Be Excellent To Each Other

I was pointed to an online definition and summary of Green policies in 2010, where they were described as Watermelons and had to agree (Green on the outside, red on the inside). Their tax manifesto this time around is fucking hilarious.

That's down to how they are run though isn't it.
Get 4 party member to propose a policy, it then gets voted on at the next party meeting and if over 50% of the delegates think it is a good idea it becomes a policy.

That seems a very reasonable way to run a party to me, it's just a shame that the party members are all crackpots at the moment.

This is the perennial small party problem. They have ideals, but no experience and absolutely no expertise for most policy. So a lot of their 'full government' manifestos are hastily cobbled together guff to create the appearance of credibility and purpose.

This is why I could never vote for any of them. What the fuck do the Greens know about the economy? Who are the powerhouses of industry in their ranks that could confidently assume roles and determine workable policy? It's sure as shit not 'Hi I've buh-buh-been in the NUS burrrrgh' candidate above.

Even the Lib Dems have had to accept a harsh dose of humble pie. It wasn't that long ago that Vince Cable was being upheld as some kind of fucking economic demigod. Then he actually got into a position of power and turned in to just another politician that couldn't keep to promises. As it turns out you can't just make an ideological belief work in the face of grown-up reality. Now the Lib Dems are absolutely nowhere because their supporters feel betrayed. Idiots.

I'm sorry, but anyone voting Green after that interview whats-her-name gave the other week really does need to have a quiet word with his or herself in my view. I mean, there surely can't be any other applicable descriptor for their policies and party than "batshit insane", even by this fine forum's esteemed political standards?

I've heard of milk and honey economics/politics, but that's got three michelin fucking stars.

I'd rather what she did, than just blindly repeating the same non-answer over and over again. Ala Osborne on Andrew Marr the other day

I agree with something like 55% of the Green Party policies according to the vote4policies website

That's motre than I agree with any of the other policies...

I don't think that Natalie Bennett is the best leader of the Green Party. But I also don't think that matters too much to me. Like I said she's not going to be pm any time, but she might get some good (in my eyes) policies implemented as part of a coalition.

Labour have had a 35% policy for some time, in other words if they get 35% of the vote, they'll win. Most poll of polls have them at 34% dead heat with Conservative, but due to electoral anomalies, given the same number of votes, Labour will be ahead. If there wasn't the rise of the SNP in Scotland (predicted to get 50 seats) they'd easily win.

Seen reports that privately Conservatives know they cant win in 2015. Even throwing last ditch promises like no rise in train travel, inheritance tax and the other new announcements lately (unfunded and likely to be ditched in a Coalition agreement)


I think that how people will vote will largely depend on how much austerity they have been affected by in the past 5 years. Some 50-ish guy on the BBC news channel had to admit he hadn't been affected at all. I'm not lying or being biased by saying he will be voting Conservative.

The tories are freezing train prices?!

Hmm.

And you did call him a Tory chap earlier, and not a Tory cunt. You might be more sympathetic than you think.

Reports are coming in that the Cons know they're going to lose and so they're coming up with bullshit policies that they know they won't implement if they go into coalition.

I read it on a website so it must be true.

All parties manifestos now contain policies they know they cant implement. If we see any new ones in the next 13 days, they'll be acts of desperation.

I wonder how many people think the £12 billion welfare saving the Conservatives plan to impose will be implemented fairly.

That does sound pretty desperate. And ironic that the Tories would start meddling in the minutiae of a fucking privatised industry.

Incidentally I know some members seem to think the way to win an argument is to call the other person a "cunt" which is why this forum lost its way from its original title "Be Excellent to each other" some years back. However, that being said I dont agree with ALL the policies of any one party, I even like one policy of the Conservatives, to get a vote in the referendum that they've promised in 2017 (although we have been promised one before)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... endum.html

No one thinks you win an argument by calling someone a cunt; you do that if don't respect the person you're dealing with and so you don't think they're worth wasting an actual argument on.

You never do that.

I suspect some of the people left on this forum are those that would be banned from anywhere else. If so this forum name is a polar opposite to what it was envisioned in 2008.

You ever see people behaving this way on

Daily Politics
Newsnight
Question Time

No.

In two weeks time, we will have a new parliament and a lot of the old faces will disappear. Hague is on QT at the moment, good to see he is standing down.

Except that people do, as you yourself brought up. I'm not saying it's right, but it's what happens. And frankly I understand it as a reaction in some cases. It's also rather pointless comparing conversation here to any national televised dialogue because by definition the people involved at that level couldn't do their job if they gave in to that temptation whereas no such pressure exists here; but if you think, say, Miliband hasn't ever really, really wanted to call Cameron a fuck hole (and been justified doing so) then your faith in humanity is laudable but naive.

