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.

Gosh, so much going on! The aftermath of this election could be very interesting indeed. Remember May called this election without any consultation with the rest of her cabinet let alone the wider party. They let off grumbling about this as there was the widely held assumption that though it was a bit dodgy calling an election at such short notice after she had promised not to, the conservatives were guaranteed to walk it with a huge majority.

Imagine though what the conservatives will do if that majority does not appear as expected. They can all truthfully say that this election was not their idea. May has made a big unspoken promise to the party and if she fails to deliver she will have nobody to blame. Even a small rise will be considered a failure compared to the assumptions that had been made.

I have always felt this election was not about beating the conservatives, but about reducing their majority and keeping them in check. With the bungles May has made I can see a remarkable situation where she wins with an increased majority, but still is seen as a failure and given the chop by the conservatives.

The fact is the good Friday agreement only came from engaging with the IRA. Refusing to talk to or recognise terrorist groups that have serious political concerns and motivations only serves their narritives of division. Also don't forget the unionists did their fair share of bombing innocents and the British army/Government acted pretty appallingly to, so horrific acts came from all sides of the conflict.

I think a lot of people see Corbyn's more nuanced stance on the IRA and Hamas as demonstrating a possible pathway to peace. Gerry Adams I think has said as much, claiming Corbyn was ahead of the curve when it came to his engagement with the republicans and helped promote peace in Ireland.

Great piece of analysis from Peston up until the conclusion. Even if the actual result is in line with the YouGov poll it still probably gives more seats to the Tories and no prospect of a Labour Government. Current polling also gives room for a reprisal of the vote JC get NS refrain which would be even more effective North and South of the Border than last time.

I think the more interesting question is whether the PLP post the GE?

LH: If you could pschoanalyze a nation ..
(Vietnam War)

I spent last weekend in DC and visited the Vietnam War Memorial among other sights. There were lots of graduations in the many DC universities that weekend (I was at one myself) and I noticed that some graduates had left their programmes with flowers at the base of some panels. Maybe a grandfather or other relative was honoured in this way. It's a sombre memorial that many Americans have a deep personal relationship with, and in its recall of the thousands of names it focuses very squarely on the lives lost. For a huge number of those lives, the Wall is the only grave marker they will ever have. By contrast, the Korean War memorial shows anonymous military figures advancing out of a glade of evergreens through low evergreen bushes. Maybe it's easier to come to terms with the death in action of a loved one if the cause is perceived to be successful?

I moved to the US the year GHW Bush was elected, right at the end of the Reagan years, and I was shocked to my core at the blatant flag waving, the perfervid nationalistic rah-rahing, and after the Reagan 'Tear down this wall' speech, the triumphalism. My upbringing and education in Ireland had not prepared me for the unabashed jingoism. It struck me at the time that Vietnam was one reason why Reagan had been so popular. I suspect the fall of the Berlin Wall was seen by many Americans as vindication of involvement in Vietnam. I think it was seen as a huge American victory - finally - over the Commies, that vindicated The American Way, and restored the country's image of itself . Could the Vietnam War be classed as a narcissistic injury?

The very simplistic reporting on the fall of the wall and subsequent dissolution of the USSR in broadcast news was remarkable. The good guys had won and the baddies had been vanquished. A recognisable plot featuring stereotypes as thickly laid on as an old Western movie was presented in TV news at the time. Old stereotypes were given new life, a simple Goodies in white hats vs. Baddies in black hats story was trotted out for the benefit of the public, who were apparently assumed to have the intelligence and background knowledge of two short planks. Maybe the editors knew their audience better than I did... The inclusion of items like the opening of Russia's first McDonalds in the context of reportage on freedom arriving in the former USSR was troubling to me. I do not associate fast food with anything but indigestion. In general, 'news' of the period featured a lack of factual depth, a shameful lack of analysis, a sad lack of reflection, and a good deal of hot air about freedom, of which America was the fount. You could cut the hubris with a soup spoon.

