Politics in General

[Thomas Cappleman]

I believe in a hand up, not a hand out.

What do you mean by this (in particular, what do you mean by a hand up)? Genuinely interested.

[Gavin Chipper]

I believe in a hand up, not a hand out.

What do you mean by this (in particular, what do you mean by a hand up)? Genuinely interested.

He means that rich Tories shouldn't let their children inherit their millions (which would be a hand out) but instead give them a hand up by educating them to become useful members of society.

[Gavin Chipper]

Taxation is legalised theft, and should be as low as feasibly possible.

I don't see this at all. For a start a lot of wealth has just been inherited down the generations, and there might be some serious questions about where some of it came from originally.

Plus essentially money is just tokens for the world's resources, resources that don't intrinsically belong to anyone. And the tokens don't have any intrinsic value - they're just given worth by the role they play in the system backed up by the government. So from that perspective I don't see taxation as theft.

I mean, it's still preferable to the government just deciding that the pound is now worthless, which would result in a far greater loss of wealth but without any actual "theft".

[Mark James]

Legalised theft is an oxymoron.

[Callum Todd]

Take out the references to skin colour from the working class pupils story and it is both very true and very unsurprising.

(^That works for lots of other stories by the way! )

[Rhys Benjamin]

I believe in a hand up, not a hand out.

What do you mean by this (in particular, what do you mean by a hand up)? Genuinely interested.

Social security programs should not just be quote-unquote "free money", they should be helping people back into financial self-sustainability.

Therefore, simply doing a Robin Hood that Mark seemingly advocates for is not the right way to solve inequalities.

[Gavin Chipper]

The BBC have done an article on white privilege if you're interested.

[Thomas Cappleman]

I believe in a hand up, not a hand out.

What do you mean by this (in particular, what do you mean by a hand up)? Genuinely interested.

Social security programs should not just be quote-unquote "free money", they should be helping people back into financial self-sustainability.

What specifically would you do to achieve this? Mark mentioned education and social programs, not just redistributing money, but you said those don't work. So interested what you suggest instead, especially that won't rely on money from taxation.

[Mark James]

I believe in a hand up, not a hand out.

What do you mean by this (in particular, what do you mean by a hand up)? Genuinely interested.

Social security programs should not just be quote-unquote "free money", they should be helping people back into financial self-sustainability.

Therefore, simply doing a Robin Hood that Mark seemingly advocates for is not the right way to solve inequalities.

I would have thought you'd be pro Robin Hood? Wasn't he anti tax and stole the tax money people were forced to pay?

Anyway. I agree, social security programs should be helping people back into self sustainability. I actually work for one. I help administer a scheme which provides the long term unemployed with a part time job, usually work within a nonprofit organisation which benefits disadvantaged members of society (in my case, our staff work for the NCBI, a blindness charity), as well as offering training opportunities to up-skill and we help our participants to eventually find full time employment.

I'm not for "free money". I'm for redistribution of wealth to pay for a society which benefits the most amount of people.

I'm for a progressive tax system for all who benefit from living and operating in a society, so everyone can pay their fair share for the costs of said society. That includes for education, a health service, municipal utilities such as providing water, sanitation and sewerage, fire brigades, the post office, policing and defense (admittedly some of those budgets could be cut or redistributed), infrastructure etc. I am for subsidising green energy to reduce carbon emissions, you know, to keep us alive, as well as for funding arts programs and sports programs that keep us all entertained and make life worth being alive for in the first place. And lots more besides. It's not about free stuff. It's about providing the most amount of good for the most amount of people.

The profit motive uber alles dynamic of laissez-faire capitalism cannot do this as it is forced to ignore externalities and is ultimately unsustainable, causes massive harm and inequality and disrupts the functioning of the system that even pro laissez-faire corporations or individuals have to operate in. Thatcher was wrong. Society does exist.

You say taxes should be as low as possible. Any idea how low that should be? What do you think should be the minimum funded by taxation?

