UKMT February 2017 - Welcome to Tiny Train World

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Prince John: Jun 20, 2006; Oh, poppycock! Female bandits?

Pissflaps posted:

I don't think I've ever heard of a speaker being criticised for partisan bias before - is that a thing or are we using our imaginations?

The Tories have been doing it for ages, especially during the plot to oust him in 2015.

E.g.

quote:

Mr Duncan told the BBC�s Daily Politics Show yesterday: �The top rule for any Speaker is that they are politically impartial and they stand back from expressing party political opinions of any sort.

�[His comments] seem seriously to conflict with the essential rule of the Speaker�s life [which] is that he should be above party politics and I think that�s very worrying.�

# ¿ Feb 12, 2017 18:24

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 06:19

Prince John: Jun 20, 2006; Oh, poppycock! Female bandits?

LemonDrizzle posted:

People do judge each other on appearance, though - one of Ed Miliband's big problems was that people saw him as a goofy-looking nerd who wouldn't be a credible prime minister. If you're scoping people out for a political leadership position and for whatever reason, everyone you ask says that there's something about one person's appearance or self-presentation that makes it hard to take them seriously, that's important and useful information even if it's unfair and unreasonable that the person in question is being judged in that way.

Agree with this 100%. It sucks, but better to find out in a focus group than on the campaign trail before a general election. You've got to work with the public you've got.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2017 20:52

Prince John: Jun 20, 2006; Oh, poppycock! Female bandits?

Jose posted:

a man asking people with no spine to stand up lol

The BBC's coverage has been mildly irritating too. "Corbyn guessing game rises to new pitch", followed by an article relaying two interviews with Labour MPs where both emphatically say the leadership issue is sorted for this parliament. So, not rising to any pitch, really.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2017 00:05

Prince John: Jun 20, 2006; Oh, poppycock! Female bandits?

Baron Corbyn posted:

Hey, looks like The Sun have decided to back to posting straight up "ew gays" bullshit and outing people for no apparent reason.

This is really pissing me off.

Sadly it appears that IPSO can only take complaints about things other than accuracy from an affected person or their representative.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2017 21:45

Prince John: Jun 20, 2006; Oh, poppycock! Female bandits?

Guavanaut posted:

Unrelated, what is this poo poo?

Giant flags and general appeals to 'traditionalism' make me immediately think bad things. Is this their brave new "Labour should be about our idealized conception of the traditional working Englishman, and not all this hippy 'queers and Asians have rights' stuff" pitch?

On this vague note, has anyone posted McDonnell's idea about having different immigration policies in different geographical areas yet? So racist areas could keep the immigrants out, while London and Brighton would still welcome them in.

winegums posted:

So that wee boy that died at Topshop, details are slowly being released and it looks like it had something to do with a display table not being bolted down. It's tragic and awful that a child died in an utterly preventable way. I wonder if this will cause people to think twice before saying health and safety has gone mad then I remember the tragic Truth

Apparently it might have been something like this:

I'll reserve judgement on whether health and safety has gone mad until it's clear what the outcome is. I don't think mandating that every display table (or presumably any other item of furniture that members of the public are exposed to) should be bolted to the floor would be a particularly sensible or practical response though.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2017 23:25

Prince John: Jun 20, 2006; Oh, poppycock! Female bandits?

LemonDrizzle posted:

Well, they aren't legal tender so the wide-eyed starers aren't completely wrong...

Interestingly enough, English banknotes aren't legal tender in Scotland or Northern Ireland, and shops don't have to accept legal tender in any case.

Cerv posted:

Remember even Diane Abbott sent her kids to private school. You're going to get awfully lonely up there on your high horse taking such a hardline against these things

I don't think it's come up yet, but the reason Diane Abbott got such flack for sending her son to private school was that she made a point of attacking other politicians for doing so.

I'd share opinions expressed earlier, that it's understandable for a politician to want the best for their child, but I have very little sympathy with one who scored political points attacking others for doing so.

