Switch off gb news Forget the conspiracy theories Sack the nutters Go hard on corruption and favours for mates. Jail people who milk the system End the war against doctors and institutions Ditch ideological positions and dog whistle politics
Find a simple message around making hard work and enterprise pay. Reward work, tax the idle rich.
I have not watched GB news nor do I intend to
You're the sort of "Conservative" who only feels comfortable if everyone else feels comfortable with them in turn, which is why you sway and point in whatever direction the wind is blowing at any one time and have absolutely no views or opinions of your own.
No, he's a reminder of when the Tories weren't all nuts.
BigG tailors his likes and dislikes in accord with popularity. Have you not noticed this? Sunak is great when he was higher in the polls, not so much when he's not. Ditto Johnson.
Big G at one point supported Truss!
Remember when he was wavering on Johnson until he recovered after party-gate and went full throat on beergate?
Seeing as you have decided to talk about me then yes I do have flexible views, absolutely reject the right of the party, do not and never have watched GBnews and no did not support Truss as I supported Sunak and still see him as the only viable leader
Perhaps you don't watch GB News because you are aware of the narrative that would paint you negatively with its haters. I've never watched it either but that's because I don't watch TV news generally not because I'm influenced by others. On the odd occasion I've stumbled across bits of BBC TV News I've been appalled by it.
Switch off gb news Forget the conspiracy theories Sack the nutters Go hard on corruption and favours for mates. Jail people who milk the system End the war against doctors and institutions Ditch ideological positions and dog whistle politics
Find a simple message around making hard work and enterprise pay. Reward work, tax the idle rich.
I have not watched GB news nor do I intend to
You're the sort of "Conservative" who only feels comfortable if everyone else feels comfortable with them in turn, which is why you sway and point in whatever direction the wind is blowing at any one time and have absolutely no views or opinions of your own.
No, he's a reminder of when the Tories weren't all nuts.
BigG tailors his likes and dislikes in accord with popularity. Have you not noticed this? Sunak is great when he was higher in the polls, not so much when he's not. Ditto Johnson.
Big G at one point supported Truss!
Remember when he was wavering on Johnson until he recovered after party-gate and went full throat on beergate?
I never supported Truss
And I certainly did not do everything to get Corbyn elected then seeing the wind of change became a Starmer discipline
You did everything to get Johnson elected though then moved like a weathervane when he became unpopular.
I am not denying anything I have done, I absolutely shifted from Corbyn to Starmer and became a supporter of his. This is not the big "win" you think it is. I am one of the most partisan posters here, I don't try and hide it.
I just responded to what Stocky said which I agree with. And you did support Truss briefly.
This analysis is spot on. Post GE the tories will have to pivot to centre right millenials, which will be pro eu. There is no way around it. And the eu hating pensioners will seep to the toxic nostalgia of reform. Splitting that off is going to hurt for 2-3 terms for the tories. But it has to happen. I think this shows that brexit is done for. Brexit was also largely a boomer project. But it isn't sustainable as a political platform.
Pro EU centre right under 50s are less than 10% of the electorate. Target them and reject pensioners and Leave voters and the Tories won't be heading for government again they will be making Farage and Reform the main opposition to Labour
Do you win elections by targeting existing groups who probably support you, or do you win elections by making a case that persuades people to come over to your position? Under 50s who might be persuaded by a One Nation, more internationalist Toryism are a lot more than 10%.
Yet the only major tax cuts Hunt has pushed through this parliament have been to national insurance which workers pay but pensioners don't, so the main benefit went to workers. However still no poll reward. Yes more homes could be built to get more under 40s on the housing ladder but the Conservatives lost them even in 2019 when they won a landslide nationally.
The Tories also need pensioners still as they are their core vote, without them they risk extinction. Whether they can win back 40 to 65 year old swing voters in opposition largely depends on the state of the economy under Labour
"...tax cuts Hunt..." has to be typed with care. Incoming taxes on huts anyone?
You haven't lived until you've tried to write a PowerPoint on the Danish empire of 1020-42 for Year 9 with autocorrect on.
King Cnut was renamed in ways that were not altogether appropriate for that age group.
I am just dealing with that in Year 5. Thanks to Detectorists the 10yo already knew about misspelling Cnut.
Has anyone written a paper on how much Cnut known, popularly, because of the childish humour inherent in misspelling his name?
It tides over the boring bits of his reign.
Oh, did he do it in the Severn estuary? Or am I seeing a pun too many? Occurs to me I have no idea where he sat (ie which bit of the shore).
Somewhere on the South coast, near Bosham, wasn’t it? Allegedly.
Well, there is that pub where stupid Cnuts will find their chariots doing a Cnut impersonation.
I quite like the fact that Canute's daughter died by drowning (she is supposedly buried in Bosham), and later he tries to teach his courtiers a lesson by not being able to hold back the tide. I think it adds another dimension to the story.
What an odd location - but on checking old OS maps that road must be the old coast path, long before the docks were built out to one side. A nice Saturday morning treat, thank you. I see it's next to Solent Sky museum so a definite bookmark for the next trip!
This analysis is spot on. Post GE the tories will have to pivot to centre right millenials, which will be pro eu. There is no way around it. And the eu hating pensioners will seep to the toxic nostalgia of reform. Splitting that off is going to hurt for 2-3 terms for the tories. But it has to happen. I think this shows that brexit is done for. Brexit was also largely a boomer project. But it isn't sustainable as a political platform.
Pro EU centre right under 50s are less than 10% of the electorate. Target them and reject pensioners and Leave voters and the Tories won't be heading for government again they will be making Farage and Reform the main opposition to Labour
Do you win elections by targeting existing groups who probably support you, or do you win elections by making a case that persuades people to come over to your position? Under 50s who might be persuaded by a One Nation, more internationalist Toryism are a lot more than 10%.
I would be persuaded by it if Labour end up being crap.
Mr. 43, taking something at face value is unwise. The Ministry of Truth was not concerned with propagating the truth. The 'diversity' (unless it's Wakanda in which case an ethno-state is super awesome) agenda has been used as one of the many failings of Rings of Power, as it bastardises an Anglo-Saxon/English mythology (the specific reason Tolkien wrote LotR* as the English didn't have tales to compare to Norse or Greek myth), and revises and falsifies history (most infamously with Cleopatra in the Netflix 'documentary').
*The special irony here is that if the muppets in charge knew Middle-Earth better they could've just had the story focused in Harad or Rhun, perhaps telling the tale of the fall of a powerful leader to become a Nazgul. They could even, with Black Numenoreans, have had canonically accurate white bad guys.
Possibly. History is littered with good intentions corruptly applied. Nevertheless, @darkage was talking about premises people start from and that was the point I addressed.
Also "woke" really isn't a useful thing, except as an insult that usually says more about the person making it than the target.
The point I was making is the premise of much 'woke' thinking is that western society is inherently and uniquely evil, of which there is a long tradition on the left. The recent evolution is that it now tries to perpetrate this by avoiding debate and relying instead on emotive claims relating to identity.
This comment from a Labour MP in 2020 was a particularly revealing moment:
"We must not fetishise “debate” as though debate is itself an innocuous, neutral act. The very act of debate in these cases is an effective rollback of assumed equality and a foot in the door for doubt and hatred."
In reality, the left make a lot of good criticisms about Western Society which were previously shut down and went unaired. But the hatred of the west that has been around for the last four years goes too far. The contradictions are too many for me to take seriously. IE: zero acknowledgement of the fact that the British abolished slavery and colonialism as well as partaking in it. No interest in modern day slavery in the middle east. No interest in Xinjiang but obsessed with Palestine. Obsession with racial violence in the US but no interest in ongoing Windrush deportations. All this is held together by a simplified light v dark, good v evil narrative of which any questioning is 'a foot in the door for doubt and hatred'.
I don't see this as evidence of a healthy discourse that is moving western society forward (as other posters on here appear to), it seems instead to discredit legitimate and necessary criticism leading to (as we are now seeing) a similar reaction from the right.
Regarding 'woke'; you have to use language to describe phenomena, it is nothing more than that. I put it in quotation marks because it is a contested term.
Back now to the cleaning...
We're moving to a different specific example, and staying off "woke" generalisations, which is good. The specific complaint is people thinking western society to be uniquely bad and in this way dangerously undermining that society. I think there is something in this, but this is as much a right wing populist thinking as left wing. And as right wing populists are either in power or close to it (Trump etc) they are far more dangerous than their left wing counterparts who aren't.
Not wishing to split hairs over all this, but I am careful in my posts not to make generalisations about the 'woke'. I am referring to thinking that is categorised this way, so it is caveated. Some parts of 'woke' are more constructive than others. But essentially I agree your diagnosis of the problem, only I would reiterate an earlier point I made, that it took the emergence of the 'woke right' for people to really perceive the dangers of the 'woke left'. I would also reject the idea that the right is more dangerous than the left because it is 'in power', I think it can be positive for the 'far right' to be in power where it reduces polarisation - the example of this that I use is Finland and its experience over the past 20 years where the far right were accepted in coalition governments, in comparison to Sweden - where they tried to shun the Sweden Democrats and now have enormous problems.
The very best people get more left wing as they get older. A minority, but they’re the ones paying attention not distracted by comfort and baubles. You have to love an 80 year old who still wants to change the world.
As one of the, I think, two posters who are 80+, thank you! I’ve never thought that the world was as good as it could be, and while there was a time when it was better for me, that was because I was fit and strong, not old and physically feeble. I want a better world for my children and grandchildren. That’s why I don’t vote Conservative.
There are at least five of us who are 80+. I'm 81 next month.
I'm a Red Lib Dem who has become more anti-Tory as I've matured. And tomorrow I'm off for a week of skiing in France so I won't be around as much.
Always willing to learn. Glad to find out both that there are at least five over 80’s and that you are fit and well. A word of warning, though. I was reasonably fit at 80, but, looking back, there were signs of problems in the future. By 84 my general fitness was significantly worse. So enjoy your skiing and make some memories!
Well while your writing skills are still in such fine fettle you should try your hand at coywriting. Your early morning post was near perfect and what a great strapline
"That's why I don't vote Conservative"
Thank you. I’m not deliberately chasing compliments this morning, just seems to be working out that way! One of my hobbies is Creative Writing; I used, during my working days, to write comment columns for professional magazines, which colleagues said sometimes bordered on fiction. I’ve not managed to get any fiction published, though. Maybe one day, possibly posthumously!
Well for a little bit of inspiration (and also bordering on fiction)
According to the Telegraph, Rishi yesterday - apparently in response to tge Rochdale by-election - urged Britain to come together against the poisons of right wing extremism and Islamic extremism.
How has he managed to get right wing extremism into this? One of the features of British politics over the past decade has been the notable absence of the far right compared to elsewhere in the west, especially given the conditions which might be expected to give rise to it. It seems to be some sort of shibboleth "but don't forget the far right are just as bad/dangerous/big a threat". They just aren't. Tommy Robinson and 400 drunken idiots are nothing like the same scale of threat as radical Islam. The number of murders carried out by radical Islam over the past two decades must be about 200 times greater than that carried out by the far right. Conflating the two just isn't credible.
Over the past two decades, so since 2004… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_Great_Britain lists events in GB, so excluding NI. I count 91 murders by radical Islam versus 2 by the far right. That’s a ratio of 45.5:1, which is somewhat less than your estimate of over 200:1.
I think Irish republican terrorism was responsible for at least 25 murders over the same period. Unionist terrorists killed at least one as well.
And just for some perspective, about one and a half million people were killed by smoking over the same period.
Switch off gb news Forget the conspiracy theories Sack the nutters Go hard on corruption and favours for mates. Jail people who milk the system End the war against doctors and institutions Ditch ideological positions and dog whistle politics
Find a simple message around making hard work and enterprise pay. Reward work, tax the idle rich.
I have not watched GB news nor do I intend to
You're the sort of "Conservative" who only feels comfortable if everyone else feels comfortable with them in turn, which is why you sway and point in whatever direction the wind is blowing at any one time and have absolutely no views or opinions of your own.
No, he's a reminder of when the Tories weren't all nuts.
BigG tailors his likes and dislikes in accord with popularity. Have you not noticed this? Sunak is great when he was higher in the polls, not so much when he's not. Ditto Johnson.
Big G at one point supported Truss!
Remember when he was wavering on Johnson until he recovered after party-gate and went full throat on beergate?
Seeing as you have decided to talk about me then yes I do have flexible views, absolutely reject the right of the party, do not and never have watched GBnews and no did not support Truss as I supported Sunak and still see him as the only viable leader
Perhaps you don't watch GB News because you are aware of the narrative that would paint you negatively with its haters. I've never watched it either but that's because I don't watch TV news generally not because I'm influenced by others. On the odd occasion I've stumbled across bits of BBC TV News I've been appalled by it.
I do not watch GB news as I do not support the right of the party
This analysis is spot on. Post GE the tories will have to pivot to centre right millenials, which will be pro eu. There is no way around it. And the eu hating pensioners will seep to the toxic nostalgia of reform. Splitting that off is going to hurt for 2-3 terms for the tories. But it has to happen. I think this shows that brexit is done for. Brexit was also largely a boomer project. But it isn't sustainable as a political platform.
Pro EU centre right under 50s are less than 10% of the electorate. Target them and reject pensioners and Leave voters and the Tories won't be heading for government again they will be making Farage and Reform the main opposition to Labour
Do you think there is ANY argument for trying to appeal to anyone under the age of 95? Do you think it might be sensible to thinking about appealing to people like my friends in the future?
In addition to Leave voters and pensioners of course in order to form a coalition for a Conservative majority again.
On their own however no as they would just see Reform replace the Tories as the main party of the right
I wonder whether you will ever realise that politics isn't just about statistics?
Switch off gb news Forget the conspiracy theories Sack the nutters Go hard on corruption and favours for mates. Jail people who milk the system End the war against doctors and institutions Ditch ideological positions and dog whistle politics
Find a simple message around making hard work and enterprise pay. Reward work, tax the idle rich.
I have not watched GB news nor do I intend to
You're the sort of "Conservative" who only feels comfortable if everyone else feels comfortable with them in turn, which is why you sway and point in whatever direction the wind is blowing at any one time and have absolutely no views or opinions of your own.
No, he's a reminder of when the Tories weren't all nuts.
BigG tailors his likes and dislikes in accord with popularity. Have you not noticed this? Sunak is great when he was higher in the polls, not so much when he's not. Ditto Johnson.
Big G at one point supported Truss!
Remember when he was wavering on Johnson until he recovered after party-gate and went full throat on beergate?
Seeing as you have decided to talk about me then yes I do have flexible views, absolutely reject the right of the party, do not and never have watched GBnews and no did not support Truss as I supported Sunak and still see him as the only viable leader
Perhaps you don't watch GB News because you are aware of the narrative that would paint you negatively with its haters. I've never watched it either but that's because I don't watch TV news generally not because I'm influenced by others. On the odd occasion I've stumbled across bits of BBC TV News I've been appalled by it.
I do not watch GB news as I do not support the right of the party
I watch Beastie Boys videos as I support the right to party.
Does anybody believe Sunak can get Bradied before the GE? They would need to find a suicide bomber who could unhorse the little shit while being prepared to be PM for just the 4-5 weeks of the campaign after which their political career would be over and they would be an Asda car park trolley shepherd.
Does that tory MP exist? Probably not, therefore Sunak is safe and he can leave the GE as long as he likes.
