UK Politics

[reohn2]

An easy dismissal - and probably true apart form the, "Its all about ....." part. It's about a lot more than that.

Care to share what a lot more it's about that isn't covered by "money and power"?

Ha ha - that would be a Large Book.

Let's just say that the there's a nexus of genes, memes, cultural environment and individual social environment(s). Not all motives for cleaving to ideas, policies, beliefs and their various manifestations into the real world are motivated only by money and power, even if money and power are necessary conditions for successfully promoting ideologies and their implementation into the real world.

Personally I'm more interested in an understanding that examines a much wider range of motivations in politicians than just the lust for power and money, significant though those might be in any wider understanding of the political animal.

The root is distilled down to money and power both being interlinked obviously.YVMV mine won't.

[Tangled Metal]

Starmer and cronies have the same mentality over freebies, bungs and other donations (possibly for favours we will never know for sure) as the tories they criticised so much for having when in power.

Is that so? Where is the Labour equivalent of this:
Johnson appointed Evgeny Lebedev, the son of a former KGB officer turned oligarch, to the House of Lords

Or the multi-million pound contract given to Michelle Mones?

I said same mentality in that it is ok to accept payments for things from donors and in some cases "forget" to or claim they did not know the rules apply to spouse or offspring donations too. I motoring offences and criminal cases I understand ignorance of the law is no excuse. It is with politicians a very good excuse until the news cycle takes it on and then the PR twonks insist on something to appease the media and general outcy over it.

If your only issue is size of the value involved or the incentive given back to the donor (PM access in Starmer's case) then it is really a poor argument IMHO. It is not just the values involved it is so much more than that. It is the lack on integrity even a little donation not fully accounted for or the favour given in return confers on the the PM or MP. Trust in politicians is never so low as it is now and any little bung or donation will never help. Zero tolerance should be the default.

Then there is the party donor giving the Starmers a quiet penthouse for their son to study for the GCSEs. Nice of him but that optics isn't great neither. I bet Starmer Jr goes to the best state school in London and the Starmer's millions bought that right too. How many kids from deprived areas get a millionaire giving them the use of a penthouse to study in? That to me is the height of priviledge. He no doubt has a place for the kid to study in as he was IIRC a PM at the time and will no doubt be living in their own house. No doubt a nice property with his own room, but I am guessing based on the wealth and earning power of the Starmers (even excluding bungs). Not good enough for priviledge Starmer but a lot better than many inner city kids get no doubt.

Labour for the working class? Only after they get theirs of course!! The more things change the more they stay the same!! Change from Tories to Labour in power but how much has really changed with the "doing things differently" sales pitch in reality? SIze is the difference perhaps but mentality has not. Power corrupts perhaps, but more likely the more power they get the more the media try to find their dark underbelly out. Shame we can't get that treatment before they even become a candidate for parliament in the very first place.

[Cugel]

Care to share what a lot more it's about that isn't covered by "money and power"?

Ha ha - that would be a Large Book.

Let's just say that the there's a nexus of genes, memes, cultural environment and individual social environment(s). Not all motives for cleaving to ideas, policies, beliefs and their various manifestations into the real world are motivated only by money and power, even if money and power are necessary conditions for successfully promoting ideologies and their implementation into the real world.

Personally I'm more interested in an understanding that examines a much wider range of motivations in politicians than just the lust for power and money, significant though those might be in any wider understanding of the political animal.

The root is distilled down to money and power both being interlinked obviously.YVMV mine won't.

Ae you saying that the lust for money & power are the only motives? They seem more like necessary enablers than ends in themselves. It's what they do with money and power that's the problem. An understanding sufficient to somehow disarming dangerous politicians and their politics needs to grasp what they want to do with money and power and why.

[cycle tramp]

She cannot even speak in grammatically nor logically correct sentences:

"By now, fracking would be taking place in Britain, and I think they would have a serious impact with all those competitiveness."

Fracking is also probably not that significant for the UK geology wise and certainly not price wise as we're plugged into the global market anyway. It's an argument based on emotion and rhetoric, not facts.

Yes, Liz, the operative words being 'you think'. It's not actually been shown.

[reohn2]

Ae you saying that the lust for money & power are the only motives? They seem more like necessary enablers than ends in themselves. It's what they do with money and power that's the problem. An understanding sufficient to somehow disarming dangerous politicians and their politics needs to grasp what they want to do with money and power and why.

You seem to think that I only meant power and money are only ever used for bad stuff,which clearly isn't so,yes they are enablers,but don't forget they can also be ends in themselves too.
However that said,power/money can corrupt and as the saying goes,absolute power corrupts absolutely.

