StefanAVFC Posted June 5, 2020 Share Posted June 5, 2020 12 minutes ago, Genie said: I’ve spent a lot of time wondering how people like Boris, Trump and Farage etc get “power” and how things like Brexit get through. I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of people seem to value “sticking it to the man” as a priority. In each case they all strongly pledge to “not be bullied by [them], whoever that is. People seem relate to that even if it’s madness. People want a leader who is going to tell “them” the days of being pushed around are over. The fact that “we” are telling “them” it’s our way or the highway seems to be what resonates with the electorate. So, yes, I’m quite pleased with myself that I’ve cracked the code. Populism is a hell of a drug Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted June 5, 2020 Share Posted June 5, 2020 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted June 5, 2020 VT Supporter Share Posted June 5, 2020 (edited) 23 minutes ago, tonyh29 said: for someone who understood what Chris was saying perfectly the other day , you suddenly seem to be having difficulty I made it quite clear it was about not sacking him I know it’s about sacking him. But he didn’t sack him because he lied about him not breaking the rules. Had he told the truth he’d have had no choice but to sack him. So the two things are intertwined. He lied about it specifically to avoid sacking him (or Cummings having to resign) It’s nothing to do with social media. I’ve seen you attribute a lot of stuff to social media (despite apparently not using it). If this had happened 20 years ago the reaction to Cummings’ actions would have been largely the same. Less people might be talking about it, sure, social media gives a platform to more people and more people know about it. But it’s not like nobody paid attention until there was some sort of Twitter campaign. It was in the mainstream media immediately. Dismissing it as trial by social media is just trivialising an issue to play it down. Edited June 5, 2020 by Stevo985 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted June 5, 2020 Share Posted June 5, 2020 6 hours ago, Genie said: I’ve spent a lot of time wondering how people like Boris, Trump and Farage etc get “power” and how things like Brexit get through. I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of people seem to value “sticking it to the man” as a priority. In each case they all strongly pledge to “not be bullied by [them], whoever that is. People seem relate to that even if it’s madness. People want a leader who is going to tell “them” the days of being pushed around are over. The fact that “we” are telling “them” it’s our way or the highway seems to be what resonates with the electorate. So, yes, I’m quite pleased with myself that I’ve cracked the code. I sorta agree with what you are saying , Most people aren't that politically active , even last year when we were being told Corbyn had won every debate , had the best policies , Johnson was in hiding etc , people still went out and voted Tory .. this appears to have been mainly on the "Get Brexit done" pledge , but I'm not sure that was sticking it to the man , I think that was just " please make this saga end " If we took the last few years I'd have said that Corbyn was the "stick it to the man" vote , he came close(ish) to beating May almost because she was the robotic establishment vote , he appealed to those that like to take to the streets at every opportunity , the smash the state (and any nearby McDonald's) type crowd .... but people didn't appear to want to stick it to the man , they wanted same old , same old , thus they voted May and Johnson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted June 5, 2020 VT Supporter Share Posted June 5, 2020 I think the reason Johnson won the last election so handsomely was because of Corbyn. Not necessarily corbyn’s fault (entirely). But just the perception of Corbyn. The amount of times I’d speak to people about it and they’d say they could never vote for Corbyn. They’d rarely be able to come up with a reason, but they just knew they couldn’t vote for Corbyn. Why that is is another question. With a better leader (hopefully) it might be a different story 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted June 5, 2020 Share Posted June 5, 2020 (edited) 28 minutes ago, tonyh29 said: this appears to have been mainly on the "Get Brexit done" pledge , but I'm not sure that was sticking it to the man It was an end to us “being bullied and told what to do (at great expense) by the unelected bureaucrats in the EU”. As mentioned before, having well thought out costed policies and calling out the opposition failings seems to lose out to “it’s time to take back control”. Edited June 5, 2020 by Genie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dodgyknees Posted June 5, 2020 Share Posted June 5, 2020 22 minutes ago, Stevo985 said: I think the reason Johnson won the last election so handsomely was because of Corbyn. Not necessarily corbyn’s fault (entirely). But just the perception of Corbyn. The amount of times I’d speak to people about it and they’d say they could never vote for Corbyn. They’d rarely be able to come up with a reason, but they just knew they couldn’t vote for Corbyn. Why that is is another question. With a better leader (hopefully) it might be a different story Corbyn wasn't perfect, but the media did a proper job on him. I mean, the media stopped caring about antisemitism soon after the election. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted June 5, 2020 Share Posted June 5, 2020 (edited) 54 minutes ago, Stevo985 said: I know it’s about sacking him. But he didn’t sack him because he lied about him not breaking the rules. Had he told the truth he’d have had no choice but to sack him. So the two things are intertwined. He lied about it specifically to avoid sacking him (or Cummings having to resign) It’s nothing to do with social media. I’ve seen you attribute a lot of stuff to social media (despite apparently not using it). If this had happened 20 years ago the reaction to Cummings’ actions would have been largely the same. Less people might be talking about it, sure, social media gives a platform to more people and more people know about it. But it’s not like nobody paid attention until there was some sort of Twitter campaign. It was in the mainstream media immediately. Dismissing it as trial by social media is just trivialising an issue to play it down. Edit - removed comment , was