[Danny Himself]

Originally Posted by the ikara cult

I find him as entertaining as the next person, but the fact he's in charge of so many things that affect me and my parents causes me alot of worry, mainly because he's the ultimate Tory insider and when they win the next election its going to much easier for him to let everything below Islington turn into a cesspool (not that New LAbour havent, but i thought Ken Livingstone was moving stuff in the right direction).

On the whining sentimentalist thing, in case you didnt know;


On 16 October 2004, The Spectator carried an unsigned editorial[84] comment criticising a perceived trend to mawkish sentimentality by the public. Using British hostage Kenneth Bigley as an example, the editorial claimed the inhabitants of Bigley's home city of Liverpool were wallowing in a "vicarious victimhood"; that many Liverpudlians had a "deeply unattractive psyche"; and that they refused to accept responsibility for "drunken fans at the back of the crowd who mindlessly tried to fight their way into the ground" during the Hillsborough disaster, a contention at odds with the findings of the Taylor Report. The editorial closed with: "In our maturity as a civilisation, we should accept that we can cut out the cancer of ignorant sentimentality without diminishing, as in this case, our utter disgust at a foul and barbaric act of murder."

Party On

Yeah I know about that Spectator editorial. You've got to live here to know that he is actually spot on about the "deeply unattractive psyche", as many citizens are xenophobic (fuck the north/south divide, it's liverpool/britain divide, at least from their point of view), as well as badly notorious for clinging on to stuff like the Ken Bigley thing for sympathy. The comments on Hillsborough are dead wrong, but I'm not sure how accurate that Wikipedia article is as I seem to recall reading some explanation of the Spectator article affair somewhere that didn't mention that at all. Either way, he's made it a big deal in one of his books to explain his motive for the whole thing as well as apologise for any offence. I don't hold it against him.

As far as his Mayor of London position goes, I don't know too much about it. He doesn't appear to have done anything disastrously wrong. I heard he hates bendy buses, which I hate too. I wouldn't know what a Tory council is like to live under- I've been living under a shit Lib Dem council for years, we've apparently got the highest council tax in Britain but also the shittest roads.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWIUp19bBoA This is more like it

[the ikara cult]

Originally Posted by Danny Himself

Yeah I know about that Spectator editorial. You've got to live here to know that he is actually spot on about the "deeply unattractive psyche", as many citizens are xenophobic (fuck the north/south divide, it's liverpool/britain divide, at least from their point of view), as well as badly notorious for clinging on to stuff like the Ken Bigley thing for sympathy. The comments on Hillsborough are dead wrong, but I'm not sure how accurate that Wikipedia article is as I seem to recall reading some explanation of the Spectator article affair somewhere that didn't mention that at all. Either way, he's made it a big deal in one of his books to explain his motive for the whole thing as well as apologise for any offence. I don't hold it against him.

As far as his Mayor of London position goes, I don't know too much about it. He doesn't appear to have done anything disastrously wrong. I heard he hates bendy buses, which I hate too. I wouldn't know what a Tory council is like to live under- I've been living under a shit Lib Dem council for years, we've apparently got the highest council tax in Britain but also the shittest roads.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWIUp19bBoA This is more like it

Ive never been to Liverpool so i respect yr perspective. I only brought it up as a bit of a joke and an aside really, ive never been arsed about that Spectator thing.

I almost went to that Germany thing, it was in Reading where i was living at the time but we didnt in the end. To think, i could have witnessed a piece of history...

As for the BNP, im dead worried about the fact alot of far right people have been elected across Europe, in Hungary etc. We also have UKIP who despite what they say are more in tune with the BNP than alot of people think. Dead concerned, like.

[jon boy]

on a warmer note. leader of the bnp nik griffin was pelted with eggs and had to abandon his news conference and be bundled into a car today. lovely stuff.

[Glice]

I know he's a racist, but Cameron is a total cunt. Why no eggs for him? Or some sort of machete-shaped egg?

[jon boy]

or a brick covered in egg?

[h8kurdt]

Originally Posted by jon boy

on a warmer note. leader of the bnp nik griffin was pelted with eggs and had to abandon his news conference and be bundled into a car today. lovely stuff.

Then he said it "was like Zimbabwe". Yeah it was exactly like that.

[MellySingsDoom]

^^^I thought it was amusing that Little Lord Griffin had to be protected by his "security" boys - at least John Prescott knows how to throw a left hook at any passing egg-throwers. Did he have to heil a passing taxi to get away, I wonder?

[Mrs. Butcher]

as much as i dislike the BNP, the anti-fashist protestors today appeared to be campaining against democracy, weird huh.

