UK Politics Thread

[PaulCP]

@Chillidoggy I think you must be in the minority.

Our MP worked in London and only visited the area when there was a photo shoot opportunity. He then defected to Labour & whilst many of his constituents may not have been happy with the Tory Govt no one can remember any consultation or meetings with him. His defection was nothing more than a publicity stunt.

[Kimbers]

7 hours ago, Chillidoggy said:

I’d take issue with that statement. Our previous MP was the polar opposite. As was the one before that, before they moved the boundaries. Both live in the area. I think there are are some decent local MPs of different flavours, but they’re let down by the likes of those placing bets on the date of a General Election.

The Labour candidate for South Norfolk (A totally Rural constituency) lives in Deeside 245 miles away.

The Tory Candidate lives in Cambridge, 70 miles away

The Green Part Activist....sorry candidate lives in Norwich doesn't own a car and will have to rely on the buses of which there are virtually none, cause its a rural area. However they have never and don't know anything about rural living and would stop animal and diary farming, get rid of the Farmers diesel machinery and kill the whole area so they are a gig fat Raspberry.

the Liberal candidate lives in an IP postcode in Suffolk. If you know anything about the Norfolk Suffolk divide you know he isn't getting a vote.

So that leaves an Independent who is the only one Living in South Norfolk and

Reform UK who's candidate lives in Broadland in Norfolk. if you know anything about Norfolk is that South Norfolk and Broadland back on to each other and are very similar in make up.

I will not vote for anyone who I think doesn't understand the local area, it's needs and wants and what they need to focus on. For me that only leaves independent or Reform. 

I am currently reading up on both candidates to see where my postal vote goes.

[Chillidoggy]

And another three flyers today!

The Reform candidate for my area is a photographer who, according to his website, is London based, some 70 miles away.

The Green Party candidate is at least local, but I can’t see him getting anywhere .

And there’s an independent whom no-one has ever heard of, and giving no clue as to where he’s based.

All of them are promising a better future for Thanet. Yeah, right.

 

2 hours ago, PaulCP said:

@Chillidoggy I think you must be in the minority.

Our MP worked in London and only visited the area when there was a photo shoot opportunity. He then defected to Labour & whilst many of his constituents may not have been happy with the Tory Govt no one can remember any consultation or meetings with him. His defection was nothing more than a publicity stunt.

I was just pointing out that not quite all of them are arseholes. It’s the remaining 95% of them that give MP’s a bad name.

[Chillidoggy]

It’s all happening today!

A Green Party flyer, telling us what our local Green candidate has been doing to win our votes. This includes persuading the Council to remove a load of fly-tipped rubbish, and obtaining (sic) a meeting with the Council to discuss illegal discharges of contaminated water.

Quite clearly, head and shoulders above the rest, then.

[Chillidoggy]

Thread revival.

[C8RKH]

Maybe we should let it die as UK Politics is dire these days....

However due to Westminster the SNP Government has confirmed it can't afford to pay for the free bus passes it gave to all immigrants, illegally, or legally, here.🤔

[910Esprit]

I'm not convinced anyone should be jailed for shouting at a police dog - and using racist slurs. Does make you wonder where this will end.   Lucky they weren't patrolling the playground during my school days.    

[C8RKH]

@910Esprit but that wasn't what they've mainly been jailed for is it?  The "thuggery" (new word of the year) was proper rioting - so throwing bricks/bottles, setting cars/buildings alight, looting, etc. 

One guy has been jailed for that though, and I agree, that seems a little strong. 

 

[C8RKH]

Bloody Brexit. FFS. Why oh why.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1938365/uk-economy-eu-brexit

[Chillidoggy]

10 hours ago, C8RKH said:

Bloody Brexit. FFS. Why oh why.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1938365/uk-economy-eu-brexit

 

Sadly, whilst the economy might well be growing faster, as a piece of journalism, it's crap. There's zero explanation of how Brexit has helped the UK economy. Or is Brexit just being used as click-bait?

[Chillidoggy]

Latest Home Office nonsense about illegals - "Through these measures, the government hopes to reach "the highest rate of removals" since 2018 within the next six months.

What they didn't say is that out of 20,600 failed applications, only 21 were deported.

[C8RKH]

Click bait, along with my response 😂🤣

It's time as a cuntry (sic) that we all moved on from Brexit. Celebrate the good news re the economy, focus on how we keep it going, raise living standards and prospects for everyone. Or of course we can just bitch and moan some more....

[C8RKH]

I was reminded of this speech by Rowan Atkinson from 2012 in support of the reform Section 5 campaign.

I rewatched it again today and must say that (1) it is a current today and it was 12 years ago and (2) it should be mandatory watching for ALL politicians of all parties at least once every year.

This excerpt in particular, is of interest, to what we see more of today.

what Sir Salman Rushdie refers to as the Outrage Industry: self-appointed arbiters of the public good, encouraging media-stoked outrage, to which the police feel under terrible pressure to react. A newspaper rings up Scotland Yard: someone has said something slightly insulting on Twitter about someone who we think a national treasure: what are you going to do about it? And the police panic and they scrabble around and then grasp the inappropriate lifeline of Section 5 of the Public Order Act: that thing where they can arrest anybody for saying anything that might be construed by anybody else as insulting. They don’t need a complainant, or a real victim: they need only to make the judgment that somebody could have been offended if they had heard or read what has been said. The most ludicrous degree of latitude. The storms that surround Twitter and Facebook comment have raised some fascinating issues about free speech. So far, we have learnt two important lessons. Firstly, that we all have to take responsibility for what we say, which is not a bad lesson to learn. And secondly, we’ve learnt how appallingly prickly and intolerant society has become of even the mildest adverse comment.

