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The weekend has seen the leaders question time debates.

Johnson failed to answer a question and the BBC edited later edited footage to change laughter at him to applause.

Swinson continues to prove that the Lib Dem campaign planners don't understand the electorate. They based the campaign around her and the more the public see her and the more she opens her gob she proves she's the witless headgirl who really knows fuck all.

Corbyn has now adopted a neutral 2nd referendum position. Far too late.

Jo Johnson apparently said that a good election manifesto is one people aren’t talking about 48 hrs later, and it seems that the Conservatives really have gone for that strategy.

Johnson had promised a manifesto for change yet of the three main parties it seems far from that. It avoids controversy for the most part, but also doesn't offer solutions to some of our biggest problems like social care. But with the Tories so ahead in the polls, the status quo and making sure they don't have a repeat of the 'dementia tax' car crash seems to be the order of the day. Because Brexit is going to going to provide a magic solution instead...

Meanwhile the Labour Party have gone completely the other way and really have gone for it and come up with ideas. With a mixed response from the public and press.

And I still can't tell you what is in the LD one, cos Prince Andrew...

This week should see the election come into focus as postal voting starts. As it stands its hard to bet on anything but a Tory majority.

Can I ask a question? And i hope it doesn't offend anyone. I am not a Jew so I can't pretend to understand everything that is going on re Anti Semitism.

I have seen statements that say Jews are terrified of Labout getting in. I am seen polls I am sure that a high percentage of the Jewish population would leave the UK of Labour win the election.

Why would they leave? What is there to be frightened of? Do.you believe that Labour policies would discriminate against Jews?

I am not saying there isn't anything to be frightened of - I am just trying to understand as there has been some very strong statements made.

I am voting Labour this election but if that vote meant that discriminatory policies would be introduced then that vote would change.

I am struggling at the moment. I see so much hatred to Labour coming from all sides and I am trying to understand what is true and what is not.

We don't get the truth anymore - perhaps we never have.

To echo @BigChocFrenzy, we have one of three shit choices to make, regarding institutional "isms".

I am just going with the one that fucks this country over the least and keeping up the criticism for all parties to reform on this issue. Even if Labour enters electoral purgatory, it's not going to go away.

Whether you are Jewish, Muslim or of another minority group, I apologize on behalf of this country. You deserve better than this crap from our representatives.

I'm not sure I should do this ... but

I worked in a school the other day where I had to stop teaching because it started raining.

Water began to hush through the roof, through the ceiling, into the classroom and onto the children.

We ran around, rearranging desks, collecting buckets, and then re-started the lesson - with the children huddled in a dry area.

As you can imagine, I was a bit wary touching the electrical stuff (including the computer and whiteboard.

Apparently, the electrics had been checked out and were safe to use.

Checked out because this was a known issue. The school had no money to fix the roof- so we all just had to accept it.

Accept the unacceptable. Move the boundaries of acceptable and normal to include this.

And I've taught in schools where half the class write while the other half do something else - because there aren't enough pencils.

The budget for stationery has run out and the class teacher now has to buy pencils and so on. And she can't always do it.

And I'm not even going to start on the issue of SEND - which is the area where most cuts are being made.

This really, really can't go on.

It can't.

On fivelive a lady was saying how her all the school's in her county but one are closed on Friday afternoons now in Wales and they don't serve lunch that day.

I think people are capable of distinguishing between Jewish people and the actions of the Israeli government.

In that case, someone's still not done their job properly . For some people, the aim of the process is to make the two indistinguishable, and therefore Israel a country that can never do any wrong.

Personally, I find the media handwringing over any form of racism a little vomit-inducing. The media has a deep and vested interest in ensuring we have as many races as possible to stir up trouble "report" on. They're hardly working for a happy end.

www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2019/11/27/election-2019-the-ethics-of-voting-for-the-lesser-evil

I thought this was interesting.... theABC very much in kind with your post above!

In line. Kind also though!

I think BigChoc explained it very well on anti-Semitism in the early hours.

This would explain why Corbyn felt unable to take the "opportunity" afforded him to apologise (and yes I know he's done so before). Maybe he does genuinely think the party has nothing further to apologise for but it's just baffling.

Corbyn got a real grilling from Andrew Neil (everyone does) and I'd expect Neil to probe Boris Johnson's weak points just as ruthlessly.

Agree btw, what a rubbish choice to have to make.

