British and European Politics

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Post by bignote1 » July 15, 2015, 5:50 pm

One should never sell Mr Farage short.
I am not a UKIP supporter but am so glad Nigel is part of British politics.......he is passionately British and makes us think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94UcyJnRcGU



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Post by GT93 » July 16, 2015, 2:31 pm

Yes, I no longer sell Farage short. He's an interesting character and the link was a fine show. There's some serious politics happening in Europe.

NZ is usually fortunately far removed from such politics but currently we are on the Security Council at the UN and this month we are chairing the Security Council.

Some wag in NZ or may be it's some foreign skulduggery has caused some grief for the New Zealander chairing the Security Council. The wag phoned the Wellington police and said a certain apartment currently occupied by the chair's adult children is being used to manufacture methamphetamine:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/ne ... -drug-raid

The police paid an early morning visit.
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Post by GT93 » July 18, 2015, 1:24 pm

Just take the fxcking picture ... Who do you sponge off? :D

Giving it some positive spin, it's entertaining. However I think cranky old man syndrome is really setting in. It's probably incurable at 94. I hope he's politer to his Mrs.
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Post by bignote1 » July 20, 2015, 5:27 am

Bob.....I thought this might interest you. You know I don't support Labour but I am in favour of having a strong opposition.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/art ... munna.html

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Post by BobHelm » July 20, 2015, 9:04 am

Thanks for that bignote, an interesting read.

I think that the Conservatives are currently in the position where they almost have to commit harakiri in order to not win the next General Election as well. Mind you the Euro referendum has to potential to be just that... :D

Labour are a unmitigated mess. Until they actually decide on a leader who a large % of the party are willing to stand behind then you get this sort of fractured 'opposition' to the Government that the article refers to.
I am unsure where the party thinks it will position itself in English politics, or even where there is room for it to do so & become an effective opposition. None of the contenders for the leadership seem to jump off the page as a dynamic, forward thinking politician who can embarrass the Government at the dispatch box to change its policies & win voters hearts at the same time.

I am guessing that the other opposition party, the Lib Dems, are wishing & hoping that their troubles were purely a backlash against their ill advised Alliance with the (hated) Conservatives & that voters will return in force one they start being 'liberal' again. I am not so sure & maybe the even smaller groups (like the Greens) might end up being the beneficiaries.

So it looks like a pretty clear field for the Conservatives at the moment to do just as they please.
A situation that I am unsure will produce the best result for the United Kingdom.
They still strike me as being a far too dogmatic that the only way forward is to cut both benefits & taxes.
It seems to me that they have allowed some of the multi national companies far too much leeway in permitting them to escape tax liabilities that would probably result in jail time if an individual attempted the same... :D

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Post by bignote1 » July 22, 2015, 4:23 am

Bob and others......tonight's Sky Poll has Jeremy Corbyn as the next leader of the Labour Party.
The worst result for the UK and the Labour Party.
The best result for the Conservative Party. They loved Michael Foot
Labour I m o has gone back to the old failed model..... In the last/next few years Australia has the same problem. The French on the other hand have learnt a lesson under Hollande.

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Post by rick » July 22, 2015, 8:54 pm

Corbyn gets support because he is an honest socialist in touch with labour voters. Not sure if what he wants is affordable but the other candidates are basically politicians who would sell their grandmother just to get a few more votes; typical champagne socialists who have rarely got their feet wet in the real world. Unfortunately Labour shot themselves in the foot when they elected ED Milliband and turned in such a feeble image in those years before the election. I agree we cannot see Labour providing an effective opposition for some time to come. Corbyn may be the man they need to refocus Labour on their core members - maybe his policies would alienate many mid ground voters, but Labour has to get back to basics and get their principles sorted out first.

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Post by bignote1 » July 22, 2015, 10:41 pm

Certainly I would agree that Corbyn is an old fashioned dyed in the wool socialist. He does however have a darker side which the Tories at a moment of their choosing would expose.
He has been married 3 times.......doesn't go well with the grey vote.
Because of his extreme left wing bent he divorced his wife of 12 years because she refused to send their son to a failing comprehensive school.
Only a few weeks after the bombing of The Grand Hotel in Brighton in 84 where the Tory Party Conference was being held he invited Jerry Adams and Sinn Fein to the House of Commons.......very insensitive.
Mrs Tebbit, Lord Tebbits wife was paralysed as a result of the bomb. This week He said the Labour Party would effectively commit suicide if they elected him and in the future would be no more than a pressure group.
I personally would not want to see him elected he would not provide a sufficiently strong opposition and imo the Government of the day always works better in front of a strong opposition.
.

