The UK Politics & Brexit Thread

[Dippo]

Watched the Labour Harridan in Chief, aka Deputy PM, today.
Lost count of the number of times she used "After 14 years of Tory failure etc.etc" and " We inherited........"
At what stage of Labour mis rule will they not be able to use the same lame excuses?

Given how long they were blaming Margaret Thatcher, I think we're going to have to get (even more) used to this one.

 

[Jukie]

I’m surprised they are not still publicly blaming Mrs Thatcher!

 

[TC350]

I’m surprised they are not still publicly blaming Mrs Thatcher!

They may not be officially, but a vast number of folk on social media are. Half of them still believe we should still have the country covered in coal mines.

 

[AMGeed]

I’m surprised they are not still publicly blaming Mrs Thatcher!

They are saving that for when they make the inevitable b@lls up of our economy.

 

[John N]

They are saving that for when they make the inevitable b@lls up of our economy.

Don't you think they have already reached that own goal?

 

[AMGeed]

Don't you think they have already reached that own goal?

Wait for the budget next Wednesday

 

[John N]

Wait for the budget next Wednesday

What, there's going to be a Budget?

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Ask the SNP They have had 17 years in power but it is still everyone else's fault!

I reckon Christian Horner must have done his apprenticeship with SNP. It’s always someone else’s fault.

 

[Darrell]

Disabled how?

Firing into a vehicle engine bay etc leaves the possibility of ricochet.

The speed the vehicle reached is irrelevant, if the driver had not been shot this would have increased.

The driver could have simply raised his hands and stopped the vehicle. He chose to act aggressively. The Police had to make a decision about protecting themselves and others. Having been involved in an armed incident the previous day the possibility of a weapon being in the vehicle was high, the drivers actions added to that likely threat.

The police officer did his job. They do not hesitate.
If they show hesitation during training or on the job they either lose their cards or not get them renewed. Or they could be shot or a colleague could lose his/her life.

Corbyn and Abbott are disgusting pieces of filth.

 

[m80]

What, there's going to be a Budget?

No, more of a robbery.
From the getting poorer, to the getting richer.

 

[markjay]

They may not be officially, but a vast number of folk on social media are. Half of them still believe we should still have the country covered in coal mines.

I blame Margaret Thatcher for Rayner's not paying CGT on her second home primary residence.... because she would not have been able to buy it in the first place if it wasn't for 'Maggie'.

 

[markjay]

The police officer did his job. They do not hesitate.

I believe that the question here was whether the police officer shot the suspect because of danger to life (to himself or others), which is legal, or because he wanted to stop the suspect from getting away, which is not legal.

In this context, I don't think there's any doubt that had the police officer not fired the shot, the driver would have run the police officers over.

You could argue that the police officers chose to place themselves in harm's way, and this is true, but then there's no other way to stop suspects. If this argument is accepted, police officers will simply need to step aside and let suspects flee, which is nonsensical. And so, yes, police officers do place themselves in harm's way, and yes, this give them the authority to use lethal force against anyone trying to harm them.

What the trial was meant to achieve, I believe, is to demonstrate that the police officer's decisions were not influenced by the suspect's race or ethnicity, or by his criminal background, both of which should not have been a consideration at the time of the shooting. The jury weren't told that the suspect had a criminal record, and their verdict is therefore proof that shooting the suspect was the right decision, regardless of the suspect's background. However, sadly, there will still be people out there who will believe that the suspect's race was a factor.

 

[markjay]

Public investment 'badly needed' to prevent UK's national debt rising to risky levels, IMF warns

Speaking as the chancellor prepares to attend her first International Monetary Fund annual meeting, the UN agency has told Sky News that a combination of relatively high interest rates and low growth make public investment a priority.

news.sky.com

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

They may not be officially, but a vast number of folk on social media are. Half of them still believe we should still have the country covered in coal mines.

Cough

Half of them still believe we should be sending 15 year olds down into the mines so that 500,000 men spend their lives working rotating eight hour shifts pulling coal before dying in their late 50’s or early 60’s from Black Lung disease.

 

[st13phil]

to demonstrate that the police officer's decisions were not influenced by the suspect's race or ethnicity, or by his criminal background, both of which should not have been a consideration at the time of the shooting.

I disagree that his criminal background shouldn't have been or wasn’t part of the risk assessment for the stop. It's why an Armed Response Unit was present, and rightly informed the officers present of the hazard the suspect presented them.

 

[markjay]

I disagree that his criminal background shouldn't have been or wasn’t part of the risk assessment for the stop. It's why an Armed Response Unit was present, and rightly informed the officers present of the hazard the suspect presented them.

My point is that the police couldn't have known the driver's identity at the time of the stop. Using armed police is a reasonable precaution due to the car having been involved in criminal activity. But two days after the shooting, the car may have been driven by anyone. To my mind, it's no different to the police raiding the hone of a suspect who's known to be armed and dangerous - they need to take precautions, but at the same time they can't just assume that anyone who opens the door at that address is armed and dangerous. Instead, they need to have a specific reason to believe that the person is posing a danger (which, in the case if Chris Kaba, was his manner of trying to drive away that put police officers in danger).

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Not a hoax. Check your LinkedIn for more details.

View attachment 162627

The 100 Labour activists being recruited to work in the Swing States has now properly “hit the fan.”

Trump has now filed a complaint about “Foreign interference” in the US election.

This amateurism on the UK Government’s part undermines our whole diplomatic relationship with, what the bookies currently say, is likely to be the next US Government.

