politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Andy Burnham on 5Live showing that for him at least this ca

SeanT said:

The Far Right/Hard Right FPO leads by a distance in a new Austrian poll.

http://www.electograph.com/2015/08/austria-august-2015-unique-research-poll.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

At some point, one of these seriously right wing populist parties is going to take power in a European country, especially as the immigration crisis escalates. And then....

Hear the left's indulgers of anti-semites and terrorists howl in outrage. Hypocritical scumbags that they are.

SeanT said:

The Far Right/Hard Right FPO leads by a distance in a new Austrian poll.

http://www.electograph.com/2015/08/austria-august-2015-unique-research-poll.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

At some point, one of these seriously right wing populist parties is going to take power in a European country, especially as the immigration crisis escalates. And then....

The Swedish Democrats have gained considerable ground as well. This polling suggests the YouGov poll which had them in the lead might not have been as inaccurate as some suggested.

http://www.electograph.com/2015/08/sweden-august-2015-novus-poll.html

The_Apocalypse said:

RobD said:

The_Apocalypse said:

ydoethur said:

The_Apocalypse said:

JEO said:

Those pictures of Stalin on Trafalgar Square remind me how distasteful I find the British Hard Left, and all its equivocation about condemning the horrors of Stalinism and Islamism. I have read in detail about the deliberate starvations of the USSR, especially the targeting of the Kulaks and the Ukrainians. The photos from that time are truly harrowing. The Labour Party has tolerated the rot for far too long, and now the whole structure is collapsing. I'm glad there is some justice in this world.

What do you mean? You think the government should have no adequate opposition whatsoever?

The_Apocalypse said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

JEO said:

The Labour Party has tolerated the rot for far too long, and now the whole structure is collapsing. I'm glad there is some justice in this world.

To be fair, the Labour Party tried very hard to eradicate the rot over many years, and were almost successful. Unfortunately they left a few spores in a forgotten corner of their backbenches and one of these has sprouted into a monstrous growth which is now engulfing them.

People like Corbyn should have been de-selected as MPs.

That's roughly what I took JEO's post to mean, Mr Apocalypse. That the Labour party should have actively got rid of these weirdos when it had the chance - and because it had a sneaking regard for them, didn't and is now paying the price.

It is of course a disaster from the point of view of having an effective opposition.

Why does everyone think I'm a bloke?

On Labour, I doubt Mandelson, Campbell, Blair and Brown had a sneaking regard for people like Corbyn. Rather, after the Kinnock years I think they took things for granted and thought the hard left would never come back. But now it's back, when it gets defeated at the ballot box it'll be completely destroyed.

I think the default assumption is for posters to be male, given the ratio on here it is the most probable. It's especially difficult if you have non-gender specific handles

It's true that there is quite a lot of men on PB. The only female poster I can think of besides me, is Plato. I think men in general are more likely to be interested in politics, though. I wonder why that is?

Miss Cyclefree, Miss Fitalass, Miss Scotslass are regualrs

Occasional visitors are Miss Firefly, AnneJGP, LucyJones, BeverleyC, MrsB, TessC

malcolmG also likes to express his feminine side.

You're not totally alone.

Richard_Nabavi said:

HYUFD said:

One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter both Cash and Corbyn were elected

Sure, and as far as I'm concerned it's a free country, and if terrorist sympathisers and associates of those who support the ideology of mass murderers want to stand for election, that's democracy.

But that wasn't the question. The question was whether the Labour Party, which used to be a political party which aspired to government, was wise to allow its name to be associated with someone whose views are so extreme. It's an academic question now, of course, since it seems they're about to make him leader.

Many Labour members clearly share his views and no doubt some Tory members and MPs in the past supported Apartheid South Africa, all parties contain some with distasteful views, where do you draw the line?

philiph said:

SouthamObserver said:

I have described Nick Palmer and other Corbyn backers as useful idiots. I would like to apologise. To useful idiots. Like the rest of us, Nick and his mates know all about Jeremy Corbyn. But they voted for him snyway. Frankly, they sicken me. And if that's nasty, so be it. I think it is unforgiveable to put someone like Corbyn in charge of anything, let alone a party that aspires to power.

