Senate The UK Politics discussion

ender ive explained to you many times that as a leftist im pretty skeptical of national separatist movements and yet you keep ascribing this rampant scots independence boner to me just because i point out your unhinged and counterfactual take on the whole thing. it's pretty transparent

 

When you say something that matters to the British political landscape in general and to the general election specifically, I shall give it appropriate attention. Not before.

 

Yes, I've no idea how other cultures work and haven't accounted for this ever. And you've been a really good mod and have had lots of smart and useful things to say.

Now can the Americans please **** off and discuss their increasingly irrelevant political experiment in the two threads you must arrogantly have?

 

Oh a tax cut eh Dave? Thought we're supposed to be skint, then again it's amazing what you and George find down the back of the sofa, a billion here, a billion there.

I expect little to change as a result of this election. The same rotten edifice will remain, the same corporations will continue to hoover up contracts that the government foolishly procures without care and ministers will continue to be irresponsible. Hell, they'll all continue to be baffled by the notion of an expenses system that requires receipts! Nor do I expect Labour or the Tories to cease their assault on those disabled who dare to apply for benefits to help them live from the state.

 

Sounds like the same scenario as here; there's practically little difference between the major parties except perhaps the way they talk. Some sound better educated or more posh than others.

I would expect that either side will have to tackle the question of Europe though? Hard to imagine that the UK/EU partnership will not go under a proverbial microscope.

 

If the Tories get it, Europe may become quite explosive politically - as the party is becoming more anti-EU, well the antis have the higher media profile but business, the party's big backer, would be against exiting the EU. At least the big employer orgs CBI and so forth. Then again, it was May who put forth the notion that foreign students should bugger off back to their own country after finishing their degree to which the business response was, politely: What the hell!? Could there be a massive schism develop between these two allied power blocs? Potentially.

If Milband somehow acquires a pair of political balls - and Ed Balls doesn't count - and stops being so damn timid, maybe it'll get more interesting, but so far there's no sign of it.

I really have only one political desire and that is for the head of Iain Duncan Smith to be roasted on a bonfire with all his accursed and idiotically wasteful policies. I'd love for someone to estimate the amount of extra cost his 'reforms' have inflicted upon the NHS, I suspect the level of wasted funds and extra costs would run to the billions.

What none of the current occupants of the Palace of Westminster have appeared to understand is how much they are still despised by the populace 5 years on from the 2010 expenses scandal. That sense of disdain and contempt won't start to change until they actually address those sins instead of continually trying to escape them by system chicanery

 

Entertaining as it would be to reopen the Independence thing, I'm not going there again!

 

IDS is minister for work and pensions so not sure what his "reforms" have to with the NHS? Perhaps you mean Andre Lansley who was Health Secretary?

 

What I'm getting at is the idea that all that's been done is to transfer costs from one dept to another.

So IDS gets to cut his benefits bill, but he does by stripping it from people that need it - and have the proof that they do. That in turn greatly exacerbates their existing conditions, thus they end up requiring medical aid, which is far more expensive than the cost of the benefits stripped from them, but as the NHS pays that, it doesn't show up on the DWP budget. Times that on a scale of a few hundred thousand affected and you get quite a cost impact on the NHS that should have been entirely avoided.

It's all a sick game of pass the parcel, or in this case, costs.

 

Question is, are they (the electorate) contemptuous enough to vote for a post-Blair Labour party? Polling suggests two things to me; one, that the kind of centrist liberalism that defined Blair's rule and that was more pragmatic than ideological is close to what voters want in spirit, and two that Labour without that centrist appeal isn't, well, appealing. Labour retreats to the old, slightly mothballed cardigan of vague-left politics and the Greens vote swells? Hmmm. No, coincidence.

 

Ah, I see what your getting at. now.

I do think some of the welfare reforms are quite good. The basic principle that work should always pay more than benefit's is a good one, IMO.

