General British politics discussion thread

Peregrinus

Johnson does have form for telling lies that are highly likely to be exposed. That's why he's in the mess he's in right now, in fact.

Lemming

Downing St. could not keep a lid on Johnson getting an FPN even if it wanted to; given everything that has happened to-date since he became PM it is too incendiary a detail for him to cover up or lie about and not see someone either within Downing St. or the MET leak the FPN details to the press in retaliation for his bald-face contempt for, well, everyone but himself.

Toeuptony

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118618963#Comment_118618963

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/feb/15/no-10-staff-warned-not-to-confer-in-replies-to-met-polices-parties-inquiry

Imagine a teacher supervising a class of unruly pupils in an exam. They step out to attend to something and warn the class not to copy each other's work. This is pretty much the same as what is being said here.

ArmaniJeanss

By-election yesterday in Birmingham Erdington totally passed me by.

Labour seat since 1974, and managed to avoid the midlands meltdown of 2019 despite being a strong Brexit constituency.

Win for Labour again last night - with one of the smallest turnouts in history at 27% (did anyone even know this was happening?) and a percentage increase for Lab from 50% to 55% with Conservatives falling 4 points. A nothing result really, albeit a sign maybe that Johnson isn't getting a bounce from the whole war thing which often unifies a country and gives the government a clear run at being 'statesmanlike'.

Birmingham Erdington (UK Parliament constituency) - Wikipedia

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118730478#Comment_118730478

I can't say I've given it much thought either way: but I'd speculate over at what point, when a turnout is that low, democracy has not been served? 27% is barely over a quarter of an electorate and while the reasons the voters stayed away might be complex and I accept that (especially in FPTP systems) - the result can't be seriously considered that of a majority either. I'm not sure what the answer would be: re-running an election 'til it hit a minimum turnout feels itself a little undemocratic (maybe with a ceiling of re-runs til ... something occurred, not sure what).

Either way, in a week when a sovreign, democratic nation finds itself invaded by an autocratic system, it's depressing to see democracy so poorly embraced.

gmisk

https://twitter.com/GoodLawProject/status/1508106412706222082?t=y3grx4uFrivFkc6y-6MuHg&s=19

Seriously the Tories, they are all a bunch of actual crooks....how can anyone vote for them!

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118844718#Comment_118844718

Same as it has been for years, people look at the opposition and think not a chance, hold your nose and vote Tory.

If Labour were not such horrendous knobs the Tories would be in real trouble.

retalivity

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118863805#Comment_118863805

I do find this argument odd, Labour are a bit of a mess, but the term 'Horrendous Knobs' and British politics immediately make me think of many people, and they are all Tory. There does seem to be a thing in the UK that the Tories are expected to be dicks, but because "they are our betters" & are schooled and primed for government from an early age, they are given a pass.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118865027#Comment_118865027

What baffles me is the lower and middle income workers who vote for them because they will keep tax low which I don't think is backed by any stats.

Worse is people who are against the welfare state I mean how is Tories robbing the money to dish out to school chums better than spending it on poor people.

PommieBast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118865027#Comment_118865027

Much of it is the media but the biggest millstone around Labour's neck is them making no effort to shake off their image as the party of student politics and the public sector. In my case I won't vote Labour until they ditch the unions because it is all the RMT strikes on the tube that actually make my life a misery on a weekly basis, and I have lived through in Ireland what happens when PSW unions call the shots. For me it is pretty much wasting my vote with the LibDems or not voting at all.

(well, not quite my true position but I have exaggerated to get the point across)

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118865193#Comment_118865193

Most people I knew in London see Labour as the party who won't close their library or fire station rather than any student politics nonsense and I certainly don't ever remember people blaming them for tube strikes. Although me and you might have been in very different parts of London.

devnull

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118865193#Comment_118865193

First of all, I'm a union member and I have lived in the UK for about half my life on and off. I've never voted for the Tory party. When I've voted I've always voted for Labour apart from when they were under Jeremy Corbyn, where I voted for the Lib Dems, because as a centrist, Corbyn was too left wing for me.

The reason that there is disharmony on London transport is because of the fact that the Conservatives are using it as a political football to try and discredit the Mayor. TfL is being choked at the moment because it's seen as beneficial for central government to do that for political gain as they can basically point fingers at the Mayor for it who they're effectively able to scapegoat for all their policy failings. This is how the Tory party works.

They try and directly stay out of things such as schools and transport and instead put something between them and the actual services. That way they can make life difficult for academy trusts and transport operators. When there is uproar from the public, they will then say they are not directly responsible and that is a matter for TFL, academy trusts and the mayor not disclosing to the naïve public that they've literally tied those parties hands behind their backs.

The trouble is a sizeable percentage of the British public are fools and they fall for the games that the Tory party play where they deflect blame to others and end up blaming the person at the thin end of the wedge rather than the actual cause of the problem.

The UK is a post-truth state.

PommieBast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118865251#Comment_118865251

That's the thing. To an inner-city Londoner it is obvious BS but if I go into one of the local pubs in my hometown in Hertfordshire then such views are much more common.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118865366#Comment_118865366

That I could believe. Gets even worse when you start asking round the pubs in Luton.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118865027#Comment_118865027

The Tories tend to be dicks to those that aren't there target base, labour tend to be dicks to their own target base.