prob a bit more tetchy than required ,sorry People pretty much cut and paste twitter into VT , facebook , so I can't really avoid it , I don't use social media in that its my source of news , nor do i go out seeking stuff to share on a forum or Facebook , my facebook page is out there in the public domain for anyone to check it if they wish , its for holiday stuff , pictures of me looking slightly worse for wear and jokes ..not politics Cummings we've done this , people had their views on it , i felt there should be more consistency from people on the subject , others disagreed and that it was only about Cummings because he "wrote the rules" .. I don't think it was playing it down , others may differ Edited June 5, 2020 by tonyh29 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted June 5, 2020 Share Posted June 5, 2020 5 minutes ago, avfcDJ said: Corbyn wasn't perfect, but the media did a proper job on him. I mean, the media stopped caring about antisemitism soon after the election. There was the leaked Whatsapp thing but not a lot since .... tbf I think there were more important things for the media to concentrate on , like did Cummins once go to a pick n mix store and eat one of those fizzy cola bottle things without paying for it ( joke before anyone gets on the trivialisation trial ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted June 5, 2020 VT Supporter Share Posted June 5, 2020 28 minutes ago, avfcDJ said: Corbyn wasn't perfect, but the media did a proper job on him. I mean, the media stopped caring about antisemitism soon after the election. Yeah that’s kind of what I was getting at but I didn’t want to open that can of worms 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Stevo985 Posted June 5, 2020 VT Supporter Popular Post Share Posted June 5, 2020 25 minutes ago, tonyh29 said: Edit - removed comment , was prob a bit more tetchy than required ,sorry People pretty much cut and paste twitter into VT , facebook , so I can't really avoid it , I don't use social media in that its my source of news , nor do i go out seeking stuff to share on a forum or Facebook , my facebook page is out there in the public domain for anyone to check it if they wish , its for holiday stuff , pictures of me looking slightly worse for wear and jokes ..not politics Cummings we've done this , people had their views on it , i felt there should be more consistency from people on the subject , others disagreed and that it was only about Cummings because he "wrote the rules" .. I don't think it was playing it down , others may differ I think playing it off as only being an issue because of “trial by social media” is playing it down. It implies that the only reason Cummings breaking the rules was an issue because of people getting their knickers in a twist on social media. When that obviously is not the case. It was the mainstream media driving it, rightly so, it was the public saying it was hypocritical, which it was, and it was scientist and doctors saying it undermined public health, which it did. It was a genuinely big issues (and still is IMO) and the prime minister lying just to keep his chief adviser in a job was his “stance” 6 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted June 5, 2020 VT Supporter Share Posted June 5, 2020 38 minutes ago, Stevo985 said: Yeah that’s kind of what I was getting at but I didn’t want to open that can of worms It is remarkable how quickly the existential threat to Judaism in the UK disappeared when the bloke more in support of protecting a Jewish cemetery than the Jewish MP for the area got ditched. Laughably predictable in its remarkableness mind. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bannedfromHandV Posted June 5, 2020 Share Posted June 5, 2020 1 hour ago, Stevo985 said: I know it’s about sacking him. But he didn’t sack him because he lied about him not breaking the rules. Had he told the truth he’d have had no choice but to sack him. So the two things are intertwined. He lied about it specifically to avoid sacking him (or Cummings having to resign) It’s nothing to do with social media. I’ve seen you attribute a lot of stuff to social media (despite apparently not using it). If this had happened 20 years ago the reaction to Cummings’ actions would have been largely the same. Less people might be talking about it, sure, social media gives a platform to more people and more people know about it. But it’s not like nobody paid attention until there was some sort of Twitter campaign. It was in the mainstream media immediately. Dismissing it as trial by social media is just trivialising an issue to play it down. But Boris proved it was all okay by showing us the pair of glasses he has to now wear as a direct result of (allegedly) having the virus. Were you not appeased by that along with the rest of Britain? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post snowychap Posted June 5, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted June 5, 2020 2 hours ago, tonyh29 said: i felt there should be more consistency from people on the subject There was a lot of consistency. There was criticism of people like Kinnock at the time that he did his 'dropping off some medicine from 150 miles away (or however far it was)' for old Neil from posters such as @chrisp65. The thing is that other people saw the issues (Kinnock v whoever else you mentioned v Cummings) as things that were different for a number of reasons, not least of which was the effect it undoubtedly was going to have (and did have) on the public confidence in the already garbled and contradictory messages being given out by the government - a government in which Cummings, by his own admission in the Rose Garden, was making decisions solely on his own. The issue is that you didn't think that the Cummingses' sortie up the M1, overnights, trip to Barnard Castle whilst he had trouble seeing, his and his wife's tall tales in the press, the subsequent rubbish from the PM and Number 10 (accusations that all the newspaper stories were 'inaccurate' and so on), the ignoring of part of the Durham Police's statement and the reduction in public trust in the government's public health message was any different to Kinnock being a wazzock. You didn't - as far as I can remember - say whether you thought it was any different to Ferguson getting his woman in for a shag or Calderwood going to check on her second home or Duffield having her chap over (or under or however). Perhaps people's complaints were genuine (rather than being written off solely