Politics Arms

[ommmward]

This is a thread for chit chat, banter, memes and emojis about current politics.

It is NOT intended as a fight club.

It is NOT intended as a place to rehash old arguments about the merits (or otherwise) of Brexit - please pop over to the Brexit forum for that.

Politics threads sometimes attract posters who make personal attacks or who hold their views so very strongly that they find it hard to be respectful of other opinions. Please do not engage with such posters; MN has a handy report button for any posts that fall outside their posting guidelines.

Now, pull up a bar stool, and I'm sure one of our lovely staff will be over with a menu shortly.

Just popped in to catch up.. but it feels so ghostly in here tonight 😔

Oh well, at least it's completely non-partisan now there's no-one around I suppose.

Maybe there's a secret hidden thread somewhere.

Or maybe some posters have been banned.

ROI Exit pole
FG 22.4
SF 22.3
FF 22.2
Looks like it could be a hung Parliament.

Why would anyone have been banned?

I did try to communicate with MNHQ about the rules for the thread, even highlighted two posts - one by walkingdead one by xing that put forward useful suggestions.

Unfortunately the moderator was in full Nurse Ratched mode and just kept repeating to stay within The Guidelines..

poll

Looks like it could be a hung Parliament

Has that happened before?

Don’t have a lot of knowledge on ROI Arse. I have started to follow RTE and the results popped up on my Facebook.
I read that both FF and FG have ruled out a coalition with SF but this was pre exit poll results so who knows. When needs must as they say.

I would have thought such deep rooted enmities would rule out a workable coalition but, like you, I don't know much about modern ROI.

Saw a piece earlier suggesting Varadkar might be out which would be a shock

From reading RTE comments seems Leo is not as popular as I first thought so I think it’s pretty likely he will go.
I know Mary Lou McDonald from SF will be pushing for a border poll but around August last year Leo told her it wouldn’t be happening.

more Labour party squabbles - this time about alleged data breach. They really are their own worst enemies.

Housing Minister on Sky News saying that the UK can put up with some friction rather than alignment with the EU. No - industry doesn’t work like that - I’m assuming he knows nothing about supply chain and JIT.

Tories have got it wrong putting a housing minister out to answer these type of questions.

Paid my dues walking ddog in the storm so now i'm having a and toast thank god. Doesn't seem too bad down here in south devon.

The Labour party thing is only vaguely interesting - most people won't heed it much i don't think. Seems Starmer is still well in front and it's basically become him v Long-Bailey. Can't believe there's still 2 months to go.

I was more interested to catch a bit of Farage on LBC fulminating about reports in the press that budget might see a mansion tax and cuts to pension relief tax for higher earners. Do they dare? Have they gorn mad? While pushing ahead with HS2, one of the most ludicrously pointless money-burning projects ever devised?

The Tories are stuck between a rock and a hard place. How do they keep sweet their core voters, while at the same time fulfilling the promises made to the northern working class electorate who voted conservative for the first time ever.
I know who will win. People will realise they've been had sooner rather than later I think.

They certainly won't keep core tories sweet by taxing them and I don't see how they'll dress it up as anything other than targeting the rich-politics of envy which has always been an accusation aimed at Labour and very much trotted out only weeks ago at the GE.

Trotted out by the PM himself in fact

Fascinating to see how the reshuffle is being framed with Cummings possibly losing his grip on Johnson now the big majority is under the belt.

I'll be glad to see the back of the booming buffoon Cox but it looks as if Patel will stay despite being a total liability.

Hello folks, I've been away to the Southeast for the weekend to visit very old friends and have had a shocking real life hangover that rather prevented any coherent thought, much less any posting. Heaven knows what I could have said under the influence. But now we've driven back through Storm Ciara, and not been hit by flying bricks or branches, I am reading back to catch up on the chat here. The Irish election outcome sounds fairly hung ATM but apparently it will be several days before the transferable votes are transferred and finalised.

In the meantime, as this is a pub, will anyone have a glass of wine with me?

I fear HQ in trying to clean the place up have killed the trade - as posted above i highlighted your post to them re not butting in quite so much and letting things flow but they didn't seem to want to listen.

Anyway, i'm just using up the xmas sherry so cheers!

Arse, I am a fairly core One Nation Tory in that I am a partner in a micro-enterprise (total payroll of 7, plus an old buffer who works PT because he thinks retirement is dull). Our household income doesn't break any salary pinnacles, (no one here on 50% tax) even for we who created it and own the shares, and our pay policy has the female members of staff earning as much or more per hour than some newer joiners who create more money. It's hard core manual engineering work mostly, but essential to basic heat/light/power/utilities supply. In days gone by, we might have had union respresentation, and in 2020 we don't: the unions think we are too small to bother about, we pay and share the rewards fairly, while explaining the risks of the decisions that have to be made. Yet, we'd (marginally) prefer a Tory government which we feel is (slightly) more likely to run a less burdensome paperwork and administration reporting requirement, because that would only reduce the rewards that we pay out as profit share bonuses. It's a family company, and we have never (in nearly 30 years in business) had a reportable health and safety incident. So if I get irked at the assumption that every private company wants to shaft the workforce for every last half minute of time and blood, please consider that most small enterprises try very very hard to be fair with all the people who work for them, directly employed and as subcontractors.

You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, as my gran said.

As so often Xing I haven't a clue what any of that has to do with me but never mind. If you've been in business 30 years (circa 1990?) did you notice a change going from tory to labour and then back to tory?

Any thoughts on the budget reshuffle rumours?

*Arse not a great difference in the business attitude to small companies' trading practices, but very different assumptions regarding the level of administrative compliance hoops that need to be jumped through. And not all of it is driven by politics: much MUCH more has been driven by insurance and risk management AKA compliance functionaries. All of which demands people to collect and collate figures that no one ever looks at again after they have been submitted. It's a gaint paper trail of dubious value.

Re budget reshuffle... this morning's paper is tomorrow's recycling and i haven't seen the news at all. .

I hope you might find it an interesting sidelong view from another POV> Arse. Nothing more!

I don’t agree with much of Leo Varadkar’s politics but thought he had been excellent in representing Ireland in Brexit. Will be interesting to see what happens going forward.