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Politics Today

Alistair20000

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Avoiding the Hundred
In the words of the great Alice Cooper
"They've got no class
And they've got no principles"

Let's just keep working to ensure that their sad, corrupt party are well and truly beaten into a Pulp at the next GE!
It should be principals :mad:
 

tavyred

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Nah, I was actually being serious. When do you reckon roughly things changed?
I think there's a fine balance between punishment and rehabilitation personally as I've mentioned before. Particularly, in cases where the offender isn't likely to reoffend given a chance.
It’s all about balance obviously, but you can’t rehabilitate without a base level
of order and safety. There were large scale riots in the early 90’s and under a chap called called Martin Narey it was deemed that the perceived punitive nature of prisons had to be replaced with a more fluffy approach. Our prisons are now thought to be the most violent workplaces in Western Europe.
 

Grecian2K

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Busy knitting muesli
It should be principals :mad:
I think my choice of spelling more accurately describes the current shambles of a (mis)government. 😜
 

Oldsmobile-88

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In RaWZ we trust....Amen.
There is a great podcast about Éamon de Valera(1882-1975) who was a huge figure in Irish Politics from 1916. It covers detail about the setting up of the Irish Free State in 1922 with the civil war that followed then the awkward relationship with the GB
I did not realise that the Irish Free State had Dominium Status after the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1922 of course meaning the Crown was still head of state, something that did not go down too well at the time.

Well worth a listen(1hr 20)

 

arthur

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It's almost as if Art thinks he can compete with Goodwin in the finger-on-the-pulse stakes. Bless him.
Yes, how could I possibly compete with a university academic? But nevertheless, I'll have a go.

Goodwin complains that the "educated elite" is now dominating all our institutions. I pointed out to Tavy that the "educated liberal left" (as he calls them) has always dominated institutions, and he cited the, to me imperceptible, shift to the left in penal policy as a riposte.

The fact remains that the liberal establishment has long been with us and you have to wonder why Goodwin and his ilk have only just started making a fuss about it and writing long polemics in the Daily Mail about the concerns of "the white working class, straight men, non-graduates, and those who cling to more traditionalist views, such as supporting Brexit" being ignored.

Because the fact is that the political/cultural (as opposed to the political/economic) concerns of what we may call, because their advocates use this term, "the white working class", have always been ignored. The abolition of capital and corporal punishment, legalisation of homosexuality, the race relations act, legalisation of abortion, gay marriage, the smoking ban, congestion charges and clean air zones - all these have happened in the face of opposition from "the white working class".

What's changed, of course, is that in 2016 this group won a famous and unprecedented victory. At last, the voice of The People was heard, and the liberal elite was forced to enact their will. Which eventually they did and the country now has to live with the consequences. This means that, for the first time, the political/cultural standpoint of this section of society is coming under scrutiny. Given that the decision to leave the EU is now seen by a clear majority of people to have been seriously flawed, this scrutiny is extremely uncomfortable. Saying "leaving the EU was not a very sensible thing to do" is not seen a simple disagreement but as sneering. Because the case for Brexit was largely based on gut emotion rather than a factual evidence base, defending it is quite tricky, so rolling into a ball and playing the victim is an understandable response.

The same is happening with the immigration debate. Labour, to its credit, does not go around saying the Braverman/Sunak initiative is evil, just that it won't work. And it won't, and there's a mountain of evidence to prove that. But pointing this out, and suggesting practical alternatives - a properly funded asylum processing system, increased resources to fight serious organised crime, the establishment of safe and legal routes - is not disagreed with in a civilised manner, but dismissed as "unpatriotic", pitting "woke lefty lawyers" against decent hard working British people. That this level fof debate is represented as speaking up for the left behind says a lot about the state of our politics...

Of course the concerns of "the white working class, straight men, non-graduates, and those who cling to more traditionalist views" need to be addressed. The issues they face have their roots in the change in economic circumstances over the last fifty years. Once strong communities,with strong economic bases, have now been hollowed out. Young people have moved from northern towns to northern cities, where they form part of Matthew Goodwin's dreaded educated elite. There's not enough money in circulation to support functioning town centres, so everything looks sad and decayed. Cuts to local authority funding have reduced once great civic institutions and services to shadows of their former selves. Working class food, activity and culture which was once indigenous has been largely replaced by bland offerings from global corporations. No wonder people in such communities feel disempowered and want to have their voices heard. And what a gift this anger is to those who find it so useful to advance their own agendas...
 

tavyred

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Excellent post Art. Although I don’t agree with most of the political extrapolations you’ve made from the events like Brexit, a thought provoking post. Thankyou. 👍
 

arthur

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Aug 18, 2004
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There is a great podcast about Éamon de Valera(1882-1975) who was a huge figure in Irish Politics from 1916. It covers detail about the setting up of the Irish Free State in 1922 with the civil war that followed then the awkward relationship with the GB
I did not realise that the Irish Free State had Dominium Status after the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1922 of course meaning the Crown was still head of state, something that did not go down too well at the time.

Well worth a listen(1hr 20)

Eamon De Valera - dreadful man. A right wing nationalist who outsourced education and social services to the Catholic Church. Campaigned against the Treaty, then took power under treaty terms in 1932 and kept Ireland as an economic and social backwater resulting in huge levels of emigration. It was only in the 1959, once he was gone, that Ireland began to emerge, blinking, into the modern European light, something it had been hiding from during his tenure...
 

arthur

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Excellent post Art. Although I don’t agree with most of the political extrapolations you’ve made from the events like Brexit, a thought provoking post. Thankyou. 👍
Thank you Tavy - you've made my day :)
 

Oldsmobile-88

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In RaWZ we trust....Amen.
Eamon De Valera - dreadful man. A right wing nationalist who outsourced education and social services to the Catholic Church. Campaigned against the Treaty, then took power under treaty terms in 1932 and kept Ireland as an economic and social backwater resulting in huge levels of emigration. It was only in the 1959, once he was gone, that Ireland began to emerge, blinking, into the modern European light, something it had been hiding from during his tenure...
Well worth a listen Art... Lots of interesting stuff, not all blowing smoke up his arse.

On a more general note, Eire joining the EEC pulled the country into the modern era.
 

lamrobhero

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May 31, 2018
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Hangingstone Hill
In trying to understand Ireland I have consumed a lot of info on wikipedia. Fascinating. e.g. the drawing of the NI border to make the NI entity economically viable, the offer of a United Ireland by the UK Government in 1940 and for the debates on this thread about Scottish independence the assumption of a proportion of the National Debt by the newly independent country that I think was never paid and subsequently written off.
 
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