'The end of history' was declared and actually seriously debated on discussion programmes. The Enemy had been vanquished. The phrase 'Well this sucks' from the movie Madagascar (a few years later) well expressed the letdown experienced afterwards. Imo a long series of successful wars is ultimately more harmful to a state than unsuccessful ones. America needs an Enemy.

Small businesses don't like what's in the Tory manifesto. From the Telegraph!

www.google.co.uk/amp/www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/05/25/britains-small-businesses-overwhelmingly-reject-tory-manifesto/amp/

I think the ''IRA thing' is a very complex issue. As is ISIS / wider security issues.
I spent many years 'getting over' the IRA thing.

My reflections this week have slowly come to this:

1. We need to stop viewing ISIS as a religious thing. It’s not. Its political. If you reframe that debate then its much easier to tackle for several reasons. It removes the appropriation of history (Note the Nazis used this as a way to legitimise themselves) when it comes to this idea of them being religiously pure. The idea of the caliphate is caught up in this, but is fundamentally political rather than religious.

2. This also creates a difference. It means you 'other' in a different way. It’s not then in direct conflict with Muslims in the same way. The agenda of ISIS is to draw on this line of division. We need to redraw the line on our terms. (When I babble on 'setting the agenda' this is some of what I mean) which feeds into:

3. Media Strategy. We are WAY behind on this. The Daily Mail is a gift. More so than twitter and facebook in a way. Yet that's where the focus is. Because of click bait and voyeurism. We need to seriously think about how we can tackle that better, and how citizens can contribute to that. Instead May panders to it repeated.

4. We are fighting on two fronts. It’s about time we actively recognised this properly and how one is affecting the other. Corbyn is absolutely right on this, and we do need to address this. Our current strategy is not working. This is something no restricted to this country though.

5. That doesn't mean I think Corbyn would be better. I don't think Corbyn is a party leader. I think he is an activist. What he's doing is changing the debate and trying to make people think differently. This is what he is good at. This is why he was helpful when working with the IRA. It also gives him a certain type of experience outside the normal framework of politics which is helpful. His thinking is different and that's a good thing. As a leader however...

6. When people say, you can't reason with ISIS. They are right, but they miss the point. It’s not about reasoning with would be terrorists. It’s about reasoning with the communities they hide in and before people become terrorists. Wars are won and lost with hearts and minds and on the basis of intelligence. We are not applying the hearts and minds stuff as well as we should be. I think perhaps Corbyn has something of an understanding of this through his experience in a way that others don't. It’s much needed.

7. All this business about 'cracking down' is nonsense. We already know that people see the world through a very narrow lens of experience and that probably one of the reasons things are happening here. Think of it this way: There are plenty of Leavers who don't get how the EU benefits them because of their personal experience and lack of awareness. Now imagine that if you are being brainwashed and have faced racism, even mild racism in the UK. Every day of your life.

8. If the perception here amongst the whole population is that foreign policy has affected what is happening in the ME then that's all you need. It doesn't matter what people in the middle east think, if the home grown terrorists think that. The disconnect between what Amber Rudd has said and what that YouGov poll says is startling and alarming. It’s totally out of touch. The Home Security, whoever they are, should have a bloody good idea about stuff like this. Its their job.

9. This is precisely why you can't merely 'crack down' in a particular way. It merely serves to reinforce that perception and almost 'lays siege' to people who are in that group and already believe that. People who haven't gone anywhere and whose narrow life experience makes them not have a sense of perspective that things are worst elsewhere and only sees treatment as being different to other people immediately around them.

10. Manchester has really highlighted how the police are handing this, because of budget cuts. Spending on counter-terrorism has gone up in Greater Manchester, even though overall funding has gone down, so it now represents a higher percentage of the police budget. But this has to be at the expense of the Community Policing, which then makes communities not have that low level connection which is very important too in the Hearts and Minds stuff. May has completely failed on this front. Totally short sighted. Why should we believe she has any great vision for Brexit when she can’t see why this was a bad idea despite the many, many warnings she was given by the police about how it would affect their abilities. Instead we get a sticky plaster of the army filling in and nothing about the longer term problem.

