Off Topic Politics Thread

We will always be European. The EU is not Europe.

 

I guess so. But it feels like we'll be a little further away now.

 

Yes, Gary Lineker, I agree you

 

Just to comment on references made about the Southern Health Trust and the fate or otherwise of their Chief Executive.. My understanding is that the Trust will be dissolved with the baulk... i.e. the mental health and learning disabilities elements being organised as a separate entity, much as they were 9 years ago, before the reverse take over, (Saints Fans will recognise the concept), by a general community trust. So, with any luck, we will have a Mental Health and Learning Disabilities Service managed by people who have some experience in the managing the issues they are familiar with..

 

What odds would you give me of all that happening?

 

Tm is the pm now. I doubt she honestly gives a flying **** what happens in 2020.

 

just watched Hillarys America, damn that guy does not hold back his punches

 

By "punches," You mean lies.

Stop watching crap, man. Come on. Dude was convicted of blatant election fraud. He didn't even try to deny it. He tried to claim "selective prosecution."

He should be in jail, not making documentaries. Do you think this guy is in any way objective or even has any interest in being truthful?

 

With Canada failing to secure a trade deal, with the EU, after 7 years of negotiations, what REALLY lies ahead for the UK's chances of getting a half decent trade deal, with countries they are alienating?

The continued refusal to sanction higher tariffs on Chinese steel, is also creating unnecessary angst, when common sense and a desire to protect your own steel industry should make agreeing higher tariffs a must. It's 3 years that the UK has been blocking these tariff increases. Almost makes me think that some of the Government were already planning Brexit, and keeping China sweet, since 2013.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tory-failure-protect-british-steel-9093274

 

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2016...gay-pardon-law

A Conservative minister has scuppered the progress of a new law to pardon all gay and bisexual men in England and Wales historically convicted of sexual offences that are no longer criminal.

The legislation, put forward by John Nicolson of the SNP, failed to pass to its next stage in the House of Commons after an emotional debate that brought former Labour minister Chris Bryant close to tears.

Nicolson’s bill would have given an automatic pardon to men convicted under the obsolete laws relating to gross indecency with other men. It would go further than an amendment to the policing and crime bill proposed by the government, which only pardons the thousands of men who are already dead, while the living will have to apply to the Home Office to get their convictions overturned.

However, Sam Gyimah, a justice minister, ensured the bill could not go forward on Friday because he spoke for so long that it ran out of time. He argued that the bill did not give strong enough protections against men being accidentally pardoned for sex with a minor or non-consensual sex.
[...]
But Gyimah, a government minister, said: “As well as honouring the dead, [the Nicolson bill] seeks a pardon for the living. We have developed a way to do this without giving any perception that the pardon covers perpetrators of sex with a minor or non-consensual sex.

“What I would like to do today [Friday] is to make a full and open offer to the honourable member to work with officials in the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office and [the gay rights group] Stonewall to give real effect to this pardon for the dead and the living as fairly and quickly as possible.”

This is disgusting

 

So, for example, even posthumously, a genius like Alan Turing effectively remains a criminal under the so-called Alan Turing law, even though he was pardoned after his death. Honestly though, I don't think pardoning is enough. Pardoning suggests Gay and Lesbians have done something wrong and are being forgiven. Well they haven't and the country needs to recognise it and ****ing well apologise for its remarkable judgement on a section of society who cause no harm to anyone, and indeed are often the more tolerant, understanding and empathic members of our society.

 

They won't apologies, that would mean a admission of guilt. Which would mean families could sue. Pardoning is sadly the biggest thing gay/bi people that were treated so badly will get.

 

Rather than pardoning, couldn't they have their offences expunged from the records, as though they had never existed? This is what happens normally when the statute of limitations on offences has passed.

 

That was part of what they were trying to do as well. Pardoning and having their records wiped. Until the dick head stopped it.

 

So do you want Nissan and Toyota to stay in the UK or not? There is a very valid reason that the UK is blocking the tariffs and that is because there are much more jobs in industries that use steel then make it.

 

That first sentence comes across as being a tad aggressive.
Of course I want those companies to stay here and protect the jobs etc, but there is a fine balancing act between keeping the EU sweet, whilst building stronger and more economical trade deals with the rest of the world.
We will still need to do shed loads of business with the EU, and there will need to be concessions in order to get the best deals.
So do you think the Government have been blocking the tariffs fully expecting, 3 years ago, to be leaving the EU?

 

For the last 200 years Britain has by and large been an advocate of free trade and open access. This has been true of governments of pretty much every persuasion. Imps is right to point out that opposing tariffs on Chinese imports is consistant with that philosophy. His point appears to be that tariffs would damage UK businesses as well as those of our foreign competitors. It's a valid position to be fair.

 

Nothing to do with our EU exit. We were blocking the tariffs thinking we would remain in. I was merely bringing up that the very companies that are trying to threaten the government over an EU exit are the same companies the government was trying to help by blocking tariffs. Once we leave and the tariffs are not blocked anymore (in the EU minus UK) where will these carmakers, aerospace manufacturers etc. go?

Politics is a fine balance and when the Steel Crisis hit I said this. A long way before the referendum. Scroll back a thousand of my posts and it will be somewhere. The government at the time had to choose between protecting 400,000+ jobs in steel dependent sectors with the <50,000 in steel production.

Most of these carmakers refuse to list how much British Steel they use. One did and it was 40%.

 

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