European General Politics #1

[BBsq69]

Following the European elections which had the far right and Green parties on the rise across Europe - although that is a sweeping statement because Europe is far from homogeneous - we had a by-election in the UK because one of the Labour MPs turned out to be a bit of a crook. It was held in Peterborough which is small city (county town) on the East Midlands/East Anglia border which is very much Brexit territory. The Labour vote dropped dramatically as did the Tory vote but not enough for the Brexit Party to win. One might say if this populist (crazy single policy) party stuggle to win there then it is hard to see them winning many seats in a General Election.

There were big protests against Trump but maybe not as big as would have been expected earlier in the year due to people's exhaustion. Besides which Trump acted like a prat with his attacks on Labour - he's easily riled - and his endorsement of Johnson and Farage so I guess people are tired of his rubbish. Of course other US presidents Clinton and Obama have seemed to endorse Labour - but they wouldn't do that now with Corbyn in charge - but it is the manner he goes about it. It was supposed to be all about the veterans and remembering D day and he should have left controversy alone. Corbyn didn't help and I will need to investigate why he seemed absent from the D day tributes, but regarding his absence from the state banquet, his own supporters would not be keen to shake Trump's hand.
What you have to remember about Corbyn is he is anti-American not just anti-Trump to such extent that he will attack America before China, Russia, Venezuela or even IS. I find his stance laughable yet he may well be the next PM thanks to the chaos caused by Cameron. If he were PM he would have to meet Trump. It is not an option to ignore the US President however much you hate his guts.

[Thestarider]

The UN Admits That The Paris Climate Deal Was A Fraud

When President Obama hitched America to the Paris accords in 2016, he declared that it was "the moment that we finally decided to save our planet." And when Trump pulled out of the deal this year, he was berated by legions of environmentalists for killing it. But it turns out that the Paris accord was little more than a sham that will do nothing to "save the planet."

What the report does make clear, however, is that all the posturing by government leaders in Paris was just that. Posturing. None of these countries intended to take the drastic and economically catastrophic steps environmentalist claim are needed to prevent a climate change doomsday.  As such, Trump was right to stop pretending.

[BBsq69]

1 hour ago, Thestarider said:

The UN Admits That The Paris Climate Deal Was A Fraud

When President Obama hitched America to the Paris accords in 2016, he declared that it was "the moment that we finally decided to save our planet." And when Trump pulled out of the deal this year, he was berated by legions of environmentalists for killing it. But it turns out that the Paris accord was little more than a sham that will do nothing to "save the planet."

What the report does make clear, however, is that all the posturing by government leaders in Paris was just that. Posturing. None of these countries intended to take the drastic and economically catastrophic steps environmentalist claim are needed to prevent a climate change doomsday.  As such, Trump was right to stop pretending.

You appear to be a little lost. This is not the Climate Change Thread. There was a UN report about Paris in 2017 which said that Paris went nowhere near far enough but you have to start somewhere. It really wasn't that ambitious and the US seems to be heading in the right direction. There is a problem with China and their promotion of coal fired power stations a world which Trump could really used to beat China with a stick about if he chose but, and I can think of so many reasons why it is in Trump's interest to BS about Climate Change, he chooses not to.
Why doesn't Trump propose a new accord?
Rhetorical question as we all know he doesn't give a fuck. in fact even if he agreed with it he'd tear it up just because Obama signed it. We'll listen to the US when it doesn't have a spoiled child as a President. He tweets his tantrums when he's sober!!!!!!! He needs a good drink.
 

[BBsq69]

It does seem that the 1-faced undiplomatic child Trump will get his wish and the 2-faced undiplomatic buffoon will soon be PM of the UK. Fuck's sake we'll have a choice of Johnson and Corbyn which is possibly worse than Trump vs Clinton. This will make the 3rd Tory PM out of 4 to have come PM without facing an election and actually Labour isn't much better as for that party it is 2 out of 3 ... which makes it 5 out of 8. Only Cameron who didn't really win his first election, Thatcher who just won hers with timing and Blair who was at the time possibly the most popular politician in UK history. Add to that 8 more leaders of the 2 parties who have lost or didn't even make it to an election and parties aren't great at selecting leaders.

