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

[Demitri_C]

11 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

Meanwhile, on planet Truss

 

Don't you truss her?

I'm so ashamed of myself

[Davkaus]

2 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Don't you truss her?

[choffer]

6 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

Parody account.

I was only following the rules of Brexit and posting something without fact-checking it 

[LondonLax]

38 minutes ago, Awol said:

I don’t think that’s right. Devolution was a series of massive constitutional issues settled by direct democracy, as was the 1975 Common Market vote.

The 2016 vote was following the established precedent of putting major constitutional decisions directly to the people. The difference this time was the result going against the preference of a majority of MPs, who are now trying to reassert the supremacy of the representative model over a decision they kicked up to be taken by direct democracy. 

Thats why it’s such as mess, Parliament was happy for the people to decide, as long as they gave the ‘correct’ answer.

The UK has a problem in that there is no actual constitution and no mechanism for when a referendum is actually required other than being some politition’s brain fart. 

Most constitutional democracies have rules and procedures set down for this sort of thing. 

[blandy]

59 minutes ago, Awol said:

Thats why it’s such as mess, Parliament was happy for the people to decide, as long as they gave the ‘correct’ answer.

Kind of. I think that’s generous to Cameron, though. He did it for his own party purposes, and as you say because he expected to win, paying no heed to, or having no awareness of actual, normal people’a views. It was just, “I’ll do a referendum and win and put it to bed” with no contemplation of anything other than winning, as that’s all his life has ever been about, being on the lucky side of things. But the twunt lost. The massive Bell. 

[mjmooney]

The so-called government clearly thought "the great unwashed would never be stupid enough to vote for Brexit, so no need to bother with having plans in place". 

And Joe Public clearly thought "no government would be stupid enough to ask the question without having plans in place". 

None of the political parties had any great desire to leave, but given that they had a few dissenting voices, you could argue that a referendum might be worthwhile, as a non-binding opinion poll, no more than that.

If it turned out that an OVERWHELMING majority was in favour of leaving, it would show them that they had an education job on their hands, or, at worst, a need to START thinking about whether leaving would be feasible, and if so, how to go about the long planning process that would be needed to achieve it. 

What they actually did was irresponsible on the grandest scale imaginable. 

[peterms]

42 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

It's a parody account, mate...

It's become a parody political party.

[peterms]

 

[blandy]

6 minutes ago, peterms said:

It's become a parody political party.

A party led by a spectre, and populated by ghouls, demons and reflections of long gone 19th century robber barons, loomed over by the howls of the yearning undead isn’t really our government?

[Awol]

8 minutes ago, peterms said:

It's become a parody political party.

Funny thing is it doesn’t even sound like a partisan point. Water is wet, the Conservatives are a joke, etc. 

[tonyh29]

1 hour ago, mjmooney said:

The so-called government clearly thought "the great unwashed would never be stupid enough to vote for Brexit, so no need to bother with having plans in place". 

And Joe Public clearly thought "no government would be stupid enough to ask the question without having plans in place". 

None of the political parties had any great desire to leave, but given that they had a few dissenting voices, you could argue that a referendum might be worthwhile, as a non-binding opinion poll, no more than that.

If it turned out that an OVERWHELMING majority was in favour of leaving, it would show them that they had an education job on their hands, or, at worst, a need to START thinking about whether leaving would be feasible, and if so, how to go about the long planning process that would be needed to achieve it. 

What they actually did was irresponsible on the grandest scale imaginable. 

was it also irresponsible when they gave the public a say on joining the EEC ?

[mjmooney]

5 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

was it also irresponsible when they gave the public a say on joining the EEC ?

I don't remember the details, but I'll bet it was better planned and explained. But in principle, as I said upthread, I'm against using referenda to make those sort of decisions, so yes. 