[mattheus]

<snip>...
Then there is the party donor giving the Starmers a quiet penthouse for their son to study for the GCSEs. Nice of him but that optics isn't great neither. I bet Starmer Jr goes to the best state school in London and the Starmer's millions bought that right too. How many kids from deprived areas get a millionaire giving them the use of a penthouse to study in? That to me is the height of priviledge. He no doubt has a place for the kid to study in as he was IIRC a PM at the time and will no doubt be living in their own house. No doubt a nice property with his own room, but I am guessing based on the wealth and earning power of the Starmers (even excluding bungs). Not good enough for priviledge Starmer but a lot better than many inner city kids get no doubt.

Labour for the working class? Only after they get theirs of course!!

You seem to have got a lot of issues tied up into a confused mess.

p.s. do you actually know why Starmer Jr was shipped off to the penthouse study location? Best to base your snap judgements on facts, my friend ...

[Nearholmer]

Starmer has made stupid errors in some of the decisions he’s made around gifts, but the bigger issue here is the thing that was always going to happen to this government: an orchestrated, multi-pronged, on-all-fronts campaign to trash it, emanating from vested interests that stand to lose by the UK having a social-democratic administration, with a vaguely European outlook, some concern for humanitarian issues, and strongly pro-Ukrainian stance.

The very existence of this administration gets seriously up the noses of:

- US mega-capitalists, who have long looked forward to picking the flesh off of the UK without restraint;

- US libertarian politicians who loath positive models of social democracy and genuine liberality;

- Putin;

- the big-money gangsters behind Putin;

- hardliners in the state of Israel;

- etc.

So, all those interests seek to attack the UK via its soft underbelly, which is of course social disaffection and the politics of the further-right.

The “sh!t shower” directed at the government will continue, via orchestrated riots, the newspapers, lies circulated on social media, etc unless or until social democracy is completely eradicated as a force in the UK, so unless or until we the population stop doing what annoys all these vested interests by voting for it. We could even see terrorist actions before the next general election if we persist in annoying our adversaries by supporting social democracy.

Just look carefully to see who is pulling your strings before deciding to trash social democracy, because this time when it’s gone, it’s gone ….. we could see the back of both socially-inclined policies (health care free at the point of use, an unbiased broadcasting service, freedom of religion, etc) and democracy. Oust this government and you won’t get a nice cosy one instead, you’ll get a further-right puppet of a combination of the above vested interests.

[Cugel]

Starmer has made stupid errors in some of the decisions he’s made around gifts, but the bigger issue here is the thing that was always going to happen to this government: an orchestrated, multi-pronged, on-all-fronts campaign to trash it, emanating from vested interests that stand to lose by the UK having a social-democratic administration, with a vaguely European outlook, some concern for humanitarian issues, and strongly pro-Ukrainian stance.

The “sh!t shower” directed at the government will continue, via orchestrated riots, the newspapers, lies circulated on social media, etc unless or until social democracy is completely eradicated as a force in the UK, so unless or until we the population stop doing what annoys all these vested interests by voting for it. We could even see terrorist actions before the next general election if we persist in annoying our adversaries by supporting social democracy.

Just look carefully to see who is pulling your strings before deciding to trash social democracy, because this time when it’s gone, it’s gone ….. we could see the back of both socially-inclined policies (health care free at the point of use, an unbiased broadcasting service, freedom of religion, etc) and democracy. Oust this government and you won’t get a nice cosy one instead, you’ll get a further-right puppet of a combination of the above vested interests.

There's certainly a world-wide destruction-push from a variety of anti-democratic and anti-socialist agencies in possession of vast amounts of power and money sufficient to wreak damages of various kinds on the likes of the Labour government. This is all the more reason for that Labour government to avoid feeding them ammunition, particularly the ammunition of hypocritical bung-accepting.

And before another poster leaps in with a now customary defense of bung-taking (along the lines of "everyone does it so its fine") let's remind ourselves that the comparatively small amounts involved with Starmer & Co gifties gied them (compared to the vast corruptions of Toryspivery) are beside the point. It's the acceptance and self-righteous indignation at being criticised for it that's providing the ammunition to the right wing gutter press of Blighty et al.

And that acceptance plus indignation at being criticised for it is a genuine red flag concerning the potential for worse corruptions of the Labour government, just as all the talk and defense of "growth" of the highly destructive kind is another red flag. As is the the casual punishment and potential persecutions of the poorest, from freezing pensioners to desperate benefit claimants and folk in the foodbank lines with more than two children.