But as always there is bad within the good - The "bedroom tax" is a nightmare of a policy for example. Have been VERY surprised that wasn't dropped a couple of years ago.

 

Has been five polls today:

Populus - Con 34% Lab 35% Lib-Dem 9% UKIP 13% Green 6% Lab Lead 1%

Lord Ashcroft: - Con 32% Lab 32% Lib-Dem 6%!!!!!!! UKIP 15% Green 9% [Tie]

Survation - Con 31% Lab 30% Lib-Dem 7%!!!!!! UKIP 23%!!!!!! Green 3% Con Lead 1%

ComRes - Con 31% Lab 30% Lib-Dem 8%!!!!! UKIP 17% Green 7% Con Lead 1%

YouGov - Con 34% Lab 33% Lib-Dem 6%!!!!! UKIP 15% Green 7% Con Lead 1%

Main thing's to take from these polls are that it is still very tight, but there is a very gradual trend for the Tories to be getting very slight leads now.

Labour has been in a slow decline since Spring 2013 and it would seem we've almost reached a point where Conservatives may take a very narrow overall polling lead.

That probably makes Tories favourites to get most seat's in May (but short of an overall majority)

UKIP and Green's still polling very well, but the Lib-Dem position is absolutely dreadful.

Whilst my expectation is that the Lib-Dems will stage a modest recovery up to the election and could retain half their seat's it goes without saying that on these sorts of numbers the Lib-Dems would be heading for oblivion and were they to poll 6% in the general election a "near extinction" event would certainly be on the cards.

 

Ender Sai, I have serious doubts as to whether 'Bagehot' has ever been to Sparkhill. Even if he did, shopkeepers are possibly not the most representative sample of sociopolitical opinion. Without a hint of irony he bemoans the Muslim 'ghetto' and casually mentions that it used to be predominantly Irish immigrants who settled there. The expectation that Muslims should form some sort of accountable central power with whom the government can communicate with is ludicrous.

Terrible article written by an antagonising ****. Please stop posting this pseudo-intellectual sub-Enoch Powell jingoistic claptrap. "...as immigrants from Somalia and Afghanistan dilute the existing South Asian stock." Very classy stuff.

G-FETT, we need to have a talk about apostrophes.

"Main thing's to take from these polls are" NO.
"...favourites to get most seat's in May" NO. NO, NO, NO.

Regarding the poles, I'll be surprised if the Libdems do that badly on the night.

Jedi Ben, the expenses thing doesn't seem to have touched Farrage. :/

 

So you skimmed the article eh, V2?

I suggest you go back and re-read it. Since Bagehot is not only celebrating the Muslim contribution to Britain but noting how the Muslim community itself becomes more diverse than its initial South Asian contingent by way of African and Eurasian migrants it's hard to agree with your initial assessment, however drunkenly it was formed.

 

*takes bait*

"EVEN as Eric Pickles, the communities minister, was drafting a plea to British imams for stronger, moderate leadership on January 16th, some were demonstrating the need for it. In their Friday sermons, many condemned the Paris killings of the previous week. Yet their condemnation was often qualified. Though only a tiny minority are jihadist sympathisers, Britain’s 2.8m Muslims are less temperate than they like to be considered."

Celebratory opening paragraph there. Unless your reading of it is that being intemperate is a positive thing.

"In mosques in Birmingham, London, Derby and elsewhere, Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons were condemned more fiercely than the massacre of its staff. In Birmingham and probably elsewhere, imams preached that the killers could not have been Muslims."
'Probably elsewhere', yeah probably. Those disgusting Islamismists preaching the one true Scotsman crap that Christians and nationalists and literally every other in-group NEVER do. Hurrah for Muslims!

"...there is still cause to worry about the mood and drift of Britain’s fastest-growing religious community."
The celebratory tone is overwhelming. Thank you Muslims for contributing to the British culture of paranoia!

