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General British politics discussion thread

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    #2012
    dogbert27
    Registered Users Posts: 4,915 ✭✭✭dogbert27


    awec wrote: »
    He's trying to win favour with Biden and he's trying to make the EU second guess what has gone on behind the scenes.

    They've gone all in on it. Photos of Mrs Biden and Mrs Johnson playing on the beach with his kid etc.

    IMO it makes him look incredibly weak.

    I totally agree, along with the comments of "Biden is like a breath of fresh air"!

    I'm waiting to hear what his buddy Trump has to say about that! Et tu Boris?! :pac:

    I'm sure it will not have gone unnoticed to the US administration the vitirol that was pouring out of the UK media earlier in the week telling Biden to stay out of UK business and not get involved in NI.


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    #2013
    pixelburp
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 35,941 CMod ✭✭✭✭pixelburp


    To be fair, a lot of pageantry is put on for visiting American Presidents. We practically shut down the whole country if the sitting President has any Irish roots - I imagine that'll be the case when Biden himself rolls into town. The difference here is probably more that the UK make this big chest-puffing talk bout a "special relationship", overstating its own importance and standing in the pairing. Like they have the ear of the President, always ready to take council from their most learned cousins in London.


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    #2014
    Strazdas
    Registered Users Posts: 18,104 ✭✭✭✭Strazdas


    An odd aspect to all this is that the English right wing press and their readers hate nearly everyone at the G7 summit ; Biden, Macron, Merkel, Von der Leyen, Trudeau etc.


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    #2015
    VinLieger
    Registered Users Posts: 17,730 ✭✭✭✭VinLieger


    Strazdas wrote: »
    An odd aspect to all this is that the English right wing press and their readers hate nearly everyone at the G7 summit ; Biden, Macron, Merkel, Von der Leyen, Trudeau etc.


    Well yeah, they are all foreigners


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    #2016
    Professor Moriarty
    Registered Users Posts: 14,359 ✭✭✭✭Professor Moriarty


    VinLieger wrote: »
    Well yeah, they are all foreigners

    They're all also to the left of Johnson and his merry bunch of right-wing populists.


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    #2017
    ancapailldorcha
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 37,465 CMod ✭✭✭✭ancapailldorcha


    Strazdas wrote: »
    An odd aspect to all this is that the English right wing press and their readers hate nearly everyone at the G7 summit ; Biden, Macron, Merkel, Von der Leyen, Trudeau etc.

    It's not that odd. I get the impression that a sizeable chunk of the British right would happy turn the country into a de facto vassal state of Washington.

    We sat again for an hour and a half discussing maps and figures and always getting back to that most damnable creation of the perverted ingenuity of man - the County of Tyrone.

    H. H. Asquith



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    #2018
    Sam Russell
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,410 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    dogbert27 wrote: »
    I totally agree, along with the comments of "Biden is like a breath of fresh air"!

    I'm waiting to hear what his buddy Trump has to say about that! Et tu Boris?! :pac:

    I'm sure it will not have gone unnoticed to the US administration the vitirol that was pouring out of the UK media earlier in the week telling Biden to stay out of UK business and not get involved in NI.

    They are not making much of the demarche that Biden sent Johnson earlier, and that Johnson has had his botty smacked by Biden.

    Who owns the expensive aircraft carrier that is sailing for the South China Seas with American fighter pilots and aircraft on board? It must frighten the Chinese no end.


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    #2019
    blackwhite
    Registered Users Posts: 8,533 ✭✭✭blackwhite


    ancapailldorcha wrote: »
    It's not that odd. I get the impression that a sizeable chunk of the British right would happy turn the country into a de facto vassal state of Washington.

    Only when the correct party are in power in Washington though.


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    #2020
    Strazdas
    Registered Users Posts: 18,104 ✭✭✭✭Strazdas


    ancapailldorcha wrote: »
    It's not that odd. I get the impression that a sizeable chunk of the British right would happy turn the country into a de facto vassal state of Washington.

    Under Biden though? He seems hated.....the right wing press rarely, if ever, say anything positive about him (ditto in the comments sections).

    Their most recent take on him is that he is "anti-British" and "an IRA supporter".