[happyone]

32 minutes ago, BBsq69 said:

It does seem that the 1-faced undiplomatic child Trump will get his wish and the 2-faced undiplomatic buffoon will soon be PM of the UK. Fuck's sake we'll have a choice of Johnson and Corbyn which is possibly worse than Trump vs Clinton. This will make the 3rd Tory PM out of 4 to have come PM without facing an election and actually Labour isn't much better as for that party it is 2 out of 3 ... which makes it 5 out of 8. Only Cameron who didn't really win his first election, Thatcher who just won hers with timing and Blair who was at the time possibly the most popular politician in UK history. Add to that 8 more leaders of the 2 parties who have lost or didn't even make it to an election and parties aren't great at selecting leaders.

And neither is the electorate in some cases- 😏

[BBsq69]

50 minutes ago, happyone said:

And neither is the electorate in some cases- 😏

Well no but then the electorate has less choice.

[BBsq69]

On 6/10/2019 at 8:36 PM, BBsq69 said:

It does seem that the 1-faced undiplomatic child Trump will get his wish and the 2-faced undiplomatic buffoon will soon be PM of the UK. Fuck's sake we'll have a choice of Johnson and Corbyn which is possibly worse than Trump vs Clinton. This will make the 3rd Tory PM out of 4 to have come PM without facing an election and actually Labour isn't much better as for that party it is 2 out of 3 ... which makes it 5 out of 8. Only Cameron who didn't really win his first election, Thatcher who just won hers with timing and Blair who was at the time possibly the most popular politician in UK history. Add to that 8 more leaders of the 2 parties who have lost or didn't even make it to an election and parties aren't great at selecting leaders.

And of the 3 leaders I mentioned:

Blair will always be hated because of Iraq (I was in favour of Iraq but the dishonesty in which the leaders acted was not good for democracy and the fact that Blair still does not regard it as a mistake even in hindsight makes it difficult for even his supporters to swallow) although he chose his time to go.

Cameron will always be hated for calling the Brexit vote, leaving a mess and running away, although I don't think he had any choice about the latter.

Thatcher was hated by more than half the country and her descent into megalomania by 1987 (just been watching  a documentary on that) means she will be worshipped by some, despised by a much greater number and loved by very few.

Does anyone come out of office unscathed ... well Bill maybe. Cigar anyone?

[TBG 150]

Bill's cigar's in Monica's vagina........

There was a diddy about that here

[BBsq69]

This is the place to discuss the political view of Brexit unless you want me to start a new thread?

Boris has been lying to The Queen just like May did before about the support she had from the DUP although you could argue she was being misleading and I suppose say the same about Boris. To suspend parliament days before possibly the most crucial decisions facing the UK in its history is not normal and everyone knows that. If Boris thinks he can lie to the Head of State or indeed MPs like he lies to the public - and there was a court case about that but it was thrown out as I guess where do you stop with politicians lying to the public although personally I would like to see politicians officially called out for lying and in fact Boris has already had that happen to him to no consequence so he repeated the lie - he is deluded.

Will Boris get his way? Possibly, because the opposition parties were too stupid to coalesce around an alternative which they could have got through parliament and it is a bit late now. There should, as one of May's whips said, been all party talks 2 years ago after May fucked up an election she called - actually despite running the worst campaign in history (and many senior Tories have admitted that) she won 43% (I think) of the vote which under normal circumstances would have done the trick but then the Lib Dems were still in recovery so Labour hoovered up the vote and for a few minutes May even made Corbyn look like the statesmen he obviously isn't.

The opposition should have got behind the softer Chequers deal, which the EU may not have gone for although they would have looked like the bad guys, and then, when even William Rees Mogg and Boris voted for it, the May deal. It is not a great deal but still a compromise the Labour Party should have been able to stomach.

[BBsq69]

In the UK we have parliamentary democracy and cabinet government. In theory the PM should not have much power. Now a strong personality like Thatcher (and crucially the fact she was a woman which in all honesty meant some of the men did not know how to deal with her) can make it look they have power but thinking back on it she did respect parliament. The first one who didn't was that other strong leader, Blair, who decided that PM's Question Time would be at his convenience and because he felt he had a mandate from the country he didn't have much time for his cabinet except Labour had another powerful figure to counteract him in Brown but again this is not how British democracy has to work. Brown having deferred to and then waited impatiently for Blair to decide he had enough timed his accession very badly. Had he gone straight away to the people he would probably have come back with a majority but unfortunately he was in charge when the financial collapse happened. He then seemed to go go into a sulk because he knew he could not do all the things he had longed to do. It must have been a tremendous disappointment to him but this is what happens if you don't regulate the banks properly and he was responsible for that. OT Labour were too slow to cut - almost paralysed - which led to their ultimate downfall. It was nothing to do with Labour's spending in 2008 but a lot to do with their spending in 2010 and the fact that taxes since the 90s had been too low (direct taxes anyway) which still hasn't really been addressed.

