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woman in yellow, Nish Kumar
Astonishing isn't it, how much more impressive the non-politicians are on QT?
Whilst he can be funny and raises a lot of valid issues, I don't think Nish and his fellow panel-show / stand-up comedians should be on QT, certainly not every week. It brings too much levity and a lot of them just resort to gags / routines.
I think that if theres one positive to come out of this whole shambles its that surely absolutely nobody can be under any illusions any more about how utterly useles our 'political class' are, right the way across the board? Completely intellectually vacant, wilfully ignorant, totally self-serving and on a practical level; thoroughly inept and incompetent!
Seriously... can you think of a single one of them to emerge with anything positive worth saying about them? I'd say that there are a 2 or 3.... Dominic Grieve, Anna Soubry and maybe Kier Starmer.
The rest of them...? Dear God!
Seriously… can you think of a single one of them to emerge with anything positive worth saying about them? I’d say that there are a 2 or 3…. Dominic Grieve, Anna Soubry and maybe Kier Starmer.
David Lammy
The "political class" covers more than 2 parties and more than Westminster.
Fair point... David Lammy, for sure.
Whats been ruthlessly exposed is the vacuum at the top of both main parties. Chris Grayling is still Transport secratery, apparently secure in his job. And Dianne Abbott is what passes for a political heavyweight in the Labour Party. That tells you everything you need to know about where we are with our present 'frontbench' politics
Astonishing isn’t it, how much more impressive the non-politicians are on QT?
and
can you think of a single one of them to emerge with anything positive worth saying about them? I’d say that there are a 2 or 3….
Career politicians mainly whose main interest is in staying in a career in politics. I refuse to believe they are all as stupid as they can appear, but in an effort to keep their jobs and party positions, they just do what the whips tell them to. It's not intelligence, it's integrity to do the right things rather than the self-serving. And given that many (genuinely, i believe) went into politics to try to do good, where this gets derailed and they just become tied to the gravy train like all the rest, I don't know.
The ones who stand out, like the Yellow Lady, are not that much more intelligent if at all, but they are simply speaking what they believe instead of a finessed version of the party line.
On top of which - when the party line becomes so frustratingly and obviously indefensible, they then revert to PR tactics of listening to a question, offering a nothing answer followed by some linking words and then talking about whatever they want to anyway. ALL THE BLOODY TIME.
I'd like the press to say 'enough's enough' and when they won't answer clearly and unambiguously, refuse to give them the airtime, and instead just play suitable music (Benny Hill theme for example) over their answers.
I'd like the press to pull them up on it, and bully them into either giving a proper answer or refusing to answer at all - actual journalists doing their job, the press are in many ways complicit in the current mess.
Yvette Cooper did okay with her amendment to the finance bill. Backbench of course.
I’d like the press to say ‘enough’s enough’ and when they won’t answer clearly and unambiguously, refuse to give them the airtime, and instead just play suitable music (Benny Hill theme for example) over their answers.
the bbc should also stop playing devils advocate with "the Government would say blah blah" (as they did with the 1 in 5 children in food insecurity story). I'm sorry if the government are not prepared to defend their position in person with a minister it is not the job of the bbc to do it for them.
After watching Peter grant of the SNP just put the Tories in their place I'm not so sure the SNP shouldn't be running the country....not one of them had any regiments about what he just said...well no one who dare stand up and put their paper house argument against
The press are a lot more than complicit in my view ...
Whether that is the full blown "enemies of the people" campaigns or the slow drip feed of lies and misinformation over the last 30-40 years...
The trouble is the tail is wagging the dog... politicians should be prepared to steer/educate and inform the masses, stand up for what they believe in and persuade folks into understanding their position. However what they have to do is bend with the wind to keep a bunch of folk happy who have had their opinions handed to them by the media... (the right wing media is particularly bad but the left wing media are at it too)
That is one of the reasons why we have ended up where we are
I’d like the press to pull them up on it, and bully them into either giving a proper answer or refusing to answer at all – actual journalists doing their job, the press are in many ways complicit in the current mess.
Never seen Paxo doing this to Michael Howard way back when?
