Re: T. May the worst prime minister ever ? : Mon Jun 26, 2017 12:38 pm  

PCollinson1990 wrote:

Yes, bribing them with unaffordable and uncosted scrapping of fees, what a masterstroke.

Snap. We're already living in a country that is obsesses with what they can get for free or cheap and he's starting off a whole generation in politics thinking it's all about who can offer the best freebies. Incredibly short sighted to think this is the way to go and what attitude it'll create when Corbyn is long gone and other politicians have to pick up his mess. If you can only get people interested in politics by offering free stuff then I think we're better off without them having an interest.

Re: T. May the worst prime minister ever ? : Mon Jun 26, 2017 12:41 pm  

bren2k wrote:

Not quite - but he did pull pints for the punters afterwards.

Interestingly, the MSM have used this as their latest attempt to smear him; he should have been at the Armed Forces event instead, they were bribed by the promise of uni fees being abolished, bet he wouldn't get the same reception at Ascot (?!) etc etc blah blah.

Perhaps the winner of the ridiculously desperate right wing response to this, was from washed up has-been Edwina Currie, who objected that he was preaching about fairness and a more equal society, to a crowd who had the audacity to spend £240 for a Glastonbury ticket; clearly, the unwashed need to spend more time wallowing in poverty - and can't have political legitimacy if they're able to save up for a big event?

Whichever side of the political divide you come from, this man deserves credit for energising young people and getting them interested in politics; might be a bit scary for Tories to think that young people will take part in our democracy - but it's absolutely and unequivocally a good thing if the people who will inherit the future, take a bit of control of it back from old people.

Was that the same Edwina Currie who said that that there wasn't a problem with child poverty in the UK and cited increased numbers of child obesity to "back up" her comment.
I think it's best that we realise that many Tory MP's (and some Labour MP's) just dont live in the real world, which is particularly dangerous when they are asked to solve issues, without the slightest bit of understanding of those problems.
It's probably why they were happy to cut disability benefits, because it wont affect them !

Re: T. May the worst prime minister ever ? : Mon Jun 26, 2017 1:50 pm  

To be a competent MP you therefore need to have kids, experienced poverty, be disabled............ What utter nonsense.

Maybe you could talk us through Jezzas non political experiences which make him so competent. (Leave the private schooling, never worked outside of Parliament, brought up in a wealthy home, earns £100+k etc)

Re: T. May the worst prime minister ever ? : Mon Jun 26, 2017 1:51 pm  

PrinterThe wrote:

Snap. We're already living in a country that is obsesses with what they can get for free or cheap and he's starting off a whole generation in politics thinking it's all about who can offer the best freebies. Incredibly short sighted to think this is the way to go and what attitude it'll create when Corbyn is long gone and other politicians have to pick up his mess. If you can only get people interested in politics by offering free stuff then I think we're better off without them having an interest.

What an inane comment. If you distill your argument to the extreme, you would be happy with a few warlords or whatever they might be taking all the wealth 99.9999999% living at subsistence level - in other words like a very bad case of Communism. Any robust, successful, democratic society / nation can only survive by co-operation and the question becomes how the government tweaks the fiscal system and law to arrive at a working, reasonable and 'fair' distribution of wealth and resources. The current situation is unsustainable and so thinking needs to change. As a writer (in I think the right-wing press) wrote after (!) Corbyn had lost the recent election - he could not see what all the panic and fuss was about Corbyn's very modest, democratic socialist manifesto had been.

Re: T. May the worst prime minister ever ? : Mon Jun 26, 2017 2:12 pm  

Exiled down south wrote:

To be a competent MP you therefore need to have kids, experienced poverty, be disabled............ What utter nonsense.

Maybe you could talk us through Jezzas non political experiences which make him so competent. (Leave the private schooling, never worked outside of Parliament, brought up in a wealthy home, earns £100+k etc)

So, you're ok with predominantly white, male, privately educated MP, many of whom haven't experienced life outside the Education system and the Westminster "bubble".

6 of the 23 cabinet are women, call that a quarter and 15 are white middle aged privately educated men, that's really diverse isn't it.
Labour, at least, have a 50/50 male/female split and they certainly have a far more diverse range of people.

When politics is becoming further and further detached from society in general and with many people disillusioned by the whole political process, it would certainly help if some of our representatives were a little more "representative" or, do you think that we should all be told what to do by the "ruling class".

