Westministenders: Before the Fire Alarm of Rome goes off

[RedToothBrush]

I’m going to keep this one very simple.

THE DEADLINE TO REGISTER TO VOTE IS 22ND MAY.
www.gov.uk/register-to-vote

Postal votes start to go out on 23rd May.

Your challenge is to persuade someone to register to vote or to get someone who is considering not to, to get their arse to the polling station.

Go forth and harass. Especially women and the young.

That’s it. No frills OP.

Jeepers, a few Tories showing the cut of their jib.

This chappie told a school girl to f- off back to Scotland after she said she would vote for independence. He says it was a 'joke'.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/why-dont-you-f-back-10417461

This councillor has been suspended. He was upset at Ireland giving 'nul points' to the UK in the song contest.

www.irishtimes.com/news/world/uk/tory-suspended-as-racist-tweet-follows-irish-eurovision-vote-1.3082703

Yes, Lurking. You're quite right. I hadn't thought through how unfair it could end up being, from many aspects.

Yeah, I remember the burger - hence being surprised I'd agree with his comments. He actually sounds quite progressive which shows how much further right the Tories have moved.

Re: Ben, I'm still wondering if May is shoring herself up with Remainers to counterbalance the horror of dealing with Fox, Davis and Johnson - who all probably hate each other.

www.politicshome.com/news/europe/eu-policy-agenda/brexit/dot-commons-diary/85898/wrong-direction-harry-styles-will-vote-
Wrong Direction: Harry Styles will vote for ‘whoever is against Brexit’

“I’m not educated enough on the subject to really go toe-to-toe with someone about it, but disregarding the economic stuff and all of that, I think what it symbolises is the opposite of the world I would like to be in.

“I think the world should be more about being together and being better together and joining together, and I think it’s the opposite of that."

The response this has got?

Tim Montgomerie ن‏*@montie*
A generation that often doesn't bother to vote can't see why so many people voted for their democracy to be a bigger thing

Because this is will help change that attitudes to democracy and active participation in politics....

One again its the lazy young narrative. The young should do as they are told and not have an opinion.

Mr. Styles is a very sensible and respectful young man:

twitter.com/harry_styles/status/321241678105161728?lang=en

Good article on life before the NHS. The writer, Harry Leslie Smith, describes his sister whose treatable TB infected her spine and was sent to die in a work house, in the1930s.

I can understand Nye Bevin's choice of words BigChocFrenzy.

www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/10/hunger-filth-fear-and-death-remembering-life-nhs

Thanks for all the interesting links everyone.

Been out canvassing today. I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who has an hour or two to spare for their party over the next 3 and a half weeks. It feels surprisingly wholesome to meet real people with opposing views and talk face to face with them. Quite an antidote to online bickering.

(Still, I heard some reasons for voting leave that would make your hair curl...)

There has been no tangible dividend presented for Brexit.

Yes woman, it's astonishing that we're now committed to doing this enormous thing, and the Tories are not laying out exactly what they are fairly certain the benefits will be. Why are people not asking them - What good outcomes will come of it? What advantages will there be?

Aside from a vague 'control of our borders', which seems both unlikely to happen in the short term, and not particularly beneficial either.

WHY are we doing it? We should be told.

Just de-lurking to say that DH & I just stumbled across the Trident episode of Yes Prime Minister, which appears to contain pretty much all of Jeremy Corbyns talking points. In fact somewhat scary that the arguments dont seem to have moved on at all in ?30? years

"Why are people not asking them - What good outcomes will come of it? What advantages will there be? "

From talking to various people who voted Leave, and those who say they voted Remain but are now all about the will of the people. I get the feeling that nobody wants to ask, because they know the answer will be bad. Easier to get on with it, muddle through, and pretend there is no alternative.

I think it was Howabout who said a while ago that there are twats on both side (not saying she used that word) - and that they should be called out when they do so - but that the vast majority of people are actually reasonable and you can discuss issues with them.

A RL friend of mine (who I got to know via MN but I don't think she comes on here any more) was responsible for a while for managing the social media accounts of her local SNP MP or MSP (can't remember which) somewhere in the Central Belt (not Glasgow) in the run up to her election as an MP/MSP. She says the vitriol directed towards the female candidate - both personally as a woman and as an SNP candidate was horrific. She also says what was really sad was that as the person who had to read through it, she became inured to it

It's wrong whoever does it.

