kylecycler wrote:They think blind allegiance to 'their President' is patriotism, even if their President is as psychopathic as Trump. I think Vorpal, having lived there as well as here, might confirm that we in the UK don't hold our heads of state in anything like the reverence that at least some Americans hold theirs' - maybe the monarchy in some cases, but that's like ceremonial patriotism, has been for many years, but certainly not the government, I don't think.
Thing is, in the absence of royalty, their president is a political leader but also a monarch-like figurehead, and as such will command patriotic respect (to a lesser or greater degree!).
kylecycler wrote:They think blind allegiance to 'their President' is patriotism, even if their President is as psychopathic as Trump. I think Vorpal, having lived there as well as here, might confirm that we in the UK don't hold our heads of state in anything like the reverence that at least some Americans hold theirs' - maybe the monarchy in some cases, but that's like ceremonial patriotism, has been for many years, but certainly not the government, I don't think.
Thing is, in the absence of royalty, their president is a political leader but also a monarch-like figurehead, and as such will command patriotic respect (to a lesser or greater degree!).
Guess that's the problem. Something seriously wrong with the whole show over there. And many of those they call patriots - as we saw from the storming of the Capitol - are effectively traitors.
pwa wrote:.... What we need is moderate Labour and moderate Tory folk trying to understand each other and looking for common ground.....
Trouble is Johnson purged many of the moderate Tories because they disagreed with him - so they were out, just leaving the extreme ones who agreed with him and did what he said without question.
What's the definition of many? Johnson removed the whip from 21 MPs in September 2019 in the last parliament. There were 317 Conservative MPs so 21 is 6.6% of the total - not any definition of many I can find.
Of those 21, ten had the whip restored 6 weeks later. So that's less than 3.5% of the serving 317 MPs. And of those 10 at least 3 have been re-elected as MPs and 2 translated to the HoL as Conservative peers. Doesn't sound much like 'who agreed with him and did what he said without question.'
Of the 11 who did not have the whip restored two joined the Liberal Democrats (so it is moot whether they were in the right party from the off - and certainly from the 2017 GE when they were standing on a Brexit mandate).
I said " many of the moderate[s]" NOT "many of the MPs". And how many of those moderates hold positions of power in the Cabinet?
Psamathe wrote:I said " many of the moderate[s]" NOT "many of the MPs". And how many of those moderates hold positions of power in the Cabinet?
It's a fair point but where does your definition of moderate start? If you believe any Brexit supporting MP is not 'moderate' then you're happy to define all Conservative MPs as extreme. Which of course then has to include any Labour MPs who always supported Brexit and now presumably those who do now (including Keir Starmer).
In the 2019 election the Conservative intake included more young, more female and more LGBT than ever before. How many are moderate? What if, as an example, one is pro-Israel, pro-greater LGBT rights and is campaigning for better compensation for people with cladding on leasehold flats? Are you making the judgement about what is moderate or not?
Psamathe wrote:I said " many of the moderate[s]" NOT "many of the MPs". And how many of those moderates hold positions of power in the Cabinet?
It's a fair point but where does your definition of moderate start? If you believe any Brexit supporting MP is not 'moderate' then you're happy to define all Conservative MPs as extreme. Which of course then has to include any Labour MPs who always supported Brexit and now presumably those who do now (including Keir Starmer).
In the 2019 election the Conservative intake included more young, more female and more LGBT than ever before. How many are moderate? What if, as an example, one is pro-Israel, pro-greater LGBT rights and is campaigning for better compensation for people with cladding on leasehold flats? Are you making the judgement about what is moderate or not?
I think my overall issue with the way BoJo "fired" MP's is that it was intended to be a scare tactic. 'My way or the highway' sort of thing.
In retrospect it seems to me that there's a basic problem with the way MP's vote in that it's perfectly visible to anyone else in their party when in reality they should be free to vote the way their conscious tells them - which implies anonymous voting. Obviously then we plebs can't see what our MP really believes which is also an issue - although the executive seem to be hell bent on hamstringing our MP's anyway so perhaps it's all irrelevant...
My MP would rather organise a Nativity than read her brief as a Fisheries Minister. I mean that's fine, fisheries aren't much of an issue at the moment, are they.
