The Politics Thread

[thebish]

ok - fair enough - if Corbyn's 8 months of opposition has been that unsuccessful - then I'd like another 4 years of that kind of unsuccess!

[Worthy4England]

ok - fair enough - if Corbyn's 8 months of opposition has been that unsuccessful - then I'd like another 4 years of that kind of unsuccess!

Well you and 99% of the Tory party I suspect...

[thebish]

ok - fair enough - if Corbyn's 8 months of opposition has been that unsuccessful - then I'd like another 4 years of that kind of unsuccess!

Well you and 99% of the Tory party I suspect...

The alternatives to Corbyn on offer at the time were all pledged to support the Government's austerity agenda - had they been true to their words - they would have whipped the labour party into the govt lobbies, or (more likely) abstained on all those recently controversial austerity issues on which the govt was defeated/forced to abandon - which would (I think) have just made labour look weak and irrelevant... a few disaffected tories would then have made no difference and the govt would have got its programme through easily... Given that we have 5yrs of tory govt. I want an opposition who will effectively oppose - that's NOT what was on offer from the other candidates...

I think the last 8 months have been a battle - not a pleasant one - but I think cracks are appearing in the accepted government austerity narrative - and I think Corbyn can take the credit for that - he was the only one of the candidates on offer NOT abstaining on the govts austerity measures.

as to what's next...

I very much doubt that Corbyn will last much beyond the next set of local elections - and that's fine - he's not likely to win a general election for the Labour Party. But the next GE is four years away - that's a long time in politics. I think that he will be replaced - and there will be more nastiness and a bit of turmoil - but when he is - he will be replaced with a candidate who (because of the Corbyn inter-regnum) has license to be more Labour - and license to oppose austerity - but s/he will be doing it from a broader-based platform... I suspect that labour needed something like Corbyn... corbyn isn't the answer - but part of the process (not that it is a planned process!)

[Worthy4England]

The thing that's hampering the government is a very small majority. I don't suspect for one minute Corbyn would be able to take any credit for U-turning anything If the govt was sat on a 100 seat majority. For pretty much any policy, there's always a few dissenters on the Govt benches. With 100 seat majority no bugger notices. With a majority of 12, it's much more significant.

There is little point trying to convince folk that Corbyn is the differentiating factor when in all probability it's diddly to do with Corbyn and much more to do with half a dozen Tory backbenchers

[Prufrock]

ok - fair enough - if Corbyn's 8 months of opposition has been that unsuccessful - then I'd like another 4 years of that kind of unsuccess!

Well you and 99% of the Tory party I suspect...

The alternatives to Corbyn on offer at the time were all pledged to support the Government's austerity agenda - had they been true to their words - they would have whipped the labour party into the govt lobbies, or (more likely) abstained on all those recently controversial austerity issues on which the govt was defeated/forced to abandon - which would (I think) have just made labour look weak and irrelevant... a few disaffected tories would then have made no difference and the govt would have got its programme through easily... Given that we have 5yrs of tory govt. I want an opposition who will effectively oppose - that's NOT what was on offer from the other candidates...

I think the last 8 months have been a battle - not a pleasant one - but I think cracks are appearing in the accepted government austerity narrative - and I think Corbyn can take the credit for that - he was the only one of the candidates on offer NOT abstaining on the govts austerity measures.

as to what's next...

I very much doubt that Corbyn will last much beyond the next set of local elections - and that's fine - he's not likely to win a general election for the Labour Party. But the next GE is four years away - that's a long time in politics. I think that he will be replaced - and there will be more nastiness and a bit of turmoil - but when he is - he will be replaced with a candidate who (because of the Corbyn inter-regnum) has license to be more Labour - and license to oppose austerity - but s/he will be doing it from a broader-based platform... I suspect that labour needed something like Corbyn... corbyn isn't the answer - but part of the process (not that it is a planned process!)

No they weren't. They followed the whip and Harriet Harman in abstaining as they didn't want to commit any future leader to anything. Daft move politically in hindsight, but they weren't committed to supporting the govt and, importantly, they weren't committed to abstaining either. What they abstained from was a first reading of the bill. Nothing became law as a result of that vote, and it had no affect on anybody's life or on austerity. The reason they felt able to abstain is because it had no effect.

That they would have all abstained on govt financial policy is a myth peddled by those who don't understand the parliamentary process. That can't be Corbyn, he's been there for decades, so on his part it must be...spin?

[thebish]

The thing that's hampering the government is a very small majority. I don't suspect for one minute Corbyn would be able to take any credit for U-turning anything If the govt was sat on a 100 seat majority. For pretty much any policy, there's always a few dissenters on the Govt benches. With 100 seat majority no bugger notices. With a majority of 12, it's much more significant.

