Westminster Politics 2024-2029

It's no where near as bad and hopefully, never will be. But the bar for holding the government to account needs to be set far higher than the Tories lowered it to. If Labour don't raise it, then the Tories will just drag it down further when they next seize power.
This 100%.
What does this 'shock treatment' or 'realignment of the economy and state' even mean in reality?
Shock therapy refers to sudden privatisation of numerous national assets. Like that which occurred in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union.
 
This 100%.

Shock therapy refers to sudden privatisation of numerous national assets. Like that which occurred in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union.
You're saying the UK econony needs shock treatment and a realignment of state. Just curious what you're suggesting.
 
You're saying the UK econony needs shock treatment and a realignment of state. Just curious what you're suggesting.
I am absolutely not saying that. I think that that would be horrendous. I think that we need to carry out mass renationalisation. The UK needs to regain full control of its water, trains, mail, healthcare, and energy.
 
The worst thing any of them did IMO is to attack the independence of the BBC and cultivate a cabal of awful client journalist lackies that they fed stories to. I can't imagine Labour will be pushing to repair that though.

But then you've also got Windrush and all the dodgy dealings around Grenfell pretty high up the list of appalling behaviour too.
About 90% of the media is right wing, so they aren't going to profit from that or be able to fix it.
 
Lammy is such a bad communicator. Awkward pauses throughout. He sounds like he's just making it all up on the fly.

Kuenssberg's description of the "horrific events of October 7th" and "what's been unfolding in Gaza" (I'm probably not quoting exactly, but it was similar) was disgusting. And Piers Morgan claiming that 15-20k of the dead are Hamas without being challenged, as well as that hawkish general's avoiding condemning Israel's genocide, was painful to watch. The general wrote a piece in the Times a few days ago claiming that Israel is doing everything it can to avoid civilian casualties, so you know whose side he's really on.

cnuts, the lot of them.
 
I am absolutely not saying that. I think that that would be horrendous. I think that we need to carry out mass renationalisation. The UK needs to regain full control of its water, trains, mail, healthcare, and energy.
Agree on all but mail.

Part privatised trains work fine in Japan for some reason, in contrast to the disastrous UK experience.
 
Agree on all but mail.

Part privatised trains work fine in Japan for some reason, in contrast to the disastrous UK experience.
I wouldn't trust them to open a letter, never mind look after it.
 
Agree on all but mail.

Part privatised trains work fine in Japan for some reason, in contrast to the disastrous UK experience.

Because Japan has a culture of respect rather than one of plunder. If they didn't pay their staff properly and provided a terrible service while paying out loads of dividends to shareholders it would reflect very badly on them personally. Here they are celebrated for getting rich.
 
Because Japan has a culture of respect rather than one of plunder. If they didn't pay their staff properly and provided a terrible service while paying out loads of dividends to shareholders it would reflect very badly on them personally. Here they are celebrated for getting rich.
Great country, but it also has hideous labour laws and a horrific work culture.
 
Great country, but it also has hideous labour laws and a horrific work culture.

Agreed, but try to find a CEO there coining in $10s of millions of dollars and paying their staff minimum wage, it's not really a thing.There's a certain level of properness of behaviour at work that is expected (even though there are also very strange goings on too obviously). Here we have the colonialist greedy is good mindset, or at least the folks that matter do.
 
He's not wrong. There's no dignity in receiving benefits of any kind...because twats like him demonize anyone who dares to fall on hard times in a country that has systemically fecked over the majority of the population and left many with nothing.

If politicians started to note that "benefits" are actually nothing to be ashamed of, and that it should be fundamental in any decent democracy that those who can afford should help those who can't, then maybe we might get somewhere as a society. But until then let's just bail out companies and jump back and forth between unregulated capitalism and corporate socialism whenever the rich cnuts say they need benefits - sorry, "bailouts".
 
He's not wrong. There's no dignity in receiving benefits of any kind...because twats like him demonize anyone who dares to fall on hard times in a country that has systemically fecked over the majority of the population and left many with nothing.

If politicians started to note that "benefits" are actually nothing to be ashamed of, and that it should be fundamental in any decent democracy that those who can afford should help those who can't, then maybe we might get somewhere as a society. But until then let's just bail out companies and jump back and forth between unregulated capitalism and corporate socialism whenever the rich cnuts say they need benefits - sorry, "bailouts".
Universal basic income might be a good solution.
 
The failing to declare story is itself a bit of nonsense, there will be no consequences for it, as there wasn;t for may and a dozen other senior politicians.

But I think the payments themselves will be a longer term issue. Buying clothes for him and his wife is so bizarre, that I can only think that this is the chosen bribe because it got around some rule or another. Now the journos smell blood, someone is going to find out why.
 
Are you against assisted dying?
Yep. The idea in theory is fine but in reality assisted dying gets expanded to vulnerable groups such as the disable, the mental ill, and the very sick.

There’s a great BBC documentary(From the point of a disabled person) on topic called - Better Off Dead.
 
Yep. The idea in theory is fine but in reality assisted dying gets expanded to vulnerable groups such as the disable, the mental ill, and the very sick.

There’s a great BBC documentary(From the point of a disabled person) on topic called - Better Off Dead.
Would you be for it if it was expanded to the far right?
 
Yep. The idea in theory is fine but in reality assisted dying gets expanded to vulnerable groups such as the disable, the mental ill, and the very sick.

There’s a great BBC documentary(From the point of a disabled person) on topic called - Better Off Dead.

I'm pretty sure we're talking about the terminally ill and sound of mind..
 
