How is the Tory government doing?

T.R.O.Y. wrote:Best post you’ve ever written on here and I agree with most of it. I only differ on the way forward and do believe there are enough progressives out there for Labour to win as part of a coalition, you say ditch  the support for BLM and LBGT - believe me if you tried that you’d lose Labour’s new base which is people like me under 40’s living in citys, we’ll just go vote Green. 

The Tories have dragged the country through unnecessarily dark days, and this latest government is dangerous to democracy. Keep the faith though.

I think the only way Labour could gain power would be through a coalition Troy, as you say but there would still need to be a collapse in the Tory vote and right now I just don’t see it. Believe me, if there were a realistic option, including Labour, many of us would take it but until they shed the Neanderthals they’ve installed as MP’s, I’m afraid it’s not going to happen. In particular the likes of Richard Burgon, Dawn Butler and even Angela Raynor just don’t cut it with the electorate. When you listen to them they still spout the same drivel that took Labour to such a low ebb in the last election. 

In recent years Labour have recruited numerous, mainly young women, straight out of University or charities, with no experience of real work straight into Parliament. I can see the reasoning for this by the left of the party but these people just have no credibility with the ordinary working man and woman and is one reason why so many of them lost previously safe red wall seats last time. 

I hear your support for the likes of BLM and LBGT groups but have to say that if that’s your view maybe the Labour Party isn’t the one for you anyway and maybe you should move to a fringe party instead. The Greens if you like. There is just too big a difference between where you are and the right of the Labour Party to align I’m afraid and that is for me the root of the problem? However bad the Tories are they’re still preferable to current Labour and how sad is that?

Support for LGBT and racial equality is consistent across the country, Labour Party and I’d imagine (in public at least) the majority of the Tory party. You not supporting those things puts you in the minority Whites.

We’ll I certainly don’t support BLM for one Troy and frankly if you really believe that I’m out of step on that, I think you need to give your head a wobble. On LBGT issues, I have absolutely no problem people living their own lifestyle as long as it doesn’t impact on mine. The transgender issue does and is more questionable. All respect to anyone who’s brave enough to switch but I’m afraid to me you’ll always physically be what you were born. Racists I have no time for but I am sick of being labelled one every time I try to make a comment on the issue. 

I’m actually sure there’s more we agree on than disagree Troy but much of the difference is probably generational. Maybe I’m just being a miserable old git but I do feel sorry that I can’t leave to my grandchildren many of the freedoms and conditions I enjoyed as a child.

I think blaming generational differences is a cop out to be honest, unfortunately you have a set of inherent bias, and (more damagingly) you dismiss any facts that don’t align to your narrow view as ‘propaganda’ and so have no hope of developing your views any further.

You may not see yourself as a bigot, but I think it’s quite clear you are. I suspect you’re more vocal online than in real life, but I hope your grandkids don’t pick up the same views - believe me they won’t get very far if they do.

Nandy, Reeves and Cooper are all admirable members of the Labour Shadow Cabinet.....articulate, honest, principled, intelligent and reasoned. I can't think of any members of the Tory cabinet with the same qualities.

Rayner may be less to people's taste with her outspoken ways.....but she is ideal for Tory-bashing at PMQs in contrast to the more mild-mannered Starmer. The right-wing press have tried to pick holes in their relationship but more balanced commentators see their joint strengths. 

In any case, it's policies, not personalities that would always attract me.

Whitesince63 wrote:We’ll I certainly don’t support BLM for one Troy and frankly if you really believe that I’m out of step on that, I think you need to give your head a wobble. On LBGT issues, I have absolutely no problem people living their own lifestyle as lng as it doesn’t impact on mine. The transgender issue does and is more questionable. All respect to anyone who’s brave enough to switch but I’m afraid to me you’ll always physically be what you were born. Racists I have no time for but I am sick of being labelled one every time I try to make a comment on the issue. 

I’m actually sure there’s more we agree on than disagree Troy but much of the difference is probably generational. Maybe I’m just being a miserable old git but I do feel sorry that I can’t leave to my grandchildren many of the freedoms and conditions I enjoyed as a child.

I met a guy from Leeds in Egypt the other week who has very similar views to you WS and after a few drinks it all started to come out.

