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Post by moby on May 18, 2023 16:01:32 GMT
So the 'more' that got these people agitated was the intervention of the State to stop a group of idiots in red coats tearing foxes apart with hounds. Talk about a loss of perspective while the NHS goes down the tubes! I was simply pointing out that lululemonmustdobetter 's contention that it's the left who demonstrate is not always true. Anyway, as the demo I linked to was about a protest in 2002 I'm pleased that you admit that the NHS was going down the tubes under Labour. Note: Not pleased that it was going down the tubes, but just your admission. |
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Post by mercian on May 18, 2023 16:01:48 GMT
Thatcher gave away many nationally owned companies, justifying this by offering shares to everyone. However most of these were quickly sold at a modest profit compared to valuations now, so have all ended up controlled by the rich. While it took a little while and a modest bung to voters, the assets ended up in the hands of the rich, as would have been the case hundreds of years ago in a traditional british values feudal society. The 'rich' aren't the only shareholders. I understand that pension funds for instance are among the highest investors in these sort of businesses. This benefits everyone with a workplace or private pension which is most people these days. |
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Post by moby on May 18, 2023 16:04:59 GMT
I was simply pointing out that lululemonmustdobetter 's contention that it's the left who demonstrate is not always true. Anyway, as the demo I linked to was about a protest in 2002 I'm pleased that you admit that the NHS was going down the tubes under Labour. Note: Not pleased that it was going down the tubes, but just your admission. As you well know the NHS was used to just give perspective regarding something which is genuinely worth demonstrating about. |
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Post by mercian on May 18, 2023 16:05:43 GMT
It's called changing attitudes so that we can live together in diverse communities through accepting difference. You don't like it, just buy your own little island somewhere, one where you can impose your own rules of white male dominion over all you survey. What's wrong with an arranged marriage? That's the premise on which all dating agencies operate. And if young people want help from friends and family in meeting a suitable partner that seems ok to me. You show your ignorance in that I strongly suspect you were referring to forced marriage which is an entirely different kettle of fish. But this is how prejudice works. Ok, you're playing with words. Fine. I was just trying to be mealy-mouthed to avoid frightening the horses. |
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Post by thylacine on May 18, 2023 16:05:47 GMT
Apparently the rising star of the Tory party is Miriam Cates. Cates is a crusader against " wokeness " whatever that is and wishes to impose her own religious fundamentalism on every one else identifying the UK 's falling birthrate and gender fluidity as the two most serious issues of the day. Cates and her husband also have a nice side gig making money out of food banks. She's the emerging voice of the christofascists Steve - the rising star could set reasonably easily on current polling: Penistone and Stocksbridge Conservative Miriam Cates 23,688 47.8 Labour Francyne Johnson 16,478 33.3 Liberal Democrats Hannah Kitching 5,054 10.2 Brexit Party John Booker 4,300 8.7 Majority 7,210 14.6 That would be a beautiful sunset indeed. |
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Post by thylacine on May 18, 2023 16:07:54 GMT
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Post by mercian on May 18, 2023 16:14:18 GMT
]I have noted before that 12 years from now would be the minimum for a Brexit reversal (IMO). They'd better get their skates on! Could all be done in one parliament. And no referendum is needed (unless the EU insisted). First, Starmer has to change his policy towards the EU (not unlikely I suppose) but if he changed AFTER the election on a different policy there would be hell to pay. Then EU would have to be negotiated with. Do you seriously think they'd be in a hurry to have us rejoin, if at all? |
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Post by moby on May 18, 2023 16:14:28 GMT
It's called changing attitudes so that we can live together in diverse communities through accepting difference. You don't like it, just buy your own little island somewhere, one where you can impose your own rules of white male dominion over all you survey. I think you'll find that some members of other 'communities' are rather less tolerant than white males. I don't know of any of the latter group going in for 'honour' killings or FGM for instance. Still, it's all good for cultural diversity, eh? No point in comparing the role of dishonour through the ages but I think its safe to say us white men haven't exactly covered ourselves in glory on this planet during centuries of domination. We have shaped everything to suit us and now things are changing. Best get used to it. |
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pjw1961
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Post by pjw1961 on May 18, 2023 16:25:52 GMT
"Nationalism - ideology based on the premise that the individual’s loyalty and devotion to the nation-state surpass other individual or group interests." www.britannica.com/topic/nationalismOf course nationalism is an ideology. People may be legally born citizens of a state but they aren't born nationalists. Socialism is and always has been an internationalist ideology, emphasising the solidarity of those with similar interests and outlook across geographical boundaries. As to my own position, the prior discussion was in the context of Alec's proposal for a truly federal UK (or GB), rather than the existing overly centralised state. I also said that I would be happy to see the UK vanish altogether into a Europe-wide entity and indeed to have a single world government. SNP policy is to join the EU at the earliest opportunity, whereas Labour policy is to rule out any such possiblility.
