The Politics Thread

I'm pretty sure that there are three deputy speakers who don't vote either so they and the speaker don't really affect the majority as two are from the Govt benches and two from the opposition.

 

In their defence, numerically being within 3 orders of magnitude
of the true numbers is probably the Trump equivalent of being
within 3 decimal places.

 

The latest desperate cry from Tory voters: if you make any comment about the Dire Leader getting into bed with the DUP, they fire back by saying that Gordon Brown thought of a similar move in 2010.

Apart from blatantly omitting the fact that Brown initially sought a deal with the Lib Dems and when his overtures were rejected he tried to scramble a deal with anyone, rather than the Dire Leader making a beeline for the DUP as nobody else would be willing to prop him up, it also conveniently forgets something else: David Cameron sought deals with the DUP before the 2010 and 2015 elections, making sure they would be in place to prop him up should he not have a majority.

 

And the rest (2 billion) are atheist/agnostic?

 

Make sweatshops great again: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...e-working-in-an-ivanka-trump-clothing-factory

 

He was never the leader of Pittsburgh.

'Pittsburgh, Not Paris': Actually, Pittsburgh Voted for Clinton - Heavy.com
heavy.com/.../pittsburgh-paris-agreement-not-voted-hillary-clinton-trump-results-may...
Jun 2, 2017 - In bowing out of the Paris climate accord, President Donald Trump evoked Pittsburgh. ... However, it turns out that Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania overwhelming voted for Hillary Clinton

 

That's not a good sign...

 

I'm sure the Tories can overlook the foibles of their power brokers.

 

Anyone else think this looks an awful lot like Tory HQ at the moment?

 

They must like trains as they're spending 55.7 billion* on HS2. I may be wrong about this, but isn't that rather more than all of Labours spending pledges put together? Funny but put a fraction of that amount in a Labour manifesto and the media demand that it be costed, but not really mention it in a manifesto, pay multiples of any other single thing mentioned in the election and people don't seem to ask how it's going to be funded. And then of course the major benefit will go to a franchise train company because a British nationalised rail company isn't allowed to benefit for the good of the British people, even though many of the franchises are European nationalised rail companies! Not forgetting of course that we pay more in subsidies now than when the railways were nationalised, and when we bailed out the private franchise on East Coast rail it went rather well - so they privatised it again!!!

I can therefore only suggest that this "need" for "privatised" rail (when it isn't really private and doesn't save any money) is dogmatic rather than practical. But I'd love someone to explain it to me.

* which apparently per km costs about 10x more than many of the European high speed train routes.

 

The Tories have come to the conclusion that running their campaign as May v Corbyn was a **** idea.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40277395

Wow. Who could've known that?
Anyone who paid the slightest bit of attention to things as they progressed, perhaps?
Maybe anyone who'd seen May speak publicly or attempt to connect with actual people?

 

As it's rapidly come to light that, since 2013, four successive Tory Housing Ministers (Mark Prisk, Kris Hopkins, Brandon Lewis and Gavin Barwell) all sat on a report clearly stating that high-rise blocks such as Lakanal House were vulnerable to fire and made numerous recommendations to make them safe, I guess it's time to hold the Tories to account for yet another tragedy that happened due to their appalling negligence

...oh wait, we're not allowed to hold them to account as that is "politicising a tragedy" - something that is easy to avoid if you use the following guide

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I'm sure that guide would be exactly the same if the boot was on the other foot...

 

When do ministers become accountable before the criminal courts?
If private housing companies/associations sat on this kind of information, their officers would be held liable.
Gross negligence directly resulting in the deaths of many people.

 

Nick Paget-Brown, the Tory leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council, has blamed the residents of Grenfell Tower for the building not having a sprinkler system on Newsnight - a claim that was rapidly torn to pieces by other councillors, who state at no point was there a consultation about adding sprinklers to the tower.

Best get your CVs ready, as I sense a job opening in the area...

 

Nice of him to offer up his head for the party though, eh?

 

What a c***.
He must have a big future in the Tory party.

 

Kensington and Chelsea Council officials will be sleeping in the town hall this evening.

 

A worrying number of people are repeating the lie that the Labour-led council are responsible for Grenfell.

So why does the council's own website make it abundantly clear that the council is clearly Tory led - and the only way it could be more clear is if the head of the council appeared on Newsnight to try and blame the victims for the fire?
http://directory.londoncouncils.gov.uk/directory/rbkc/leadership/