#411

Look I did a funny

image

1 Like
#413

Soz I couldn’t resist

#416

Just want to say that @TheWza is right on this. When you post a Tweet of someone ridiculing another comment like that it’s hard to judge in the context of the thread which part you yourself a ridiculing. Helps to be clear even if you think it should be obvious.

It’s not limited to Twitter posts but a personal bugbear I have with politics stuff is people assuming we all know who everyone supports, can make it hard to know what is the specific aspect of outrage we’re seeing. Not sure if this also reflects on politics becoming so crazy that it seems beyond The Thick of It so almost everything has some aspect of the ludicrous about it.

7 Likes
#417

this “centrism relies on evidence not ideology” take needs to die. it’s so arrogant. i can think of very few things as morbidly ideological as a political tendency that rationalises everything from full time workers using foodbanks to socialist radicals being thrown out of helicopters. stop it you fucks.

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#418

like viewing everything through the prism of dogmatic adherence to evidence allows you to abdicate moral responsibility for policy choices. “well the data shows us the single mum will make 3 quid an hour more a week if she has a fourth job and buys only store brand beans. i am a proud and reasonable centrist”. fuck off.

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#419

horrible that more people are happy to say that they think it’s the poor’s fault they are suffering than not

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#420

Not really sure I would class this as ‘centrism’ so much as bad faith questioning. I don’t think it’s right to assume that bad political things must be centrist just because. What we’re seeing here are three options but one of those is woolly and has multiple interpretations. May as well ask a really tough question and then offer

  • yes
  • no
  • depends

because obviously most people will give you ‘depends’ because it always fucking depends.

3 Likes
#421

it’s also total bullshit because “fairly” and “sensibly” will need to be interpreted ideologically anyway

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#422

This is part of the same dumbing-down of political dialogue in the past c.20-30 years that has enabled countless politicians simply to get away with talking about “fairness”, “choice”, “opportunity”, etc., etc. without ever addressing what those might actually mean in policy terms or the media ever holding them to account either way.

I guess a party without any policies made up of people who don’t believe in the same things as each other but refuse to discuss them in public is the natural end point and no surprise to see the media lapping that up.

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#423

In fact I’d actually say those YouGov questions are straight out right-wing, really as they’re clearly going to give people who want to lower taxes and aid for the poor a lever to allow them to do so under the guise of careful management and efficiency. And these have always been Tory conerstones of their cuts.

#424

agree, but i was picking up on their definition of what centrism is more than the poll per se. everyone likes to think they’re non-ideological. but centrism as defined by the people who class themselves as such is extremely ideological.

1 Like
#425

@TheWza has been replying for ages. That multi-quote mega dump is coming and I am fully here for it, let me tell you. goes to get a coffee

5 Likes
#426

:ballot_box: VOTES :clipboard: POLLS :crystal_ball: PREDICTIONS

These three upcoming votes, then (assuming no further delays - aye, I know…)…

Q1: May’s ‘Revised’ Deal Brexit will be

  • Approved
  • Rejected

0 voters

Q2: No-deal Brexit will be

  • Approved
  • Rejected

0 voters

Q3: An extension will be

  • Approved
  • Rejected, resulting in no deal Brexit at the end of March, regardless of the result of the preceding vote
  • Rejected, resulting in some sort of last minute deal being cobbled together and rushed through before the end of March
  • Rejected, resulting in Article 50 being revoked and therefore Remain being the Brexit outcome are end of March

0 voters

Going beyond that…

Q4: If there’s an extension, it will be for

  • Two or three months
  • Longer

0 voters

Q5: If there’s an extension, a deal will be found that parliament approves

  • Yes, the extension will allow a solution to be found
  • No, nothing doing, back to square one

0 voters

Q6: If there’s an extension, May will survive until it ends

  • Yes, she’s untouchable
  • No, she’ll throw in the towel, voluntarily or otherwise due to being undermined in some way

0 voters

Q7: There will, somehow, be a public referendum vote on the final outcome of Brexit

  • Yes
  • No

0 voters

Q8: If there’s another referendum, the result will be

  • Some sort of deal approval
  • No deal Brexit
  • Remain

0 voters

Q9: There will be a General Election before we know the Brexit outcome

  • Yes, GE before Brexit
  • No, the Tories are gonna see this one through

0 voters

Q10: If a GE does happen before the Brexit conclusion, the result will be

  • Tory majority gov
  • Tory minority gov
  • Labour minority gov
  • Labour majority gov

0 voters

1 Like
#427

Think you missed the memo about the country needing drastically less direct democracy, mate.

4 Likes
#428

Posted this the other day, but as a perfect example, May’s first speech as Prime Minister. Boy, she’s really delivering on all these wonderfully inspiring ideals…

The government I lead will be driven, not by the interests of the privileged few but by yours. We will do everything we can to give you more control over your lives.

When we take the big calls we will think not of the powerful, but you. When we pass new laws we will listen not to the mighty, but to you.

When it comes to taxes we will prioritise not the wealthy, but you. When it comes to opportunity we won’t entrench the advantages of the fortunate few, we will do everything we can to help anybody, whatever your background, to go as far as your talents will take you.

Completely and utterly vacuous sentiments which have been undermined by her every action as a politician before and since.

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#429

Regarding May going.

I have now decided that May is waiting until after Brexit is in place to step down. And I think there will be a push for an ERG member to become PM from within the party, which they absolutely won’t want.

It’ll get really bloody but ultimately this May’s only way out because she’s clearly a terrible PM but if she can have put Brexit in place but then have some ERG nut take charge while the country flushes down the pan she’ll be seen more kindly in history because she’ll have been noted as exercising the ‘will of the people’ but won’t be the one struggling to make it all work.

#430

That speech was fantastic. I remember listening to it driving home, thinking how great everything she was saying was and how it was absolutely impossible for her to have meant a single word of it.

2 Likes
#431

Circling back to the original polling questions posted by @ghosthalo, the words “fairly”, “efficiently” and “sensibly” are doing a fucking hell of a lot of heavy lifting there and absolutely no way that the halfwits at YouGov could define any of those terms despite the fact they’ve included them deliberately to skew the results.

It’s a shameful piece of polling work. Would love to know who paid for it.

1 Like
#432

Omg. you’re spoiling us poll fans with this post.

6 Likes
#433

Yeah, I think May is determined to see this through.

Going through that sequence of questions, I’ve realised I think there’ll be an extension short enough that doesn’t require us to have European elections.

But I don’t think a solution will be found in that timeframe.

And by solution, I mean a way for May’s red lines to remain in place, with a solution to the Northern Ireland aspect.

So I suppose I think there’ll be an approval in parliament for a deal not dissimilar to her current offering.

Which, as I understand it, will mean we’re still in transitional limbo (technically ‘out’, but generally accepting the rules associated with being ‘in’) for a couple of years, because until the NI situation is accounted for, the deal isn’t actually concluded.

Then what?

One of the following surely needs to happen:

  • May basically abandons attempting to keep NI operating to the same rules as the rest of the UK
  • May abandons her red lines and goes for a Corbyn soft Brexit but manages to doublespeak and spin it so that’s it’s not referred to as being anything of the sort

The latter of those two genuinely feels plausible.

And I’ve not even thrown in the curveball of Scottish independence in any of this.

1 Like