If one applies the definitions outined above, does that not clearly put the SNP more towards the "socialist" side of the equation, and Labour on the "nationalist" side ?
Calling a party 51.8% of whose members voted for Kate Forbes or Ash Regan in the first round "socialist" would be a stretch. In truth, there are doubtless socialists and non-socialists in both the SNP and Labour. My reason for mentioning that particular philosophy wasn't party political but to point out that non-nationalist traditions exist, and that to think everyone is automatically a nationalist of some sort is not, in reality, a given. |
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Post by mercian on May 18, 2023 16:37:32 GMT
May I compliment you on removing your reference to calling a spade a shovel? I do dislike inaccuracies when describing garden equipment. My you were quick to see that! Actually I removed it because the phrase is , " We call a spade a f****** shovel" and I didn't want to upset Feckless's sensitivities any further. Mancunians might play fast and loose with gardening terminology but that's because we all live in terraced houses so have no need for either. Terraced houses round here have quite long back gardens. Are you thinking of back-to-back houses? www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/birmingham-west-midlands/birmingham-back-to-backs/history-of-birmingham-back-to-backs |
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Post by Deleted on May 18, 2023 16:47:08 GMT
I think that barbara was being ironic. (I’m very impressed that a woman can do that.) |
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Post by Deleted on May 18, 2023 16:48:43 GMT
By the way, terraced houses are side-to-side; what are these back to back ones called. And do they share a back door?
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Post by thylacine on May 18, 2023 16:52:36 GMT
I think that barbara was being ironic. (I’m very impressed that a woman can do that.) It's a very good job that Barbara understands you FM  |
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barbara
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Post by barbara on May 18, 2023 17:02:05 GMT
No, we don't have them in Manchester, they're very popular in Leeds. In Manchester the vast majority of the terraced houses in the city are like Coronation Street and merely have a small back yard which would originally have housed the outside toilet and a back gate into the ginnel or back alley. Small town and rural terraces often have back gardens but not city ones like Manchester. Whole swathes of them were knocked down in the 60s slum clearance programmes* and replaced with high rise blocks of flats, themselves now being replaced by low rise housing. *My gran's house in Stretford was knocked down in 1969 as part of the slum clearance. It still had an outside toilet, no electricity, gas mantles, a single slop stone sink in the scullery with no hot water, a large cooking range and fire in the back room and a coal cellar full of black beetles (and coal which was put down there by the coalman removing the lid set in the pavement outside every house.) She at the age of 83 was rehoused in a block of old people's studio flats in Ardwick. On the 2nd floor. |
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Post by johntel on May 18, 2023 17:24:04 GMT
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Post by Deleted on May 18, 2023 17:36:31 GMT
Yes, it paints a very touching figure of the man colin kindly described as “insufferably smug” (despite not knowing him…) I think that was because he looked pleased about the LD Local Election results - which was, of course, disgracefully remiss of him. It felt particularly sincere and real, given that the interviewer, Zoe Williams, is a lifelong Labour supporter and she was obviously impressed by him which comes out in the article. FM |
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Post by leftieliberal on May 18, 2023 17:43:59 GMT
