A Great British cockup!

Airwave!

The polictics of late have been, well....we live in interesting times! Talk about the night of the long knives, more like a bunch of wildcats circling their prey.

I believe we have been let down by the politicians, but it seems like there is a lot of bloodletting to do before the end, even with Brexit talks approaching radpidly. We need a strong personality now, more than ever and I don't mean someone who goes round talking to our enemies asking when they will get rid of their bombs.

As this rate we will end up with a very European coalition.

palo

I am actually scared. I read an article critical of Corbby and the vitriol from his supporters was terrifying. I was too afraid to comment.

Airwave!

They can smell power..............

frogmorton

mig

If a certain someone hadn't thrown his dummy out the pram when he didn't get his own way we wouldn't be in this mess now.

bubbadog

Well what a cluster **** the government is at the moment!! I thought America was land of crazies in power!! They must be laughing at us now saying 'Oh well we know who's running our Country!!' I don't know what to think at this 'so called, coalition with the DUP', is it a good thing or a bad one?

Sorry, can't leave the letters in the word above - I've added asterisks in their places

Yvonne x

Airwave!

Well, the coalition agreement is good as it keeps the country running and Labour certainly couldn't form a lasting government with an even smaller majority.

Depends on the length of their knives now and how willing the politicians are to keep pulling in the right direction for a period of time. TM is a dead man walking as far as leading the party goes, they might pull off the stability we need, they might not?

I expect all the parties will now try and buy off the students and young now with their debts being cancelled and support during their study time!

stickywicket

But we don't have 'a coalition agreement'. We don't even have a 'coalition of chaos'. Many dispute it can happen anyway as how can the Tories remain independent for the N. Ireland talks if they are hand in glove with the D.U.P?

It's a sad, sorry mess due entirely to T. May wanting more power, just as Brexit was about D. Cameron wanting more power. Between them they have divided the country horribly.

daffy2

And isn't this where our voting system falls flat on its face? There is no concept of coalition being a viable let alone desirable state of affairs - the last attempt only served to confirm that the idea of compromise and cooperation has no place in Westminster - despite the fact that our European neighbours seem to manage.
Someone commenting on an online newspaper article on the Grenfell Tower atrocity was frothing at the mouth about the bad effect of the monarchy on parliament(yes it was inappropriate and irrelevant as several others pointed out to him). I don't think I was the only one who was thinking that our nonagenarian sovereign could probably make a better fist of running the country at present, Brexit and all.....(or especially Brexit - sovereign state and all that)

Slosh

I hope TM resigns soon as and we have a further election. Living in London the reports on the Grenfell Tower Block fire are horrific and there does seem to be an element of goverment culpability, sitting on a report, refusing a debate when JC requested it was published and debated.

On another note I saw my GP on Monday and we had a chat. He'd started by apologising for keeping me waiting (saw him at 8.30 and had a 7.50 appointment) as he had been an hour with his first patient. I suggested he was having to play catch up for the rest of the day. He laughed and said he'd given up on that but that after the results on Friday and the relative success of Labour he was in the best mood he had been for ages!

Airwave!

The place we find ourselves in has a few historic issues that were never resolved.

Noone stood up to the changing EU, the powers of the Common Market were changed and the concerns of the country were never dealt with. We end up where the majority voted for Brexit, there was a link that politicians refused to aknowledge or deal with.

With a rapidly increasing population, more effort was given to relieving the immigrants of tax than funding new living accomodation and eventually we end up with deaths in a tower block where the poor from other countries seem to have found themselves with an old tower block as the only place left to live. There is a link that politicians never dealt with.

Lets tell the truth about these events, they were set in motion many years ago.

I want TM to carry on and take the flack, to stop now will only cause more mayhem.

daffy2

For decades it has suited successive governments to have the EU as the default scapegoat. Ignoring the concerns of the British people(except insofar as they could be used to garner votes) was also a choice that suited those same bodies, and in many cases is linked to the scapegoat situation.
Sadly that mindset will persist for the foreseeable future as far as I can see, for all sorts of 'reasons'(few of which, if any, I consider valid or justified).
Kakistocracy is the term some use to describe the current set-up.

stickywicket

Oh daffy, what a corker of a word Thank you for teaching it to me. For the benefit of others as ignorant as I am it is “a state or country run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens. The word was coined by English author Thomas Love Peacock in 1829.” (Wiki)

I agree that the EU has been blamed for everything even vaguely unpopular and some things that never even happened. We are, by nature, an insular people and have never really 'done Europe' the way most Europeans do.

I also agree with Airwave that many of our problems are accumulated from recent, and not so recent, history. There has never been any incentive for governments to take long-term decisions, especially unpopular ones, as they are not in power long enough to implement them. Yes, more houses, schools and roads should have been built and railways modernised. Instead, immigrants were blamed for taking 'our houses'. Now we have the really scary situation that 'Number of EU nurses coming to UK falls 96 per cent since Brexit' (https://tinyurl.com/ybmvvnpg ) 'More than 38,000 nurses on the UK register are from elsewhere in Europe' That's a lot of nurses to lose. Meanwhile, the fat cats squirrelled money away to offshore accounts while those of us who couldn't dutifully paid our taxes.

Yes, EU problems should have been sorted a long time ago. But, with the fear of Frexit, Nexit and Grexit things might happen now and probably will. But we shall have no power to change anything now..

I have nothing personally against Theresa May. I think she was badly advised. The electorate are unpredictable and Brexit should have sounded a warning note. Cameron called the referendum because he was so cocksure he'd win. T May did the same thing with the election. Both lost. And now, with the country realising that Keynes could have been right and austerity was just a choice rather than a necessity, long neglected chickens are coming home to roost.

T May will be given just long enough, by the other Tories, to ensure she carries the can. No important decisions or legislation will be taken in that time. The country will, yet again, be a hostage to personal ambitions.

Just call me cynical.

daffy2

Ignorant you are not Sticky, vide the John Donne poem on your Grenfell Tower post.

The country will, yet again, be a hostage to personal ambitions.

That is the frustrating thing, and again it has had many years to get embedded in the political psyche, so that personal and party ends are more important than constituents and country. It has possibly always been thus to a greater or lesser degree, but seems increasingly destructive in its effects(and blatant?) in recent years.
We are short of quality at Westminster so whatever May's shortcomings, talk of her going brings with it - 'and who in her place?' Between the devil and the deep blue sea....

Airwave!

There seems to be a coming together of opinions here, basically our politicians let us down. Perhaps we should be more careful how we choose them or are they failed before they get to the polls i.e. the quality of those that step forward will not be statesmen of the type that we need. Perhaps our parliamentry system needs to be looked at and candidates scrutenised more for their qualifications and powers of reasoning, I suppose we'll end up with..... a monkey? Might be better than all the egomaniacs that we have at present?

Where are all the statesmen/women gone!

stickywicket

I think politicians should have to work for a minimum period of time (5 years?) before being able to stand as MPs. By 'work' I mean what most people accept as a job or career not coming straight out of university into some clerical post in an MP's office. (And I speak as a graduate.) Real life is vital.

There are good MPs of all parties - dedicated people who have their constituents at heart. I voted for one for some years before moving. He was not from my party of choice but was a really good, honest man who worked very hard at his job.

Those who use politics to feather their own nests and careers or simply for self-aggrandisment, are the ones who let everyone down.

Airwave!

I expect most of those in office at present started out with the intent of changing things for the good of all, then politics got in the way.......