"This is the context in which Mr Pickles’ amiable letter was sent. It praised British Muslims’ contribution to society. It did not spell out, but might have done, that they are well represented in ecumenical groups, are starting to produce admirable role models—especially in sport—and that they are no more radicalised than other European Muslims. Relative to the size of their community, there are reckoned to be more Belgian jihadists in Syria than there are Britons."
Those plucky little noble savages are starting to produce role models that privileged bigots can admire! Well done YOU! Especially in sport, just like the colonies and their cricket. It's wonderful that Bwitish sport can raise these humble tribespeople up.

Also **** you, Belgium. Nobody likes you.

"Nonetheless, Mr Pickles and his co-author Lord Ahmad, a Muslim peer, requested more help from the imams in “explaining and demonstrating how faith in Islam can be part of British identity”. That was also well judged."
Because let's not get ahead of ourselves. That paragraph was getting a little too woolly and liberal, let's get back to realism. And it's not bigoted, it can't be because a Muslim peer co-authored it (I expect a civilised CoE chap helped with the spelling, punctuation and grammar). And it's well judged because obviously the Muslamics operate through a rigid authority structure so you only need to speak to the clerics (they're basically in charge, like wise elders of the tribe), and because the whole British identity thing is a proper thing that's definitely an important, proper thing. Yay Muslims!

"British Muslims are diverse, in provenance and belief, and becoming more so, as immigrants from Somalia and Afghanistan dilute the existing South Asian stock. Many are prospering: the 50,000-strong Shia Ismaeli community is one of Britain’s best-connected. Yet many Muslims are poorly integrated into the liberal mainstream, culturally and, in the ghettos of Birmingham and Bradford, actually."
Diluting, like water. Always think of immigration in terms of water, it's always sets a logical, neutral tone for the argument. The steady trickle of immigration for those kinds of immigration we tolerate, for everyone else - floods of immigrants, the tide of immigration, rivers of blood, etc. It's an established rhetorical winner. And it's important to establish that integration is an important thing for Muslims just like it isn't for every other totally not artificial division in society. Ghettos in Bradford and Birmingham are totally a real thing, it's not a word like genocide that you can just use to exaggerate how awful you think something is. And the worst ghettos in Birmingham and Bradford are definitely Muslim, there's no need to dwell on the predominantly white estates rife with long term unemployment, crime, and rows of long shut down local shops.

"In the typically defensive attitude of Muslim leaders,"
Yay Muslims!

"they can also seem resolved to remain so. That is the context in which Mr Pickles’ letter was received. “Is Mr Pickles seriously suggesting, as do members of the far right, that Muslims and Islam are inherently apart from British society?” tutted a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, a large umbrella group. Plainly, he was not suggesting that."
Plainly. But you would expect that sort of hyperbolic and ignorant response from the dirty Mohammadinian Council of Bwitain.

"The Muslims living in the Sparkhill area of Birmingham, where Bagehot spent a day, are by their own admission a community apart. Sparkhill’s population is less than 10% white and 70% Muslim. The Irish pubs and grocers that once dominated the area have mostly closed. A rare survivor, Bournes, a family purveyor of “Irish turnips” and Clonakilty pudding, stands out among the curry shops like a memsahib in a harem."
Like a memsahib in a harem, geddit? It's like satire, I think.

Only a devious mind would think it's flippant or obnoxious use of language best belonging in an old Sinbad movie. Ah, the olden days, when coloured people were played by boot polished white actors, immigrants were white and Christian (Irish Catholic, but still) and spoke English (though who can honestly say they understand the accent? It's all fiddle dee dee ohoighrahghgh isn't it? I hear them talk sometimes and well you just don't know what they're saying do you, I mean they could be talking about the bomb they just planted and you'd never know, but at least with the Irish they make a warning phone call first).