I flick through the news channels from time to time. I don't think GB News is the awful thing it's made out to be. Some of the presenters are quite annoying and I don't get how it complies with Ofcom when they give so much space to Tory MPs and Reform/Farage. However it serves a purpose in being prepared to deal with subjects that the BBC/SKY run a mile from e.g trans fundamentalism, antisemitism and ethnic divisions.
This analysis is spot on. Post GE the tories will have to pivot to centre right millenials, which will be pro eu. There is no way around it. And the eu hating pensioners will seep to the toxic nostalgia of reform. Splitting that off is going to hurt for 2-3 terms for the tories. But it has to happen. I think this shows that brexit is done for. Brexit was also largely a boomer project. But it isn't sustainable as a political platform.
Pro EU centre right under 50s are less than 10% of the electorate. Target them and reject pensioners and Leave voters and the Tories won't be heading for government again they will be making Farage and Reform the main opposition to Labour
Do you think there is ANY argument for trying to appeal to anyone under the age of 95? Do you think it might be sensible to thinking about appealing to people like my friends in the future?
In addition to Leave voters and pensioners of course in order to form a coalition for a Conservative majority again.
On their own however no as they would just see Reform replace the Tories as the main party of the right
I wonder whether you will ever realise that politics isn't just about statistics?
Oh idk, I think HYUFD concluded the Tories were doomed as soon as Truss was elected. He's no longer suggesting they will win, sadly he's not quite got over how they do win again yet.
Yet the only major tax cuts Hunt has pushed through this parliament have been to national insurance which workers pay but pensioners don't, so the main benefit went to workers. However still no poll reward. Yes more homes could be built to get more under 40s on the housing ladder but the Conservatives lost them even in 2019 when they won a landslide nationally.
The Tories also need pensioners still as they are their core vote, without them they risk extinction. Whether they can win back 40 to 65 year old swing voters in opposition largely depends on the state of the economy under Labour
"...tax cuts Hunt..." has to be typed with care. Incoming taxes on huts anyone?
You haven't lived until you've tried to write a PowerPoint on the Danish empire of 1020-42 for Year 9 with autocorrect on.
King Cnut was renamed in ways that were not altogether appropriate for that age group.
I am just dealing with that in Year 5. Thanks to Detectorists the 10yo already knew about misspelling Cnut.
Has anyone written a paper on how much Cnut known, popularly, because of the childish humour inherent in misspelling his name?
It tides over the boring bits of his reign.
Oh, did he do it in the Severn estuary? Or am I seeing a pun too many? Occurs to me I have no idea where he sat (ie which bit of the shore).
Somewhere on the South coast, near Bosham, wasn’t it? Allegedly.
Well, there is that pub where stupid Cnuts will find their chariots doing a Cnut impersonation.
I quite like the fact that Canute's daughter died by drowning (she is supposedly buried in Bosham), and later he tries to teach his courtiers a lesson by not being able to hold back the tide. I think it adds another dimension to the story.
What an odd location - but on checking old OS maps that road must be the old coast path, long before the docks were built out to one side. A nice Saturday morning treat, thank you. I see it's next to Solent Sky museum so a definite bookmark for the next trip!
Yes; one of my favourite pubs, the Platform, is a short distance away. It's called the Platform because there was a platform along the seashore which, allegedly, Jane Austen used to walk along. the pub is now quite a way from the sea.
Last time I was in Southampton, I chatted to a man who remembered when the area was dominated by a cable works, making subsea cables that used to be run out across the road and straight onto the ships! Now it's the shopping centre. The air used to stink of the chemicals used in making the cables.
Solent Sky is well worth a visit IMO. A small but good museum, well worth a couple of hours.
Mr. 43, taking something at face value is unwise. The Ministry of Truth was not concerned with propagating the truth. The 'diversity' (unless it's Wakanda in which case an ethno-state is super awesome) agenda has been used as one of the many failings of Rings of Power, as it bastardises an Anglo-Saxon/English mythology (the specific reason Tolkien wrote LotR* as the English didn't have tales to compare to Norse or Greek myth), and revises and falsifies history (most infamously with Cleopatra in the Netflix 'documentary').
*The special irony here is that if the muppets in charge knew Middle-Earth better they could've just had the story focused in Harad or Rhun, perhaps telling the tale of the fall of a powerful leader to become a Nazgul. They could even, with Black Numenoreans, have had canonically accurate white bad guys.
Possibly. History is littered with good intentions corruptly applied. Nevertheless, @darkage was talking about premises people start from and that was the point I addressed.
Also "woke" really isn't a useful thing, except as an insult that usually says more about the person making it than the target.
The point I was making is the premise of much 'woke' thinking is that western society is inherently and uniquely evil, of which there is a long tradition on the left. The recent evolution is that it now tries to perpetrate this by avoiding debate and relying instead on emotive claims relating to identity.
This comment from a Labour MP in 2020 was a particularly revealing moment:
"We must not fetishise “debate” as though debate is itself an innocuous, neutral act. The very act of debate in these cases is an effective rollback of assumed equality and a foot in the door for doubt and hatred."
In reality, the left make a lot of good criticisms about Western Society which were previously shut down and went unaired. But the hatred of the west that has been around for the last four years goes too far. The contradictions are too many for me to take seriously. IE: zero acknowledgement of the fact that the British abolished slavery and colonialism as well as partaking in it. No interest in modern day slavery in the middle east. No interest in Xinjiang but obsessed with Palestine. Obsession with racial violence in the US but no interest in ongoing Windrush deportations. All this is held together by a simplified light v dark, good v evil narrative of which any questioning is 'a foot in the door for doubt and hatred'.
I don't see this as evidence of a healthy discourse that is moving western society forward (as other posters on here appear to), it seems instead to discredit legitimate and necessary criticism leading to (as we are now seeing) a similar reaction from the right.
Regarding 'woke'; you have to use language to describe phenomena, it is nothing more than that. I put it in quotation marks because it is a contested term.
Back now to the cleaning...
We're moving to a different specific example, and staying off "woke" generalisations, which is good. The specific complaint is people thinking western society to be uniquely bad and in this way dangerously undermining that society. I think there is something in this, but this is as much a right wing populist thinking as left wing. And as right wing populists are either in power or close to it (Trump etc) they are far more dangerous than their left wing counterparts who aren't.
Not wishing to split hairs over all this, but I am careful in my posts not to make generalisations about the 'woke'. I am referring to thinking that is categorised this way, so it is caveated. Some parts of 'woke' are more constructive than others. But essentially I agree your diagnosis of the problem, only I would reiterate an earlier point I made, that it took the emergence of the 'woke right' for people to really perceive the dangers of the 'woke left'. I would also reject the idea that the right is more dangerous than the left because it is 'in power', I think it can be positive for the 'far right' to be in power where it reduces polarisation - the example of this that I use is Finland and its experience over the past 20 years where the far right were accepted in coalition governments, in comparison to Sweden - where they tried to shun the Sweden Democrats and now have enormous problems.
Er... from 7:51 this morning:
"The objection to much 'woke' thinking is that it is not constructive as it starts from the premise that western civilisation is evil and beyond redemption."
According to the Telegraph, Rishi yesterday - apparently in response to tge Rochdale by-election - urged Britain to come together against the poisons of right wing extremism and Islamic extremism.
How has he managed to get right wing extremism into this? One of the features of British politics over the past decade has been the notable absence of the far right compared to elsewhere in the west, especially given the conditions which might be expected to give rise to it. It seems to be some sort of shibboleth "but don't forget the far right are just as bad/dangerous/big a threat". They just aren't. Tommy Robinson and 400 drunken idiots are nothing like the same scale of threat as radical Islam. The number of murders carried out by radical Islam over the past two decades must be about 200 times greater than that carried out by the far right. Conflating the two just isn't credible.
There is a steady stream of White, far right wannabe bombers. I think MI5 must be running the website they download instructions from since they are generally charged with preparing rather than doing. This from Tuesday:-
There are concerns definitely but one thing that surprises me is how the far left (his own words) student from Liverpool who wanted to kill 50 people has passed almost without notice.
Interesting header, thanks. My question is: when did the Tories decide on this strategy and who was responsible? Indeed, was it a planned thing or did it just come about by accident? A parallel point was made By Matthew Parris in his - at the time notorious, now prescient - article about Clacton: the Tories are simply doomed if they insist on pandering to subsets of the excluded underclass at the expense of everything else.
Two important phases, I think.
The obvious recent one was Red Wall Theory, which I think came in after 2015. Add socially conservative northerners to the existing Conservative coalition and you get a landslide. Which you do, as long as you don't repel socially liberal southerners. Worked in 2017 and 2019 against Corbyn, not working so well now the other shoe has dropped.
But the other phase was what happened in the early Blair years. Bright young things had to be a bit unusual to form a right wing political view of the world. Not necessarily bad, just statistically odd. The political generation after Cameron/Gove etc. The ones in charge now.
So all this, including Brexit, is Blair's fault really, for winning so big in 1997 and 2001.
Switch off gb news Forget the conspiracy theories Sack the nutters Go hard on corruption and favours for mates. Jail people who milk the system End the war against doctors and institutions Ditch ideological positions and dog whistle politics
Find a simple message around making hard work and enterprise pay. Reward work, tax the idle rich.
I have not watched GB news nor do I intend to
You're the sort of "Conservative" who only feels comfortable if everyone else feels comfortable with them in turn, which is why you sway and point in whatever direction the wind is blowing at any one time and have absolutely no views or opinions of your own.
No, he's a reminder of when the Tories weren't all nuts.
He's a "nice guy" but he's also a dribbling old fart who gives the impression of a soldier who got lost in the war in 1942 and never rejoined his unit.
Harmless, really. But no-one should take a word he says seriously, since it changes week on week and he's an entirely unreliable and inconsistent party supporter.
This analysis is spot on. Post GE the tories will have to pivot to centre right millenials, which will be pro eu. There is no way around it. And the eu hating pensioners will seep to the toxic nostalgia of reform. Splitting that off is going to hurt for 2-3 terms for the tories. But it has to happen. I think this shows that brexit is done for. Brexit was also largely a boomer project. But it isn't sustainable as a political platform.
Pro EU centre right under 50s are less than 10% of the electorate. Target them and reject pensioners and Leave voters and the Tories won't be heading for government again they will be making Farage and Reform the main opposition to Labour
Do you think there is ANY argument for trying to appeal to anyone under the age of 95? Do you think it might be sensible to thinking about appealing to people like my friends in the future?
In addition to Leave voters and pensioners of course in order to form a coalition for a Conservative majority again.
On their own however no as they would just see Reform replace the Tories as the main party of the right
I wonder whether you will ever realise that politics isn't just about statistics?
To a large extent it is. AS LBJ said 'the first rule in politics is to be able to count.'
Given the Tories have near zero chance of winning the next general election but there is a significant risk of Reform overtaking the Tories as the main party of the right, their primary task is to avoid the latter for the foreseeable future.
Unless the economy is seriously poor under the likely next Labour government the Conservatives are unlikely to be looking to win a general election again for some time
Does anybody believe Sunak can get Bradied before the GE? They would need to find a suicide bomber who could unhorse the little shit while being prepared to be PM for just the 4-5 weeks of the campaign after which their political career would be over and they would be an Asda car park trolley shepherd.
Does that tory MP exist? Probably not, therefore Sunak is safe and he can leave the GE as long as he likes.
Put like that, surely there are few MPs who would stick their hand up to be PM if only for a month, just for the CV enhancement?
And there's the very small chance they could become a hero of the right by reducing the losses or even pulling off a remarkable victory. If Tory losses are less than expected, they might get to stay on as LOTO even if Labour win.
No shortage of volunteers imo. The issue is few would be able to gather enough support amongst Tory MPs, who have little or nothing to gain from a coup.
Mr. 43, taking something at face value is unwise. The Ministry of Truth was not concerned with propagating the truth. The 'diversity' (unless it's Wakanda in which case an ethno-state is super awesome) agenda has been used as one of the many failings of Rings of Power, as it bastardises an Anglo-Saxon/English mythology (the specific reason Tolkien wrote LotR* as the English didn't have tales to compare to Norse or Greek myth), and revises and falsifies history (most infamously with Cleopatra in the Netflix 'documentary').
*The special irony here is that if the muppets in charge knew Middle-Earth better they could've just had the story focused in Harad or Rhun, perhaps telling the tale of the fall of a powerful leader to become a Nazgul. They could even, with Black Numenoreans, have had canonically accurate white bad guys.
Possibly. History is littered with good intentions corruptly applied. Nevertheless, @darkage was talking about premises people start from and that was the point I addressed.
Also "woke" really isn't a useful thing, except as an insult that usually says more about the person making it than the target.
The point I was making is the premise of much 'woke' thinking is that western society is inherently and uniquely evil, of which there is a long tradition on the left. The recent evolution is that it now tries to perpetrate this by avoiding debate and relying instead on emotive claims relating to identity.
This comment from a Labour MP in 2020 was a particularly revealing moment:
"We must not fetishise “debate” as though debate is itself an innocuous, neutral act. The very act of debate in these cases is an effective rollback of assumed equality and a foot in the door for doubt and hatred."
In reality, the left make a lot of good criticisms about Western Society which were previously shut down and went unaired. But the hatred of the west that has been around for the last four years goes too far. The contradictions are too many for me to take seriously. IE: zero acknowledgement of the fact that the British abolished slavery and colonialism as well as partaking in it. No interest in modern day slavery in the middle east. No interest in Xinjiang but obsessed with Palestine. Obsession with racial violence in the US but no interest in ongoing Windrush deportations. All this is held together by a simplified light v dark, good v evil narrative of which any questioning is 'a foot in the door for doubt and hatred'.
I don't see this as evidence of a healthy discourse that is moving western society forward (as other posters on here appear to), it seems instead to discredit legitimate and necessary criticism leading to (as we are now seeing) a similar reaction from the right.
Regarding 'woke'; you have to use language to describe phenomena, it is nothing more than that. I put it in quotation marks because it is a contested term.
Back now to the cleaning...
We're moving to a different specific example, and staying off "woke" generalisations, which is good. The specific complaint is people thinking western society to be uniquely bad and in this way dangerously undermining that society. I think there is something in this, but this is as much a right wing populist thinking as left wing. And as right wing populists are either in power or close to it (Trump etc) they are far more dangerous than their left wing counterparts who aren't.
Not wishing to split hairs over all this, but I am careful in my posts not to make generalisations about the 'woke'. I am referring to thinking that is categorised this way, so it is caveated. Some parts of 'woke' are more constructive than others. But essentially I agree your diagnosis of the problem, only I would reiterate an earlier point I made, that it took the emergence of the 'woke right' for people to really perceive the dangers of the 'woke left'. I would also reject the idea that the right is more dangerous than the left because it is 'in power', I think it can be positive for the 'far right' to be in power where it reduces polarisation - the example of this that I use is Finland and its experience over the past 20 years where the far right were accepted in coalition governments, in comparison to Sweden - where they tried to shun the Sweden Democrats and now have enormous problems.
And the Sweden Democrats are now in government with the centre right in Sweden now anyway
This analysis is spot on. Post GE the tories will have to pivot to centre right millenials, which will be pro eu. There is no way around it. And the eu hating pensioners will seep to the toxic nostalgia of reform. Splitting that off is going to hurt for 2-3 terms for the tories. But it has to happen. I think this shows that brexit is done for. Brexit was also largely a boomer project. But it isn't sustainable as a political platform.