11. This is particular true due to how a lot of westerners are recruited. View it through the prism of Brexit logic. There is the 'attraction' and motivation of a cause. The 'excitement' of going to 'war' and defeating an ‘enemy’. This appeals to lots of people for lots of reasons. That’s how ISIS is being sold. We need to start looking at it through the lens of how going off to Syria to be a 'hero of Islam' with the camaraderie of your ‘brothers' and sounds a lot better than working the nightshift at a warehouse on a zero hours contract. Or having the well set out life in a nice career with the nice house that your Dad laid out for you. The sheer horror of it all doesn't come along until your up to your neck in it and there’s effectively no way back. Everything is about this cause. You don’t need to rationally explain it to yourself. Just ‘because’.

12. This 'cracking down' nonsense. What EXACTLY do people think this is? Since 2000 do you know how many anti-terror laws we've had. What do we think we are missing? How do we think we can improve on this? Nothing. Dead silence. Or you get extreme angry shouty noises which don’t really answer the question.

13. Part of Corbyn's logic is that he 'won't send troops in without a strategy'. It was the lack of 'what next' that did for Iraq. It did for Afghanistan. He's right. The same lack of strategy that we have for Brexit. And this is where Corbyn falls down. He doesn’t have a strategy for that, so what makes us think he has a strategy for anything else?

14. In terms of our middle east strategy, I think there is also an important question that Corbyn doesn’t answer. And that’s what if we hadn’t intervened. It’s all very well saying it was wrong. But how do we know it was wrong. We simply don’t know. It’s an important part of looking back on history. Wishing for an alternative after the fact is almost dishonest. You have to accept the past for what it is. Going back over it in the way that Corbyn seems to, puts the idea on the table that if we hadn’t of intervened, things would be better. We simply don’t know that to be true, but it leaves the idea hanging there and implied that it would be.

15. Yes mistakes were made and I personally protested against Iraq precisely because there is no plan. This is why I find Corbyn frustrating over Brexit, cos he above all others should bloody well know this. Which is why I think activist not leader. Someone who criticises but offers no real tangible alternative either. We need them to force the right questions to be asked, but they rarely have the solutions either.

16. The trouble is, May doesn’t offer those answers either. May’s thinking not only reinforces old entrenched thinking which doesn’t work but it also fails to recognise the problems that Corbyn has rightly identified. Instead May’s thinking just doesn’t get it. It wants simple solutions to the complex problems in the hope they’ll just be destroyed. They won’t. This is why I think reactionary, outdated and clueless part of the problem rather than the solution and just not a leader. That’s why she drags out the red, white and blue.

17. This is pretty much the issue. People say we must DO SOMETHING. What?! We (understandably) don’t like terrorism and feel that we have not been handling it right. But we don’t ask the question properly about what the alternative is, and how we could do it better. Yes you might hate the Human Rights Act, but what’s your better alternative. Why is it better? What are the negative side effects to that alternative? It’s easy to get all emotional and say ‘I hate this’ but you have to take a step back and go well ok then. HOW?

I can honestly say, I don’t think May want do this, she just ‘knows’ what she should be doing without actually taking that step back and consulting people who have proper understanding. She is driven by an ideology and a narrowness of experience. I can honestly say, I don’t think Corbyn can do this either, he has the idea of what’s wrong but offers an idealised alternative reality that is the stuff of fantasy. He is driven by an ideology and offers ideas but he lacks the capacity to make it even a partial reality because he is too idealist and avoids the difficult question he himself is critical of: What’s the tangible alternative?

We need a defence strategy that reflects the situation in 2017 and a real understanding of how the world is connected and how individuals relate to it on a localised level. We need leadership from a number of sources which conveys this to people in a way they understand. We need a change in attitude that we can not just isolate in order to solve this, because it’s not a national issue. Instead we have a couple of people who continue to feed the fallacies rather than challenge them and neither has a vision grounded in reality.

Phew that was longer than I expected. It’s just I despair of it all. It’s not Corbyn versus May. Its car crash versus car crash. Which dummy would you prefer driving whilst you are involved in the car crash?

