Off Topic The Politics Thread

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Should the UK remain a part of the EU or leave?

  • Stay in

    Votes: 56 47.9%

  • Get out

    Votes: 61 52.1%
  • Total voters
    117
  • Poll closed .
sb_73 said:
He only had to remember one number, the one relevant to the subject he had decided to talk about all of yesterday. He's pretty clearly exhausted. But that doesn't mean criticism from people who aren't even pretending to offer numbers to back up their promises of austerity is fair.

Corbyn was also on the One Show doing the light hearted personal thing. He's not a great raconteur, one of those who has to include every single boring detail of a story, not just the funny bits.
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Not having that number to hand, even if he couldn't remember it, was unforgivable. May wouldn't have had the same problem, of course, because there are no numbers in the Tory manifesto except those to signify what page you are on.

Saw this on Facebook, an excerpt from the 1931 Tory manifesto..........

to complete this work [of dealing with the economic emergency] it is imperative that the government should have a national mandate giving it freedom to use whatever means may be found necessary after careful examination to effect the end in view. It is necessary that in place of a small Parliamentary majority we should have a stable government with a large majority backed by the resolution of a great majority of the electors. The country must show in no uncertain matter that it will have nothing to do with a party whose program could only convert a situation grave already into one of chaos and catastrophe

Sound familiar?
 
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Stroller said:
Not having that number to hand, even if he couldn't remember it, was unforgivable. May wouldn't have had the same problem because there are no numbers in the Tory manifesto except those to signify what page you are on.

Saw this on Facebook, an excerpt from the 1931 Tory manifesto..........

to complete this work [of dealing with the economic emergency] it is imperative that the government should have a national mandate giving it freedom to use whatever means may be found necessary after careful examination to effect the end in view. It is necessary that in place of a small Parliamentary majority we should have a stable government with a large majority backed by the resolution of a great majority of the electors. The country must show in no uncertain matter that it will have nothing to do with a party whose program could only convert a situation grave already into one of chaos and catastrophe

Sound familiar?
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The National Government, dominated by 470 Tory MPs, won that election. Perhaps May has missed a trick......

In the shortest lived personality cult on record, the Tory campaign is dropping the 'May' branding and going back to 'conservatives'. She's a weakness not a strength for them, they belatedly realise. They are incredibly lucky to have Corbyn and the current version of Labour as their opponents.
 
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TheBigDipper said:
When I go to meetings involving numbers, I take a laptop with me, or notes. No-one expects me to remember them. Those meetings might also include the specialists who put the numbers together in the first place. It's just another example of the media turning politics into entertainment for the masses.
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Corbyn would forget his laptop. How he managed to scrape 2 "E" Grade A levels is beyond me.
 
TheBigDipper said:
Oh, I can guess. A smart person who tried to wing it because he knows he's smart - and failing miserably...

That's a;most as bad as a politician who thinks they're smart but is as thick as... (IDS, please step forward).
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Heard the one about the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Emily Thornberry, who told a dumbstruck audience yesterday that the UK won't be able to export food to Australia post-Brexit because "it will rot". You couldn't make it up
 
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sb_73 said:
Corbyn was also on the One Show doing the light hearted personal thing. He's not a great raconteur, one of those who has to include every single boring detail of a story, not just the funny bits. Now some of his sinister fan club have accused Emma Barnett, the Woman's Hour reporter who embarrassed him yesterday, of being a Zionist. Just when I was beginning to think I could force myself to vote Labour, I am reminded how diseased bits of it are.
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There's a really nasty anti-Semitic vein in Labour which is not see in any other party
 
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sb_73 said:
The National Government, dominated by 470 Tory MPs, won that election. Perhaps May has missed a trick......

In the shortest lived personality cult on record, the Tory campaign is dropping the 'May' branding and going back to 'conservatives'. She's a weakness not a strength for them, they belatedly realise. They are incredibly lucky to have Corbyn and the current version of Labour as their opponents.
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I disagree with this. I think Corbyn and his popular policies are enthusing younger voters, plus a lot of old-school Labour supporters such as myself. A Blairite, Tory-lite campaign would have seen Labour annihilated in the election and most probably have destroyed the party altogether. If the Blairites in the PLP had got behind Corbyn from the outset, Labour might actually have had a chance of winning. As it is, a hung parliament is the best they can hope for (an outcome that I invested a fiver on at 10/1), but even that will require a big turnout from the under-25s.
 
GoldhawkRd said:
There's a really nasty anti-Semitic vein in Labour which is not see in any other party
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Agree, it seems more prevalent there and more threatening, as it is used to intimidate. But let's not kid ourselves there is plenty of Tory racism too, as a two second google search will demonstrate, and as for UKIP......for both it seems to be mainly from those shires Tory buffoons who think they live in 1955, like Boris 'picanninies with watermelon smiles' Johnson. Our foreign secretary.

