ml1dch Posted January 18, 2019 Share Posted January 18, 2019 32 minutes ago, hippo said: I try to look for one that in principle I agree with the broad thrust of what they are proposing. Please let me know if you find one, I'm feeling pretty politically lost at the moment and could do with a pointer. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted January 18, 2019 VT Supporter Share Posted January 18, 2019 14 minutes ago, ml1dch said: Please let me know if you find one, I'm feeling pretty politically lost at the moment and could do with a pointer. Search your feelings. You know it to be true... ...The spoilt ballot. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LondonLax Posted January 19, 2019 Share Posted January 19, 2019 Are the Green Party not an option in the UK? They have a fair bit of influence in Australian politics (we use a different electoral system granted). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seat68 Posted January 19, 2019 Share Posted January 19, 2019 No, no influence, outside of Brighton. That's not a criticism of them it's an indictment of our politics. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted January 19, 2019 Moderator Share Posted January 19, 2019 1 hour ago, Seat68 said: No, no influence, outside of Brighton. That's not a criticism of them it's an indictment of our politics. And Lark Lane in Aigburth, Liverpool. All three councillors are Green Party, they occasionally win Greenbank Ward too, when they do, they become the official opposition to Labour because it gives them 4. The LibDems always win Woolton giving them 3 and the Liberals (yes they still exist) win Tuebrook giving them 3. Every other seat is Labour. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amsterdam_Neil_D Posted January 19, 2019 Share Posted January 19, 2019 8 hours ago, hippo said: thrust British politics does not have this, it's a shame becasue it's a great word I think you meant thrush ? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted January 19, 2019 Share Posted January 19, 2019 Didn't realise these two had a discussion. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted January 19, 2019 Moderator Share Posted January 19, 2019 @chrisp65 You are Tony Blair, I claim my £5! To be honest, I agree. The move was so obvious, May's the opposition keeper and she just rolled the ball out to the unmarked opposition striker who kicked it out for a throw-in. Quote These are crazy times everywhere, says Tony Blair, but there is something particularly “surreal” about British politics right now. “I’ve never come across a situation where the government has lost control of the agenda so completely that the word disarray is not adequate and when the opposition seems incapable of exploiting the situation.” The former Labour prime minister watched in astonishment as Theresa May, having had her Brexit policy rejected by 230 votes, then addressed the nation from outside No 10 almost as if it were business as usual. “I thought something really big is going to happen and nothing happened. It’s an extraordinary time but the question is: how do you get out of it?” Dressed immaculately in a crisp white shirt, navy jacket and desert boots, his face lightly tanned and wearing a discreet crucifix, Mr Blair, 65, spends much of his life flying around the world (“if you can travel by private jet, obviously it’s nice to do isn’t it?” he says when we ask him to choose between that and Easyjet.) His office is lined with photos of him shaking hands with international statesmen. There are books in Mandarin on his desk. He is, however, still drawn to Westminster. “People often say, ‘you must be really pleased you are not there’. But when things are in a state of crisis that is when you do want to be there.” Having spent ten years in Downing Street, Mr Blair thinks the prime minister needs to change her mindset to reach a consensus about Britain’s departure from the European Union. “She has got to make the switch from trying to advocate her position to arbitrating and facilitating and I don’t see any sign yet that she is prepared to do that,” he says. “Maybe she thinks that if she just keeps running this then at some point people will come round.” In his view the greatest flaw in Mrs May’s deal is not the backstop but the fact that the future trading relationship between Britain and the EU is still undecided. “All the way through she hasn’t understood that you can either be like Norway or you can be like Canada, neither of which are attractive, but if you don’t want to choose you are going to end up in the position we are in. This is why I think ultimately there is a strong chance you end up with a referendum.” He won’t disparage MPs as they fail to reach agreement in parliament. “I find distasteful the scale of the attack that MPs are under, as if they are a bunch of bickering schoolchildren when they are doing what they are supposed to be doing. One of the interesting things has been the clash between plebiscite democracy and parliamentary democracy: one takes a very broad view and the other studies the detail. The real reason why parliament hasn’t accepted her deal is that it has looked at it.” Mr Blair finds it irritating when leading Brexiteers suggest that an out-of-touch establishment is trying to thwart the will of ordinary people by suggesting another referendum. “I accept that if only 16,000 people had voted to remain it would be different, but it was 16 million. They somehow are regarded as the elite while the 17 million who voted to leave are the real people.” A referendum wouldn’t split the country further, he insists: “We are divided already but we focus all our attention on the alienation of people who voted Leave. What about the alienation of large numbers of people if we leave . . . with a botched Brexit?” Responding to warnings of civil unrest he asks: “Are you going to riot on the street because somebody asks you what you think? Is it really an outrage to go back to people after 30 months of total mess — the government divided, parliament blocked, the prime minister subject to a no-confidence motion from her own team?” The cabinet ministers who claim another public vote would fuel the rise of the far right are being “pathetic”, he says. Mr Blair thinks there is a “better than 50 per cent chance of us now having another vote” and a “close to 50 per cent chance” of Brexit not happening at all. A second referendum would in his view come down to two slogans: Tell Them Again v Think Again. “In some ways it will be the two sides of the British character in play with each other. One is, ‘you didn’t listen, we’re telling you,’ and the other is ‘let’s think about this for a moment’.” It would, he argues, be a more balanced campaign than in 2016 because “the spirit of insurgency will be much more equally distributed”. His personal preference would be for a ballot to be a choice between a “proper Brexit” of the sort supported by Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg — involving a Canada-style free-trade deal — and Remain. “You can’t have another referendum and exclude from the ballot paper the thing that the Brexiteers really want.” Jeremy Corbyn has so far refused to endorse a so called People’s Vote but Mr Blair is convinced that his party will eventually back a second referendum, having tried and failed to trigger a general election. Some MPs are worried about angering traditional working-class Labour voters who supported Brexit. “What people need is leadership,” he says. “I had a conversation with an MP in a Leave seat the other day who said, ‘Look I’ve just got to vote Leave’. I said, ‘what do you think Brexit is going to do to your constituency?’ They looked at me blankly, I don’t think he had thought about that. It was literally, you voted for it, I have got to deliver it. I said, ‘why don’t you go back and say the health service is a huge problem and Brexit is not the answer, if your kids don’t have a job Brexit is not going to make it better. I can’t support this but if you want to support it we will give you the chance to support it again.’ ” Mr Blair says he is trying to “keep myself under control” when discussing Mr Corbyn but he’s not even sure how he voted in the referendum. “If he says he didn’t [support Brexit] I am prepared to believe he didn’t but it’s obvious he is not enthusiastic. He is a longstanding anti-European. I think it surfaces every so often in phrases about neo-liberalism in Europe. It’s the old Tony Benn stuff: Europe is a capitalist conspiracy.” Whatever Mr Corbyn believes, Mr Blair says the Labour leader is missing a trick in not agreeing to talks with Mrs May. “Why wouldn’t you go in the door, come out on the steps of Downing Street and say, ‘I have had a conversation with her and I’m afraid she doesn’t understand how to resolve this and I do’.” The Conservatives should support a referendum, he argues, or they will be held responsible for generations when the unicorns don’t arrive. “If you are a Tory you could end up owning this thing. It may look good on March 29, 2019, but what happens in 2020 and 2021 when these great things haven’t happened, when probably the world economy has slowed and the UK economy is going to be under much more pressure. They are going to pay a huge price for this.” Politics is more bitter and divided than ever, with MPs abused in the street and a cultural civil war raging on Twitter. Technology has transformed the political debate, Mr Blair says. “The first thing you learn in politics about leadership is that those that shout loudest don’t deserve to be heard most, but social media works on the opposite principle.” He thinks the political parties themselves have also become more extreme. “In today’s world you can take over a political party. The Labour Party has been changed, its membership has changed. It’s not that the people who used to think, ‘we want to support New Labour’ don’t think like that any more, it’s that they’re not the Labour Party any more.” Something similar has happened to the Tories. “In my day the Conservatives were the sensible, stable, pragmatic party. They’re not like that today. Supposing you’re a young person, you’ve got an open-minded view of the world, you believe in enterprise. Are you going to join the Tory party today? I don’t think so. And you’re not going to join the Labour Party.” With a gap opening in the centre of politics, large numbers of voters are feeling disenfranchised. “It’s definitely a problem,” Mr Blair says but he laughs nervously when we ask whether that means there could be a new centrist party. “I don’t think anything is going to happen before Brexit is resolved,” he says. “This is not a debate I want to have yet.” Although he stresses that “I do vote Labour”, he admits he is “ashamed” of the party’s failure to properly tackle antisemitism and he clearly disagrees with much of the Corbyn agenda. Brexit has scrambled political loyalties, with allegiances on Europe replacing the old left-right divide. “A lot depends on how it’s resolved,” he says. He won’t rule out a split in both main parties. “I don’t think you can carry on for a long period with a large group of politically homeless who are capable, able intelligent people who want to play a part in the future of their country,” he says. “If you end up in a situation where they don’t find a place in either main political party you are going to get something new.” The Times (most of article Paywalled) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted January 19, 2019 Share Posted January 19, 2019 Two clues in para 3 as well. Looks like my game's up boys! I'll hand myself in to the international criminal court. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted January 19, 2019 VT Supporter Share Posted January 19, 2019 (edited) ...That second referendum? I'm not sure it's a great idea fellas, I'm really not... Edited January 20, 2019 by Chindie 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted January 19, 2019 Share Posted January 19, 2019 If I can second referrs some advice, I really think keeping Tony Blair as far away as possible might be a good idea. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted January 19, 2019 Moderator Share Posted January 19, 2019 21 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said: If I can second referrs some advice, I really think keeping Tony Blair as far away as possible might be a good idea. Erm did you read why it was posted Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted January 19, 2019 Share Posted January 19, 2019 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post chrisp65 Posted January 19, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted January 19, 2019 3 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharkyvilla Posted January 20, 2019 Share Posted January 20, 2019 7 hours ago, chrisp65 said: Probably got told that she has to admit publicly that she mustn't leave without buying one 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amsterdam_Neil_D Posted January 20, 2019 Share Posted January 20, 2019 3 hours ago, sharkyvilla said: Probably got told that she has to admit publicly that she mustn't leave without buying one You are way off, her next job, Police Negotiator. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NurembergVillan Posted January 20, 2019 Moderator Share Posted January 20, 2019 This seems like a good idea. There hasn't been a bombing in that part of the world for several hours now... 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted January 21, 2019 Share Posted January 21, 2019 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterms Posted January 21, 2019 Share Posted January 21, 2019 A thread on yet another way in which the disgraced Liam Fox is an arse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnkarl Posted January 21, 2019 Share Posted January 21, 2019 I know this is a personal observation and possibly not reflective of the whole situation, but since this cluster%#%#¤ of a situation got started my wife and I have had 3 close friends and their families leave to go back to Europe, and our daughter's "head office" has been moved to Frankfurt (she works in insurance). Our friends who moved are all Europeans married to Brits who felt that they could get better jobs in Germany, Switzerland and Austria respectively, while not being trampled on daily by our leading political parties in the UK. The feeling of being a bargaining chip in Maybot's\Jezza's masterplans simply isn't a nice thing to have floating over your head. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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