I have made a conscious decision not to post on any of the Scotsnet political threads (don't always succeed - but no longer get involved in discussions in the way that I did during the Indyref threads) as I decided I couldn't face being called a swivel necked cultist (as happened in 2014 - on a Chat thread so no longer there), albeit apparently a "surprisingly reasonable and intelligent one" I find them unrelentingly negative, with a visceral hatred of the SNP. I therefore choose not to engage as I don't think there is anything I can say or write to change the minds of the majority of those who post on those threads. In the same way, I choose not to go onto the Brexit Arms threads. It's better for my mental health

I'd rather "talk" intelligently with the Westministenders (and the lurkers) - and that includes the positive contributions from reasonable Leave supporters who put forward a different perspective.

In the long term, as dh tells me his secretary in the States used to say, "You get more with sugar than with shite" That applies to everyone.

This narrative against younger generation is infuriating and insulting at so many levels. I never quite liked him to be honest but this has changed my views about Harry Styles today. That's a very human message. And its truly representative of how the younger generation feels. If his message gets more of them to vote, it would be great.

I agree Valentine: it's almost as if the young should be kept silent unless they vote/express an opinion the "acceptable" way

My ds is proud to have voted for the first time at 16. His preferred candidate even got in He should have been able to vote in a GE in 2020 - but now he'll have to wait until 2022 unless Scotland achieves her independence before then

He is engaged and has strong opinions - which he can argue well even if I don't agree with them all.

At least he has got into the habit of voting.

If the "Establishment" assumes a disengaged younger generation, that assumption becomes a self fulfilling prophecy - but given the analysis that we've discussed on here before (like the Leave vote percentage quite literally dying and the age profile of left/right), perhaps that disengagement is being encouraged.

The young can't win can they? They are too lazy to vote or too inexperienced to have an opinion that's valid.

The baby boomers generation have dominated for so long, I wonder if there is an element of not wanting to pass the torch on to the next. My experience with volunteer groups is that leaders don't want to work out a phased change over of power and instead when they slow down are critical of others trying to take up the reins because it's not 'their' way. Nothing is good enough nor matches their expectations.

It's so demotivating and self defeating as people don't want to do whatever it is anymore.

Swedish I agree, it can sound like such a reasonable argument. I thought it sounded very plausible, especially coming from David Owen.

I did a bit more reading, and found out it was actually other countries in the EU that were blocking it, and the Tories were singing TTIP's praises and wanted it without any amendments. I knew then it wasn't a good reason to change my vote.

Callmecordelia - I had a similar argument with quite a few SNP members who were voting Leave because they were concerned about TTIP

The risk of getting TTIP would be highest for a UK desperate for any trade deal,
because it has none with the E27 and has also lost the 80 or so multilateral and bilateral deals that the EU has with other countries.

The risk of Scotland leaving the Union increases whenever there is a sustained period of Tory govt.
All those celebrating a probable Tory landslide should remember that

If NS is really ruthless, she is probably hoping for a massive Tory landslide and quite happy to even lose a few seats temporarily, if it makes her ultimate goal more likely.

The SNP and the desire for independence rose because of fury at years of being trapped under a Tory rule that Scotland didn't vote for and finds cruel.

If the repository of this rage wasn't the SNP, that rage wouldn't go away.
It would just move to another independence party, possibly on the extreme left

In NI, when the moderate SDLP got nowhere, nationalist Catholics didn't give up, fool over and accept the hated Unionist / Orange Order rule:
most voted for Sinn Fein, who replaced them.

'Shit, meet Fan'
www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/14/robert-mercer-cambridge-analytica-leave-eu-referendum-brexit-campaigns
The threat does indeed come from an entirely different direction from the one we are encouraged to believe it comes from.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/13/millionaire-brexit-donor-targets-remain-mps
Vulture capitalism at its best, hoping for a Leave majority who will do Theresa May's bidding and create a brand new low tax, no workers' rights Britain. This guy is probably rubbing his hands together at the thought of carving up the NHS, etc.
With friends like this, do the Tories need Russia?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3451588/Pat-McFadden-reports-leading-Brexit-campaigner-Steve-Baker-police-plot-break-spending-limits-EU-referendum.html
All roads seem to lead to or through Steve Baker, (Con), High Wycombe.

RTB I now expect the Conservative manifesto to include something about No Deal. The plan is no deal. And chaotic exit. To be announced shortly after the election to shock and disbelief from plenty of Cons who were remainers but stayed loyal because of Theresa's leadership.

I agree 100%.

The only thing May wanted, ever, was to call an election, call for an unassailable majority, and start her revolution.