Frankly I'm not exactly filled with confidence with either of them having their finger on (or off) the big red button.

Short version of the above.

We're fucked.

Everything about this is surreal.

The world where May is the best option we have horrifies me but it's the sad reality.

I'd still chew my own arm off before voting for her but Corbyn is an even worse option.

RTB is correct- we are fucked.

I'm off out leafleting tomorrow. If only to remind people in my local area there are non uber right wing options to vote for. Not that they will, they'll vote for a tub of lard if it wore a Tory rosette

Really surprised that anyone here still thinks the tories are the best of a bad bunch. I'm no Corbyn fan but I'd rather have Starmer negotiating brexit than anyone in the tory cabinet. Probably the best outcome would be a hung parliament and forced compromise.

I'm no Corbyn fan but I'd rather have Starmer negotiating brexit than anyone in the tory cabinet.
It may be uber hippy of me, but I'd rather there be a cross party committee running brexit negotiations. Starmer would be a great lead. But that would mean putting the country first and that's not what brexit was ever about.

It may be uber hippy of me, but I'd rather there be a cross party committee running brexit negotiations.

Me too. I've said this since the ref.

Probably the best outcome would be a hung parliament and forced compromise.
This.

Leading to this

It may be uber hippy of me, but I'd rather there be a cross party committee running brexit negotiations.

With both May and Corbyn nowhere near no 10. (Also see Abbott, Gove and most of the Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet).

And that’s what if we hadn’t intervened. It’s all very well saying it was wrong. But how do we know it was wrong. We simply don’t know. It’s an important part of looking back on history.

If x = y = z and you have seen it, it means z=y=x and y=x=z is also fine.
I mean to say that an intervention of that scale is wrong on that principle alone. It is not our country. We do not go and fight a war/proxy war there. We don't sell them weapons. We leave the country to its own people and at some point they will get it right.
Until we poked our head into sowing and babying jihadism in Afghanistan and the northern areas of Pakistan (the haqqani madressas being the prime example) by planting our dictators there (even Bhutto said at one time that Taliban are her brothers!), there was no need for much correction in that country except corrupt politicians who the people would have fought eventually (India is a great example in many ways: they came out fine because their society wasn't engineered although the country harboured the first ever deobandi madressa of South Asia itself). There are many similar examples of the people trying to take actions in Mid East but I think a lot of us have seen them (last few years); at some point they will succeed too. UK didn't get a civilised Society out of heavens.we worked for it for centuries.
My point is we need to find alternates for oil and invest as much as possible in hat if we want to

1. stop interventions in the name of humanity and
2. Stop the probability of proxy war taking place on our own streets while we are at it.

I might come across as naive and narrow minded may be (which is probably even true), but I think this is how you should look at the major chunks of it.
It also means all is ambiguous till you go down that route with full determination. But these New energy sources that replace oil might well lead to new wars and proxy wars.
It is very complicated and although quite relevant to my field of work, I have no idea what the future holds so I go silent beyond this.
Sorry it's my biggest rant on these threads.

So paying my taxes - which are taken from me under penalty of law, remember - has made me a "contributor" to violence in the Middle East? That's some pretty attenuated moral causality there, almost homeopathic in its diluteness.
(MrsSummerisle)

Taking it back a step then, who tells you what you must pay by way of taxes? And who votes for those people?

And that’s what if we hadn’t intervened. It’s all very well saying it was wrong. But how do we know it was wrong. We simply don’t know. It’s an important part of looking back on history.

I agree with Valentine here. We can't know what would have happened if we had taken an alternative path. But we can look at what has happened and what we've done in the Middle East and ask - has intervention made things worse than the status quo that existed prior to intervention? And I think the answer to that has to be a resounding yes, since Western intervention has helped to create at least two failed states (Libya and Syria, and also arguably Iraq).

Valentine re your comment on alternative energy sources, it depends if they rely on scare resources produced in potentially unstable countries. Solar and wind, I would say not - the materials used to make solar panels and wind turbine sails are quite widely available.

I've also thought that such a momentous event as Brexit, which will significantly affect the UK for decades to come, should be based on discussion with the Official Opposition.

