UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero (user search)
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  UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero (search mode)
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Tsar Boris Good Enough
 
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This Benighted Plot
 
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The Right Honourable Alexander 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 283733 times)
Cassius
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« on: December 15, 2019, 08:11:39 PM »

UK General Discussion: Tsar Boris Good Enough?
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Cassius
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« Reply #1 on: February 01, 2020, 05:32:21 AM »

The UK should never under any circumstance rejoin the EU. Even if they elect a government that wants to, any sane European country must veto that request. If there's one thing we've learned from this debacle, it's that De Gaulle was right.

Now, I sincerely hope that y'all will eventually be able to work your way back into a Norway-style arrangement  in a way that doesn't alienate large swathes of the country. That would be the best outcome for everyone involved. But given the choices BoJo has made so far, the next few years will be rough.

(And Scotland of course is very welcome as soon as it leaves the sinking ship.)

Given that the EU issue is purely a means for the SNP to lever Scotland out of the United Kingdom (which, for the record, I believe should happen at this stage), I imagine Scotland rejoining will be dropped in the event of independence, once it becomes clear that rejoining means returning to what is essentially the current status quo between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom, but being a much smaller presence in the European Parliament vs the House of Commons.
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Cassius
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« Reply #2 on: February 04, 2020, 10:47:26 AM »

Indy at 50% and 52% in new polls from Panelbase and Survation. SNP at over 50% in polling for Holyood in both.

Terrible news for Ed Miliband.

'Patriotic' Brexiteers 🤡 have made sure that Scottish independence is all-but-guaranteed. I guess that's a benefit for them, though, since it all-but-ensures perpetual Tory government, benefiting them with the state paying for their miserable existence, all to the detriment of the young.

So... what do you believe exactly, that the old should be left to die in the road because a majority of them voted to leave the EU?

Besides, Scottish independence has been more likely than not since the Scottish Parliament was established; preventing Scotland being ‘dragged’ out of the EU is simply a (dubious) casus belli for the SNP to have another crack at a referendum.
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Cassius
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« Reply #3 on: February 04, 2020, 02:01:22 PM »

Indy at 50% and 52% in new polls from Panelbase and Survation. SNP at over 50% in polling for Holyood in both.

Terrible news for Ed Miliband.

'Patriotic' Brexiteers 🤡 have made sure that Scottish independence is all-but-guaranteed. I guess that's a benefit for them, though, since it all-but-ensures perpetual Tory government, benefiting them with the state paying for their miserable existence, all to the detriment of the young.

So... what do you believe exactly, that the old should be left to die in the road because a majority of them voted to leave the EU?

Besides, Scottish independence has been more likely than not since the Scottish Parliament was established; preventing Scotland being ‘dragged’ out of the EU is simply a (dubious) casus belli for the SNP to have another crack at a referendum.

The only thing here that's dubious is the argument that a significant change in circumstances is dubious.

Whether Scotland would be an EU member or not in the event of an independence vote was discussed in 2014, but was hardly the crux of the campaign. More to the point, the United Kingdom leaving the EU only represents a significant change in circumstances for Scotland should there be no free trade agreement between the UK and the EU+significant divergence in regulatory standards between the two. In that scenario, however, Scotland leaving a no-free trade agreement UK in order to rejoin the EU would be even more economically damaging for Scotland than staying put, given the considerably greater degree of economic interconnectedness between Scotland and the rest of the UK than between Scotland and the EU. This is a simple fact that belies the dubious ‘Scotland must be protected from a damaging no-deal Brexit’ case for independence.
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Cassius
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« Reply #4 on: February 06, 2020, 05:00:12 PM »

Another politician gets caught taking Kissinger’s dubious advice about the properties of power to heart.
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Cassius
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« Reply #5 on: April 06, 2020, 03:25:20 PM »

It would certainly do a lot for his kleos, that much is certain.

But here’s hoping he makes it.
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Cassius
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« Reply #6 on: April 26, 2020, 05:28:01 PM »

Odd to celebrate the legacy of Lenin and the Russian Revolution with regards ‘peace and socialism’ given that he failed to create either.
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Cassius
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« Reply #7 on: May 26, 2020, 03:16:39 PM »

Mark Drakeford and Llafur Cymru may as well be the captain and crew of the Special Boat Squadron as far as the UK (indeed much of the Welsh) electorate are concerned. The Welsh Parliament is essentially a minuscule dot on the face of UK political reporting, the focus of which will very much be on Johnson and the government getting their nuts roasted by Keir Starmer and feet shot by... themselves. Regardless of the performance of the devolved governments in this crisis (and they will, as always, seek to nationalise their failures whilst localising their, few, successes), the focus in the media will be very much on the UK government’s handling of the pandemic.
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Cassius
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« Reply #8 on: May 26, 2020, 04:07:48 PM »

On that note;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-52795997?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/scotland/scotland_politics&link_location=live-reporting-story

A total of 82% of respondents said Ms Sturgeon had handled the outbreak "fairly" or "very" well, to 8% "fairly" or "very" badly, giving her a net approval rating of +74. The Scottish government's score was +67.