[Noel Mc]

What do you mean by this (in particular, what do you mean by a hand up)? Genuinely interested.

Social security programs should not just be quote-unquote "free money", they should be helping people back into financial self-sustainability.

Therefore, simply doing a Robin Hood that Mark seemingly advocates for is not the right way to solve inequalities.

I would have thought you'd be pro Robin Hood? Wasn't he anti tax and stole the tax money people were forced to pay?

Anyway. I agree, social security programs should be helping people back into self sustainability. I actually work for one. I help administer a scheme which provides the long term unemployed with a part time job, usually work within a nonprofit organisation which benefits disadvantaged members of society (in my case, our staff work for the NCBI, a blindness charity), as well as offering training opportunities to up-skill and we help our participants to eventually find full time employment.

I'm not for "free money". I'm for redistribution of wealth to pay for a society which benefits the most amount of people.

I'm for a progressive tax system for all who benefit from living and operating in a society, so everyone can pay their fair share for the costs of said society. That includes for education, a health service, municipal utilities such as providing water, sanitation and sewerage, fire brigades, the post office, policing and defense (admittedly some of those budgets could be cut or redistributed), infrastructure etc. I am for subsidising green energy to reduce carbon emissions, you know, to keep us alive, as well as for funding arts programs and sports programs that keep us all entertained and make life worth being alive for in the first place. And lots more besides. It's not about free stuff. It's about providing the most amount of good for the most amount of people.

The profit motive uber alles dynamic of laissez-faire capitalism cannot do this as it is forced to ignore externalities and is ultimately unsustainable, causes massive harm and inequality and disrupts the functioning of the system that even pro laissez-faire corporations or individuals have to operate in. Thatcher was wrong. Society does exist.

You say taxes should be as low as possible. Any idea how low that should be? What do you think should be the minimum funded by taxation?

Noiiiccceee

[Rhys Benjamin]

The context of “there is no such thing as society” is often overlooked and misused. What Thatcher meant is taking personal responsibility for our own problems, not saying “I have a problem, and the government should do something about it”. Covid has proven her right: ideally, we, on an individual level, would manage the risks and make our own decisions about what we felt was safe and what was not; people would have started social distancing and staying at home without the need for formal legislation.

I have always agreed with Thatcher on this: it is better to have all levels of income better off at the trade-off of inequality than it is to have an equally poor country. “Redistribution” is a false concept: you are actively talking about making rich people poorer, and it would often seem that making the rich poorer, and not making the poor richer, is what socialists care about. And there’s no guarantee that the poor will get any investment, or areas invested in will actually make a proper, financial, meaningful difference.

tl;dr - I care about making poor people richer regardless of inequality.

[Mark James]

ideally, we, on an individual level, would manage the risks and make our own decisions about what we felt was safe and what was not; people would have started social distancing and staying at home without the need for formal legislation.

Well there was so much nonsense you just spouted there it's hard to know where to begin but I'll start with the above.

Obviously that would be ideally what happens but it doesn't does it? Like, ideally we wouldn't need speed limits or even traffic lights. We wouldn't need any laws if people just acted responsibly.

But they don't, so we do.

And in fact sometimes it's not even that they are irresponsible, it's precisely because they needed to act in their own individual self interest that they possibly had to continue to go to work when they should have be staying at home and not putting themselves or others at risk of exposure to the virus.

Do you think people weren't following lockdown rules in a teenage rebellious way? They won't do it because the government told them to, whereas if it had just been a suggestion they would have?

Brazil has no government enforced lockdown and has had one of the most disastrous covid outcomes. The UK instituted a lockdown late and also has one of the worst outcomes. Countries that locked down hard and fast with what you would probably call draconian or authoritarian restrictions, came out of lockdown quicker, restoring civil liberties and ultimately doing less damage to their ecomony.

This Randian concept that everyone acting in their own self interest benefits everyone is a myth that has been debunked simply by looking at the world around you.