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    #2021
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    blackwhite wrote: »
    Only when the correct party are in power in Washington though.
    The puppetmasters in the UK have been more successful at keeping their puppet in power than their US colleagues!


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    #2022
    Seth Brundle
    Moderators, Politics Moderators Posts: 38,975 Mod ✭✭✭✭Seth Brundle


    VinLieger wrote: »
    Well yeah, they are all foreigners
    In fairness, Johnson was born in New York! He apparently holds dual citizenship.


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    #2023
    ancapailldorcha
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 37,465 CMod ✭✭✭✭ancapailldorcha


    Seth Brundle wrote: »
    In fairness, Johnson was born in New York! He apparently holds dual citizenship.

    No, he renounced his American citizenship.

    We sat again for an hour and a half discussing maps and figures and always getting back to that most damnable creation of the perverted ingenuity of man - the County of Tyrone.

    H. H. Asquith



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    #2024
    L1011
    Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 67,850 Mod ✭✭✭✭L1011


    ancapailldorcha wrote: »
    No, he renounced his American citizenship.

    For tax purposes rather than any other reasons.


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    #2025
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,827 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    Special relationship.

    It was revealed in 2014 that Johnson might owe more than $50,000 in US tax on the income from the sale of his home.


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    #2026
    blackwhite
    Registered Users Posts: 8,533 ✭✭✭blackwhite


    No particular love for Boris, but the US taxation rules for citizens are incredibly punitive and more than a tad imperialistic.

    If you hold US citizenship, they claim the right to tax you on all worldwide income and capital gains, regardless of whether you are resident in the USA and regardless of how long it is since you lived there.

    I've work colleagues who originally from the USA still filing US tax returns every year despite having lived in Ireland for 20+ years. If they don't they run the risk of being arrested for tax evasion whenever they visit the USA to see family. Only alternative is to give up their citizenship.


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    #2027
    hotmail.com
    Registered Users Posts: 13,073 ✭✭✭✭hotmail.com


    Professor Moriarty wrote: »
    They're all also to the left of Johnson and his merry bunch of right-wing populists.

    Biden would be considered further right than the Tories in a European context.


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    #2028
    hotmail.com
    Registered Users Posts: 13,073 ✭✭✭✭hotmail.com


    Capt'n Midnight wrote: »
    Special relationship.

    It was revealed in 2014 that Johnson might owe more than $50,000 in US tax on the income from the sale of his home.

    The special relationshol exists between the two countries, not the two leaders at any given time.

    With so much cultural connections between Britain and America, that isn't going to end soon.


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    #2029
    devnull
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 11,587 Mod ✭✭✭✭devnull


    So, the launch of GB News today and clearly they've paid a number of publications to air interviews with some of their presenters as they're popping up all over the place, money talks I guess.

    An of course, the far right does nothing better than shock jock, stunts, like this:
    Neil Oliver: 'Lockdown is the biggest single mistake in world history'.

    He begins with the ridiculous statement that he's 'apolitical', moves swiftly on to the ludicrous hyperbole that lockdown was the 'biggest mistake in world history' and claims that economic hardship is worse than death, before admitting that Tory austerity's to blame.

    His argument that lockdown is the biggest mistake in world history makes me question his credentials as a historian and it just shows that there isn't such a channel as GB News, it's GB Views masqueraded as news, like many of us thought.

    I wonder what he thinks about the Holocaust?


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    #2030
    pixelburp
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 35,941 CMod ✭✭✭✭pixelburp


    In the brexit thread I made what I thought was a bold claim that within 6 months, we'd be talking about some outrageous, vulgar statement by a GB News presenter and I was out by 6 months lol. Actually read some of Oliver's books so disappointing to see such polemical, contrarian garbage spouted by Someone Who Should Know Better. But this is just a thin end of the wedge here, it's all downhill from here on in and I sympathise with anyone even vaguely left wing in Britain - culturally or politically. They're about to get big targets painted on their back, in the name of a sickening jingoism that was never that far from the surface.