I feel for you SO.

What is so hard to understand is the road back from here, if you make a few assumptions:

Local parties will move left
Selections (for representatives on Council, Committees and everything else) will move left
MPs are in an invidious position:
Vote with Corbyn for party unity and they will have support for silly causes and positions dragged up as evidence of their stupidity ad infinitum. Vote against and they are traitors to the cause.

I suggest you start the SO party. It would be better than any current left of centre options.

I'm fine. I did the whole anti-far left thing in the 80s. Life's too short to do it again. The elecyorate will sort it out. And, quite frankly, a Labour party capable of electing Corbyn is really not worth caring about.

@The_Apocalypse I'm female. And so is Carlotta Vance I believe. And there have been others.

As for Burnham, whoever said he is Captain Scarlet should apologise. The only way he resembles Captain Scarlet is that however bad the situations he gets into, somehow he just keeps coming back, unkillable.
He's definitely from Thunderbirds. It's the eyebrows and the weird skin texture (the one time I saw him close up in the flesh his face appeared to be caked in concealer - what a metaphor!). Both muppet and puppet.

The_Apocalypse said:

@ydoethur It's always strange when you see David Owen on TV.

@isam Ah, so there's five of us then!

@RodCrosby That's one way of looking for it, but then women can be bitchy and competitive when they want to be so....

@RobD I've never thought of myself as a nerd, but I guess that's kind of cool, given that geeks and nerds are pretty smart people afterall. But yes, on PB many people appear to know the ins and outs of the most obscure areas of public life

Ok Roberta

Richard_Nabavi said:

HYUFD said:

One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter both Cash and Corbyn were elected

Sure, and as far as I'm concerned it's a free country, and if terrorist sympathisers and associates of those who support the ideology of mass murderers want to stand for election, that's democracy.

But that wasn't the question. The question was whether the Labour Party, which used to be a political party which aspired to government, was wise to allow its name to be associated with someone whose views are so extreme. It's an academic question now, of course, since it seems they're about to make him leader.

Well, IIRC, only recently Nick Palmer explained that he wanted a Labour party as left-wing as the general population would accept. So it's fairly clear he at least has only been fitting his expressed views within the socially-acceptable constraints. (@NickPalmer, hope I haven't mis-interpreted what you wrote.)

JEO said:

Perhaps we could analyse your posts to see if they come out as if they have been written by a man or by a woman... maybe you have a masculine writing style.

Maybe! It would be odd though, if that was the case.

The_Apocalypse said:

JEO said:

Perhaps we could analyse your posts to see if they come out as if they have been written by a man or by a woman... maybe you have a masculine writing style.

Maybe! It would be odd though, if that was the case.

The name The Apocalypse tends to set initial perceptions I'd suggest.

@Alanbrooke LOL at your comment on MalcomG!

@RobD True. Although my friends (and family, for that matter) know that I'm quite interested in politics.
Though I don't tell them I go on political blogs!

@HYUFD Not necessarily. I doubt most people know their local MPs' views.

@MTimT I get what you're saying now.

Plato said:

Ha!

SimonStClare said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

JEO said:

The Labour Party has tolerated the rot for far too long, and now the whole structure is collapsing. I'm glad there is some justice in this world.

To be fair, the Labour Party tried very hard to eradicate the rot over many years, and were almost successful. Unfortunately they left a few spores in a forgotten corner of their backbenches and one of these has sprouted into a monstrous growth which is now engulfing them.

A brilliant analogy. – We could dub Labour’s political death 'fungicide'.

Or is it that Carbyn is the fungicide?

The_Apocalypse said:

JEO said:

The_Apocalypse said:

@Richard_Nabavi I hope you're joking, there.

