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 Whirlwind wrote:
[
Except some of these are nothing to do with the EU/freedom of movement and trade but have been spun to deflect the populaces anger and blame.....

I'll be honest guv, you start off saying how none of it is immigration's fault, before moving on to post an essay about how the government mismanaged it. In other words, you're mixing up what you perceive as a failed mitigation of the problem itself and a problem existing at all.

Your average politically unaware/uncaring bloke in the street doesn't know or care about any of that. To seize on one issue (housing), he has two facts. There used to be council housing, and you could get it. Now there's a load of immigrants, and there isn't any council housing, because the immigrants are living in what little council housing there is.

You can sit there and pontificate about how what it really shows is a failure of the government to adequately plan and manage the level of immigration to the country. Or you could flip the coin around and say it's because they failed to build enough houses. Or you could even stick the coin on the edge and say that there wouldn't have been enough housing regardless of immigrants due to bad planning. Whatever you like. It doesn't mean diddly squat to that politically unaware/uncaring bloke, because you're talking about matters of which he is either unaware/cannot understand, or doesn't care about by definition.

To reiterate, he knows one thing for sure. And that's that the council housing that exists is full of immigrants. The solution? No immigrants=more council housing.

It's crude, it's simple, but...it's also kind of true in a way! You might think it's a terrible solution, point to all the horrible ramifications that can result from the policies needed to affect that, and more, but he won't listen. He doesn't care about in depth politics, that's his entire raison d'etre.

The failure of the Liberal class which has predominated in the three largest parties (and it is all three, our Tories are socialists compared to most right wingers in the rest of the globe) has produced a situation in which this fellow and his cohorts are on the losing side of things, and so he will vote for those crude, simplistic solutions. Because nobody in thoe main parties is prepared to do what it takes to make life better for him with regards to things he actually cares about. And Corbyn is likely no better there than any of the major candidates any of the major parties have spat out in the last twenty years.

As evidence, I proffer the buildup of UKIP support, the collapse of Labour power, and the ever increasing voter base which seems to either swing behind what is derided as 'populist issues' or not vote at all. This transient 'populist' voterbase is nothing more than the chickens of twenty years mismanagement on a variety of issues by a hollowed class of political elites coming home to roost.

No what I am saying is that, as you pointed out, there were already groups of people that had fundamentally the same views but were separated by distance. Hence it was likely only a matter of time as communications improved that these groups merged.

What we are talking about here is a brand new party that is distinctly different from any of the others (so Labour/Tory/UKIP/LDs/Green etc) in such a reasonable fashion to be able to gain a foothold in parliament and that this would require vast sums of money to achieve to both advertise as well as employ candidates, marketing managers, place adverts and so on.

I think that many of the problems you ascribe as existing right now also existed before. Have you read about the scattered level of the left wing vote through the early twentieth century? Every mum and his dog had a socialist party, and they used to disagree on everything from international strategy (socialism in one country or revolutions throughout the world?!) to the typeface on the front of the local left wing rag (and if they couldn't agree, there'd be a new one published with a slightly different name!)

It was however, a much different world back then. Problems such as they had back then (such as paying your party dues or eating properly that week) have more or less vanished and been replaced by other factors (such as the growth of the entertainment industry; it used to be the case that political affairs were of far more interest to the nation for general discourse). All factors considered, I don't believe it would actually be any more or less difficult than it used to be.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Given that New Old Labour's renaissance was built on the votes of the cut-price £3 membership, I would say you have some financial logic in your argument.

One of Labour's problems is that the parliamentary party, backed by the bulk of the full-price activists (local party committees, and so on) don't believe in Korben and basically have been railroaded into his leadership by the cheap-rate votes.

The issue I would suspect Labour has is that not many of those £3 members were willing to go to £30 members, and not many of them will stick around once Corbyn disappears post-election. They struck a financial goldmine with the fellow, but I'm inclined to think it's a shallow one which won't address the structural issues they possess around fundraising.

Ignoring the real fascists and communists, who don't have any mass appeal at the moment, the established parties span the viable political spectrum. Where do you see your proposed new party fitting in, in terms of real policy aims?

See, that's the thing. I don't believe that they do span the political spectrum, not if you look at it outside of a 'Are you left or right wing' exercise. As mentioned, the parties all jostle in the middle for the same liberal-esque policies in a very haphazard short termist way. The most obvious indicator is how they all copy-paste ideas from each other with such alarming regularity. If I deleted a manifesto headline, you'd be hard-pressed to tell who it actually came from for the most part, they all focus on the same few mantras.