Brexit is only the means of whipping up voter support for the Tories. All through the vague 'Brexit means Brexit' mumbo jumbo to the outrage at Juncker leaking details of the dinner, to the steadfast refusal to accept FOM, TM has appealed to Tory and UKIP voters and whatever Lab support she can poach.

There has never been a negotiation strategy.

Expressing hatred at Tories / communists / fascists - for what they have done or voted for - the suffering they have caused the vulnerable

is totally different

to expressing hatred at people for how they were born - the wrong colour, race, or religion

Bevin was furious at the suffering in Wales, similar to that in NE England, where my English family come from.

My father was born at the end of WW one and he told of the hardship his family went through in the 1920s and 1930s.
They had literally not enough money for the basic necessities:

• As a child, he got the smoking habit that later killed him, by smoking grass & weeds in paper, to try to ease the fierce pangs of hunger.
• his dad had the only pair of shoes in the family, to get work on long distance merchant ships;

The kids had none, all year round. They wrapped their feet in rags during winter. His mum one day walked to the pawnshop wearing her only (ancient) pair, then walked back barefoot and stayed that way.

• New babies locally died because mothers were too starved to produce milk. Of course no one could afford condensed milk or any substitute
• Neighbours with cancer died in screaming agony, because no money for painkillers

It's no wonder Bevin and that generation of Labour politicians were so bitter at what their communities had suffered, while the pitiless privileged rich continued to enjoy luxury and every indulgence.
It's difficult to stay polite when your families suffered that, while the rich ignored the pain of their fellow citizens.

The Tories would never have got elected on a hard right manifesto, to decimate workers' rights and benefits, to cut the nhs.

Now, they waved the flag and the nation's critical faculties dissolved in patriotic fervour.

Brexit was always a means for the hard right of the Tory party to remake the country into their low wage, low regulation, tax haven dream.
A vulture calitalist's charter

We have to hope that May is sufficiently cautious not to relish the civil unrest that would result from this.
That she plays safe and the UK "only" has to suffer Brexit, not the full hard right dream.

A comfortable majority, but not a landslide, would help keep her swivel-eyed backbenchers in line.
However, handing her - and her party - the blank cheque of a huge landslide is very risky.

Remember: she is probably only an interim PM anyway
We have no idea who is likely to replace her in 2-3 years and inherit the 2017 majority.

Very sobering BigChoc. My own late DF was born at the end of WW1 and suffered hardship but not as bad as that. It made him almost a lifelong Labour supporter (until Blair got in!).

Like many who came of age just as WW2 was on the cards, he devoted his post war life to trying to build a better society. He never wanted to see those years back again.

The Call the Midwife books are a full of stories that illustrate the horrific inequality that was part of our society before the Second World War, particularly regarding the fates of those in the workhouse. I really, really recommend them, not fluffy at all. The women who went in to the workhouse with 4 children and came out with none- parents and children were separated in the workhouse and the kids died of ill health and neglect. Unimaginably painful.

The benefits of the welfare system shine through in the books, and I recommend them as often as I can .

www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/15/number-of-school-leavers-on-electoral-roll-in-england-falls-25?CMP=twt_gu
Number of school leavers on electoral roll in England falls 25%

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/3234319a-38ca-11e7-8c42-97760aa22c36
European businesses turn their backs on British suppliers

Almost half of European businesses with British suppliers are finding replacements elsewhere in the EU, according to research underlining the threat that Brexit poses to exports.

44% of all our exports are to the EU.
28% of European business who import from the UK plan to stop.
46% plan to reduce.

I'll just repeat that.

44% of all our exports are to the EU.
28% of European business who import from the UK plan to stop.
46% plan to reduce.

What do we think that means for the UK?

No deal is better than a bad deal and German car manufacturers won't stand for it.

[Hmm]

The baby boomers generation have dominated for so long, I wonder if there is an element of not wanting to pass the torch on to the next.
I have begun to wondered that myself.

I feel sorry for Harry Styles - never expected to say that-, but its not just the young who feel that way. Its not a bad thing to admit you aren't the world's foremost expert and there are plenty of people of an older age who also feel very similarly. In fact, most of us here have expressed similar opinions.

No deal is better than a bad deal and German car manufacturers won't stand for it.

But the rest of the world is going to be beating a path to our door, dontcha know?

Now when we went into the EEC and as a result, New Zealand lost out, they had to find new markets. So guess what, they found markets in southern Asia - relatively near to them geographically, instead of half way around the world. We will have to do the same. Oh wait, we are turning our back on our neighbours. Never mind we will sell jam and financial services to sub Saharan Africa, in return for cheap food.