There is little point trying to convince folk that Corbyn is the differentiating factor when in all probability it's diddly to do with Corbyn and much more to do with half a dozen Tory backbenchers

aye - but you do have to actually get your own party to oppose in those situations - then the small majority is a factor. If you abstain - then the small majority makes no odds. the alternatives to Corbyn were all pledged to support the austerity agenda... abstention was what they were up to as Corbyn was elected...

[thebish]

No they weren't. They followed the whip and Harriet Harman in abstaining as they didn't want to commit any future leader to anything. Daft move politically in hindsight, but they weren't committed to supporting the govt and, importantly, they weren't committed to abstaining either. What they abstained from was a first reading of the bill. Nothing became law as a result of that vote, and it had no affect on anybody's life or on austerity. The reason they felt able to abstain is because it had no effect.

That they would have all abstained on govt financial policy is a myth peddled by those who don't understand the parliamentary process. That can't be Corbyn, he's been there for decades, so on his part it must be...spin?

you may SAY it's a myth - but it really isn't... Corbyn was the only one opposing the austerity-grail - all of the others pledged to support austerity measures. like I said - if you take them at their word (maybe you don't) - then the best they could have done is abstain on many of those issues...

[Worthy4England]

The thing that's hampering the government is a very small majority. I don't suspect for one minute Corbyn would be able to take any credit for U-turning anything If the govt was sat on a 100 seat majority. For pretty much any policy, there's always a few dissenters on the Govt benches. With 100 seat majority no bugger notices. With a majority of 12, it's much more significant.

There is little point trying to convince folk that Corbyn is the differentiating factor when in all probability it's diddly to do with Corbyn and much more to do with half a dozen Tory backbenchers

aye - but you do have to actually get your own party to oppose in those situations - then the small majority is a factor. If you abstain - then the small majority makes no odds. the alternatives to Corbyn were all pledged to support the austerity agenda... abstention was what they were up to as Corbyn was elected...

I'm not contending any different. I am contending that being the last turkey in the shop is no real basis for being the best turkey there is.

[thebish]

The thing that's hampering the government is a very small majority. I don't suspect for one minute Corbyn would be able to take any credit for U-turning anything If the govt was sat on a 100 seat majority. For pretty much any policy, there's always a few dissenters on the Govt benches. With 100 seat majority no bugger notices. With a majority of 12, it's much more significant.

There is little point trying to convince folk that Corbyn is the differentiating factor when in all probability it's diddly to do with Corbyn and much more to do with half a dozen Tory backbenchers

aye - but you do have to actually get your own party to oppose in those situations - then the small majority is a factor. If you abstain - then the small majority makes no odds. the alternatives to Corbyn were all pledged to support the austerity agenda... abstention was what they were up to as Corbyn was elected...

I'm not contending any different. I am contending that being the last turkey in the shop is no real basis for being the best turkey there is.

there were only four turkeys to pick from - maybe there is a better turkey growing up nearby who will be ready for eating next year! this time it won't be a free-range turkey - but it won't be a factory-farm turkey either - it'll be a hybrid turkey that will be stuffed with the best of both worlds! huzzah!!

[BWFC_Insane]

Only Corbyn achievement will be ensuring another 5 years of the Tories. And those that back him are backing 5 more Tory years. They are basically doing the job for May or Osborne or Boris. They must absolutely love the Corbynites....

[Prufrock]

No they weren't. They followed the whip and Harriet Harman in abstaining as they didn't want to commit any future leader to anything. Daft move politically in hindsight, but they weren't committed to supporting the govt and, importantly, they weren't committed to abstaining either. What they abstained from was a first reading of the bill. Nothing became law as a result of that vote, and it had no affect on anybody's life or on austerity. The reason they felt able to abstain is because it had no effect.

That they would have all abstained on govt financial policy is a myth peddled by those who don't understand the parliamentary process. That can't be Corbyn, he's been there for decades, so on his part it must be...spin?

you may SAY it's a myth - but it really isn't... Corbyn was the only one opposing the austerity-grail - all of the others pledged to support austerity measures. like I said - if you take them at their word (maybe you don't) - then the best they could have done is abstain on many of those issues...

Alastair campbell-esque.

Only one voting against. At the first reading. Which doesn't count.

So you're in the first group.