What's more, they all focus their campaigns on who they're not. This year has been a spectacular example of it. Corbyn and co don't have policies, they're just not the Tories. Theresa May doesn't need policies, she just needs to reassure you she's not Corbyn. We've actually reached a summit now where they're all practically conceding that policy is just the icing on the cake, and the cake is 'We're not that guy/gal'.

British socialism is, I would venture, something that arose from the desperation of the working classes to change the government from the inside; to legally elect a body of politicians who would deal with the issues pressing to them without having to spill blood to do it. That desperation is what led them to subscribe what little they had to the party, it's what forced the Unions, who were nominally politically unaffiliated, into bankrolling it, it's what made them turn out in droves to try and seek to build a better and fairer future for their children. To enable them to better themselves, as they saw it, to move up and on in the world.

In this day and age, what would such a party's policies look like? I suspect it would want to suck in all the utilities that have clearly demonstrated issues with private ownership. I also think it would push for the return of the Grammars, like May, the bettering of the 'self' through hard work and academic ethos were highly valued. Keynesian economics would be the order of the day. There would be mass planning and erection of state housing, but it would be allied to concepts of a 'fair value' acquisition of land (which private landowners would hate). Tax breaks for businesses set up along the lines of John Lewis which permit employees to take home a bonus and treat their workers well. A final end to these military adventures, and a rationing of charitable aid around projects proven to work. Loosening of regulation around entrepreneurship and grants to help start businesses, but a higher rate of tax upon it. The level of debt you have from University would be tied to the grade you had coming out of it.

I'm not pulling this entirely out of my arse, I'm trying to conceptualise what a Clement Attlee led Government would do facing the country of today. But what very clearly emerges in even a rudimentary thought exercise is a party that really has absolutely no equivalent in contemporary British politics.

 Whirlwind wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
For non-Scottish dakka members, let me tell you why the Labour party is dying.

I'll tell you about Glasgow and the West of Scotland. An area Labour dominated for 50+ years.

Here's a small sample of what went wrong:

I'm the head of Council X. Council houses need to be fixed. My brother has a building firm. Yeah, it'll cost the taxpayer more, and the other bid tenders are better, but he's my brother and family comes first. I'm sure you understand...

Given what I think you are implying I'm assuming then that both the Councillor and the brother's firm were prosecuted for fraud (which is a police matter). There are very strict rules relating to procurement and if they are in breach of these then they are liable to go to jail (and all other bidders will be able to claim costs from the Council). Is this what happened?

That seems overly optimistic. Council corruption is pretty common, seems to be everywhere I've lived, rural and city alike. There are many cases of relatives to councillors getting contracts or favourable treatment for planning issues, particularly when the majority of the council are mates with each other. Sometimes blatant favouritism that makes the newspapers, particularly Private Eye, but the councillors rarely lose their position. Sometimes they get a slap on the wrist but as long as they don't get caught actually breaking the law or lining their own pockets they get away with it. Not all corruption is like that when I lived in Tower Hamlets, when the mayor was actually ballot stuffing and diverting funds for political support.

This case close to my parents has a councillor bought local authority land, then had the planning restrictions lifted by the council massively increasing its value for building housing stock and then gave it to their children's company. Sure, nothing illegal was done, it's technically above board, but these purchases and planning application are sure easy when all your mates are on the council. In more recent years he had to resign over a different matter instead.

Thats a party I would vote for, Ketara.

Maybe if Labour finally dies, a political vacuum will open up for such a party.

I'd like to see the Conservative party die too but thats clearly not gonna happen.

 Whirlwind wrote:

 reds8n wrote:



. Oh and May has come out in favour of Fox hunting

Brilliant... what was this about Brexit and voting Tories would maintain the environmental controls. Maybe she should be let off in a middle of a field and chased down by a pack of hounds hunting for blood and then tear here limb from limb just so she could experience what a fox must go through.

Its not as stupid as it sounds.

First many Tory seats are rural, and in the rural areas fox hunting is popular, it is part of the rural way of life. Sure not everyone is a fan, but it has more support than most people would believe either from the assumption that blood sports are just for "toffs" or from ignorance that the rural communities in England particularly still exist.