John Humphries does it all the time - the problem is that the average Joe 'soundbite/snippet' relier only remembers the first time something like this happens. So everyone (me included) only remembers the Michael Howard one when there have been hundreds of comparable incidences since. Granted that the Howard one was because Paxo had backed him into a corner where the only answer was yes/no so anything other than a definitive yes/no was obviously evasion.
If journos get too aggro the politicians will just hide or run away and everything will be done by written statements - which won't contain anything more than ambiguities.
The spectre of one BBC employee anchoring the programme in the studio asking another BBC employee stood outside Downing Street what they think of something always makes me turn the channel over. This only happens because the politicians don't dare put anyone up for an interview, so the BBC tries to busk it.
^^^^^^^^
Very much like the 'Royal Correspondent' that Armstrong and Miller used to take off.
Yup, I was thinking of an idea like brass eye, where if the statement is bullshit it's read out by a clown.
It just winds me up watching a journalist nodding along to a politician who is clearly spouting utter bollocks/not answering the question at all. For ****s sakes, just pull them up on it, it's part of your job, and not doing it is basically an affront to journalistic integrity.
I don't want a paxman level of grilling, I just want them to not enable the terribleness.
Channel 4 news are about the only ones nowadays who actually interview politicians properly. The BBC is a total waste of space. They're now obsessed with this whole idea of 'balance' which means they're prepared to let someone like Farage sit there spouting lie after lie after lie, totally unchallenged, because... balance
I don’t want a paxman level of grilling, I just want them to not enable the terribleness.
It would have to be 'Full Paxo' in a lot of cases, though.
The vast majority of MPs are in possession of a good level of intelligence and the vast majority will be saying, in private, what we all know. A good Brexit is an impossibility and a 100% contradiction in terms. They just can't say it because they are afraid to. In the context of what we are talking about here, how long/far should an interviewer push them to elicit this truth?
Verbal trickery? Reducto ad absurdum? Sleep deprivation? White noise?
John Humphries does it all the time – the problem is that the average Joe ‘soundbite/snippet’ relier only remembers the first time something like this happens. So everyone (me included) only remembers the Michael Howard one when there have been hundreds of comparable incidences since. Granted that the Howard one was because Paxo had backed him into a corner where the only answer was yes/no so anything other than a definitive yes/no was obviously evasion.
Dont know if you can get the parliament channel to playback but Mhairi Blacks speech yesterday was a cracker. The striking thing about most if not all the SNP is how articulate they are compared to the rest.
Dont know if you can get the parliament channel to playback but Mhairi Blacks speech yesterday was a cracker.
This one?
https://twitter.com/mhairiblack/status/1083442319863492608?s=21
I would vote SNP based on what I have seen from them and not surprising they took over Scotland. They do largely appear more honest with more integrity but if I looked deeper I may be disappointed I suppose.
Can you see why the idea of the Scots cutting loose from Westminster and many of the Little Englander attitudes was/is appealing up here?
There is obviously a lot more nuance to it than that, but still...
I totally get it. I think that most of the country outside the south east (now effectively a country within a country) feels just as shut out and excluded from Westminster politics and totally unrepresented by the two main parties. None of the rest of us are even on the radar.
If I was in Scotland, voting SNP would be an absolute no-brainer. I just wish that we had the option to give both labour and the Tory's the same two fingers, and vote for a party that seems to actually represent something other than their own narrow self-interest, and the eternal 'is it our turn now?' two party system that has delivered us into this car-crash!
I am reminded of Robin Day interviewing John Nott.
The striking thing about most if not all the SNP is how articulate they are compared to the rest.
It's because they are in a unique situation. They have totally won their own political battle whilst not being in the one everyone else is fighting. So they can make great speeches without having to worry about pissing anyone off.
The BBC is a total waste of space. They’re now obsessed with this whole idea of ‘balance’ which means they’re prepared to let someone like Farage sit there spouting lie after lie after lie, totally unchallenged, because… balance
I've certainly heard BBC interviewers challenge MPs on the nonsense they're spouting. However the worst pedlars of nonsense have learnt well from Trump and will quite blatantly deny evidence and claim their own version of reality when challenged.