Would you be for it if it was expanded to the far right?
:lol:

That’s a lot of man power to throw away and there’s plenty of pot holes that need filling.
I'm pretty sure we're talking about the terminally ill and sound of mind..
There is a chance the next PM is nigel farage.

The worst thing anyone can do is give him the tools to do what he wants.
Canada has a liberal PM and
Medical assistance in dying (Maid) laws, crafted in response to a supreme court decision, initially permitted only terminally ill Canadians to be eligible for the procedure. But in 2019, a Quebec judge ruled that restricting access to those who had a “reasonably foreseeable death” was unconstitutional, forcing federal lawmakers to amend and expand the existing laws.
In the years since, Canada’s experiment in physician-assisted death has made international headlines – including a feature article in the Atlantic magazine last year that investigated how the country’s assisted dying laws “went wrong”. In 2021, three UN human rights experts cautioned that an expansion to the law, which permitted people with chronic conditions to apply for assisted death, would create a “two-tiered system” and push people with disabilities towards suicide

Government figures show that 13,102 people ended their lives under Maid in 2022 – an increase of 30% on the previous year.
“Maid is different depending on what it’s provided for and how it’s provided. It’s not only one thing,” said Sonu Gaind, chief of psychiatry at Toronto’s Sunnybrook hospital. “And in that context, these expansions of assisted death in Canada are way beyond what most Canadians would actually support.”
In a survey of those 13,102 Canadians who ended their lives under Maid, the vast majority cited the “loss of ability to engage in meaningful life activities” as the reason for wanting to die. But other responses have troubled healthcare experts. More than one-third of respondents said their decision was, in part, informed by a feeling they were a perceived burden on family, friends or caregivers.

The surge means Canada has one of the highest rates of euthanasia in the world, with 4.1% of deaths aided by doctors.
“No other country has had these numbers in terms of the rate of growth after introducing assisted dying laws,” said Gaind. “The precipitous growth that we’ve had is unparalleled anywhere.”

https://theguardian.com/world/2024/...g-laws-in-spotlight-as-expansion-paused-again
 
I'm sure as a communist you love slippery slope arguments

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The Children Of Men dystopia of banning smoking and legalising suicide is going to happen.

We shouldn't be "fast tracking" anything like this through anything. If we are to do it at all - and I have massive doubts - it should be done slowly, carefully, after testing it and even then we should do it barely at all.
 
I'm pretty sure we're talking about the terminally ill and sound of mind..
For now. I don't think society should concede the moral point that suicide is OK, even if some individuals might "benefit".
 
For now. I don't think society should concede the moral point that suicide is OK, even if some individuals might "benefit".

It would obviously have to be strictly regulated but if someone's quality of life is non-existent due to an irreversible condition then I don't have a problem with it. I think we should let people with certain conditions die with dignity and go out on their own terms.
 
It would obviously have to be strictly regulated but if someone's quality of life is non-existent due to an irreversible condition then I don't have a problem with it. I think we should let people with certain conditions die with dignity and go out on their own terms.

It's a nice idea but I think Nick is right, any progress towards that should be done very slowly and cautiously. It's not a trivial matter by any means and has the potential to go very wrong if not well conceived.
 
We shouldn't be "fast tracking" anything like this through anything. If we are to do it at all - and I have massive doubts - it should be done slowly, carefully, after testing it and even then we should do it barely at all.

I think it is poorly phrased. It is a Private Member's Bill which will be given time by the Government and a free vote. That will ensure it has a committee stage and plenty of time for debate and amendments.
 
It's a nice idea but I think Nick is right, any progress towards that should be done very slowly and cautiously. It's not a trivial matter by any means and has the potential to go very wrong if not well conceived.

I'm not sure what slowly means in the context but it should be tightly regulated and only allowed in strictly limited circumstances.
 
I'm not sure what slowly means in the context but it should be tightly regulated and only allowed in strictly limited circumstances.
The UK won't have the problem of judicial intervention. Many court decisions have made clear this is a decision for Parliament alone. A statute can be drawn carefully with plenty of oversight and an independent reviewer and annual reports. We could even institute a sunset clause if necessary.
 
I'm not sure what slowly means in the context but it should be tightly regulated and only allowed in strictly limited circumstances.

It probably means not fast tracking it through Parliament and making sure it is draughted as well as it can possibly be before passing any Act. This government seems to be in a hurry to do things nobody asked for though so far, the impact of what they're doing seems to be more of an afterthought.
 
It probably means not fast tracking it through Parliament and making sure it is draughted as well as it can possibly be before passing any Act. This government seems to be in a hurry to do things nobody asked for though so far, the impact of what they're doing seems to be more of an afterthought.
If it is a free vote they cannot fast track it, as fast tracking would be guillotine motions and time limits on debates which are won through whipped votes.

I worked on a couple of PMBs, and the stuff they cover is usually banal and universally approved of. The government often uses them to pass stuff they want but don't have parliamentary time to do. Backbenchers are handed things from the to do list. Even this takes between 6 and 9 months.
 
Keir Starmer is under pressure from Labour backbenchers and NGOs to distance his government from Giorgia Meloni’s hard-right immigration policies on the eve of bilateral talks in Rome.

After the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, said the UK would consider copying Italy’s plans to process asylum applicants in a third country such as Albania, one backbencher questioned why a Labour administration was “seeking to learn lessons from a neo-fascist government”.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...e-uk-from-italys-hard-right-immigration-plans
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What do you mean the "new abortion"? Are people going to stop terminating pregnancies and start killing themselves instead?

I think they are meaning as an ethical and political debate over the autonomy of individuals and their rights to their own bodies vs the states interest in upholding the inherent value of human life.