It is also defensible as a policy fox hunting is abhorent to the urban population, but that is the point. The urban population have a majority and have made their feelings shown, however we are supposedly a society of minority tolerance and the rural British are a minority with their own culture and they feel they have been repeatedly pissed on.
If we are supposed to be tolerant to religious practices that go against our society norm, such as wearing a burka, why not allow people to do their traditional hunts. Its not like we have a vegan society, and plenty of people who care about the cruelty of fox hunting are happy to keep eating budget fried chicken and chips, the vast majority of which comes from factory farming.
We demand tolerence for religious practices, atheist practices, LGBT - even when its in peoples faces, and we celebrate when festivals happen to this effect. We arent all gay, ad most who are not would want nothing to do with it for themselves, but we learn to be tolerant of things we don't want to be part of.
Yet in spite of that in spite of the gross hipocrisy of our food industry and endemic cruelty required to keep mass foodstuffs affordable, despite having a culture where female segregation, disempowerment and discrimination is ok so long as it happens within a minority practice. The rural British cant hunt a fox if they want to, because tolerence doesnt apply to them.
The supporting rhetoric is in place and is fairly clever: tolerence is supposedly for all, so therefore be tolerant what you don't like. It is enough to back a new bill.

May doesnt need to do this, the rural vote will likely go Tory anyway, but there is a clamour for it in the villages, hence 'favourable' comments at this time.
You need not worry though, while cementing the rural vote is important, hence vague comments now Theresa May has never been one for doing anyone a favour she need not do, and will look to the urban vote first and will not propose any fox hunt repeal bill. It will be an empty promise. Theresa May has long been known as either 'May or May not' or Theresa May, but probably wont', she is fairly self absorbed even by politician standards and from those who know of her it can be fairly said she doesn't give a feth for anyone but herself. A fox hunt repeal will cause her problems she doesn't need, so promises will be made now and forgotten later.

Fox Hunting is a distraction from the Government missing it's legal obligation to tell us how it's screwing us on pensions.

Maybe also because it looks like (haven't researched the headline) primary care in Dorset basically just started operating on a privatised basis.

 Baragash wrote:
Fox Hunting is a distraction from the Government missing it's legal obligation to tell us how it's screwing us on pensions.

Not inconceivable.

 Ketara wrote:


I'm not pulling this entirely out of my arse, I'm trying to conceptualise what a Clement Attlee led Government would do facing the country of today. But what very clearly emerges in even a rudimentary thought exercise is a party that really has absolutely no equivalent in contemporary British politics.

Attlee would be unelectable today. He'd be a technocrat rather than the charismatic leadership of the current crop of politicians.

He wouldn't survive constant media exposure.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:

 Whirlwind wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
For non-Scottish dakka members, let me tell you why the Labour party is dying.

I'll tell you about Glasgow and the West of Scotland. An area Labour dominated for 50+ years.

Here's a small sample of what went wrong:

I'm the head of Council X. Council houses need to be fixed. My brother has a building firm. Yeah, it'll cost the taxpayer more, and the other bid tenders are better, but he's my brother and family comes first. I'm sure you understand...

Given what I think you are implying I'm assuming then that both the Councillor and the brother's firm were prosecuted for fraud (which is a police matter). There are very strict rules relating to procurement and if they are in breach of these then they are liable to go to jail (and all other bidders will be able to claim costs from the Council). Is this what happened?

That seems overly optimistic. Council corruption is pretty common, seems to be everywhere I've lived, rural and city alike. There are many cases of relatives to councillors getting contracts or favourable treatment for planning issues, particularly when the majority of the council are mates with each other. Sometimes blatant favouritism that makes the newspapers, particularly Private Eye, but the councillors rarely lose their position. Sometimes they get a slap on the wrist but as long as they don't get caught actually breaking the law or lining their own pockets they get away with it. Not all corruption is like that when I lived in Tower Hamlets, when the mayor was actually ballot stuffing and diverting funds for political support.

This case close to my parents has a councillor bought local authority land, then had the planning restrictions lifted by the council massively increasing its value for building housing stock and then gave it to their children's company. Sure, nothing illegal was done, it's technically above board, but these purchases and planning application are sure easy when all your mates are on the council. In more recent years he had to resign over a different matter instead.

In response to my earlier post, here's some evidence of what I'm talking about, and why Labour have almost died in Scotland. It wasn't overnight, but the gradual drip drip drip of sleaze and corruption played its part. And yes, I'm well aware the Tories are probably even worse.