Re: T. May the worst prime minister ever ? : Mon Jun 26, 2017 3:35 pm  

Dally wrote:

What an inane comment. If you distill your argument to the extreme, you would be happy with a few warlords or whatever they might be taking all the wealth 99.9999999% living at subsistence level - in other words like a very bad case of Communism. Any robust, successful, democratic society / nation can only survive by co-operation and the question becomes how the government tweaks the fiscal system and law to arrive at a working, reasonable and 'fair' distribution of wealth and resources. The current situation is unsustainable and so thinking needs to change. As a writer (in I think the right-wing press) wrote after (!) Corbyn had lost the recent election - he could not see what all the panic and fuss was about Corbyn's very modest, democratic socialist manifesto had been.

Not really sure how you get your first few lines from what I posted. I do actually agree that the current situation needs changing but going from one extreme to another isn't the solution. Having Corbyn become PM would be like trying to stop a chip pan fire by throwing water on it. That isn't the solution and neither is he.

Re: T. May the worst prime minister ever ? : Tue Jun 27, 2017 8:01 am  

PrinterThe wrote:

I do actually agree that the current situation needs changing but going from one extreme to another isn't the solution. Having Corbyn become PM would be like trying to stop a chip pan fire by throwing water on it. That isn't the solution and neither is he.

I don't see how you work that out; there is quite some evidence that his policies work - plenty of countries are run on socialistic principles and rub along quite nicely - Finland for example, is consistently reported as having the highest living standards in the world. Add to that list Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Denmark - capitalist countries, but with strong welfare programmes based on a desire to create equality.

The issue in the UK is with mindset - this country is firmly in the grip of a serf-like belief that the ruling elite are entitled to govern, that the only thing that matters is oneself, and that anyone who is prepared to support policies that don't directly benefit themselves, is a raving lefty; such qualities are so alien to the establishment, that they are used as insults - champagne socialist, liberal elite etc.

We are victims of a class based system that is reinforced by the billionaire owned MSM; wealthy politicians act in the interest of their wealthy friends, supported by their wealthy media, who manage to persuade people in who's interest they will never act, that crumbs from the table are better than the alternative. And it's obviously in the interest of the ruling class to maintain the status quo - hence the rabid and shameful smearing of anyone who threatens that status quo. The only hope is that social media has levelled the playing field somewhat - so when politicians and the MSM collude to lie to the people, it can be much more quickly uncovered and exposed.

There is a glimmer of hope that younger people are seeing through the inequities of the current paradigm in this country, and will demand change; I certainly hope that happens.

Re: T. May the worst prime minister ever ? : Tue Jun 27, 2017 10:53 am  

bren2k wrote:

I don't see how you work that out; there is quite some evidence that his policies work - plenty of countries are run on socialistic principles and rub along quite nicely - Finland for example, is consistently reported as having the highest living standards in the world. Add to that list Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Denmark - capitalist countries, but with strong welfare programmes based on a desire to create equality.

The issue in the UK is with mindset - this country is firmly in the grip of a serf-like belief that the ruling elite are entitled to govern, that the only thing that matters is oneself, and that anyone who is prepared to support policies that don't directly benefit themselves, is a raving lefty; such qualities are so alien to the establishment, that they are used as insults - champagne socialist, liberal elite etc.

We are victims of a class based system that is reinforced by the billionaire owned MSM; wealthy politicians act in the interest of their wealthy friends, supported by their wealthy media, who manage to persuade people in who's interest they will never act, that crumbs from the table are better than the alternative. And it's obviously in the interest of the ruling class to maintain the status quo - hence the rabid and shameful smearing of anyone who threatens that status quo. The only hope is that social media has levelled the playing field somewhat - so when politicians and the MSM collude to lie to the people, it can be much more quickly uncovered and exposed.

There is a glimmer of hope that younger people are seeing through the inequities of the current paradigm in this country, and will demand change; I certainly hope that happens.

We aren't Finland though are we. The idea that just because something's works in one country it would here is politically naive. And why? You answered it yourself... the mindset. It isn't right but think you can go from piece about the elite to far left in one swift move with our countries current issues including Brexit is again naive. Maybe they'll be a day when a government led by someone like Corbyn could work, but Britain 2017 isn't that time.

Also a lot of stereotyping guff in what you wrote. Isn't as black and white as your world where every Tory and Tory voter is just a money grabbing, self obsessed grub who doesn't give a damn about others and can only possibly come to vote Tory because they are brainwashed by the media. You also can't accuse them of acting in self interest without it being hypocritical considering Labour got votes through offering free stuff. Is it ok for Labour voters to vote with their bank balance in mind but not Tories?