[Elliott Mellor]

it's precisely because they needed to act in their own individual self interest that they possibly had to continue to go to work.

Certainly sums up Matt Hancock, considering his self-interest at work. I presume Boris Johnson has let him off because one extramarital affair is rookie numbers to him.

[Gavin Chipper]

I love how people are doing this "What does Keir Starmer stand for?" thing. First and foremost, I want to know what our Prime Minister Boris Johnson stands for.

[Gavin Chipper]

By the way, does anyone remember when George W Bush was president he was pretty much universally seen as some sort of joke and a really bad president? Well, Donald Trump must have raised the bar pretty significantly, because I don't recall a single comparison when he was in office.

[Rhys Benjamin]

I don’t think you’re grasping the concept of a necessary evil here, Mark. Ideally, you wouldn’t need any public services as fires, ill health, crime wouldn’t exist.

I’m not an anarachist.

My point is that at what point do you consider lockdown to be viable and necessary? For me, it is a weapon of last resort and its ONLY justification is the health service being unable to cope. If we had a health service that actually, you know, worked, then I wouldn’t have been in favour of any of the lockdowns.

In his select committee appearance, Cummings pointed out that activity levels dropped in the week before lockdown anyway as people were starting to stay at home of their own volition. The question here is simple - irrespective of the health service’s capacity, would people have stayed home without the statutory instruments? In my view, they would have done in the first wave.

[Mark James]

I don’t think you’re grasping the concept of a necessary evil here, Mark. Ideally, you wouldn’t need any public services as fires, ill health, crime wouldn’t exist.

Yes. That was my point exactly. You were the one who said "ideally, we, on an individual level, would manage the risks and make our own decisions about what we felt was safe" and I was pointing out that we don't live in that ideal world so we needed the restrictions.

I’m not an anarachist.

I agree. It's a shame as it would be better if you were. You're more of an anarcho-capitalist, or at least you seem to share many of their ridiculous views.

My point is that at what point do you consider lockdown to be viable and necessary? For me, it is a weapon of last resort and its ONLY justification is the health service being unable to cope. If we had a health service that actually, you know, worked, then I wouldn’t have been in favour of any of the lockdowns.

What do mean by worked? You can have the best working health service but if it gets an unexpected influx of lots of people requiring the use of the service at the same then it gets overwhelmed. You institute a lockdown to prevent the spread of the virus so it doesn't get overwhelmed. What would be an example of a well run health service that wouldn’t have required a lockdown?

In his select committee appearance, Cummings pointed out that activity levels dropped in the week before lockdown anyway as people were starting to stay at home of their own volition. The question here is simple - irrespective of the health service’s capacity, would people have stayed home without the statutory instruments? In my view, they would have done in the first wave.

Then you're an even bigger idiot than I thought. We know that enough people didn't stay at home or follow social distancing rules (you know people like Dominic Cummings).

The only way your argument makes sense is if you think they didn't only because they were behaving in that teenage rebellious way of refusing to follow the rules simply because they were rules rather than just suggestions.

[Rhys Benjamin]

I don’t think the ad hominem merits a response, really.

[Mark James]

I don’t think the ad hominem merits a response, really.

Insults are not ad hominems. I had arguments to go along with the insults.

[Marc Meakin]

Why tax salt and sugar.
Just subsidise healthy food for the poor

[Rhys Benjamin]

You don't even need to do that.

40p will get you 1kg of carrots at Tesco.

[Callum Todd]

Why tax salt and sugar.
Just subsidise healthy food for the poor

Taxing bad shit works. [1] [2] [3]

[Noel Mc]

You don't even need to do that.

40p will get you 1kg of carrots at Tesco.