Pro EU centre right under 50s are less than 10% of the electorate. Target them and reject pensioners and Leave voters and the Tories won't be heading for government again they will be making Farage and Reform the main opposition to Labour
Do you think there is ANY argument for trying to appeal to anyone under the age of 95? Do you think it might be sensible to thinking about appealing to people like my friends in the future?
In addition to Leave voters and pensioners of course in order to form a coalition for a Conservative majority again.
On their own however no as they would just see Reform replace the Tories as the main party of the right
I wonder whether you will ever realise that politics isn't just about statistics?
To a large extent it is. AS LBJ said 'the first rule in politics is to be able to count.'
Given the Tories have near zero chance of winning the next general election but there is a significant risk of Reform overtaking the Tories as the main party of the right, their primary task is to avoid the latter for the foreseeable future.
Unless the economy is seriously poor under the likely next Labour government the Conservatives are unlikely to be looking to win a general election again for some time
Mr. 43, taking something at face value is unwise. The Ministry of Truth was not concerned with propagating the truth. The 'diversity' (unless it's Wakanda in which case an ethno-state is super awesome) agenda has been used as one of the many failings of Rings of Power, as it bastardises an Anglo-Saxon/English mythology (the specific reason Tolkien wrote LotR* as the English didn't have tales to compare to Norse or Greek myth), and revises and falsifies history (most infamously with Cleopatra in the Netflix 'documentary').
*The special irony here is that if the muppets in charge knew Middle-Earth better they could've just had the story focused in Harad or Rhun, perhaps telling the tale of the fall of a powerful leader to become a Nazgul. They could even, with Black Numenoreans, have had canonically accurate white bad guys.
Possibly. History is littered with good intentions corruptly applied. Nevertheless, @darkage was talking about premises people start from and that was the point I addressed.
Also "woke" really isn't a useful thing, except as an insult that usually says more about the person making it than the target.
The point I was making is the premise of much 'woke' thinking is that western society is inherently and uniquely evil, of which there is a long tradition on the left. The recent evolution is that it now tries to perpetrate this by avoiding debate and relying instead on emotive claims relating to identity.
This comment from a Labour MP in 2020 was a particularly revealing moment:
"We must not fetishise “debate” as though debate is itself an innocuous, neutral act. The very act of debate in these cases is an effective rollback of assumed equality and a foot in the door for doubt and hatred."
In reality, the left make a lot of good criticisms about Western Society which were previously shut down and went unaired. But the hatred of the west that has been around for the last four years goes too far. The contradictions are too many for me to take seriously. IE: zero acknowledgement of the fact that the British abolished slavery and colonialism as well as partaking in it. No interest in modern day slavery in the middle east. No interest in Xinjiang but obsessed with Palestine. Obsession with racial violence in the US but no interest in ongoing Windrush deportations. All this is held together by a simplified light v dark, good v evil narrative of which any questioning is 'a foot in the door for doubt and hatred'.
I don't see this as evidence of a healthy discourse that is moving western society forward (as other posters on here appear to), it seems instead to discredit legitimate and necessary criticism leading to (as we are now seeing) a similar reaction from the right.
Regarding 'woke'; you have to use language to describe phenomena, it is nothing more than that. I put it in quotation marks because it is a contested term.
Back now to the cleaning...
We're moving to a different specific example, and staying off "woke" generalisations, which is good. The specific complaint is people thinking western society to be uniquely bad and in this way dangerously undermining that society. I think there is something in this, but this is as much a right wing populist thinking as left wing. And as right wing populists are either in power or close to it (Trump etc) they are far more dangerous than their left wing counterparts who aren't.
Not wishing to split hairs over all this, but I am careful in my posts not to make generalisations about the 'woke'. I am referring to thinking that is categorised this way, so it is caveated. Some parts of 'woke' are more constructive than others. But essentially I agree your diagnosis of the problem, only I would reiterate an earlier point I made, that it took the emergence of the 'woke right' for people to really perceive the dangers of the 'woke left'. I would also reject the idea that the right is more dangerous than the left because it is 'in power', I think it can be positive for the 'far right' to be in power where it reduces polarisation - the example of this that I use is Finland and its experience over the past 20 years where the far right were accepted in coalition governments, in comparison to Sweden - where they tried to shun the Sweden Democrats and now have enormous problems.
Er... from 7:51 this morning:
"The objection to much 'woke' thinking is that it is not constructive as it starts from the premise that western civilisation is evil and beyond redemption."
This analysis is spot on. Post GE the tories will have to pivot to centre right millenials, which will be pro eu. There is no way around it. And the eu hating pensioners will seep to the toxic nostalgia of reform. Splitting that off is going to hurt for 2-3 terms for the tories. But it has to happen. I think this shows that brexit is done for. Brexit was also largely a boomer project. But it isn't sustainable as a political platform.
Pro EU centre right under 50s are less than 10% of the electorate. Target them and reject pensioners and Leave voters and the Tories won't be heading for government again they will be making Farage and Reform the main opposition to Labour
Do you win elections by targeting existing groups who probably support you, or do you win elections by making a case that persuades people to come over to your position? Under 50s who might be persuaded by a One Nation, more internationalist Toryism are a lot more than 10%.
They aren't, they are little different to the 9% who voted Tory in the 2019 EU parliament elections which Farage's Brexit party won.
They can help the Tories to win a clear majority but they are not enough on their own even to be the main Opposition party let alone the government
I flick through the news channels from time to time. I don't think GB News is the awful thing it's made out to be. Some of the presenters are quite annoying and I don't get how it complies with Ofcom when they give so much space to Tory MPs and Reform/Farage. However it serves a purpose in being prepared to deal with subjects that the BBC/SKY run a mile from e.g trans fundamentalism, antisemitism and ethnic divisions.
With your rather strange obsession with anti semitism have you thought about trying for a job as the Simon Weisenthal Centre?
I am sure there is a name for this but the way Rishi Sunak speaks, it comes across a bit "weird"?
The words he's saying they make sense but the way he delivers them, it's like he's been told to be more "caring" but it comes across very condescending instead.
This analysis is spot on. Post GE the tories will have to pivot to centre right millenials, which will be pro eu. There is no way around it. And the eu hating pensioners will seep to the toxic nostalgia of reform. Splitting that off is going to hurt for 2-3 terms for the tories. But it has to happen. I think this shows that brexit is done for. Brexit was also largely a boomer project. But it isn't sustainable as a political platform.
Pro EU centre right under 50s are less than 10% of the electorate. Target them and reject pensioners and Leave voters and the Tories won't be heading for government again they will be making Farage and Reform the main opposition to Labour
Do you think there is ANY argument for trying to appeal to anyone under the age of 95? Do you think it might be sensible to thinking about appealing to people like my friends in the future?
In addition to Leave voters and pensioners of course in order to form a coalition for a Conservative majority again.
On their own however no as they would just see Reform replace the Tories as the main party of the right
Are not many Leave voters now regretting their folly?
More still back Brexit than are voting Tory in current polls
I flick through the news channels from time to time. I don't think GB News is the awful thing it's made out to be. Some of the presenters are quite annoying and I don't get how it complies with Ofcom when they give so much space to Tory MPs and Reform/Farage. However it serves a purpose in being prepared to deal with subjects that the BBC/SKY run a mile from e.g trans fundamentalism, antisemitism and ethnic divisions.
With your rather strange obsession with anti semitism have you thought about trying for a job as the Simon Weisenthal Centre?
Times Radio has become one of my favourite sources of late. Professional operation.
Switch off gb news Forget the conspiracy theories Sack the nutters Go hard on corruption and favours for mates. Jail people who milk the system End the war against doctors and institutions Ditch ideological positions and dog whistle politics
Find a simple message around making hard work and enterprise pay. Reward work, tax the idle rich.
I have not watched GB news nor do I intend to
You're the sort of "Conservative" who only feels comfortable if everyone else feels comfortable with them in turn, which is why you sway and point in whatever direction the wind is blowing at any one time and have absolutely no views or opinions of your own.
No, he's a reminder of when the Tories weren't all nuts.
He's a "nice guy" but he's also a dribbling old fart who gives the impression of a soldier who got lost in the war in 1942 and never rejoined his unit.
Harmless, really. But no-one should take a word he says seriously, since it changes week on week and he's an entirely unreliable and inconsistent party supporter.
Why do you have to be so rude to everyone.
Going by the current iteration of the Tories that's inherent in being a reliable and consistent party supporter I'd guess. Though tbf CT doesn't really do the mealy mouthed platitudes such as those pooped out by Rishi yesterday.
Mr. 43, taking something at face value is unwise. The Ministry of Truth was not concerned with propagating the truth. The 'diversity' (unless it's Wakanda in which case an ethno-state is super awesome) agenda has been used as one of the many failings of Rings of Power, as it bastardises an Anglo-Saxon/English mythology (the specific reason Tolkien wrote LotR* as the English didn't have tales to compare to Norse or Greek myth), and revises and falsifies history (most infamously with Cleopatra in the Netflix 'documentary').
*The special irony here is that if the muppets in charge knew Middle-Earth better they could've just had the story focused in Harad or Rhun, perhaps telling the tale of the fall of a powerful leader to become a Nazgul. They could even, with Black Numenoreans, have had canonically accurate white bad guys.
Possibly. History is littered with good intentions corruptly applied. Nevertheless, @darkage was talking about premises people start from and that was the point I addressed.
Also "woke" really isn't a useful thing, except as an insult that usually says more about the person making it than the target.
The point I was making is the premise of much 'woke' thinking is that western society is inherently and uniquely evil, of which there is a long tradition on the left. The recent evolution is that it now tries to perpetrate this by avoiding debate and relying instead on emotive claims relating to identity.
This comment from a Labour MP in 2020 was a particularly revealing moment:
"We must not fetishise “debate” as though debate is itself an innocuous, neutral act. The very act of debate in these cases is an effective rollback of assumed equality and a foot in the door for doubt and hatred."
In reality, the left make a lot of good criticisms about Western Society which were previously shut down and went unaired. But the hatred of the west that has been around for the last four years goes too far. The contradictions are too many for me to take seriously. IE: zero acknowledgement of the fact that the British abolished slavery and colonialism as well as partaking in it. No interest in modern day slavery in the middle east. No interest in Xinjiang but obsessed with Palestine. Obsession with racial violence in the US but no interest in ongoing Windrush deportations. All this is held together by a simplified light v dark, good v evil narrative of which any questioning is 'a foot in the door for doubt and hatred'.
I don't see this as evidence of a healthy discourse that is moving western society forward (as other posters on here appear to), it seems instead to discredit legitimate and necessary criticism leading to (as we are now seeing) a similar reaction from the right.
Regarding 'woke'; you have to use language to describe phenomena, it is nothing more than that. I put it in quotation marks because it is a contested term.
Back now to the cleaning...
We're moving to a different specific example, and staying off "woke" generalisations, which is good. The specific complaint is people thinking western society to be uniquely bad and in this way dangerously undermining that society. I think there is something in this, but this is as much a right wing populist thinking as left wing. And as right wing populists are either in power or close to it (Trump etc) they are far more dangerous than their left wing counterparts who aren't.
Not wishing to split hairs over all this, but I am careful in my posts not to make generalisations about the 'woke'. I am referring to thinking that is categorised this way, so it is caveated. Some parts of 'woke' are more constructive than others. But essentially I agree your diagnosis of the problem, only I would reiterate an earlier point I made, that it took the emergence of the 'woke right' for people to really perceive the dangers of the 'woke left'. I would also reject the idea that the right is more dangerous than the left because it is 'in power', I think it can be positive for the 'far right' to be in power where it reduces polarisation - the example of this that I use is Finland and its experience over the past 20 years where the far right were accepted in coalition governments, in comparison to Sweden - where they tried to shun the Sweden Democrats and now have enormous problems.
I would be very wary of working with people who we know undermine our society.
Mr. 43, taking something at face value is unwise. The Ministry of Truth was not concerned with propagating the truth. The 'diversity' (unless it's Wakanda in which case an ethno-state is super awesome) agenda has been used as one of the many failings of Rings of Power, as it bastardises an Anglo-Saxon/English mythology (the specific reason Tolkien wrote LotR* as the English didn't have tales to compare to Norse or Greek myth), and revises and falsifies history (most infamously with Cleopatra in the Netflix 'documentary').
*The special irony here is that if the muppets in charge knew Middle-Earth better they could've just had the story focused in Harad or Rhun, perhaps telling the tale of the fall of a powerful leader to become a Nazgul. They could even, with Black Numenoreans, have had canonically accurate white bad guys.
Possibly. History is littered with good intentions corruptly applied. Nevertheless, @darkage was talking about premises people start from and that was the point I addressed.
Also "woke" really isn't a useful thing, except as an insult that usually says more about the person making it than the target.
The point I was making is the premise of much 'woke' thinking is that western society is inherently and uniquely evil, of which there is a long tradition on the left. The recent evolution is that it now tries to perpetrate this by avoiding debate and relying instead on emotive claims relating to identity.
This comment from a Labour MP in 2020 was a particularly revealing moment:
"We must not fetishise “debate” as though debate is itself an innocuous, neutral act. The very act of debate in these cases is an effective rollback of assumed equality and a foot in the door for doubt and hatred."
In reality, the left make a lot of good criticisms about Western Society which were previously shut down and went unaired. But the hatred of the west that has been around for the last four years goes too far. The contradictions are too many for me to take seriously. IE: zero acknowledgement of the fact that the British abolished slavery and colonialism as well as partaking in it. No interest in modern day slavery in the middle east. No interest in Xinjiang but obsessed with Palestine. Obsession with racial violence in the US but no interest in ongoing Windrush deportations. All this is held together by a simplified light v dark, good v evil narrative of which any questioning is 'a foot in the door for doubt and hatred'.
I don't see this as evidence of a healthy discourse that is moving western society forward (as other posters on here appear to), it seems instead to discredit legitimate and necessary criticism leading to (as we are now seeing) a similar reaction from the right.
Regarding 'woke'; you have to use language to describe phenomena, it is nothing more than that. I put it in quotation marks because it is a contested term.
Back now to the cleaning...
We're moving to a different specific example, and staying off "woke" generalisations, which is good. The specific complaint is people thinking western society to be uniquely bad and in this way dangerously undermining that society. I think there is something in this, but this is as much a right wing populist thinking as left wing. And as right wing populists are either in power or close to it (Trump etc) they are far more dangerous than their left wing counterparts who aren't.
Not wishing to split hairs over all this, but I am careful in my posts not to make generalisations about the 'woke'. I am referring to thinking that is categorised this way, so it is caveated. Some parts of 'woke' are more constructive than others. But essentially I agree your diagnosis of the problem, only I would reiterate an earlier point I made, that it took the emergence of the 'woke right' for people to really perceive the dangers of the 'woke left'. I would also reject the idea that the right is more dangerous than the left because it is 'in power', I think it can be positive for the 'far right' to be in power where it reduces polarisation - the example of this that I use is Finland and its experience over the past 20 years where the far right were accepted in coalition governments, in comparison to Sweden - where they tried to shun the Sweden Democrats and now have enormous problems.
Er... from 7:51 this morning:
"The objection to much 'woke' thinking is that it is not constructive as it starts from the premise that western civilisation is evil and beyond redemption."
