|
I think Foster needs to go regardless of which party is the biggest after the next election. Her position, to my mind, is no longer tenable. She has proved a poor political operator and mistakes her stubbornness for tenacity and that's a terrible characteristic for a politician to have. I was eavesdropping a bit on a conversation my father and his friends were having after church on Sunday and I think the feelings of disgust they expressed over the DUP in general and Foster's leadership in particular was quite telling: these gentlemen are all middle-aged, middle-class, avowed social conservatives who all come from this evangelical Baptist background going back to the 1960s, who all probably voted against the Belfast Agreement; they're almost stereotypical middle-class unionists, and Foster has managed to lose them over this. I am not sure how I shall vote myself. Probably Alliance first and second then UUP third and fourth. My chief interest isn't even in removing the DUP from power and I am content for them to remain the largest party, which I suspect they will. What I hope will happen is that they are pushed down to 29 seats, because their abuse of the petition of concern mechanism has made a real horlicks of the devolved Assembly. I don't know. If you'd told people 20 years ago that a) Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness would become legitimately best mates; b) Paisley would be praised for helping to helping to steer Northern Ireland towards stability and relative normalcy after his death; c) McGuinness would retire as one of the most respected and admired figures in politics; and d) Ian Jr. would tell people to get Irish passports, I'm not sure what they'd have to say. Sorry to disrupt your Brexit chat, by the way. I voted to stay in myself, but probably for the same reasons Tony Benn, Jeremy Corbyn, RMT et al. wanted out the past 40 years, so I imagine I was right for the wrong reasons or something.
|
#
¿
Feb 2, 2017 00:00
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 15, 2024 13:15 |
|
|
Pissflaps posted:The cherry in top is Corbyn supposedly being the leader who does the 'right' thing, not the populist thing. I don't know. I think even the Canary has said he's messed up on this score.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 2, 2017 00:08
|
|
|
TinTower posted:https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/826920391125917704 How about the news today that David Cameron tried to lean on Lord Rothermere (who was for Remain, but has no meaningful editorial control over the Daily Mail) to give Paul Dacre the sack during the referendum?
|
|
#
¿
Feb 2, 2017 00:37
|
|
|
forkboy84 posted:Why does Northern Ireland have a left-wing pro-union party? Seems a missed opportunity, there was lots of working class unionists who were also trade unionists, so why are all the unionist parties lovely conservatives and reactionaries? Fair enough on social matters, but Sinn Fein are also pretty conservative socially. Northern Ireland Labour briefly made a go of it in the 1960s, and the O'Neill government's modernising approach to community relations and ecumenicism were, at least to a certain degree (there are other factors associated with O'Neill himself that aren't really worth going into here), calculated to check the possibility of NI Labour successfully building a cross-community coalition of working class Protestants and Catholics by bringing the growing Catholic middle class into the fold. As to the matter of class divisions, the key thing to keep in mind is that for a very long time, the "aristocratic" leaders of unionist politics and the working class grassroots supporters were really bound together by the shared experience of the war in general and the Battle of the Somme in particular. That's why Terence O'Neill was always Captain Terence O'Neill, and James Chichester-Clark was always Major James Chichester-Clark etc. It was a way of saying, "Don't think we haven't made sacrifices for Ulster as well." In fact, a significant reason why O'Neill became prime minister in 1963 was that he'd served in the Second World War and lost two brothers; the outgoing prime minister, Brookeborough, had fought in the First World War, and lost two sons in the Second. O'Neill's main competition (and, debatably, the better choice) was Brian Faulkner, who was articulate and competent, but hadn't served and so was passed over. kustomkarkommando posted:A couple of the start-up Loyalist parties that sprang into existence after the Ulster Workers' Council strike where often quite to the left, the general left-wing economic tilt of working class protestant loyalism was a feature that carried through to the PUP It is a shame that other features carried through to the PUP.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 2, 2017 00:52
|
|
|
Edit: double post
|
|
#
¿
Feb 2, 2017 00:54
|
|
|
jabby posted:Times suggesting that May might still face rebellion , particularly over the right of currently resident EU nationals to stay in the UK. She was equivocal about it very early on (at a point when even Farage was saying that the position of EU nationals already here should not be threatened by Brexit) so she has room to back down on it and look magnanimous.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 2, 2017 02:21
|
|
|
I meant to post yesterday that I watched PMQs yesterday. I think there were half a dozen questions about Trump. None about Brexit. 