as some social media storm, bandwagon or trial) and were then exacerbated by the PM not doing what he obviously should have done which was to tell Cummings to go? If the cry for 'consistency' were genuine and if balance and consistency were really at the heart of the issue then one would have thought you'd be attempting to apply this to the actions and calls from the Government and its ministers? Now you may not have thought that Ferguson should have gone or that Mancock should have been calling for a police investigation but go Ferguson did (undoubtedly under pressure from the powers that be because of his actions as well as perhaps being a decent sort of person who owns up to his mistakes and takes these things on the chin - though maybe not, who knows?) and call Mancock did, too. The truly consistent and balanced position would be that, though you didn't think that either had to go, as the one did, the other should. I would, for clarity, disagree. Both had to go - just as Calderwood did. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post HanoiVillan Posted June 5, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted June 5, 2020 (edited) My opinion is that charges of 'whataboutery' are usually deeply unconvincing, and that it's fair for people to point out the mote in mine own eye (or that of 'my side') when I point it out in theirs, even though I of course find it annoyingly difficult to answer. Hypocrisy is something that deserves to be pointed out. That being said though, the problem here is that there is a very weak equivalence between Cummings on the one hand, and say, Kinnock and Duffield on the other: One big difference is that Cummings was either himself symptomatic (details on this appear to have changed at least once) or at least travelling with someone who was (his wife). They took that infection to several places in a county with much less infection than London, including a hospital. As far as I'm aware, there was no hint that either Kinnock or Duffield were symptomatic, or living with anyone who was. The lockdown rules were stricter for symptomatic people. Duffield and Kinnock are MPs. If their employers - their constituents - feel sufficiently aggrieved by their actions, they can vote them out at the next election. Dominic Cummings is not an MP, and so has no public accountability for his behaviour. He has in the past refused even the indirect accountability of appearing before the House of Commons select committee that summoned him. The only way for the public to show that they do not want him to remain in post is to create an enormously large stink about him, so that Johnson has to remove him. We can't be surprised by people trying to use the only tool they have to hand. Rightly or wrongly, standards are just higher for the government than they are for the opposition. The scrutiny and criticism is more intense, and this is the cost of winning the election you wanted to win. In Cummings' case, he was literally involved in writing the rules that he was breaking. That is always going to attract more attention than opposition MPs who were not even part of the shadow cabinet. Cummings didn't resign. Everyone else did. Edited June 5, 2020 by HanoiVillan 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted June 5, 2020 Share Posted June 5, 2020 Of all the people to pick for consistency or counter argument, the boy Kinnock really is the wrong example. I reckon I’ve had multiple goes at that little shit over the years. He really is the wrong argument from the wrong people. From memory without a search, I’ve criticised his visit to his dad, his attitude to Brexit, his attitude to Tata Steel, his dubious tax affairs and where he lives and where he schools his kids, his attitude to Welsh Independence and I know for a fact I’ve had a rant about his shoes. I’m actually a bit worried that if he goes missing I might be in the frame. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted June 5, 2020 Share Posted June 5, 2020 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted June 5, 2020 Share Posted June 5, 2020 Quote Under pressure, UK government releases NHS COVID data deals with big tech Hours before openDemocracy was due to sue, government releases massive data-sharing contracts with Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Faculty and Palantir. Opendemocracy What sort of scum do the the Tory filth want to share our NHS records with? Obviously they hastily changed some of the deals when they realised they were being forced to go public - rocket polishers. They want to negotiate post Brexit trade deals with the US without scrutiny too. Wonder why? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted June 7, 2020 Share Posted June 7, 2020 Quote Bayer shareholders voted to pay £2.75bn in dividends just weeks before the firm received £600m as part of the British government's emergency loan scheme. Photo: Adam Berry, Getty Images Chemicals manufacturers BASF and Bayer have been given enormous payouts of Covid-19 support cash from the British government just weeks after announcing plans to distribute billions to shareholders in dividends. The world’s largest chemicals company BASF, which makes agricultural, industrial and automotive products at its eight UK plants, has received £1 billion in support funding — by far the biggest payout so far agreed under the UK scheme. The news comes just weeks before BASF shareholders will vote on a proposal for the company distribute to more than three times that amount to them in dividends, the chemicals giant confirmed to Unearthed. Meanwhile Bayer, which acquired Monsanto in 2018 and is one of the industry’s biggest players in its own right, was handed £600 million – the same amount given to troubled airlines Ryanair and easyJet to much fanfare. The Bayer bailout, disclosed by Bank of England this afternoon in its latest update on its COVID corporate financing facility, happened just weeks after shareholders approved a plan to distribute dividends worth £2.75 billion. When contacted by Unearthed to see whether the dividends had already been paid out, Bayer failed to respond. Unearthed The more online chat there is about this, the less likely it will happen. Let's just watch. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Xann Posted June 8, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted June 8, 2020 There's 52 points in all - Click and digest the horror. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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