@Random18 , I'm not Jewish but my Dad was (he was the wartime generation and an atheist as a result of what he saw and experienced).
Leaving the country you thought you were safe in is , sadly, part of the Jewish experience of the last 100 years in Europe. The consequences of not doing are also part of that experience. That is as euphemistic as I can be.
It sounds extreme and ridiculous. You have nice neighbours. People don't really believe in that nasty shit, do they? And yet ...
It's a legitimate part of the thought process based on actual experience in the community even if you dismiss it as not something you would do. Can you imagine even having to entertain that thought?

We need to be brave.

We need to stop being frightened by ghost stories, filled with monsters and 'what ifs?', and temptations to fill our imaginations with our worst fears.

We need to accept the awfulness of what we are being forced to accept, right here, in the here and now.

The working families in poverty.
The deaths on the streets.
The abandonment of our children's futures.
The crumbling NHS.
The pressures we are all squashed by as the public sector falls apart.
The fear we all carry for the futures of ourselves and our loved ones.
The terror of what our own old age will be like if things carry on like this.

We need to look squarely at what we are being forced to endure right now, and how vulnerable and hopeless that makes us feel.

We need to stop succumbing to the seduction of projecting that onto a possible future, a fantasy, which is a story sold to us by those responsible for our current, very present, very real, troubles.

Honestly, every election, every election, we are invited to gather around the fire, to hear spine-chilling stories of monsters roaming at the edge of reason.

They are just stories.

To distract us from what is real, and what we will wake up to after the stories stop.

We need to stop listening to those - and look good and hard at what we are being forced to accept right now.

PMK
I think I killed the immigration thread on AIBU by asking which groups of workers should be excluded under a points based system
funny that
its all about race and not about jobs

Yes, Cherrypi.

How did we come to accept that?

I really can't bear to think how I'm going to feel on December 13th, waking up to a Johnson majority, knowing that many people in England voted to inflict more of this pain.

It's almost unbearable.

Thecatfromjapan that is truly shocking to read. It makes me despair...how awful do things have to get before something is done? How bad do the Tories have to be to lose this?

How many schools across the country are now closed on Friday afternoons? Intrigued by what the Labour party NHS announcement is. I was wondering if Boris Johnson has ever had a public library card or visited a NHS GP?

Bellini I do understand that to an extent. My concern is that history is being used to manipulate people now.

If we take anti-semitism out of the equation, we see it daily in our media.

I was reading an article on a local media re the Labour activist in her 70s attacked whilst canvassing.

That is absolutely abhorrent and extremely worrying yet few comments condemned it and it was almost as if 'that's what you get for canvassing for labour'. I know these are just idiots but it's what we hear and see daily.

It's getting worse, we have a government that actively encourages it. I just don't know where it leads.

@thecatfromjapan , there are people for whom the Brexit vote is more important than any of the things you have listed. Who think we can sort all that once we "get Brexit done " (I know, I know).
That is why people vote Tory. Because they don't think Labour will take them to the next starve.
It's all about Brexit. It always was. Unlike the referendum this election is fought on FPTP system. Which favours the Tories when things are close, as this is.
You might say "don't people care about [whatever social issue]. To which they would reply "Don't you care about respecting the result of the referendum ".

@Random18 , it is not "history". It is living memory.

"every election, every election, we are invited to gather around the fire, to hear spine-chilling stories of monsters roaming at the edge of reason."

Great post a few minutes ago, thecat 👏🏼👏🏼

Next starve? Next stage, I meant @thecatfromjapan

"Don't you care about respecting the result of the referendum ".

That's a really key issue, Bellini :

that the referendum vote has been raised above all other votes the UK has ever made, such as in GEs and given holy status

bellini fair point.

Oh Corbyn - what have you done!

Can they ignore you this time?

Will the media investigate?

How likely is it for the UK to slip into a perma-Brexit ? Always getting ready to leave, but not quite naming the date ? Which is exactly what a weak or hung parliament might lead to. Especially if in between now and whenever the final date is supposed to be, there's new EU stuff that that the UK wants a piece of.

I can imagine an end state where the UK is going to leave "next year" that goes on indefinitely. With the UK no longer being a member, but signed up to everything with a flounce-out clause if it feels it needs it.

I can certainly imagine some craftier diplomats musing on it, and making it work.

The key being there isn't a single Brexiteer alive who would be able to notice if they weren't told.

I mostly agree with BigChoc about the Brexit vote being raised above all other votes. It is being afforded a very high status but that is because the result has yet to be implemented, over 3 years on. This is why I think "Get Brexit Done" is a powerful message, even though the reality of the situation is that it is highly unrealistic (certainly in terms of timeframe.)