Alright there, Annunziata.

https://cookingonabootstrap.com/2020/07 ... ompassion/

[Gavin Chipper]

Apparently crime victims are barred from getting compensation if they have an unsepent conviction. The law came in in 2012, so under the Tories aided by the Lib Dems. I don't remember this coming up at the time, and I'm surprised it wasn't more widely reported. It's absolutely ridiculous and when I started reading the BBC article, I assumed it was some really old law that had managed to somehow continue to exist. But how did this ever become a thing without a massive backlash?

[Rhys Benjamin]

Question Time, Afghanistan Special, in short:

James Cleverly: took so long to answer the questions that he kept being interrupted just when he was getting to the good bits.
Lisa Nandy: the government did everything wrong, but we're not saying what we'd do better.
Rory Stewart: Afghanistan was a success and US should never have left, like in South Korea.
Nelufar Hedayat: lots of problems, not many solutions but things were better with the troops in Afghanistan.
Mehdi Hasan: we should never have entered in the first place.

[JimBentley]

James Cleverly: took so long to answer the questions that he kept being interrupted just when he was getting to the good bits.

Cleverly? Good bits? Fucking hell, you must have a low bar. His only use is to be wheeled out to defend whatever dumbfuck government position needs defending that day. And then when there's an inevitable U-turn, he'll come on and defend the new position, even if it's diametrically opposite to the one he was defending the day before. Nominative determinism in reverse with that fella.

[Gavin Chipper]

Interesting take on the Labour leadership from Ken Loach here.

[Marc Meakin]

Interesting take on the Labour leader ship from Ken Loach here.

He is very bitter for being kicked out the Labour Party.
Socialism isn't due for a comeback anytime soon.
For good or bad (probably bad) the country has moved on away from the far left, in fact it has been close to fifty years since the last truly socialist Labour Party came to power

[Gavin Chipper]

This petrol/diesel crisis is a good advert for electric cars.

RIP.

[Marc Meakin]

This petrol/diesel crisis is a good advert for electric cars.

RIP.

Electric car driving vegan who is a Jehovahs Witness

[Rhys Benjamin]

The media and public managed to invent a shortage when there wasn't one by scaremongering. Well done BBC. Take a bow.

Anyone see Starmer's speech? Poundland Neil Kinnock. Doesn't have the strength to expel the Maomentum cranks who heckled him as Kinnock did.

[Paul Anderson]

Or to bring the left with him like Blair did. He doesn't command enough support within the party, there'll remain a split until someone who can unite the party comes along, like Andy Burnham.
Starmer has been trying to impress the Tories rather than Labour members.

[Rhys Benjamin]

Which, given he needs to win 2019 Tory voters, is not a bad thing.

[Paul Anderson]

Time will tell

[Gavin Chipper]

Apparently the Tory party conference is coming up. I thought that was happening on this week's Countdown?

[Paul Anderson]

haha, yes but in Latin

[Mark James]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 35308.html

"We have to do something about cancel culture. We can't have people being sacked for expressing themselves. In order to stop it we must sack people for expressing themselves."

Why is it that loudest entities to bemoan cancel culture always expose themselves in this way? Do they not see how they look like hypocritical morons?

[Gavin Chipper]

Well, unless you've been living under a rock, you'll have heard that the Conservative MP for Southend West David Amess has been stabbed to death. Second time in five years for an MP. Pretty bad.

MPs meeting their constituents in an informal manner at their surgeries is a good thing that we have, but stuff like this means that it's likely that greater security will be needed at all times and something will be lost. And what are the chances that James Cleverly is going to revisit his local parkrun?

[Fiona T]

Terrible terrible stuff.

[Gavin Chipper]

Being cynical, one of my first thoughts was whether this might be used for the Southend city bid, and here it is.

[Rhys Benjamin]

If by “used”, you mean “would make a fitting tribute for a campaign he worked tirelessly on”, then yes.

As an election junkie I think he should be honoured with a blue plaque in Basildon’s sports hall - “David Amess pretty much won the 92 election here”.

[Gavin Chipper]

If by “used”, you mean “would make a fitting tribute for a campaign he worked tirelessly on”, then yes.

