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Ordure, ordure! and other bad puns
Topic Started: May 17 2009, 04:50 PM (560 Views)
Cobdenia
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1953 is the new 1932 for 2008
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UKIP aren't really fascist, just anti-EU. Though their was a period when they were dubious (during the Kilroy-Silk era - the man being a fairly obvious xenophobe), there position has shifted away from being anti-European (in an xenophobic sense) to just feeling that Britain should be out of the EU.

However, as they are pretty much a third party, they don't exactly...express themselves well. On a political news programme, for example, their spokesman didn't do a good job at explaining the differences between UKIP and the BNP (the BNP being pretty much Nazi's)- that doesn't mean there isn't an important difference, but it doesn't exactly paint them in the best light.

If one looks at it as a sort of left right line, UKIP about as far right as one can be whilst remaining "respectable", though if they were to move any further right they'd enter the nutjob zone. In much the same way as the Green's are probably on the edge of left wing respectibility.

I do know a few people that have voted UKIP, they tend to be split between those who feel that Britain would be better off out of the EU for various reasons, and those who don't agree with their policies but want to give Europe the shock it needs to force it to make reforms it desperately needs
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eco
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UKIP have also been shameless in playing the 'ooh, look at all those nasty big party politicians with their expenses - at least you can trust us" card, despite being the most outrageous gravy trainers in British politics.

They're not fascist, or even very extremist, but they are nonetheless pretty loathsome.

I was at the Liberty conference today. Tony Benn was typically inspiring (please don't die, we still need you), Vivienne Westwood an appallingly self-indulgent rambling nutter ("and, um, climate change, er, 9/11 conspiracy, er, um, now what was I saying ? SHUT THE FUCK UP IF YOU'RE NOT GOING TO SAY ANYTHING RELEVANT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ALMIGHTY), Nick Clegg had his moments, and Shami Chakrabarti was as adorable as ever (ahem).

The Lib Dems have interesting and thoughtful proposals for electoral and political reform, though Lord Bingham (another doughty old bugger of the highest calibre) has really made me rethink the proposals for a written constitution. The Conservatives... gah. They're blatantly not interested in significant reform and I don't trust them to pay any attention to Dominic Grieve's sincere faith in the Human Rights Act. It's also a shock to learn that they have no intention of withdrawing ID cards for foreign nationals...

Apologies if the names bandied around mean nothing to you.

Anyway, with all this talk of general elections, etc, I'm going to rather self-indulgently re-post my comment from the Guardian website, as it sums up my views in (I hope) a reasonable fashion:

To those baying for Labour blood:

A snap general election is the surest way to destroy a wonderful and oh-so-rare chance to transform British politics. Cameron and the Tories will romp to victory - do you seriously believe they will follow through with meaningful reform? Involve every level of society in the process of crafting something bolder, fairer, better? No, of course not. They'll have a huge majority and several years to sit on it; not exactly a spur to radical action, hmm? We'll be thrown some crumbs but no fundamentals will change: first past the post will stay, the House of Lords will remain a undemocratic botch job, MPs will pay lip service to transparency and cleaning up corruption.

And we will have wasted a glorious opportunity, the like of which we'll probably not see again for many, many years. Slimy toads like Purnell and Blears will be partly to blame, because they put themselves and their party before the people and the country. Cameron et al will also share some responsibility, for shamelessly playing this government's painful failings for their own advantage. But most of all, we, the people will have fucked up by letting those with power (not just politicians!) play us for fools once again.

