trade Union membership is 50% pro-Reform.
I feel that Reform are correct insofar as society needs to think very closely about the future yet , in my opinion, the reinvention of Labour by Tony Blair was the catalyst whereby ordinary people started to look elsewhere for representation and, aided by new tools such as the internet, have realigned to the extreme Right who were marginal and very much a laughing stock back in the 1990s.
For me, the issue is not about race or religion but simply a matter of criminality. The people perpetrating this crimes are just on a different scale from those protesting in Southampton last week. There is an issue that is spread across all races and religions. The arguments presented by Farage, Lowe , Yaxley-Lennon and Musk are all odious to various degrees and all fail to recognise that the problems were are now witnessing are a direct consequence of liberating the free market and letting life be directed by economic factors. If retail was more viable in high streets in these times and people could benefit from proper careers and not just the gig-economy, I am sure society would benefit and we would see less dodgy shops on our high streets and fewer young jobless people being exploited.
It is shocking to see that, in my youth in the early 1980s, it was the Left that were the radicals looking to change society. I cannot believe that is is the extreme end of the Right Wing spectrum that is setting the agenda and we are now in a situation where even Trade Union membership is 50% pro-Reform.
I feel that Reform are correct insofar as society needs to think very closely about the future yet , in my opinion, the reinvention of Labour by Tony Blair was the catalyst whereby ordinary people started to look elsewhere for representation and, aided by new tools such as the internet, have realigned to the extreme Right who were marginal and very much a laughing stock back in the 1990s.
And the best way of neutering the power of such people is to proactively work on resolving the underlying issues at hand. Shabana Mahmood has it right in her borrowing from the (largely very successful) Danish policies, but they’re yet to see the light of day.
If you want to cut the influence of these people off, you need to proactively change the narrative through action.
I agree that our armed forces were originally decimated by the Conservatives but I am far from convinced that increased arms expenditure will actually improve anything. It will just lead to further arms races that we can ill afford. We should be looking to constrict our armed services and not entertain the whims of the chinless wonders commanding our forces which have historically been duplicitous in how they have behaved in places such as Kenya, Northern Ireland, Afghanistan and Iraq.
The problem with arms procurement is that it is historically a disaster zone - even when you have a world-beating piece of kit like the TSR-2. The recent fiasco with the armoured vehicle is demonstrative that the UK is not very good with designing and purchasing equipment, whether it is new rifles or aircraft carriers. There are few sectors where procurement has had such a prevalence for going over budget and producing equipment which falls well short of what was intended.
I do feel that the use of drones and IT are rendering military expenditure more economic and that we no longer need large, capable projects like the two white elephant aircraft carriers. I would vociferous in arguing that the UK's priorities are not military but need to be assigned to things such as welfare and education. We need to fix regional economies so that our high street are viable , make sure the next generation are educated and mend out roads so that cars can travel down them. There is so much more that needs to fixed and that can be made better which much less expenditure. More band for your buck! It is totally wrong that we should have to spend more on defending the country in a world made more unsafe vb a so-called ally. I also think that having more ex-services people around does often have profound social issues such as more violent crime and affinities for some of the more unsavoury element of Right Wing politics.
Everything about spending more money of an arms race when the environment is in such a state has no logic whatsoever - especially when so much of the equipment purchases such as the submarines will never be used. It is a complete waste of money. We should be focussing on a smaller, more flexible and less expensive armed services as opposed to the current behemoth.
Totally agree but the main problem is that change always takes time and we haven't really had a "stable" government direction for a long time as we burn through PM's almost as fast as wolves does managers and each new one alters the steering a bit.
Not to mention just about every politician these days seems to have some damning skeleton in the closet so trust is probably the lowest its been for a while too
The defence spending one is an interesting one. I'd personally encourage we spend as much as we can on defence but it's for tangential reasons more than just having a large armed forces.
Defence spending isn't just about buying more guns or tanks or planes. It touches everything in this country in some way positively.
- We mandate we procure from UK businesses and if there isn't one then we encourage people to make one by helping the vast number of SME's onto the supply chain by easing some of the stupid procurement systems that reward those with connections.
- Build the sustainable infrastructure needed to support those businesses that build the equipment needed by encouraging sustainability from the off.
- Build stuff here again - kick start our manufacturing back into life.
- Make sure our stuff is world class and has a demand for it and then charge a premium for it.
- Increase (proper) apprenticeships and remove wooly pointless degrees and don't penalise young people by burdening them with debt - you learn a trade / are in a degree subject we need to build our armed forces / advance our technology / improve our infrastructure then you get that training for free - actually as an apprentice you get paid to do it already but pay them better.
- It creates a large number of jobs in areas of the country that really need them.
- it keeps money circulating in the UK economy encouraging growth.
- the forces expanding would offer a decent place for a large number of people that need that type of structure and currently fall through the cracks.
- more young people feeling valued, with future prospects and the chance to learn something of real skill reduces the number of young people with nothing better to do with them time other than drugs / drinking etc
- a larger, well equipped armed force helps to keep our place as a country of some influence.
- being able to shake a metaphorical big stick at people is better than not having the big stick.
Defence spending isn't just about buying more guns or tanks or planes. It touches everything in this country in some way positively.
- We mandate we procure from UK businesses and if there isn't one then we encourage people to make one by helping the vast number of SME's onto the supply chain by easing some of the stupid procurement systems that reward those with connections.
- Build the sustainable infrastructure needed to support those businesses that build the equipment needed by encouraging sustainability from the off.
- Build stuff here again - kick start our manufacturing back into life.
- Make sure our stuff is world class and has a demand for it and then charge a premium for it.
- Increase (proper) apprenticeships and remove wooly pointless degrees and don't penalise young people by burdening them with debt - you learn a trade / are in a degree subject we need to build our armed forces / advance our technology / improve our infrastructure then you get that training for free - actually as an apprentice you get paid to do it already but pay them better.
- It creates a large number of jobs in areas of the country that really need them.
- it keeps money circulating in the UK economy encouraging growth.
- the forces expanding would offer a decent place for a large number of people that need that type of structure and currently fall through the cracks.
- more young people feeling valued, with future prospects and the chance to learn something of real skill reduces the number of young people with nothing better to do with them time other than drugs / drinking etc
- a larger, well equipped armed force helps to keep our place as a country of some influence.
- being able to shake a metaphorical big stick at people is better than not having the big stick.
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