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The Dangers of Oppositionalism – politicalbetting.com
The Dangers of Oppositionalism – politicalbetting.com
Shall I tell you a story. It’s an American story, but it’s generally applicable. In the US, there was once a President called Barack Obama.
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A good threader, with a point well made.
Doubt either US party will listen to a word of it
I met Sunak in 2020 and was genuinely impressed by his warmth and normality. The Sunak who is now Leader of the Opposition is the same man.
Once he became PM something crazy happened to him, transforming the nice Rishi into the idiot disaster Rishi.
I tend to be a bit more “well it’s the opposition’s job to oppose.. and if they won’t who will?” However, I think the difference is between thoughtful opposition and knee jerk opposition. Which is I think more what you are getting at here. And in some respects knee jerk opposition reflects the coarsening and infantile nature of mainstream politics in places like the UK and USA.
I often wonder how much the media (both social media and mainstream media) is to blame for this; arguments increase eyeballs. Gotcha moments can make a “journalist” and it is easy TV (and balance) to set one against the other. In that environment is it any wonder we get the politicians we do. Even the ok/good ones wisely just rigidly stick to the sound bite at risk of being pilloried for a so called “gaffe.”
I don’t want a world where two or three people simply agree with each other. But, a world where they can disagree without being talked over or attacked for who they are not what they said. Fat chance of that happening mind.
If that lot came into my old shop we would code yellow it and get our copy of the Sale of Goods Act out
https://news.sky.com/story/more-than-100-migrants-face-being-in-uk-illegally-as-care-agency-is-stripped-of-ability-to-endorse-visas-13178490
One fact jumps out:
There are more than 116,000 companies listed as "approved sponsors", able to recruit people to come to the UK.
Whilst I don't think the entire shebang should be subbed out to say G4S, how on earth does a department as dysfunctional as the Home Office possibly keep tabs on 116,000 different companies effectively arranging visas ?!
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8n7Sqfh0Yo&t=2056s
For example, PB's own NPxMP could be chosen by his tribe (lefty animal lovers?) to be their WM (Witan Member) at the next Witenagemot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witan
"Muhammad claims he paid £19,000 to a recruitment agent before being sent a certificate of sponsorship and job offer from Renaissance Personnel."
How much abuse of the social care visa system is there going on - potential employees should never in a million years be paying a "recruiter".
#UnrequitedLoveSucksWellActuallyTheresNoSuckingOhGodINeedToStopTyping
The key clue (as eminent psephologist* Sherlock Holmes might say) being the "TRUMP Pence" Democratic-Blue campaign buttons.
*Erudite and/or psychotic PBers may be familiar with Sir A. Conan Doyle's lesser-known work, "The Mystery of the Disappearing Tory Majority".
Yes
EDIT: this is why we have immigration at 1% of population.
https://x.com/JamesCleverly/status/1813580742586401040?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet
Oh dear, what a shame, etc.
Or is that too soon?
https://twitter.com/trussliz/status/1813532558791176615?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet
Yes, interesting piece, @rcs1000 and more than a fair point.
The point of Opposition is not to blindly oppose but to hold the Government to account - to scrutinise and ask questions across the range of government activities but more important to participate in and help improve the quality of governance itself.
I remarked this morning how supporting a political party had become almost like supporting a football team. My Party, Right or Wrong, isn't a good way to run a plural democracy. To be fair, there have been times when opposition parties have supported the Government - often in times of crisis - and they get no political dividend from it.
Look how far ahead the Conservatives were in 2020 and the early part of 2021 during the Covid episode but to simply oppose for the sake of opposing is foolish in extremis. No one party has the monopoly on good or bad ideas.
If the Conservatives are simply going to spend the next four years saying no to everything the Government implements (even if it was a policy they themselves originally proposed) it's not going to go well. Of course, there's always this desperate desire in Opposition to find a policy or area where they can be "different" to the Government, a distinctive area which they can claim as their USP at the next election but you don't win on a USP - you win by looking like a Government, acting like a Government and thinking like a Government.
Starmer and some (not all) of his Shadow Ministers did that.
Meet the new swamp
Same as the old swamp
When I was young (early 1980s), my family were not particularly into music. But culturally, Elvis Presley seemed very visible. Even if you did not hear his music, you would see references to him in many places, from pop to film. This seemed to be the case all the way up to the 1990s.
I just asked my son (ten yo) and a couple of his friends about Elvis and the Beatles. They had heard of the Beatles, and could name a few songs of theirs, but they had not heard of Elvis; and the only song they knew of his was the PSB cover of 'Always on my Mind'.
Has Elvis's cultural significance waned, or do I just have a poor sample of kids.
I can see I am guilty of Oppositionalism (Oppositionism?) at times - I will try to bear this in mind in future because I think you make a good point.
See when Trump said that Europe should increase defence spending and reduce dependence on Russian gas.