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

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14507937.City_council_s_perfect_storm_as_senior_boss_suspended_and_prominent_politician_quits_Labour_administration/

That's just the tip of the iceberg over the years. Type Glasgow + Council + Corruption into google and you'll be surprised what come up.

The law of averages tells you that some of these people were guilty of fraud and sleaze.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Well, feth me with a fish fork!

CPS to press no charges against Tory MPs over election fraud.

Well, I never saw that coming!

This key passage is the most important:

The Act also makes it a technical offence for an election agent to fail to deliver a true return. By omitting any ‘Battle Bus’ costs, the returns may have been inaccurate. However, it is clear agents were told by Conservative Party headquarters that the costs were part of the national campaign and it would not be possible to prove any agent acted knowingly or dishonestly. Therefore we have concluded it is not in the public interest to charge anyone referred to us with this offence.

So any old battle bus can roll into town, drop off activists and material, but because the local agents won't be in the know, and because the costs are part of the national campaign, it won't matter!
Because that battle bus is taking pensioners down the Old Kent Road for jellied eels, and is in no way influencing local votes!

This country is corrupt beyond repair!

Craig Murray is saying on his BlogSpot that at media events, May gets questions in advance and can veto questions she doesn't like!

What the hell happened to the media?

Banana republic of Britain

Not sure if this has happened to anybody else here, but I had Labour knock on the door today. I guess Mays black ops style drop and extraction at the local steel works rattled them When I told them I was not voting Labour because of Brexit they assumed I was in favour of it and asked if anybody else in the house would be voting Labour. The idea that I voted to remain and would not be voting Labour because of there Brexit position seemed to puzzle them.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
[This key passage is the most important:

The Act also makes it a technical offence for an election agent to fail to deliver a true return. By omitting any ‘Battle Bus’ costs, the returns may have been inaccurate. However, it is clear agents were told by Conservative Party headquarters that the costs were part of the national campaign and it would not be possible to prove any agent acted knowingly or dishonestly. Therefore we have concluded it is not in the public interest to charge anyone referred to us with this offence.

Then surely it's party headquarters that should be investigated for this then?

 Ketara wrote:
Your average politically unaware/uncaring bloke in the street doesn't know or care about any of that. To seize on one issue (housing), he has two facts. There used to be council housing, and you could get it. Now there's a load of immigrants, and there isn't any council housing, because the immigrants are living in what little council housing there is.

And that's the point. It's about educating the public at large and explaining the issues at hand (whether that be by good or poor judgement decisions). That immigration isn't the reason for the housing crisis and is more to do with falling development and a decrease in the median number of people by household. For the lowest paid it has not been helped by both parties forcing councils to sell vast swathes of their stock for knock down prices without any viable financial way of replacing them; and this continues with more relaxed planning laws allowing builders to provide less affordable housing and trying to put through that housing associations must also allow people to buy houses at knock down prices.

However these are difficult things to address (and admit to) and are reliant on suitable well managed long term policies to facilitate the change to sustainable housing development for everyone. Instead both Labour and Tories allowed the slow growth of blame to be placed on the immigrants because it is a simplistic message that deflects from the real reason; this is compounded that a number of papers like the Daily Fail regularly blame immigrants for everything from it being cloudy to terrorism when it simply isn't true. When people are 'educated' in this way and consistently then yes they will believe that immigration is the root of the issue when it simply is not. There are more fundamental issues that is causing these issues. This then simply becomes a lack of ongoing education of the populace; and ultimately the simplistic messages allow for the growth of populist messages that feed this cycle of misinformation (and it becomes about telling people what they want to hear rather than what they should hear).

There was an interesting piece on Radio 4 this evening, concerning immigration and the schools place crisis.

To summarise, in the late 90s the birth rate was pretty low and Labour felt confident in promising small class sizes for all because the amount of children feeding into the system was declining.

Everything was fine untll 2003, when there was a sudden leap in the birth rate. This was not caused by immigration, which didn't start until 2004. Immigration of course did not help, and the situation now is that 18% of 5-year olds are from non-British, non-EU mothers, 10% are from EU mothers, and only 72% from British mothers.

Labour and Tory government's having ignored the increasing birth rate, there is now a school places crisis despite "record" amounts of money being spent on schools.

Daily mail are touting what looks to be a leaked labour manifesto.

I only skimmed article as late and on phone so links not as easy.
If that's true and even with daily mail slant right.
It does not seem to read well for labour.

It reads... Well . I don,t think its quite the manifesto for this election and the section on brexit, there's no no deal option if true and presents that they will take a bad deal over no deal.

