Westministenders: Theresa's Common People

[RedToothBrush]

She came from Oxfordshire she had a thirst for knowledge
She studied geography at Saint Hugh's College
That's where politics
Caught her eye

She told them that her husband was loaded
The press barons said "In that case have a rum and coca-cola"
She said "Fine"
And in thirty seconds time she said

I want to look like common people
I want to do whatever common people do
I want to eat like common people
I want to sleep like common people
Like you

Well what else could Fiona and Nick do
They said "We'll see what we can do"

They took her to a supermarket
I don't know why
But they had to start it somewhere
So it started there
They said pretend you've got no money
She just laughed and said
"Oh you're so funny"
They smiled "Yeah”
Well we can't see anyone else smiling in here

Are you sure you want to live like common people
You want to see whatever common people see
You want to eat like common people
You want to sleep like common people
Like me

But she didn't understand
She just smiled and held Trump’s hand

Order that benefits get the chop
Tell them all to get a job
Promise to bring back the grammar school
Pretend you don’t think them a fool
But still you'll never get it right
'Cause when you're laid in bed at night
Watching the news talking about building the wall
All have to do is call your mates to fake it all

You'll never live like common people
You'll never do whatever common people do
You'll never fail like common people
You'll never watch your life slide out of view
Whilst you blame it all on the EU
Because that’s all you can do

Sing along with the common people
Sing along and it might just get Brexit through
Laugh along with the common people
Laugh about leaving the EU

It’s the most stupid thing that you will do
Because you think that it is cool
You’ll call them a ‘lying foreigner’
But don’t say we didn’t warn you
You’ll regret saying we are better off out
'Cause everybody hates a benefits tourist

It doesn’t matter if you can’t do the math
With all those pockets that you grease
You’ll win the vote in Bath

You will never understand
How it feels to live your life
With no meaning or control
And with nowhere left to go
You are amazed that they exist
And wish they were all white
So you tell ‘The Big Lie’

Get THE flat above THE shop
Cut your hair and get THE job
Trick some mugs and hire some fool
Pretend you are not really cruel
But still you'll never get it right
Instead you're plotting late at night
About which ‘cockroach’ will take the fall
All have to do is call your mates to fake it all
Yeah

You'll never live like common people
You'll never do what common people do
You'll never fail like common people
You'll never watch your life slide out of view
As we plan to leave the EU
Because there's nothing else left to do

But ‘moan’ about how we don’t want to leave the EU.

I know you have a deep hatred for Theresa May, but get a grip.

You know nothing of the sort. What I will tell you, or should that be 'Let me be clear'? I see her making speeches and then examine her behaviour. It's very easy to examine her voting record. It does not match her words. It happened to be in my town that she was accosted by the person who had had her disability allowance taken away. A person who had been just about managing, but now no longer was. What did Theresa May offer her? Nothing - platitudes about targetting people who needed assistance.

I will ask my question again: will there come a limit when you think Theresa May has gone too far? For those who are made uncomfortable by this question, I would remind you of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

What exactly would an armed person have been able to do at Monday night's bombing? I assume the man in question wasn't obviously wearing the explosive device?

Exactly. Nothing.
I'll be shoot to kill. Ask questions later.
Which of course, is going to be completely problem free.

It neglects the point that you have to identify the threat at exactly the right time and this still could have the result of triggering a bomb regardless of whether you shoot or not.

Plus you are going to get innocent caught up in such policies.

By the time you are apparently using force on the streets as a 'means to stop a terrorist attack' you've already lost the battle. They are exceptionally difficult to stop at this point. They have limited ability to make the difference.

I will ask my question again: will there come a limit when you think Theresa May has gone too far?

Please do enlighten me as to how this increase in threat level is going 'too far'.

It isn't.

The independent JTAC recommended this on the basis of the intelligence they have at this moment, for this incident, at this time.

It doesn't matter who the PM is - they would have done the same.

Its not just about Monday's attack though is it?
In a way, I find the threat of low tech, lone wolf attacks more frightening than the coordinated, high tech ones (and I know that statistically I am personally in very little danger of either).
The way I see it is there are two different types of attack:

One is very hard to stop once the attacker is in place, but possible to prevent.
The other is very hard to prevent, but possible to stop once that attack starts.

I'm not sure I share the same sense of doom about this as some on this thread. I do about the actual attack, which upset me far more than any recent attack because I have small children and, well, I don't want to go there.