Edit: On a completely random tangent, is there anyone familiar with Scots who knows what 'priens' are?

As in "I'll buy you a pennyworth o' priens" in this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQPyEKlWNMs

Can't seem to google up a definition.

Prince John fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Feb 17, 2017

# ¿ Feb 17, 2017 01:11

Prince John: Jun 20, 2006; Oh, poppycock! Female bandits?

LemonDrizzle posted:

It's conceivable - the most contentious provisions of the 2015 welfare bill were killed after the Labour and Lib Dem Lords kicked it back to the Commons saying "not good enough, try again." However, I doubt that the Tories will concede on passing the article 50 bill without amendment, and if the government chooses to make a fight of things with the Lords, the government wins.

Given Theresa May chose to sit-in on the House of Lords opening speeches, presumably to glower at any Tory Lords who didn't tow the line, I think you're dead right. They'll go for a fight rather than concede anything, with the strength of a double mandate (public ref, and parliamentary vote) to beat the Lords down with.

Paxman posted:

The abstains were votes they were whipped to abstain on. Eg SNP amendments which said things Labour didn't exactly disagree with but came from the SNP and therefore must be bad in some way.

For example, NC 143 required the Chancellor to publish "an assessment of the financial liability of the UK towards the EU following the United Kingdom�s withdrawal from the EuropeanUnion, and" to make "a statement to the House of Commons on the economic impact of the United Kingdom leaving the single market.�

Labour also abstained on the programme motion, ie the vote to say the debate on the amendments (Committee stage) was limited to just three days. Not sure why they did that.

That's some strange voting right there. I, for one, would be very interested in an assessment of the financial liability so the 60bn Euro figure can be assessed.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2017 23:58

Prince John: Jun 20, 2006; Oh, poppycock! Female bandits?

learnincurve posted:

I clicked in the full knowledge that he would get the wrong reason why it's racist and I was correct. It's from a song written in 1936 for Ella Fitzgerald called Organ grinder's swing. The original lyric was "Now eenie meenie minie moe, catch that monkey by the toe" Racists being as thick in 1936 as they are now substituted the N word for monkey, it became a white power anthem and is still being used in the south by those same arseholes today. So no, probably best not to put it on a T-shirt.

It's actually at least half a century older than that, including the version using 'friend of the family'. There was actually some serious Eenie Meeny Miny Mo chat some months/years back in the UKMT if I recall.

Wikipedia posted:

Some older versions of this rhyme had the word friend of the family instead of tiger:

Eeny, meena, mina, mo,
Catch a friend of the family by the toe;
If he hollers let him go,
Eena, meena, mina, mo.[4]

This version was similar to that reported by Henry Carrington Bolton as the most common version among American schoolchildren in 1888.[14] It was used in the chorus of Bert Fitzgibbon's 1906 song "Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo":

Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Mo,
Catch a friend of the family by his toe,
If he won't work then let him go;
Skidum, skidee, skidoo.
But when you get money, your little bride
Will surely find out where you hide,
So there's the door and when I count four,
Then out goes you.[15]

Then Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem for Scouts incorporating it called the Counting Out Song, which is what popularised it in the UK:

quote:

What is the song the children sing,
When doorway lilacs bloom in Spring,
And the Schools are loosed, and the games are played
That were deadly earnest when Earth was made?
Hear them chattering, shrill and hard,
After dinner-time, out in the yard,
As the sides are chosen and all submit
To the chance of the lot that shall make them "It."
(Singing) "Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo!
Catch a friend of the family by the toe!
(If he hollers let him go!)
Eenee, Meenee. Mainee, Mo!
You-are-It!"

Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, and Mo
Were the First Big Four of the Long Ago,
When the Pole of the Earth sloped thirty degrees,
And Central Europe began to freeze,
And they needed Ambassadors staunch and stark
To steady the Tribes in the gathering dark:
But the frost was fierce and flesh was frail,
So they launched a Magic that could not fail.
(Singing) "Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo!
Hear the wolves across the snow!
Some one has to kill 'em--so
Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo
Make--you--It!"