An evidence-free generalisation, surely?
The word 'much' is a caveat.
Much of the sentence I quoted is a generalisation ;-)
This analysis is spot on. Post GE the tories will have to pivot to centre right millenials, which will be pro eu. There is no way around it. And the eu hating pensioners will seep to the toxic nostalgia of reform. Splitting that off is going to hurt for 2-3 terms for the tories. But it has to happen. I think this shows that brexit is done for. Brexit was also largely a boomer project. But it isn't sustainable as a political platform.
Pro EU centre right under 50s are less than 10% of the electorate. Target them and reject pensioners and Leave voters and the Tories won't be heading for government again they will be making Farage and Reform the main opposition to Labour
Do you win elections by targeting existing groups who probably support you, or do you win elections by making a case that persuades people to come over to your position? Under 50s who might be persuaded by a One Nation, more internationalist Toryism are a lot more than 10%.
They aren't, they are little different to the 9% who voted Tory in the 2019 EU parliament elections which Farage's Brexit party won.
They can help the Tories to win a clear majority but they are not enough on their own even to be the main Opposition party let alone the government
Has anyone looked at which Tory MPs still hope not to lose in their own constituency *if they run a good campaign" and what constitutes good for them, policy-wise?
Mr. 43, taking something at face value is unwise. The Ministry of Truth was not concerned with propagating the truth. The 'diversity' (unless it's Wakanda in which case an ethno-state is super awesome) agenda has been used as one of the many failings of Rings of Power, as it bastardises an Anglo-Saxon/English mythology (the specific reason Tolkien wrote LotR* as the English didn't have tales to compare to Norse or Greek myth), and revises and falsifies history (most infamously with Cleopatra in the Netflix 'documentary').
*The special irony here is that if the muppets in charge knew Middle-Earth better they could've just had the story focused in Harad or Rhun, perhaps telling the tale of the fall of a powerful leader to become a Nazgul. They could even, with Black Numenoreans, have had canonically accurate white bad guys.
Possibly. History is littered with good intentions corruptly applied. Nevertheless, @darkage was talking about premises people start from and that was the point I addressed.
Also "woke" really isn't a useful thing, except as an insult that usually says more about the person making it than the target.
The point I was making is the premise of much 'woke' thinking is that western society is inherently and uniquely evil, of which there is a long tradition on the left. The recent evolution is that it now tries to perpetrate this by avoiding debate and relying instead on emotive claims relating to identity.
This comment from a Labour MP in 2020 was a particularly revealing moment:
"We must not fetishise “debate” as though debate is itself an innocuous, neutral act. The very act of debate in these cases is an effective rollback of assumed equality and a foot in the door for doubt and hatred."
In reality, the left make a lot of good criticisms about Western Society which were previously shut down and went unaired. But the hatred of the west that has been around for the last four years goes too far. The contradictions are too many for me to take seriously. IE: zero acknowledgement of the fact that the British abolished slavery and colonialism as well as partaking in it. No interest in modern day slavery in the middle east. No interest in Xinjiang but obsessed with Palestine. Obsession with racial violence in the US but no interest in ongoing Windrush deportations. All this is held together by a simplified light v dark, good v evil narrative of which any questioning is 'a foot in the door for doubt and hatred'.
I don't see this as evidence of a healthy discourse that is moving western society forward (as other posters on here appear to), it seems instead to discredit legitimate and necessary criticism leading to (as we are now seeing) a similar reaction from the right.
Regarding 'woke'; you have to use language to describe phenomena, it is nothing more than that. I put it in quotation marks because it is a contested term.
Back now to the cleaning...
We're moving to a different specific example, and staying off "woke" generalisations, which is good. The specific complaint is people thinking western society to be uniquely bad and in this way dangerously undermining that society. I think there is something in this, but this is as much a right wing populist thinking as left wing. And as right wing populists are either in power or close to it (Trump etc) they are far more dangerous than their left wing counterparts who aren't.
Not wishing to split hairs over all this, but I am careful in my posts not to make generalisations about the 'woke'. I am referring to thinking that is categorised this way, so it is caveated. Some parts of 'woke' are more constructive than others. But essentially I agree your diagnosis of the problem, only I would reiterate an earlier point I made, that it took the emergence of the 'woke right' for people to really perceive the dangers of the 'woke left'. I would also reject the idea that the right is more dangerous than the left because it is 'in power', I think it can be positive for the 'far right' to be in power where it reduces polarisation - the example of this that I use is Finland and its experience over the past 20 years where the far right were accepted in coalition governments, in comparison to Sweden - where they tried to shun the Sweden Democrats and now have enormous problems.
Er... from 7:51 this morning:
"The objection to much 'woke' thinking is that it is not constructive as it starts from the premise that western civilisation is evil and beyond redemption."
An evidence-free generalisation, surely?
The word 'much' is a caveat.
Much of the sentence I quoted is a generalisation ;-)
This analysis is spot on. Post GE the tories will have to pivot to centre right millenials, which will be pro eu. There is no way around it. And the eu hating pensioners will seep to the toxic nostalgia of reform. Splitting that off is going to hurt for 2-3 terms for the tories. But it has to happen. I think this shows that brexit is done for. Brexit was also largely a boomer project. But it isn't sustainable as a political platform.
Pro EU centre right under 50s are less than 10% of the electorate. Target them and reject pensioners and Leave voters and the Tories won't be heading for government again they will be making Farage and Reform the main opposition to Labour
Do you think there is ANY argument for trying to appeal to anyone under the age of 95? Do you think it might be sensible to thinking about appealing to people like my friends in the future?
In addition to Leave voters and pensioners of course in order to form a coalition for a Conservative majority again.
On their own however no as they would just see Reform replace the Tories as the main party of the right
Are not many Leave voters now regretting their folly?
More still back Brexit than are voting Tory in current polls
This damns with fainter praise than 'mostly harmless'.
Switch off gb news Forget the conspiracy theories Sack the nutters Go hard on corruption and favours for mates. Jail people who milk the system End the war against doctors and institutions Ditch ideological positions and dog whistle politics
Find a simple message around making hard work and enterprise pay. Reward work, tax the idle rich.
I have not watched GB news nor do I intend to
You're the sort of "Conservative" who only feels comfortable if everyone else feels comfortable with them in turn, which is why you sway and point in whatever direction the wind is blowing at any one time and have absolutely no views or opinions of your own.
No, he's a reminder of when the Tories weren't all nuts.
He's a "nice guy" but he's also a dribbling old fart who gives the impression of a soldier who got lost in the war in 1942 and never rejoined his unit.
Harmless, really. But no-one should take a word he says seriously, since it changes week on week and he's an entirely unreliable and inconsistent party supporter.
He is entirely reliable and consistent on his dislike of 20 mph speed limits, so I come, slightly confused, to his defence.
The dribbling is conjecture unless you've been previously doused at a PB meet.
Mr. 43, taking something at face value is unwise. The Ministry of Truth was not concerned with propagating the truth. The 'diversity' (unless it's Wakanda in which case an ethno-state is super awesome) agenda has been used as one of the many failings of Rings of Power, as it bastardises an Anglo-Saxon/English mythology (the specific reason Tolkien wrote LotR* as the English didn't have tales to compare to Norse or Greek myth), and revises and falsifies history (most infamously with Cleopatra in the Netflix 'documentary').
*The special irony here is that if the muppets in charge knew Middle-Earth better they could've just had the story focused in Harad or Rhun, perhaps telling the tale of the fall of a powerful leader to become a Nazgul. They could even, with Black Numenoreans, have had canonically accurate white bad guys.
Possibly. History is littered with good intentions corruptly applied. Nevertheless, @darkage was talking about premises people start from and that was the point I addressed.
Also "woke" really isn't a useful thing, except as an insult that usually says more about the person making it than the target.
The point I was making is the premise of much 'woke' thinking is that western society is inherently and uniquely evil, of which there is a long tradition on the left. The recent evolution is that it now tries to perpetrate this by avoiding debate and relying instead on emotive claims relating to identity.
This comment from a Labour MP in 2020 was a particularly revealing moment:
"We must not fetishise “debate” as though debate is itself an innocuous, neutral act. The very act of debate in these cases is an effective rollback of assumed equality and a foot in the door for doubt and hatred."
In reality, the left make a lot of good criticisms about Western Society which were previously shut down and went unaired. But the hatred of the west that has been around for the last four years goes too far. The contradictions are too many for me to take seriously. IE: zero acknowledgement of the fact that the British abolished slavery and colonialism as well as partaking in it. No interest in modern day slavery in the middle east. No interest in Xinjiang but obsessed with Palestine. Obsession with racial violence in the US but no interest in ongoing Windrush deportations. All this is held together by a simplified light v dark, good v evil narrative of which any questioning is 'a foot in the door for doubt and hatred'.
I don't see this as evidence of a healthy discourse that is moving western society forward (as other posters on here appear to), it seems instead to discredit legitimate and necessary criticism leading to (as we are now seeing) a similar reaction from the right.
Regarding 'woke'; you have to use language to describe phenomena, it is nothing more than that. I put it in quotation marks because it is a contested term.
Back now to the cleaning...
We're moving to a different specific example, and staying off "woke" generalisations, which is good. The specific complaint is people thinking western society to be uniquely bad and in this way dangerously undermining that society. I think there is something in this, but this is as much a right wing populist thinking as left wing. And as right wing populists are either in power or close to it (Trump etc) they are far more dangerous than their left wing counterparts who aren't.
Not wishing to split hairs over all this, but I am careful in my posts not to make generalisations about the 'woke'. I am referring to thinking that is categorised this way, so it is caveated. Some parts of 'woke' are more constructive than others. But essentially I agree your diagnosis of the problem, only I would reiterate an earlier point I made, that it took the emergence of the 'woke right' for people to really perceive the dangers of the 'woke left'. I would also reject the idea that the right is more dangerous than the left because it is 'in power', I think it can be positive for the 'far right' to be in power where it reduces polarisation - the example of this that I use is Finland and its experience over the past 20 years where the far right were accepted in coalition governments, in comparison to Sweden - where they tried to shun the Sweden Democrats and now have enormous problems.
I would be very wary of working with people who we know undermine our society.
But how do you know that is what they are trying to do - aren't they just trying to put across their point of view in a democracy?
I was perplexed in 2011 why the Finns seemed to be extremely accommodating to the 'True Finns', thinking they were being foolish in pandering to the far right. But 13 years on it makes sense.
I read a post yesterday on another forum talking about the incredibly high murder rate in Birmingham - 76 per 100,000 population vs 1.1 for the UK as a whole.
Turns out that they were actually using figures for B'ham, Alabama - the correct number for the city in the West Midlands was 1.6
The incorrect post was heavily upvoted while the later correction was almost completely ignored. An innocent mistake which has done just as much harm as a deliberate attempt to misinform.
There is a lot of truth in this article. I remember helping out the Tory candidate in the Birmingham Hodge Hill by-election in 2004 and being told that we shouldn't deliver in one neighbourhood as it was a 'no-go area because of all the immigrants.'
Never one to avoid a challenge, my wife and I delivered said area. I'm pretty sure very few of them were going to vote Tory but we were met with politeness and no hostility. Yet the 'no-go' myth was being created and is now in full bloom.
Unfortunately, speeches such as Sunak's yesterday only serve to reinforce the idea that we have wholly separate communities where others dare not tread.
There is a lot of truth in this article. I remember helping out the Tory candidate in the Birmingham Hodge Hill by-election in 2004 and being told that we shouldn't deliver in one neighbourhood as it was a 'no-go area because of all the immigrants.'
Never one to avoid a challenge, my wife and I delivered said area. I'm pretty sure very few of them were going to vote Tory but we were met with politeness and no hostility. Yet the 'no-go' myth was being created and is now in full bloom.
Unfortunately, speeches such as Sunak's yesterday only serve to reinforce the idea that we have wholly separate communities where others dare not tread.
There are no go areas in London.
The prices in Waitrose nowadays mean I have to shop elsewhere.
I flick through the news channels from time to time. I don't think GB News is the awful thing it's made out to be. Some of the presenters are quite annoying and I don't get how it complies with Ofcom when they give so much space to Tory MPs and Reform/Farage. However it serves a purpose in being prepared to deal with subjects that the BBC/SKY run a mile from e.g trans fundamentalism, antisemitism and ethnic divisions.
With your rather strange obsession with anti semitism have you thought about trying for a job as the Simon Weisenthal Centre?
It is rather shocking that so many Jews no longer feel very safe in Britain, are thinking of leaving and in a culture obsessed with minority rights feel largely abandoned. We also see police afraid to arrest those preaching antisemitic hate for fear of causing a riot whilst at the same time they took down pictures posted of hostages in the name of community cohesion. If you cannot see the double standards/unfairness in all that you are either too blinkered or stupid for us to bother engaging with each other.
At least the police did turn out in force to protect attendees at Tracy Ann Oberman's Merchant Of Venice so I suppose cultural events can continue proceed with a semblance of normality. I've never heard of SWC.
I flick through the news channels from time to time. I don't think GB News is the awful thing it's made out to be. Some of the presenters are quite annoying and I don't get how it complies with Ofcom when they give so much space to Tory MPs and Reform/Farage. However it serves a purpose in being prepared to deal with subjects that the BBC/SKY run a mile from e.g trans fundamentalism, antisemitism and ethnic divisions.
With your rather strange obsession with anti semitism have you thought about trying for a job as the Simon Weisenthal Centre?
Times Radio has become one of my favourite sources of late. Professional operation.
There is a lot of truth in this article. I remember helping out the Tory candidate in the Birmingham Hodge Hill by-election in 2004 and being told that we shouldn't deliver in one neighbourhood as it was a 'no-go area because of all the immigrants.'
Never one to avoid a challenge, my wife and I delivered said area. I'm pretty sure very few of them were going to vote Tory but we were met with politeness and no hostility. Yet the 'no-go' myth was being created and is now in full bloom.
Unfortunately, speeches such as Sunak's yesterday only serve to reinforce the idea that we have wholly separate communities where others dare not tread.
One of my formative political experiences was delivering conservative leaflets in a 'no-go' area with my father, a Council estate. We would get chased by dogs and have stuff thrown at us.
I was being educated on 'why the socialists must never get in to power'.
I read a post yesterday on another forum talking about the incredibly high murder rate in Birmingham - 76 per 100,000 population vs 1.1 for the UK as a whole.
Turns out that they were actually using figures for B'ham, Alabama - the correct number for the city in the West Midlands was 1.6
The incorrect post was heavily upvoted while the later correction was almost completely ignored. An innocent mistake which has done just as much harm as a deliberate attempt to misinform.
Just needs some populist rabble-rouser to make an arse of themselves by spouting it as evidence of a takeover by the Islamists now.
How fiscal picture for Spring Budget deteriorated - and with it hopes of game-changing package of tax cuts
* Senior govt figures say OBR is ‘killing’ Tory plans; one suggests they are ‘group of left wing economists’ intent on ‘screwing’ Tories
* Tensions between No 10 & No 11 as Sunak micro-manages every line of Budget. ‘The joke among officials is that Hunt is the most impotent chancellor in history and can’t even spend £5 million without getting it signed off by No 10’
* Housing measures out despite public lobbying from Michael Gove - any money available will be spent on NI cuts
* Discussions this weekend on whether to further cut public spending profile - would free up extra £5bn but leave Tories open to accusations of austerity 2.0
Switch off gb news Forget the conspiracy theories Sack the nutters Go hard on corruption and favours for mates. Jail people who milk the system End the war against doctors and institutions Ditch ideological positions and dog whistle politics
Find a simple message around making hard work and enterprise pay. Reward work, tax the idle rich.