But we were expecting this at some point, we know that ISIS are a threat, we know that we were a target. In the grand scheme of things, these attacks are still incredibly rare which suggests to me that our intelligence services are doing their job. We have to trust them, we have to learn from this latest attack, improve security and safety procedures and keep going.

There have always been and there will always be nihilistic young men. At the moment, they're a perfect target for ISIS (who are massively helped by the internet), but in a few years it could be another cause. There will always something attracting them, I think. The best way to solve this would be to improve the quality of life for young men round the world and particularly in war zones, but that's a pretty big task!

But nobody is telling us what the alternative is! We have had police cuts under austerity over the past however many years. There really aren't enough police at all!

There is an alternative?

Google Police Federation and Theresa May. Take your pick from which year.

Questions should really start here. There is a problem. Long term if these threats continue (and honestly I that's the way things are one way or another and we need to face up to this) we either privatise parts of the police (has been cited as a reason for cuts), we increase the number of police or we have the army on the streets indefinitely.

These are the choices that we face. I don't see an alternative. (Even internment will require public security).

It doesn't tally up with anything May has done in the last few years. Its completely at odds with it.

If nothing else, the Trump election campaign surely taught us one thing: if you make a big disproportionate song and dance over minor wrongdoing (or in this case the mere hint of being on the slippery slope to wrongdoing), nobody is listening to you any more by the time the major misconduct happens.

I don't trust May, but she hasn't doing anything obviously wrong yet with respect to this situation. It's too early to be crying wolf.

There have always been and there will always be nihilistic young men. At the moment, they're a perfect target for ISIS (who are massively helped by the internet), but in a few years it could be another cause. There will always something attracting them, I think. The best way to solve this would be to improve the quality of life for young men round the world and particularly in war zones, but that's a pretty big task!

Very much so. The trouble is my doom and gloom comes precisely from not seeing this improvement in the quality of life and instead I see the opposite happening. To satisfy a wider public dominated by an older population.

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/election-2017-conservatives-free-school-breakfast-7p-per-meal-lunch-scrap-education-manifesto-a7752991.html
Election 2017: Conservatives’ free school breakfast pledge ‘costed at just 7p per meal’
The party pledged £60m for free school breakfasts in their election manifesto - but experts say a more realistic budget would be £400m

A Conservative Party manifesto pledge to give all primary school pupils free breakfasts falls short by £340m, it has been claimed.

The party’s manifesto, released last week, proposes scrapping universal infant free school meals – which cost an estimated £600m each year - in favour of free breakfasts for all primary school pupils, at an estimated cost of just £60m per year.

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/conservatives-primary-school-breakfasts-back-track-election-2017-manifesto-pledge-a7753311.html
Conservatives back-track on £60m pledge for primary school breakfasts
Party admits providing breakfasts for all primary 4.62 million school children could cost more than £60m initially pledged

The Conservative Party has admitted it may have made a mistake in its election manifesto after budgeting less than 7p per child in its school breakfasts pledge.

No one can comment on this today though.

But its today's news and the Conservatives did respond to the criticism in admitting the mistake. So does need to be noted.

I think 2017 will be the election where manifestos became worthless. From now on all campaigning will be conducted using buses and plain denial that anything was ever promised further down the line.

I'd argue it started back in 2010 when Cameron dodged the EU referendum we all believed we'd been promised after Lisbon. If I recall, his reasoning excuse was it was "a done deal" like foxhunting ?.

Otto English‏*@Otto*_English
Paul Nuttall is right. The parties should resume campaigning. A prolonged period of disruption in mid-campaign is doing the terrorists job.
Thatcher famously faced conference the day after the Brighton bombing and defiantly stared down the terrorists who had sought to kill her.

Paul Nuttalls of the UKIPs in 'Being Right Shocker'.

Political parties are private organisations - any one of them can pause and resume their campaigning as they see fit.

I imagine May is unlikely to return to active campaigning while the threat level remains at critical, and there's a very good reason for that - it's called doing her job.

Paul Nuttalls of the UKIPs in 'Being Right Shocker'.

Stopped clocks ?

The plan is to start campaigning again tomorrow, as far as the LibDems are concerned - although I think it's still going to be a bit low key.

I hate to say it, but I think it's one occasion when Nuttall is right - if those of us who are not personally affected stop our normal activities and are afraid to do things then the terrorists have won.

I hate to say it, but I think it's one occasion when Nuttall is right - if those of us who are not personally affected stop our normal activities and are afraid to do things then the terrorists have won.

I agree.

Also agree with MrsSummerisle - I wouldn't expect to see TM or the rest of the significant members of the cabinet doing much active campaigning as they have much bigger things on their plate at the mo.

