Maggie is Dead.

[Talkinpeace]

at last.

[Talkinpeace]

I almost wish she was still hiding away in her room at the Ritz because Radio 4 have got RIGHT UP MY NOSE today with all their navel gazing and interviews with has been politicians.

FFS there is REAL news going on

she is history.
Keep here there
learn from her successes
learn from her mistakes

[claig]

'Wandering off-topic, claig, I wonder why you use 'progressive' as an insult?'

Because I am highlighting foir those who cannot see it, the hypocrisy of what these charlatans call themselves.

These vicious, nasty haters who would dance on the grave and celebrate the death of the greatest peacetime Prime Minister this country has ever seen. These progressive charlatans who wanted every citizen in our free country to carry biometric id cards and wanted all our DNA on databases and who wage progressive 'humanitarian' wars.

Not one rightwinger would celebrate the death of any Labour politician. We mock them, we expose their hypocrisy and their incompetence but we don't hate any of them.

We have common decency and respect, we hate no one, we do not celebrate the death of any human being, we are not progressive.

[claig]

I don't mock liberal, unless it is used by illeberals who wish to curtial our free speech and who wish to curtail our civil liberties and who wish us to carry biometric id cards.

Progressive is their latest trick to disguise their real nature - the nature that they have revealed with their shameful celebrations.

I believe in progress but not in those who falsely claim they are progressive.

[claig]

Frnankie Boyle, a scumbag who limked to a celebratory youtube video.
The Labour candidate who joked about being disappointed that Margaret Thatcher had not been killed in the IRA bombing.

Indecent scumbags without human decency who claim they are progressive.

[claig]

There is wall-to-wall TV coverage of Thatcher's death in America because she was one of the leading world figures of the 20th century.

Let's hope they don't witness our progressive scumbags celebrating her death and shaming our nation.

[MiniTheMinx]

I am not celebrating and won't be unless her ideas and her policies die with her. They won't, so nothing to celebrate.

[BoulevardOfBrokenSleep]

"These progressive charlatans who wanted every citizen in our free country to carry biometric id cards and wanted all our DNA on databases and who wage progressive 'humanitarian' wars."

Hmm. Those would be Labour party policies. Maybe you could say 'labour' instead of 'progressive'? Then it would be a bit clearer what you are talking about?

Because I feel insulted when you deride 'progressives', despite not espousing any of the ideas you mention as associated woth them.

[BoulevardOfBrokenSleep]

Come to think of it, let's not go as broad as Labour party - those were Tony Blair and David Blunkett's policies. I'll wager that the majority of Labour party grassroots members went WTF? at those doozies.

[claig]

Yes, I am not on about decent Labour voters. I am on about the powerful charlatans and their teams of spin doctors who claim they are progressive.

Ordinary decent Labour voters like Mrs Duffy don't call themselves "progressive", that is a trick of the political elites and their spinners in order to claim the caring cloak of progress and paint their opponents as backwards.

[Darkesteyes]

Its galling to hear the Tories talk about compassion less than a week after the six late Philpott children were used by them and the Daily Mail to make a political point and a smear campaign against benefit claimants.

[claig]

This is another Labour own goal. If I was a Tory spin doctor, all I would do now is to show the quotes of the people who celebrated Thatcher's death and videos of their "street parties" or whatever some of them are planning in all of the party political broadcasts until the next election.

The decent people of the country, who are by far the majority, will be disgusted by what they witness. And they will listen to the TV stations playing Billy Bragg's song "whose side are you on?" and they will decide they are not on the side of these scumbags who celebrate the death of a human being.

[claig]

And it is not the Labour leadership's fault because they have been very respectful and said good things and they have shown respect. It is some of their supporters who are letting the Labour party down.

[BoulevardOfBrokenSleep]

OK. So instead of 'progressives' you could say 'Labour politicians'? 'Some Labour politicians'?

Because, really, the word 'progressive' bears no relation to the context you are using it in. You might as well refer to your powerful charlatans as 'begonias'. Or 'duck-billed platypi'.

