It's all falling apart alarmingly fast for Boris Johnson across the water. How long you reckon he has left as British Prime Minister? Hours surely?
How many parties are they talking about now? I've lost count.
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The irony of you describing a group as angry while going on an angry rant with name calling such as "lefties".
So we shouldn't be able to criticise a politician unless we were alive during their time in power?
And all the while, in the background the Tories set about stripping people's rights and neutering the power of the judiciary. Well played, Boris! I wish we all could have leaders as charismatic and with a devil-may-care what happens to plebs attitude as good old BJ!
Boris has played this one well.
Under immense pressure over the No. 10 Christmas parties, Boris pivots toward the Omicron variant. Boris probably knows perfectly well that the data, to date, on the Omicron variant in South Africa is highly favourable - even more so for an even more vaccinated population in the UK. Yet by creating the narrative that the variant could overwhelm the NHS with hospitalisations, it has inculcated fear among the population - and now the journalists are wasting their time on this, rather than focussing on the No. 10 parties. Boris was doubly-lucky that his wife gave birth 1-day after the whole parties row blew up - as Keir Starmer could hardly criticise Johnson on the day his 7th child was born. And as time progresses, the parties will become less and less relevant. And as the Omicron storm passes, Johnson may even be forgiven by the population given his performance on Omicron itself / saving lives.
So yes, played very well - even though I do believe the restrictions and "emergency" in the UK is largely exaggerated.
Look, we get it, you despise the EU and everything it stands for.
Firstly, you do get to elect the parliament in Brussels though via MEP elections. Not happy? Vote for a different MEP.
Secondly, Ireland has done incredibly well out of the EU through being a net benefactor until very recently, it is only recently we have become a net contributor. Be a bit rich to start complaining about wealth distribution at an EU level now.
Thirdly, the EU doesn't get to decide how taxes are spent - we choose ourselves to spend the highest per capita on healthcare yet have one of the worst healthcare systems in Europe. We choose ourselves to place excise on cars making them far more expensive to buy. We choose to place ourselves last in terms of investment in education as a proportion of our GDP. We choose ourselves to exclude a huge proportion of the working population from tax, then have an extremely steep ramp up in taxation levels for typical middle income earners that quickly tapers off the impact for the much higher earners. We choose to place large amounts of excise on fuel and alcohol. We choose to tax corporations the way that we do, much to the annoyance of many elsewhere in the EU. I could keep going on...
Fourth, what we do send to the EU, is only direct costs, some of which we get back.
The indirect costs are unquantifiable - access to an enormous global single market, for example. Uniform standards. Freedom of movement of capital, people, goods and services. Costs the UK are only now suddenly being faced with, costs they won't be able to actually predict so as to try and avoid or minimise their impact. So far, figures would suggest the costs of Brexit in the short few years since it was implemented have outweighed their cumulative total of all EU contributions ever made. And despite saying they'll redirect the money directly to the disadvantage areas, bypassing the Brussels round-trip, well, the evidence of that happening has so far yet to materialise.
But hey, at least the British population decided that's how British government money should be spent, right!
I said a few days ago that Boris would shuffle through this irrelevant sideshow, and that's proving to be correct.
Did we really believe that Boris would get sacked over an image of him at a Christmas quiz? It's wishful thinking.
The EU gave it back to the poor areas through the RDF. Now that money if given at all is given to the Tory councils
Boris the blade. Or Boris the Bullet dodger. Apparently it's just impossible to sack the bastard.
But the government did elect what to spend your taxes on, it elected to pay money into the EU project for the return it received. Once paid over, it was then the EU money to spend as it saw fit.
The difference is that the EU did believe in levelling up. Look at the investment in Ireland. And now in eastern Europe. They don't just pay lip service. Of source the UK are now completely free to use the money 'saved' from EU investment to target those areas, but currently it appears that the only thing they are worried about it targeting areas that can secure them votes. Rather than need.
Saying I want control of where my taxes go sounds great, there really isn't anyone that can argue with that sentiment. The issue is that the taxpayer has no more control over where the UK government spends their money than they do over the EU.
I said nothing about nationalization.
EU State aid: It is not against commission rules and that's a misunderstanding of how EU State Aid rules work. There are examples as long as your arm of very large state aid schemes across the EU bloc. For instance, for restructuring and rescuing, regionally significant industries (automotive industry is the biggest example) that are highly capital intensive, aid measures are frequently assented to by the EU Commission - usually in the form of soft loans financed by state backed bond issuances. In 2013, the French government had 7.5bn in state aid approved for a specific automotive manufacturer.
The test is if the aid distortive and the relative market power of the aid recipient (the more critical the industry is to the economy, the more likely the aid is to be approved, and this is doubly true for large bloc members like Britain).