Sure, but I don't think whether a place becomes a city or not should be in any way based on the death of a campaigner. They should use more objective criteria.

That said, I think the whole idea of city status is bit weird anyway. Presumably there are (financial?) benefits to getting city status (or they wouldn't be that bothered)? If so, I don't think it's right that there should be, just based on winning some competition to become a city. It's not as if a place winning city status suddenly has a greater need or becomes more deserving of any benefits.

Edit - I found this. To quote some of it:

They certainly won't get any tax breaks or extra powers or a pretty new square.

Prof John Beckett, who has written a book on the subject, says it has always been a "status thing".

"There never has been any privileges. It's always been a status thing, nothing more. There's nothing to stop places declaring themselves a city - Dunfermline did it."

He says the whole system "makes no sense" and it just "gives a bit of patronage to government".

But Dr Steve Musson, from the University of Reading, has been researching the economic impact of city status on the UK's eight newest cities. Preston, Newport, Stirling, Lisburn and Newry were made cities in 2002, while Brighton & Hove, Wolverhampton and Inverness gained the status in 2000.

Although the whole of the UK was enjoying an economic boom, the new cities, with the exception of Wolverhampton, outperformed their regional counterparts in terms of increasing investment and reducing unemployment.

"The other advantages, less easy to quantify, are the international exposure and the buzz created. There is an element of pride about becoming a city."

[Marc Meakin]

If by “used”, you mean “would make a fitting tribute for a campaign he worked tirelessly on”, then yes.

Sure, but I don't think whether a place becomes a city or not should be in any way based on the death of a campaigner. They should use more objective criteria.

That said, I think the whole idea of city status is bit weird anyway. Presumably there are (financial?) benefits to getting city status (or they wouldn't be that bothered)? If so, I don't think it's right that there should be, just based on winning some competition to become a city. It's not as if a place winning city status suddenly has a greater need or becomes more deserving of any benefits.

Edit - I found this. To quote some of it:

They certainly won't get any tax breaks or extra powers or a pretty new square.

Prof John Beckett, who has written a book on the subject, says it has always been a "status thing".

"There never has been any privileges. It's always been a status thing, nothing more. There's nothing to stop places declaring themselves a city - Dunfermline did it."

He says the whole system "makes no sense" and it just "gives a bit of patronage to government".

But Dr Steve Musson, from the University of Reading, has been researching the economic impact of city status on the UK's eight newest cities. Preston, Newport, Stirling, Lisburn and Newry were made cities in 2002, while Brighton & Hove, Wolverhampton and Inverness gained the status in 2000.

Although the whole of the UK was enjoying an economic boom, the new cities, with the exception of Wolverhampton, outperformed their regional counterparts in terms of increasing investment and reducing unemployment.

"The other advantages, less easy to quantify, are the international exposure and the buzz created. There is an element of pride about becoming a city."

I guess we should be grateful his anti gay marriage and anti abortion beliefs were not considered

[Phil H]

Johnson is incredibly bad at a lot of things, but this shows he still has some halfway decent political instincts (even if it was a bit of an open goal).

[Rhys Benjamin]

Nimco Ali was in a support bubble with Boris and Carrie last year and apparently this is a story.

It really isn’t.

[Gavin Chipper]

Johnson is incredibly bad at a lot of things, but this shows he still has some halfway decent political instincts (even if it was a bit of an open goal).

He probably hacked my WhatsApp. I called it within about half an hour of hearing that he'd died. Not that I'm boasting. It's a bit of a niche boast - calling that Southend is going to be made a city after some guy died.

[Rhys Benjamin]

No further comment needed. https://order-order.com/2021/09/16/will ... -tweeting/

[Mark James]

Always amazes me what inspires people to post in here compared to what doesn't. Sewage being dumped in rivers? Johnson's a-historical diatribe about the fall of Rome which practically mirrors white supremacist talking points? Nothing.