Anyway I thought to myself about how when I was a kid my parents - and moreover my grandparents and great grannie - held a very "Victorian" view of the world which included some very dodgy aspects, not only on race but on gender e.g. the shunning of raped girls because they had children "out of wedlock" etc.
The world changed massively during my/our generation's heyday and we became a global society with greater personal freedoms/rights and of course there was the technological revolution along with political shift like the end of the Cold War. The quality of life rose beyond our wildest dreams.
Seems to me that every generation is destined to change the world one way or another and the guy from Leeds was trapped in a rose-tinted view of "how the world used to be"  - conveniently forgetting the abject misery experienced by many back in the 50s and 60s. And the victims of abuse who were never talked about but has since come to light.
The reality is that that you "can’t leave to my (your) grandchildren many of the freedoms and conditions I (you) enjoyed as a child" because that world has been exposed for what it really was now that we live in a world where there are less secrets and there are actually more freedoms nowadays than there were then. Including the right to be gay or whatever a person thinks they are.

I concluded that the lad from Leeds (my age) is nostalgically pining for his youth - and part of that is the innocence he must have been lucky enough to have had to have enjoyed his childhood in ignorant bliss.
Personally I am proud of the changes that our generation made to that world in the face of a "Victorian" elite that held all the cards in terms of political power and money - and it would be churlish to try to impose old and outdated "values" on future generations instead of letting them get on with the natural process of making the societal changes they feel need to be made.
They have that right because - let's be realistic here - they and their children are the ones who are going to have to live with it.
If they want to focus on climate change, racial equality, globalisation etc we should be supporting them, not trying to big up our own self-importance by standing in their way.

Very good, Lusty. Can't argue with that.

 (In general, the views of neanderthal Tykes are coming in for some stick presently! , though I see that the Lancashire deserter, Michael Vaughan, is still being employed by The Daily Telegraph...yuk!) 

Nobody's commented on Jed Mercurio's brilliant pillorying of Boris, so I'll post it again here:

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/jed-mercurio-tweets-boris-police-pic-saying-he-is-too-bent-for-next-line-of-duty-303922/

wanderlust wrote:
I met a guy from Leeds in Egypt the other week who has very similar views to you WS and after a few drinks it all started to come out.

Anyway I thought to myself about how when I was a kid my parents - and moreover my grandparents and great grannie - held a very "Victorian" view of the world which included some very dodgy aspects, not only on race but on gender e.g. the shunning of raped girls because they had children "out of wedlock" etc.
The world changed massively during my/our generation's heyday and we became a global society with greater personal freedoms/rights and of course there was the technological revolution along with political shift like the end of the Cold War. The quality of life rose beyond our wildest dreams.
Seems to me that every generation is destined to change the world one way or another and the guy from Leeds was trapped in a rose-tinted view of "how the world used to be"  - conveniently forgetting the abject misery experienced by many back in the 50s and 60s. And the victims of abuse who were never talked about but has since come to light.
The reality is that that you "can’t leave to my (your) grandchildren many of the freedoms and conditions I (you) enjoyed as a child" because that world has been exposed for what it really was now that we live in a world where there are less secrets and there are actually more freedoms nowadays than there were then. Including the right to be gay or whatever a person thinks they are.

I concluded that the lad from Leeds (my age) is nostalgically pining for his youth - and part of that is the innocence he must have been lucky enough to have had to have enjoyed his childhood in ignorant bliss.
Personally I am proud of the changes that our generation made to that world in the face of a "Victorian" elite that held all the cards in terms of political power and money - and it would be churlish to try to impose old and outdated "values" on future generations instead of letting them get on with the natural process of making the societal changes they feel need to be made.
They have that right because - let's be realistic here - they and their children are the ones who are going to have to live with it.
If they want to focus on climate change, racial equality, globalisation etc we should be supporting them, not trying to big up our own self-importance by standing in their way.

Actually Lusty, I agree with pretty much all of that and as I said to Troy, not that he accepts it, it is a generational thing and you’re right that we were shielded from many things but then I’d counter by saying that things were nowhere near where they are now. Drugs you hardly saw, there was really no terrorism, there was an order about things, respect for authority, the police, teachers, doctors and the like and of course there was no commercialisation as there is today. Nor was there any internet or social media.

I’d say that people under 60 have absolutely no comprehension of how gentle and ordered life was because it all changed once the sixties got going. It was certainly hard, little TV and no central heating or double glazing but everyone who wanted one had a job. So though there were of course downsides, you’ve indicated some of them, if I could give my grandchildren the safe and loving childhood I had, I would certainly do so but I can’t and as you say, the likes of Troy and younger generations have every right to the life they create and good luck to them with it, because they’ll need it!!

Whitesince63 wrote:

Actually Lusty, I agree with pretty much all of that and as I said to Troy, not that he accepts it, it is a generational thing and you’re right that we were shielded from many things but then I’d counter by saying that things were nowhere near where they are now. Drugs you hardly saw, there was really no terrorism, there was an order about things, respect for authority, the police, teachers, doctors and the like and of course there was no commercialisation as there is today. Nor was there any internet or social media.