Not being funny, but didn't you yourself say "everyone who votes Tory is a self serving cunt" a couple of pages back? Glass houses and all that; very moderate I'm sure. You've got some brass neck! You're far from the only one though.

No offence, but I wish you kids would leave the serious political discussion to the grown ups? I said as much in my own political thread a few months back, for all the good it did (ie none). Fat chance, eh?

Certainly my increased used of the F-word and general harshening of my tone is quite because I can't be arsed to pick apart the minute faults of a given political party when those here that disagree won't be convinced anyway. Cavey can attest to expending a huge amount of genuine effort trying to reasonably debate the various merits of the Conservative party, with plenty of concessions and attempts to meet in the middle, only to be met with obstinate rejection of the civilised discussion.

If I was on Newsnight, not that I ever would be, obviously I wouldn't call the SNP a bunch of pug-faced fucksticks, but since I'm only posting here what's the point in breaking it down to anything else? Half of the charming people here allege to have me on ignore anyway.

Pretty sure I haven't called anyone a cunt mind you. A fruitcake, a prick, a wee-dick nationalist twat perhaps, and I've probably told people to go fuck themselves a few times. But not a cunt. Come on now. There's just no need.

And since it was desperate to try to say they've broken the promise on full-employment, when unemployment is actually at its lowest levels for years, the best they can do is show a graph of zero-hour contracts. This is working off the lazy assumption that these are evil and have no place at all, which is a matter of considerable debate.

The whole piece is contrived bollocks. The bit on immigration isn't as simple as a promise broken and is in part related to the ongoing Europe question and matters of free movement. But that's an inconvenient fact of reality that gets in the way of the TORIES EVIL narrative.

Here's a more interesting chart on that subject:



Just FYI that green line is one the government has absolutely no power to do anything about.

If you genuinely don't want to offend people then patronisingly calling them 'kids' in comparison to your self described 'grown ups' is a guaranteed way to fail by the way. If really you just wanted to angrily slag off people who can't be bothered dealing reasonably with you any more perhaps you could be more honest about it?

Tricky one to call on the migrant issue. Political capital should not be made out of the deaths of these migrants, of course, but I think it's ok to use it to extrapolate on other related issues. It's good that Cameron has essentially admitted his government made a serious error, but also good that Miliband is using this as a reason to discuss foreign policy and defence. Whilst I don't think there are many votes in this per se, it helps provide evidence for wvering Labour votes that Miliband can be resolute when he wants to and that the government has been deficient in many areas.

All parties have been seriously damaged over Iraq, and I don't think there is the public appetite for heavy involvement in conflicts right now, or in engaging in heavy diplomatic projects. Sadly, I think the world is a darker place now than it was 5 years ago and our current lack of interest in the wider world is not sustainable. We also don't want to discuss whether we should build up our forces again or just admit that we are no longer a world power.

If the news is to be believed, Milliband is about to make a huge misstep today, in my eyes. Blaming the Tories (and by the sound of it, Cameron specifically) for the deaths of migrants is plain wrong. Pledging to spend "more than the Tories" but no specific amount, on defence is schoolboy politics.

If he can argue that the government's policies played some role in what has happened, and is genuinely angered at the consequences then, yes, I think some hyperbole might be justifiable in this case: there is a hell of a lot of moral choices connected to this and people should be passionate about right and wrong. But I don't know what Labour's stance on the original decision was, and that might make him vulnerable if he could be shown to have supported them.

Cameron should be praised for his low-key efforts in this. He does seem to be at his best whenever he's apologising.





Quite. Some proposals please, not castles in the air.

Unfortunately, that seems to be Milliband to a tee; he only ever seems to offer, "yeah, but you smell," arguments.

It is a shame they made the shit miliband the leader of the party.

This morning I have been mostly driving myself mad trying to decide if I like Harold Wilson or not. Been on a bit of UK History binge lately. Statistically speaking, he's Labour's most successful leader: winning 4 elections out of 5.

I'm not sure it's not incorrect, though. Cameron's complete lack of planning for post take-over in Libya has directly contributed to the current situation.

In fairness, given that Labour supported the bombing campaign they should perhaps have held the government's feet to the fire a bit on post-campaign planning, but there we are. Still, it was Cameron's watch that it happened on.



I would disagree that winning elections is necessarily what makes a politician "successful"

I've just been listening to listener phoning in to Radio 4 to speak with William Hague.

