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 .
Any thoughts on the 92% vote in the referendum to establish an independent Kurdistan?

Of course Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey object, the nations which have actively oppressed the Kurds for decades at least, and I have just heard an Iraqi spokesman saying military force could be used to ‘regain control of the provinces’ and that an independent Kurdistan would cause ‘instability in the region’. What, more instability than now? Probably the fact that the Kurdish area of Iraq has a lot of oil may have something to do with it.

Only Israel has come out in support of the Kurds, probably because it pisses off a lot of their traditional enemies. I don’t understand why other western countries are against it. I have a lot of time for the Kurds (though I’m sure I am ignorant of lots of bad stuff too) - they have been both incredibly brave as well as the most effective group in fighting ISIS, they wind up the Islamic fascist Erdogan which can only be a good thing and in some areas they practise a fascinating and weird and wonderful form of participative democracy akin to syndicalist anarchism. They also seem to allow women a full role in society - including front line fighting against ISIS. If there is one group capable of setting up a stable and open state in this region it would seem to be the Kurds - they have already done this for all intents and purposes in northern Iraq, where the capital Erbil is said to be a very civilised and cultured place. I also doubt they have much to fear in military terms from the Iraqi army.

All the borders in this part of the world were drawn by us and the French after the First World War and seem to bear little relation to ethnic, linguistic and cultural groups (long straight lines through deserts, where most people are nomadic, is a clue). Perhaps a redrawing of them would actually help.

Presumably the EU won't support the Kurds because Spain will dig its heels in (the Catalonian issue) which is what shafted wee Sturgeon's ambitions for Scotland to be an independent EU member
 
Presumably the EU won't support the Kurds because Spain will dig its heels in (the Catalonian issue) which is what shafted wee Sturgeon's ambitions for Scotland to be an independent EU member
It’s not all about the EU you know. What’s your view? What do you think the UK stance should be (currently it’s stay in a strong Iraq)?

Presumably the Tory/DUP government should support independence, making another country we can pretend to be negotiating a trade deal with.
 
It’s not all about the EU you know. What’s your view? What do you think the UK stance should be (currently it’s stay in a strong Iraq)?

Presumably the Tory/DUP government should support independence, making another country we can pretend to be negotiating a trade deal with.

Like you, I'm sympathetic with the Kurds. But with the UK trying to hang on to Scotland, and Spain trying to keep Catalonia, it's naive to expect policies to change.
 
It’s not all about the EU you know. What’s your view? What do you think the UK stance should be (currently it’s stay in a strong Iraq)?

Presumably the Tory/DUP government should support independence, making another country we can pretend to be negotiating a trade deal with.

I believe the U.K. should cease to interfere in all overseas concerns as history has shown we are very poor at it and usually make things a lot worse. By that I am in no way dissing the work done by independent charities but ask any of them and most will say they get little help from the U.K. government . They only step in if there is some short term PR in it

I also believe the super rich news media does little apart from exposing bad news to in effect sell it for money

Time to put our own life jacket on first

I say that because the U.K. has a culture of after reaction and not prevention. Natural events of course are outside mans control and always will be

I know the money I give to MSF makes a real difference whereas many of the U.K. charities I have worked for are nothing more than tax write offs
 
Part of the problem is that gangs and gang leaders become surrogate parents for adolescents, who haven't known a father figure and whose mothers are out working. It's not a racial issue generally - rudderless kids have always been attracted to gangs - but it does seem to be particularly deadly for black kids on the streets of Chicago, LA etc where you can be shot just for wearing the wrong colour scarf

Yes. It really does seem like they've upped the ante and turned it into a negative lifestyle that eats most of them up and spits them out. On an aside, the same could be said of brown-skinned boys born in Britain to first-gen immigrant Muslim parents who send their kids to the wrong sort of religious school and don't notice what's happening.
 