And whilst MSM is far from great, praising Social Media as some sort of beacon for hope and truth is truely laughable. It's as full of rubbish and lies as the MSM.

Re: T. May the worst prime minister ever ? : Tue Jun 27, 2017 11:09 am  

PrinterThe wrote:

We aren't Finland though are we. The idea that just because something's works in one country it would here is politically naive. And why? You answered it yourself... the mindset. It isn't right but think you can go from piece about the elite to far left in one swift move with our countries current issues including Brexit is again naive. Maybe they'll be a day when a government led by someone like Corbyn could work, but Britain 2017 isn't that time.

Also a lot of stereotyping guff in what you wrote. Isn't as black and white as your world where every Tory and Tory voter is just a money grabbing, self obsessed grub who doesn't give a damn about others and can only possibly come to vote Tory because they are brainwashed by the media. You also can't accuse them of acting in self interest without it being hypocritical considering Labour got votes through offering free stuff. Is it ok for Labour voters to vote with their bank balance in mind but not Tories?

And whilst MSM is far from great, praising Social Media as some sort of beacon for hope and truth is truely laughable. It's as full of rubbish and lies as the MSM.

I didn't say we were Finland - I said that Finland, along with many other countries, are good examples of where collectivism works for the benefit of their society; and it's not in any way naïve to suggest that if something works somewhere, it can work somewhere else - it's called empirical evidence, and I'd suggest it's a much more sound way of making political decisions than ideological beliefs - which is, for example, the basis of austerity.

Of course you're right that a sudden switch from one paradigm to another is impossible - and I don't think I advocated that; change is a process not an event, and I believe that change has already started - it may or may not end in a Corbyn government, but the impact of this election has left us with a shaky government, buying votes from the antediluvian DUP at the current rate of a hundred million quid per MP, to cling onto power with a HoC majority of 6. That won't last, as any fule kno.

You're right of course that there are stereotypes on both sides - that's exactly what I was criticising; I certainly don't think that everyone who votes Tory is rich or deluded - just as you must acknowledge that everyone who votes Labour isn't doing so to 'get free stuff' - but there has been an undeniable con job by the establishment to convince many people who will be directly disadvantaged by their policies and practices, to vote for those things anyway.

Perhaps I should have broadened out my meaning of social media - I'm not for a minute suggesting that Facebook and Twitter are sources of truth and wisdom - but the internet age in general has loosened the grip on political commentary by the MSM and provided many more opportunities for people to understand what's going on, without the inevitable bias of the MSM. Some of these new media outlets even stick to facts, regardless of whom they favour, which is a novelty in and of itself.

Re: T. May the worst prime minister ever ? : Wed Jun 28, 2017 3:02 pm  

I'm slightly troubled by the constant dismissal of the "mainstream media" as if it's just some sort of biased homogeneous blob. There's a wide variety of different viewpoints on offer from mainstream sources, anyone trying to claim that the "mainstream media" is biased as a whole towards one side (left or right) is just being daft, Comment is Free is pretty much the antithesis of The Mail or The Express. I'd much prefer a society where people get their news from generally mainstream sources such as newspapers, whose various biases are pretty well known and at least have to have some maintain some kind of journalistic standards as opposed to getting it from random unknown bloggers who can pretty much just write anything they want.

My mum voted to leave the EU based on a video she saw on Facebook with loads of completely made up statistics about immigrants, my dad gave me a list of ways in which the "mainstream media" had been biased against Jeremy Corbyn that he saw on a blog post somewhere, which all turned out to be completely made up. I once called out a mate of mine for being pretty Islamaphobic on Facebook and his reply was a Youtube video with loads of made up statistics claiming things like France being 75% Muslim by 2030 and Britain by 2050. Telling people not to listen to the "mainstream media" just leads people to believe this kind of crap instead.

Accusations of BBC bias are probably the most annoying though. You can simultaneously see on something like Facebook one person complaining that the BBC is too right wing and biased against Jeremy Corbyn whilst another person bemoans them for being politically correct liberals who are afraid to tell it like it is. The whole thing reminds me of referees in rugby. Fans of two different teams can watch exactly the same game yet both conclude that the refreree was biased against their particular team, usually as it doesn't fit in with their extremely biased opinion.