State Aid for the shipbuilding industry was entirely possible at that time, and indeed the likes of West Germany weren't shy about using state aid for various pillar industries. There would be no world-class German car industry without state aid, that's a fact. We'd all be driving Japanese if there was no state aid (and let's not get started on Japanese government aid to their auto sector). As recently as 2020, the German government has been throwing billions at its auto industry.
"So you're saying" - no, that's not what I'm saying.
so what you are saying s that Shipbuilding should have been nationalised and given large amounts of subsidies so that it could compete with shipbuilders in other countries?
Isn't that against EU laws?
He was also where the expression "Bob's your uncle" originated from.
No, Home was in the Lords when he became PM
He resigned from the Lords afterwards - days afterwards, but afterwards none the less - and became an MP some weeks later.
Brussels knows best is the crux of what you are saying. Not democratically elected sovereign governments.
The problem with that argument is that it's dangerous. I'm an Irish citizen, I pay my taxes, what business is it of Brussels how the government I elect spend the taxes I pay on services in my country?
It is none of their business. It has nothing to do with them.
If i'm not happy with how our government goes about it's business I will use my vote to try and vote them out.
It's clear for some the harsh lesson of the UK leaving the EU has not been learned. You're dealing with fundamental issues of sovereignty in your arguments. Hence why I say it is dangerous.
That's why I don't believe this is going to last. More countries are going to end up leaving. You see it particularly in the eastern bloc, they aren't being told how to live, how their societies should be structured, how to spend their money...
The deeper you go down this rabbit hole the less you are talking about pooling sovereignty for common good and the more you enter the realms of regaining national independence.
This has never been a good argument to be having in a European context throughout history. It's no different today than it ever was.
It doesn't have to end like that of course but that's for a different thread.
If a love of hedgehogs maketh a leader, then Rory must lead.
Well her radicalness is lauded as some sort of trait as if running a country and managing a society is a personality contest (a bit like Bojo trying to pull the same trick while stuffing up all around him). I appreciate in the dark hearts of some in middle England love the thought of being a steely-eyed 'sensible' type who tells their lessers what's what and what honest work is while gutting critical sectors of the economy out of a misguided pursuit to look strong.
Thatcher was an archetypical fable politician. She told simplified stories about how society should be ordered and drew up a moral framework about who deserves what and why. It wasn't about what worked or what didn't, it was about carving up Britain into neat little piles morally gated from each other - and going to war with those that threatened the constituency of finance, middle Englanders, and property interests she stitched together. If it it meant harming the country or economy at large by dismantling an industry, she did it.
She was a Cold War kid, and if you break things down into their constituent parts, Thatcher's behavior and outlook wasn't all that different from Bolsheviks in terms of tactics and how she ran her game. She was just wearing a different jersey.
People who laud Thatcher are lauding her as an avatar, some sort of nebulous force of personality that they are drawn to for their own reasons - because her record if you look at it actually kind of stinks. And I don't believe that the UK ever really recovered culturally from her divisiveness.
Not true, actually. The last Prime Minister from the House of Lords was Lord Salisbury 120 years ago.
You're probably thinking of Alec Douglas-Home who was originally Lord Home but renounced his hereditary peerage so that he could sit in the Commons and become Prime Minister. Tony Benn, formerly Viscount Stansgate also renounced his peerage so that he could sit in the Commons, although he didn't do it primarily to become Prime Minister.
I don't think it's possible to appoint someone from outside Parliament to the Lords to enable them to become Prime Minister although one could in theory appoint someone to the Lords so that they could become a Cabinet minister with a less vital portfolio.
The Irish Constitution requires cabinet members to be members of the Oireachtas, either Dail or Senate. In theory, two cabinet ministers can come from the Senate at any one time so it is permissible for a Taoiseach to appoint somebody to the Senate and then give them a cabinet post. However, it is extremely rare and hasn't happened since Jim Dooge was made a Senator by Garret Fitzgerald in 1981 so that he could become Foreign Minister. That government only lasted a few months anyway.
Furthermore, both Taoiseach and Finance Minister MUST come from the Dail under our Constitution. The British famously don't have a written Constitution but "accepted practice" now is that the Prime Minister must be from the Commons. So even if Stewart were to be swiftly ennobled, he couldn't become Prime Minister. Without bending the rules.
Yes, but the difference between the EU, and the Tory government, is that the EU thinks it is worthwhile to invest in developing its people, to promote investment and enterprise in regions, and to allocate a significant portion of the EU budget towards improving the lives and well being of citizens in EU member states.
The issue is that the Tories have no interest in developing these regions. They are perfectly happy to spend the exchequers finances in regions that are politically expedient to them even if this means whole swathes of the UK population are abandoned and left to fester for generations with little or no investment
Imagine what Northern Ireland would look like today if it wasn't for EU investment?
This was never my point. My point was that I could appreciate why some people admire her.
That's up to the country itself to decide how to spend it's own money.
It's their business, not ours or Brussels.
If they want to spend it in inappropriate ways that's for them to decide. The electorate can form a judgement.