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Post by GT93 » July 27, 2015, 8:01 am

Well, we have to digress from Corbyn. Lord Sewel has been snorting coke from a sex worker's boobs. Outrageous. Scandalous. Terrible behaviour from an older Briton. 8)
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Post by GT93 » July 27, 2015, 4:39 pm

Well well The Guardian says Dave Cameron is down our way:

"David Cameron begins a tour of south-east Asia on Monday, in a trade-and-diplomacy mission designed to extend Britain’s influence beyond the EU.

Among the objectives of the trip are a number of trade deals, deeper counter-terrorism co-operation and the underlining of Cameron’s claim that Britain is back as a major player on the world stage."

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... trade-tour

I think in this neck of the woods Britain is just an increasingly unimportant European power on the other side of the world. Bignote will now be trying to dig up some trade or military figures to prove me wrong? We've been hearing about the Pacific century for yonks. Britain should try to keep its hand in otherwise the dreaded Aussies will pick up too many of the spoils. Too many trending losers in the EU? Greece, Spain, Italy, Finland (NYT columnist said 8 continuous years of recession) ...
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Post by BobHelm » August 9, 2015, 11:39 am

Currently the favourite for the Labour leadership.
Jeremy Corbyn: I'd consider restoring Clause IV on public ownership
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-33839819

Clause 4 being, for lack of a better word, nationalisation of certain industries.
It would certainly provide a strikingly different agenda for the public to view at the next election from the 1 put forward by any of the other parties.
Not sure at all that it would be a vote winner with them though..

Admittedly, the railways are certainly in a mess under the current system of partial state & private company ownership but they were in even a worse state of affairs when they were completely run by the State.

The one thing that Tony did (for better or worse, but it did make the party electable) was to move the party away from old style socialism. That was necessary then & I am really not sure that anything in the British Isles has changed enough to make a return to it an election winning move...

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Post by GT93 » August 9, 2015, 1:23 pm

As I read it the Americans tend to focus on returning prosperity to the middle class. It's said this is the big issue in modern times. That doesn't seem to be part of the British political discourse yet?

"It used to be that when the U.S. economy grew, workers up and down the economic ladder saw their incomes increase, too. But over the past 25 years, the economy has grown 83 percent, after adjusting for inflation — and the typical family’s income hasn’t budged. In that time, corporate profits doubled as a share of the economy. Workers today produce nearly twice as many goods and services per hour on the job as they did in 1989, but as a group, they get less of the nation’s economic pie. In 81 percent of America’s counties, the median income is lower today than it was 15 years ago."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/busine ... s-is-lost/

I think the political repercussions are coming. I don't think it's about socialism.
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Post by rick » August 9, 2015, 5:13 pm

What you see in the USA is the rich (and to a lesser extent, the middle class) are able to tap into international growth via investing in and outsourcing their manufacturing and selling services, while the rest are stuck with working for or servicing the Better off - and those opportunities do not grow much.

In Europe and UK this is also happening - but so far to a lesser degree. The nature of politics here mean that the workers have a bigger say in what a government does, as their are actually viable opposition parties they can turn too. So the governments in Europe have to keep the bread, circuses and benefits flowing.....

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Post by bignote1 » August 9, 2015, 6:53 pm

BobHelm wrote:Currently the favourite for the Labour leadership.
Jeremy Corbyn: I'd consider restoring Clause IV on public ownership
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-33839819

Clause 4 being, for lack of a better word, nationalisation of certain industries.
It would certainly provide a strikingly different agenda for the public to view at the next election from the 1 put forward by any of the other parties.
Not sure at all that it would be a vote winner with them though..

Admittedly, the railways are certainly in a mess under the current system of partial state & private company ownership but they were in even a worse state of affairs when they were completely run by the State.