One horrid example was Jacob Rees Mogg being interviewed by Evan Davis. When Evan Davis suggested to Mogg that virtually no economists agreed with his rosy predictions for a no deal Brexit, Mogg went on the attack, accusing Davis of impugning his honour and terrible rudeness. Yet moments later Mogg was attacking Mark Carney for being a "second-rate failed Canadian politician".
The striking thing about most if not all the SNP is how articulate they are compared to the rest.
They really should start a takeover of UK politics - send a few candidates down south for the next election, see how they get on. I would probably vote for them.
. Yet moments later Mogg was attacking Mark Carney for being a “second-rate failed Canadian politician”.
Regardless of the fact that Carney was NEVER a politician.
I've said this about the SNP a few times. I'm glad folk are catching on!
In fact the logical extension of this is for them to take over at Westminster and sack off the nationalism. Remain and reform....
Not really brexit related, but if we're talking media bias how the hell do people think the BBC is a nest of communists when they have the likes of Andrew Neil as one of their flagship political commentators?
Don't fall for the "SNP better" dialog. To pick two subjects; They have the power and the money to actually help the WASPI women and say bye bye to the the so called "rape clause" in Scotland. But they don't because they'd rather moan and cry about it in "westmonster" than put their money where their alleged values are.
Even their rhetoric in Europe is a giggle when you compare it to directly comparable statements on the UK "single market"
They also threatened to use EU citizens as a bargaining chip if the EU didn't let them back in if they won the independence vote (which was a vote to LEAVE Europe as well as the UK).
In essence they avoid scrutiny by speaking out loudly about things that westminister is doing to scotland, while studiously avoiding putting any of those things right in Scotland. (After all if things were better some people might decide that independence isn't necessary").
Education is definitely worse, and health arguably so.
It genuinely saddens me to rob people of the hope, but their faith is misplaced.
Even on the recent issue of the treatment of MPs by protesters, have a google and comparison about Jim Murphys treatment during the independence referendum, and then look for the condemnation from the SNP.
As a freudian example of the difficulty of holding contradictory positions in your head all the time, here are a few tweets from Nichola recently.
The first was deleted and replaced with the second.
From Twitter.
edited for clarity
It’s not intelligence, it’s integrity
Pristine hammer / nail-head interface there, my good sir.
The press are a lot more than complicit in my view
Complicit? They're wholly ****ing culpable. Never mind that bloody pig-worrier in a suit, if the shitrags hadn't spent decades whipping up mass hatred against foreigners and poor people, and mainstream TV channels giving kippers so much airtime, "should we leave the EU?" would have got about six votes.
They’re now obsessed with this whole idea of ‘balance’
Whenever hear this I'm reminded of Dara O'Briain.
PS Personally I'm not completely without hope (despite a lack of political leadership) that we can end Brexit.
I've had enough constitutional chicanery and political backwardness in my life overall (grew up in NI through the troubles plus the years up to 2014 in scotland now this).
But as Churchill (I think) said; When walking through hell. Keep walking.
I second that Cougar. "Get in the ****in' sack" :o)
Unless there's a nice big button every 15m to reset yourself back to purgatory to have a think about whether walking through hell is really such a great idea in the first place.
But I said fe* not fu*?
Ah well
sobriety, I'd go further back than purgatory, why die in the first place :O)
I like to think that we'll all look back on this decade someday as a timely but ultimately safe reminder that politics is important, nationalism is stupid, and that sitting back leaving it all to those people who developed strong opinions at uni and never rethought anything might be a mistake.
Who knows.
But I said fe* not fu*?
There's a reason that's in the swear filter - it's not swearing per se but it was being over-used to a point that it got out of hand.
This made me laugh from the Mash today, as there was one of them on Chanel 4 news last night saying how the EU is a capitalist conspiracy that 'forced governments to privatise everything'. Hmmmm... yes... ok..... of course they do...
Everyone dying to ask left-wing Brexiter what ****ing planet he’s on
Not really brexit related, but if we’re talking media bias how the hell do people think the BBC is a nest of communists when they have the likes of Andrew Neil as one of their flagship political commentators?
Who says they are, though? Andrew Neil? Nick Robinson? Laura Kuensberg? Communists? I used to think Andrew Marr was at least soggy left but his recent stunt with Corbyn - demanding he face the camera and apologise for AS - and his ambush of Carole Cadwalladr, along with his comfy chat with the Maybot have put paid to that delusion.
