UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero
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  UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero
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Author Topic: UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero  (Read 283692 times)
cp
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« Reply #725 on: June 29, 2020, 04:41:20 PM »
« edited: June 29, 2020, 05:03:18 PM by cp »

That clip for me is a reminder that most people do not know that Keir Starmer was the director of public prosecutions (and most people don't know what that role is) & the 2-3 years of being leader of the opposition is about defining & setting a public perception.

Given this interview happened the same day Starmer 'both sides'ed on trans rights, I'd say his efforts at defining and setting a public perception are pretty disappointing so far.

Honestly, how hard is it for the leader of a (supposedly) left wing party to not sound like he's reading off Tory talking points? Calling 'defund the police' nonsense is precisely the kind of un-nuanced, dim, cowardly posturing that got us Milliband's anti-immigrant mugs and a PLP too scared to vote against austerity (which helped precipitate Corbyn's election). 
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Cassius
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« Reply #726 on: June 29, 2020, 06:02:08 PM »

I mean T-May already defunded the police so I知 not sure where the meat and two veg of this argument lies?
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brucejoel99
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« Reply #727 on: June 29, 2020, 06:19:38 PM »

I mean T-May already defunded the police so I知 not sure where the meat and two veg of this argument lies?

Exactly. Hell, if anything, the police in Britain need more funding!
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #728 on: June 29, 2020, 06:29:32 PM »

I mean T-May already defunded the police so I知 not sure where the meat and two veg of this argument lies?

The result of which has been, and this news may come as a surprise, a rise in crime.
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LabourJersey
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« Reply #729 on: June 29, 2020, 07:41:19 PM »

I do wonder if myself & the Labour Party discourse/forever war would benefit from no twitter. I don't even use my account anymore- but even searching just brings up people like myself (who've had the exact same opinion on every political issue since 2016!)

When I was studying in the UK I met a lot of politics students. I definitely noticed the ones with twitter have much more Americanized views on politics than what I consider a more British view (focus on race/culture vs. focus on class issues, to really oversimplify it)

I definitely don't think that must help British politics, especially given a lot of the anger from the American left comes from how absurdly difficult it is for our government to enact big change, something that isn't nearly as bad when you have a parliamentary system.

(Not to mention how I think American politics is especially shallow, but that's another discussion)
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Estrella
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« Reply #730 on: June 29, 2020, 08:08:58 PM »

If Rose Twitter wants to Americanize Labour's discourse, they should do it on issues where it's actually applicable. Like this one:



Christ, "building prisons to support construction industry" - even American prison-industrial complex doesn't reach this level of shamelessness.
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cp
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« Reply #731 on: June 30, 2020, 01:03:12 AM »

I mean T-May already defunded the police so I知 not sure where the meat and two veg of this argument lies?

The result of which has been, and this news may come as a surprise, a rise in crime.

Believing there's a direct cause and effect relationship between the rise or fall in police funding and the rise and fall in crime is as obtuse as believing Defund the Police is merely a movement about budgetary concerns. May's cuts to police budgets were just that - a blunt, across the board reduction designed to save money as part of a wider campaign of austerity. It wasn't aimed at systemic reform or based in a fundamental rethinking of the relationship between citizens and state authorities, especially the ones invested with the authority to do violence, which any halfway informed description of Defund the Police would know is the central point.

Also, to this idea that the UK's politics are being 'Americanized' because of Rose Twitter, and therefore its adopting of the Defund movement rhetoric is anachronistic or unhelpful, I can only say: careful. First off, there's a long history of British elites deflecting attention away from their own culpability in Britain's domestic problems by blaming 'fashionable' external causes or events (the Vietnam War, abolitionism). Second, it tacitly silences and denigrates BAME voices who have been calling for years for precisely the same rethink about state violence and social services as the Defund movement.


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EastAnglianLefty
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« Reply #732 on: June 30, 2020, 03:21:23 AM »

I mean T-May already defunded the police so I知 not sure where the meat and two veg of this argument lies?

The result of which has been, and this news may come as a surprise, a rise in crime.

Also a tendency for the police not to investigate whole swathes of theft-related crimes, because it's considered not to be a worthwhile use of their scarce resources. There's definitely an argument that certain communities in the UK feel themselves to be over-policed (although these are often also the communities most likely to be victims of crime) but not that the system as a whole is over-funded.

If Rose Twitter wants to Americanize Labour's discourse, they should do it on issues where it's actually applicable. Like this one:



Christ, "building prisons to support construction industry" - even American prison-industrial complex doesn't reach this level of shamelessness.

To be fairer than they actually deserve, there is an extremely strong case for new prisons to be built. Much of the existing estate is Victorian in origin and the buildings are entirely unsuited to their current purpose. There is rampant overcrowding, as cells which were originally designed for one prisoner in the 1880s now hold two prisoners and a toilet. These buildings need replacing. Moreover, most local prisons are heavily overcapacity, meaning that it's very hard for prisoners to get on to rehabilitation programs (because those are numerically limited). Indeed, where it's combined with staff shortages (which is most places) it also means that time out of the cell gets sharply circumscribed for security reasons, which increases tension and the recidivism rate.