JEO said:

The_Apocalypse said:

JEO said:

Those pictures of Stalin on Trafalgar Square remind me how distasteful I find the British Hard Left, and all its equivocation about condemning the horrors of Stalinism and Islamism. I have read in detail about the deliberate starvations of the USSR, especially the targeting of the Kulaks and the Ukrainians. The photos from that time are truly harrowing. The Labour Party has tolerated the rot for far too long, and now the whole structure is collapsing. I'm glad there is some justice in this world.

What do you mean? You think the government should have no adequate opposition whatsoever?

I would definitely like an effective opposition. I would just prefer it was not the Labour Party. The Liberal Democrats, the SDP or UKIP would all be preferable. Labour for years have engaged in thoroughly nasty tactics like implying anyone who wanted to reduce immigration was a racist, yet refuse to condemn left-aligned actual racists their MPs regularly consort with. I'm afraid to say the party deserves what's coming to it.

Given UKIP has it's fair share of racists, the LDs dodgy hypocritical blokes on the issue of sexism I'm not sure they are that preferable. Do the SDP even still exist?

In my experience, if you speak to a typical UKIP activist about their racists, they say "It's exagerrated by the media, but yes, we have a few. It's unfortunate, but we do our best to kick them out." If you speak to a typical Labour activist about their racists, they say "well that comment was badly worded and I disagree with them, but that person isn't a real racist."

How many Labour people do you know that support kicking Diane Abbott out of the party?

The Labour people (and non-Labour, for that matter) don't really see Abbott as racist. I think part of that is racism is generally seen as white-on-ethnic minorities, as opposed to other way round. I only found out Abbott's views for example, in the last year or so.

And on UKIP, well they're doing a pretty bad job of it, if these racists get as far as BBC1/2.

Labour racists (like former active members of the Nazi party for instance) don't seem to hit the big time the way UKIP ones do. Perhaps they're just not photogenic enough.

Alanbrooke said:

The_Apocalypse said:

JEO said:

Perhaps we could analyse your posts to see if they come out as if they have been written by a man or by a woman... maybe you have a masculine writing style.

Maybe! It would be odd though, if that was the case.

The name The Apocalypse tends to set initial perceptions I'd suggest.

I was struggling to think of a username, and didn't like the sound of a very girly name, so I went with that. Also given what's happening to Labour, it is quite a fitting name.

Dair said:

Plato said:

twitter.com/NCPoliticsUK/status/636188214441680896

I don't really understand why Public Sector workers have the right to trike AT ALL.

The right to strike, indeed the impetus for trade unionism is to protect workers from exploitative bosses and to provide collective bargaining power. Public Workers have no such need whatsoever.

Every five years the people who pay their wages get to decide what their terms and conditions will be for the next five years when they elect a government. That should be enough.

Madder than a box of frogs. Anyone who lives in Scotland knows how oppressive the State can be as an employer. Just ask the teaching profession.

The_Apocalypse said:

MTimT said:

The_Apocalypse said:

notme said:

MTimT said:

Stupid statement from Burnham. This is such an obvious question, he should have had a prepared response. "We live in a modern society with equality of the sexes. Women have as much right to lead political parties as men. However, I am running because I think I am the person with the best ideas and the best chance to lead the Labour Party to victory in the next election." Simples

But he didnt, he used the kind of words that gets a Tory politician who doesnt know how to deal with harridans. Obviously Milibands top team knew perfectly well how to deal with them. they gave them a pink bus and sent them off to coffee mornings and 'baby and toddler' groups, while the men did all the hard work.

Wow, I feel sorry for any of the women in your life....

Apocalypse, to be fair to notme, I don't think those are words he would use himself in describing women. I believe he used 'harridan' to portray how the left view Tory views on women, and the second highlight is his dig at how the Labour Party treated women (both the public and women MPs) during the last election.

I've never heard anyone on the Left call Tory woman 'harridans' it's used the other way round more so than anything. Also, I didn't like the implication that Labour women weren't doing any hard work at all during the GE, while Labour men were. And that's coming from someone who didn't like the whole pink bus thing.