"Bagehot finds this wonderful. It has made Sparkhill more colourful and no less welcoming or law-abiding than nearby white working-class areas. Yet the local leaders and businessmen he spoke to, working in jewellery and kebab shops, tended to view the Muslim preponderance as a problem."
Bagehot finds this wonderful, because let's not forget, ghettos are really great because who wants to live near smelly immigrants? But again, let's not get ahead of ourselves; we've celebrated the potential Taliban for 100% of this article so we need some balance. Let's address the Muslim Preponderance Problem.

That's a thing.

"They considered it indicative of British Muslims’ failure to crack on—richer Hindus have dispersed to Birmingham’s leafier suburbs. A couple also worried about the ignorance that introspection can breed, as reflected in the fact that around 40 Brummie Muslims are in prison for terrorism offences. That appears to make Birmingham Britain’s likeliest place to be radicalised, noted Jahan Mahmood, an historian. Some worried about how Sparkhill looked to outsiders. “I can see how people might come here, freak out, and say, ‘England is not English any more’,” said Mohammed Ali, a local artist, over a plate of masala cod and naan."
...After he was asked to say what he thought of racist people coming there and freaking out, obviously. I mean, if you can't just make quotes up the least one can do is ask a leading question to get the quote the article needs.

Let's celebrate Bwitish Muslims' failure to crack on!

"If the poverty of Sparkhill’s Muslims were the only reason for their inwardness, prosperity would fix it. Yet there are reasons—not least, Sparkhill’s many flash motors and other displays of wealth—to suggest that cultural conservatism is another factor."
Hooray for this rich ghetto!

"It is especially evident among second-generation British Muslims who, having abandoned their parents’ native language, food and clothing, often find in Islam a uniquely powerful immigrant identity. Mr Ali, a bearded 37-year-old whose relish for communal harmony coexists with conservative Muslim views, is a typical case. “Our parents were too busy working hard to think about religion much,” he says. “Our generation is saying: ‘I choose to be Muslim, this is how I make sense of the madness.’ ”"
They abandoned their parents' clicks and grunts, taste for human flesh, and grass skirts and coconut bras. But unlike their parents who past governments ensured would be paid less, they had more time to think about their evil, wicked faith in the false prophet and his blasphemous teachings.

"The suddenness of this cultural embrace shows. Britain’s born-again Muslims often have a sketchy grasp of their religion, and can be gulled."
The primitive mindset, you see. If only they understood their own religion like privileged white enlightened proper intellectuals.

"“There is a lot of confusion,” said Sajid Iqbal, a Pakistani journalist who has spent over a decade observing his British co-religionists. “Extremists are not nearly so well recognised as they are in Pakistan.” And there are plenty of them."
****LOADS of them. You should be scared. They will come for you while you sleep in your beds at night. Nothing will stop them. They want nothing less than the total destruction of our way of life.

Yay Musims!

"Getting their niqab in a twist"
Look, even a disabled lesbian ultramarxist suicide squad leader of the PC Brigade would recognise that we're laughing WITH Muslims, not at them. It's fine.

"Over 40% of British mosques are run, and most British imams schooled, in the Deobandi tradition, which tends to be hostile to integration. Hence the spread of the niqab, which some Deobandi preachers consider obligatory for women, in places such as Leicester where it was until recently uncommon. According to WikiLeaks, the American State Department’s former chief adviser on Muslim relations, Farah Pandith, considered Leicester’s Muslim community the most conservative in Europe."
See, WikiLeaks, I DUN MY RESEARCH. And that's a liberal site that the Americans want shut down so this article is mega balanced. This anonymous reporter claims to have spent a day in Sparkhill and a couple of minutes on the internet, that's more than most of those Stalinists at the Grauniad do in a year.