If this leak is true...
Is another matter.

 Whirlwind wrote:

Because it is a barbaric practice of slaughtering animals by ripping them into pieces after they have been exhausted. From my perspective any practice that creates needless suffering of animal should be outlawed regardless of where it is applied.

Fox hunts tend to end fairly quickly. Also the kills is by the hounds, its animal on animal, this happens all the time. It is part of the natural order.

 Whirlwind wrote:

Although I do also oppose battery farms, the chickens are not ripped to pieces whilst still alive and should be humanely slaughtered (but again do think they should be banned).

Factory farms are home to all sorts of lingering deaths. Point remains there are a lot of factory farming laws, but theree is also the need to provide low cost chicken to the urban population.

 Whirlwind wrote:

We do not hunt foxes for food, it is done for the fun of a blood sport.

Hunting is one of the primal acts of man. Those still in touch with nature often do hunt, either for food or sport. The ideology that is it barbariac is taken from the perspective of the urban man who is separated from nature by his environment. It is at the point where a lot of urbanites couldnt kill for food even if they wanted to, though most could in dire need, yet only a portion of those are actual vegetarians. Attitudes are different.

Now you might consider that removing a womans equal rights is barbaric, yet because we have multi culturalism and tolerance and (a form of) equality we overlook gross sexism in minority communities.
It is quite possibly worse to effectively take most of a human womans rights away than to mistreat a fox. Yet one is acceptable in the UK and the other is not.

 Whirlwind wrote:

We are quite happy to condemn a puppy farm that causes needless suffering to dogs and yet a wild animal like a fox it is OK to do?

Depends on how the dogs are farmed, and then very little is done.

 Whirlwind wrote:

There are lots of practices that used to be enacted but no longer because they are inhumane/cruel/barbaric etc.

Such as.

 Whirlwind wrote:

I'm sure there is a minority of people that would love to rip cats limb from limb when they excrete their waste on the garden when they trespass or the dog that fouls the front yard but that doesn't make it acceptable.
So why should fox hunting be entertained?.

Ok, you can have individuals want to do anything. We have laws to stop individual actions. Now in the analogy given, we don't allow people to slaughter cats because
First, cats are private property, second, it isn't a cultural activity, third, It is not acceptable in its milieu.

However fox hunting doesn't offend private property laws of itself, hunts had to work around those territories where it was not permitted. Second it is a cultural activity by a people group. Third it is acceptable in its local area. You say its barbaric, the rural people say its not, they say its their culture and who are you to overrule them.

While we don't allow urban population to slaughter cats, you can buy poisons on the open market, and they are liberally used for the immediate convenience of the population. Most of those poisons are hazardous for the environment and cause lingering deaths on the animals that eat them, which are often the wrong ones.
If you want to rid yourself of local fauna just buy poison dump it and be happy, you can buy it in most convenience stores, is that damaging, most likely, is that cruel, certainly. But it isnt happening to fluffy foxes and badgers, so you don't notice, or care.

 Whirlwind wrote:

Because there is a minority does not make something acceptable.

We have a lot of legislation which says exactly the opposite. However it omits rural peoples rights, and they are just about the only demographic whose culture is not respected and is still discriminated against.

 Whirlwind wrote:

There is no reason to hunt a fox; hunting trails can be just as lively and is the same apart from the needless butchery of a wild animal at the end of it.

There is no reason to buy a sports car (they accelerate too fast and encourage speeding), play golf (you can play tennis instead and use all that land to build homes), play wargames (you can encourage the youth of tomorrow to focus on pastimes that don't glorify violence), eat beef (we could use beefstock land for daily or arable use and feed far more people), eat pork (so that other faiths are not offended by what we eat)....

There are fair reasons to do all those things and more, including hunting a fox. In the latter case it can be summed up as - because its the culture of the rural communities.

There is a strong ethic of allowing multiculturalism to actually apply in full, and for tolerance to apply in full, wheras currently it does not. This means that the urban majority gets to tolerate fox hunting and other rural pastimes as exercised by rural people in their own communities. I would go as far as to say that fox hunting should be legitimised as long as other minority culture activities are also legitimised out of the need for the government to fulfill equality and diversity. It activists want to then re-ban fox hunting they should have to get the rural communities to agree rather than force the majority culture upon them.

