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The Political Thread

Started by The Legendary Shark, 09 April, 2010, 03:59:03 PM

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Professor Bear

Quote from: Frank on 18 March, 2017, 03:51:02 PM
Despite everyone - including his former supporters, in the wake of the Article 50 debacle - agreeing that Corbyn is a useless leader of the opposition, one tiny Scottish lady with Douglas Carswell's mouth saying exactly the same thing is why Momentum-era Labour have consistently polled around 30% [1] since September 2015, even though Tory fortunes have yo-yoed wildly during that same period (30% - 47%):

I'm reasonably certain Corbyn can't be blamed for editing BBC news or fiddling Conservative election expenses to a degree that the CPS considers criminal, but okay.

JPMaybe

If there's a realistic better option than Corbyn I'd be all ears.  Whoever the approved candidate of the PLP is is practically guaranteed to be a bellicose neoliberal ghoul though (cf Dan Jarvis).  If you'd trade in a pretty useless socialist for a competent (i.e. scores meaningless rhetorical points at PMQs) liberal, I don't know what you think an opposition to Toryism is supposed to be for, other than making some piddling incremental improvements, then watching all of them be dismantled when voted out.
Quote from: Butch on 17 January, 2015, 04:47:33 PM
Judge Death is a serial killer who got turned into a zombie when he met two witches in the woods one day...Judge Death is his real name.
-Butch on Judge Death's powers of helmet generation

Professor Bear

Most people - even Corbyn's supporters - would be all ears about a potential successor, but the party have been steadily pissing in their own supporters' faces for two years while telling them that Corbyn had made it rain.  It's a shame, as Clive Lewis and Andy Burnham seem alright - though fair warning I might be letting the fact that The Sun utterly fucking despises Burnham because of his Hillsborough campaigning colour my judgment.


Frank

Quote from: Professor Bear on 18 March, 2017, 06:43:26 PM
Corbyn can't be blamed for editing BBC news ...

Unedited video: https://youtu.be/YiI0OzSozTM?t=3m45s

Jezza was asked (3m 45s) if he'd order "the security services" onto the streets of the UK in the event of Paris-style attacks. His response (3m 55s) was that it's better the police do that job than the army.

Kuenssberg clarified (4m 16s) that she was asking whether he'd sanction lethal force in that scenario (not which agency should pull the trigger) and he chose to answer in the abstract (4m 23s) - that he's "not happy with a shoot to kill policy in general".

Jezza was given every opportunity to say it's okay to shoot terrorists if they're already killing people. He was later forced to clarify that it's probably okay*. The fact he didn't say so on screen wasn't the result of editorial choices.


* Although he still can't quite bring himself to say that

JPMaybe

Yeah, fuck that dude not unequivocally condoning state executions. It's not like there's any context of police popping off vaguely brown people or anything.
Quote from: Butch on 17 January, 2015, 04:47:33 PM
Judge Death is a serial killer who got turned into a zombie when he met two witches in the woods one day...Judge Death is his real name.
-Butch on Judge Death's powers of helmet generation

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: Professor Bear on 18 March, 2017, 08:32:15 PM
Most people - even Corbyn's supporters - would be all ears about a potential successor

I never imagined (and, I suspect, neither did he) that Corbyn would lead the Labour Party into a general election. In the 2015 leadership contest, he was literally the only option that didn't advocate rubber-stamping vast swathes of the Tories' austerity agenda. I voted for him (twice) as a place-holder for someone more electable, but with at least some left-wing credentials. The Blairite wing of the PLP, however, seems to be making it quite clear that it's their way or nothing, and they'll burn the party to the ground in preference to any alternative.
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TordelBack

Quote from: JPMaybe on 19 March, 2017, 02:34:47 AM
Yeah, fuck that dude not unequivocally condoning state executions. It's not like there's any context of police popping off vaguely brown people or anything.

Or that shoot-to-kill does anything but hand your opponents a recruiting platform.

Hawkmumbler

Quote from: TordelBack on 19 March, 2017, 11:03:26 AM
Quote from: JPMaybe on 19 March, 2017, 02:34:47 AM
Yeah, fuck that dude not unequivocally condoning state executions. It's not like there's any context of police popping off vaguely brown people or anything.

Or that shoot-to-kill does anything but hand your opponents a recruiting platform.
Basically. The fact black folk are 9 times more likely to get shot by police in the US is a pretty solid reason for why the entire system needs redressing there and why we don't need such a policy here.

Frank

.
I realise thread drift's a way of life here, but nobody's arguing the merits of a shoot to kill policy*. The topic was whether a news report misrepresented an answer to a question.


* shit idea in general; only sane response to a Bataclan/Charlie Hebdo incident

JPMaybe

Look, I don't think he's been effective with the media, but in this case he gave a nuanced answer to a contemptible question.  At best the reporting on his response was massively simplified.
Quote from: Butch on 17 January, 2015, 04:47:33 PM
Judge Death is a serial killer who got turned into a zombie when he met two witches in the woods one day...Judge Death is his real name.
-Butch on Judge Death's powers of helmet generation

Frank

Quote from: JPMaybe on 19 March, 2017, 01:49:57 PM
... he gave a nuanced answer ... the reporting on his response was ... simplified.

I basically agree, minus the adjectives.



SuperSurfer

Quote from: Hawkmumbler on 19 March, 2017, 11:30:53 AM
Basically. The fact black folk are 9 times more likely to get shot by police in the US is a pretty solid reason for why the entire system needs redressing there and why we don't need such a policy here.
"Official data on the number of people killed by the police turns out to be remarkably unreliable."
"about half are white, and about half are from minorities, but adjusting for the size of the populations...minorities are definitely being shot at a higher rate than whites" black people "are being shot at a rate that's 2.5 times higher than whites".

US police shootings: How many die each year?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings/

Hawkmumbler

Quote from: SuperSurfer on 20 March, 2017, 01:30:32 AM
Quote from: Hawkmumbler on 19 March, 2017, 11:30:53 AM
Basically. The fact black folk are 9 times more likely to get shot by police in the US is a pretty solid reason for why the entire system needs redressing there and why we don't need such a policy here.
"Official data on the number of people killed by the police turns out to be remarkably unreliable."
"about half are white, and about half are from minorities, but adjusting for the size of the populations...minorities are definitely being shot at a higher rate than whites" black people "are being shot at a rate that's 2.5 times higher than whites".

US police shootings: How many die each year?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings/
Undoubtably true, but in 2016 young black folk aged 15-35 where 9 times more likely than white counterparts to be klled by police.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/08/the-counted-police-killings-2016-young-black-men

TordelBack

#12493
Tom Watson and John Humphreys on Today this morning, and then Christine Shawcroft and Humphreys 10 minutes later... I'm a leftie and a member of Unite (and R4 fanboi) and I honestly couldn't work out which out of of the three of them was more intent on destroying the British Labour party.  No hint that there was anything going on anywhere that might maybe benefit from a bit of genuine opposition, it was like listening to an Ambridge parish commitee gleefully bitching about the person judging the jam competition while the village disappears into a sinkhole.

Theblazeuk

#12494
Entirely.