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    #2031
    Joe_ Public
    Registered Users Posts: 13,023 ✭✭✭✭Joe_ Public


    Does that chap actually claim to be a historian? All i know about him is he's a guy off the telly. Some awful garbage in that article, such as blaming self employed people not getting furlough money on lockdown. No, that's on the government, pure and simple. And the people's views "not being reflected in the established media" is right out of the Cummings/bannon brexit/trump playbook. The likes of heneghan, gupta and other anti lockdown campaigners were given ample mainstream airtime well beyond the point they had any credibility left. Heck, sunak even brought them into downing street during the summer/autumn where they influenced the delaying of the second lockdown. They had no shortage of publicity while never actually proposing any worthwhile alternative solutions.


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    #2032
    pixelburp
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 35,941 CMod ✭✭✭✭pixelburp


    Joe_ Public wrote: »
    Does that chap actually claim to be a historian? All i know about him is he's a guy off the telly. Some awful garbage in that article, such as blaming self employed people not getting furlough money on lockdown. No, that's on the government, pure and simple. And the people's views "not being reflected in the established media" is right out of the Cummings/bannon brexit/trump playbook. The likes of heneghan, gupta and other anti lockdown campaigners were given ample mainstream airtime well beyond the point they had any credibility left. Heck, sunak even brought them into downing street during the summer/autumn where they influenced the delaying of the second lockdown. They had no shortage of publicity while never actually proposing any worthwhile alternative solutions.

    This is the alt right playbook though; complain about being deplatformed or ignored, all the while commanding headline prominence in both news and social media. While promoting a literal new TV channel. In many ways it's a beautiful balance of cognitive dissonance to be both the persecuted (those cancel culture SJWs out to get you), and persecutor (immigrants and foreigners are ruining glorious albio...britain) at all times, a seductive mix for Aimlessly Angry From Hull.


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    #2033
    A Dub in Glasgo
    Registered Users Posts: 17,014 ✭✭✭✭A Dub in Glasgo


    devnull wrote: »
    So, the launch of GB News today and clearly they've paid a number of publications to air interviews with some of their presenters as they're popping up all over the place, money talks I guess.

    An of course, the far right does nothing better than shock jock, stunts, like this:
    Neil Oliver: 'Lockdown is the biggest single mistake in world history'.

    He begins with the ridiculous statement that he's 'apolitical', moves swiftly on to the ludicrous hyperbole that lockdown was the 'biggest mistake in world history' and claims that economic hardship is worse than death, before admitting that Tory austerity's to blame.

    His argument that lockdown is the biggest mistake in world history makes me question his credentials as a historian and it just shows that there isn't such a channel as GB News, it's GB Views masqueraded as news, like many of us thought.

    I wonder what he thinks about the Holocaust?

    Oliver is a British nationalist and is an archaeologist whilst masquerading on TV as a Historian

    He writes a weekly colunmn for Sunday Times Scotland edition and he opines for the days of the British empire


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    #2034
    devnull
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 11,587 Mod ✭✭✭✭devnull


    Interesting that they keep parroting the line about peoples views are not being featured on the news. I want a news channel to report on the news, not use itself as just a simple platform for airing extreme views from the far right.

    Also the line that says he is not political, but, is basically just a reworking of "I'm not racist but' about politics rather than racism. It's highly political and he knows it, but no doubt the group of people who are cheerleading this opinion, sorry I mean news station, will not care about that and will just parrot what they are told.

    At the end of the day GB News is going to be used a pro propaganda outlet for the most part, unless the Government don't go far right wing enough, and then it will become a pressure group no doubt to get them to do that. This isn't a news channel and has never been about delivering impartial news. The fact that some of their reports have essentially said that they joined GB News because they will be allowed to air their views whereas their previous employers told them that they had to stick to the facts and be impartial tells you that they are not going to play things with a straight bat and will most likely present opinion as fact on a regular basis and cherry pick facts to suit their agenda and ignore what they don't.

    The Express have been cheering it on. That newspaper makes the Daily Mail look almost tame in comparison these days. Just one look at the front page of their website and their front pages over the last few weeks is depressing, it reminds me of the kind of tripe that RT churns out on a daily basis in order to protect Putin, only this time it's in the UK and the Express. And the Express is even more outraged with it's capital letters and exclamation marks and wildly inaccurate propaganda filling it every day. They know their market and they exploit them with a slew of fake news or wild theories and severely skewed viewpoints based on nothing but hyperbole. I wouldn't be surprised to see the same from GB News.