This idea that 'rural communities' want fox hunting is a myth. It's toffs and those in the horse riding and stabling industry that want it, most in rural communities have no interest, and the 'pest control' argument trotted out is nonsense. Even among farmers and smallholders there isn't full support,, as fox hunts can do more damage than good when charging around having dogs on the loose, all for the sake of killing one fox at a time.

So Orlanth, are you also going to argue for reinstatement of bear baiting or cock fighting? Both banned decades ago as cruel and inhumane blood sports. Note that they were urban working class blood sports. Hare coursing and badger lamping (rural working class blood sports) were also banned a long time ago.

The only ones that survived until recently, were the upper class pursuits of fox and deer hunting with dogs, funny that?

Also, it's still perfectly legal to hunt in this country, if you're into that primal stuff. You just have to do it with a gun and no more than two (IIRC) tracking dogs. So the idea that you can't fulfill that primal need, should you chose is bs. You just can't do it by watching animals tear each other to pieces

Blood sports are a barbaric medieval hangover and the vast majority in this country do not want them to exist anymore. This is a democracy and will of the people is to be respected. (As we are told oh so often these days).

I suggest we have a referendum on fox hunting.

To return to a more central topic,, I keep hearing the phrase "no deal or bad deal" in regards to the Brexit negotiations. This presupposes there is also the possibility of a "good deal".

I know that No Deal means trading with the EU on standard WTO tariffs, and the need to renegotiate a number of treaties on visas and extradition. There would also have to be a resolution of the positions of the EU citizens in the UK, and the UK citizens in the EU.

In my view a Good Deal will involve some considerable access to the Free Market or customs union, plus financial services passporting. This as I understand it requires open borders which is off the menu since the key factor is to control EU immigration.

Therefore I would like more information about what a Bad Deal is going to look like.

Ketara touches on the key issue that I'll be interested to see play out in this election.

In 2017, an internationalist socialist has more common ground with a free market liberal than he does with a socialist nationalist. On the other side, a social conservative should be more inclined to make common ground with a socialist nationalist than with a free marketeer.

How the two main parties (in the US and the UK) have come even this far without fracturing and remaking themselves is unknown to me, but Western politics is going to keep throwing up oddities like Trump, Sanders, Corbyn, WIlders, Le Pen, Grillo, Macron ad infinitum until we establish a working, communicable new political discourse that isn't based on early 20th century political economy and 1960s social activism.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Therefore I would like more information about what a Bad Deal is going to look like.

Free trade in goods only, services still subject to some restrictions. Supervision by EU agencies in which the UK will no longer have a say.

A Canada-lite deal, basically.

I think fox hunting ought to be legal. I'd be happy for all the other animal blood sports to be brought back too.

I'd be even happier to see the range of legal human blood sports expanded.

Up to now, these things have been dealt with on an ad hoc, almost taboo culture basis, not by establishing moral first principles and arguing over those, and then implementing what's agreed upon.

I can be a professional NFL player or boxer and pretty much assure myself of an early death involving dementia. I can throw myself out of an aeroplane or off a building for fun or I can try to climb a mountain with a kill rate of 9/10, but I can't engage in a rapier duel to first blood with another consenting adult. Duelling was outlawed because it was an extension of vendetta justice and not in line with a rule of law, criminal justice system, not because it was 'barbaric' as some people assert. If you view it as an extreme sport, you'd have to permit it or you'd have to advocate banning the other things I mentioned.

Same goes for the animal thing, you have to be a vegan in 2017 if you want to argue to ban fox hunting, if you're not, you're a hypocrite or you hold two contradictory opinions.

Orlath - There's no such thing as 'atheist practices'.

 AlchemicalSolution wrote:


Same goes for the animal thing, you have to be a vegan in 2017 if you want to argue to ban fox hunting, if you're not, you're a hypocrite or you hold two contradictory opinions.

No you don't. You could weigh the suffering of animals towards the benefit we get from that suffering and decide that the benefit to society outweighs the suffering of animals in one case and doesn't in another case.

In response to people who responded to my earlier post about the CPS not prosecuting the Tories for electoral fraud, it gets worse and worse.

What kind of mickey mouse justice system do we have in this nation?

Look at this quote from the CPS official statement.

However, it is clear agents were told by Conservative Party headquarters that the costs were part of the national campaign and it would not be possible to prove any agent acted knowingly or dishonestly. Therefore we have concluded it is not in the public interest to charge anyone referred to us with this offence.”

So the agents' defence is that CCHQ told them it was legal, so that makes it legal?