Slow ly the Glacial Epoch passed,
Central Europe thawed out at last;
And, under the slush of the melting snows
The first dim shapes of the Nations rose.
Rome, Britannia, Belgium, Gaul--
Flood and avalanche fathered them all;
And the First Big Four, as they watched the mess,
Pitied Man in his helplessness.
(Singing) "Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo!
Trouble starts When Nations grow,
Some one has to stop it--so
Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo!
Make-you-It!"

Thus it happened, but none can tell
What was the Power behind the spell--
Fear, or Duty, or Pride, or Faith--
That sent men shuddering out to death--
To cold and watching, and, worse than these,
Work, more work, when they looked for ease--
To the days discomfort, the nights despair,
In the hope of a prize that they never could share,
(Singing) "Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo!
Man is born to Toil and Woe.
One will cure another--so
Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo
Make--you--It!"

Once and again, as the Ice went North
The grass crept up to the Firth of Forth.
Once and again, as the Ice came South
The glaciers ground over Lossiemouth.
But, grass or glacier, cold or hot,
The men went out who would rather not,
And fought with the Tiger, the Pig and the Ape,
To hammer the world into decent shape.
(Singing) "Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo!
What's the use of doing so?
Ask the Gods, for we don't know;
But Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo
Make-us-It!"

Nothing is left of that terrible rune
But a tag of gibberish tacked to a tune
That ends the waiting and settles the claims
Of children arguing over their games;
For never yet has a boy been found
To shirk his turn when the turn came round;
Nor even a girl has been known to say
"If you laugh at me I shan't play."
For-- "Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo,
(Don't you let the grown-ups know!)
You may hate it ever so,
But if you're chose you're bound to go,
When Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo
Make-you-It!"
Rudyard Kipling

Sion posted:

Yeah, I was more or less raised on 'grab a tiger by the toe/tail.'

I was honestly pretty surprised to learn of the racism goin' on in other versions of it.

Our primary school merrily used the racist version in the 80s, but I was completely oblivious to the racism part. I think I was in my twenties before I happened to hear it again and thought "hang on a minute...".

# ¿ Feb 22, 2017 00:15

Prince John: Jun 20, 2006; Oh, poppycock! Female bandits?

Junior G-man posted:

Latest Anywhere But Westminster is in Stoke and well worth 10 minutes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGis5Wf8_eQ

Thanks for posting this. It's really depressing though.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2017 22:40

Prince John: Jun 20, 2006; Oh, poppycock! Female bandits?

Heh.

quote:

In response, the paper issued a statement saying Mr Blair was "utterly wrong to accuse the Daily Mail newspaper of inaccuracy over the Ronald Fiddler story".

"However, our sister organisation MailOnline, which is an independently edited website, did publish a misleading headline which said that Mr Blair's government was responsible for the �1m payout to Fiddler.

"This ran briefly and has since been removed and corrected. MailOnline apologises for this mistake."

It added: "The fact remains that the actions which led to this payment were all the responsibility of Tony Blair."

# ¿ Feb 22, 2017 23:01

Prince John: Jun 20, 2006; Oh, poppycock! Female bandits?

Panama Red posted:

What do people think of Clive Lewis? Beloved by the Remain crowd, but was on good terms with Corbyn

Random thing I discovered about him recently is that he was sacked from the BBC for poor performance as political correspondent. Apparently concerns about his lack of knowledge for the role reached the point where he was given a test about politics which he bombed out on. When he was dismissed, he said it was due to racism, but following a robust response from his old manager, semi-retracted this.

Seems like a nice enough bloke the couple of times I've met him and favours alliances with other left wing parties which might become a necessity in future.

