Armchair politics

I guess it’s all about context. I agree with the message sent by the police/prosecutors in Australia when they released without charge the teenage boy who egged Fraser Anning.

Fraser Anning is a very different kettle of fish to Corbyn. The blatant hate and racism from him is significantly worse than anything I’ve seen from Corbyn.

An example needs to be set following Jo Cox. Books will (and should) be thrown.

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The entire political situation in Australia is very different to the UK. Parliamentarians are not routinely threatened with physical violence or subjected to abuse on their way to and from work. Nor has, to the best of my knowledge, a sitting MP been murdered by an extremist in the recent past. More to the point, the safety of MPs in Australia has not been deliberately threatened by the PM, as part of an attempt to enact legislation. This is an important distinction, particularly when you consider that most Australian governments in recent history have either been coalitions or single party governments with narrow minorities. The atmosphere in the UK is verging on the poisonous at the moment, both within and between the two main parties and between the Parliament and some of the public.

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Fucking commie Graun at it again

Curb bosses’ pay or risk breakdown of trust in capitalism, MPs warn

Prison for throwing eggs…pah.

John Prescott dealt with it …no problem.

john-prescott-punc_1567937c

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Dumb politicians ain’t what they used to be :smile:

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If (big if) we do end up with Euro elections in May then the results could be interesting, and maybe predictive

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I assume the name ‘Bunch of cunts desperate for media attention’ must have already been taken.:roll_eyes:

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Well I’ll be voting for them and I guess Paul’s description describes me perfectly :smiley:

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I didn’t realise this was going on, just wtf!

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It is going on everywhere.

This building in Birmingham is half empty and cannot attract commercial tenants so the few that are left (mainly the NHS) have been given notice and the building is going to be redeveloped for residential purposes.

This is a screenshot of the road it is on

I have no idea when that google pic was taken as there is no traffic, but it is the main A45 dual carriageway on both sides and normally very busy.

We absolutely need housing, and refurbs are cheaper than rebuilds but …

The trouble is unless they are made in luxury flats, what they turn them into are battery farms - single room bedsits with paper walls, full of recently released or about-to-become prisoners so families with small children are packed in with druggies and everything that brings.

If they did a decent job and thought about who they put in it might not be too bad but they turn them into the worst kinds of sink estates

That would involve a) intervention and b) spending money. Mrs Thatcher convinced a generation of people that intervention was A Bad Thing (the job of government is to get paid for doing as little as humanly possible - let ‘the market’ or ‘the private sector’ make the decisions - which explains the potholes in my street). The only thing worse than intervening was intervening and spending money. Let people keep their money and if the queue at a bus stop needs an extra bus then that way they’ll have enough in their pockets for a whip round to buy one. Or … well … you know what … fuck public services. It’s hard to believe that there was anyone who didn’t know what was really going on there. But that’s how we’ve ended up with the private sector re-purposing the needy as a revenue stream.

VB

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Yeah, read that on the way in today.

The hell is going on?

We can learn a lot from those who believed in non-intervention and small Government. The impacts of the decisions to do nothing are often far reaching and unpleasant.

There was a very interesting discussion on the Irish Famine of 1845-47 on In Our Times on Radio 4 this morning. The discussion focussed on the political response under Peel (lots of intervention, a purchase of Canadian grain, and the establishment of labour programs and soup kitchens) and then under the subsequent Russell Government. Russell believed in ‘laissez-faire’, small Government and non-intervention. His decision to shut down much of Peel’s interventions and the soup kitchens and wait for a market solution to the famine were central to the disaster. Effectively the market needed to find a solution to what was an excess supply of people given the change in the resource base.

Enough said really.

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He said this with a straight face.

Billionaire JP Morgan chief attacks socialism as ‘a disaster’

Did someone say ‘Bankers’?

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'kinell. :confused:

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