The problem is that an authoritarian government is likely to respond to extra prison capacity by locking more people up. But if you were going to take a long-term prison abolitionist perspective, closing prisons is still not a step you would want to take any time soon.
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CumbrianLefty
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« Reply #733 on: June 30, 2020, 06:58:29 AM »

The bottom line is that "defund the police" is much more of a fringe position here than in the US (and even there, of course, it shouldn't be forgotten that it still has only minority support) And that one of the main campaign themes for Labour in 2017 was police cuts and underfunding - no surprise that this was and is one of the areas where "hardcore" Corbynism has been most critical of his time as leader.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #734 on: July 03, 2020, 06:51:18 PM »



y i k e s
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Silent Hunter
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« Reply #735 on: July 04, 2020, 05:45:28 AM »

So much for shielding the most vulnerable.
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CumbrianLefty
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« Reply #736 on: July 04, 2020, 05:58:42 AM »

It has rarely been more than an empty slogan employed by anti-lockdown ideologues IMO.
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NewYorkExpress
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« Reply #737 on: July 06, 2020, 02:07:04 PM »

https://www.businessinsider.com/conservative-mps-threaten-boris-johnson-rebellion-remove-huawei-5g-2020-7

Quote
Boris Johnson faces a sustained campaign of rebellion from dozens of his own Members of Parliament until he agrees to accelerate the removal of the Chinese telecoms firm Huawei from the UK's 5G network.

The UK prime minister is expected to reverse his to decision to grant Huawei a limited but significant role in developing the UK's 5G, amid growing hostility towards the firm and China within his Conservative party.

Johnson is expected to this month set out plans to phase out Huawei from the UK network, according to The Financial Times, with a report by the UK's National Cyber Security Centre set to warn that US sanctions on the company mean it poses an increased risk to UK security.

The sanctions recently introduced by the Trump administration are designed to stop Huawei using US-produced equipment to make semiconductors. This has created concern in London that the Chinese telecoms firm would turn to different technology with an additional security risk.
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CumbrianLefty
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« Reply #738 on: July 06, 2020, 02:17:34 PM »

In really important news, however, our PM has......had a haircut!
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Coastal Elitist
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« Reply #739 on: July 07, 2020, 08:52:34 PM »

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Blair
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« Reply #740 on: July 08, 2020, 06:28:03 AM »

This is something that the Government probably would have lost a vote on; I think it's an issue where there was offical advice from the security services which contrasted the political advice; Theresa May in no surpise picked the security advice, where as Boris won't.
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Zinneke
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« Reply #741 on: July 08, 2020, 02:08:19 PM »

Where does Dr "Disgraced Former Defence Secretary" Liam Fox get so much political capital from in order to get such big "contact book" gigs and now a last minute WTO Director-General candidacy? This guy is a proven crook...
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Blair
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« Reply #742 on: July 08, 2020, 03:20:35 PM »

Where does Dr "Disgraced Former Defence Secretary" Liam Fox get so much political capital from in order to get such big "contact book" gigs and now a last minute WTO Director-General candidacy? This guy is a proven crook...

Ex cabinet ministers who stay in the commons tend to fall into two camps; vengeful obsessives & CV padders. The other choice was Peter Mandelson, who is a lot more qualified but equally ugh...

There's a remarkable number of perks that the Government can give out to people like Fox merely to keep him on side.
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CumbrianLefty
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« Reply #743 on: July 09, 2020, 07:26:38 AM »

Johnson getting some deserved stick for his transparent attempt to shift the blame for virus deaths onto care homes the other day. Yes, *some* of these places are distinctly sub-optimal but that is not really the point here - not least because the government has encouraged them to be like they are.
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Cassius
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« Reply #744 on: July 09, 2020, 10:21:15 AM »

Rishi Sunak has released his mini-gimmickfestbudget.

He may as well not have bothered.

(This actually happened yesterday, but for the benefit of our international posters)
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CumbrianLefty
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« Reply #745 on: July 09, 2020, 10:34:59 AM »

He got most of our clueless pundits (who understand BIG NUMBERS even less than most other stuff) to gush over him uncritically, though - so in that sense it was "mission accomplished".
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Cassius
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« Reply #746 on: July 09, 2020, 10:36:16 AM »

He got most of our clueless pundits (who understand BIG NUMBERS even less than most other stuff) to gush over him uncritically, though - so in that sense it was "mission accomplished".

True - another win for the Dishy Rishi for PM campaign.
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CumbrianLefty
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« Reply #747 on: July 10, 2020, 06:45:26 AM »

He got most of our clueless pundits (who understand BIG NUMBERS even less than most other stuff) to gush over him uncritically, though - so in that sense it was "mission accomplished".

True - another win for the Dishy Rishi for PM campaign.

How many "moderate Tories" have inspected the wallets of certain "liberal" commentators now?
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DaWN
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« Reply #748 on: July 10, 2020, 12:05:54 PM »



Poor old Scotland. Even I don't hate the SNP that much to wish him on them.
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Corbyn is (no longer) the leader of the Labour Party
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« Reply #749 on: July 10, 2020, 12:49:02 PM »



Poor old Scotland. Even I don't hate the SNP that much to wish him on them.

WOW, the SNP is really doomed now!!
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