"Such cultural conservatism is tolerated in multicultural Britain, and many Muslims appreciate it. “This is the best country, you are free to pray, free to go to the mosque,” said Lal Muhammad, an Afghan selling phone cards in Sparkhill. Nor, as the Paris attacks suggest, is France’s unbending secularism necessarily superior. That suggests Mr Pickles’ polite request was, though worth making, not terribly likely to succeed. The inwardness and resentfulness of too many British Muslims will endure—at least until the second immigrant generation gives way to the third."
That's right, Pickles polite request was totally worth making and not unhelpful, or out of touch. It's only those despicably inward and resentful Muslims, who this article praises, who make the gesture completely pointless and irrelevant. But there's a glimmer of hope, the magic third generation that we've all decided is the one where we let your opinion matter.

 

The first thing you did was confuse someone saying a population is not as temperate as they might be with being accused of being intemperate. It went downhill from there into a collection of imagined slights, fabricated insults, and other such nonsense as you projected your own views onto the columnist.

I was going to ask you to read it objectively earlier but I feared that was asking too much. I see my instinct was correct on the matter. And you're a Green voter? I for one am shocked - the radical left are such intellectuals.

 

The thing you failed to do was recognise that you project your own biases onto it in exactly the same way. A better (and, I suspect, more honest) response would have been tl;dr. You keep failing to attack the arguments, instead opting to attack the person making them. Great for your ego, crap for having a decent argument.

You've confused "Britain’s 2.8m Muslims are less temperate than they like to be considered" with "a population is not as temperate as they might be", or rather you're dishonestly trying to. I may just be projecting my idea of an Ender Sai who's clever enough to do that, but considering your position in the sexism thread, I doubt you're quite as ignorant of the use of language as you're claiming to be.

Your half arsed rebuttal isn't really a solid defence of the crap article, or indeed valid.

 

Greens are radical left?

 

From a certain swivel eyed point of view.

 

not if you ask any self-identified leftists, no

 

mods plz change ender's avatar to lord monckton

 

Yes, Even. Why are you even asking this?

Their policy platform, even if you ignore the faction aligned to eco-socialism, is entirely consistent with a dictionary definition of radical or far-left politics.

What bias is that?

I've a sense that the situation in England, with respect to Muslims, is as follows:

1) Overstated in terms of perception of population vs total. If you want sources for this, just say
2) Causing concern for far-right entities like British National Party and populist right entities like UKIP.
3) There will be a shared experience in that second generation Muslims are identifying with Islam and radicalised Islam, and that we both have volumes of citizens fighting for IS and bringing or threatened to bring the ideology home, and
4) Probably hysterically overstated.

The piece then suggested to me that despite the worries of your BNPs and Pegida on the continent etc there is no swarm of Islamic migration to Britain; in fact, the notion that Muslims are homogeneous was disputed by the piece, noting the South Asian migrants formed a first tranche of migrants and Arabs, Eurasians and Africans are forming this new tranche.

The article also suggested that the Economist, which has never hid it's editorial preference for liberalism, feels more emphasis should be given to condemning the attacks on Charlie Hebdo than by suggesting the cartoon was provocative and that implicitly any response is understandable. If this is their bias, of course I share it. I've hardly hidden that.

If I misquoted you, fine but you know damn well that what the Economist said is not the same as saying they're intemperate. That was your projection there; looking for reasons to be offended and taking the first that caught your eye.

Let's assume for argument's sake that the truth is in between - my faith in the honest assessment vs your assumption it was insidious Islamophobia - your reaction would still be measured as extreme.

They're probably too busy working on that useful PhD in Marxist cinema and accusing others of selling out to offer an opinion anyway.

 

Depends. They aligned themselves in Europe with the anti-Stalinist communists on many issues and sat on the left in parliaments wherever they were elected. They also include some former communists in their ranks. Again, these former communists were home grown commies(anti-Stalinists).

In the U.S. it's different. Green Party is not a far left party. In fact, conservatives(if they really were truly conservative) would like some of their appeals to localism and elimination of corporate welfare.

edit: disclaimer: No, not all greens are commies. In fact, even greens who were communists are former communists for a reason: they don't necessarily adhere to Marxism but have embraced a broader social democratic platform.