    The fact that the UK Government are basically re-running the search for a new head of the media regulator because the original one didn't give them the candidate they wanted, tells you pretty much what is happening here. They need a right wing figure in that role so they can control the narrative in the media and allow GB News to get on with what is a politically motivated mission and to really push the laws to the limit on impartiality, or even change the rules to make it easier for them to not have to comply with such rules. No doubt the whole thing will be done on the basis of allowing freedom of expression or something like that. No doubt the likes of the BBC and Sky however would come increasingly under pressure whilst GB news is given free reign

    It's a really worrying time for the UK media, already the British suffer from a poor quality print media industry on the whole and this is an attempt to take the TV media in the same direction.


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    #2035
    breezy1985
    Registered Users Posts: 24,598 ✭✭✭✭breezy1985


    pixelburp wrote: »
    This is the alt right playbook though; complain about being deplatformed or ignored, all the while commanding headline prominence in both news and social media. While promoting a literal new TV channel. In many ways it's a beautiful balance of cognitive dissonance to be both the persecuted (those cancel culture SJWs out to get you), and persecutor (immigrants and foreigners are ruining glorious albio...britain) at all times, a seductive mix for Aimlessly Angry From Hull.

    Can't wait to see how many times paid presenters with an unrestricted platform on a nationwide TV channel complain about how they are silenced or pull the whole making a statement and then saying "your not allowed say that these days"


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    #2036
    Strazdas
    Registered Users Posts: 18,104 ✭✭✭✭Strazdas


    breezy1985 wrote: »
    Can't wait to see how many times paid presenters with an unrestricted platform on a nationwide TV channel complain about how they are silenced or pull the whole making a statement and then saying "your not allowed say that these days"

    80% of newspaper sales in the UK are of right wing ones. It's really something else to hear them complain about 'cancel culture' and 'political correctness'. The public there are being bombarded with right wing and alt right stuff on a daily basis.


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    #2037
    devnull
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 11,587 Mod ✭✭✭✭devnull


    So, the first reviews of GB News are in:
    https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/gb-news-review-andrew-neil-b1865175.html

    I watched a bit of Dan Wotton's first show, which basically consisted of him sitting on a chair on the left, three people on the sofa (non socially distanced, of course) two right wingers on the left and right of the sofa with someone who wasn't right wing in the center.

    Of course, all three of them ganged up on the person who just happened to be in the middle and basically belittled him and at one stage muttered words along the lines of 'it's not racist, it's just fun' and it was the usual, Fox style, get someone in as a different view so we can claim we are balanced when they were just trying to paint the other person as extremist.

    I then saw the same guy go off on a rant about how COVID-19 was a scare story and there is no reason to delay opening up, went on to interview well known Chinese conspiracy theorist and the usual kind of stuff you find on TalkRadio.

    Andrew Neil talked a good game right at the top of the launch, but pretty much everything he said about being honest, fact checking and not using conspiracy theorists or being like Fox News was blown out the water by Dan Wotton who comes across as just the worst kind of the right.


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    #2038
    Larbre34
    Registered Users Posts: 23,843 ✭✭✭✭Larbre34


    breezy1985 wrote: »
    Can't wait to see how many times paid presenters with an unrestricted platform on a nationwide TV channel complain about how they are silenced or pull the whole making a statement and then saying "your not allowed say that these days"

    But it isn't unrestricted, its subject to OFCOM rules like everybody else.


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    #2039
    Larbre34
    Registered Users Posts: 23,843 ✭✭✭✭Larbre34


    Its beyond awful. Off the air by Christmas is my bet.


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    #2040
    L1011
    Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 67,850 Mod ✭✭✭✭L1011


    Larbre34 wrote: »
    But it isn't unrestricted, its subject to OFCOM rules like everybody else.

    Ofcom, where they are still trying to install Paul Dacre as chair, cannot be trusted to keep control of this with the dysfunctional state of governance in the UK.


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    #2041
    devnull
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 11,587 Mod ✭✭✭✭devnull


    Larbre34 wrote: »
    Its beyond awful. Off the air by Christmas is my bet.

    We might say that, but my Brexit supporting relatives living in the UK love it and believe it is 'truth at last'. It is not surprising, but it is very disappointing. It will no doubt open up more and more tensions in families and in society than there is already.

    It really saddens me how the UK has fallen.


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