Edit: Thanks whoever posted this link:

https://medium.com/@theobertram/the-copeland-test-labours-core-vote-ddac4fb8ee#.vf8zx0bqh

quote:

Since September 2015, Labour has gone from 5 points ahead to 15 points behind the Tories among C2DEs.

Some might argue that this fall was largely driven by Brexit (or even by the Labour coup) but the big change came in the first two months of Corbyn�s leadership.

Working class voters looked at Corbyn and made up their minds in the first two months. On the left, in September 2015, 32% of C2DEs had no opinion on whether Corbyn was doing a good or bad job. Only 30% thought he was doing a bad job. By November 2015, only 14% didn�t know. 63% thought he was doing a bad job.

The impact on Labour�s vote share was immediate.

Among working class voters, Labour went from a 5 point lead to 7 points behind in the first two months of Corbyn�s leadership.

In November 2015, 63% of working class voters thought he was not up to the job. In February 2017, exactly the same proportion � 63%- have still not changed their mind.

It's worth reading the article to see the two graphs, but this is quite striking I think. Working class support lost in the first two months - before any of Corbyn's bad leadership had the chance to be demonstrated, or the coups to begin, or the Brexit shenanigans to rear its head.

A clear indication of the media demonisation that kicked off on day 1 perhaps? I seem to remember even Pissflaps saying a few days ago that he had an open mind about Corbyn's performance in the early weeks, which probably indicates that there had been no major fuckups at the time.

Prince John fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Feb 24, 2017

# ¿ Feb 24, 2017 21:14

Prince John: Jun 20, 2006; Oh, poppycock! Female bandits?

namesake posted:

Please tell me that the test is available somewhere.

Or that it's a GCSE level Politics exam or something.

Heh, for some reason I wasn't able to find this before, but if you trust the Daily Mail as a source then apparently:

quote:

�I did remove him as a political correspondent because he didn�t know enough about politics to do that job. The 2010 General Election was coming up and I called him in and said �You aren�t firing on all cylinders, you have got to know your stuff.� With his consent I set him a simple quiz, three basic questions. He got all three wrong.�

The three questions were all about Cabinet Minister John Whittingdale, MP for Maldon in Essex, part of BBC East�s region. Mr Lewis could not name the MP for Maldon; did not know Whittingdale chaired the Commons culture committee or that, when he worked for Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, he was a �dry� [Thatcherite] Tory, not a �wet� [anti- Thatcher]. �By the end I said, �You�re guessing,� � recalled Mr Bishop. �He laughed and said, �You�re right, I was.� If he had genuinely experienced racism at the BBC, he would have complained at the time.�

He was BBC East's political correspondent, so not being able to name the local MP would be rather amusing if true.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2017 21:31

Prince John: Jun 20, 2006; Oh, poppycock! Female bandits?

Won't somebody think of the tax avoiders?!

quote:

Mr Tyrie said in his letter that his office had been contacted by an increasing number of people concerned that HMRC investigations into such schemes were "not always fair nor what anyone could have expected".

That had resulted in "financial calamity" for some individuals, as well as considerable difficulties for HMRC in closing down some schemes.

"Many have said that, when these schemes were being sold, they were not considered to be aggressive avoidance but just a deferral of tax, and they were often marketed as routine tax management," Mr Tyrie told the Chancellor.

"Whether or not these claims are valid, it does appear that many individuals are facing very severe financial distress as a consequence."

...

Some investors in film schemes have been hit with Accelerated Payment Notices, which give taxpayers 90 days to pay the disputed amount of tax.

Their use has been controversial because some tax advisers claim they scare taxpayers into paying up rather than contest claims in the courts.

Some 60,000 notices have been issued since their introduction in 2014 and have raised �3bn.

Although some consider the notices to be draconian, as they can require taxpayers to stump up sums described as "life-changing", HMRC has won various attempts to challenge their legality.

In August last year HMRC claimed victory in a tax avoidance battle over schemes worth more than �820m run by Ingenious Film Partnership and Icebreaker.