Meanwhile 30% of those who took part said the prime minister was handling the outbreak "fairly" or "very" well, compared to 55% "fairly" or "very" badly - a net approval rating of -25. The UK government's overall rating was -17.

I mean, I was referring specifically to the Welsh government (aside from the little ‘nationalise their failures and localise their successes’ dig, which funnily enough was also mentioned by Curtice in that article), in response to Urutzizu’s comment about places where the opposition is in government... and if you look at the (rare) polling of Welsh politics, there’s little to indicate the Welsh electorate itself is switched on to devolved politics, never mind the English electorate.
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Cassius
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« Reply #9 on: May 27, 2020, 04:46:26 AM »

Yeah, and it’s not just the hospitals - given the enormous number of people who live along the Welsh M4 corridor and would normally commute every week to work in England (sometimes as far afield as London and often by train) and vice versa, a separate policy regarding when the big return to work is authorised is not really feasible for the Welsh government either.
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Cassius
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« Reply #10 on: June 12, 2020, 05:09:35 AM »



Thoughts?

‘Gaslighting’ is one of the most overused terms in politics today.
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Cassius
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« Reply #11 on: June 13, 2020, 06:31:00 PM »

British far right continues to demonstrate the same tactical mastery that has served it so well down the decades.
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Cassius
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« Reply #12 on: June 19, 2020, 11:17:49 AM »

Why would, or even should Labour care about Scotland?

Most seats gained there would come from the SNP, not the Tories.

So unless you think Johnson can somehow get SNP support in a hung parliament; anything with the Tories at 300 or less and Labour at 270 or more is an auto-Labour win.

Labour does not need to get a majority to get PM Starmer, they just need to get across the line with SNP support. An actual majority would be nice, but is very unrealistic as long as Scotland votes on "ethnic" lines

It’s always better to have a majority than not to have one, as if you have one then at least you have a clear shot at getting your manifesto commitments through, whereas they may have to be bargained away in the situation of a minority government.

Also, Labour has been beholden to the support of the SNP whilst in government before and that didn’t end very well.
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Cassius
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« Reply #13 on: June 25, 2020, 02:50:59 PM »

I've thought for a few months that we appear to be in the early stages of a divorce between the Labour Party and 'Left Culture'. I suspect both parties will be better off apart, but it is going to be messy.
That would turn the Labour Party into something more resembling the German SPD then, only in this case they won’t do as badly electorally due to FPTP and never entering a coalition with the Tories like the SPD does with the CDU.



Doubtful. The SPD have lost a lot of votes in a lot of directions for a lot of reasons, but as you point out they’re operating in a different political system within a different political culture, so you can’t really compare like for like. Moreover, the party that the SPD seems to be being supplanted by (the German Greens) isn’t particularly to the left of it and certainly isn’t a party of British-style hard leftism.
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Cassius
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« Reply #14 on: June 25, 2020, 02:57:36 PM »


I’m sure one of our German posters would be able to answer this more thoroughly, but I’m of the impression that Die Linke is a hybrid of GDR Ostalgists and anti-Hartz IV SPD rebels and other left wingers from outside the mainstream. So yes, in certain respects more similar to the left wing of the Labour party, but note they’ve not really managed to exploit SPD’s steady implosion, as they continue to be stuck in single digits.
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Cassius
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« Reply #15 on: June 29, 2020, 06:02:08 PM »

I mean T-May already defunded the police so I’m not sure where the meat and two veg of this argument lies?
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Cassius
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« Reply #16 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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Cassius
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« Reply #17 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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Cassius
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« Reply #18 on: July 10, 2020, 03:51:55 PM »

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?

I don’t think that’s the case so much for Sunak, I think it’s more that a lot of centrist and centre-right commentators are desperate to find just one cabinet minister who exudes an air of competence and authority at the moment. The problem with the ‘Dishy Rishi, master of finance’ spiel, as I’m sure you know, is that the most recent measures announced are essentially little more than window dressing. The £1k bonus over three months per employee whose job is kept won’t even cover a quarter of a monthly minimum wage salary. This restaurant voucher business is patronising pandering and runs slap bang into the objective of having restaurants maintain social distancing. The stamp duty cut is a transparent effort to juice up the old property price go brrr machine.

Sunak does frustrate me a little as he is very redolent of the kind of slick individuals I’ve come across a fair amount in my career over the last few years and I just know he will end up as Conservative leader at some point down the road.
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Cassius
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« Reply #19 on: July 13, 2020, 06:23:33 AM »

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2020/jul/13/english-councils-poised-cuts-services-job-losses-loss-commercial-income

In other news many local councils are now ed. Obviously, much of this drive to acquire commercial property on the back of borrowing is due to cuts in central government grants over the last decade, but I imagine there have been some stupid acquisitions along the way. Fortunately all debt (at least for England and Wales, as far as I’m aware) is owed to a public entity (the PWLB) and not to banks/bondholders, as would be the case in the States, so hopefully some arrangements can be made there.
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Cassius
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« Reply #20 on: July 13, 2020, 06:57:39 AM »

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2020/jul/13/english-councils-poised-cuts-services-job-losses-loss-commercial-income

In other news many local councils are now ed. Obviously, much of this drive to acquire commercial property on the back of borrowing is due to cuts in central government grants over the last decade, but I imagine there have been some stupid acquisitions along the way. Fortunately all debt (at least for England and Wales, as far as I’m aware) is owed to a public entity (the PWLB) and not to banks/bondholders, as would be the case in the States, so hopefully some arrangements can be made there.