In short, being an improvement on Toryspiv is not a reason to absolve the Labour government from any and all criticism. And neither is the attack by right-wing hoodlums of various ilks & tittles.

"My party/government right or wrong" is a very poor way to be a citizen.

[mattheus]

"My party/government right or wrong" is a very poor way to be a citizen.

Did you actually READ the post from Nearholmer that you replied to AND QUOTED?!?

You're imagining things, and then writing posts that criticise them (I believe the technical term is "Straw Man").

[Cugel]

"My party/government right or wrong" is a very poor way to be a citizen.

Did you actually READ the post from Nearholmer that you replied to AND QUOTED?!?

You're imagining things, and then writing posts that criticise them (I believe the technical term is "Straw Man").

Why do you read every remark that expands on, comments on, examines or is prompted by another post as some sort of attack or criticism? I'm not disagreeing with Nearholmer but rather expanding on his perfectly cogent remarks.

I suspect the answer is: because you're always looking for a fight ... about everything & nothing. I invite you to arrange these two words into a well known phrase or saying [auto-deleted by the mods].

[mattheus]

And that acceptance plus indignation at being criticised for it is a genuine red flag concerning the potential for worse corruptions of the Labour government

Citation please?

(You may wish to reference this in your answer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn7yeydd42jo )

[Nearholmer]

All I’ll add is the hackneyed phrase “the best is the enemy of the good”, meaning that the danger of people who would like the present government to be more pure, more green, more redistributive, and all the other good things that go alongside, joining-in the mud-slinging is that the result could easily end-up being something a great deal worse.

The meme-stoking that aims to shred Starmer and all the government along with him is super-powerful, and it deserves to be countered, not assisted.

[Jdsk]

Declareing personal clothes given as gifts as for "private office" - to my mind not "transparency" more like "deception"

Keir Starmer was given a further £16,000 worth of clothes by the Labour peer Waheed Alli, which was declared as money for his private office, the Guardian can reveal.

The donations, comprising £10,000 in October 2023 and £6,000 in February 2024, bring the total amount in gifted clothes to £32,000.

These latest gifts were not previously known about as they were described as being “for the private office of the leader of the opposition”.

(My bold)

Alli is now under investigation:
https://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and ... tigations/

And Starmer has paid back £6k:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ospitality

Jonathan

[Jdsk]

Starmer has made stupid errors in some of the decisions he’s made around gifts, but the bigger issue here is the thing that was always going to happen to this government: an orchestrated, multi-pronged, on-all-fronts campaign to trash it, emanating from vested interests that stand to lose by the UK having a social-democratic administration, with a vaguely European outlook, some concern for humanitarian issues, and strongly pro-Ukrainian stance.

The very existence of this administration gets seriously up the noses of:

- US mega-capitalists, who have long looked forward to picking the flesh off of the UK without restraint;

- US libertarian politicians who loath positive models of social democracy and genuine liberality;

- Putin;

- the big-money gangsters behind Putin;

- hardliners in the state of Israel;

- etc.

So, all those interests seek to attack the UK via its soft underbelly, which is of course social disaffection and the politics of the further-right.

The “sh!t shower” directed at the government will continue, via orchestrated riots, the newspapers, lies circulated on social media, etc unless or until social democracy is completely eradicated as a force in the UK, so unless or until we the population stop doing what annoys all these vested interests by voting for it. We could even see terrorist actions before the next general election if we persist in annoying our adversaries by supporting social democracy.

Just look carefully to see who is pulling your strings before deciding to trash social democracy, because this time when it’s gone, it’s gone ….. we could see the back of both socially-inclined policies (health care free at the point of use, an unbiased broadcasting service, freedom of religion, etc) and democracy. Oust this government and you won’t get a nice cosy one instead, you’ll get a further-right puppet of a combination of the above vested interests.

Thanks for speaking up for social democracy. Especially on the day when we have heard the speeches from those who would like to be Prime Minister as leader of another party.

Jonathan

[Jdsk]

Interesting,if he does win at his eighth attempt the brown stuff will hit the fan....

I don't expect him to take much part in Parliament. And he manages to get a lot of publicity as it is, so probably not much change there.

Farage not holding constituency surgeries:
https://www.clactonandfrintongazette.co ... surgeries/
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/nigel-farage ... ea-knives/

"Reform's Nigel Farage backtracks on claim parliament's security team told him not to hold in-person surgeries in Clacton":
https://news.sky.com/story/reforms-nige ... n-13229883

(Is this where the clip from Casablanca should be included?)

Jonathan