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I believe the U.K. should cease to interfere in all overseas concerns as history has shown we are very poor at it and usually make things a lot worse. By that I am in no way dissing the work done by independent charities but ask any of them and most will say they get little help from the U.K. government . They only step in if there is some short term PR in it

I also believe the super rich news media does little apart from exposing bad news to in effect sell it for money

Time to put our own life jacket on first

I say that because the U.K. has a culture of after reaction and not prevention. Natural events of course are outside mans control and always will be

I know the money I give to MSF makes a real difference whereas many of the U.K. charities I have worked for are nothing more than tax write offs
Where have we made it worse?
 
Watching QT
Did like Hitchens comment about we have nothing to sell

Jaguar! ... better off relaunching the Allegro

The Labour bloke has just knackered that party
 
NhS winter crisis!

Every year

This imo is because the U.K. has too people pretending to be ill
One of the UKs problems is the reverse, we are too shy to get ourselves checked out and treated early. The other is that our health system is underfunded and understaffed. Sickness absence from work has fallen massively here over the last 20 years, and is much lower than in France and half that in Germany. The work shy skivers.
 
Highlights provided by Peter Hitchens, which says quite a lot. The audience were universally dire, but very pro-Brexit.
On certain subjects Hitchens P is very good. And he is aware enough to say that, given his class, education and advantages, he can comment on the problems of the world (from his perspective) from a kind of insulated distance. He has what he calls a pessimism about public affairs, which I would call cynicism, which I sadly share, without sharing many of his conclusions.

The QT audiences, whether pro or anti Brexit, have long been a subject of despair for me. If these people really do represent the British then we really do deserve the politicians we have.
 
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Khan is trying to ban the use of wood burning stoves in London as part of his air quality measures.

Clearly a hard core left wing assault on the middle classes who have these trendy appliances, in addition to central heating. Power to the people!

Doesn’t bother me as I don’t live in London and have a very expensive and nearly realistic electric version of a wood burning stove (my house is full of useless objects which assert my social position), which has only ever been turned on for the visual effect, never to provide heat. Got it because to get a real one would have required scaffolding (again) to do something to a dodgy chimney and for once my ‘don’t be ridiculous’ response was accepted. Plenty of my obscenely privileged neighbours have the real thing though, and I have to say I do love the smell of woodsmoke of an evening when I’m walking the dog.

Sadly our new local Labour MP still hasn’t bothered to open a constituency office so difficult for local eco warriors to draw this issue to his attention.

Have you got a new dog-hippo yet Strolls? Our neighbours had their ancient, blind, deaf, demented and incontinent spaniel Figo put down a couple of weeks ago after he collapsed with heart problems. I miss the old bugger, let alone them. They are not replacing, making do with a really posh cat, which can best be described (by one of its owners) as ‘evil’.
 
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Khan is trying to ban the use of wood burning stoves in London as part of his air quality measures.

Clearly a hard core left wing assault on the middle classes who have these trendy appliances, in addition to central heating. Power to the people!

Doesn’t bother me as I don’t live in London and have a very expensive and nearly realistic electric version of a wood burning stove (my house is full of useless objects which assert my social position), which has only ever been turned on for the visual effect, never to provide heat. Got it because to get a real one would have required scaffolding (again) to do something to a dodgy chimney and for once my ‘don’t be ridiculous’ response was accepted. Plenty of my obscenely privileged neighbours have the real thing though, and I have to say I do love the smell of woodsmoke of an evening when I’m walking the dog.

Have you got a new dog-hippo yet Strolls? Our neighbours had their ancient, blind, deaf, demented and incontinent spaniel Figo put down a couple of weeks ago after he collapsed with heart problems. I miss the old bugger, let alone them. They are not replacing, making do with a really posh cat, which can best be described (by one of its owners) as ‘evil’.
Khan will be gone soon. He's just removed earning capability for 40,000 londoners and increased commute costs for a third of the workforce, simply because he wanted to suckk up to the unions. He's just lost the next election imo...
 
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