This conversation induced me to look up my grandparents' old house in Emscote (which will mean something to mercian and probably no-one else) on Google Streetview, which my gran lived in until shortly (a few days) before she died. To my surprise, it is still there and looks much the same. I can remember the one gas mantle still in the hall although they had electricity from before I was born. The outside toilet was beyond the scullery and the grating where the coal was tipped into the cellar is still there. There were three bedrooms, but no bathroom (my grandfather used to bath in a tin bath in front of the fire). Unfortunately the overhead view isn't good enough to see how the back garden has changed, although I remember that we had very fine black soil. |
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pjw1961
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Post by pjw1961 on May 18, 2023 17:52:17 GMT
In many ways I am as annoyed about the coalition as Jib, the difference being that I think the Lib Dems have absorbed the lesson handed out by the electorate in 2015 that most Lib Dem voters are anti-Conservative and won't do it again, coupled with the lesson of Jo Swinson's curious over-confidence in 2019. In short - forgive and forget. Even though I am not supposed to say it, my preferred outcome for the next GE might just be a Labour minority government with Lib Dem support. It would greatly increase the chances of much needed constitutional reform. |
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Post by domjg on May 18, 2023 17:58:28 GMT
In many ways I am as annoyed about the coalition as Jib, the difference being that I think the Lib Dems have absorbed the lesson handed out by the electorate in 2015 that most Lib Dem voters are anti-Conservative and won't do it again, coupled with the lesson of Jo Swinson's curious over-confidence in 2019. In short - forgive and forget. Even though I am not supposed to say it, my preferred outcome for the next GE might just be a Labour minority government with Lib Dem support. It would greatly increase the chances of much needed constitutional reform. Jib may or may not be mainly angry at enablement of austerity though if so it's strange that he doesn't seem to express as much ire against the tories. He's a big ol' brexiter and the Libdems are/were the one major party in England and Wales to be unequivocally pro EU and scornful of brexit. That's his main beef with them I suspect and the banging on about austerity is probably just to make his distaste for them appear to be morally driven. |
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oldnat
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Post by oldnat on May 18, 2023 17:59:30 GMT
SNP policy is to join the EU at the earliest opportunity, whereas Labour policy is to rule out any such possiblility.
If one applies the definitions outined above, does that not clearly put the SNP more towards the "socialist" side of the equation, and Labour on the "nationalist" side ?
Calling a party 51.8% of whose members voted for Kate Forbes or Ash Regan in the first round "socialist" would be a stretch. In truth, there are doubtless socialists and non-socialists in both the SNP and Labour. My reason for mentioning that particular philosophy wasn't party political but to point out that non-nationalist traditions exist, and that to think everyone is automatically a nationalist of some sort is not, in reality, a given.
You seem far too intelligent a chap not to realise what you are doing by pretending that "socialism" and "nationalism" are mutually exclusive. That your use of that tactic is clearly nonsense is demonstrated by the existence of the SDLP. They are officially a "Nationalist" party, yet are also a social democratic party, recognised as such by the Labour Party. You support both the principal aspects of the SDLP, so trying to claim not to be "some sort of nationalist" is bizarre (or just silly politicking).
You will know that, in 2013, Labour decided to downgrade its participation in the Socialist International to observer status, and to be a founding member of the Progressive Alliance international, along with other social democratic parties. To imply that Labour is a still a "socialist" party, as opposed to a social democratic one is disingenuous (to be polite). There are "socialists" within Labour, as there are in the SNP, SGP, SDLP, PC, GP. There are also ideological "nationalists" (in your definition) in Labour, Tory, LD, SNP, PC (though not, I think in GP or SGP) and it doesn't particularly matter whether their preferred nation/state is Scotland, Wales, England, Ireland, Britain or UK.