[claig]

I use progressive in order to highlight the fact that they are not progressive. Those who boast of their good deeds are often deceivers.

'Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips.'

Orwell's Big Brother said he loved you, but he didn't.
Progressives say they are progressive but by their deeds and celebrations you know that they are not.

[Talkinpeace]

I will start identical threads when
Arthur Scargill (an offensively greedy man after his union was crushed by his own arrogance) and
Tony Bliar (war criminal who needs to be arrested soon)
die.

Divisive unapologetic figures deserve to be despised even at death.

[claig]

I respect Arthur Scargill. He fought for his beliefs and was true to them.
I repect Scargill and I respect Thatcher. They were both committed to fighting for what they believed in. That is what politics is all about. It is about ideas and beliefs.

I don't respect Blair, but I don't despise him. He was a politician who did what he was probably told to do. That is how many of them are. They can't all be of the quality of Thatcher or Scargill.

[Talkinpeace]

Scargill still gets all his bills paid by the NUM - including on his nice flat in the Barbican - even though there is no longer an NUM : he believed in himself and not much more.

Bliar "believed" : who was telling him what to do?

[claig]

'he believed in himself and not much more'

I think that is the propaganda that we are told by the victors. The majority of miners supported him at the time. Now Kinnock blames Scargill. How much did he support him at the time?

'Bliar "believed"
Do you mean when he said something like God told him to do it?

If you believe that Blair believed anything, then I think he took you in. He was Thatcher's heir and he did not change most of what she introduced and he sold himself as being Labour.

[MiniTheMinx]

Blair hopped on the bus that he thought would stop outside number 10. He guessed right. The man has no principles and no interest aside from self promotion.

[BoulevardOfBrokenSleep]

"I use progressive in order to highlight the fact that they are not progressive."

Yeah, that sort of thing only really works if everyone knows what you're talking about. We're a diverse bunch here, and a lot of people have never 'met' you before.

You've got to be clear what youre talking about.

Otherwise you're just using language to obfuscate rather than elucidate. To coin a phrase.

[BoulevardOfBrokenSleep]

Agree completely with talkinpeace post at 22:13:08.

I've had enough of megalomaniac politicians who Believe In stuff.

Could we have a bit of humility, looking at the evidence, and saying, 'oh yeah, maybe I was wrong and we should go for Plan B'? (I'm looking at you here, Osbourne...)

[HesterShaw]

Her being dead doesn't alter the terrible things she did, which is why I am baffled about this glee that she has died. Nothing has changed. She still shafted large sections of the country. All her being dead means is that she is at peace and out of pain.

[claig]

'Yeah, that sort of thing only really works if everyone knows what you're talking about.'

OK, maybe I am not clear enough. But it is so obvious to me that they use the term progressive to show themselves in a good light and that many of their deeds are the opposite. That is why I use the term "progressive" in an ironic, sarcastic way, since it is so often the exact opposite of what the charlatans are.

George Orwell said it better many years ago. The word is "dishonest" i.e. spin

"Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive reactionary, bourgeois, equality."

www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

[claig]

'I've had enough of megalomaniac politicians who Believe In stuff.'

So you prefer the spinners who will sell you what they think you want to hear and then will stitch you up when they get in and are told what to do by their paymasters?

The public wants real politicians who believe what they say. They respect the truth, not spin. You know where you stand with them. That was what Thatcher was like. You were under no illusion about what you would get and you could make your choice.

People like straight talking, that is why Blair used the line "I'm a striaght kinda guy" in his mockney accent. But it was pretty obvious that he wasn't with his pregnant pauses, his trained hand movements and all the rest of the arts of the spinner.

[HesterShaw]

I don't remember her being so straight about Hillsborough.

Maybe it's just me.


All this "conviction politician" and "strong leader" stuff...I don't know. Strong leaders are not necessarily good for countries. Stalin was a strong leader. And Blair's last words on leaving office were "I did what I thought was right."