Am I the one missing something?
''to portray how the left view Tory views on women,'' not ''heard anyone on the Left call Tory woman 'harridans''
Can you not see the difference?
Frankly I think the notion of going round in a pink minibus to specifically promote women - it what I consider to be a totally bogus manner - deserves ridicule.
There is nothing condescending to women here except Labour's approach to them.

rullko said:

I see. So Blair was misleading us, but to believe he was doing so was insane.

As you seem to define "sane people" as "those who believe that British Prime Ministers don't tell lies", it's difficult to provide the citation you request. Perhaps Robin Cook will do: he said that "Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction", despite Blair's dossier stating that it was "beyond doubt" that it did. In other words, Blair was lying, though Cook was a bit too mainstream to say so explicitly.

No, he did not say, in other words or in any words, that Blair was lying. He said that he didn't believe the conclusion. It would have been perfectly possible for two honest men reading the same intelligence reports to come to different conclusions as to the likely truth about whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (although presumably Cook wouldn't have seen the intelligence reports after June 2001). If Blair had made an honest misjudgement, that would have been a different matter: intelligence is rarely completely unambiguous. But it wasn't an honest misjudgement, he was deliberately trying to deceive us and parliament. That is something that those of my generation (I was born in 1953) would never have believed possible, before Blair.

Plato said:

plus @SandraM and @AnneJGP

isam said:

The_Apocalypse said:

RobD said:

The_Apocalypse said:

ydoethur said:

The_Apocalypse said:

JEO said:

Those pictures of Stalin on Trafalgar Square remind me how distasteful I find the British Hard Left, and all its equivocation about condemning the horrors of Stalinism and Islamism. I have read in detail about the deliberate starvations of the USSR, especially the targeting of the Kulaks and the Ukrainians. The photos from that time are truly harrowing. The Labour Party has tolerated the rot for far too long, and now the whole structure is collapsing. I'm glad there is some justice in this world.

What do you mean? You think the government should have no adequate opposition whatsoever?

The_Apocalypse said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

JEO said:

The Labour Party has tolerated the rot for far too long, and now the whole structure is collapsing. I'm glad there is some justice in this world.

To be fair, the Labour Party tried very hard to eradicate the rot over many years, and were almost successful. Unfortunately they left a few spores in a forgotten corner of their backbenches and one of these has sprouted into a monstrous growth which is now engulfing them.

People like Corbyn should have been de-selected as MPs.

That's roughly what I took JEO's post to mean, Mr Apocalypse. That the Labour party should have actively got rid of these weirdos when it had the chance - and because it had a sneaking regard for them, didn't and is now paying the price.

It is of course a disaster from the point of view of having an effective opposition.

Why does everyone think I'm a bloke?

On Labour, I doubt Mandelson, Campbell, Blair and Brown had a sneaking regard for people like Corbyn. Rather, after the Kinnock years I think they took things for granted and thought the hard left would never come back. But now it's back, when it gets defeated at the ballot box it'll be completely destroyed.

I think the default assumption is for posters to be male, given the ratio on here it is the most probable. It's especially difficult if you have non-gender specific handles

It's true that there is quite a lot of men on PB. The only female poster I can think of besides me, is Plato. I think men in general are more likely to be interested in politics, though. I wonder why that is?

The only female posters I can think of are Plato, Cyclefree, MrsB and fitalass

Since the unmentionable person has gone, is this site more female friendly?

as for this IDS and LOTO believing Blair on WMD, maybe the issue was that Tories are more likely to be pro-taking direct action? I don't mean they are warmongers, just that they are very pro-high levels of defence spending, including pro-nuclear (as long as it is us and our mates who have the nukes) and feel it would be unmanly not to been seen to be prepared to be aggressive. So he was predisposed to want to believe in the need to go to war.

