Westminstenders: Frozen

[RedToothBrush]

Boris Johnson was empty chaired by C4 with a block of ice.

The Conservatives went mental and have threatened to look at C4 broadcast remit.

This is illiberal and anti democratic.

Journalists are supposed to hold power to account on behalf of the public. If MPs don't turn up then they can't be held to account.

They have a duty to show. It's not good enough to avoid scrutiny because it might make you look bad. That's the whole point.

The contempt with which Johnson holds the press and public is reprehensible and you should be concerned whatever your political alligence. It allows corruption to fester without consequence.

And to then threaten C4 because they do their job in line with their responsibility as a broadcaster is alarming.

This is how authoritarian dictators work.

So London Bridge attacker was on release from jail with a tag for ... terrorism ?

And invited to (?) a conference (?) on prison issues next to a major Capital target.

Johnson has said that he would introduce state aid for struggling companies.

As far as I am aware, that's the kind of thing that the US would hate - there have been issues with the US

www.cnbc.com/2019/10/02/wto-rules-in-favor-of-us-in-aircraft-subsidies-dispute.html

Feel so massively for the victims and their families. Seems close to home too, as DH uses London Bridge pretty much every day although he seems pretty inured to it.

For the next two weeks there'll be some justified criticism of the authorities ..and that leads to an authoritarian swing.

www.nytimes.com/2017/04/22/world/europe/how-terrorism-can-alter-elections.html

DGR, I posted this link last night.

go.mumsnet.com/?xs=1&id=470X1554755&url=www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jun/03/surge-in-terrorists-eligible-for-parole-poses-threat-to-uk-security

This is an issue that experts saw coming, as the government defunded and privatised the probation service.

Locking someone up for longer solves nothing if you do not have an adequate strategy and resources for rehabilitation, dealing with radicalisation and for supervising and monitoring potentially dangerous ex-prisoners.

Locking someone up for longer solves nothing if you do not have an adequate strategy and resources for rehabilitation, dealing with radicalisation and for supervising and monitoring potentially dangerous ex-prisoners.

Adequately fund education, youth centres, addiction and mental health support and community policing and your going to at least bring the rate of new offending down

www.theguardian.com/society/2019/nov/29/revealed-nhs-plans-to-ration-34-unnecessary-tests-and-treatments

Death by a thousand cuts? This is a big one. Fine for anyone who can pay privately to see if they've got prostate cancer. Tough shit for the poor.
I'm so glad I'm in Scotland.

The best way to prevent terrorism, as well as other male violence, is to look to the causes, recognise the signs and have plenty of resources and strategies in place to reduce the person becoming a terrorist.

Plenty of money is going into stopping the effects of terrorism. Armed officers, barriers in towns etc.

How much resources is going to preventing male violence happening in the first place?

Plenty of money is going into stopping the effects of terrorism

Stopping selling weapons to regimes that want to destabilise the middle east would help I'm sure

The Pileus
@thepileus
· 9h
Matt Hancock loses his cool at local hustings as crowd refuse to buy his Tory spin

twitter.com/i/status/1200570480941576192

Dont know if anyone posted this, about Conservative donations. I'm shocked. Vote Leave and Conservatives both getting big donations from anti-climate change groups

www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/environment/election-2019-boris-johnson-top-recipient-of-donations-from-climate-denial-backers/25/11/

I've just sent my dad this to brighten his morning (he lives in Swinson's constituency and will be voting SNP )

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/jo-swinson-branded-charlatan-constituents-20992316?utmsource=facebook.com&utmmmedium=social&utmcampaign=sharebar

"Swinson appears to be the Marmite candidate in her patch - if no one loved Marmite"

I'm shocked. Vote Leave and Conservatives both getting big donations from anti-climate change groups

Out of curiosity (I'm not being arsey) why does this shock you?

You'll be hard pushed to find anyone who is invested in the climate change denial space who didn't vote for or support Brexit.

You'll be hard pushed to find anyone who is invested in the climate change denial space who didn't vote for or support Brexit.

This

Jennifer Forbes
@Jen4TruroAndFal
·
1h
Tories have destroyed Prison Services

• 18 Prisons closed by Tories
• 10,000 Prison Officers axed
• Prison Officers attacked up 84%
• 15% of Prison Services Privatised
• Average Prison Officer salary just £23k
• 60% of Prisons overcrowded

Labour will end Profit Prisons

It suffered from austerity... yet votes Tory. It got support and hundreds of millions from the EU yet it votes leave .

