United Kingdom VI: Summer Lovin'

[saif]

Crisis meeting to be briefed to the press.
The Boy Who Cried Wolf did eventually have a wolf in it. Hancock talked about this a few days ago, why the crisis meeting on the last day of many school terms?

[Anpanman]

It all sucks. The gov sucks. The response sucks. Sucky sucking suckers.

But the general population, or rather the swathes of idiots within said population, need to look at themselves, their attitudes, and their behaviour.

(The last couple of days I have been 'politely' scolding the maskless. Pro tip...being big and mean looking helps when calling a random a worthless effing cnote!)

Yep, I gave out two telling's off this morning in Sainsbury's.

The ****ty government does not come from nothing. They won a significant majority from this electorate so the whole thing is circular. "We'll be wankers cos the government are" . Comes from "we'll be wankers cos the public like that and have constantly rewarded us for demonstrable lies.". Look at the eye watering levels of mis/disinformation around this and it is the same that they have done for their careers.

All this has escalated from the spin doctors of Blair - Maggies mob and all those before still did it but the papers and news really got hold of the spin and crap on Blair's watch, since then it's just got worse. The MP's are basically safe from prosecution if they don't deliver on promises made before the election and so on so they say more or less what they like.

[MartyG]

The MP's are basically safe from prosecution if they don't deliver on promises made before the election and so on so they say more or less what they like.

Safe from prosecution for not delivering on promises? They've always been safe from this as there's no such crime and never has been for not delivering a manifesto, nor will there ever be such a thing.

Politicians are held to account at the ballot boxes, if people don't want crap politicians, they need to stop voting for them.

[Dogg Thang]

If politicians are allowed to flat out lie with no consequences then it’s hard to blame the voters because they’re the ones being lied to. There needs to be consequences.

[Golgo]

If politicians are allowed to flat out lie with no consequences then it’s hard to blame the voters because they’re the ones being lied to. There needs to be consequences.

I would wish there were, but it seems the ability of government(s) to control the message and divert the discourse through social media makes it very difficult to keep things in the public consciousness long enough to hold them to account. It doesn't really matter if they get skewered in some well-researched broadsheet article or Panorama investigation any more. The whole PPE procurement nepotism scandal, the Track-and Trace farago, and all the other crucial public-health related tasks and jobs that failed to deliver because the government went straight to incompetent friends and toadies...these surely would have sunk earlier governments many times over but here it doesn't matter, even though people have surely died as a direct result. I guess when you have a government brassy enough to stand up in parliament and openly admit that it is behaving unlawfully over Brexit then you know they are totally untouchable. I'm not sure what would bring them back into line, short of killing a few by way of example.

[Anpanman]

Safe from prosecution for not delivering on promises? They've always been safe from this as there's no such crime and never has been for not delivering a manifesto, nor will there ever be such a thing.

Politicians are held to account at the ballot boxes, if people don't want crap politicians, they need to stop voting for them.

Fair enough but I think you understand the point I'm making, if a company makes completely inaccurate advertising or someone prints or says accusations which are total lies they can be held accountable, for me the ballot box isn't enough with politicians.

[Asura]

If politicians are allowed to flat out lie with no consequences then it’s hard to blame the voters because they’re the ones being lied to. There needs to be consequences.

This is something I would love to reform in government.

In most jobs, people take on tasks/roles and are expected to carry them out. I'm not advocating so much punishing politicians that fail because they work in a position with so many moving parts that they can't always control. Like in any job, not every initiative succeeds and that's totally fine, but only when it can be seen that people worked towards those goals in a reasonable way, and made every effort.

I don't want to punish MPs who fail in their goals. I want to punish those who are clearly, through logical process (like a court-style inquiry via an independent, non-partisan adjudicator) seen to be negligent, incompetent or malicious.

And I want those people to fail downwards and be barred from public service.