The Lib Dems, led by Charles Kennedy, didn't buy any of Blair's bluster. See this extract from Charles's speech to the anti-war rally in 2003:
"So I have joined you here today and I have been asking these questions for months in Parliament because I am not persuaded by the case for war. The arguments have been contradictory and inconsistent and the information has all too often been misleading as well as inconclusive."
You can read the full speech at http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/06/02/charles-kennedy-anti-iraq-war-speech_n_7490950.html

We were against the war at the time, despite all the crap thrown at us for it. I was chased down the street by an irate man shouting at me for being a useless traitor - who apologised to be 3 years later, admitting the Lib Dems had been right and we should not have gone to war.

isam said:

Alanbrooke said:

The_Apocalypse said:

JEO said:

Perhaps we could analyse your posts to see if they come out as if they have been written by a man or by a woman... maybe you have a masculine writing style.

Maybe! It would be odd though, if that was the case.

The name The Apocalypse tends to set initial perceptions I'd suggest.

The name of the last Star Wars story ft...

Still sleuthing away, I see

DavidL said:

Dair said:

Plato said:

twitter.com/NCPoliticsUK/status/636188214441680896

I don't really understand why Public Sector workers have the right to trike AT ALL.

The right to strike, indeed the impetus for trade unionism is to protect workers from exploitative bosses and to provide collective bargaining power. Public Workers have no such need whatsoever.

Every five years the people who pay their wages get to decide what their terms and conditions will be for the next five years when they elect a government. That should be enough.

Madder than a box of frogs. Anyone who lives in Scotland knows how oppressive the State can be as an employer. Just ask the teaching profession.

You have got to be kidding.

Teaching is probably the best example of the public sector wage largesse gone utterly insane. Especially the EIS in Scotland who quite happily strike for longer holidays and agree to give up a pay rise for three years then three years later strike again because they haven't had a pay rise for three years and then somehow get it.

If they are unhappy with their conditions it is up to them to get a political party to back their claims for more wages, more holidays, shorter hours, people to do their job for them (classroom assistants, a true WTF is wrong wit the public sector) and then get taxpayers (which they are not) to vote to elect a party proposing this.

The_Apocalypse said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Labour racists (like former active members of the Nazi party for instance) don't seem to hit the big time the way UKIP ones do. Perhaps they're just not photogenic enough.

Labour are letting in former Nazis?

Really?

Their vetting procedure really is rubbish.

The local Labour association knew of her neo-Nazi past.

http://www.miltonkeynes.co.uk/news/local/former-nazi-wins-a-labour-council-seat-1-3826439

They also have a bunch of councillors who are former BNP members.

Liz McInnes participated in campaigns run by Hope Not Hate or Stand Up To UKIP (can't remember which one) attacking UKIP yet is happy to ignore a local Labour councillor who was a member of the BNP.

http://nopenothope.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/heywood-middleton-labour-candidate-and.html

Labour are the party of hypocrisy.

Mrs B - the issue was the troops were in place and had been for weeks. The shooting was going to start the next day or soon after. There had been debates and resolutions and votes in the UN. There was intelligence - all kinds of intelligence. Frankly a big bear trap was being set by labour for the tories.
Frankly removing Saddam was the right thing to do. But the issue then moves on to how we behaved afterwards.
I am sure now following the leaks that one issue is the operations (or lack of them) of the British Army in Basra afterwards. Both the political and military decisions there leave a lot to be desired. I have a suspicion that people hoping for a smoking gun about the lead up to invasion will be disappointed.

Disraeli said:

The_Apocalypse said:

I've never heard anyone on the Left call Tory woman 'harridans' it's used the other way round more so than anything.

True. Sexist put-downs of women from a small minority of Tory Dinosaurs are totally unacceptable.

Mind you, the most vile abuse directed at any woman in politics has been (is still?) from the Left. Margaret Thatcher is still the #1 hate figure for some.

"The Feminists hate me, don't they? And I don't blame them. For I hate Feminism. It is poison!"
- M H Thatcher, as quoted by Paul Johnson in Failure of the Feminists, The Spectator, 12 March, 2011.