The Ingenious scheme tried to use artificial losses arising from backing a range of films including Avatar, Life of Pi and Die Hard 4. The Icebreaker scheme attempted to create artificial losses from limited liability partnerships.

HMRC said both schemes saw users claim more in tax relief than they had invested - a claim that Ingenious disputed.

Ingenious called the Tax Tribunal decision "arbitrary and subjective".

# ¿ Feb 25, 2017 10:58

Prince John: Jun 20, 2006; Oh, poppycock! Female bandits?

Paxman posted:

Suppose this is true. If Corbyn is actually capable of being comprehensible and persuasive on the telly, why won't he just do it? Im guessing from what you said that the soundbite ad nauseum tactic is something Corbyn dissaproves of or at least prefers not to use for some reason. But even if it is, why not compromise on the issue of how he talks in TV interviews if its going to help him save the NHS?

The flip side of going for that approach is appearing to not answer questions, being evasive, and doing all the things we take the piss out of other politicians doing in interviews.

If he's just going to appear like other politicians on the TV, rather than someone who wants to give considered and honest answers, then there's a lot of authenticity to be lost there. I share the oft-repeated disappointment that the flood of non-voters hasn't materialised, but a large part of his personal appeal to his base rests on his authenticity.

big scary monsters posted:

Clive Lewis is seen as a potential Labour leader, can we really trust someone who can't even keep a simple literary device straight for a few sentences to run the country's largest political party? If we have to live in a political farce, then it could at least have the decency to be a well written one.

I got the gist of what he was saying, but I think we need to be comfortable with this if we want to have a broad range of people representing us in parliament.

There will be a correlation between the people who never gently caress up metaphors in public speaking and those whose schools had debating societies, public speaking competitions and a pathway to prestigious universities.

It's a problem for the direction of politics, especially if politicians that we might consider to be authentic voices of the working class then get described by the public as 'a bit charity shop', or are not taken as seriously because they have accents or don't use big words.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2017 12:43

Prince John: Jun 20, 2006; Oh, poppycock! Female bandits?

Pissflaps posted:

Corbyn's 'base' is tiny and doesnt necessarily vote labour or want a labour government. Appealing to them is a waste of time.

It might be, but I still think aspiring to give honest, reasoned and authentic answers to questions is something our politics desperately needs.

If enough Labour politicians do it, even our dozy public might realise there's a difference between 'them' and 'the rest of them' and I'd stop hearing "they're all the same" on the doorstep over and over and over again. :bang:

big scary monsters posted:

Basically Orwell was right: http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit/

Thanks, that's reminded me that I really need to find some time to settle down with a few Orwell books.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2017 13:08

Prince John: Jun 20, 2006; Oh, poppycock! Female bandits?

TinTower posted:

So, the bill to ratify the Istanbul Convention passed 138-1 yesterday. Guess who the 1 No was.

loving Philip Davies, he really needs a kick in the balls.

Out of interest, does anyone know how filibusters generally fail? From what I've seen of successful ones, there's basically no mechanism for the speaker to tell them to sit down unless they go off topic.

Is it literally a case of waiting for him to have a coughing fit or needing to get a glass of water?

I can't imagine Philip Davies wandering off-topic given the amount of practice he's had at this, and the fact the speaker will usually give repeated warnings.

Edit:

Namtab posted:

Mps gave themselves another 1.4% raise. Feels good with my 1% and the real terms pay cut nurses have taken since 2010

No they haven't. Pay decisions have been deliberately given to an independent body so MPs have no control over their pay.

Fangz posted:

Sure. Mostly I spend my time on a MUD,

I didn't realise MUDs were still a thing. Mind sharing which one if it's a popular one?

Spangly A posted:

You first. The British colonised and subjugated my homeland. You and everyone who would defend this deserve no sympathy.