It's no one else' business.
There's no doubt she was radical. However, there's very little sense in celebrating a radical for the sake of them being radical. Some industries she gutted were sunset industries like coal and were on the way out - others were gutted because she simply wanted to discipline labour (as in organised labour, not the party) such as shipbuilding - all she saw were nails and she only had a hammer.
While shipbuilding was under pressure at the time from low-cost countries like South Korea*, the UK still held many advantages and centuries of expertise. Fairly prosperous communities were given the bullet for no particular reason. She insisted that shipbuilding would have to do without any strategic government support on the world market while countries (like Korea) were bankrolling their industry through soft loans to destroy the British one. That's not smart, radical or any other positive adjective - it's bullheaded adherence ideology that destroyed a critical UK sector that sustained cities.
The really ugly part is the value system of 'honest days pay for honest days work' - while cutting the throat of a pillar industry for ideology's sake. Call centres on the Clyde don't and still haven't made up for all the quality engineering, construction and plain old working-class jobs like welding that were destroyed.
*The irony is that the Korean shipbuilding industry is heavily unionised. The wealthiest city in Korea isn't Seoul, it's Ulsan where the majority of the shipbuilding takes place (and those in the industry are very well looked after). I don't imagine the Korean government is going to destroy a city and a nationally important industry just to teach some union leaders a lesson, but that's what Thatcher did. They're smarter than that, and the Korean shipbuilding industry still retains a competitive advantage despite now being a high-cost labour market that has very high union coverage.
Yes, and the EU spent quite a lot of money investing in the underdeveloped regions of the UK, money that the Tories promised to match using the savings from withdrawing from the EU. Guess what happened? Those regions got screwed by Johnson and have had development funding slashed.
These places are not being 'Levelled up' they're significantly worse off than when they were in the EU
The UK was a significant net contributer to the EU budget.
What you are really saying is the EU gave back to the UK some of the money given to them by the UK exchequer.
How generous.
Leadership comes from the top, it’s about setting standards and examples, that you will live up to, not demanding others do something that you are not prepared to do yourself .. it’s about possessing good judgement to do the right thing...setting EXAMPLES.
Boris... setting low standards and failing to meet them...
He’s a complete throwback to the Tories of the ‘80’s and ‘90’s...
not in a good way.
When I was a callow young man living in Manchester at the time of her death, I was a bit shocked about people dancing on the streets, celebrating her death. In hindsight, I'm surprised that said celebrations were so muted after what she did to most of this country.
That said, I will give credit where credit is due. She completely transformed her party and pushed through a radical agenda against great difficulty. Johnson has no interest in anything except writing atrocious books and producing illegitimate children. He hasn't a shred of virtue whatsoever. I can see why people admire Thatcher. In some ways at least, she was the Iron lady. Johnson's just a syphilitic skillet.
Precisely this.
It will blow over once the Omicron wave has subsided and society fully re-opens.
That political slab of concrete, Keir Starmer, might groan about it for a couple of weeks, but eventually it will lose steam.
It's mad how some people can't trace the direct line between Thatcher's grip on the Tory movement*, the deliberate managed decline of vast swathes of the country and the Brexit calamity.
*I'm surprised she's not embalmed in and put on display on whatever the Tory equivalent of the Kremlin walls are such is the feverish adherence to her ideology in some quarters.
Media: "Oh, this will do for Boris. Let's see him whiffle his way out of this."
Boris whiffles his way out of the latest mess with ease.
Media: "Ah well, nevertheless."
Repeat ad nauseum.
Of course he's not toast. People don't care enough except to have a whine of social media before going back to watching season two of whatever it is they are watching.
His downfall will be slow, much like Brexit, a death by a thousand cuts.
He's Mr Brexit - he got Brexit done - yet himself and Frost have been loudly calling to renegotiate entire sections of the deal. Why do you have to renegotiate something you got done so soon? Maybe he hasn't gotten Brexit done after all? Maybe he did an absolutely diabolical job at it?
Then there's the world beating vaccine rollout - what's it all for at the end of the day? Many of their European neighbours have caught up or overtaken the UK in vaccination uptake. Yet, where has it gotten them? Into yet another lockdown just like most of it's neighbours.
OK, so they opened first and stayed open longest during the Summer - yet their economy showed growth that is in fractions of percent, so did it actually really benefit them at all?
Then start to look at his personal adherence and the adherence of some of his party colleague to the very rules they brought in to try and curb Covid - holding parties and mass gatherings, wandering around hospitals shaking hands, sitting in crowded places without a mask nor being socially distant.
He claimed he had no idea where his flat refurb was funded from, yet was found to have been in very clear communication with a supposed fund organiser...
Then there's the wider Tory sleaze accusations...
Eventually it will all start to pile up and people will begin questioning whether he is that lovable rogue who tells a few fibs here and there or maybe he's actually an out and out lying charlatan.
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