This Andrew Neil?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/11/bbc-andrew-neil-media-politics
Who says they are, though?
old people like my Da.
The Beeb are changing I think. In an early morning news update, they did actually accuse Pres Trump of lying, and used those words to describe it. IE.
"President Trumps has claimed he never directly suggested that Mexico would pay for the wall, however this is a lie... "
and so the report went on to describe the times that he said exactly that. One can perhaps hope they'll start this strategy with our politicians
I think the Trump thing has been going on for quite a while, it's hard to report anything he says without pointing it out.
Who says they are, though?
It's a common refrain among tory MPs and supporters that the BBC is marxist organisation seeking the destruction of the establishment and imposition of a socialist agenda, despite the fact that pretty much all of it's senior political hacks are barely disguised or openly rabid tories.
"If I was in Scotland, voting SNP would be an absolute no-brainer. I just wish that we had the option to give both labour and the Tory’s the same two fingers, and vote for a party that seems to actually represent something other than their own narrow self-interest, and the eternal ‘is it our turn now?’ two party system"
You'd have to be outside Scotland to believe this. The SNP is highly self-interested with authoritarian tendencies.
despite the fact that pretty much all of it’s senior political hacks are barely disguised or openly rabid tories.
Yep, as part of their impartiality and balance they should have to wear badges to less us know which way they swing.
Big tory badges for Andrew Neil, Nick Robinson, Laura Kuenssberg and so on
Eat the pudding,
Think again, probably not Churchill.
I just wish that we had the option to give both labour and the Tory’s the same two fingers, and vote for a party that seems to actually represent something other than their own narrow self-interest, and the eternal ‘is it our turn now?’ two party system that has delivered us into this car-crash!
We have but not sufficient numbers will.
richmars,
Google says it might have been Winston linky .
Either way the the principle applies, don't give up.
Evening standard are reporting ministers going to announce brexit delay
Evening standard are reporting ministers going to announce brexit delay
EU Ministers?
Sounds like even Amber Rudd is against a no deal, which can only be good news.
According to the Financial Times. Hitachi are to pull out of building the new Wylfa nuclear plant on Anglesey. I know not really Brexit related, but all this pissing about probably made it easier for them to make there minds up.
Bear with my numptyness - am I reading the wrong papers, or why is it that a no-deal means that Supermarkets are stockpiling and we are preparing for marshal law / Army on the streets?
Is it really that serious? And why?
Are you reading the Express? Sounds like the kind of bollox they specialise in.
No, it won't be that bad. If it is, you can dine on the flesh of all the free unicorns we've been promised.
Are you reading the Express?
sorry you weren't talking to me 🙂
Is it really that serious? And why?
Stock for supermarkets comes from Europe on a "just in time" basis. If you add a customs delay (under WTO rules, you have to have effective customs controls) then it will be "just in time + x days" which will lead to shortages.
It should sort itself out eventually (I think JRM said 50 years? )
Are you reading the Express?
"Jacob Rees Mogg schools a remainer and it is hilarious".
"Boris Johnson eloquently puts in remain MP in place with rousing speech"
"French STEAL insurance jobs from plucky Britain"
These sort of headlines?
Brexiteers are willing fully ignorant of the consequences of trading under WTO - if we crash out the EU we become a "third country" and the invisible border with the EU becomes a hard border that under WTO rules, we have to demonstrate some form of control. 80% of our livestock produce is exported to the EU - with tariffs added (plus the costs of veterinary controls that no-one knows how will be managed) it could be catastrophic for UK farmers and there's rumours of of DEFRA having to arrange emergency large-scale slaughter - prices will crash in the UK due to over-supply, farmers will go out of business and prices of food will then increase if the Government doesn't pump £billions as emergency subsidies. As we import most of our food from the EU, then imports will get more expensive due to tariffs plus costs of delays). Given the UK's public for panic-buying at the merest sign of a snowflake, it will be carnage in supermarkets - some stockpiling / others exploiting the market to resell at extortionate prices. Shelves will be empty in days and expect we'll have horror-stories of pensioners dying of starvation.