I have not watched GB news nor do I intend to
You're the sort of "Conservative" who only feels comfortable if everyone else feels comfortable with them in turn, which is why you sway and point in whatever direction the wind is blowing at any one time and have absolutely no views or opinions of your own.
No, he's a reminder of when the Tories weren't all nuts.
He's a "nice guy" but he's also a dribbling old fart who gives the impression of a soldier who got lost in the war in 1942 and never rejoined his unit.
Harmless, really. But no-one should take a word he says seriously, since it changes week on week and he's an entirely unreliable and inconsistent party supporter.
He is entirely reliable and consistent on his dislike of 20 mph speed limits, so I come, slightly confused, to his defence.
The dribbling is conjecture unless you've been previously doused at a PB meet.
I would just respond that I have been a loyal conservative active supporter for decades providing help and advice including being the election campaign driver for the late Sir Wyn Roberts and David Jones MP and simply do not recognise the party today as the one I have supported other 2 times with Blair
I am one of a diminishing number of one nation conservatives and admit I am flexible on my views but that has to be an asset not a negative in political life otherwise you just become tribal
As far as being an old whatever I accept that I am now one of 5 posters on this forum in their 80s but if it hadn't been for my consultant cardiologist and in his words, without my recent pacemaker I may not have survived beyond the summer so more than likely not been a voter
I do find it difficult when the old are disrespected for no real reason
I flick through the news channels from time to time. I don't think GB News is the awful thing it's made out to be. Some of the presenters are quite annoying and I don't get how it complies with Ofcom when they give so much space to Tory MPs and Reform/Farage. However it serves a purpose in being prepared to deal with subjects that the BBC/SKY run a mile from e.g trans fundamentalism, antisemitism and ethnic divisions.
With your rather strange obsession with anti semitism have you thought about trying for a job as the Simon Weisenthal Centre?
It is rather shocking that so many Jews no longer feel very safe in Britain, are thinking of leaving and in a culture obsessed with minority rights feel largely abandoned. We also see police afraid to arrest those preaching antisemitic hate for fear of causing a riot whilst at the same time they took down pictures posted of hostages in the name of community cohesion. If you cannot see the double standards/unfairness in all that you are either too blinkered or stupid for us to bother engaging with each other.
At least the police did turn out in force to protect attendees at Tracy Ann Oberman's Merchant Of Venice so I suppose cultural events can continue proceed with a semblance of normality. I've never heard of SWC.
I flick through the news channels from time to time. I don't think GB News is the awful thing it's made out to be. Some of the presenters are quite annoying and I don't get how it complies with Ofcom when they give so much space to Tory MPs and Reform/Farage. However it serves a purpose in being prepared to deal with subjects that the BBC/SKY run a mile from e.g trans fundamentalism, antisemitism and ethnic divisions.
With your rather strange obsession with anti semitism have you thought about trying for a job as the Simon Weisenthal Centre?
It is rather shocking that so many Jews no longer feel very safe in Britain, are thinking of leaving and in a culture obsessed with minority rights feel largely abandoned. We also see police afraid to arrest those preaching antisemitic hate for fear of causing a riot whilst at the same time they took down pictures posted of hostages in the name of community cohesion. If you cannot see the double standards/unfairness in all that you are either too blinkered or stupid for us to bother engaging with each other.
At least the police did turn out in force to protect attendees at Tracy Ann Oberman's Merchant Of Venice so I suppose cultural events can continue proceed with a semblance of normality. I've never heard of SWC.
I flick through the news channels from time to time. I don't think GB News is the awful thing it's made out to be. Some of the presenters are quite annoying and I don't get how it complies with Ofcom when they give so much space to Tory MPs and Reform/Farage. However it serves a purpose in being prepared to deal with subjects that the BBC/SKY run a mile from e.g trans fundamentalism, antisemitism and ethnic divisions.
They spew antivax bollocks and antisemitism on a regular basis.
Jewish group criticises GB News host over ‘dangerous conspiracy theory’
Beverley Turner tweeted that Covid ‘causes less harm to certain ethnicities – east Asians, and Ashkenazi Jews (Fauci anyone?)’
Jewish group and MPs urge GB News to stop indulging conspiracy theories Fears antisemitic tropes are being spread after host Neil Oliver discusses plan to impose ‘one-world government’
I flick through the news channels from time to time. I don't think GB News is the awful thing it's made out to be. Some of the presenters are quite annoying and I don't get how it complies with Ofcom when they give so much space to Tory MPs and Reform/Farage. However it serves a purpose in being prepared to deal with subjects that the BBC/SKY run a mile from e.g trans fundamentalism, antisemitism and ethnic divisions.
With your rather strange obsession with anti semitism have you thought about trying for a job as the Simon Weisenthal Centre?
It is rather shocking that so many Jews no longer feel very safe in Britain, are thinking of leaving and in a culture obsessed with minority rights feel largely abandoned. We also see police afraid to arrest those preaching antisemitic hate for fear of causing a riot whilst at the same time they took down pictures posted of hostages in the name of community cohesion. If you cannot see the double standards/unfairness in all that you are either too blinkered or stupid for us to bother engaging with each other.
At least the police did turn out in force to protect attendees at Tracy Ann Oberman's Merchant Of Venice so I suppose cultural events can continue proceed with a semblance of normality. I've never heard of SWC.
"The town was poorer and became racially and economically divided, despite all people from all backgrounds being Rochdalians. Race isn’t the true division, poverty is."
Very well put. Almost all racism stems from poverty or division resulting from poverty.
This reminds me of an argument I had with my dad one evening 35 years ago. He was criticising Indian & Pakistani communities in London, that they were living 15 or 20 people to a small house. I responded that it wasn't because they were Indian, it was because they were poor. They weren't choosing to live in such crammed conditions, it was because they couldn't afford anything better.
The reason why I remember this so well is the next morning my dad acknowledged that he had been wrong about this. He had obviously been thinking about it overnight, and as a teenager I was proud to have influenced the politics of my father.
Mr. 43, taking something at face value is unwise. The Ministry of Truth was not concerned with propagating the truth. The 'diversity' (unless it's Wakanda in which case an ethno-state is super awesome) agenda has been used as one of the many failings of Rings of Power, as it bastardises an Anglo-Saxon/English mythology (the specific reason Tolkien wrote LotR* as the English didn't have tales to compare to Norse or Greek myth), and revises and falsifies history (most infamously with Cleopatra in the Netflix 'documentary').
*The special irony here is that if the muppets in charge knew Middle-Earth better they could've just had the story focused in Harad or Rhun, perhaps telling the tale of the fall of a powerful leader to become a Nazgul. They could even, with Black Numenoreans, have had canonically accurate white bad guys.
Possibly. History is littered with good intentions corruptly applied. Nevertheless, @darkage was talking about premises people start from and that was the point I addressed.
Also "woke" really isn't a useful thing, except as an insult that usually says more about the person making it than the target.
The point I was making is the premise of much 'woke' thinking is that western society is inherently and uniquely evil, of which there is a long tradition on the left. The recent evolution is that it now tries to perpetrate this by avoiding debate and relying instead on emotive claims relating to identity.
This comment from a Labour MP in 2020 was a particularly revealing moment:
"We must not fetishise “debate” as though debate is itself an innocuous, neutral act. The very act of debate in these cases is an effective rollback of assumed equality and a foot in the door for doubt and hatred."
In reality, the left make a lot of good criticisms about Western Society which were previously shut down and went unaired. But the hatred of the west that has been around for the last four years goes too far. The contradictions are too many for me to take seriously. IE: zero acknowledgement of the fact that the British abolished slavery and colonialism as well as partaking in it. No interest in modern day slavery in the middle east. No interest in Xinjiang but obsessed with Palestine. Obsession with racial violence in the US but no interest in ongoing Windrush deportations. All this is held together by a simplified light v dark, good v evil narrative of which any questioning is 'a foot in the door for doubt and hatred'.
I don't see this as evidence of a healthy discourse that is moving western society forward (as other posters on here appear to), it seems instead to discredit legitimate and necessary criticism leading to (as we are now seeing) a similar reaction from the right.
Regarding 'woke'; you have to use language to describe phenomena, it is nothing more than that. I put it in quotation marks because it is a contested term.
Back now to the cleaning...
We're moving to a different specific example, and staying off "woke" generalisations, which is good. The specific complaint is people thinking western society to be uniquely bad and in this way dangerously undermining that society. I think there is something in this, but this is as much a right wing populist thinking as left wing. And as right wing populists are either in power or close to it (Trump etc) they are far more dangerous than their left wing counterparts who aren't.
Not wishing to split hairs over all this, but I am careful in my posts not to make generalisations about the 'woke'. I am referring to thinking that is categorised this way, so it is caveated. Some parts of 'woke' are more constructive than others. But essentially I agree your diagnosis of the problem, only I would reiterate an earlier point I made, that it took the emergence of the 'woke right' for people to really perceive the dangers of the 'woke left'. I would also reject the idea that the right is more dangerous than the left because it is 'in power', I think it can be positive for the 'far right' to be in power where it reduces polarisation - the example of this that I use is Finland and its experience over the past 20 years where the far right were accepted in coalition governments, in comparison to Sweden - where they tried to shun the Sweden Democrats and now have enormous problems.
I would be very wary of working with people who we know undermine our society.
But how do you know that is what they are trying to do - aren't they just trying to put across their point of view in a democracy?
I was perplexed in 2011 why the Finns seemed to be extremely accommodating to the 'True Finns', thinking they were being foolish in pandering to the far right. But 13 years on it makes sense.
I'm losing track of this discussion. I thought people intending to undermine western society are supposed to be dangerous, and now maybe they're not and should be given a pass?
Anyhow. I'll set out my stall. The house of liberalism has many mansions. Most people on this forum can claim a room, even though we have political disagreements, but there are house rules. This includes acceptance that others may do things differently and have different views; acceptance of legitimately arrived at decisions that you wouldn't have chosen; respect for the law and a minimum of other necessary constraints; respect for civic and democratic institutions. If you do that, welcome; if not you're destroying what is important to me and I need to oppose you
I flick through the news channels from time to time. I don't think GB News is the awful thing it's made out to be. Some of the presenters are quite annoying and I don't get how it complies with Ofcom when they give so much space to Tory MPs and Reform/Farage. However it serves a purpose in being prepared to deal with subjects that the BBC/SKY run a mile from e.g trans fundamentalism, antisemitism and ethnic divisions.
They spew antivax bollocks and antisemitism on a regular basis.
Jewish group criticises GB News host over ‘dangerous conspiracy theory’
Beverley Turner tweeted that Covid ‘causes less harm to certain ethnicities – east Asians, and Ashkenazi Jews (Fauci anyone?)’
Jewish group and MPs urge GB News to stop indulging conspiracy theories Fears antisemitic tropes are being spread after host Neil Oliver discusses plan to impose ‘one-world government’
Mr. 43, taking something at face value is unwise. The Ministry of Truth was not concerned with propagating the truth. The 'diversity' (unless it's Wakanda in which case an ethno-state is super awesome) agenda has been used as one of the many failings of Rings of Power, as it bastardises an Anglo-Saxon/English mythology (the specific reason Tolkien wrote LotR* as the English didn't have tales to compare to Norse or Greek myth), and revises and falsifies history (most infamously with Cleopatra in the Netflix 'documentary').
*The special irony here is that if the muppets in charge knew Middle-Earth better they could've just had the story focused in Harad or Rhun, perhaps telling the tale of the fall of a powerful leader to become a Nazgul. They could even, with Black Numenoreans, have had canonically accurate white bad guys.
Possibly. History is littered with good intentions corruptly applied. Nevertheless, @darkage was talking about premises people start from and that was the point I addressed.
Also "woke" really isn't a useful thing, except as an insult that usually says more about the person making it than the target.
The point I was making is the premise of much 'woke' thinking is that western society is inherently and uniquely evil, of which there is a long tradition on the left. The recent evolution is that it now tries to perpetrate this by avoiding debate and relying instead on emotive claims relating to identity.
This comment from a Labour MP in 2020 was a particularly revealing moment:
"We must not fetishise “debate” as though debate is itself an innocuous, neutral act. The very act of debate in these cases is an effective rollback of assumed equality and a foot in the door for doubt and hatred."
In reality, the left make a lot of good criticisms about Western Society which were previously shut down and went unaired. But the hatred of the west that has been around for the last four years goes too far. The contradictions are too many for me to take seriously. IE: zero acknowledgement of the fact that the British abolished slavery and colonialism as well as partaking in it. No interest in modern day slavery in the middle east. No interest in Xinjiang but obsessed with Palestine. Obsession with racial violence in the US but no interest in ongoing Windrush deportations. All this is held together by a simplified light v dark, good v evil narrative of which any questioning is 'a foot in the door for doubt and hatred'.
I don't see this as evidence of a healthy discourse that is moving western society forward (as other posters on here appear to), it seems instead to discredit legitimate and necessary criticism leading to (as we are now seeing) a similar reaction from the right.
Regarding 'woke'; you have to use language to describe phenomena, it is nothing more than that. I put it in quotation marks because it is a contested term.
Back now to the cleaning...
We're moving to a different specific example, and staying off "woke" generalisations, which is good. The specific complaint is people thinking western society to be uniquely bad and in this way dangerously undermining that society. I think there is something in this, but this is as much a right wing populist thinking as left wing. And as right wing populists are either in power or close to it (Trump etc) they are far more dangerous than their left wing counterparts who aren't.
Not wishing to split hairs over all this, but I am careful in my posts not to make generalisations about the 'woke'. I am referring to thinking that is categorised this way, so it is caveated. Some parts of 'woke' are more constructive than others. But essentially I agree your diagnosis of the problem, only I would reiterate an earlier point I made, that it took the emergence of the 'woke right' for people to really perceive the dangers of the 'woke left'. I would also reject the idea that the right is more dangerous than the left because it is 'in power', I think it can be positive for the 'far right' to be in power where it reduces polarisation - the example of this that I use is Finland and its experience over the past 20 years where the far right were accepted in coalition governments, in comparison to Sweden - where they tried to shun the Sweden Democrats and now have enormous problems.
I would be very wary of working with people who we know undermine our society.
But how do you know that is what they are trying to do - aren't they just trying to put across their point of view in a democracy?
I was perplexed in 2011 why the Finns seemed to be extremely accommodating to the 'True Finns', thinking they were being foolish in pandering to the far right. But 13 years on it makes sense.
I'm losing track of this discussion. I thought people intending to undermine western society are supposed to be dangerous, and now maybe they're not and should be given a pass?
Anyhow. I'll set out my stall. The house of liberalism has many mansions. Most people on this forum can claim a room, even though we have political disagreements, but there are house rules. This includes acceptance that others may do things differently and have different views; acceptance of legitimately arrived at decisions that you wouldn't have chosen; respect for the law and a minimum of other necessary constraints; respect for civic and democratic institutions. If you do that, welcome; if not you're destroying what is important to me and I need to oppose you
Not given a pass. Confronted via public political discourse. Like Nick Griffin was on Newsnight.