Plato said:

And @tessyC and @LucyJones

HurstLlama said:

isam said:

The_Apocalypse said:

RobD said:

The_Apocalypse said:

ydoethur said:

The_Apocalypse said:

JEO said:

Those pictures of Stalin on Trafalgar Square remind me how distasteful I find the British Hard Left, and all its equivocation about condemning the horrors of Stalinism and Islamism. I have read in detail about the deliberate starvations of the USSR, especially the targeting of the Kulaks and the Ukrainians. The photos from that time are truly harrowing. The Labour Party has tolerated the rot for far too long, and now the whole structure is collapsing. I'm glad there is some justice in this world.

snip

The_Apocalypse said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

JEO said:

The Labour Party has tolerated the rot for far too long, and now the whole structure is collapsing. I'm glad there is some justice in this world.

.

People like Corbyn should have been de-selected as MPs.

That's roughly what I took JEO's post to mean, Mr Apocalypse. That the Labour party should have actively got rid of these weirdos when it had the chance - and because it had a sneaking regard for them, didn't and is now paying the price.

It is of course a disaster from the point of view of having an effective opposition.

Why does everyone think I'm a bloke?

On Labour, I doubt Mandelson, Campbell, Blair and Brown had a sneaking regard for people like Corbyn. Rather, after the Kinnock years I think they took things for granted and thought the hard left would never come back. But now it's back, when it gets defeated at the ballot box it'll be completely destroyed.

I think the default assumption is for posters to be male, given the ratio on here it is the most probable. It's especially difficult if you have non-gender specific handles

It's true that there is quite a lot of men on PB. The only female poster I can think of besides me, is Plato. I think men in general are more likely to be interested in politics, though. I wonder why that is?

The only female posters I can think of are Plato, Cyclefree, MrsB and fitalass

I would think Beverley_C would be miffed if people thought her a bloke. There are other ladies who post from time to time (e.g. Firefly) , well there used to be.

@AnneJGP

Just because the US was ready to go didn't mean we had to join in.

Who knows how different the world might have been without the invasion of Iraq?

Luckyguy1983 said:

The_Apocalypse said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Labour racists (like former active members of the Nazi party for instance) don't seem to hit the big time the way UKIP ones do. Perhaps they're just not photogenic enough.

Labour are letting in former Nazis?

Really?

Their vetting procedure really is rubbish.

Not just letting them in, running for council seats with them: http://www.miltonkeynes.co.uk/news/local/former-nazi-wins-a-labour-council-seat-1-3826439

All in the past obviously.

UKIP are currently the only party that prohibits former BNP (and I assume anything even fruitier than that) members from joining - though obviously it's not always possible to stop them.

None Of The Above attracts some strange travellers. For often weird reasons.

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Disraeli said:

The_Apocalypse said:

I've never heard anyone on the Left call Tory woman 'harridans' it's used the other way round more so than anything.

True. Sexist put-downs of women from a small minority of Tory Dinosaurs are totally unacceptable.

Mind you, the most vile abuse directed at any woman in politics has been (is still?) from the Left. Margaret Thatcher is still the #1 hate figure for some.

"The Feminists hate me, don't they? And I don't blame them. For I hate Feminism. It is poison!"
- M H Thatcher, as quoted by Paul Johnson in Failure of the Feminists, The Spectator, 12 March, 2011.

Incidentally, the people who I see calling that a word that rhymes with witch are men, usually from the North. Not the most typical expectation of a feminist....

OldKingCole said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

The_Apocalypse said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Labour racists (like former active members of the Nazi party for instance) don't seem to hit the big time the way UKIP ones do. Perhaps they're just not photogenic enough.

Labour are letting in former Nazis?

Really?

Their vetting procedure really is rubbish.

Not just letting them in, running for council seats with them: http://www.miltonkeynes.co.uk/news/local/former-nazi-wins-a-labour-council-seat-1-3826439

All in the past obviously.

UKIP are currently the only party that prohibits former BNP (and I assume anything even fruitier than that) members from joining - though obviously it's not always possible to stop them.

None Of The Above attracts some strange travellers. For often weird reasons.

Labour aren't 'None of the above'.

LadyBucket said:

I'm a female poster chaps! The clue is in the name LADYBUCKET.

Too subtle for us!

MrsB said:

oh, and I am a feminist and I hated Thatcher. But no causal link, just the bit where the circles in the Venn diagram overlap.