Some people where warning about this pre-covid- I think the National Audit Office where warning a lot of councils where relying on assumed profits to present a much more rosy picture re finances.

I don't know if it's a huge difference but I always assumed there was a scale with this; some councils did it on a few sites where as the richer ones in the South-East went a bit crazy with it & started buying up vast sites for supermarkets in places like Wales- which in itself is a worrying trend re local space.

Yeah I think there is a lot of variation across the board - as discussed in the article, some councils (Luton) are reliant upon one big investment (Luton airport) to help fund themselves, whereas others have, as you say, gone on a big spending spree (Spelthorne). I read somewhere that Spelthorne are confident they won’t have a problem because they have built up reserves (although how they’ve not been burning through those in the last three months I don’t know) - the issue will be whether or not those reserves last until things get back to normal with regards their cash generating assets, which could take a very long time.
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Cassius
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« Reply #21 on: July 15, 2020, 03:23:29 PM »

Of course, Julian Lewis has past form with political espionage and skulduggery, so his outwitting the government whips on this one isn’t unexpected.
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Cassius
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« Reply #22 on: July 15, 2020, 04:31:15 PM »

It's now quite worrying to read the Tories might try and force a vote to remove him from the committee; it was reported this was not possible because of the committee having seperate legislative standing... but I'm not an expert.

I'm not actually sure there would be the votes for this; unless they do it on the last day before recess when they hope to cash in on MPs not physically being in Westminster. MPs are always the most likely to rebel on issues like these...

Baffling to do this all over a chairmanship of a committee. The biggest takeaway is that it's now possible to claim that all MPs, not just those on the payroll, are bound to vote in line with the whips in Select Committee elctions... we use to at least let them be free contests!

Of course, Julian Lewis has past form with political espionage and skulduggery, so his outwitting the government whips on this one isn’t unexpected.

Does he- what's he done before?

Basically, back in the 1970’s, he posed as a Labour moderate in order to infiltrate the Newham North East branch of the Labour Party (which itself had been infiltrated by the Militant Tendency) in order to try and overturn the deselection of right-wing Labour minister Reg Prentice. He did briefly manage to wield some influence in the CLP, although he failed to overturn Prentice’s deselection, so the latter crossed the floor to the Conservatives and wound up serving as a junior minister in the first Thatcher government.

I’m not sure how much is true, but it’s a nice little anecdote.
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Cassius
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« Reply #23 on: July 21, 2020, 06:02:53 AM »

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-53472289

I suspect we may have a candidate for first by-election of the new parliament

Yes, there were a few rather rum coves swept into parliament on the back of the Tories good performance in Wales at the last election.

Meanwhile, the long awaited (longer awaited than the arrival of the Messiah probably) Russia report by the Intelligence and Security Committee has been published... and it’s basically a a bland summation of things that everybody with a vague interest in Russia knew about already (with the caveat that, as an ISC report, it has been heavily redacted). Nonetheless many of the usual suspects are trying to make a feast out of this very thin gruel.

http://isc.independent.gov.uk/committee-reports

Not actually sure why the government bothered to hold back its publication for so long.
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Cassius
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« Reply #24 on: July 21, 2020, 02:55:14 PM »

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-53472289

I suspect we may have a candidate for first by-election of the new parliament

Yes, there were a few rather rum coves swept into parliament on the back of the Tories good performance in Wales at the last election.

Meanwhile, the long awaited (longer awaited than the arrival of the Messiah probably) Russia report by the Intelligence and Security Committee has been published... and it’s basically a a bland summation of things that everybody with a vague interest in Russia knew about already (with the caveat that, as an ISC report, it has been heavily redacted). Nonetheless many of the usual suspects are trying to make a feast out of this very thin gruel.

http://isc.independent.gov.uk/committee-reports

Not actually sure why the government bothered to hold back its publication for so long.

I skimmed it this morning & there wasn't anything that shocking; beyond the reports about how slow MI5 are to pick up on Russian intelligience work in London.

This of course is the natural extension of politicians spending 20 years telling them they need to stop the next 9/11; and frankly the number of recent cases show they're not exactly on top of that.

The most concerning part of this for me wasn't Brexit but rather the influence culture & money laundering that exists across London; this has been an open & discussed secret and I imagine hands from all sides would be burnt if anything was done to examine this.

Agreed, that is probably the aspect of the report with the most substance - however, it’s possibly a little dated, as Russian investment in London has actually been declining for several years due to the new anti-money laundering regulations (UWO’s et al) brought in by the government and the increasingly hostile attitude of the British government towards Russia (particularly post Skripal). I think it would be the Blair, Brown and Cameron governments that would come off the worst in any investigation into Russian money laundering in this country.
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