Now I'm unconvinced that the public should even have a vote. Or a phone.

These twats need to learn some respect. Constantly talking over him, shouting at him, according no respect at all. Little wonder that he'd eventually get annoyed. Then the headline is OMG CARCRASH INTERVIEW. Yes, because you specifically set out to fucking heckle him the entire time with absolutely no moderation.

What's fine behaviour for his MPs in the House of Commons is fine for members of the public in an interview, surely?

Or alternatively: It's ridululous to run a country through the means of rude, childish braying.

Its the mirror, so without actually hearing it I'm taking it with a bucket of salt.

Particularly the bit about being 'evasive' and not dealing with Tampon VAT. I agree tampons shouldn't have VAT. But there is absolutely fuck all that any Prime Minister or Government can do about it, without the EU changing the rules as you cannot move anything from Standard rate into zero or exempt without their express approval, and agreement europewide. And they've been asked to do so, repeatedly.

Which is one of my major issues with the beloved EU. People just don't know what issues are handled in Brussels, which are reserved to the member countries, and which are in a murky grey-blue area between the two.

I'm now looking forward to Mr Farage running with this issue and smoking a tampon for the cameras.

Its actually a logical approach, as the whole purpose of VAT is to be a standardised europewide tax. In principal, the only aspect that should differ is the rate (and that is potentially a subject for alignment too) although there are actually lots of differences between member states. However the redline that you can't move things into lower rate bands is well established and has been for many years. Another example is ebooks - where France (I think) got massively bitchslapped for allowing people to charge them as books, and not digital downloads.

lack of tampons and sanitary towels is a big problem for homeless women.

http://news.sky.com/story/1470829/gallo ... -bid-fails

If the fedora'd tosser does not win he will try in London...

I got stuck behind his bus yesterday, too. Palestine an flag billowing from the back of it. Bus was rather empty.

Vote Sol!

It's the best star we have!

It loves us so much, in 4 billion years time it will devour us with its love.

Can't disagree with that. The House of Commons culture of honking like a bunch of morons is a terrible reflection on all of them. Wouldn't be quite so bad if the speaker didn't remind them of that every single time, except that it makes no difference. The occasional 'hear hear' is fine, but the whooping nonsense is just idiotic.

Yep, the House Of Commons is actually one of the worst bits of the UK political system.
The standards of behaviour are atrocious and would be completely unacceptable in any other workplace, and I'm not convinced that much is actually debated there. It's just a load of pointless shouting that changes nobodies opinions.

Are you not just talking about PMQs because that's the only bit which is generally shown?

PMQs have the worst of the twattish behaviour, but you get the same thing at budget time. When there are debates in progress over legislation and the like, the voting has long been decided in advance. The only time that will change is if we have a minority government who have to try and persuade the smaller parties to support them on an issue by issue basis.

I missed some earlier responses, apologies for that.

If EBG or Cavey do want to properly debate me with foul language at a minimum and actually debate the politics, then I'm more than willing to.

I dont profess to know all the answers, I wont even be voting Labour or Liberal, but I've felt the brunt of 5 years of Coalition rule which many haven't

I also watch at least 2 hours of politics / news / documentaries a day so I'm not a "stupid fucking numpty" or whatever anyone wants to call me just because they dont agree with me, or have a safe steady income.

I would like to do it in a seperate thread though, call it political debate or something. This thread is full of general politics.

Be well aware the 12 billion of welfare cuts will affect the lowest 20% of people, those that are barely coping right now - 1 million people (population of Birmingham) had to visit a food bank last year, and if that isn't you, then good luck trying to justify it - one day it might be.

Cos people like 'yours truly' will take the full force of it. Imagine a Britain when 'Jobseekers Allowance' ends at 6 months no matter what. That is what I think the Tories have planned. There is no other way they can get that 12 billion figure to add up, but you wont find out till May 8th. That is what happens in America, one of the most unequal societies on Earth.

Thats not the country I was brought up in. I think Brits are better than that.


Bring it on!

Theresa May calls the possibility of an SNP/labour pact "a constitutional crisis."

Did I miss something? The Conservatives campaigned -- hard -- against both AV and Scottish independence. How can they now complain that the Scots may use the power granted to them by these constructs? If May was scared about Scottish politics influencing the rest of the UK, the right time to say so was six months ago.

I'm not convinced Scottish Labour would be too happy if Labour formally hooked up with the SNP at Westminster.
But, yes, any party represented in the Parliament has as much right to play the game as any other.