At least some people now admit it:
Looked at from where we are now (and this is hardly the most important facet of the global crisis), and all things considered, it’s probably time to admit that Donald Trump was right. Right, that is about one thing, if only one thing, which is that Germany completely has totally and completely (to use a Trumpism) messed up its energy and security policy – and that has made it much harder to save Ukraine.
Make no mistake, Trump was a monster; a national security risk; a friend to Putin; inhumane; he threatened Volodymyr Zelensky that he’d delay military aid to Ukraine unless he dished dirt on Hunter Biden. He did plenty wrong. Trump was generally bad for America and the rest of the world; but when he came to the Nato meeting in Brussels in 2018 and was rude to the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, you have to admit the-then president was prescient.
Chillingly so, actually. He said that the Germans (and other Europeans) were getting over-reliant on Russia for energy; and that they weren’t spending enough on their own defence. Goodness, how we mocked his boorish ways, his undiplomatic language and crude analysis; yet Germany and the EU ought to have heeded his warnings. For now we can’t slap an embargo on Russian oil and gas – and stop funding Putin’s war machine – because we’d crash the European economy.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/donald-trump-merkel-germany-ukraine-war-b2041226.html
A drug has increased the lifespans of laboratory animals by nearly 25%, in a discovery scientists hope can slow human ageing too.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cv2gr3x3xkno
No political relevance whatsoever...
Baz Luhrmann's excellent biopic from a couple of years ago did bring him back into focus for younger generations though.
That’s not to say I wouldn’t settle for mental.
There was a bizarre appearance of one with Gordon Brown in 2010:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/gordon-brown-joined-on-the-general-election-217026
Political parties have a duty to manage their opposition constructively, not fuel it destructively.
I suppose it’s always happened to some extent since recorded music began. But I think Elvis is the biggest so far.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LxYZMUiEyw
Whereas the Beatles went from a seemingly lightweight pop act to credible heavyweight cultural behemoths, bowing out at somewhere near the peak still of their powers. Abbey Road, the final album they recorded, is up there. Get Back has rehabilitated the reputation of Let It Be, the last thing they released.
Hepworth and Ellen posit that to truly endure you need a good story, an element of tragedy. So, Lennon. For my generation, the suicide of Kurt Cobain. James Dean remains an icon, but I’ve never seen any of his films.
I suppose Elvis’s story is tragic in one way, but in another it’s deeply naff. Getting fat and dying on the bog doesn’t really do it, does it?
They ain't stupid. But they are somewhat confused, methinks (being one of 'em, sorta) and also whipsawed by politicos, journos, etc., etc., etc.
Are there windows in Russian swimming pools?
The problem with New Labour is while the intelligentsia, left and right, tended to loathe it most voters quite liked it. Hence Blair won 3 general elections, Cameron won 2 moving to follow New Labour policies and even Boris was basically ideologically New Labour plus Brexit when he won in 2019. While Starmer also won by moving away from Corbynism back to Blairism
I'm happy to say that the ban on new offshore exploration is a bloody daft idea for reasons well set out on PB.
I'm also totally against the planned splurge of housebuilding on green field sites.
Doesn't stop me being Labour.
Judge each issue on its merits irrespective of which side proposed it or what your 'wing' generally thinks of it. In the modern world with all its connectivity at our finger tips there is no excuse for anyone with a reasonable interest in politics and in the future of their country, not to do a bit of basic research and form their own independent opinion.
This is really just another example of how parties damage our democracy. My party right or wrong is just as dumb as my country right or wrong.
It's now clear the Conservative Party was in a state of near political collapse when Sunak called the election and put them out of our misery.
We don't mind if a Tory government "steals" our policies , if they are policies that benefit the country.
But Labour would rather hide their good policies in opposition, in case the Tories use them.
That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point. And so, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof,” she told ABC News on Tuesday.
This can't be true, can it? The roof upon which snipers were stationed had a much more severe slope.
I went out with a girl in the early 80s when at University who adored Elvis. But I can't really remember coming across anyone else like that. I fear that the long decline in Las Vagas and the older Elvis damaged his image. Early Elvis was electric.
In their field I think Elvis does not possess that (not least he isn't good enough or interesting enough) and possibly some Beatles work does. Other candidates: Sinatra, Joni Mitchell. The next 150 years will tell our great grandchildren the answer.
There are methods and equipment to operate safely on any slope of roof. Given the Secret Service’s job, they should have tons of rooftop trained people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_9QOy0xoDI
Most people probably have an idea of his music but won’t really know absolute corkers like “In the Ghetto” or “Suspicious minds”.
https://x.com/ppollingnumbers/status/1813628025591984211
As far as we know, based on the fact that millions who accepted at the time that the war was necessary because of the WMD threat now realise how wrong the war was, the Tories and most Labour MPs would not have voted to go to war based on the truth if Blair, PM and leader of the Labour Party, had decided to share the truth with Parliament.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkKvuPU6b18
And they're still ruling out a wealth tax on multi millionaires & billionaires.
And they're still actively keeping children in poverty.
No wonder the Blue and Red Tories were all smiles at the Kings Speech
It’s a fair comment. That’s excellent.