The Political Thread

[Professor Bear]

There's a big difference between a ludicrous right-wing caricature of a human being that couldn't possibly exist in the real world and Judge Dredd.

[Tjm86]

The Tories know they poll good on defence (despite Labour waging more wars whose stated or strategic goals were accomplished) so have decided to accuse Labour of maybe thinking of perhaps not spending billions on those nuclear weapons Britain won't ever use.

Yeah, this has always confused the hell out of me.  Every major defense cuts in the last twenty odd years have been under Tory governments.  In fact my Dad who has longer memories and more experience (lifetime in the RAF) has made the comment in the past that it goes back further than that.  They tend to have tough rhetoric but lack the capacity to make it happen (anyone fancy a hardly used Aircraft Carrier, you'll have to supply your own planes though!)

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

Sorry if I've said this before, but the problem with voting is that you always end up with the Government.

EDIT:  I do vote, though. And got a slap on the wrist for discussing it with the missus in the adjacent booth.

[Leigh S]

Obviously, Ed Balls is right and pursuing non-doms will end up costing the treasury money rather than making any, but as a piece of "fuck the rich" populism it's quite a good policy.

Possibly. But really if there was a major overhaul of how tax was dealt with, the treasury would likely benefit. Companies make idle threats, but they're hardly going to quit the UK if forced to pay taxes. The same's largely true for individuals. Some will flee. Fuck them. As previous negative to the rich changes in the tax system have shown, most don't go—they just threaten to.

And so what - if they take their business elsewhere, then that opens up an opportunity for enterprise to fill the gap - isnt that what capitalisms all about? If they keep their business here but as an individual piss off... well we havent lost their taxes.... because they werent paying any!

[ZenArcade]

Yes seemingly if we force out a few greedy non contributory rich people the country will economically collapse. Jesus wept, you guys faced down Hitler after 6 years of heartbreak and sacrifice and then had the heart and will to create the NHS and so much else and now your rulers think so poorly of you that they are in the process of selling the pass to a loose grouping of foreign oligarchical despots, criminals and multinational asset strippers. Incredible! Z

[Professor Bear]

The Irish can't really throw stones, Z.  The Northern Irish even less so.

[IndigoPrime]

And so what - if they take their business elsewhere, then that opens up an opportunity for enterprise to fill the gap - isnt that what capitalisms all about? If they keep their business here but as an individual piss off... well we havent lost their taxes.... because they werent paying any!

Quite. We hear scare stories about Starbucks and Amazon leaving. They won't. But if they did, who cares? Local companies will fill the void. (Mind you, we have to take care there as well—Boots, for example, does a lot of offshore bollocks.)

[The Legendary Shark]

The BBC Trust has named BAE chairman Sir Roger Carr and banker Mark Florman as new trustees. A weapon maker and a con man. Expect more support for austerity and war from the increasingly egregious BBC!

[Hawkmumbler]

That's pretty depressing stuff. When it come's to news channels I only ever use Al Jazeera and Russia Today for any level of reliability anyway but still, the beebs heading towards dark times.

[Hawkmumbler]

Gotta derail the thread a little bit so I can briefly update my feelings on PETA. They're still a bunch of shisters and this add campaign is not only pretentious but only an American who has never seen a sheep in their life would think this is how sheering works.

[Grugz]

a bit underdone for my taste...and this has just reminded me I promised my mum in law a lamb roast, cheers for reminding me hawk!

[IndigoPrime]

The BBC Trust has named BAE chairman Sir Roger Carr and banker Mark Florman as new trustees. A weapon maker and a con man. Expect more support for austerity and war from the increasingly egregious BBC!

The right moans the BBC is too left-wing. The left moans the BBC is too right-wing. The BBC must be doing something right.

[The Legendary Shark]

Hawkie's post on PETA reminds me of something I've posted about before, either in this thread or the "Truth...?" thread about "The Frankfurt School," which came up with subversion techniques to conquer and enslave nations without war. Those techniques include political correctness (to control language and concepts in order to stifle meaningful debate), the elevation of nature and animals to put human beings at the bottom of the pile (through organizations like PETA) and normalisation of sexual proclivities such as paedophilia (to undermine the family unit). I seem to recall being scoffed at. I mean, how could any right-thinking individual suggest paedophilia is perfectly normal and why am I posting this idiocy here instead of the "Truth...?" thread?
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Well, this is why: 'Paedophilia is natural and normal for males.'
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Expect VIP paedophiles to start using this 'defence' soon.

[JPMaybe]

I swear only you could jump from PETA to child-molesters. Are you trying now to freight your posts with as many right-wingnut whackaloon buzzwords as possible? "...came up with subversion techniques to conquer and enslave nations without war"- for the love of god man, do you honestly think this is what a bunch of fusty interwar pomo-enthusiast academics were doing?  And a nice dose of dogwhistle homophobia ("undermine the family unit"), which is always always code for hatred of gay-rights in the kind of sources you're reading.

Yet again upon hearing hoofbeats you've jumped right past zebras to unicorns.

[IndigoPrime]

What's the family unit anyway? Surely it's just ideally the people you consider closest to you, and possibly those who raised you? "Mum and dad" is all very well, but grandparents can be in the mix, or aunts and uncles, or two men or two women. The only way to undermine the family unit is when people dismiss these things as somehow not being good enough for children.