Yep, I'm a feminist too. Though I don't hate Thatcher, I just don't like her that much and am not keen on her politics (to put it mildly).

Plato said:

And @tessyC and @LucyJones

And we might have kept some of those lady posters, and perhaps gained a few more, if it were not for the tolerance shown by those who should have known better for a very nasty misogynist who used to stalk this site.

Plato said:

Us Blues?

isam said:

RobD said:

isam said:

Alanbrooke said:

The_Apocalypse said:

JEO said:

Perhaps we could analyse your posts to see if they come out as if they have been written by a man or by a woman... maybe you have a masculine writing style.

Maybe! It would be odd though, if that was the case.

The name The Apocalypse tends to set initial perceptions I'd suggest.

The name of the last Star Wars story ft...

Still sleuthing away, I see

Haha impossible not to see!

The_Apocalypse • Posts: 1,540
August 13

"antifrank said:
The ancient Egyptians would have loved the internet."

Lots of cat videos...

The_Apocalypse said:

@Luckyguy1983 and @MP_SE

That's quite disappointing that Labour have done that. Then again, most political parties seem hypocritical one way of another. Certainly electing Corbyn is very hypocritical. Labour can't espouse beliefs on equality only to elect a man who associates with terrorists.

What has associating with terrorists got to do with beliefs in equality?

Hardly the most obvious opposites

isam said:

The_Apocalypse said:

@Luckyguy1983 and @MP_SE

That's quite disappointing that Labour have done that. Then again, most political parties seem hypocritical one way of another. Certainly electing Corbyn is very hypocritical. Labour can't espouse beliefs on equality only to elect a man who associates with terrorists.

What has associating with terrorists got to do with beliefs in equality?

Hardly the most obvious opposites

Hanging out with terrorists who most likely will have certain 'views' regarding say the role of women is hardly the done thing for an advocate of equality.

The_Apocalypse said:

@Alanbrooke LOL at your comment on MalcomG!

@RobD True. Although my friends (and family, for that matter) know that I'm quite interested in politics.
Though I don't tell them I go on political blogs!

@HYUFD Not necessarily. I doubt most people know their local MPs' views.

@MTimT I get what you're saying now.

For goodness sake everyone in the Peoples' Republic of Islington knows Corbyn's views

The_Apocalypse said:

isam said:

The_Apocalypse said:

@Luckyguy1983 and @MP_SE

That's quite disappointing that Labour have done that. Then again, most political parties seem hypocritical one way of another. Certainly electing Corbyn is very hypocritical. Labour can't espouse beliefs on equality only to elect a man who associates with terrorists.

What has associating with terrorists got to do with beliefs in equality?

Hardly the most obvious opposites

Hanging out with terrorists who most likely will have certain 'views' regarding say the role of women is hardly the done thing for an advocate of equality.

I don't think you can accuse Jezbollah of not believing in equality - divorcing your wife for sending your son to a grammar school is very much putting your money where your mouth is as far as equality goes. Callous sh*t certainly. Disbeliever in equality, no.

The_Apocalypse said:

isam said:

The_Apocalypse said:

isam said:

The_Apocalypse said:

@Luckyguy1983 and @MP_SE

That's quite disappointing that Labour have done that. Then again, most political parties seem hypocritical one way of another. Certainly electing Corbyn is very hypocritical. Labour can't espouse beliefs on equality only to elect a man who associates with terrorists.

What has associating with terrorists got to do with beliefs in equality?

Hardly the most obvious opposites

Hanging out with terrorists who most likely will have certain 'views' regarding say the role of women is hardly the done thing for an advocate of equality.

0/10 v poor answer

Have you suddenly become a teacher?

Prob about as likely as you being a 21yr old mixed race female student!

RobD said:

CarlottaVance said:

Meanwhile in Scotland: SAVE THE NHS FROM THE TORIES!!

Wait a minute, wasn't there just 48 hours to save the NHS, over a hundred days ago?? What happened??