There is a lot of truth in this article. I remember helping out the Tory candidate in the Birmingham Hodge Hill by-election in 2004 and being told that we shouldn't deliver in one neighbourhood as it was a 'no-go area because of all the immigrants.'
Never one to avoid a challenge, my wife and I delivered said area. I'm pretty sure very few of them were going to vote Tory but we were met with politeness and no hostility. Yet the 'no-go' myth was being created and is now in full bloom.
Unfortunately, speeches such as Sunak's yesterday only serve to reinforce the idea that we have wholly separate communities where others dare not tread.
One of my formative political experiences was delivering conservative leaflets in a 'no-go' area with my father, a Council estate. We would get chased by dogs and have stuff thrown at us.
I was being educated on 'why the socialists must never get in to power'.
So, what do the Tories do to attract younger voters, say those who are about to retire? There’s nothing aspirational about becoming a Tory. All parties are weird to an extent, but this current incarnation of the Tory party is bizarre.
By doing the sort of U-turns that a party can only do in opposition, and probably only wants to do after a couple of defeats.
And they will have to be biggies, on social attitudes as much as economic ones. Since 1979, the Conservatives have done well by tracking the boomers and giving them what they want. That strategy is about to stop working.
In related news, here's some evidence of voting habits setting early-ish;
One thing I've just noticed is the seeming progression of that Liberal bump from 74 to 97, roughly as those first time 74 voters age. Looking at wider data, seems to fade mid-2000s. Did that election create a cohort of abnormally Liberal voters?
I flick through the news channels from time to time. I don't think GB News is the awful thing it's made out to be. Some of the presenters are quite annoying and I don't get how it complies with Ofcom when they give so much space to Tory MPs and Reform/Farage. However it serves a purpose in being prepared to deal with subjects that the BBC/SKY run a mile from e.g trans fundamentalism, antisemitism and ethnic divisions.
With your rather strange obsession with anti semitism have you thought about trying for a job as the Simon Weisenthal Centre?
It is rather shocking that so many Jews no longer feel very safe in Britain, are thinking of leaving and in a culture obsessed with minority rights feel largely abandoned. We also see police afraid to arrest those preaching antisemitic hate for fear of causing a riot whilst at the same time they took down pictures posted of hostages in the name of community cohesion. If you cannot see the double standards/unfairness in all that you are either too blinkered or stupid for us to bother engaging with each other.
At least the police did turn out in force to protect attendees at Tracy Ann Oberman's Merchant Of Venice so I suppose cultural events can continue proceed with a semblance of normality. I've never heard of SWC.
Mr. 43, taking something at face value is unwise. The Ministry of Truth was not concerned with propagating the truth. The 'diversity' (unless it's Wakanda in which case an ethno-state is super awesome) agenda has been used as one of the many failings of Rings of Power, as it bastardises an Anglo-Saxon/English mythology (the specific reason Tolkien wrote LotR* as the English didn't have tales to compare to Norse or Greek myth), and revises and falsifies history (most infamously with Cleopatra in the Netflix 'documentary').
*The special irony here is that if the muppets in charge knew Middle-Earth better they could've just had the story focused in Harad or Rhun, perhaps telling the tale of the fall of a powerful leader to become a Nazgul. They could even, with Black Numenoreans, have had canonically accurate white bad guys.
Possibly. History is littered with good intentions corruptly applied. Nevertheless, @darkage was talking about premises people start from and that was the point I addressed.
Also "woke" really isn't a useful thing, except as an insult that usually says more about the person making it than the target.
The point I was making is the premise of much 'woke' thinking is that western society is inherently and uniquely evil, of which there is a long tradition on the left. The recent evolution is that it now tries to perpetrate this by avoiding debate and relying instead on emotive claims relating to identity.
This comment from a Labour MP in 2020 was a particularly revealing moment:
"We must not fetishise “debate” as though debate is itself an innocuous, neutral act. The very act of debate in these cases is an effective rollback of assumed equality and a foot in the door for doubt and hatred."
In reality, the left make a lot of good criticisms about Western Society which were previously shut down and went unaired. But the hatred of the west that has been around for the last four years goes too far. The contradictions are too many for me to take seriously. IE: zero acknowledgement of the fact that the British abolished slavery and colonialism as well as partaking in it. No interest in modern day slavery in the middle east. No interest in Xinjiang but obsessed with Palestine. Obsession with racial violence in the US but no interest in ongoing Windrush deportations. All this is held together by a simplified light v dark, good v evil narrative of which any questioning is 'a foot in the door for doubt and hatred'.
I don't see this as evidence of a healthy discourse that is moving western society forward (as other posters on here appear to), it seems instead to discredit legitimate and necessary criticism leading to (as we are now seeing) a similar reaction from the right.
Regarding 'woke'; you have to use language to describe phenomena, it is nothing more than that. I put it in quotation marks because it is a contested term.
Back now to the cleaning...
We're moving to a different specific example, and staying off "woke" generalisations, which is good. The specific complaint is people thinking western society to be uniquely bad and in this way dangerously undermining that society. I think there is something in this, but this is as much a right wing populist thinking as left wing. And as right wing populists are either in power or close to it (Trump etc) they are far more dangerous than their left wing counterparts who aren't.
Not wishing to split hairs over all this, but I am careful in my posts not to make generalisations about the 'woke'. I am referring to thinking that is categorised this way, so it is caveated. Some parts of 'woke' are more constructive than others. But essentially I agree your diagnosis of the problem, only I would reiterate an earlier point I made, that it took the emergence of the 'woke right' for people to really perceive the dangers of the 'woke left'. I would also reject the idea that the right is more dangerous than the left because it is 'in power', I think it can be positive for the 'far right' to be in power where it reduces polarisation - the example of this that I use is Finland and its experience over the past 20 years where the far right were accepted in coalition governments, in comparison to Sweden - where they tried to shun the Sweden Democrats and now have enormous problems.
Er... from 7:51 this morning:
"The objection to much 'woke' thinking is that it is not constructive as it starts from the premise that western civilisation is evil and beyond redemption."
An evidence-free generalisation, surely?
The word 'much' is a caveat.
Much of the sentence I quoted is a generalisation ;-)
I flick through the news channels from time to time. I don't think GB News is the awful thing it's made out to be. Some of the presenters are quite annoying and I don't get how it complies with Ofcom when they give so much space to Tory MPs and Reform/Farage. However it serves a purpose in being prepared to deal with subjects that the BBC/SKY run a mile from e.g trans fundamentalism, antisemitism and ethnic divisions.
With your rather strange obsession with anti semitism have you thought about trying for a job as the Simon Weisenthal Centre?
It is rather shocking that so many Jews no longer feel very safe in Britain, are thinking of leaving and in a culture obsessed with minority rights feel largely abandoned. We also see police afraid to arrest those preaching antisemitic hate for fear of causing a riot whilst at the same time they took down pictures posted of hostages in the name of community cohesion. If you cannot see the double standards/unfairness in all that you are either too blinkered or stupid for us to bother engaging with each other.
At least the police did turn out in force to protect attendees at Tracy Ann Oberman's Merchant Of Venice so I suppose cultural events can continue proceed with a semblance of normality. I've never heard of SWC.
So you're not Jewish as if I needed to ask. Pity I've got some good 'anti semite' jokes as in 'Did I meet an anti semite' but you wouldn't get them. I've yet to meet a group of people who are better at telling jokes about themselves. If there are any Jews out there I have recently read one of the funniest books ever written....which I'll give you the title on request
There is a lot of truth in this article. I remember helping out the Tory candidate in the Birmingham Hodge Hill by-election in 2004 and being told that we shouldn't deliver in one neighbourhood as it was a 'no-go area because of all the immigrants.'
Never one to avoid a challenge, my wife and I delivered said area. I'm pretty sure very few of them were going to vote Tory but we were met with politeness and no hostility. Yet the 'no-go' myth was being created and is now in full bloom.
Unfortunately, speeches such as Sunak's yesterday only serve to reinforce the idea that we have wholly separate communities where others dare not tread.
One of my formative political experiences was delivering conservative leaflets in a 'no-go' area with my father, a Council estate. We would get chased by dogs and have stuff thrown at us.
I was being educated on 'why the socialists must never get in to power'.
According to the Telegraph, Rishi yesterday - apparently in response to tge Rochdale by-election - urged Britain to come together against the poisons of right wing extremism and Islamic extremism.
How has he managed to get right wing extremism into this? One of the features of British politics over the past decade has been the notable absence of the far right compared to elsewhere in the west, especially given the conditions which might be expected to give rise to it. It seems to be some sort of shibboleth "but don't forget the far right are just as bad/dangerous/big a threat". They just aren't. Tommy Robinson and 400 drunken idiots are nothing like the same scale of threat as radical Islam. The number of murders carried out by radical Islam over the past two decades must be about 200 times greater than that carried out by the far right. Conflating the two just isn't credible.
There is a steady stream of White, far right wannabe bombers. I think MI5 must be running the website they download instructions from since they are generally charged with preparing rather than doing. This from Tuesday:-
Far-right extremism occupies about a quarter of MI5/police time, despite the lack of bombs and rampages.
I come to the unhappy conclusion that white-British people are just useless at terrorism, and like other parts of the economy extremists from overseas have filled the gap.
Yet another symptom of poor educational standards (particularly Chemistry) in UK schools.
New Labour's fault for banning the Anarchist Cookbook, clearly...
That got officially banned? I think every student in the early days of the internet had a copy of it, just because.
There is a lot of truth in this article. I remember helping out the Tory candidate in the Birmingham Hodge Hill by-election in 2004 and being told that we shouldn't deliver in one neighbourhood as it was a 'no-go area because of all the immigrants.'
Never one to avoid a challenge, my wife and I delivered said area. I'm pretty sure very few of them were going to vote Tory but we were met with politeness and no hostility. Yet the 'no-go' myth was being created and is now in full bloom.
Unfortunately, speeches such as Sunak's yesterday only serve to reinforce the idea that we have wholly separate communities where others dare not tread.
One of my formative political experiences was delivering conservative leaflets in a 'no-go' area with my father, a Council estate. We would get chased by dogs and have stuff thrown at us.
I was being educated on 'why the socialists must never get in to power'.
According to the Telegraph, Rishi yesterday - apparently in response to tge Rochdale by-election - urged Britain to come together against the poisons of right wing extremism and Islamic extremism.
How has he managed to get right wing extremism into this? One of the features of British politics over the past decade has been the notable absence of the far right compared to elsewhere in the west, especially given the conditions which might be expected to give rise to it. It seems to be some sort of shibboleth "but don't forget the far right are just as bad/dangerous/big a threat". They just aren't. Tommy Robinson and 400 drunken idiots are nothing like the same scale of threat as radical Islam. The number of murders carried out by radical Islam over the past two decades must be about 200 times greater than that carried out by the far right. Conflating the two just isn't credible.
There is a steady stream of White, far right wannabe bombers. I think MI5 must be running the website they download instructions from since they are generally charged with preparing rather than doing. This from Tuesday:-
Far-right extremism occupies about a quarter of MI5/police time, despite the lack of bombs and rampages.
I come to the unhappy conclusion that white-British people are just useless at terrorism, and like other parts of the economy extremists from overseas have filled the gap.
Yet another symptom of poor educational standards (particularly Chemistry) in UK schools.
New Labour's fault for banning the Anarchist Cookbook, clearly...
That got officially banned? I think every student in the early days of the internet had a copy of it, just because.
It's what they get teenage islamists or fascists on if they can't make any of the real charges stick.
(Every boy in my school had a copy of the PDF in the late 1990s)
I flick through the news channels from time to time. I don't think GB News is the awful thing it's made out to be. Some of the presenters are quite annoying and I don't get how it complies with Ofcom when they give so much space to Tory MPs and Reform/Farage. However it serves a purpose in being prepared to deal with subjects that the BBC/SKY run a mile from e.g trans fundamentalism, antisemitism and ethnic divisions.
They spew antivax bollocks and antisemitism on a regular basis.
Jewish group criticises GB News host over ‘dangerous conspiracy theory’
Beverley Turner tweeted that Covid ‘causes less harm to certain ethnicities – east Asians, and Ashkenazi Jews (Fauci anyone?)’
Jewish group and MPs urge GB News to stop indulging conspiracy theories Fears antisemitic tropes are being spread after host Neil Oliver discusses plan to impose ‘one-world government’
O/t, but I've just had an email from something called the General Federation of Trade Unions. I've never heard of this before; obviously I know about the Trade Union Congress.
I flick through the news channels from time to time. I don't think GB News is the awful thing it's made out to be. Some of the presenters are quite annoying and I don't get how it complies with Ofcom when they give so much space to Tory MPs and Reform/Farage. However it serves a purpose in being prepared to deal with subjects that the BBC/SKY run a mile from e.g trans fundamentalism, antisemitism and ethnic divisions.
They spew antivax bollocks and antisemitism on a regular basis.
Jewish group criticises GB News host over ‘dangerous conspiracy theory’
Beverley Turner tweeted that Covid ‘causes less harm to certain ethnicities – east Asians, and Ashkenazi Jews (Fauci anyone?)’
Jewish group and MPs urge GB News to stop indulging conspiracy theories Fears antisemitic tropes are being spread after host Neil Oliver discusses plan to impose ‘one-world government’
There is a lot of truth in this article. I remember helping out the Tory candidate in the Birmingham Hodge Hill by-election in 2004 and being told that we shouldn't deliver in one neighbourhood as it was a 'no-go area because of all the immigrants.'
Never one to avoid a challenge, my wife and I delivered said area. I'm pretty sure very few of them were going to vote Tory but we were met with politeness and no hostility. Yet the 'no-go' myth was being created and is now in full bloom.
Unfortunately, speeches such as Sunak's yesterday only serve to reinforce the idea that we have wholly separate communities where others dare not tread.
One of my formative political experiences was delivering conservative leaflets in a 'no-go' area with my father, a Council estate. We would get chased by dogs and have stuff thrown at us.
I was being educated on 'why the socialists must never get in to power'.
Dogs vote Labour?
Not just in Barking
We have some bark at the Moon howlers on here. I do fear if care in the community is rescinded by some future government, Matron will restrict internet access and our number will be greatly depleted. Woof, woof.
O/t, but I've just had an email from something called the General Federation of Trade Unions. I've never heard of this before; obviously I know about the Trade Union Congress.
Yet the only major tax cuts Hunt has pushed through this parliament have been to national insurance which workers pay but pensioners don't, so the main benefit went to workers. However still no poll reward. Yes more homes could be built to get more under 40s on the housing ladder but the Conservatives lost them even in 2019 when they won a landslide nationally.
The Tories also need pensioners still as they are their core vote, without them they risk extinction. Whether they can win back 40 to 65 year old swing voters in opposition largely depends on the state of the economy under Labour
"...tax cuts Hunt..." has to be typed with care. Incoming taxes on huts anyone?
Good afternoon everyone.
I don't see the Tories going for "build more homes."
They had a half-decent record on that, but burnt it all down not very long ago when they abandoned targets for Councils as one of their Hail Mary Passes in search of votes.
I also don't know yet what is happening with uprating of pensions, benefits etc in line with inflation or slightly better - it's Sunk and Hunt, so I won't believe the promise from the autumn until I see it.
I flick through the news channels from time to time. I don't think GB News is the awful thing it's made out to be. Some of the presenters are quite annoying and I don't get how it complies with Ofcom when they give so much space to Tory MPs and Reform/Farage. However it serves a purpose in being prepared to deal with subjects that the BBC/SKY run a mile from e.g trans fundamentalism, antisemitism and ethnic divisions.