Neither of us is the kind of "nationalist" that you want to be the only usage of that label. We both are in the sense of wanting our state to cover a particular geographic area and for that state to be a component unit of the Federal EU we both wish to see existing in future. I might add that both of the parties I support and vote for are strongly enthusiastic for EU membership, while your one - isn't. |
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Post by lululemonmustdobetter on May 18, 2023 18:36:31 GMT
So the 'more' that got these people agitated was the intervention of the State to stop a group of idiots in red coats tearing foxes apart with hounds. Talk about a loss of perspective while the NHS goes down the tubes! I was simply pointing out that lululemonmustdobetter 's contention that it's the left who demonstrate is not always true. Anyway, as the demo I linked to was about a protest in 2002 I'm pleased that you admit that the NHS was going down the tubes under Labour. Note: Not pleased that it was going down the tubes, but just your admission.
Seems you completely missed the point I was trying to make. |
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Post by Danny on May 18, 2023 18:44:27 GMT
No. Thats the fatal flaw in the logic. nana will die, that is certain given the current state of human knowledge, sooner rather than later. All you can possibly do is delay her death a bit, and the more things you do to try to delay it, the greater the cost grows and grows. So, to make a very extreme example but one entirely valid given what you said, you could stop buying food for her grand daughter to spend instead on precautions to protect granny. This would of course result in her granddaughter dying first. I hope this illustrates the absurdity of what you said. I am sure you would accept I am right, it does not make sense to do this, and granny would be truly horified if you did. Thanks Danny - I tend to skip over your endless covid screeds so it's handy to be reminded what a soulless provocative wanker you really are. The essence of government is to decide who will live and who will die. Always has been. Its a crazy world which does not understand that. Certainly Putin and Zelenskii understand this very well and every day choose who will live and who die. It is maybe a problem that most of our current leaders have never really faced this choice. Made idiotic statements during the epidemic that no expense would be spared. Thats as stupid to say as it is impossible, but they probably do know that. It just sounded good to many people, even when it is fundamentally utterly untrue. To understand how this nation is being misruled, you do need to understand the real hard decisions which government must make and indeed do make. Such as deliberate choices to transfer money from poor to rich, how is granny on that one? |
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Post by RAF on May 18, 2023 19:15:02 GMT
Thanks Danny - I tend to skip over your endless covid screeds so it's handy to be reminded what a soulless provocative wanker you really are. The essence of government is to decide who will live and who will die. Always has been. Its a crazy world which does not understand that. Certainly Putin and Zelenskii understand this very well and every day choose who will live and who die. It is maybe a problem that most of our current leaders have never really faced this choice. Made idiotic statements during the epidemic that no expense would be spared. Thats as stupid to say as it is impossible, but they probably do know that. It just sounded good to many people, even when it is fundamentally utterly untrue. To understand how this nation is being misruled, you do need to understand the real hard decisions which government must make and indeed do make. Such as deliberate choices to transfer money from poor to rich, how is granny on that one? So, @danny, when did you take up eugenics? There are a whole swathe of people from the terminally ill, the chronically ill, those with addctions, the otherwise immunocompromised, the disabled and others whose life expectancy may be shorter than the average. Government, however, does not and should not condemn them to an early grave. Government's primary duty (apart from being able to defend its territory) is to look after the weak, the sick, and others who for whatever reasons cannot wholly look after themselves. Or at least, I think it should be. |
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Post by Danny on May 18, 2023 19:39:35 GMT
It really does seem as if the Tories and the Tory press are losing their collective shit. Looking forward to the blood letting should they lose conclusively next election. The conservatives are stuck in a blind alley. They adopted brexit as a cause in order to get elected, but having accomplished brexit, for good or bad, it is no longer a rallying cause. Although if its 'for bad', then its a cause they not only need to change for a new one but one they neeed to bury. The problem is this transition to something else, which could leave them with no clear supporters at all. So yes, they have for a while been in a situation of doubling and redoubling their bets. Become more extreme and see if the voters will keep them in. They have for quite a while. But once it fails as a strategy they will be out of power and have wholly exhausted that route. At that point they could become an extremist minority party permanently out of power. i guess they could stage a coup and refuse to leave power, there exists emergency legislation which would enable a government to do this while still in power. Or they lose an election and start again seeking a new USP. |