PommieBast

@devnull

The trouble is the public are fools and they fall for the games that the Tory party play where they deflect blame to others and end up blaming the person at the thin end of the wedge rather than the actual cause of the problem.

That's pretty much politics since the dawn of time. I still remember during my Ph.D days when Labour pencilled in cuts to the HE budget in 2009 and then promptly commissioned the Browne Report.

Sam Russell

If you want evidence of the poor level of the average UK person, just watch the many quiz programmes on the TV where very basic knowledge is displayed in its absence. Basic history, geography, and Shakespeare knowledge is an empty space, but soccer, pop music, general sport and TV soaps, is a cornucopia of detailed knowledge.

I wonder what they learnt at school (nothing much) or what the exams tested on for them to get so many A+ results at A level.

Sample question - 'Who was the father of Charles the first - James the First, Richard II, William III, or Henry the fifth?' Now Henry the fifth predates Henry the Eighth, Richard II, also was much earlier, and William III was William of Orange, again much later the Charles the First and post Cromwell. And that was without considering dates.

How can they walk and chew gum at the same time?

Danzy

The trouble is a sizeable percentage of the British public are fools and they fall for the games that the Tory party play where they deflect blame to others and end up blaming the person at the thin end of the wedge rather than the actual cause of the problem.

As you say above @devnull The people are thick and can't see how the Labour party actually respect them and aren't actually full of the modern version of the righteous Priest screaming from the pulpit, not at all.

Sounds like another version of false consciousness, the most undermining and toxic concept on the left, the most self destructive.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118865459#Comment_118865459

Can you elaborate on that ?

How are they bad for their target base.

PommieBast

@Sam Russell

Sample question - 'Who was the father of Charles the first - James the First, Richard II, William III, or Henry the fifth?' Now Henry the fifth predates Henry the Eighth, Richard II, also was much earlier, and William III was William of Orange, again much later the Charles the First and post Cromwell. And that was without considering dates.

Sounds almost like something out of Dumb Britain in Private Eye.. 😛

PommieBast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118866052#Comment_118866052

Iraq and top-up fees spring to mind. At a Uni Labour Club meeting (I was not a member but the invitation was extended to the more general Politics society) in 2007 that John McDonnell came along to, he remarked how these caused so many Labour local parties to become gutted of members.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118867670#Comment_118867670

I somehow doubt that's what the poster had in mind.

Sam Russell

The problem the Labour Party has is that the party is a coalition of Left Wing Socialists and Trade Unionists - who may or may not be left wing, and may or may not be Socialists, and in fact could be right of centre. This is not a content mix.

Neither wing has anywhere else to go, as the only alternative is the Tories, whom they all hate, or oblivion. Some choose the latter.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118867846#Comment_118867846

The mix is way more than that. I am absolutely sure the vast majority of their voters are not socialists or have ever been in a trade union. Definitely hating the Tories is a big factor though but despite all the talk and myths about Labour forgetting/looking down on/being dicks to/ignoring their own voters a lot of people in poor constituencies are very well aware of which party will better look after them.

Despite all the BS barstool talk London doesn't vote Labour because of posh lefty liberal students.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118865366#Comment_118865366

But that's because, like you, they have bought into a Tory worldview in which any kind of disruption resulting from poor employer-labour relations is always the fault of labour, never the fault of employers. You just take it as a given that a tube strike is the fault of the unions, not the fault of management. But, if you think about it for a moment, there is no reason for such an assumption. The fault could lie on either side, or could be shared.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118868024#Comment_118868024

I was talking about the party members - the card carriers - not the voters.

It was the Trade Union votes that put the wrong Milliband in as leader rather than the other. David was winning until the block votes came into the count.

Voters make up their mind depending on which politician's lies they believe - also, the propaganda in the newspaper they read and believe. Every Labour leader is (and always has been) attacked viciously by the Tory papers.

pixelburp

Jesus Christ, I was abstractly aware the UK were struggling with the same privations as ourselves WRT supply shortages and the energy crisis - but didn't know the particulars to the extent that it's causing these kinds of horror stories. I know James O'Brien tends to lean for the most emotive angle, be it to prove a point or argue against Brexit extremism, but this was genuinely upsetting to listen to. Heartbreaking and more than a little Dickensian: a single mum of 3 talking of her struggles to keep her children warm and fed. Don't usually do video dumps but something about this lady's story hit me harder than usual.

https://youtu.be/lh2NxHE8pHU

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118882607#Comment_118882607

I was pretty shocked how much more of a thing food banks were in the UK. I honestly didn't think anyone but the homeless would be going but I had friends who were taken there as kids.

Brussels Sprout

The UK is dreadfully unequal.

The 40% rate of income tax kicks in in Ireland at €36.8k

In the UK that rate doesn't kick in until the equivalent of €60.2k

A certain percentage of that difference gets redistributed in Ireland to poorer households via direct and indirect social welfare payments.

I lived in the UK 10 years ago in a town in the south-west that subsequently voted heavily for Brexit. The poverty there was eye-opening. I also remember seeing cleaning jobs being advertised that paid £6 per hour.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118883057#Comment_118883057

I think £6.56 or similar was minimum wage in 2012 when I moved over. Lucky for me though the pub had staff accommodation otherwise I wouldn't have lasted long on that money