|
|
#
¿
Feb 2, 2017 10:16
|
|
|
Pochoclo posted:EDIT: also lol if you think the government will ever care about affordable housing. Poor/middle class people don't bribe politicians so they don't matter. The government will only ever care about rich people buying expensive houses because, get this, they ARE rich people buying expensive houses. I believe Billy Bragg has been photographed standing suspiciously close to Jeremy Corbyn, hasn't he? 
|
|
#
¿
Feb 2, 2017 10:59
|
|
|
Pochoclo posted:I said government, as in, the people making the decisions. In this case, that means Tories + rich + corporations. Haha, sure, I was joking about. 
|
|
#
¿
Feb 2, 2017 11:19
|
|
|
Genuinely wouldn't be surprised if Northern Ireland ends up effectively "cut out" of the UK's borders, ends up like a kind of Kaliningrad Oblast thing.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 2, 2017 12:27
|
|
|
WeAreTheRomans posted:NI is already comparable to the KO. If NI is cut off from the mainland UK anymore, especially in economic terms, the majority will vote for reunification. They may well do so anyway pending the outcome of Scexit 2 Have to confess, the Brexit vote made me consider the prospect of voting for unification if it came to that for the first time in my life.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 2, 2017 13:03
|
|
|
I'd have thought they'd just go to Dublin.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 2, 2017 13:05
|
|
|
kustomkarkommando posted:Eh, I wouldn't underestimate the resilience of Unionism as a political force and a lot of that plan entails an active drive from FG for reunification which seems a bit unreliable - if its FF I could buy it but their brand of rhetoric is more traditional wouldn't do much to galvanize traditional unionist support for a united Ireland There's plenty of people in the DUP (and elsewhere) who, given the choice, would rather Northern Ireland end up as an independent state than be part of the Republic. Sammy Wilson, for instance. There's unionism and then there's this kind of ultra-loyalist mentality which believes Ulster Protestants are more British than the British themselves. Funny how one of the more famous Paisley quotes from the end of his career was "You cannot be an Ulsterman without being an Irishman".
|
|
#
¿
Feb 2, 2017 13:12
|
|
|
WeAreTheRomans posted:One might have thought the path of least resistance would have been some special concessions being made in return for Britain not throwing all its toys out of the European pram, but welp here we are I have heard that Hollande, Merkel and the various bigwigs in Brussels offered Cameron a renegotiation of Britain's from full membership to associate partnership, whereby we would still pay the dues and retain access to the markets, with a fudge on free movement to placate that element of the Leave base. Of course, Cameron had just done the impossible and won a majority, so he was like, "Nah, man, it's all good, I've got this," and settled for the deal he got, which I personally didn't think was bad but was never going to be good enough for anyone else. I believe Osborne was all for the proposition, but Osborne was always against the referendum in the first place from what I've heard.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 2, 2017 13:59
|
|
|
spectralent posted:I expect it probably comes pretty directly from Death To Traitors relatively sluggish condemnation with the whole "this was some freak accident nobody could've seen coming" thing stapled on it. Wouldn't be surprised because the Daily Mail subsequently printed a story which, for all intents and purposes, attempted to shift part of the blame for Jo Cox's murder onto Jo Cox herself so nothing is beneath them at this point.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 2, 2017 14:19
|
|
|
learnincurve posted:It may be a case of him wanting to retire to spend more time with his family before he loses them a relatively safe seat or he may hang on and try to beat the tories, but last election he only really scraped though so good luck with that Nick. Last election, Labour bussed in a bunch of activists to try and get rid of him who could have potentially saved Ed Balls's seat.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 2, 2017 15:28
|
|
|
Gonzo McFee posted:Yes. Or a Finnish nurse who holds a long grudge.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 2, 2017 15:46
|
|
|
TinTower posted:This "UKIP are a threat to Labour" argument seems to pushed by the media with no basis in fact, although that much was obvious when the Guardian was claiming UKIP has a chance in Copeland. UKIP could very easily be a threat to Labour if they had anything resembling a meaningful ground game, but they don't. They're reportedly very poorly organised and have few significant campaigning strategies. Their profile as a party was and is tied to Farage's personal popularity among its members and it seems to have had the side-effect of convincing them that they don't need to put any of the leg-work in because the People's Nige is just such a Classic Legend victory will fall into their laps any day now. Wheat Loaf fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Feb 3, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Feb 3, 2017 01:33
|
|
|
I imagine I would vote for the Lib Dems if I lived on the mainland because I consider myself neither a conservative nor a socialist. I mostly vote for the Alliance Party here, since they're the most normal. It's usually Alliance first, UUP second and then it depends on what mood I'm in when I get to the polling station.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 3, 2017 09:28
|
|
|
I thought taxes on dividends were a component of income tax.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 3, 2017 10:46
|
|
|
MikeCrotch posted:Maybe Paul Nuttall can go back to the time honoured tradition of blaming the jewish media for his inevitable poor performance Would probably help UKIP's performance with the NUS vote.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 3, 2017 10:57
|
|
|
MikeCrotch posted:My Gran probably voted Brexit, she got really upset when a bunch of MUSLIM women were seen at the doctor before her. My dear old gran voted to Leave because, (and this is what she told me) "I haven't trusted the Germans since 1939." Curiously enough, the more racist of my two grandmothers voted to Remain, because she said that while she didn't agree with the EU, she felt that she was too old for it to matter to her for much longer  .
