To think that UK voters should be ashamed of their apathetic ignorance?

[MrsDustyBusty]

Never heard of the DUP before today? Really, it's embarrassing.

Yet so many posters don't seem to find it that way. I'm a filthy foreigner and I literally know more about UK politics than many posters here.

AIBU to think that's really shameful?

I posted this on another thread. I did actually know quite a lot about NI history before and around the time of the GFA. I did know how dreadful DUP was, but I'll admit I'm not as clued up as I should be. I know that voting is still sectarian but not what the parties are like now - what media, ideally podcasts or radio should I use to kearn about current affairs rather than history?

Vote Count For Tory/DUP Coalition:

just so why even bring it up? I doubt David Dimbleby knew who Mr Fishfinger was until last night, it's totally irrelevant in any serious discussion about politics.

The DUP are one of the largest parties. No, they may not be standing in your constituency, but that doesn't mean they have no impact on our lives (as we are all about to see.) I have no problem with people being ignorant about areas of politics, but it is very frustrating when you can see that people are very well-versed about English politics and then have huge blind spots about Scotland, Wales and NI. As in, they don't even know which parties are involved.

sing you could try BBC Radio Ulster.

I know about the Greens because I really like them, I agree with most of their policies, they're quite often on TV and in the press and their candidates seem like really great people who want to do good things.

The DUP - not so much. I do wish they would crawl back under their stone and go away.

Sometimes the more I know about politics the more miserable I become.

I don't want the DUP running the country!

So it's a crime not to know about a weirdo sect of Irish creationists? I don't know much about bonkers cults in the far flung corners of Nicaragua or the mumblings of a nutter on the corner of the square in Venice. It's not a crime.

Don't assume your 10 mad MPs who are clearly ignored by their own country are massively famous in countries with bigger things to worry about.

demense

If you are British, they are in your country.

We aren't hundreds or even thousands of miles away in a different country.

We are part of the uk. Our MPs sit in your parliament (all of them apart from Sinn Fein who don't because they don't swear allegiance to the queen)

The ignorance and the don't care attitude this thread and others are showing is upsetting. And depressing.

Were none of you alive during the troubles? Did you not ever study them at school if you weren't?

If I say the name Colin Horner or Adrian Ismay do you even know who they are?

I wasn't taught one single thing about Ireland in school. Probably I should have been. As an adult it has never interested me.

There is a bitter irony in how loyalists have hated, killed and died themselves to be part of Britain when most of the English care so little about them that they compare the DUP to Lord Fishfinger and the Yorkshire Party.

Were none of you alive during the troubles? Did you not ever study them at school if you weren't?

Never studied them at school, wasn't an option to. I'd heard of Ian Paisley, but I couldn't have told you what party he was in.
I didn't actively study it in my teens, either. No, I couldn't have done a "two minute google" as some have suggested as there was no such thing as Google!

when most of the English care so little about them that they compare the DUP to Lord Fishfinger and the Yorkshire Party.

That's not what's being said at all, are you being deliberately obtuse?!
Just saying that not everyone has studied politics, so would have had to actively go out and find out more about parties that they have never been exposed to/heard of.
How can you find out more if it's not one you've come across before? Not everyone stays up watching election night to hear of all the different parties out there.

When you heard the news the other week about a man shot to death in front of (possibly holding) his 3 year old in the car park of a supermarket did you not take it under your notice?

When something comes on the news about a prison officer or policeman blown up (in the last few years) what did you do? Switch off and pay no attention?

Have you any idea how hurtful it is to see our deaths dismissed and ignored like that?

it's totally irrelevant in any serious discussion about politics

You call this thread a serious dicussion about politics....?

I think its disgusting that around 20 people my DH works with didnt bother to vote at all, one hasnt voted for the 18 years since he has been old enough, they were all moaning about various politics, yet, it was too much trouble they were too busy, etc. in my opinion, that is ignorance!