It's a bit like Men In Black where agent Zed tells Will Smith there's always somebody trying to destroy the world in the next 60 minutes.

The_Apocalypse said:

isam said:

The_Apocalypse said:

isam said:

The_Apocalypse said:

@Luckyguy1983 and @MP_SE

That's quite disappointing that Labour have done that. Then again, most political parties seem hypocritical one way of another. Certainly electing Corbyn is very hypocritical. Labour can't espouse beliefs on equality only to elect a man who associates with terrorists.

What has associating with terrorists got to do with beliefs in equality?

Hardly the most obvious opposites

Hanging out with terrorists who most likely will have certain 'views' regarding say the role of women is hardly the done thing for an advocate of equality.

0/10 v poor answer

Have you suddenly become a teacher?

On a point of pedantry, Ms Apocalypse, we are not encouraged to mark out of 10. We are encouraged to highlight 'positives' and 'areas for improvement'. 'Two stars and a wish' or 'WWW and EBI' are the standard packages for doing so.

OFSTED still mark out of four of course, but they always were fifty years behind the times apart from a brief period when Woodhead was in charge and they were 500 years behind the times.

Luckyguy1983 said:

OldKingCole said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

The_Apocalypse said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

Labour racists (like former active members of the Nazi party for instance) don't seem to hit the big time the way UKIP ones do. Perhaps they're just not photogenic enough.

Labour are letting in former Nazis?

Really?

Their vetting procedure really is rubbish.

Not just letting them in, running for council seats with them: http://www.miltonkeynes.co.uk/news/local/former-nazi-wins-a-labour-council-seat-1-3826439

All in the past obviously.

UKIP are currently the only party that prohibits former BNP (and I assume anything even fruitier than that) members from joining - though obviously it's not always possible to stop them.

None Of The Above attracts some strange travellers. For often weird reasons.

Labour aren't 'None of the above'.

LibDems , UKIP and the Greens can be, though.

HurstLlama said:

@Sunil

"Britain killed millions around the world during the Colonial period."

Millions, Cap'n Comrade Doc? Really? You got some figures and sources t back up that claim?

I would have thought that with your scientific training you, of all posters on here, would actually have a grasp of numbers. There is quite a well known theory that most people can't envision a number bigger than seven, but the propensity of people to use "millions" when they mean "lots" and the modern day tendency to confuse billions with millions is something that gets my goat.

Avast, Mr Llama! You missed the joke!

Which was:

"EDIT - sorry, sorry! Did I really say that? Appears that My Tebbit Chip briefly malfunctioned!"

isam said:

The_Apocalypse said:

isam said:

The_Apocalypse said:

isam said:

The_Apocalypse said:

@Luckyguy1983 and @MP_SE

That's quite disappointing that Labour have done that. Then again, most political parties seem hypocritical one way of another. Certainly electing Corbyn is very hypocritical. Labour can't espouse beliefs on equality only to elect a man who associates with terrorists.

What has associating with terrorists got to do with beliefs in equality?

Hardly the most obvious opposites

Hanging out with terrorists who most likely will have certain 'views' regarding say the role of women is hardly the done thing for an advocate of equality.

0/10 v poor answer

Have you suddenly become a teacher?

Prob about as likely as you being a 21yr old mixed race female student!

So you've become a teacher then!

In all seriousness, why on earth do you think I'm some kind of liar? It's rare that someone young, female, and an from a BME background would be interested in politics, but it's not something impossible, and you seem to be asserting it is.

Then again in Kipper world only white men must be interested in politics....

OldKingCole said:

And, to be fair(!) to Saddam for mny years Iraq was a genuinely secular state, where, if one didn't make waves (etc) life was very similar to the West. That's not to say that the Iraqui Baaath party didn't come to power through vicious bloodshed.

Hmmmm:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dujail_Massacre

And there were rumours of other massacres too. One an old lecturer of mine told me about - whether it was true or hearsay I'm not sure - was where all the children in a village were lined up and machine-gunned, while their parents were forced to clap. Seems a strange thing to do, but I could believe it of Uday.