Cycling UK Forum

pwa wrote:

mercalia wrote:

pwa wrote:
I'm just imaging him as a Trump-like figure, seeing opponents as "lesser men" who are self serving. He did butcher whole communities in Ireland, so not a nice man by any measure.

But they all did that in those days? hardly right to judge him by modern standards. Trump by comparison is a midget chancer

Both similar in their faith in their own rightness and a determination to crush dissent.

The difference and it is a big one is that Cromwells times was an age of faith whether Catholic or Protestant - he was a reluctant ruler rather be at home on his estate, hardly a Trump Chump.

There is a good reason that his statue is outside the Commons - he put a stop to arbitary rule ( of the monarch or vested interests)

mercalia wrote:There is a good reason that his statue is outside the Commons - he put a stop to arbitary rule ( of the monarch or vested interests)

Very true - the Stuarts believed in the divine right of kings all the way up to Bonnie Prince Charlie's defeat in 1745, they learned nothing. Charles I was described by another European monarch as 'the wisest fool in Christendom'.

There's an echo of the of the Vicar of Bray here.

To teach my flock, I never missed: Kings are by God appointed
And damned are those who dare resist or touch the Lord's anointed!

My point being that the Vicar himself is said to have trimmed to suit the political situation. Today, we have a Remainer turned supporter of brexit.

One question to Labour supporters since I'm guessing it's a view from their side of the fence.

Why do some posters on this and other forums keep talking about Tory voters dying off? It's like they see this surge of youthful vigour giving life blood to the old policies of 70s/80s Labour renewed through Corbyn as the direction the youth of today will all go. There is a surge of youthful support for Corbyn's "breath of fresh air", but it is not all young people by a long way. Plus things change, views change and there will always remain two parties. One left the other right of centre.

Can someone show me historical evidence of this death of a while political wing in the UK due to death of the older generation?

BTW at work the young people I know who voted chose Tory party but LibDems were nearly chosen. None wanted Labour. Bucking the trend or a bellweather constituency?

I suspect young voters may just go with whoever has the freshest image. The long term voters among them will still vote for the left or right according to political views that will hold their whole lives. The masses joining Labour now I suspect either will stop being interested in politics and voting or will mellow out to end up voting for another party.

I would put money on there always being a party of the left and one of the right until voting is no longer needed. No voter group will die off.It's a stupid idea propagated by the naive or blinkered.

pwa wrote:

mercalia wrote:

pwa wrote:
A grumpy bloke who ended up more or less as a dictator. Remembered in Ireland for massacres.

not by choice - he tried so hard to avoid that, even rejecting the crown when offered him and took the title Lord Protector, but he was surrounded by lesser men, only after self interest.

I'm just imaging him as a Trump-like figure, seeing opponents as "lesser men" who are self serving. He did butcher whole communities in Ireland, so not a nice man by any measure.

A Trump like figure - you couldn't be more wrong. He recognised the need for proper military recruitment and training so was instrumental in creating the new model army - probably the first uniformly well trained and disciplined troops in the England since the legions left. He was undefeated in battle and won some battles such as Dunbar against great odds through bold and daring battle plans. If you think a Trumpalike to do any of this you're sadly mistaken.
Cromwell put defenders to the sword after various sieges in Ireland. This was normal practice in seventeenth century warfare. In a siege defenders were given several chances to surrender. If they refused the last one it was understood they would be given no quarter if the attack succeed. Cromwell was realitevly merciful and normally didn't do this but in Ireland he did. By doing so he was no worse than any other military commander of his day.

pete75 wrote:

pwa wrote:

mercalia wrote:
not by choice - he tried so hard to avoid that, even rejecting the crown when offered him and took the title Lord Protector, but he was surrounded by lesser men, only after self interest.

I'm just imaging him as a Trump-like figure, seeing opponents as "lesser men" who are self serving. He did butcher whole communities in Ireland, so not a nice man by any measure.

A Trump like figure - you couldn't be more wrong. He recognised the need for proper military recruitment and training so was instrumental in creating the new model army - probably the first uniformly well trained and disciplined troops in the England since the legions left. He was undefeated in battle and won some battles such as Dunbar against great odds through bold and daring battle plans. If you think a Trumpalike to do any of this you're sadly mistaken.
Cromwell put defenders to the sword after various sieges in Ireland. This was normal practice in seventeenth century warfare. In a siege defenders were given several chances to surrender. If they refused the last one it was understood they would be given no quarter if the attack succeed. Cromwell was realitevly merciful and normally didn't do this but in Ireland he did. By doing so he was no worse than any other military commander of his day.

I think he also did similar for the Navy -

"He helped to create the Royal Navy. - One achievement that is less well known is Oliver's part in creating the Royal Navy. It was his government that created a permanent Navy, whereas previously fleets had been assembled, largely from merchant ships, on a temporary basis. He and his officers put in place a system of practice and discipline which, with many modifications, has stood the test of time. His Navy won one of the hardest-fought sea wars in history, against the Dutch, and started that continuous naval tradition which is such an important part of this England's heritage."

"Robert Blake (27 September 1598 – 7 August 1657) was one of the most important military commanders of the Commonwealth of England and one of the most famous English admirals of the 17th century, whose successes have "never been excelled, not even by Nelson"
Blake is recognised as the chief founder of England's naval supremacy, a dominance subsequently inherited by the British Royal Navy into the early 20th century. Despite this, due to deliberate attempts to expunge the Parliamentarians from history following the Restoration, Blake's achievements tend not to receive the full recognition that they deserve."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Blake_(admiral)

Tangled Metal wrote:Can someone show me historical evidence of this death of a while political wing in the UK due to death of the older generation?