 

[Barrykearley]

Funny thing @C8RKH I watched this for the first time last night. Frightening in the context of current matters.

 

 A man has just been jailed for shouting at a dog

[eeyoreish]

If that's true then something seems to have gone horribly wrong.

Maybe if the oiks who dragged the cash machine out of the local Co-op a few months ago had shouted at a dog on the way in or out the police would have at least turned up... 

 

Edited August 21 by eeyoreish

[Barrykearley]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2nm5jgxlko

[C8RKH]

No surprises here - from the Spectator. It seems we got rid of "Dumb" Government and got "Dumber" in as the new Government.

 

It was easy to mock it as a piece of political grandstanding. On taking office, the Chancellor Rachel Reeves almost immediately discovered a ‘black hole’ in the public finances, and started warning of tax rises in the autumn. To many of her opponents, it looked like pure opportunism. And yet, now it turns out that she was right. The latest data on public finances show that the British government really is running out of cash. There is just one snag. Everything Reeves’s colleagues are doing will make that even worse, and her threatened tax rises won’t raise anything close to enough money to make the numbers add up. 

The public sector borrowing figures published by the Office for National Statistics today made for dire reading. The government borrowed £3.1 billion during July, the highest figure for that month since 2021, during the pandemic, and the fourth highest July figure since records began. That was far worse than the £0.1 billion forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility, or the £1.5 billion forecast by a poll of City economists. The reason? The government spent more money than was expected, and welfare payments were higher than forecast, and while tax revenues also rose it was nothing like enough to cover all the outflows. 

That can’t really be blamed on Reeves. She only took office following the election on 4 July. Here’s the problem, however. Everything the new government has done since it took office will push the spending figure even higher. The pay deal for junior doctors may cost as much as £2 billion. The extra money for train drivers could cost £800 million. GB Energy will get £8.5 billion of public funding, and the ‘National Wealth Fund’ will get £7.3 billion. Meanwhile the one significant saving so far, axing the winter fuel allowance for pensioners unless they receive benefits, may end up costing the government even more money, as many more put in a claim.

[Kimbers]

I really don't understand why they don't half or more the foreign aid budget. I know France and Germany have done just that and others are following suit.

Surely it's a no brainer?

"Britain spent $19.11 billion in Official Development Assistance (ODA) in 2023 - according to preliminary data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

[C8RKH]

Can you imagine the uproar and the clamour if the UK authorities behaved in this manner in the Channel.

It constantly amazes me how actions in Europe, by the authorities, seem to go unpunished there and yet in the UK whenever we why try something that is even ever so slightly "hard handed" we seem to get battered and referred constantly through the courts to the EU's ECHR, or lambasted by the UN.

Even stuff as simple as how brutal the Cops are in  the Netherlands and Germany when dealing with Just Stop Oil Protestors, compared to how we lilly foot around them here.

We got battered for the Rwanda deal, yet Italy can do a deal with Albania re migrants, when we can't even return the Albanian migrants who came here as its deemed unsafe. WTAF is going on and when will our Government actually grow a pair of balls and stop pussy footing aound these issues. Surely it's more important to the electorate than Pensioners Winter Fuel payments which they seemed to be able to act on very quickly, even though that wasn't in their manifesto or policies and fixing the migration issue was!

I'm getting really fed up with the perceived "double standards" we have to deal with here.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/27/spanish-police-boat-appears-to-mount-migrant-dinghy-approaching-melilla

[PaulCP]

On 28/08/2024 at 11:54, C8RKH said:

when will our Government actually grow a pair of balls and stop pussy footing aound these issues.

I don’t think Captain Hindsight will be growing a set of balls anytime soon. He is weakness personified who is concentrating on soft touch after soft touch whilst trying to pretend he is telling us all the truth.

[Chillidoggy]

Another 1,140 illegals arrives over the last couple of days. Captain Hindsight is fiddling whilst Rome is burning, clearly more concerned with people smoking outside pubs.

https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/channel-crossings-tracker

[910Esprit]

I think I saw that Germany is going to start deportations to Afghanistan -  So how does that work with the ECHR?  

[Kimbers]

I see that the Govt have announced plans the "Strengthen" laws allowing employees to choose to do their hours over 4 days instead of 5. So Same 40 (ish) hour week but Monday to Thursday.

Whilst I am all for only working 4 days I just can't see it working for 99% of businesses.

I mean, can you imagine a Sainsbury worker saying "I'm going to do my hours in 4 days this week, you will have to find somoene else to stock the shelves on Friday! Or even my job where my customers speak to me and buy from me 5 days a week (sometimes 6). If I am not here I don't sell and lose commission.

I just don't get it! What business would this work with? Definitely not a customer facing one?

[Bibs]

The Civil Service no doubt.

[C8RKH]

On 30/08/2024 at 12:59, 910Esprit said:

I think I saw that Germany is going to start deportations to Afghanistan -  So how does that work with the ECHR?  

Don't forget Italy's deal with Albania. Maybe we can put the hordes of Albanian males who came here on Ryanair flights to Bergamo so the Italians can send them home for us?

It seems that country's in the EU can ignore the ECHR, but those outside, like Britain, have to obey. WTF?