|
|
#
¿
Feb 3, 2017 11:21
|
|
|
OzyMandrill posted:There's a new tax on dividends from last April! Oh, that. I know about that, I'm just not accustomed to seeing it counted as a completely separate thing from income tax.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 3, 2017 11:59
|
|
|
Regarde Aduck posted:If I was to be cynical I think it more likely that they just won't support anything May does because Brexit is their baby. Some of UKIP must believe that the Tories stole their moment. Acquaintances of mine who work for the Conservative Party inform me that a substantial number of Kippers started quitting and joining (in a lot of cases rejoining) the Tories very promptly after the election. The inference is presumably that they were in UKIP to get the referendum and win it, but now it's been held and won, they feel content in going back to the Tories, who they trust to manage it to their satisfaction. The inference from that is that the people staying with UKIP are the ones who quit the Tories over gay marriage or some other issue, so they're going to be dismissive of them no matter how much they're doing what they like. Of course, it could well be much more complicated than that. Or much simpler. Who knows?
|
|
#
¿
Feb 3, 2017 17:56
|
|
|
The first time I became aware of Diane Abbott (and Jeremy Corbyn, incidentally) was in an A-level politics class (close to 10 years ago now) where we were talking about campaign strategies and messaging, and we were shown a larger version of this poster which I think was from 1987. (I don't think that's really Ken Livingstone, though, because he doesn't mention Hitler once.)
|
|
#
¿
Feb 3, 2017 23:12
|
|
|
McDonnell is my least favourite Labour politician because of his previous support for the Provisional IRA and his apparent interest in thwarting the Good Friday Agreement back in the 1990s (a position he shares with, erm, the DUP) but even so I think he would make a better leader because at least he seems like he actually wants to be chancellor. By the same token, I'm mainly ill-disposed towards Corbyn because of how he seemed to feel about Northern Ireland during the Troubles. It isn't because they believe in a united Ireland; lots of sensible people believe in that. It's that they were opposed to peace agreements not because they were bad agreements but because they didn't go far enough towards giving the Provos everything they wanted.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 4, 2017 07:07
|
|
|
The next Labour leader is coming from the Corbyn wing in any case. I don't think anyone who had a political career before 2015 is in with a shout so that's Starmer out. What you (in Labour) need to do is ensure you end up with someone like Lewis or Long-Bailey or Rayner rather than McDonnell or Abbott or that idiot Burgon. (As I say, I am no socialist, so I don't know whether any of those will actually satisfy Labour members.)
|
|
#
¿
Feb 4, 2017 13:06
|
|
|
Comrade Cheggorsky posted:Here is a thought: maybe Labour should have a leader who appeals to the British electorate and not just party members? Surely "No compromise with the electorate" id the proudest of the Bennie principles.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 4, 2017 13:27
|
|
|
LemonDrizzle posted:Starmer was part of the 2015 intake - he was a QC/director of public prosecutions before going into politics. I know, but that's a job that she adjacent to the political system and gives him a clear record that can be pointed to as to how he would conduct himself asa political leader. Perhaps that isn't right (as a trainee solicitor with an LLM in human rights law, I have particular views on the relationship between the judiciary and politics in the professional sense) but it's what can and may happen.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 4, 2017 15:56
|
|
|
Pissflaps posted:Any labour mp would do Even Burgon?