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Post by Danny on May 18, 2023 19:51:52 GMT
Oh my, wasn't the whole rationale of privatising the water industry so that all this would be dealt with? They were given the money and promised to do the job. Only somehow the money went to the new shareholders instead of into new sewers. Since the swimming never ended, I can see why he is surprised its not accepted. Maybe its the promises to end it which gave people the impression it would end? Thatcherism in action, sometimes its good not to live to see how your policies turned out. Several other ministers from that time have since said 'but that isnt what we intended...' And yet Thatcher and company ended the post war consensus to transfer national wealth to the poor. (ie to the majority) |
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Post by jib on May 18, 2023 20:00:23 GMT
In many ways I am as annoyed about the coalition as Jib, the difference being that I think the Lib Dems have absorbed the lesson handed out by the electorate in 2015 that most Lib Dem voters are anti-Conservative and won't do it again, coupled with the lesson of Jo Swinson's curious over-confidence in 2019. In short - forgive and forget. Even though I am not supposed to say it, my preferred outcome for the next GE might just be a Labour minority government with Lib Dem support. It would greatly increase the chances of much needed constitutional reform. Jib may or may not be mainly angry at enablement of austerity though if so it's strange that he doesn't seem to express as much ire against the tories. He's a big ol' brexiter and the Libdems are/were the one major party in England and Wales to be unequivocally pro EU and scornful of brexit. That's his main beef with them I suspect and the banging on about austerity is probably just to make his distaste for them appear to be morally driven. If I want anyone to speak on my behalf, rest assured it shan't be you. What the Lib Dems did in 2010 is beyond forgiveness - and for what long term gain? The opportunistic EU flag shagging since then just adds to the distate. Austerity? #itwasyou |
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Post by JohnC on May 18, 2023 20:01:40 GMT
This conversation induced me to look up my grandparents' old house in Emscote (which will mean something to mercian and probably no-one else) on Google Streetview, which my gran lived in until shortly (a few days) before she died. To my surprise, it is still there and looks much the same. I can remember the one gas mantle still in the hall although they had electricity from before I was born. The outside toilet was beyond the scullery and the grating where the coal was tipped into the cellar is still there. There were three bedrooms, but no bathroom (my grandfather used to bath in a tin bath in front of the fire). Unfortunately the overhead view isn't good enough to see how the back garden has changed, although I remember that we had very fine black soil. I just about remember the outside toilet, no hot running water and the tin bath in front of the fire. Before I was born but my sister has never forgotten having to use the outside toilet during the harsh winter of 1947. My parents must have thought they were in heaven when they were eventually offered a council house with all the mod cons. Sadly my father did not live very much longer to enjoy the huge improvement in their living conditions. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 18, 2023 20:05:49 GMT
The article says, "The Marubeni trading house intends to sign plans envisioning spending around of £10bn in the UK to boost offshore wind and green projects in Wales and Scotland, No 10 said. A £4bn expansion of UK offshore wind projects off Suffolk and Norfolk by the Sumitomo Corporation was also billed." So what it really means is they are buying up the UK wind generation industry, and will presumably export the profits to Japan? |
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oldnat
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Post by oldnat on May 18, 2023 20:08:46 GMT
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 18, 2023 20:10:48 GMT
Mr Jansen said BT would be a “huge beneficiary” of AI, which he said could save the company hundreds of millions of pounds compared to its old IT systems. He said: “Yes it has its risks, we’ve got to be very careful, but I personally think it’s going to be as big as the internet and as big as mobile phones. This is a massive change. Sounds like the plot of many a science fiction story, where the AI takes over the world. So this one is to be given control of our communications network. You can just imagine the next prime minister screaming why his phones stopped working and his remote security system just locked him up. |
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