Why Labour’s involvement in US election is so damaging

Donald Trump has filed a formal complaint to the Federal Election Committee after Labour activists volunteered to campaign for Kamala Harris

www.thetimes.com

It began with a seemingly innocuous post on LinkedIn. Last Wednesday, Sofia Patel, Labour’s director of operations, asked for volunteers to travel to marginal states in the US to campaign for Kamala Harris.

“I have nearly 100 Labour Party staff (current and former) going to the US in the next few weeks heading to North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Virginia,” she said. “I have ten spots available for anyone to head to the battleground state of North Carolina — we will sort your housing.”

Within hours of her making the post, it went viral on both sides of the Atlantic. In the United States, senior Republicans and allies of Donald Trump were furious, accusing Labour of directly intervening in the forthcoming election. Patel deleted the post and her entire LinkedIn account, but the damage had already been done.

On Tuesday, Trump’s legal team took the extraordinary step of filing a formal complaint to the Federal Election Commission. “Those searching for foreign interference in our elections need to look no further than Ms Patel’s LinkedIn post,” the legal filing said. “The interference is occurring in plain sight.”

Patel’s LinkedIn post threatens to derail months of delicate work behind the scenes to build relations between Starmer and Trump.

The legal filing goes well beyond Patel’s post. It also names Morgan McSweeney, the prime minister’s chief of staff, and Matthew Doyle, his director of communications, over the fact that they attended the Democratic National Convention in August.

The convention in Chicago, in which Harris was formally installed as the Democratic candidate, was attended by about 20 Labour officials and MPs. Deborah Mattinson and Claire Ainsley, both former advisers to Starmer, gave Harris’s campaign team a briefing on the lessons they could learn from Labour’s landslide victory in the UK, including how to target the “hero voters” who can swing elections.

• Has Labour broken US election rules over volunteer campaigners?

Also present were David Evans, Labour’s general secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, a former shadow cabinet minister who is now head of the think tank Labour Together, and four Labour MPs.

Those present said there was nothing unusual about their attendance. Labour and the Democrats are sister parties and many of those around Starmer hold a lifelong interest in US politics.

But what may be acceptable in opposition risks crossing a line when in government, especially given the proximity of the US election. In his six-page legal filing, Trump’s deputy general counsel Gary Lawkowski claimed those at the convention, including McSweeney and Doyle, were attempting to “exercise direction and control over elements of Harris’s campaign” in breach of federal law.

Both Doyle and McSweeney said they did nothing wrong and sources close to the two men insist that they did not conduct any briefings of Harris’s campaign team. They were there, one ally said, to “experience the convention”.

However, McSweeney’s trip was funded by Labour, suggesting that he was present on official business. Doyle’s trip was funded by the Progressive Policy Institute, a Democratic think tank linked to Bill Clinton.

For Starmer it represents a significant problem. While the government’s position on the US election is strictly neutral — Starmer has been clear that the UK will work with whoever wins — the presence of so many senior Labour figures and volunteers in the US presents a significant point of contention.

Starmer has spent much of the past year attempting to make inroads into the Republican Party. There was significant work to do. As a backbencher, David Lammy, now the foreign secretary, variously described Trump as a “neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath”, a “tyrant in a toupee” and a “dangerous clown”.

 

[m80]

The 100 Labour activists being recruited to work in the Swing States has now properly “hit the fan.”

Trump has now filed a complaint about “Foreign interference” in the US election.

This amateurism on the UK Government’s part undermines our whole diplomatic relationship with, what the bookies currently say, is likely to be the next US Government.

Why Labour’s involvement in US election is so damaging

Donald Trump has filed a formal complaint to the Federal Election Committee after Labour activists volunteered to campaign for Kamala Harris

www.thetimes.com

I agree with your points, but-

Apparently, this has been going on for a long while.
Do the Tories send support to aid their favoured candidate?
Do American parties offer support, in any style, to their favoured UK candidate, or even other international politicians?

I think we know that answer to the last bit, as more often it would include military aid.

So it is seedy to try and influence foreign political outcomes. But is it justified when the favoured candidate would offer advantage to the nation assisting?
In this case it could be cited that the whole assistance we, and many others, offer Ukraine, would be jeopardised by Forest Trump getting back in.
And that's w/o him wanting to buy Trumpingham Palace and the Palace of Trumpminster, and Hyde Park becoming a Pitch and Putt.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

I agree with your points, but-

Apparently, this has been going on for a long while.
Do the Tories send support to aid their favoured candidate?
Do American parties offer support, in any style, to their favoured UK candidate, or even other international politicians?

I think we know that answer to the last bit, as more often it would include military aid.

So it is seedy to try and influence foreign political outcomes. But is it justified when the favoured candidate would offer advantage to the nation assisting?
In this case it could be cited that the whole assistance we, and many others, offer Ukraine, would be jeopardised by Forest Trump getting back in.
And that's w/o him wanting to buy Trumpingham Palace and the Palace of Trumpminster, and Hyde Park becoming a Pitch and Putt.

Traditional no parties send help to their favoured party. Because, although the Tories, Labour and BBC are strongly biased towards the Democrats they’re never so daft as to potentially alienate the Republicans.

It’s definitely cited that whichever party gets in, we have to work with the new government, no matter how crooked their leader is.

(Remember how the last one got in on the back of “Black Lives Matter?” And what happened when Joe got in? Police killings immediately rose. And which party has been gloriously impotent in defusing the Middle East situation? Good old Uncle Joe, but dare we criticise? Obviously not)