Please: simmer down, control the bloodlust (and, believe me, I understand how seductive it is) and channel your efforts into forging a better democracy. And once this process has been set in stone... tear the bastards to shreds at the polls. You never know, you may have an electoral system that gives you that power at last.
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Cobdenia
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1953 is the new 1932 for 2008
[ *  *  * ]
But not everyone in Britain wants sweeping changes to British democracy. There are some changes I would like to see, but most of them would clash vehemently with the ones you want to see. For example, I feel the HoL should remain undemocratic, with pretty much the powers it has now (i.e. pretty much advising on possible alterations to legislation), but replacing politcally appointed Lords with an independent and apolitical comittee effectively deciding (i'd suppose technically it'd be advising the Queen, but you know what I mean) on who get's ennobled, and removing the voting rights of all hereditory peers (though allowing them some inolvement in ceremonial doo-dahs) - basically bring about a system in which the Lord's is full of un-whipped, unaligned to a particualr party, specialists and those with experience in certain fields (e.g. the sort of people who get made Lord's nowadays when there isn't a politcal motive - retired military officers, captains of industry, retired senior police officers, retired judges, senior church figures, etc.) to ensure the elected HoC don't do there favourite trick of rushing through poorly thought out legislation. I'm also in favour of FPTP over PR, for various other reasons which I sha't bore you with as it will likely cause an argument. Of course, there are things I'm sure we can agree about - reforms are needed to the expenses system, ideally a form of independent arbitration that actually works, as well as politcally appointed civil servents and those God awful bloody press-wallahs and advisors that politicians need to surround themselves with
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Allech-Atreus
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isn't that what the Privy council does already, advising the queen on who gets ennobled and all that business she does?

Seems to me the Lords are just a holdover but they're a good holdover. They're like the Senate here in the states- full of old fucking lunatics and ridiculous mongers of whores and other disreputable wares, but they're the rather nice ocunterweight to the radical populism of the house. Seems a good compromise.

that's progress though. The old things get thrown out. Suppose I agree with a lot of it, thought i do put on conservative airs i'm the racial at heart.


shoultn'dt post drunk, it's a mistake. Suppose depression of the inhibition centers of the brain make truth more east; funny thing- I speak foreign languages when the drink's in me.

In any case, my disclaimer: what I know of UK politics is gleaned from CSPAN's coverage of Prime Minister's Questions and the smattering of BBC world service I hear on my way back from work, and I am in no way qualified to offer advice or opinion on the subject other than, apparenly, my opinion of Susan Boyle and the "Nanny State' which, I suppose, is a great indicator of how much Americans are exposed to the foreign world.

c'est la vie.

to change countries once again.
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Kenny
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Allech-Atreus,Jun 6 2009
09:41 PM
shoultn'dt post drunk, it's a mistake.

But highly amusing for the rest of us. :D
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Cobdenia
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1953 is the new 1932 for 2008
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The Privy Council is pretty much just a posh name for the cabinet and shadow cabinet, old bean...the PM effectively tells the Queen who the slap about with a sword and force the wear dead stoats
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eco
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Wonderful stuff, A-A. ;)

Labour are getting annihilated in the EU elections. And the fucking BNP have a fucking seat in fucking Yorkshire.

Some thoughts... what do the Lib Dems have to do to make a frigging breakthrough? Can we invade Italy and stop them voting for that monster Berlusconi? And what the hell are these MANIAC parties in Bulgaria and Romania?

Cob, I'd be more up for a debate about electoral reform had I not exhausted the subject in the pub last night! Some other time, eh?
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Gruenberg
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aka Kleinschnauzer
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UKIP beat Labour, Labour came in 5th in the southern regions and lost at least 5 seats overall, BNP win 2 seats...not a good night. Extremely pissed off, actually.

So my thoughts, prefaced with the disclaimer that when Snef sobers up, he'll know more about British politics than I do:

I've seen nothing to indicate the Brown-bashing isn't just self-preservation. No one would lead Labour to reelection. Who do they seriously think would be better? Harman? Milipede? Johnson? Pffffffftt with a big sqrrpppppt on top. Which is not to say Brown should stay: just that if he goes, it shouldn't be because Labour isn't doing very well. They wouldn't be doing very well if he could shit golden rainbows.
"Kenny"
 
so, are the UKIP really the duplicitous fascist cabal NSG seems to think they are?
Haven't seen the NSG thread in question but I suspect they'd say the same of Thatcher - despite her being ousted by her own party for being too pro-Europe. Everyone having decided that we're in a malaise, it's easy to hate big, largely faceless targets that are endlessly stereotyped by the tabloid press (I mean, I know Americans complain about media bias in their own country, but really would your most-read national newspaper run a headline consisting solely of "FUCK OFF"?). Which is not to say all UKIP voters are stupidheads, perhaps they know much more than me...I just don't really care who makes my laws so long as they're the right laws.