If I tell person X that it's ok to murder somebody and person X murders somebody, person X can use that as a defence in court because I told them murder was legal!!!!

Holy horsegak! Any judge or jury would laugh that defence out of town...

But the CPS think it's ok for the Tories to go down that route

And even more risible is the Tory defence that because everybody else is doing it, that makes it ok...

I'll start robbing banks and see how that line of defence stands up in court. I doubt if a judge would be impressed.

Banana republic of Britain...

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 AlchemicalSolution wrote:


Same goes for the animal thing, you have to be a vegan in 2017 if you want to argue to ban fox hunting, if you're not, you're a hypocrite or you hold two contradictory opinions.

No you don't. You could weigh the suffering of animals towards the benefit we get from that suffering and decide that the benefit to society outweighs the suffering of animals in one case and doesn't in another case.

Then you'd be saying that the benefit of the pleasure of eating meat as opposed to eating other foods is in some way objectively more real or important than the benefit of pursuing your chosen sporting leisure activity. To the extent that it's possible to parse between these two activities, it's pretty clear that eating meat is the less valuable of the two, what with usable farming land surface, greenhouse gas emission and health implications of eating lots of meat vs health benefits of doing sport and the fact that there's an historical/cultural aspect to it.

Murdoch would love it.

On Sky BloodSports 1 now, The Dogs Ripping Each Other Apart Cup . On Sky BloodSports 2, Disabled Jousting.

jouso wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Therefore I would like more information about what a Bad Deal is going to look like.

Free trade in goods only, services still subject to some restrictions. Supervision by EU agencies in which the UK will no longer have a say.

A Canada-lite deal, basically.

That sounds to me a lot better than No Deal (but not as good as being in the EU) however I suspect the EU agency supervision will be vetoed by the hardcore sovereignty fans.

Ultimately it is a question of whether people value economic factors over political ones.

The Labour manifesto is pretty feeble, wishy-washy stuff. It's like a 1970s throwback.

I have no doubt that the Tories and the Lib Dems will produce a similar level of mediocrity...

We're looking at years of managed decline from people who ought to be counting paper-clips in some minor company in the middle of Yorkshire or somewhere similar.

No plan, no strategy, no vision...

 Darkjim wrote:
Murdoch would love it.

On Sky BloodSports 1 now, The Dogs Ripping Each Other Apart Cup . On Sky BloodSports 2, Disabled Jousting.

You're trying to be ironic and clever, but the fact is that would be fantastic and you know it.

 AlchemicalSolution wrote:

 Darkjim wrote:
Murdoch would love it.

On Sky BloodSports 1 now, The Dogs Ripping Each Other Apart Cup . On Sky BloodSports 2, Disabled Jousting.

You're trying to be ironic and clever, but the fact is that would be fantastic and you know it.

I didn't say otherwise, you read a lot that isn't there. I think if bringing back all bloodsports went to a referendum it would have an excellent chance, as above the press would love it, Sky Bet could offer 'which dog loses a leg but keeps fighting' special, all that. Would be a great USP for the New UK.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
This idea that 'rural communities' want fox hunting is a myth. It's toffs and those in the horse riding and stabling industry that want it, most in rural communities have no interest, and the 'pest control' argument trotted out is nonsense.

This is patently untrue. To the point that rural Trades Unions opposed the hunting ban. trades unionist are rarely 'toffs'.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:

Even among farmers and smallholders there isn't full support,, as fox hunts can do more damage than good when charging around having dogs on the loose, all for the sake of killing one fox at a time.

Nothing has universal support. You can also find people in towns who understand that people should be allowed to enjoy thier traditional rural activities without people of a different culture prohibiting them because of their own intolerant views.

 Jadenim wrote:
So Orlanth, are you also going to argue for reinstatement of bear baiting or cock fighting? Both banned decades ago as cruel and inhumane blood sports. .

No I didn't say that, and if you read carefully you can see why. Both of those were urban, and were rejected by urban communities. They were also enclosed so the 'natural' pursuit of a hunt did not occur.

 Jadenim wrote:

Also, it's still perfectly legal to hunt in this country, if you're into that primal stuff. You just have to do it with a gun and no more than two (IIRC) tracking dogs.

The permission for two dogs is largely to allow loopholes that permit some forms of hunting to occur while selectively banning fox hunting.

 Jadenim wrote:

So the idea that you can't fulfill that primal need, should you chose is bs.

Rural communities demand the same cultural right to do things their way.