It depends how you view things, especially party mergers/shotgun-marriages. Arguably, the Whigs died out, with most of their remaining supporters merging into the Liberal Party (which merged to become the current Liberal Democrats) but some eventually into the Conservative and Unionist Party (it's where the Unionist bit in the formal name came from) and a few continuing without a party until their end. Did their particular type of patrician-liberalism die out or did it go mainstream into elements of most modern parties? I think that's the sort of question that could keep political historians in work for years!

Tangled Metal wrote:BTW at work the young people I know who voted chose Tory party but LibDems were nearly chosen. None wanted Labour. Bucking the trend or a bellweather constituency?

Too early to tell, but it may be a factor of where you work.

Tangled Metal wrote:I would put money on there always being a party of the left and one of the right until voting is no longer needed. No voter group will die off.It's a stupid idea propagated by the naive or blinkered.

There will probably always be at least one left party and at least one right party, but I suspect whether there are multiple parties on any side and any between them or displaced on other axes and how big they are depends on events and what further changes are made to the electoral system.

I think the May-hem Manifesto included replacing the remaining Supplementary Vote elections (mayors and police commissioners) with Simple Division ones - I don't know if it repeated past commitments to make even larger MP constituencies too - but even if this government doesn't make more changes, I'm sure a later one will. At what point will the public rebel against this divisive politics?

blackbike wrote:Thank goodness Labour members elected the loser Mr Corbyn as their leader.

A more mainstream leader with broader appeal would have probably won the election for Labour.

Corbyn has reduced the Labour Party to celebrating defeat as if it was a victory.

Even though the Tory press tried their damnest to character assassinated him unmercyfully continually attacking the man,without the ability to attack his policies.
Meanwhile even with all the backing of that same press and all the riches poured into the Tory party coffers,their insane policies couldn't manage to form a government.
I don't think anyone's saying Labour lost,more like the Tories were incapable of winning despite all the help of their cronies .

reohn2 wrote:

blackbike wrote:Thank goodness Labour members elected the loser Mr Corbyn as their leader.

A more mainstream leader with broader appeal would have probably won the election for Labour.

Corbyn has reduced the Labour Party to celebrating defeat as if it was a victory.

Even though the Tory press tried their damnest to character assassinated him unmercyfully continually attacking the man,without the ability to attack his policies.
Meanwhile even with all the backing of that same press and all the riches poured into the Tory party coffers,their insane policies couldn't manage to form a government.
I don't think anyone's saying Labour lost,more like the Tories were incapable of winning despite all the help of their cronies .

Labour didnt lose? He promised every thing - free tuition, triple lock, renationalisation, Utopia and STILL didnt win. what else? lick your feet?

We're not discussing a soccer match here. The Conservative Party won, in the sense of having the highest score but TM lost, in the sense that if this was a victory for her, it was a pyrrhic victory of the worst sort in politics.

Re JC's manifesto promises, I think the biggest fear for many of those who opposed him was that he would try to deliver on them: ie they knew that he meant it. Whether this would have lead to another gnomes of Zurich humiliation is another question. Not only did his opponents believe him, but his supporters did too.

(A pyrrhic victory in this context is one where the duck emerges lame, and as al would have it, shot in both feet by its own gun.)

mercalia wrote:He promised every thing - free tuition, triple lock, renationalisation, Utopia and STILL didnt win. what else? lick your feet?

I have to agree. Corbyn's campaign had very little substance and a lot of vote catching policies. You could argue he has learned from US-style populism, albeit with very different policies. His spending plans sounded good but where were the real taxation increases we need to fund them?

I'm actually more concerned now about brexit than before. There was a logic to May's decision to call an election to boost her negotiating position. We now have the worst case scenario of arguing for brexit without a clear mandate and a wounded right wing behind her, no wonder the EU are pleased.

mercalia wrote:
Labour didnt lose? He promised every thing - free tuition, triple lock, renationalisation, Utopia and STILL didnt win. what else? lick your feet?

Read the post again I didn't say Labour won,I said despite all the fear mongering and character assassination the Tories and their rich cohorts,the press an the party's backers threw at Corbyn and the Labour Party,the Tories couldn't win.

Once Again I'll ask you.
What's you vision for the future of the country?

geocycle wrote: ... We now have the worst case scenario of arguing for brexit without a clear mandate and a wounded right wing behind her, no wonder the EU are pleased.

Re the Brexit mandate: that came from the referendum. PM never really set out her plan for Brexit, no matter what her reasons for keeping it under wraps, so this was never about her undisclosed Brexit plan, but rather her personal approach in suggesting only she was capable of delivering Brexit.

I'm unclear about the "wounded right wing" bit. I can see that having that lot behind her is risky without some strong armour on her back, but none seems wounded. On the contrary, as she's kept them sidelined, they've suffered little collateral damage from this at all.

geocycle wrote:
I'm actually more concerned now about brexit than before. There was a logic to May's decision to call an election to boost her negotiating position. We now have the worst case scenario of arguing for brexit without a clear mandate and a wounded right wing behind her, no wonder the EU are pleased.

Indeed.
So "take back control" from a tolerant, secular internationalist Brussels has now resulted in a great deal of control for 10 narrow-minded, religiously bigoted, loudmouthed, isolationist DUP MP's, with a history of conflict and an unwillingness to compromise.

Such is the irony!

I think my part in the film is nearly over!
It was the wrong film anyway.

My Scottish pals were spot on, although the drubbing they predicted for Sturgeon, Salmond and Robertson was reserved for the General Election not the local elections. Theresa should go, question is a suitable replacement?

Gummer's mad cow diseased beefburgers fed to his kids are probably to blame. His sons dementia tax went down like a lead balloon, thankfully he lost his seat, no more looney advice from him.

This ain't all over yet. Interesting times..

Al