The banker loving, baby-eating Tory party thread (regenerated)

[snowychap]

 

[blandy]

1 minute ago, snowychap said:

I wonder whether that's so that the whip doesn't have to be withdrawn from the ERGers if/when they vote against the WAB third reading?

Won't it (in its current form) die if there's an election and a new parliament? And have to start again - so there's no guarantee it'll ever come back? It's surely a big gamble by Johnson - this election could kill Brexit - lead to it's end.??

[ml1dch]

27 minutes ago, snowychap said:

I wonder whether that's so that the whip doesn't have to be withdrawn from the ERGers if/when they vote against the WAB third reading?

Reckon it's just more administrative. No time / inclination to have to fill a load of safe Tory seats with unknown quantities when those ten have now shown they are fully on board to support this deal by voting for the mental Programme Motion.

Edited October 29, 2019 by ml1dch

[chrisp65]

2 minutes ago, blandy said:

It's OT, but I joined the military as an apprentice, during Thatchers time - there weren't many good jobs around in the West Midlands back then, Uni was a thing where you needed a degree of wealth behind you from your family so there weren't gazillions of options. But anyway of those that joined up with me a few left of their own volition quite early on, a few were kicked out, but the majority went on to have valued and valuable careers of various lengths in the RAF. It gave us training at least as good if not better than continued education would, it also taught us a trade (engineering) and let us see the world. I'm perhaps unsurprisingly in favour of it, because of what it offers being better than many alternatives. And you're right, under 16 you are not legally allowed to go to war, so even though the Falklands war kicked off, we were not ever going to get sent there.

 

There’s a good argument to be made on both sides. We can debate the rights n wrongs of keeping an adequately educated and adequately health resource pool available for the military. We can debate the engineering or organisation skills.

The point was the contradictions in the system. Not old enough to vote, old enough to train for war. It doesn’t stand up to any scrutiny.

 

[blandy]

2 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

There’s a good argument to be made on both sides. We can debate the rights n wrongs of keeping an adequately educated and adequately health resource pool available for the military. We can debate the engineering or organisation skills.

The point was the contradictions in the system. Not old enough to vote, old enough to train for war. It doesn’t stand up to any scrutiny.

I suppose by replying I'm proving you right that "there's a debate to be had", but I don't think there is, tbh.

Because the engineering or organisational skills are not really debatable - they're there, it's (in my experience) fact. Ditto the health resource - because the military has it's own medics and hospital facilities etc. but these are also available to the general population if needed - not just here, but abroad or on ships etc. too.

Contradictions I the system - yes, totally I share the view you and others have put, that 16 year olds should be able to vote, as should IMO anyone granted residency.

[blandy]

And as an aside, being in the RAF as a younger person led me to my kind of disliking the tories and Thatcher. At the time there were (as there are now) various voices and people saying "the country needs them to sort out the mess, Unions, whatever" and others saying "what they're doing is nigh on evil - destroying communities etc." But what influenced me down my path was my first pay rise under Thatcher ended up as a pay cut - they put up wages by whatever 2% or something, about a 70p a week, probably, and then put up accomodation charges by a pound a week because it has been "upgraded" - they painted the walls. It's minor, but when you earn next to nowt, getting made poorer was not a good move and it led me to sympathy for hating them.

[chrisp65]

I would suggest its possible to give kids an education in engineering or logistics or health care etc., without them being prepared and trained for combat. But again, yeah its not really the place to debate our military strategy.

Yeah the residency one I hadn’t even thought of. We’ve got an Australian and a couple of Spanish in our office, from what I understand, the Australian can vote but the Spanish can’t. Again, just lacks logic.

(fwiw, I had loads of relatives in the RAF, here and in Germany, great for cheap 6 week long foreign holidays as a kid)

 

[chrisp65]

Anyway, lest we forget...

 

 

 

 

[snowychap]

31 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

Reckon it's just more administrative. No time / inclination to have to full a load of safe Tory seats with unknown quantities when those ten have now shown they are fully on board to support this deal by voting for the mental Programme Motion.

Some of those with the whip restored are standing down, though.

[Dodgyknees]

It'll be a postal vote for me as I'm away from the 9th till the 13th.

[snowychap]

54 minutes ago, blandy said:

Won't it (in its current form) die if there's an election and a new parliament? And have to start again - so there's no guarantee it'll ever come back? It's surely a big gamble by Johnson - this election could kill Brexit - lead to it's end.??

I wouldn't put it past them to try and reintroduce it if the date of the election is 12th Dec (despite 'assurances').

But, in the next Parliament, if we are to leave with a deal on Jan 31st then some sort of Withdrawal Agreement Billl would have to be put forward (I'm running with a Tory Government - whether a majority or minority).

I wouldn't put it past the current Ergers or the new intake of Ergers (I guess there'll be a fair few more) pulling the plug - perhaps with some connivance from the current PM.

Edited October 29, 2019 by snowychap
erroneous 'the'

[blandy]

26 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I would suggest its possible to give kids an education in engineering or logistics or health care etc., without them being prepared and trained for combat. But again, yeah its not really the place to debate our military strategy.

Of course it is possible - and there are and were many different ways of getting such training and education. Unless anyone think we don't need or shouldn't have a military, then IMO that military should be able to recruit and train volunteers, (whether 16 with parental permission, or 18 and older). Also as an added bonus, my military training put me off (not that I was ever that keen on) guns and doing shooting n'that. I still like planes though.

[blandy]

5 minutes ago, snowychap said:

perhaps with the some connivance from the current PM.

And soon to be Ex PM I hope

But yeah, that's all credible I guess what he's aiming for, really. The flip side is that thing won't go as he hopes - I mean there's a bit of history of that already, and something completely different might happen.

[snowychap]

Steve Baker appears to be wearing a poppy the size of a field.

[snowychap]

2 hours ago, ml1dch said:

It's going to be great fun when amendments stating the election will be on both December 9th AND May 7th get voted through.

Ah, the great pair on BBC Parliament have just explained that if the Dec 9th amendment is agreed to then only consequential amendments get voted on, so 7th May amendment would fall.

[snowychap]

Did they offer to restore the whip if they voted against the amendment (for Dec 12th)?

Edited October 29, 2019 by snowychap

[snowychap]

And me.

[snowychap]

That's not correct.

Johnson remains Prime Minister until he resigns. The next Prime Minister comes after him - that may be 13th December or in the ensuing melée (if there's a hung parliament and a lot of to and fro) or some time in the future beyond a future election (General or Tory membership perhaps) if we're to endure the absolute nightmare that a Johnson majority government would be.

[ml1dch]

1 minute ago, snowychap said:

And me.

While I think it's fairly safe to assume that whatever is the most devious, untrustworthy thing a government can do, this one will do it - why would they?

Presumably all / most of the MPs who voted against the Programme Motion would vote against that as well, for the same reason. And the Government goes into an election campaign looking even more weird and shifty than they normally do...

[ml1dch]

I do think that if all the opposition parties went into the election with a simple message of "vote out the Representatives for Wellingborough in Government who want you to spend your Christmas period talking about Johnson, Corbyn and Brexit" then the Conservatives would be annihilated.