I’d say that people under 60 have absolutely no comprehension of how gentle and ordered life was because it all changed once the sixties got going. It was certainly hard, little TV and no central heating or double glazing but everyone who wanted one had a job. So though there were of course downsides, you’ve indicated some of them, if I could give my grandchildren the safe and loving childhood I had, I would certainly do so but I can’t and as you say, the likes of Troy and younger generations have every right to the life they create and good luck to them with it, because they’ll need it!!

"Gentle and ordered"????

Understand what you're saying but there was plenty of racism, homophobia, sexism, child abuse, wife-beating, rape, poverty, violence plus the constant  threat of all out nuclear war - it was all there but the done thing was not to talk about it and brush it under the carpet.
All that stuff that has come out since about Jimmy Savile/Yew Tree, government corruption, spy scandals, children's homes, the Catholic Church - all sacrosanct institutions in their day. Then there was the racial violence dating back to Powell and by the 70's it was full on "Paki-bashing", football hooliganism so bad you couldn't take wives and kids to the game, IRA bombings, the 3 day week, collapse of services, power cuts,  Barbara Castle's plan to cut the power of the unions (later adopted by Thatcher who claimed it as her own) civil unrest.....and of course Thatcher's War.

If all of that had happened in an age of social media and ready communications accessible by everyone, what kind of world would your grandkids be living in? They would be living in absolute terror mate.

Which is why would should support them in creating a world that they want to live in because it has to be better than the one we were brought up in even though most of us were blind to what was really going on at the time.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:I think blaming generational differences is a cop out to be honest, unfortunately you have a set of inherent bias, and (more damagingly) you dismiss any facts that don’t align to your narrow view as ‘propaganda’ and so have no hope of developing your views any further.

You may not see yourself as a bigot, but I think it’s quite clear you are. I suspect you’re more vocal online than in real life, but I hope your grandkids don’t pick up the same views - believe me they won’t get very far if they do.

We’ll of course Troy, you won’t really understand generational differences until you’re older but one day believe me you will. Am I a bigot who dismisses facts, or a gullible idiot like you who treats anything he’s told as a fact. Having a different view is perfectly natural, indeed admirable because debate and discussion is how we learn but I realise in your enlightened world of today, anything which differs from your “factual” view makes one a bigot.

You are right though about me being more vocal on line than in person because on line you can state your point directly in exactly the words you want to use, rather than in discussion where words are twisted and shaped until they bear no resemblance to the original in order that you can be labelled some kind of “ist”

Lastly, my grandkids are brilliant thank you and know their own minds and are encouraged to do so. The future is down to them now so they can make of it what they want and I will help them as much as I can. Hopefully they will turn out as intelligent, responsible and fair minded individuals and not I hope, members of your extremely intolerant woke, know it all brigade.

wanderlust wrote:
"Gentle and ordered"????

Understand what you're saying but there was plenty of racism, homophobia, sexism, child abuse, wife-beating, rape, poverty, violence plus the constant  threat of all out nuclear war - it was all there but the done thing was not to talk about it and brush it under the carpet.
All that stuff that has come out since about Jimmy Savile/Yew Tree, government corruption, spy scandals, children's homes, the Catholic Church - all sacrosanct institutions in their day. Then there was the racial violence dating back to Powell and by the 70's it was full on "Paki-bashing", football hooliganism so bad you couldn't take wives and kids to the game, IRA bombings, the 3 day week, collapse of services, power cuts,  Barbara Castle's plan to cut the power of the unions (later adopted by Thatcher who claimed it as her own) civil unrest.....and of course Thatcher's War.

If all of that had happened in an age of social media and ready communications accessible by everyone, what kind of world would your grandkids be living in? They would be living in absolute terror mate.

Which is why would should support them in creating a world that they want to live in because it has to be better than the one we were brought up in even though most of us were blind to what was really going on at the time.

Lusty, I’m not saying many of those things weren’t going on during my childhood, though certainly football violence, threat of nuclear war and various other things didn’t arise until the late 60’s and 70’s. I did say things changed in the 60’s and they did but come on, wife beating, homophobia and child abuse have been going on for centuries so give that a break.

I use the term gentle because that’s what it was compared to today. The vast majority of people were both respectful and decent, not at all like you’re portraying, unless of course your childhood environment was very different to mine? Murder was a rarity, I saw zero racism at school, principally because from memory we were all white and drugs were heard about but rarely seen. Look, my view may be different to yours and it has zero value compared to today, because it’s memories only. 

There are undoubtedly improvements in society today, no question about that regarding response to Colour, gender, single parents and many others but there are also many things which have gone backwards from those days and we’ll just have to agree to disagree on what they are.