[tonyh29]

1 minute ago, mjmooney said:

I don't remember the details, but I'll bet it was better planned and explained. But in principle, as I said upthread, I'm against using referenda to make those sort of decisions, so yes. 

valid point  ... before my time , but interestingly reading a little about it , it would appear there were complaints of misleading information  ... i.e The In campaign raised the spectre of food security in 1975, warning that "Britain as a country which cannot feed itself 

Tony Benn claimed Britain's membership of the EEC had cost 500,000 British jobs in just two years ... The In campaign said Mr Benn had effectively plucked the jobs figure out of thin air

and so on

 
I don't know how i feel about referendums  , the public at large are too ill-informed politically , you could make a stronger case for not letting them vote at all rather than giving them a say on important issues

Arguably parties release a manifesto and people vote on that manifesto  ..and then can be voted out if they fail to meet those pledges ... but in reality the public don't seem to hold them to task and the parties know it  ....

[StefanAVFC]

Shocker.

[hippo]

A government should be accountable - but this particular batch of Tories have so many influential friends that they are never brought to book -so it goes around - they can get away with infighting, crap decisions and downright neglect - they have rock solid support in high places - whatever they do they get away with.

[Awol]

5 minutes ago, hippo said:

A government should be accountable - but this particular batch of Tories have so many influential friends that they are never brought to book -so it goes around - they can get away with infighting, crap decisions and downright neglect - they have rock solid support in high places - whatever they do they get away with.

If there was an alternative that a majority of the public felt was electable the Tories would be sunk. 

Saw a poll in last few days that had May on 42% and Corbyn on 22% as best leader to complete Brexit, yet by common consent she’s a terrible leader - possibly without parallel. 

The cupboard of senior Parliamentary talent is looking pretty bare, & now the Tories have just locked May into place for another 12 months. It’s an absolute shitshow.

 

[blandy]

40 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

valid point  ... before my time , but interestingly reading a little about it , it would appear there were complaints of misleading information  ... i.e The In campaign raised the spectre of food security in 1975, warning that "Britain as a country which cannot feed itself 

Tony Benn claimed Britain's membership of the EEC had cost 500,000 British jobs in just two years ... The In campaign said Mr Benn had effectively plucked the jobs figure out of thin air

and so on

 
I don't know how i feel about referendums  , the public at large are too ill-informed politically , you could make a stronger case for not letting them vote at all rather than giving them a say on important issues

Hansard has this from the time (the whole thing is a good read, with many parallels and many lessons for today, but here's an extract).

Quote

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Edward Short) 

Whatever view we may take on Britain's membership of the European Community, I hope that we would all agree that this is much the most important issue that has faced this country for many years. Whether we decide to stay in or to come out, the effects on our economy, on our political and parliamentary systems, on our influence in the world and, indeed, perhaps eventually on our whole way of 292life will be profound not just for ourselves, but for future generations.

How should a decision of this importance have been taken? The right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) had it right when he said that such a decision should be taken only with the full-hearted consent of Parliament and the British people. In our system we accept decisions with which we do not agree, but only if we are satisfied that they have been arived at fairly and democratically.

§Mr. Patrick Cormack (Staffordshire, South-West) 

In Parliament.

§Mr. Short 

Unfortunately, the last Government's handling of the European issue did not match their previous promises. They had no mandate to take us in, merely to negotiate— "nothing more, nothing less ". The result is that the consent of the British people has not, in fact, been secured. The issue continues to divide the country. The decision to go in has not yet been accepted.

That is the essence of the case for having a referendum. Only by means of a referendum can we find out whether the British people do or do not consent to our continued membership. A General Election could not give us this answer, because this is an issue within the parties, not between them.

 

[peterms]

56 minutes ago, Awol said:

the Tories have just locked May into place for another 12 months

I'd put a tenner on her not being PM in 12 months' time.

[Awol]

1 minute ago, peterms said:

I'd put a tenner on her not being PM in 12 months' time.

If you can take care of that, it’s yours. 

[peterms]

3 minutes ago, Awol said:

If you can take care of that, it’s yours. 

Notice I don't say I'd bet against her being locked in place.  It's quite possible they will lock her up somewhere.  A cleaning cupboard, perhaps, or a disused industrial unit.