The one thing that Tony did (for better or worse, but it did make the party electable) was to move the party away from old style socialism. That was necessary then & I am really not sure that anything in the British Isles has changed enough to make a return to it an election winning move...
Bob...I would agree the old Socialist model is no longer fit for purpose. It no longer meets the aspirations of people and hasn't for some time. The French can't wait to get rid of it although by contrast the Australians seem to want it back. Corbyn and his followers seem to want to live in a Peter Pan world where the tooth fairy still lives and this man visits regularly dressed in a red suit, accompanied by reindeer and distributes presents which were purchased with some one else's money. I think its true the party want Corbyn but I think the majority of today's electorate are neither hard left or right but prefer to pitch their tents closer to the middle.......effectively he's unelectable nationally. From my own standpoint I don't want him.......he would supply a weak ineffective opposition which isn't good for democracy. I find it strange that modern Socialists still want to live with 60's and 70's politics and have not come to terms with the fact that the hard-working class in Britain today want to get on in life.

On a more personal note. I didn't know you were on first name terms with Tony. Next time he is in Udon give me a shout and I will come over and buy you both a drink.

GT just to pick up on one small point ( I know your mind is in a turmoil because of what the Aussies did to the Blicks yesterday and you loosing money on the Ashes)
Workers today produce nearly twice as many goods and services per hour on the job as they did in 1989.....but etc.
Fallacy! Not true! Workers didn't do it, technology did it. Workers are still working the same 40 hour week today as they did in 89. Workers don't invest in technology management do (for that read Capitalists and for that read Shareholders ) I would agree there is still an equation to be balanced there but it is not as philanthropic or as simple as you think.

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Post by bignote1 » August 12, 2015, 10:30 pm


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Post by BobHelm » August 13, 2015, 9:45 am

Labour risks 'annihilation' if Jeremy Corbyn is leader - Tony Blair
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-33896414
Writing in the Guardian, Mr Blair said: "It doesn't matter whether you're on the left, right or centre of the party, whether you used to support me or hate me," he wrote.

"But please understand the danger we are in.

"The party is walking eyes shut, arms outstretched over the cliff's edge to the jagged rocks below.

"This is not a moment to refrain from disturbing the serenity of the walk on the basis it causes 'disunity'.

"It is a moment for a rugby tackle if that were possible."


He is far from being my favourite politician (& I have a very low opinion of them as a group) however he had an undeniable ability to know what the public wanted & then offer it to them.
So, not a man for the moral high ground of Socialism, but certainly a winner at the polls.

This, I think, underlines just what a huge problem the Labour Party are currently facing.
They have to, somehow, make themselves a different offering than that put forward by the Conservative Party.
However the only direction that they seem likely to take in order to do that will make them unelectable.

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Post by bignote1 » August 24, 2015, 12:06 am

A letter from this weekends papers.
It seems obvious to me that anyone voted leader of a political party needs to look the part.
At the risk of seeming unkind, there was no way on earth Ed Miliband would have made it to No 10. he looked like a geek and that was that.
Now in the race for the Labour leadership, Andy Burnham looks like an estate agent, Liz Kendall a bank manager, Yvette Cooper an English teacher and Corbyn a local florist.
In my view, to get elected into a position of power, party leaders have to have notable Prime Ministerial qualities, where a hugely appealing image, personality and style, as well as much wanted policies, collectively serve as ingredients for success.
Unless Labour gets to grips with these, David Cameron and his Conservatives will keep on winning.

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Post by BobHelm » August 29, 2015, 7:23 am

I know that this was a fairly small poll & of people who will not get a vote in the leadership election.
I still think it is of interest though because it is a poll of the very people that the Labour Party would need to attract in order to stand a possibility of returning to power..
Cooper leads Corbyn in focus groups of ex-Labour voters
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-34087829

Those who do get to vote should pay particular attention to what former Labour supporters said about Jeremy Corbyn.
He was described by one as "bitter and jealous of the rich people" and by another as "unelectable as prime minister".

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Post by bignote1 » September 14, 2015, 10:06 pm


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Post by Laan Yaa Mo » September 14, 2015, 10:11 pm

So Labour has returned to the days of old and the looney left. Does anyone remember the lyrics to, 'The Internationale'?
You only pass through this life once, you don't come back for an encore.

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