But someone pointing out that Robert Peston, who no-one likes, says something stupid. That warrants comment?

[Elliott Mellor]

Always amazes me what inspires people to post in here compared to what doesn't. Sewage being dumped in rivers? Johnson's a-historical diatribe about the fall of Rome which practically mirrors white supremacist talking points? Nothing.

But someone pointing out that Robert Peston, who no-one likes, says something stupid. That warrants comment?

It's because if someone posted here every time Boris and his cronies messed up then the forum would probably crash from overactivity.

But it's alright because Labour would have much worse if they'd been elected, right?

[Marc Meakin]

If paying more taxes is much worse , then yeah

[Mark James]

In fairness, current Labour probably would be as bad. Starmer being a useless gombeen should probably get a bit mention here too.

[Gavin Chipper]

In fairness, current Labour probably would be as bad. Starmer being a useless gombeen should probably get a bit mention here too.

I'm no fan of Starmer, but I think as with his predecessors, there is a big danger of people just assigning a sterotype to him and it sticking, and then the Tories win the next general election. With Starmer, it mainly seems to be that he's boring, and also there's the whole "But what does he stand for?" I was watching Frankie Boyle's New World Order the other day, and Boyle really ripped into him about being borng. I like Frankie Boyle on the whole, but here he was just being unoriginal. Is he really any more boring than your average politician? It seems to me that Boyle's just (unwittingly?) bought into the right wing media's sterotype of him. This kind of crap is why the Tories win elections.

There's far more to rip into about Boris Johnson, or indeed proabably any Tory leader ever, but unlike the left, the right are more likely to suck it up on the basis that they have a better chance of winning an election.

[Paul Anderson]

I watched Frankie too, but I agreed with him. Labour have zero chance of getting elected with him at the helm. Would love to see Andy Burnham get the gig

[Gavin Chipper]

I watched Frankie too, but I agreed with him. Labour have zero chance of getting elected with him at the helm.

I think it's self-fulfilling propecy to an extent.

Would love to see Andy Burnham get the gig

Until he does something like eat a bacon sandwich while pulling a weird face.

[Mark James]

Labour (certainly the right wing faction) can't win elections simply on not being as bad as the tories in the same way centre right democrats can win by not being as bad as the republicans in the states (and even at that they needed Trump to be perceived as uniquely bad).

But that's not Starmer's concern anyway. His agenda isn't to win it's to purge the left from the party. It was that ring wing faction of Labour that torpedoed Corbyn more than anything. I agree we shouldn't criticise him for being boring. There's far worse things than that he can be criticised for.

[Marc Meakin]

Probably more likely to criticise him for dropping the case against Saville when he was the head of the CPS

[Gavin Chipper]

Labour (certainly the right wing faction) can't win elections simply on not being as bad as the tories in the same way centre right democrats can win by not being as bad as the republicans in the states (and even at that they needed Trump to be perceived as uniquely bad).

But that's not Starmer's concern anyway. His agenda isn't to win it's to purge the left from the party. It was that ring wing faction of Labour that torpedoed Corbyn more than anything. I agree we shouldn't criticise him for being boring. There's far worse things than that he can be criticised for.

I totally see your point. But when you've got the same people wheeling out the predictable stereotypes for both Corbyn and Starmer, it gets a bit tired.

[Gavin Chipper]

Starmer is calling Boris Johnson corrupt. Why isn't he calling for his resignation? He needs to push this hard!

[Marc Meakin]

Starmer is calling Boris Johnson corrupt. Why isn't he calling for his resignation? He needs to push this hard!

The MP in question has just resigned

[Gavin Chipper]

Starmer is calling Boris Johnson corrupt. Why isn't he calling for his resignation? He needs to push this hard!

The MP in question has just resigned

Yeah, nice way out for the government. This whole episode reflects so badly on them, in particular the man at the helm. This might take the heat off but it changes nothing about what people should think. They've shown their colours often enough and this is just another example.