Disagreeing with facts doesn’t make you a bigot, but it does make you wrong. Whenever asked to present facts to support what are at best controversial views you run away and hide. There are too many like you who can’t handle their views being challenged. 

I was raised to believe I could hold any view I wanted so long as I could back it up effectively, you seem to be content to believe something with no substantiation and that’s too common these days.

Not saying for a second you’re as bad as this, but a really interesting article dealing with a similar situation.

Best to admit breaking the law as the truth always gets revealed eventually: Now the government has dug itself a huge hole.......

https://www.itv.com/news/2021-12-07/no-10-staff-joke-in-leaked-recording-about-christmas-party-they-later-denied

Up dated from Ross Atkins -

This video leaked to ITV News shows people who were actually at the party rehearsing the lines (lies)  that they were told to parrot when faced with the cameras. Cue fits of embarrassed giggles and an admission that no social distancing rules were followed.

Similarly, our PM needs to learn how not to smirk when telling bare-faced lies.

https://www.itv.com/news/2021-12-07/no-10-staff-joke-in-leaked-recording-about-christmas-party-they-later-denied

okocha wrote:This video leaked to ITV News shows people who were actually at the party rehearsing the lines (lies)  that they were told to parrot when faced with the cameras. Cue fits of embarrassed giggles and an admission that no social distancing rules were followed.

Similarly, our PM needs to learn how not to smirk when telling bare-faced lies.

https://www.itv.com/news/2021-12-07/no-10-staff-joke-in-leaked-recording-about-christmas-party-they-later-denied

I saw this and was very pissed off when the smug Tory bitch was laughing and joking about how she answer the question whilst folk had just been told they couldn't visit their dying relatives.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:Disagreeing with facts doesn’t make you a bigot, but it does make you wrong. Whenever asked to present facts to support what are at best controversial views you run away and hide. There are too many like you who can’t handle their views being challenged. 

I was raised to believe I could hold any view I wanted so long as I could back it up effectively, you seem to be content to believe something with no substantiation and that’s too common these days.

Not saying for a second you’re as bad as this, but a really interesting article dealing with a similar situation.

Troy, you’re not talking facts, you’re speculating what might happen on the climate, led by so called experts. I’ve based my position on actual facts, historical data that proves conclusively that both the climate and the geography of our planet has constantly changed and has been both hotter, colder and higher in levels of CO2 than we have now and none of that was caused by humans.

If you choose to trust the scientists “forecasts” then fine, you’re entitled to that but please don’t label those who are unconvinced by their speculation as ignoring facts and being bigots. If you put something in front of me that conclusively proves that climate is CAUSED by humans, then show it. From the scientific information I’ve seen issued, the most eminent climate experts don’t claim that humans are the only, or even the main cause. 

Do I believe that we are adding to the problem, yes and I’ve never claimed anything different but I certainly don’t think it’s enough of a contribution to result in the panic in not only jettisoning technology and fuels that we’ve used for centuries in an unachievable timescale but also adding huge and unnecessary cost and disruption to millions of homes. Moving to renewable fuels over time is both sensible and necessary because ultimately fossil fuels will run out but this run to renewables in a suicidal timescale is both harmful and more about money and business than saving the planet. I implore you not to get dragged into the propaganda, yes that word again, around the Climate Change FACTS.

It's only a movie.

wanderlust wrote:
I saw this and was very pissed off when the smug Tory bitch was laughing and joking about how she answer the question whilst folk had just been told they couldn't visit their dying relatives.

Actually Lusty, I think Allegra Stratton might be somewhat dismayed to be labelled a Tory with her journalistic and broadcasting record, though you may be right about the bitch bit?

Like you I was disgusted by her smirking antics and it just illustrates the problem in No10 for me, mainly since Carrie moved in and influenced the back room team of Boris with a bunch of pseudo Tory liberals, removing all the knowledgable, experienced true Tory figures. This government hasn’t been “Tory” since BoJo took over and is sinking further away from it the longer he’s in charge.

It’s impossible now to ignore the fact that rules were broken and I think Boris’ Christmas goose could be well and truly cooked. He’s going to have to make a statement from the dispatch box at PMQ’s today and if he denies the rules were broken, he’s leaving himself open to future pain later if proof comes out they were and I can’t see how it can’t. I was a big supporter of Boris prior to his election as leader but I’ve now lost all respect for him and feel he’s totally let both Tory members and the country down and has to go.

As a life long Labour voter it breaks my heart and winds me up in equal measure that Labour can't put up a fight against possibly the worst PM we have ever had. Up to now he seems to have been teflon plated but the Xmas party could be his downfall.

It shows the state of British politics that people would rather have a lying, cheating ex Public schoolboy running this country and can excuse him of almost any of his many misdemeanors just because it's wacky old eccentric Boris.