As I discovered to my surprise when I was doing some reading into early Irish history, it wasn't the British, it was the Normans (in cahoots with the Pope)! They colonised and subjugated the rest of us too.

Not intending to minimise the later British shenanigans in Ireland of course, but I certainly hadn't appreciated how far back the history went.

Prince John fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Feb 25, 2017

# ¿ Feb 25, 2017 23:02

Prince John: Jun 20, 2006; Oh, poppycock! Female bandits?

Baron Corbyn posted:

I don't know if it's been posted here but Heseltine reckons he's got enough rebel Tory peers to join with Labour and the Lib Dems and add amendments to protect the rights of EU citizens to stay and to allow parliament to scrutinise the process.

It's not really a good look for the opposition to have Michael Heseltine being the person holding the government to account.

This is an interesting reading of things. What I see is Labour and Lib Dems continuing their strategy of trying to force the government to accept sensible amendments to the Brexit bill.

It works in the House of Lords because (i) Conservatives have a minority and (ii) more Tory peers are willing to rebel than Tory MPs.

It's great that Heseltine thinks there are some Tory peers who will vote with the two opposition parties, but just because a famous name has decided to talk to a newspaper doesn't mean he and nobody else assumes the mantle of 'holding the government to account'. It's working at this stage of parliamentary proceedings because of maths.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2017 20:11

Prince John: Jun 20, 2006; Oh, poppycock! Female bandits?

Fangz posted:

I'm not objecting that Corbyn is more left wing than the other guys, I'm objecting to the idea that he's somehow a different sort of animal. In a lot of ways his economic choices run significant risks of making things much worse for poor people. His brexit policy and his committment to fiscal zero, for example.

What do you mean by 'fiscal zero'?

If you mean he supports a balanced budget, that's only on current expenditure. Unlike the Conservatives, borrowing to fund capital investment is a key policy plank of his.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2017 00:06

Prince John: Jun 20, 2006; Oh, poppycock! Female bandits?

Fangz posted:

Yes, but capital investment doesn't cover everything that you need. You might be able to build a hospital but not fund the doctors to put in it. If Blair/Brown operated under those rules things would have been significantly worse. It's dumb.

The doctors are funded through increased tax receipts from an economy that's now growing following a massive economic stimulus. I'm sure it's possible to gently caress it up, but it's not a dumb position by default, especially when compared against the alternative of underfunding public services to the detriment of public health and international competitiveness.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2017 00:28

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 06:19

Prince John: Jun 20, 2006; Oh, poppycock! Female bandits?

Sorry if this has already been posted, I don't really have time to keep up with the thread all the time at the mo.

Looks like Clive Lewis is either quite opportunistic or a victim of some of these 'dark arts' John McDonnell was talking about.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/27/clive-lewis-denies-registering-websites-for-labour-leadership-bid

quote:

Clive Lewis, who resigned from the shadow cabinet after voting against the Brexit bill, has denied secretly registering internet addresses linked to a potential leadership bid and warned that unnamed Labour figures were taking an �unhealthy interest� in him.

Lewis, the MP for Norwich South, flatly denied that he, or anyone working for him, was responsible for registering several internet domain names, including cliveforleader.org.uk, shortly after he joined the shadow cabinet last summer, as revealed in the Huffington Post. �None of this is true: I haven�t done this,� he said.

He also told the Guardian his solicitors had written to the Sunday Times warning that he plans to take legal action against the paper over a separate story, casting doubt about his military record in Afghanistan as an army reservist.

Lewis suggested both stories had originated from �people out there�, who don�t want to see a leftwinger succeed Jeremy Corbyn, and would like the Labour leadership to pass to a more centrist MP.

�It looks clear to me that there are people out there whose interest I have piqued and who are taking an unhealthy interest in me,� he said. �In other circumstances, it would be flattering.�

<More PLP grumbling follows>

# ¿ Feb 28, 2017 00:02

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > UKMT February 2017 - Welcome to Tiny Train World

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