|
|
#
¿
Feb 5, 2017 14:15
|
|
|
One thing you can say for the British parties in comparison to the American parties is that at least they will actually contest every opening nine times out of ten. You get a by-election for a local council, for instance, and the parties will often fight hard for those as they will in a by-election for a Westminster seat. The number of seats in America - at local level, state level, even national level in some cases - where the Democrats (and it's usually the Democrats) just didn't bother putting up a candidate is ridiculous. There's places Clinton won handily last November where the Democrats didn't even put up a candidate in the corresponding state legislature seats. Consider how the brilliant, ground-breaking idea put in place by the most successful DNC chair of the past 15 years (Howard Dean) essentially amounted to, "Let's contest every seat." When you consider the amount of money in American politics in general and campaigning in particular, it's ludicrous that they were not and are not. Of course, if turnout is any indication, the Democrats don't seem to think that anything but the White House matters, which is probably why the Republicans now control the executive, the legislature, the majority of the state governments (I'm pretty sure they have as much as they need to pass new constitutional amendments) and quite soon they'll have de facto control of the judiciary.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 5, 2017 16:13
|
|
|
forkboy84 posted:Hence why I said all of the Labour Party is useless. I absolutely think what Corbyn is doing is dumb. Leaving the EU will be bad for poor people. Despite the EU being bad for poor people because neoliberalism inherent to the EU is bad. Perhaps Corbyn should have backed Leave during the campaign. He's elected on the basis that he stays true to his principles and he wants to enact radical change. His principles vis-a-vis the EU had always been in the Bennite Eurosceptic position, and leaving the EU would have been the most radical change he could have conceivably associated with. If Corbyn had declared for Leave and campaigned hard for it, it might have prevented Brexit from being defined as it has been by Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove et al. If he had been out there spouting some stuff about how it's run by bosses and capitalists or whatever (obviously why I voted to Remain myself lol) he could have added a new dimension to the referendum conversation. He even could have said that we could have even freer movement outside the EU if he'd wanted, because we'd be Taking Back Control of Our Borders and that would mean we could keep them as open as we want. It wouldn't have been the most incredible thing anyone said during the campaign. How could this have happened? I imagine it could have happened if Greece had flared up again and the EU institutions started making trouble for SYRIZA (though I think it's only fair to note that the EU institutions are responsible for 27 other countries and can't make special concessions for Greece, any more than they should have been making special concessions for Britain to stay in as a full member) and people started talking about "Lexit" again (because I distinctly remember a couple of Owen Jones articles during the height of the crisis in 2015 which argued that the Greek situation showed that leftists should be prepared to seriously consider leaving the EU). Now, what would the outcome be for him? Notwithstanding an inciting event as described above, I imagine he would almost certainly have faced a leadership challenge regardless of which way the referendum went. But whether or not he'd lose would depend on whether his supporters are willing to take a nuanced look at the politics of the situation, or if they'd all just buy into the "Euroscepticism is bad because Nigel Farage is a racist" idea you see a lot. In any event, I think it is interesting to speculate.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 5, 2017 17:19
|
|
|
thespaceinvader posted:Whichever way Corbyn campaigned on Brexit, the result would have been the same - being denigrated and lied about by the press, even the nominally lefty press, when he wasn't being ignored. I don't think that really means anything for what I posted. (I'm just posting things I think might be interesting for people to talk about.)
|
|
#
¿
Feb 5, 2017 18:18
|
|
|
feedmegin posted:Why would you vote UKIP these days, I guess? They achieved their aim, we're leaving, so there's no reason not to just vote Tory instead. I suppose it depends on where you live. Places where people who would be sympathetic to the ideas but will never vote for the Conservatives out of 30 years of sheer anti-Thatcher inertia; former seaside towns with aging populations, places where people won't vote for Labour because they think Labour only cares about students, immigrants and Londoners, but won't vote for the Tories because they think the Tories are out of touch snobs and poshos. UKIP could potentially get their foot in the door in places like that; they could have become a home for people who were right-wing but didn't like the Tories, corresponding to the stereotype which developed in the Kennedy era that that Lib Dems were for people who were left-wing but didn't like Labour. But it won't happen in either such place, or in any other places, because UKIP, as a party, are both poorly-organised and poorly-led.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 5, 2017 22:27
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 15, 2024 13:15 |
|
|
Namtab posted:I'm not going to think ukip is done until nuttall loses You won't have to wait long for him to lose because Labour is almost certainly winning both of these by-elections, but what you need to keep in mind is that Nuttall losing will almost certainly going to be Farage's pretext for coming back and retaking the helm again.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 5, 2017 22:36
|
|