Cameron took over a very different situation and we were largely back to cabinet government and parliamentary accountability. Then he made a series of bad mistakes and won the election only because the Labour Party have made poor choices in their leadership allowing the unions to gain more power despite their vastly diminished numbers. May took over and appeared to have the respect of absolutely nobody but again she had respect for the institutions. Now we have Boris who thinks he's the fucking president and wants to speak directly to the people but as the Scottish lawyer pointed out to the Supreme Court, he was only personally elected by his contingency representing about 100,000 people. He governs by the will of parliament so appealing all the time to the public (and TBH 35% of public which is what he thinks he needs to retain power) and treating parliament as his enemy and ignoring almost all his cabinet when he makes decisions is fundamentally against British democracy. In the US and France it may be legitimate to think you are in charge (although the US constitution is maybe overly good at putting checks and balances on Presidents) but in the UK he cannot act the way he has been doing.

 

[BBsq69]

The Tory Party has lurched to the right. It is a process that started in the early 2000s, checked by Cameron who with Osborne was still financially right wing, but his been gathering apace as alarming as the Labour Party's shift to the left. This leaves are massive gaping hole for the Liberal Party to fill. Thanks to Brexit they are starting to pick up the left wing of the Tory Party and the right wing of the Labour Party. However I do not agree with their policy of ignoring the referendum. I am not even sure it is legitimate to have another referendum yet. It delegitimises referenda in the general.

The SNP clearly have absolute ZERO respect for the result of their own referendum which was run entirely on their times and they still lost by a convincing margin. My view is very clear that referenda should require a much high bar, either 50% of the electorate, or 60+% of the vote simply because of the phasic nature of binary options. If you held an EU referendum pre 2008 it would have convincingly lost and if you held one now the result would be probably overturned - the only reason it mightn't would be people who voted Remain yet respect the Leave victory. Similarly the SNP are absolutely desperate to hold a referendum now because of the political turmoil at Westminster despite saying at the time there wouldn't be another one for a generation which I took as 30 years, most Scots took as 25, the extremists took as 15 and Sturgeon thinks of as 5. The point is they chose to hold a referendum with YES on the ballot paper (psychologically that is worth about 2%) and Cameron didn't stop them and when they were hosting The Commonwealth Games, the oil price was high and of course on the 600th anniversary of Bannockburn which according to Scots is the greatest victory in the history of the world although Scots were on both sides and very few English were fighting at all ... but their propaganda story means far more to them then any facts. Despite all that they lost by 10%. Holding a repeat referendum on the EU would in certain eyes legitimise calls for another one.

So back to the Liberals who would simply remain in the EU. A policy (their previous one) of holding another referendum would not actually make LEAVERS do everyting to defeat but simply tear up Article 50 (the notice that the UK is leaving the EU) would focus the LEAVERS minds on doing everything to stop the Liberals so I really think this policy is self-destructive. I can foresee in constituencies which are Tory/Liberal marginal, all of the Leave vote going to the Tories. Similarly in Labour/Liberal marginals, while they won't be a deal Brexit Party supporters and even Tories, who would previously have voted tactically for the Liberals, may well now vote Labour ... unless Corbyn comes off the fence. Corbyn is way more committed ideologically to leaving the EU than Boris but his party isn't and so he does everything he can to prevent his party backing any kind of Remain. I thin k the Labour Party should have backed May's deal and the only reason they didn't is because Corbyn's focus was not the good of the country but his idea that somehow he will win an election out of the chaos, entirely failing to recognise his own party are seen as part of that chaos. However if the Tories did not have such a fanatical right wing they would have left on March 29th anyway. It is not up to the Opposition to help the Government win votes, that is the Government's job.

The plain truth is that reason we are in this mess is due to the self interest and party politics of almost every single MP.  

[BBsq69]

Boris refuses to deny he had an affair with an American he gave more than a 100K of UK public money to. Of course it is not news that Boris has had an affair (let's face it, people say he's not even sure how many children he actually has) but this is corruption if true which as he won't deny it... but then with Grant Shapps (if indeed that is his real name because we know he goes by others) and the Pritti Patel in his cabinet, then maybe that's the norm.