Bonefishblues wrote:Agreed - and it removed almost an entire generation of talent at a time we could ill-afford to lose it. I mean Raab as FS and Patel as HS - in what parallel universe????
Exactly! Two morons among many in the cabinet!
Anyhow, back to Trump, and all's fine because he's being a good boy now, isn't he.
Not quite fine as there's a very rough ride ahead for the US,but it'll be a fine day that despot is gone and silenced once and for all.
Last edited by reohn2 on 17 Jan 2021, 9:00am, edited 1 time in total.
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"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
Oldjohnw wrote:Today Johnson announced 3.5m vaccinations. The reality: 400k have actually had the full doze.
Saying that it is more that incompetence. It's making a statement with the intention of misleading for personal gain. Is that a lie? Gamesmanship? Evil?
If you're arguing that Johnson's statement is deceitful, it's only likely to take in somebody who has been in hibernation for the last 3 weeks.
I'd suggest that most of the rest of us believe the scientists' judgment that concentrating on first doses will ultimately save more lives.
Johnson could have said, "We have delivered 3m first doses and 400k complete vaccinations". But he has to big everything, just like the man he wanted to have a Nobel Peace prize.
DaveReading wrote:If you're arguing that Johnson's statement is deceitful, it's only likely to take in somebody who has been in hibernation for the last 3 weeks.
I'd suggest that most of the rest of us believe the scientists' judgment that concentrating on first doses will ultimately save more lives.
Just to be clear that's not a consensus amongst all scientists. It's merely an unproven hypothesis supported by some scientists as the best option in a less than ideal set of choices.
Oldjohnw wrote:Today Johnson announced 3.5m vaccinations. The reality: 400k have actually had the full doze.
Saying that it is more that incompetence. It's making a statement with the intention of misleading for personal gain. Is that a lie? Gamesmanship? Evil?
If you're arguing that Johnson's statement is deceitful, it's only likely to take in somebody who has been in hibernation for the last 3 weeks.
I'd suggest that most of the rest of us believe the scientists' judgment that concentrating on first doses will ultimately save more lives.
Johnson could have said, "We have delivered 3m first doses and 400k complete vaccinations". But he has to big everything, just like the man he wanted to have a Nobel Peace prize.
It's what rogue salesmen do
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"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
Credit where credit is due, so far we seem to be leading the world (as a sizeable nation) in rolling the vaccine out. They have to get something right once in a while! Plenty of time to cock it up yet and they probably will, but so far so good.
Pebble wrote:Credit where credit is due, so far we seem to be leading the world (as a sizeable nation) in rolling the vaccine out. They have to get something right once in a while! Plenty of time to cock it up yet and they probably will, but so far so good.
We're the only country doing single doses, of course, so that rather flatters our numbers as some of the new inoculations would be going into the arms of earlier injectees by now.
Pebble wrote:Credit where credit is due, so far we seem to be leading the world (as a sizeable nation) in rolling the vaccine out. They have to get something right once in a while! Plenty of time to cock it up yet and they probably will, but so far so good.
We're the only country doing single doses, of course, so that rather flatters our numbers as some of the new inoculations would be going into the arms of earlier injectees by now.
I heard a news report yesterday that some vaccine centres are being forced to throw some vaccines away as there aren't enough people turning up and the vaccines have a short shelf life. If that's the case why aren't they offering to vaccinate anyone who's walking past,it seems mad to me
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"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
Pebble wrote:Credit where credit is due, so far we seem to be leading the world (as a sizeable nation) in rolling the vaccine out. They have to get something right once in a while! Plenty of time to cock it up yet and they probably will, but so far so good.
We're the only country doing single doses, of course, so that rather flatters our numbers as some of the new inoculations would be going into the arms of earlier injectees by now.
I heard a news report yesterday that some vaccine centres are being forced to throw some vaccines away as there aren't enough people turning up and the vaccines have a short shelf life. If that's the case why aren't they offering to vaccinate anyone who's walking past,it seems mad to me
A kind of vaccination Press Gang.
I hope the report was wrong - I was certainly listening to reports where Practices that had got their **** together were being constrained by supply.