Supermarkets are stockpiling and we are preparing for marshal law / Army on the streets?
Taking the 2 things separately there will have been discussions on stock levels and shelf life. If you have a decent cash flow upping orders slightly and keeping the DC's topped up is a bet worth making. If there are delays and you have stock then you win some new customers. Remember these are companies who are desperate to steal a customer from a rival.
I've certainly been in conversations recently in industry about making sure kit and equipment is the right side of the chanel come the 29th,spending is being moved to make sure big capital projects don't get in trouble as nobody currently knows what the arrangements will be.
If you rely on anything crossing the chanel at the moment that should be on your risk register.
As for the army? Martial law seems a bit strong but using them to cope with police shortages around Dover maybe? Lot of trucks to Marshall about potentially, lots of delays and logistics needed there and not much time to hire people.
Ok thanks.
So a shortage of Chateau neuf du pape but more bacon and lamb chops than we know how to deal with...
https://qz.com/716156/the-british-import-a-quarter-of-their-food-from-the-eu-and-thats-a-problem/
Kryton, check the country of origin on most of the fresh fruit and veg your buying at the moment.
Tomatoes, salad, fruit, veg etc. etc. It's a bit of time until we get into season for a lot of things, this will also impact our imports from the RoW if our status is unclear.
Cover the south with poly tunnels and we could grow all we need. Would need some strategic thinking and more importantly employees to work on farming the vegetables. I can't see either of those things in the plan so shortage of food and the riots will follow, unless of course we show that Dunkirk spirit and all work together down the allotment to sort it out.
Yeah i got that Mike, I was of course being flippant.
Im convinced we are staying in anyway. Right old mess.
Cover the south with poly tunnels and we could grow all we need.
Yeah... no.
If that were possible, why aren't we doing it already?
If that were possible, why aren’t we doing it already?
Land worth too much, nowhere the workers can afford to live? We can also easily use the land for stuff we can grow quite easily, see we are in this great club where we can easily share what we produce with others and vice versa.
No room for polytunnels in the south - we're too busy building three-quarters of a million pound houses to accommodate I guess, those immigrants hordes those Brexiteers keep telling us about 😉
Turnips grow well in the uk..
There's still time to perfect your recipes for our future staple food..
https://www.countryliving.com/food-drinks/g4640/turnip-recipes/?slide=1
hopeforthebest
...You’d have to be outside Scotland to believe this. The SNP is highly self-interested with authoritarian tendencies.
Aye, they have a few flaws, but the political landscape will be completely different after independence.
For example we will have parties on the left, middle, and right that will be working in Scotland's interests, and not dancing to the tune of their masters in London.
The SNP will not be there for life.
How would someone go about becoming Scottish?
Would owning a property and paying council tax be enough ,even if you rarely visited there?
Anyone want to join my consortium?
https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/48685545?search_identifier=58f9ad68398d05f3528f4e48b9ef58f3
I'm 5/8ths Scottish, 1/8th Guyanyan and 1/2 Yorkshire - I'm wondering which of those offers the most attractive options?
This is a great speech IMO>
David Lammy yesterday at 17:05 · ·
Mr Speaker, I have faced many challenges in the two decades I have sat in this house.
But Sunday 7th August 2011, the morning after the Tottenham riots, was by far the greatest.
Walking on broken glass, past burnt-out cars, homes and businesses, comforting men and women still in their pyjamas, I saw the place I had lived my whole life turned to ashes.
Many members of the community were urging me to say that the killing of Mark Duggan by police, which had sparked the riots, justified this rage.
That the families made homeless, the burnt out buses and houses, and the looted shops were worth it.
They told me that I had to say this wrong was right.
Mr Speaker, it was not easy. But I had to look my community in the face, and tell them this violence was a disgrace and condemn it unequivocally.
Why? Because we have a duty to tell our constituents the truth. Even when they passionately disagree.
We owe to them not only our “industry” but also our “judgement.”
We are trusted representatives, not unthinking delegates.
So why do many in this House continue to support Brexit, when they know it will wreck jobs, the NHS and our standing in the world?
--
This is the fundamental dishonesty at the heart of the Brexit debate.
Most MPs now recognise it in private, but do not say it in public.
Brexit is a con.