[Montreal Wanderer]

I came across a research article concerning the extent to which BS statements by politicians were percieved as profound by the audience. The abstract reads in part:

The present research investigates the associations between holding favorable views of potential Democratic or Republican candidates for the US presidency 2016 and seeing profoundness in bullshit statements. In this contribution, bullshit is used as a technical term which is defined as communicative expression that lacks content, logic, or truth from the perspective of natural science. We used the Bullshit Receptivity scale (BSR) to measure seeing profoundness in bullshit statements. The BSR scale contains statements that have a correct syntactic structure and seem to be sound and meaningful on first reading but are actually vacuous. Participants (N = 196; obtained via Amazon Mechanical Turk) rated the profoundness of bullshit statements (using the BSR) and provided favorability ratings of three Democratic (Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Malley, and Bernie Sanders) and three Republican candidates for US president (Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Donald Trump). Participants also completed a measure of political liberalism/conservatism. Results revealed that favorable views of all three Republican candidates were positively related to judging bullshit statements as profound. The smallest correlation was found for Donald Trump.
...
The general measure of political liberalism/conservatism was also related to judging bullshit statements as profound in that individuals who were more politically conservative had a higher tendency to see profoundness in bullshit statements.
...

This might explain Trumps - er - inexplicable success, and hoboh's world view.
Article is here.

[Hoboh]

The thing that's hampering the government is a very small majority. I don't suspect for one minute Corbyn would be able to take any credit for U-turning anything If the govt was sat on a 100 seat majority. For pretty much any policy, there's always a few dissenters on the Govt benches. With 100 seat majority no bugger notices. With a majority of 12, it's much more significant.

There is little point trying to convince folk that Corbyn is the differentiating factor when in all probability it's diddly to do with Corbyn and much more to do with half a dozen Tory backbenchers

aye - but you do have to actually get your own party to oppose in those situations - then the small majority is a factor. If you abstain - then the small majority makes no odds. the alternatives to Corbyn were all pledged to support the austerity agenda... abstention was what they were up to as Corbyn was elected...

I'm not contending any different. I am contending that being the last turkey in the shop is no real basis for being the best turkey there is.

there were only four turkeys to pick from - maybe there is a better turkey growing up nearby who will be ready for eating next year! this time it won't be a free-range turkey - but it won't be a factory-farm turkey either - it'll be a hybrid turkey that will be stuffed with the best of both worlds! huzzah!!

There were three Turkey's and a goose who is warming in the oven right now!

[Hoboh]

I came across a research article concerning the extent to which BS statements by politicians were percieved as profound by the audience. The abstract reads in part:

The present research investigates the associations between holding favorable views of potential Democratic or Republican candidates for the US presidency 2016 and seeing profoundness in bullshit statements. In this contribution, bullshit is used as a technical term which is defined as communicative expression that lacks content, logic, or truth from the perspective of natural science. We used the Bullshit Receptivity scale (BSR) to measure seeing profoundness in bullshit statements. The BSR scale contains statements that have a correct syntactic structure and seem to be sound and meaningful on first reading but are actually vacuous. Participants (N = 196; obtained via Amazon Mechanical Turk) rated the profoundness of bullshit statements (using the BSR) and provided favorability ratings of three Democratic (Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Malley, and Bernie Sanders) and three Republican candidates for US president (Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Donald Trump). Participants also completed a measure of political liberalism/conservatism. Results revealed that favorable views of all three Republican candidates were positively related to judging bullshit statements as profound. The smallest correlation was found for Donald Trump.
...
The general measure of political liberalism/conservatism was also related to judging bullshit statements as profound in that individuals who were more politically conservative had a higher tendency to see profoundness in bullshit statements.
...

This might explain Trumps - er - inexplicable success, and hoboh's world view.
Article is here.

Actually, I find the quote a bit gobbledygook and smacking of Bull shit tbf.

[thebish]

meanwhile - Trump thinks deeply about education and guns...

Donald Trump ended his Thursday-night campaign rally by calling for an end to so-called gun-free zones on schools.

"I will get rid of gun-free zones on schools — you have to — on my first day. It gets signed my first day," the Republican presidential front-runner told his supporters in Burlington, Vermont.

"You know what a gun-free zone is to a sicko?" Trump asked. "That's bait."

[Lord Kangana]

There really is no hope for the human race with bellends like him around. Perhaps it'd be for the best if he started the apocalypse.

[Hoboh]

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... ing-voters" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[TANGODANCER]

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... ing-voters

True as it may be, I hope you're laughing at the Guardian for even publishing such rubbish Hobes?

[thebish]

If Cameron really does think that leaving the EU increases the threat of war across the EU - then it is monumentally irresponsible of him to give us a referendum in the first place!!

staying in is the right thing to do - but having to hear the likes of cameron and osbourne totally overplaying their hand is galling...

[Hoboh]

If Cameron really does think that leaving the EU increases the threat of war across the EU - then it is monumentally irresponsible of him to give us a referendum in the first place!!

staying in is the right thing to do - but having to hear the likes of cameron and osbourne totally overplaying their hand is galling...

When someone actually comes out with real reasons as to why, even I may listen.