 Jadenim wrote:

Blood sports are a barbaric medieval hangover and the vast majority in this country do not want them to exist anymore. This is a democracy and will of the people is to be respected. (As we are told oh so often these days).

As explained before, that is an urban opinion, that is being imposed on a minority community over its own culture. Minorities have the right to have their culture protected even if the majority is against or disinterested in them.
This is why there is a move to restore it in the rural community.

Part of the problem that ires rural communities is that they are shat on, particularly by Labour urban politicians but also by Tories with urban constituencies. in the last decade we had a massive rise of 'compo culture' under New Labour, with people getting large amounts of compensation from the government, and also community grants targeted at minorities, yet after the Foot and Mouth outbreak in 2000-1 most farmers were never compensated at all. The heavy handedness and lack of consideration for rural communities by New Labour was noticed heavily, and repeated in several policies. This was exasperated by the continued rhetoric on equality multi-culturalism and tolerance and value-to-society which repeatedly was seen to apply to just about any community other than their own.

To add to that while rural pursuits like fox hunting were being targeted for a ban other minorities could get away with anything, even when it was already illegal. New Labour patently turned a blind eye to female circumcision, and importing of underage brides from the Indian subcontinent. The combo of some minorities being allowed to bypass much needed human rights legislation due to multi-culturalism, while indigenous minorities were being faced with heavy handed legislation that took away their cultural root. Foxes are de-facto not more important than female rights issues, but somehow were more actionable.

The third 'combo' that riled the rural communities was the fox hunting had long been considered a legal grey area. It was understood that urban communities didnt like it and didnt want it, but the cultural continuation of the rural communities was understood by prior governments, New Labour took several societal grey areas and polarised a 'solution' to them by fiat. The linking doctrine relevant most here being that of abortion. In the UK abortion was also a grey area, you could de facto have an abortion for any reason a woman wanted, but technically it had to be necessary. This status had continued since the 60's and was culturally stable. Mistakes during casual sex were not formally considered a good excuse, but the abortion was available anyway. New Labour turned that on its head removing the moral ambiguity placed by society. Abortions were to become a full 'human right' even if they occur solely as a result of careless casual sex.
It was not hard to notice that it was now a human right to be allowed to kill an unborn child solely as a result of convenience of 'having fun', but it was at the same time completely illegal to kill a fox as a result of 'having fun'.

I don't think rural communities have been particularly "shat on" by any government.

The facts are that 70 years ago, 20% of the population was employed in agriculture and now it is 2%. This was a result of mechanisation, in other words the same modernisation that has also "shat on" coal mining, dock workers and car manufacturing, all leading to great reductions of traditional working class jobs that whatever their disadvantages sustained communities in town and country alike.

You can't actually build a lot of new jobs into a rural community to replace farming without turning the area into a non-rural community. What you tend to get instead is people commuting to nearby towns and cities.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I don't think rural communities have been particularly "shat on" by any government.
.

That isn't the general opinion there.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

The facts are that 70 years ago, 20% of the population was employed in agriculture and now it is 2%. This was a result of mechanisation,.

The Uk had a notedly efficient agricultural sector. However the 2% also includes a recent drop due to housing pressures. Rural properties are being bought as holiday homes, cutting availability and jacking house prices up at the same time. There are also problems due to corporate feudalism.
Mechanisation hasn't shat on UK agriculture or agricultural communities, a lack of focus on their community and its needs, to the point of some governments blatantly ignoring them is the problem.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

in other words the same modernisation that has also "shat on" coal mining, dock workers and car manufacturing, all leading to great reductions of traditional working class jobs that whatever their disadvantages sustained communities in town and country alike.

The two are not the same. manufacturing was replaced by service sector economy and the UK urban economy has done well from it. Not everywhere has prospered though, but then again the UK has more manufacturing than people think.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

You can't actually build a lot of new jobs into a rural community to replace farming without turning the area into a non-rural community. What you tend to get instead is people commuting to nearby towns and cities.

Not necessarily true. There is a small rural service sector, spas resorts etc, but that they need transport accessibility they largely draw manpower from urban rather than local communities. Some rural communities survive on traditional industries, specialist food production that is viable on a small scale production with wide distribution, mostly honey products and brewing. A lot of specialist tech industries move to rural locations, normally these are the ind that provide very specific services often in the aeronautical or defense industry. Scratch the surface and there is a lot of stuff out in the rural areas, but the core rural communities are being squeezed, an they are not blind to that.