There's nothing to stop the rest of the candidates going back to campaigning though.

May has a very much bigger issue on her plate, called brexit, but that didn't stop her calling an unnecessary election.

I don't see why the parties shouldn't campaign, as long as they avoid using tragedy for political ends (as I see the far right are doing with the youngest victim).

Kevin‏*@rascalblog* 20h
I love Manchester for the people, the music, the architecture, and also the fact it's full of posters like this.

Sometimes I love twitter!

Was May doing any actual active campaigning? She mainly seemed to be avoiding any contact with the public anyway, so can't imagine there will be much change on that front.

Katie‏*@supermathskid*
UK: Piss off EU, we don't need you, we have the Special Relationship!
USA: Howdy! Y'all don't mind if we leak your intel everywhere, right?

www.ft.com/content/f3e064f2-4069-11e7-82b6-896b95f30f58
City chiefs resist Tories’ anti-business sentiment
Alarm at protectionist slant of May’s manifesto and promises of intervention

Amongst other commentators:
Drechsler, president of the CBI employers’ federation, said all the manifestos made “depressing reading”. Business, he said, was being used as “the scapegoat for all the ills facing our society”.

Jim Pickard‏*@PickardJE*

More Tory reshuffle rumours: Leadsom and Javid unlikely to remain in a future May cabinet. Comes with usual disclaimers.

That's Johnson, Hammond, Leadsom and Javid all rumoured to be out.

Jim Pickard‏**@PickardJE**
Well placed Tory reshuffle speculation: Hammond "50 per cent" chance of staying in Treasury - could be replaced by Rudd, Green or Fallon.

Jim Pickard‏**@PickardJE**
And apparently the three Brexiteers - Fox, Boris, Davis - all pretty safe for now

She'd be foolish to get rid of - or even demote - Johnson. He's popular and, more importantly, he has no concept of the word "loyalty". He would kick up a storm of shit from the back benches. In cabinet I suppose TM has some sort of control of him - as much as you can of a loose cannon.

Fallon has been nauseatingly on-message. I expect he will be rewarded.

Going back to the army/police issue; I imagine that over the next few days, there are likely to be many armed raids, upon people who the security services believe to be connected to this attack. Such raids tend to happen simultaneously for obvious reasons. Surely it makes sense for the armed police to be released to do that, with their guard roles being taken over by the army?

It could be said that the need to do this demonstrates that there are not enough armed police. However, using the army as a short term strategy in the rare instance of a critical terror level, is actually a good use of resource, surely?

I'm not a Tory, and I cannot stand what Theresa May and the Conservative Party are doing to this country. But I do think it's slightly over the top to assume that the PM is using this for political capital. Even the most detested governments do the occasional thing correctly. IMO it isn't TM doing this for political gain, but those accusing her of doing so, who are using their belief as a stick to beat her with.

To use this tragedy, and the Security Service response to it, as a way of criticising the government is pretty unedifying. It implies that the police, army, and most importantly JTAC, are more worried about the PM's campaign than the appropriate response to terrorists. That requires such a level of jaded cynicism, that as a result of the atrocities at the root of this argument, I haven't got the energy to align myself with.

I appreciate that I'm explaining this badly, so apologies for that. I am just well aware that in order to maintain an active level of campaigning and protesting over the next few years' inevitable shitstorm, I need to not let myself become overwhelmed now. I dont want to feel too jaded to respond when the government IS acting purely ideologically. It's wearisome, and making me feel overwhelmed and helpless. Not a good feeling to have when we need people to be motivated to action.

Grommet I think I feel there are real conflicts of interest going on here.

May cut police. This affects the number of armed police and community police. This was very much against advice and she was warned that this put people at risk. She ignored. She went out of her way to say she didn't care what the police fed thought of her, she was going to do what she wanted. It's unhealthy to have political relationship like that.

She then uses the army and that gives the impression she's strong. And this almost letting herself off the hook for poor decision making and relationships with crucial parts of the state (not to mention making weak and wobbly disappear)

And don't get me started about a U-turn because someone got their maths drastically wrong on a day that opposition parties can't comment on it because they are effectively embargoed.

Yes she has a job to do because of the circumstances, but there is also things done today that have been done in a particular fashion to protect her and which puts the opposition in a position where they can't say hang on a second. I do think there are cynical elements to today's actions that do go beyond purely responding to a crisis.

I'm certainly not in the conspiracy theory mindset that others have. I do think it's not all been about dealing with the events of Monday night though.