In a sense what matters is not whether mainland British voters are ignorant as to who the DUP are, but that May clearly cannot claim that excuse. She will have been a young adult during the troubles, she's a professional politician and will have watched teh gradually brokering of a power-sharing peace deal at close quarters, she knows that the peace deal depends on Westminster being seen as an "honest broker" in the proecss, being impartial and not taking sides. By forming an arrangement (albeit not a coalition) with one side she's just pissed all over the idea that Westminster can be neutral.

That's why it's so different from the fact that in the past the DUP have generally voted with the conservatives. They chose to do that becausee they are also conservatives (albeit hard line, wildly far right conservatives). It's a whole different ball game when Theresa May goes out and asks for their votes in a situation where they know they have her over a barrel politically.

So if you hadn't heard of the DUP before yesterday, as I said upthread, in a back-handed way that's a credit to the peace process. But now you have heard about them, you should care, and should be worried about the implications for continued peace in NI.

My local MP was killed outside his family home by an IRA bomb 27 years ago next month.

just I don't know when I said this particular discussion was serious. I think you have misunderstood me.

I'm sure you have much more enlightening mature discussions with your urbane friends who've never heard of half the important political parties in the UK.

cheese I heard google exists now so you can use it these days, if you're interested.

I'm sure you have much more enlightening mature discussions with your urbane friends who've never heard of half the important political parties in the UK.

Actually i don't have any friends.

I don't know when I said this particular discussion was serious. I think you have misunderstood me.

Sat 10-Jun-17 07:23:15

When you heard the news the other week about a man shot to death in front of (possibly holding) his 3 year old in the car park of a supermarket did you not take it under your notice?

Of course I did. I'm an adult now, I see/read/watch the news.
Not so much when I was a child. Do your children avidly watch the news and have a grasp on all the political parties (I don't mean the main ones, I mean all the ones that their area don't have any chance of voting for)
Not just children - young teenagers too. Not many do. Especially when it's never been taught in school, and there's no such thing as Google to go and educate yourself easily.

cheese I heard google exists now so you can use it these days, if you're interested.

That's the POINT!! You can easily find out now. Which I am doing now it's in the news more. I was referring to the ones going "whaaaat? Were you all asleep in the 80s and 90s?" That was 30 years ago. A lot of us weren't born/were young, growing up and nowhere near the troubles.

I am another "filthy foreigner", who is well aware of the DUP. I have an understanding of the current situation in Stormont, mostly from listening to Radio 4, and from social media. (That is, I follow on Twitter may from time to time post links to news articles.) Also, I have lived here from the early 90s, so was aware of the peace process as it unfolded.

I think one reason many people in the UK are ill-informed is because they are badly served by the mainstream media. The information is out there, but many of the more accessible news outlets have no interest in informing the public. They often just want to push their own political agenda onto their audiences.

The popular press in Germany, for example, is much less sensational, and more balanced, but then, maybe Germans have more reason to be aware of propaganda and undue influence of the press than people in the UK.

Ian Paisley currently in DUP is the son of Rev Ian Paisley that readers over 35 or so will remember.

I think those of us alive during troubles in full swing will probably recall the DUP but since devolution and relative peace there has been less coverage of NI politics, I think most people would know there are Protestant unionists and Catholic loyalists in NI politics but not necessarily details of who the parties are.

But didn't you go and google then? Didn't you have any interest at all in the terrorism that is just right there in your own country and has been for almost 50 years?

This is in spite of everyone seeming to know Sinn Fein. Why is that? I'd hazard a guess at it being because the British media continually linked Sinn Fein with the IRA during the Troubles, while failing to link the DUP with the UDA (and others). To me, that just seems like so much propaganda, and I find it really sad that people just accept it.

Tbh, to read about the Troubles on here, you'd think it was the IRA bombing London Manchester and not much else happening.

I don't think people are just unaware of the DUP's connection with the UDA, I think they're unaware the UDA exist. And the UVF. And of the illegal stuff the British Army did. And probably half of what the IRA did here too.