Stroller said:
I disagree with this. I think Corbyn and his popular policies are enthusing younger voters, plus a lot of old-school Labour supporters such as myself. A Blairite, Tory-lite campaign would have seen Labour annihilated in the election and most probably have destroyed the party altogether. If the Blairites in the PLP had got behind Corbyn from the outset, Labour might actually have had a chance of winning. As it is, a hung parliament is the best they can hope for (an outcome that I invested a fiver on at 10/1), but even that will require a big turnout from the under-25s.
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Think your post shows why they the Tories are lucky - Labour is deeply divided. The campaign has been good, the manifesto is strong and appealing to many (including me), but Corbyn's failure to get the majority of his own MPs onside, and the positions that he and other shadow cabinet members have supported in the past are gifts to their opponents. Imagine that manifesto with charismatic, media savvy leader fronting it up.

TheBigDipper said:
Oh, I can guess. A smart person who tried to wing it because he knows he's smart - and failing miserably...

That's a;most as bad as a politician who thinks they're smart but is as thick as... (IDS, please step forward).
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My daughter is currently allegedly revising for A levels or A/S or something. She thinks she's smart (I don't like to tell her but she is) and I am yelling frequently 'why aren't you revising!' and promising subsidies to attend festivals over the summer to maintain her motivation.

I'm afraid I don't think Corbyn is particularly smart. But compared to Irritable Bowel Smith.......
 
sb_73 said:
Agree, it seems more prevalent there and more threatening, as it is used to intimidate. But let's not kid ourselves there is plenty of Tory racism too, as a two second google search will demonstrate, and as for UKIP......for both it seems to be mainly from those shires Tory buffoons who think they live in 1955, like Boris 'picanninies with watermelon smiles' Johnson. Our foreign secretary.
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You're right, there's some old fashioned arrogance in some elements of the Tories, although the worst seemed to defect to UKIP. But there is not the deeply ingrained hatred that is found in Labour based presumably on support for the Palestinian's fight against Israel. Corbyn may throw his hands up in mock horror but he was a big supporter of Palestinian terrorism, so the rot comes from the top
 
GoldhawkRd said:
Heard the one about the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Emily Thornberry, who told a dumbstruck audience yesterday that the UK won't be able to export food to Australia post-Brexit because "it will rot". You couldn't make it up
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Thornberry is said to be have been lined up for Wednesday's 'leaders' debate where Rudd will stand in for May, but Corbyn is now rumoured to be considering taking part after all. He really should.
 
Stroller said:
Thornberry is said to be have been lined up for Wednesday's 'leaders' debate where Rudd will stand in for May, but Corbyn is now rumoured to be considering taking part after all. He really should.
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That's tonight - and I agree, Corbyn seems to be going down well at present. I find Thornberry supercilious and an irritant
 
GoldhawkRd said:
That's tonight - and I agree, Corbyn seems to be going down well at present. I find Thornberry supercilious and an irritant
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May really had an open goal with that Labour front bench (Thornberry and Abbot - sound like a shight little and large) and she's doing a really good job of missing it. Half her problems are that people think now voting might actually change things. The same policies and Alan Johnson or Keir Starmer in charge - she'd be on the way to losing.
 
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TootingExcess said:
May really had an open goal with that Labour front bench (Thornberry and Abbot - sound like a shight little and large) and she's doing a really good job of missing it. Half her problems are that people think now voting might actually change things. The same policies and Alan Johnson or Keir Starmer in charge - she'd be on the way to losing.
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The Tory Party are unforgiving of failure. If she doesn't turn it round, her blood will be on the carpet on June 9, and Nick Timothy will be roasting on a spit
 
GoldhawkRd said:
That's tonight - and I agree, Corbyn seems to be going down well at present. I find Thornberry supercilious and an irritant
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So it is, I'm confused because I had an extra day off to get over a day at the cricket on Monday. Corbyn has now confirmed his participation - good, I hope they all rip into May for her cowardice.
 
Stroller said:
So it is, I'm confused because I had an extra day off to get over a day at the cricket on Monday. Corbyn has now confirmed his participation - good, I hope they all rip into May for her cowardice.
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Amber Rudd can be quite formidable. If the election goes badly wrong for the Tories, we may be looking at the next leader
 
Stroller said:
So it is, I'm confused because I had an extra day off to get over a day at the cricket on Monday. Corbyn has now confirmed his participation - good, I hope they all rip into May for her cowardice.
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Oh come on Strolls, cowardice? This is a finely honed campaign, almost faultless. The brains in her back passage have concluded that the British electorate do not want to see our potential leaders debate with each other on a public stage, in no way would that help them decide how to vote, especially if one of them is a barely animated plank of wood.

Good for Jezza, though the old bugger looks so tired I hope they allow him a siesta before the show.
 
GoldhawkRd said:
Amber Rudd can be quite formidable. If the election goes badly wrong for the Tories, we may be looking at the next leader
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She tore Boris a new one in that EU Ref debate and came across very well - also wasnt she also married to Jeremy Clarkson at one point - or have i mixed up my Harpies?
 
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