I think it's disgusting we allow parties like the BNP to exist. Yes, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of blahdefuckingblah, but we don't have to rub our own noses in it. Let's work for the betterment of immigrants, deal with alarming disparities in educational achievement and economic status among minority populations, prevent hate crimes...when we've got all that fixed, sure, let's have some fancy lettered freedoms for the little Hayekites to wank into a can over.

The Lib Dems used to be like that fly on the windscreen you don't really care about, but now the goo has trickled down and it needs scrubbing off. Half of them are basically social democrats and half of them Tories who grew up in the post-Thatcher, everyone-hates-the-Tories age. (From observations of the local branches I've been involved in, and wild speculation, these seem entirely split by age: the old on the left, the young on the right.) They should just give up the ghost now, and move to parties with a chance.

If we hold a snap election or if we wait till next year, the result's going to be the exact fucking same, and surely by prolonging you're only going to make it worse. Can you imagine this government doing anything in a year to drastically improve its polling chances? (Hint: the answer's a two-letter word beginning with 'n'.) Like it or not, Prime Minister Cameron will be leading a hefty Conservative majority, with SNP dominating in Scotland. So why not give the state system at least another year before the privatisers whip out the leeches and start draining the NHS.

I'd be more inclined to support an elected House of Lords if a) the unelected House of Lords hadn't done a pretty good job standing up to the government on a number of issues in the last 3 years (most obviously prolonged detention) and b) with no offence to the ever-charming Stewed Rat contingent, the advocates of such weren't either wearing a club tie and griping about letting Pakistani doctors into the country or political science graduates with immaculate teeth and I-can-see-your-veins jeans who secretly want to privatise Canada.

Bottom line: first chance I get I'm emigrating to the US, and hiding out in Iceland for the meantime.
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The Evil Smurfs
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Blue Nazi Devil
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Cobdenia,Jun 7 2009
08:11 AM
The Privy Council is pretty much just a posh name for the cabinet and shadow cabinet, old bean...the PM effectively tells the Queen who the slap about with a sword and force the wear dead stoats

I thought they were in charge of the bathrooms :dumbass:
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eco
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I've probably been dense in not picking up on this but Gru appears to be rather more left-wing than I cottoned onto.

Anyway... I agree with most of what you've written, though I'm not willing to write off electoral reform as a charter driven by racists and Tory boys just yet. I'd also advocate an addition to Gru's list of measures for improving the lot of minorities: show some respect to the white working classes who are being shafted by globalisation of capital and labour. Yes, many may be racist, but we shouldn't just write them off: such people are, in truth, my family, and it wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that at least a couple heeded the BNP's siren song. I'd write more on this but it's a bit uncomfortably close to home and I need to talk to them about it more to get their views before I can articulate this effectively.

And, actually, didn't the Greens do quite well? I thought that was quite encouraging, and a strong indication that the PR we use for Euro elections isn't a good variant.

And and and... the BNP's vote didn't increase in the areas where they picked up seats: Labour's dropped. The Greens and UKIP only just missed out on picking up the two seats won by Griffin's mob. It could all have been very different, very easily.

I refuse to be depressed about UK politics when we have a chance to effect significant change (hopefully! for the better). If this chance is lost, however, then I suspect I'll be doing a Gruenberg. I'm just not ready yet.
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Kenny
King of California
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eco
 
And what the hell are these MANIAC parties in Bulgaria and Romania?

"...Like our chums at Canada’s “human rights” commissions, Doktor Morvai is a “human rights” activist—and, indeed, a former delegate to the UN Women’s Rights Committee. One thing a woman has a right to is an uncircumcised penis. In the course of her successful election campaign, the good doctor told Hungarian Jews to “go back to playing with their tiny little circumcised tails.” I don’t know what Krisztina has against circumcised penises, but it’s probably not her pelvis."
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eco
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What little I've read of Steyn in the past has left me distinctly underwhelmed. That piece, however, is pretty good. Bear in mind, however, that - no matter how much the EU pretends otherwise - these elections are simply not taken that seriously by voters. The fascist quota should be much, much lower come national elections. If not... then we're in the shit.
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