Politics - UK - 2017

the point is that I am trying to be even-handed here, whereas others are presenting it as a simple choice between good and evil

it's actually a very complex choice for a lot of voters, weighing up your despair at one side's unpleasantness with your fear of the other's abject uselessness

and if another person tells me I've been "brainwashed by the media" I'll scream. I was having similar debates with people in politics seminars at university 20 years ago!
 
Amp and Deck said:
the point is that I am trying to be even-handed here, whereas others are presenting it as a simple choice between good and evil

it's actually a very complex choice for a lot of voters, weighing up your despair at one side's unpleasantness with your fear of the other's abject uselessness

and if another person tells me I've been "brainwashed by the media" I'll scream. I was having similar debates with people in politics seminars at university 20 years ago!
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I'd say it's more a choice between bad and worse
 
there's a lot of left wing stuff I would support (if it can be costed - I have doubts..)

eg greater control of the railways/energy/rental markets

I have no reason to love the free market - it drove me out of London, the city I loved and called home all my life and which I can no longer afford

at the same time though, a lot of lefties do my head in with their obsessive right-on agendas, 'safe spaces' and all that student bollocks

(pretty similar story in Spain incidentally)

so it means 40 somethings like me are pretty invisible - caught in the escalating cultural war between 'boomers' and 'snowflakes' and forced to pick sides
 
In a lot of Scandinavian countries I don't think Corbyn would even be considered that much of a leftie, it's just our politics in the UK have shifted so much to the right in recent times (the media encapsulate this nicely) that it's altered our perspective.
 
Bungle123 said:
In a lot of Scandinavian countries I don't think Corbyn would even be considered that much of a leftie, it's just our politics in the UK have shifted so much to the right in recent times (the media encapsulate this nicely) that it's altered our perspective.
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Funny, the Scandinavian countries and Finland have less inequality, are happier, tend to have the best education systems and yet who do we aspire to be like...America it seems. Unfortunately I think we share a fundamental selfishness with them.
 
Bungle123 said:
Labour manifesto (fully costed) is really, really great. So refreshing to see something different.
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Yeah. Refreshing is the right word!

we'll get the same boring line from the reactionary media later today and tomorrow though."How are you going to pay" "this all sounds very nice", they'll start trying to make the working class believe it's going to come out of their pockets . Corbyn dangerous! He's a terrorist sympathiser! He's weak! He's a commie! Blah blah he blaaaah!
 
balearic joe said:
Yeah. Refreshing is the right word!

we'll get the same boring line from the reactionary media later today and tomorrow though."How are you going to pay" "this all sounds very nice", they'll start trying to make the working class believe it's going to come out of their pockets . Corbyn dangerous! He's a terrorist sympathiser! He's weak! He's a commie! Blah blah he blaaaah!
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BBC already started with their misleading reporting, but Labour have done their homework and the sums add up (interesting how the Torie's aren't held to the same standard isn't it?). And there'll be no tax cost for 95% of people, just the higher earners. If you earn 100k a year then you'll need to give £83 a month to funding these policies that benefit millions of other people who aren't as fortunate as you. I think I could manage that if I earned that much.

I like the increased sentencing for those found guilty of animal cruelty too, and the minister for mental health, and the free school meals, and the international students not counting toward immigration figures and the....
 
I'm still baffled as to why ANYONE would vote Tory!??!?!?! Genuinely baffled!!!!
 
Bungle123 said:
What do you mean by that? The BBC is pretty awful all round, not Fox News level awful, but far from impartial.
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The BBC have become horribly biased in the last few years it's true and their website is now little more than a click-bait magnet, but having lived in quite a few other countries I can tell you the BBC is second to none for value for money and content. To some extent they have been bullied into this position because successive governments have used the licence fee as a club to bash them with if they don't toe the party line, and the right wing press, largely owned by a competing media empire (totally co-incidentally I'm sure), have drummed into people what a rip off the licence fee is, when it's nothing of the sort. If the BBC were any other public service it would be held up as a shining example of how to get the maximum bang per tax-payer buck.
 
DarrenW said:
It's blatant at times, but to be fair, both sides complain about BBC bias
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Oh for sure. They've been awful with other events though too - Brexit, the US election, all too often they present one half of the story, or go for the misleading headline.
 
Bungle123 said:
What do you mean by that? The BBC is pretty awful all round, not Fox News level awful, but far from impartial.
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because lefties who think the BBC is a nest of rightwingers always seem to forget that rightwingers conversely think it is a nest of lefties. There is nothing Dacre and Murdoch would like more than the BBC to be undermined and destroyed and they could have some unlikely allies on the left there....

the second point is that the BBC is still the best news organisation in the world.

I live in Spain where broadcasting is a total joke (any ibiza ressies on here will probably confirm!)
 
TimmiT said:
The BBC have become horribly biased in the last few years it's true and their website is now little more than a click-bait magnet, but having lived in quite a few other countries I can tell you the BBC is second to none for value for money and content. To some extent they have been bullied into this position because successive governments have used the licence fee as a club to bash them with if they don't toe the party line, and the right wing press, largely owned by a competing media empire (totally co-incidentally I'm sure), have drummed into people what a rip off the licence fee is, when it's nothing of the sort. If the BBC were any other public service it would be held up as a shining example of how to get the maximum bang per tax-payer buck.
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License fee stuff is a valid point, but only goes so far. Their reporting on the tv, radio, website - throughout - leaves a lot to be desired. It's not too much asking them to report the truth fairly without bias. Channel 4 news for example, do a much better job of it.
 
Bungle123 said:
Oh for sure. They've been awful with other events though too - Brexit, the US election, all too often they present one half of the story, or go for the misleading headline.
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yeah, v true. UKIP lost all their seats in the local elections, but I bet they keep the one they have on Question Time
 
ric said:
I'm still baffled as to why ANYONE would vote Tory!??!?!?! Genuinely baffled!!!!
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I'm baffled by anyone who's not in the top 1% voting Tory, and even they must realise that there will be a tipping point at which they will have pushed enough people into relative poverty and crippled enough vital, tax-payer funded infrastructure to make society begin to fall apart - inequality cannot continue as it has done.

I think a lot of the time people delude themselves into believing they have got where they are entirely through their own hard work, when in most cases they've had an enormous amount of help and luck, from being brought up in a decent family, to having decent schooling, relatively low crime, good infrastructure etc. etc, which they then seem unwilling to contribute back to by way of fair taxation.
 
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