They spew antivax bollocks and antisemitism on a regular basis.
Jewish group criticises GB News host over ‘dangerous conspiracy theory’
Beverley Turner tweeted that Covid ‘causes less harm to certain ethnicities – east Asians, and Ashkenazi Jews (Fauci anyone?)’
Jewish group and MPs urge GB News to stop indulging conspiracy theories Fears antisemitic tropes are being spread after host Neil Oliver discusses plan to impose ‘one-world government’
O/t, but I've just had an email from something called the General Federation of Trade Unions. I've never heard of this before; obviously I know about the Trade Union Congress.
I flick through the news channels from time to time. I don't think GB News is the awful thing it's made out to be. Some of the presenters are quite annoying and I don't get how it complies with Ofcom when they give so much space to Tory MPs and Reform/Farage. However it serves a purpose in being prepared to deal with subjects that the BBC/SKY run a mile from e.g trans fundamentalism, antisemitism and ethnic divisions.
They spew antivax bollocks and antisemitism on a regular basis.
Jewish group criticises GB News host over ‘dangerous conspiracy theory’
Beverley Turner tweeted that Covid ‘causes less harm to certain ethnicities – east Asians, and Ashkenazi Jews (Fauci anyone?)’
Jewish group and MPs urge GB News to stop indulging conspiracy theories Fears antisemitic tropes are being spread after host Neil Oliver discusses plan to impose ‘one-world government’
Mr. 43, taking something at face value is unwise. The Ministry of Truth was not concerned with propagating the truth. The 'diversity' (unless it's Wakanda in which case an ethno-state is super awesome) agenda has been used as one of the many failings of Rings of Power, as it bastardises an Anglo-Saxon/English mythology (the specific reason Tolkien wrote LotR* as the English didn't have tales to compare to Norse or Greek myth), and revises and falsifies history (most infamously with Cleopatra in the Netflix 'documentary').
*The special irony here is that if the muppets in charge knew Middle-Earth better they could've just had the story focused in Harad or Rhun, perhaps telling the tale of the fall of a powerful leader to become a Nazgul. They could even, with Black Numenoreans, have had canonically accurate white bad guys.
Possibly. History is littered with good intentions corruptly applied. Nevertheless, @darkage was talking about premises people start from and that was the point I addressed.
Also "woke" really isn't a useful thing, except as an insult that usually says more about the person making it than the target.
The point I was making is the premise of much 'woke' thinking is that western society is inherently and uniquely evil, of which there is a long tradition on the left. The recent evolution is that it now tries to perpetrate this by avoiding debate and relying instead on emotive claims relating to identity.
This comment from a Labour MP in 2020 was a particularly revealing moment:
"We must not fetishise “debate” as though debate is itself an innocuous, neutral act. The very act of debate in these cases is an effective rollback of assumed equality and a foot in the door for doubt and hatred."
In reality, the left make a lot of good criticisms about Western Society which were previously shut down and went unaired. But the hatred of the west that has been around for the last four years goes too far. The contradictions are too many for me to take seriously. IE: zero acknowledgement of the fact that the British abolished slavery and colonialism as well as partaking in it. No interest in modern day slavery in the middle east. No interest in Xinjiang but obsessed with Palestine. Obsession with racial violence in the US but no interest in ongoing Windrush deportations. All this is held together by a simplified light v dark, good v evil narrative of which any questioning is 'a foot in the door for doubt and hatred'.
I don't see this as evidence of a healthy discourse that is moving western society forward (as other posters on here appear to), it seems instead to discredit legitimate and necessary criticism leading to (as we are now seeing) a similar reaction from the right.
Regarding 'woke'; you have to use language to describe phenomena, it is nothing more than that. I put it in quotation marks because it is a contested term.
Back now to the cleaning...
We're moving to a different specific example, and staying off "woke" generalisations, which is good. The specific complaint is people thinking western society to be uniquely bad and in this way dangerously undermining that society. I think there is something in this, but this is as much a right wing populist thinking as left wing. And as right wing populists are either in power or close to it (Trump etc) they are far more dangerous than their left wing counterparts who aren't.
Not wishing to split hairs over all this, but I am careful in my posts not to make generalisations about the 'woke'. I am referring to thinking that is categorised this way, so it is caveated. Some parts of 'woke' are more constructive than others. But essentially I agree your diagnosis of the problem, only I would reiterate an earlier point I made, that it took the emergence of the 'woke right' for people to really perceive the dangers of the 'woke left'. I would also reject the idea that the right is more dangerous than the left because it is 'in power', I think it can be positive for the 'far right' to be in power where it reduces polarisation - the example of this that I use is Finland and its experience over the past 20 years where the far right were accepted in coalition governments, in comparison to Sweden - where they tried to shun the Sweden Democrats and now have enormous problems.
I would be very wary of working with people who we know undermine our society.
But how do you know that is what they are trying to do - aren't they just trying to put across their point of view in a democracy?
I was perplexed in 2011 why the Finns seemed to be extremely accommodating to the 'True Finns', thinking they were being foolish in pandering to the far right. But 13 years on it makes sense.
I'm losing track of this discussion. I thought people intending to undermine western society are supposed to be dangerous, and now maybe they're not and should be given a pass?
Anyhow. I'll set out my stall. The house of liberalism has many mansions. Most people on this forum can claim a room, even though we have political disagreements, but there are house rules. This includes acceptance that others may do things differently and have different views; acceptance of legitimately arrived at decisions that you wouldn't have chosen; respect for the law and a minimum of other necessary constraints; respect for civic and democratic institutions. If you do that, welcome; if not you're destroying what is important to me and I need to oppose you
Agree. The question about whether the far right should be involved in government is a slightly different one and I acknowledge there isn't always a simple answer.
I would however also comment in passing that the failure to observe some of your points set out above is what drives scepticism of the 'woke left'.
Yes, I wonder why people in civilised countries are turning away from the cancerous Russian view of the world.
This has a horrible sense of foreboding about it. Russia is going to keep pushing, and there’s going to be a proper war against most of Europe. It’s quickly going to mean UK and EU troops and airmen getting involved.
According to the Telegraph, Rishi yesterday - apparently in response to tge Rochdale by-election - urged Britain to come together against the poisons of right wing extremism and Islamic extremism.
How has he managed to get right wing extremism into this? One of the features of British politics over the past decade has been the notable absence of the far right compared to elsewhere in the west, especially given the conditions which might be expected to give rise to it. It seems to be some sort of shibboleth "but don't forget the far right are just as bad/dangerous/big a threat". They just aren't. Tommy Robinson and 400 drunken idiots are nothing like the same scale of threat as radical Islam. The number of murders carried out by radical Islam over the past two decades must be about 200 times greater than that carried out by the far right. Conflating the two just isn't credible.
There is a steady stream of White, far right wannabe bombers. I think MI5 must be running the website they download instructions from since they are generally charged with preparing rather than doing. This from Tuesday:-
Far-right extremism occupies about a quarter of MI5/police time, despite the lack of bombs and rampages.
I come to the unhappy conclusion that white-British people are just useless at terrorism, and like other parts of the economy extremists from overseas have filled the gap.
Yet another symptom of poor educational standards (particularly Chemistry) in UK schools.
New Labour's fault for banning the Anarchist Cookbook, clearly...
That got officially banned? I think every student in the early days of the internet had a copy of it, just because.
Yeah, the Terrorism Act 2000 made it illegal to possess items that might be useful to a terrorist, and that's been found on multiple occasions since to include the AC.
The most recent notable case was that on Ben John, who was instructed by the judge to go 'read some classic literature' (er, the AC is a classic!). His two year suspended sentence was judged unduly lenient on appeal so was upgraded to two years in prison and a year on licence: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-60051861
I certainly read it as a teenager - perhaps even after it had been banned - so I too retain vague memories of how to build a crap hand grenade by filling a tennis ball with match heads...
"The town was poorer and became racially and economically divided, despite all people from all backgrounds being Rochdalians. Race isn’t the true division, poverty is."
Very well put. Almost all racism stems from poverty or division resulting from poverty.
This reminds me of an argument I had with my dad one evening 35 years ago. He was criticising Indian & Pakistani communities in London, that they were living 15 or 20 people to a small house. I responded that it wasn't because they were Indian, it was because they were poor. They weren't choosing to live in such crammed conditions, it was because they couldn't afford anything better.
The reason why I remember this so well is the next morning my dad acknowledged that he had been wrong about this. He had obviously been thinking about it overnight, and as a teenager I was proud to have influenced the politics of my father.
you fucking moron
Usama Bin Laden was the son of a billionaire. He didn’t want to kill us all because he was poor
I flick through the news channels from time to time. I don't think GB News is the awful thing it's made out to be. Some of the presenters are quite annoying and I don't get how it complies with Ofcom when they give so much space to Tory MPs and Reform/Farage. However it serves a purpose in being prepared to deal with subjects that the BBC/SKY run a mile from e.g trans fundamentalism, antisemitism and ethnic divisions.
They spew antivax bollocks and antisemitism on a regular basis.
Jewish group criticises GB News host over ‘dangerous conspiracy theory’
Beverley Turner tweeted that Covid ‘causes less harm to certain ethnicities – east Asians, and Ashkenazi Jews (Fauci anyone?)’
Jewish group and MPs urge GB News to stop indulging conspiracy theories Fears antisemitic tropes are being spread after host Neil Oliver discusses plan to impose ‘one-world government’
"The town was poorer and became racially and economically divided, despite all people from all backgrounds being Rochdalians. Race isn’t the true division, poverty is."
Very well put. Almost all racism stems from poverty or division resulting from poverty.
This reminds me of an argument I had with my dad one evening 35 years ago. He was criticising Indian & Pakistani communities in London, that they were living 15 or 20 people to a small house. I responded that it wasn't because they were Indian, it was because they were poor. They weren't choosing to live in such crammed conditions, it was because they couldn't afford anything better.
The reason why I remember this so well is the next morning my dad acknowledged that he had been wrong about this. He had obviously been thinking about it overnight, and as a teenager I was proud to have influenced the politics of my father.
you fucking moron
Usama Bin Laden was the son of a billionaire. He didn’t want to kill us all because he was poor
He wanted to kill us all because he was an Arsenal fan.
Piers Morgan, Jeremy Corbyn, and Osama Bin Laden all Arsenal, close that club down.
Plus with their Visit Rwanda sponsorship they really should be declared a proscribed organisation.
According to the Telegraph, Rishi yesterday - apparently in response to tge Rochdale by-election - urged Britain to come together against the poisons of right wing extremism and Islamic extremism.
How has he managed to get right wing extremism into this? One of the features of British politics over the past decade has been the notable absence of the far right compared to elsewhere in the west, especially given the conditions which might be expected to give rise to it. It seems to be some sort of shibboleth "but don't forget the far right are just as bad/dangerous/big a threat". They just aren't. Tommy Robinson and 400 drunken idiots are nothing like the same scale of threat as radical Islam. The number of murders carried out by radical Islam over the past two decades must be about 200 times greater than that carried out by the far right. Conflating the two just isn't credible.
There is a steady stream of White, far right wannabe bombers. I think MI5 must be running the website they download instructions from since they are generally charged with preparing rather than doing. This from Tuesday:-
Far-right extremism occupies about a quarter of MI5/police time, despite the lack of bombs and rampages.
I come to the unhappy conclusion that white-British people are just useless at terrorism, and like other parts of the economy extremists from overseas have filled the gap.
Yet another symptom of poor educational standards (particularly Chemistry) in UK schools.
New Labour's fault for banning the Anarchist Cookbook, clearly...
That got officially banned? I think every student in the early days of the internet had a copy of it, just because.
Yeah, the Terrorism Act 2000 made it illegal to possess items that might be useful to a terrorist, and that's been found on multiple occasions since to include the AC.
The most recent notable case was that on Ben John, who was instructed by the judge to go 'read some classic literature' (er, the AC is a classic!). His two year suspended sentence was judged unduly lenient on appeal so was upgraded to two years in prison and a year on licence: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-60051861
I certainly read it as a teenager - perhaps even after it had been banned - so I too retain vague memories of how to build a crap hand grenade by filling a tennis ball with match heads...
IIRC the referrals to the Prevent programme (programme trying to catch extremists before they become terrorists amongst other things, referred by teachers etc of "at risk" individuals) has more "far right" referrals than Islamist referrals.
According to a quick lookup, there are ~6000 referrals per annum, or 15-20 per day.
O/t, but I've just had an email from something called the General Federation of Trade Unions. I've never heard of this before; obviously I know about the Trade Union Congress.
"The town was poorer and became racially and economically divided, despite all people from all backgrounds being Rochdalians. Race isn’t the true division, poverty is."
Very well put. Almost all racism stems from poverty or division resulting from poverty.
This reminds me of an argument I had with my dad one evening 35 years ago. He was criticising Indian & Pakistani communities in London, that they were living 15 or 20 people to a small house. I responded that it wasn't because they were Indian, it was because they were poor. They weren't choosing to live in such crammed conditions, it was because they couldn't afford anything better.
The reason why I remember this so well is the next morning my dad acknowledged that he had been wrong about this. He had obviously been thinking about it overnight, and as a teenager I was proud to have influenced the politics of my father.
you fucking moron
"Listen to the fool's reproach. It is a kingly title."
Yes, I wonder why people in civilised countries are turning away from the cancerous Russian view of the world.
This has a horrible sense of foreboding about it. Russia is going to keep pushing, and there’s going to be a proper war against most of Europe. It’s quickly going to mean UK and EU troops and airmen getting involved.
We know that, but that is largely because we have as a country and continent opted to fail to put the measures in place to stop it. There was a good paper by one of the Baltic State Governments suggesting that the level of support needed is around 0.25% of Western GDP. The current UK number is around 0.1%.
On top of that - and I'll give the UK credit for being first and maintaining rhetorical support - we have the Sholz performance and similar. And then we can add in Mr Trump, and "America First" as promoted by MAGA.
We have overall done a decent job of persuading Mr Putin that he can succeed.
You say that, but I think within 10 years people will go to jail for allowing their young children unfettered access to social media and smartphones. (Probably not in the UK).
I work in IT and I would say that there is a great deal to worry about. I have seen the online world grow from the days of USENET.
This is because the “internet” isn’t just a clear, undistorted window on the world. The main paths of access, especially for the young, are social media apps.
There is an internet adage - if something is free, you are the product.
These apps distort the world view they present, deliberately, to outrage, to anger, to enthuse. To drive more clicks.
The radicalisation problem (should) be well known - many such platforms will recommend more aggressive views and media than whatever you are looking at now. This creates a spiral where the viewer “self radicalises” - though it is done to them, in part.
The populist movements, which many here decry, are driven by similar mechanisms. This was brilliantly parodied in Death To 2020 - with the polite, middle class soccer mom who spouts fascism acquired online.
An American friend, with a PhD in Art History from St Andrews and a New Yorker reader, fell down this rabbit hole and ended up a Trump voter.
Does anybody believe Sunak can get Bradied before the GE? They would need to find a suicide bomber who could unhorse the little shit while being prepared to be PM for just the 4-5 weeks of the campaign after which their political career would be over and they would be an Asda car park trolley shepherd.
Does that tory MP exist? Probably not, therefore Sunak is safe and he can leave the GE as long as he likes.