We've reached a point, I think, where people keep voting in ****ty politicians because they're voting based on a vague sense of what a party is about, and not about their manifesto, because why even read it? They're not going to deliver. We know they won't.

The last time I voted for a party based on a manifesto promise was voting Lib Dem because they promised to cancel student debt.

[MartyG]

If politicians are allowed to flat out lie with no consequences then it’s hard to blame the voters because they’re the ones being lied to. There needs to be consequences.

How would you prosecute such a thing, or be able to define a law in such a way to make it prosecutable? There would always be mitigating circumstances and you'd have to be very careful what the chilling effect would be for introducing such a thing. You'd end up with manifestoes even more CYA than they currently are. Imagine jailing JFK for failing to get to the moon (had both historical events of the time not happened).

It has to be done at the ballot box and the voters should take responsibility given that they keep voting in the same people again and again despite their failures.

[teddymeow]

Covid presser at 16.00.

Everyone to get vaccinated before Xmas?

Or

Well done, we've ****ed it so Xmas is cancelled?

PLACE YOUR BETS NOOWWWWWWWW!!

[Dogg Thang]

How would you prosecute such a thing, or be able to define a law in such a way to make it prosecutable? There would always be mitigating circumstances and you'd have to be very careful what the chilling effect would be for introducing such a thing. You'd end up with manifestoes even more CYA than they currently are. Imagine jailing JFK for failing to get to the moon.

It has to be done at the ballot box and the voters should take responsibility given that they keep voting in the same people again and again despite their failures.

It's baffling to me that you're going through the fiasco that is Brexit and could still think that way. Politicians flat out lied, provable lies, to get Brexit through. Apply the same standards as you have in advertising and that wouldn't happen. As with Asura, I'm not saying prosecute for incompetence. But knowingly lying to the public to get voted in or in a referendum situation is something that should be held to account. Cronyism, which is currently rampant, should be held to account. Passing on the fact checking responsibility to every person trying to live their lives and just get through a day, firstly, doesn't work and, secondly, is completely abdicating all responsibility that running for a public position should come with.

[Golgo]

The last time I voted for a party based on a manifesto promise was voting Lib Dem because they promised to cancel student debt.

I did that as well. First and only time I voted Lib Dem. A few weeks after the election they'd sacked it all off and Gyles Brandreth was writing about the homoerotic fantasy pairing of Nick and David.

[Asura]

I did that as well. First and only time I voted Lib Dem. A few weeks after the election they'd sacked it all off and Gyles Brandreth was writing about the homoerotic fantasy pairing of Nick and David.

Yeah; I'm sure I've seen Clegg get really irritated when people mention it to him. He'd probably love it if we just all forgot about it.

We haven't. And won't.

[QualityChimp]

I do understand, but it was a joint-leadership and, as this majority Tory leadership has proved, the Lib Dems managed to reign in most of their craziness.

Funny how you, quite rightly, hold the Lib Dems to account for this one turnaroud, but Tory voters just seem happy with the endless, lies, cronyism and u-turns.

[Golgo]

Yeah; I'm sure I've seen Clegg get really irritated when people mention it to him. He'd probably love it if we just all forgot about it.

We haven't. And won't.

How could anyone forget? They literally tossed all their principles and pledges overboard just to get the tiniest taste of power, which ultimately involved being Tory lapdogs just as Cameron began to hatch the idea of taking the biggest party political gamble of the generation: the Brexit referendum. And now Clegg does PR puff for Facebook. What a wretched, unprincipled bastard.

Edit: this wasn't the only turnaround, QC. They also pledged root and branch reform of the housing/planning system to make it less hostile to the young, and other things. The manifesto was refreshingly focused on younger generations rather than geriatrics, and it was the younger generation who turned out for it and then got told to go whistle.

[Asura]

I do understand, but it was a joint-leadership and, as this majority Tory leadership has proved, the Lib Dems managed to reign in most of their craziness.

People say that, but if the Tories had to cope with a minority government, couldn't the LDs and Labour have done that anyway?