Re Cornwall - it makes no sense to me either, and it's my home. We definitely have anti-establishment, non-conformist tendencies which may explain some of it, plus a lot of property is owned by the well-off from elsewhere.

I'm an active member of my local labour party and fully aware where we stand in Cornwall. LibDems have done pretty well in the past but there is still a lot of hostility towards them resulting from the coalition. It makes no sense to me why you would then vote for the Tories if you're pissed off with the LibDems for going into coalition with them. Our Tory mp increased his share of the vote last time, and as i've previously said, is making no effort to campaign this time yet will probably do so again.

I think, like a lot of this, it comes down to feelings rather than facts. Much like with Wales, voting to leave when we are so dependent on EU funding which is not going to be replicated domestically is an act of self harm. EU funding has gone a long way to alleviating some of the issues here, so it is insane to me that we would vote to leave.

Press attention and 'terrorist' designation of the London Bridge kerfuffle is counter productive - its not unusual for two people to be stabbed to death in a week in London - they rarely merit banner headline status.
Yes a stabbing and police shooting is newsworthy but banner headlines, multi-page coverage, suspension of campaigning just feeds the extremist agenda and actually creates terror.

Press attention and 'terrorist' designation of the London Bridge kerfuffle is counter productive - its not unusual for two people to be stabbed to death in a week in London - they rarely merit banner headline status.
Yes a stabbing and police shooting is newsworthy but banner headlines, multi-page coverage, suspension of campaigning just feeds the extremist agenda and actually creates terror.

Interesting contribution.

Interesting contribution.

Its a fair point tbh, what did you find interesting about it?

@XingMing, whilst I do not like the idea of leaving I do wish that someone had been politically astute enough to sell a soft leave option seriously. May could have done it, but she burnt up good will and made the debate turn to the extremes in Oct 2016 with her poor handling of the Tory conference and misreading of the public mood as a whole by only focusing on the Tory wing nuts (rather than softer leavers particularly in the north).

What will eventually be on the table will be a choice between a US deal and a soft leave deal anyway.

The focus on a 2nd ref and remaining was fine at first but I ultimately that both options become as incoherent and none sensical as leaving without a deal because they lost sight of reality and the need to move forward. Neither offered a credible solution to either social or political problems. It ultimately has become increasingly militant as a viewpoint for this reason and I do think lack self awareness of being guilty of some of the criticism leveled at hard leave.

Not everyone shares my opinion on this thread - and its still a somewhat controversial opinion - but I do think there is a decent percentage who do share similar views.

Something similar to Norway is also my thinking.

My son was evacuated from London Bridge (had visited someone in hospital, which was also put in lockdown). He then got locked in a pub for two hours...
We had a chat this morning. He says he doesn’t worry, but is always vigilant when out and about in Central London. I said I used to be the same when he was a child in the 80s, we travelled a lot by train and railway stations were frequently bomb targets. Plus ça change...

I guess I am shocked that there would be an organised lobby. I'm naive obviously

Something similar to Norway is also my thinking

Mine too, albeit reluctantly, but pragmatism has to apply at some point.

However, the view I hear from Leavers is that this is not really leaving, so what's the point?

Fair point @Frankiestein402

What I would like to know is why, if as reported, a passerby had already wrestled the attacker to the ground, it was necessary to shoot him. It must have been at point blank range. Why not arrest him? The suicide vest was apparently fake and even if it wasn’t once he is overpowered there’s no particular benefit to killing him - the vest would still have to be de-activated either way.

Then we have the papers announcing the man’s identity the following day. What legal procedure has been followed to establish his identity? Did his family identify his body overnight?

The point of a trial is partly to establish whether this particular defendant is responsible for this particular crime.

What if the passerby got the wrong person? Or the man identified in the papers is not the man responsible?

I don’t recall a recent terrorist incident when the protagonist wasn’t shot.

What has happened to legal procedure?

What legal procedure has been followed to establish his identity?

As a recent prisoner release and attendee at the conference and still with an electronic leg tag thingy it was pretty easy to speedily and accurately identify him surely.