I don't think having a candidate lined up is a necessary condition to ditch Richi. Some (perhaps many) will think it couldn't get any worse...
But if you want someone shameless enough to apply for the gig, I give you Liz Truss...
"The town was poorer and became racially and economically divided, despite all people from all backgrounds being Rochdalians. Race isn’t the true division, poverty is."
Very well put. Almost all racism stems from poverty or division resulting from poverty.
This reminds me of an argument I had with my dad one evening 35 years ago. He was criticising Indian & Pakistani communities in London, that they were living 15 or 20 people to a small house. I responded that it wasn't because they were Indian, it was because they were poor. They weren't choosing to live in such crammed conditions, it was because they couldn't afford anything better.
The reason why I remember this so well is the next morning my dad acknowledged that he had been wrong about this. He had obviously been thinking about it overnight, and as a teenager I was proud to have influenced the politics of my father.
You don't think religious affiliation plays a part?
"The town was poorer and became racially and economically divided, despite all people from all backgrounds being Rochdalians. Race isn’t the true division, poverty is."
Very well put. Almost all racism stems from poverty or division resulting from poverty.
This reminds me of an argument I had with my dad one evening 35 years ago. He was criticising Indian & Pakistani communities in London, that they were living 15 or 20 people to a small house. I responded that it wasn't because they were Indian, it was because they were poor. They weren't choosing to live in such crammed conditions, it was because they couldn't afford anything better.
The reason why I remember this so well is the next morning my dad acknowledged that he had been wrong about this. He had obviously been thinking about it overnight, and as a teenager I was proud to have influenced the politics of my father.
you fucking moron
Usama Bin Laden was the son of a billionaire. He didn’t want to kill us all because he was poor
So someone who has empathy for the poor is "a fucking moron".
What is a person who sells his soul to far right billionaires in order to spread their particular brand of hatred and bile?
I won't use your vernacular but I think it would rhyme with "ducking hunt".
Still at least you spend a few hours closer to the front of the plane. At their expense, eh?
I flick through the news channels from time to time. I don't think GB News is the awful thing it's made out to be. Some of the presenters are quite annoying and I don't get how it complies with Ofcom when they give so much space to Tory MPs and Reform/Farage. However it serves a purpose in being prepared to deal with subjects that the BBC/SKY run a mile from e.g trans fundamentalism, antisemitism and ethnic divisions.
With your rather strange obsession with anti semitism have you thought about trying for a job as the Simon Weisenthal Centre?
It is rather shocking that so many Jews no longer feel very safe in Britain, are thinking of leaving and in a culture obsessed with minority rights feel largely abandoned. We also see police afraid to arrest those preaching antisemitic hate for fear of causing a riot whilst at the same time they took down pictures posted of hostages in the name of community cohesion. If you cannot see the double standards/unfairness in all that you are either too blinkered or stupid for us to bother engaging with each other.
At least the police did turn out in force to protect attendees at Tracy Ann Oberman's Merchant Of Venice so I suppose cultural events can continue proceed with a semblance of normality. I've never heard of SWC.
I've acknowledged that but is the problem on the same scale? No.
To be honest, I do not think there is much to be gained here. It is not as if either form of attack is all right provided the other side comes off worse.
I flick through the news channels from time to time. I don't think GB News is the awful thing it's made out to be. Some of the presenters are quite annoying and I don't get how it complies with Ofcom when they give so much space to Tory MPs and Reform/Farage. However it serves a purpose in being prepared to deal with subjects that the BBC/SKY run a mile from e.g trans fundamentalism, antisemitism and ethnic divisions.
With your rather strange obsession with anti semitism have you thought about trying for a job as the Simon Weisenthal Centre?
It is rather shocking that so many Jews no longer feel very safe in Britain, are thinking of leaving and in a culture obsessed with minority rights feel largely abandoned. We also see police afraid to arrest those preaching antisemitic hate for fear of causing a riot whilst at the same time they took down pictures posted of hostages in the name of community cohesion. If you cannot see the double standards/unfairness in all that you are either too blinkered or stupid for us to bother engaging with each other.
At least the police did turn out in force to protect attendees at Tracy Ann Oberman's Merchant Of Venice so I suppose cultural events can continue proceed with a semblance of normality. I've never heard of SWC.
I've acknowledged that but is the problem on the same scale? No.
To be honest, I do not think there is much to be gained here. It is not as if either form of attack is all right provided the other side comes off worse.
Indeed, which is what the Chief Rabbi has said.
I cannot imagine why Frank Booth keeps on repeatedly minimising anti Muslim hatred.
You say that, but I think within 10 years people will go to jail for allowing their young children unfettered access to social media and smartphones. (Probably not in the UK).
I work in IT and I would say that there is a great deal to worry about. I have seen the online world grow from the days of USENET.
This is because the “internet” isn’t just a clear, undistorted window on the world. The main paths of access, especially for the young, are social media apps.
There is an internet adage - if something is free, you are the product.
These apps distort the world view they present, deliberately, to outrage, to anger, to enthuse. To drive more clicks.
The radicalisation problem (should) be well known - many such platforms will recommend more aggressive views and media than whatever you are looking at now. This creates a spiral where the viewer “self radicalises” - though it is done to them, in part.
The populist movements, which many here decry, are driven by similar mechanisms. This was brilliantly parodied in Death To 2020 - with the polite, middle class soccer mom who spouts fascism acquired online.
An American friend, with a PhD in Art History from St Andrews and a New Yorker reader, fell down this rabbit hole and ended up a Trump voter.
St Andrews has produced weird right wingers for a long time.
Comments
Marcus Rashford. "Who I Am'
https://www.theplayerstribune.com/posts/marcus-rashford-premier-league-manchester-united-football-england
Does that tory MP exist? Probably not, therefore Sunak is safe and he can leave the GE as long as he likes.
Last time I was in Southampton, I chatted to a man who remembered when the area was dominated by a cable works, making subsea cables that used to be run out across the road and straight onto the ships! Now it's the shopping centre. The air used to stink of the chemicals used in making the cables.
Solent Sky is well worth a visit IMO. A small but good museum, well worth a couple of hours.
Edit: you can see the changes in the coastline here:
https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=16.0&lat=50.89637&lon=-1.40901&layers=257&right=ESRIWorld
"The objection to much 'woke' thinking is that it is not constructive as it starts from the premise that western civilisation is evil and beyond redemption."
An evidence-free generalisation, surely?
The obvious recent one was Red Wall Theory, which I think came in after 2015. Add socially conservative northerners to the existing Conservative coalition and you get a landslide. Which you do, as long as you don't repel socially liberal southerners. Worked in 2017 and 2019 against Corbyn, not working so well now the other shoe has dropped.
But the other phase was what happened in the early Blair years. Bright young things had to be a bit unusual to form a right wing political view of the world. Not necessarily bad, just statistically odd. The political generation after Cameron/Gove etc. The ones in charge now.
So all this, including Brexit, is Blair's fault really, for winning so big in 1997 and 2001.
Given the Tories have near zero chance of winning the next general election but there is a significant risk of Reform overtaking the Tories as the main party of the right, their primary task is to avoid the latter for the foreseeable future.
Unless the economy is seriously poor under the likely next Labour government the Conservatives are unlikely to be looking to win a general election again for some time
And there's the very small chance they could become a hero of the right by reducing the losses or even pulling off a remarkable victory. If Tory losses are less than expected, they might get to stay on as LOTO even if Labour win.
No shortage of volunteers imo. The issue is few would be able to gather enough support amongst Tory MPs, who have little or nothing to gain from a coup.
The word 'much' is a caveat.
They can help the Tories to win a clear majority but they are not enough on their own even to be the main Opposition party let alone the government
The words he's saying they make sense but the way he delivers them, it's like he's been told to be more "caring" but it comes across very condescending instead.
The dribbling is conjecture unless you've been previously doused at a PB meet.
I was perplexed in 2011 why the Finns seemed to be extremely accommodating to the 'True Finns', thinking they were being foolish in pandering to the far right. But 13 years on it makes sense.
Turns out that they were actually using figures for B'ham, Alabama - the correct number for the city in the West Midlands was 1.6
The incorrect post was heavily upvoted while the later correction was almost completely ignored. An innocent mistake which has done just as much harm as a deliberate attempt to misinform.
Never one to avoid a challenge, my wife and I delivered said area. I'm pretty sure very few of them were going to vote Tory but we were met with politeness and no hostility. Yet the 'no-go' myth was being created and is now in full bloom.
Unfortunately, speeches such as Sunak's yesterday only serve to reinforce the idea that we have wholly separate communities where others dare not tread.
The prices in Waitrose nowadays mean I have to shop elsewhere.
At least the police did turn out in force to protect attendees at Tracy Ann Oberman's Merchant Of Venice so I suppose cultural events can continue proceed with a semblance of normality. I've never heard of SWC.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGeQKoGUstRAofJvqrsVtIqT--snAp3F2
I was being educated on 'why the socialists must never get in to power'.
How fiscal picture for Spring Budget deteriorated - and with it hopes of game-changing package of tax cuts
* Senior govt figures say OBR is ‘killing’ Tory plans; one suggests they are ‘group of left wing economists’ intent on ‘screwing’ Tories
* Tensions between No 10 & No 11 as Sunak micro-manages every line of Budget. ‘The joke among officials is that Hunt is the most impotent chancellor in history and can’t even spend £5 million without getting it signed off by No 10’
* Housing measures out despite public lobbying from Michael Gove - any money available will be spent on NI cuts
* Discussions this weekend on whether to further cut public spending profile - would free up extra £5bn but leave Tories open to accusations of austerity 2.0
https://x.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1763887319663149071?s=20
I am one of a diminishing number of one nation conservatives and admit I am flexible on my views but that has to be an asset not a negative in political life otherwise you just become tribal
As far as being an old whatever I accept that I am now one of 5 posters on this forum in their 80s but if it hadn't been for my consultant cardiologist and in his words, without my recent pacemaker I may not have survived beyond the summer so more than likely not been a voter
I do find it difficult when the old are disrespected for no real reason
The Tell Mama charity has documented 2,010 Islamophobic incidents in the UK since 7 October, when Hamas’s murderous attack triggered the war with Israel. This compares with 600 such incidents in the same period in the previous year.
https://www.economist.com/interactive/uk-general-election/build-a-voter
Apparently I am probably going to vote Tory (50% chance) whereas the chance in fact is about 0.01%, even though I have done so for 50 years.
Jewish group criticises GB News host over ‘dangerous conspiracy theory’
Beverley Turner tweeted that Covid ‘causes less harm to certain ethnicities – east Asians, and Ashkenazi Jews (Fauci anyone?)’
https://amp.theguardian.com/media/2023/jul/18/jewish-group-criticises-gb-news-host-beverley-turner-over-dangerous-conspiracy-theory
Jewish group and MPs urge GB News to stop indulging conspiracy theories
Fears antisemitic tropes are being spread after host Neil Oliver discusses plan to impose ‘one-world government’
https://amp.theguardian.com/media/2023/feb/08/jewish-groups-urge-gb-news-to-stop-indulging-conspiracy-theories
"The town was poorer and became racially and economically divided, despite all people from all backgrounds being Rochdalians. Race isn’t the true division, poverty is."
Very well put. Almost all racism stems from poverty or division resulting from poverty.
This reminds me of an argument I had with my dad one evening 35 years ago. He was criticising Indian & Pakistani communities in London, that they were living 15 or 20 people to a small house. I responded that it wasn't because they were Indian, it was because they were poor. They weren't choosing to live in such crammed conditions, it was because they couldn't afford anything better.
The reason why I remember this so well is the next morning my dad acknowledged that he had been wrong about this. He had obviously been thinking about it overnight, and as a teenager I was proud to have influenced the politics of my father.
Anyhow. I'll set out my stall. The house of liberalism has many mansions. Most people on this forum can claim a room, even though we have political disagreements, but there are house rules. This includes acceptance that others may do things differently and have different views; acceptance of legitimately arrived at decisions that you wouldn't have chosen; respect for the law and a minimum of other necessary constraints; respect for civic and democratic institutions. If you do that, welcome; if not you're destroying what is important to me and I need to oppose you
(Every boy in my school had a copy of the PDF in the late 1990s)
I've never heard of this before; obviously I know about the Trade Union Congress.
Does it mean anything to anybody?
I don't see the Tories going for "build more homes."
They had a half-decent record on that, but burnt it all down not very long ago when they abandoned targets for Councils as one of their Hail Mary Passes in search of votes.
I also don't know yet what is happening with uprating of pensions, benefits etc in line with inflation or slightly better - it's Sunk and Hunt, so I won't believe the promise from the autumn until I see it.
Ofcom need to get their act together before the election proper commences
I frankly don’t believe there is a 25% chance of you voting Tory
I would however also comment in passing that the failure to observe some of your points set out above is what drives scepticism of the 'woke left'.
I am not very convinced by their model!
The most recent notable case was that on Ben John, who was instructed by the judge to go 'read some classic literature' (er, the AC is a classic!). His two year suspended sentence was judged unduly lenient on appeal so was upgraded to two years in prison and a year on licence: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-60051861
I certainly read it as a teenager - perhaps even after it had been banned - so I too retain vague memories of how to build a crap hand grenade by filling a tennis ball with match heads...
JOHN NICOLSON M.P.
.........;.But Galloway is neither a progressive nor “left wing” - he’s a Tory voting, Brexit supporting, social conservative.
Usama Bin Laden was the son of a billionaire. He didn’t want to kill us all because he was poor
Piers Morgan, Jeremy Corbyn, and Osama Bin Laden all Arsenal, close that club down.
Plus with their Visit Rwanda sponsorship they really should be declared a proscribed organisation.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/arsenal/3016918/Osama-bin-Ladens-Highbury-days.html
According to a quick lookup, there are ~6000 referrals per annum, or 15-20 per day.
https://www.poolre.co.uk/new-statistics-show-increase-in-prevent-referrals/
Israel is right to defend itself, Hamas must be extirpated
On top of that - and I'll give the UK credit for being first and maintaining rhetorical support - we have the Sholz performance and similar. And then we can add in Mr Trump, and "America First" as promoted by MAGA.
We have overall done a decent job of persuading Mr Putin that he can succeed.
This is because the “internet” isn’t just a clear, undistorted window on the world. The main paths of access, especially for the young, are social media apps.
There is an internet adage - if something is free, you are the product.
These apps distort the world view they present, deliberately, to outrage, to anger, to enthuse. To drive more clicks.
The radicalisation problem (should) be well known - many such platforms will recommend more aggressive views and media than whatever you are looking at now. This creates a spiral where the viewer “self radicalises” - though it is done to them, in part.
The populist movements, which many here decry, are driven by similar mechanisms. This was brilliantly parodied in Death To 2020 - with the polite, middle class soccer mom who spouts fascism acquired online.
An American friend, with a PhD in Art History from St Andrews and a New Yorker reader, fell down this rabbit hole and ended up a Trump voter.
But if you want someone shameless enough to apply for the gig, I give you Liz Truss...
What is a person who sells his soul to far right billionaires in order to spread their particular brand of hatred and bile?
I won't use your vernacular but I think it would rhyme with "ducking hunt".
Still at least you spend a few hours closer to the front of the plane. At their expense, eh?
I cannot imagine why Frank Booth keeps on repeatedly minimising anti Muslim hatred.