A trick. A swindle. A fraud.
A deception that will hurt most those people it promised to help.
A dangerous fantasy which will make every problem it claims to solve worse.
A campaign won on false promises and lies.
Vote Leave and Leave.EU both broke the law.
Russian interference is beyond reasonable doubt.
And by now every single campaign promise made in 2016 has come unstuck.
Brexit will not enrich our NHS - it will impoverish it.
A trade deal with Donald Trump will see US corporations privatise and dismantle the NHS one bed at a time.
And even those promises on immigration – which has so greatly enriched our country – are a lie.
After Brexit immigration will go up, not down.
When we enter negotiations with countries like India and China, they will ask for three things.
Visas. Visas. And more visas.
And they will get them because we will be weak.
Then there’s the myth about restoring parliamentary sovereignty.
The last two years have shown what a joke that is.
The Prime Minister has hoarded power like a deluded 21st century Henry the Eighth.
Impact assessments have been hidden. Votes resisted and blocked. Simple opponents of a government policy bullied and threatened to get into line.
Even when we forced this meaningful vote, the Prime Minister cancelled it, certain we would reject her disastrous deal.
And oh we will reject it.
Because this is a Lose-Lose compromise, which offers no certainty for our future.
All it guarantees is more years of negotiation – headed by the same clowns who guided us into this farce in the first place.
--
Mr Speaker, we are suffering from a crisis of leadership in our hour of need.
This country’s greatest moments came when we showed courage, not when we appeased.
The courage of Wilberforce to emancipate the slaves, against the anger of the British ruling class.
The courage of Winston Churchill to declare war on Hitler, against the appeasers in his cabinet and the country.
The courage of Atlee and Bevan to nationalise the health service -- against the doctors who protested it was not right.
Today we must be bold, because the challenges we face are just as extreme.
We must not be afraid to tell the truth to those who do not agree.
--
Friends on this side of the house tell me to appease Labour voters in industrial towns.
The former miners, the factory workers, those who feel they have been left behind.
I say we must not patronise them with cowardice. Let’s tell them the truth.
“You were sold a lie.
Parts of the media used your fears to sell papers and boost viewing figures.
Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson exploited the same prejudice to win votes.
Shame on them.
Immigrants have not taken your jobs. Our schools and colleges failed to give you skills.
Hospitals are not crumbling because of health tourists, but because a decade of austerity ground them down to the bone.
You cannot afford a house because both parties failed to build -- not because Mohammed down the road who moved in.
And wealth was hoarded in London - when it should have been shared across the country.
Blame us, blame Westminster. Do not blame Brussels for our own country’s mistakes.
And do not be angry at us for telling you the truth.
Be angry at the chancers who sold you a lie.
--
As Martin Luther King said long ago “There comes a time when silence is betrayal.”
So just as I speak plainly to the government this time around, let me also speak to the opposition about some home truths.
There is no left-wing justification for Brexit.
Ditching workers’ rights, social protections, and ending environmental cooperation is not progressive.
This is a project about neoliberal deregulation.
It is Thatcherism on steroids, pushed by her modern day disciples.
Leaving the EU will not free us from the injustices of global capitalism, it will make us subordinate to Trump’s US.
Socialism confined to one country will not work.
Whether you like it or not, the world we live in is global.
We can only fix the rigged system if we cooperate across border-lines.
The party of Keir Hardie has always been International.
We must not let down our young supporters by failing to stand with them on the biggest issue of our lives.
If we remain in the EU, we can reform it from the top table.
Share the load of mass migration, address excesses of the bureaucracy, and fix the inequalities between creditor and debtors.
We can recharge the economy.
We can re-fuel the NHS.
We can build the houses we need, after years of hurt.
Hope is what we need.
Remain in the EU.
Give Britain a second opportunity to decide.
I’m 5/8ths Scottish, 1/8th Guyanyan and 1/2 Yorkshire – I’m wondering which of those offers the most attractive options?
Which ever offers the best maths education.
David Lammy.
I’m liking the cut of this man’s jib.
I’m liking the cut of this man’s jib.
me too
Who sent Lammy a link to this thread?
Survation have Labour in a 3pt over Tories in latest poll.
Good work Rachel Riley.