Unfortunately, the timescale makes it difficult to do more than agree basic principles of what it is acceptable for the Uk.
Even more unfortunately, May has never attempted to get any such consensus.
She just steamrollers opposing views

That means she will be the scapegoat for the negative effects, where the Tories do their usual party trick of producing a shiny new successor who is of course blameless for all decisions & cockups of their predecessor.
Will this be the exception when the public blames the party in charge ?
Or can their usual media allies spin this again ?

The Labour party are only just coming out of abject sackcloth & ashes mode, because they were in power during the 2008 international financial crisis.
Unlike Brexit, which is entirely self-inflicted, the 2008 crash was mostly caused by the US leading the abolition of regulations.
btw, Trump is busy repealing the safeguards Obama brought in to prevent another such crisis.

Re the potential for a hung parliament, what would be your "dream team" cabinet, involving talented MPs (or lords) from any party?

Starmer would be on my list, but also Dominic Grieve - who was sacked by Cameron for speaking truth to power. I'd have Andrew Tyrie too (head of treasury select committee) but he is stepping down, like far too many of the remaining sane tories.

.

Valentine in principle I really don't disagree with you.

It's just that you don't know if no intervening at that point would have set a chain of events even worse.

It's the whole sci first arguement of whether if you had the chance to kill Hitler as a child, what would the world be like now? Would we have instead have a different war at a different point which was even more brutal and the genocide even worse?

You can't dwell on the past.

I think, no matter how truly awful the past has been I also think you have to see it as how it shapes things that come after and what power that tragedy brings to it. Individual tragedies do provide the motivation and source of events that follow in a positive way too. The key is to realise that and to take control of the situation in a way that stops more of the same.

To do that you have to recognise the failings of the past. At the moment I don't believe we've come to that particular crossroads. I do believe Corbyn offers a chance to catch a glimpse of that but I also don't believe he has the leadership ability to make that a reality either.

I have to say in terms of the current situation Erdogan deeply troubled me. Dictators have a nasty habit of killing people. They also have a nasty habit of dying and leaving a political vacuum. I fear the eventual political vacuum that could form there for many reasons. To me instead of focusing on what we've done wrong that's where or eyes should start to be draw to avoid repeats.

Overall I think we have become very reactionary in our thinking and very backward looking in a way that doesn't involve considering the implications for the future well. Yes learn from the past but have ideas for the future. Others are forming the future out of our own lack of vision. That's not good.

We can disapprove of dictactorships, but if they are secular and don't support attacks in the West, they are much safer to leave, rather than removing them and letting anarchy thrive.

It's not only the collapse of Muslim countries that lead to anarchy and slaughter - we just have to look at what happened when Yugoslavia disintegrated after Tito's death.

The big problem for us with such dictatorships is when they don't have planned successors.
Assad is a mass murderer now, but like his father, his rule was secular and doesn't sponsor terror in the West.
Unfortunately for him and for Syria, the US and UK wanted to bring him down to deny Russia their strategically important port base in Syria.

My mum and her family were Middle East Christians, all politically very conservative.
However, they were horrified when the West began interfering with what were then "strong & stable" secular goverments - like Iraq, Syria, Egypt - in which Christians like them were prospering.

The reasons for intervention were to control oil supplies and to take down vaguely socialist countries that were friendly towards the USSR, then towards Russia.
Also, the secular Arab governments had armed forces which could potentially invade Israeli territory, whereas the IS rabble don't have anything like that power.

Stirring up Islamic fundamentalism has been a British and US strategy in several countries going back decades.
The West is now reaping the whirlwind
Many European countries are compounding the problem by supporting US military action, because otherwise the US complains about disloyal NATO allies

Meanwhile, the West still sucks up to the theocratic dictatorship in Saudi Arabia, which exports their fanatical Wahhabism and finances the violent Islamic extremists.
It is outrageous that the US and UK prioritise selling arms and billions of profit for corporations to the regime responsible for terror attacks against the West

We should impose sanctions against Saudi Arabia, not sell them more weapons