[Glice]

Originally Posted by Mrs. Butcher

as much as i dislike the BNP, the anti-fashist protestors today appeared to be campaining against democracy, weird huh.

It's an important point, one I try not to engage with. It's not democracy they object to, and that's precisely the sort of rhetoric that ghettoises the BNP, and thus makes them attractive to a certain portion of the electorate who feel alienated by mainstream politics. The argument from the anti-BNP sorts is that the BNP is not 'democratic' in the slightest. I don't agree with this argument, but a lot of people do. The thing is, I know full well that the BNP do not stand for democracy or the common Brit (me), they stand for thuggery, idiocy, hypocrisy, intimidation and a poor/ narrow view of British history. So long as they stay on the right side of the law, I'm happy to continue not paying any attention to their confused bile.

Anyway. Get off the BNP, it's Cameron who's the real problem at the moment (I wonder if the BNP aren't just a Tory smokescreen sometimes...).

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by Glice

Get off the BNP, it's Cameron who's the real problem at the moment

Absolutely.

[Mrs. Butcher]

obviously i'm not doubting the protestor's good intentions, but the BNP have won those two seats and there's nothing that can, or should be done to remove them from them (as said, provided the BNP stay within the law) until the next election. It wouldn't surprise me if the entire "outdoor conference" was planned to attract such attention - all publicity's good publicity, etc...

[Mrs. Butcher]

but yeah, enough.

[MellySingsDoom]

Regarding Cameron, I'd agree that Cameron's in need of the old three egg omelette treatment....but maybe an Eton trifle would be a better thing to lob at him?

[jon boy]

yes glice, cameron is the real enemy here. smug little twat that he is.

[demonrail666]

The direction of this thread is sort of indicative of part of the reason why the BNP have had an upsurge in popularity. They're probably the only party out of those discussed that are being attacked for their policies rather than the personality of their leader. The coming together of the political mainstream around certain 'key' issues has promoted the importance of personality at a time when people seem less and less interested in it. Single issue parties like the BNP, UKIP and the Greens are gaining popularity in part because they offer political solutions (however ludicrous) at a time when people are most looking for them. The people who voted for the BNP etc should feel less ashamed than those within the political establishment who edged them towards it, simply by removing real politics from their agenda.

Originally Posted by MellySingsDoom

I've just heard on the radio that the fascist British National Party have just won a seat in the European Parliament (for the Yorkshire & Humber region). It looks as if they may win another seat in the North West too.

As some of us people here have voted in the Euro elections, what do you think - something to be worried about, a relative storm in a teacup, or an utter irrelevance?

Absenteeism mixed with the rise of a racist party's profile is certainly not to be thought of with dismissive complacency, even more so since that same complacency was widespread in economical analysis throughout the mid-to-late 90's, when the thought of an American economy collapsing wasn't regarded so much as something that would trigger worldwide recession. See what happened.

It's a natural progression that the initial hatred for the banks, at first demonised for being the main cause of the recession itself, is now directed at the very organ that gives them the kiss of life, the government and its infrastructure of conflicting/conspiring parties.


The fascist fringes of aspiring government parties like the BNP find their natural habitat in times of acute crisis like this, since they touch an already super-volatile nerve in the (scarce) working class electorate, the most likely to push them up the scale at large, unless, of course, conflicting and more rational political forces sway them to their side.

It's too early to really asses what the outcome might be, since a possible BNP rise will find a labour marketplace drastically changed from what it was 50/60 years ago. It's not just people who happen to be white and 'traditionally' British who vote for the conservatives either, and not all the immigrant labour force is a unified entity as it is often thought of.

[demonrail666]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to sarramkrop again.

[MellySingsDoom]

There seems to be an insistence by the mainstream parties to keep saying that they need to get their "message" across - it's as if the need to communicate takes precedence of having any genuine political beliefs, ideas and conviction. This McLuhanesque strategy is Tony Blair's real legacy to UK politics, but the thing is that the UK public are heartily aware of this and sick of it too. A state of affairs that continues further with our present government - that press conference they held Sunday just gone would have embarrassed Nicolae Ceascescu. Small wonder that the BNP find an audience for their bilious stance.

"You must spread rep etc" also for what Sarramkrop said.

[Danny Himself]

I think its probably worthwhile to point out that votes for the BNP have actually gone down since the last election. It's just that a lot of people didn't vote in, i.e. a lot of people who usually vote for Labour just didn't vote rather than vote for any other party.

Originally Posted by Danny Himself

I think its probably worthwhile to point out that votes for the BNP have actually gone down since the last election. It's just that a lot of people didn't vote in, i.e. a lot of people who usually vote for Labour just didn't vote rather than vote for any other party.

A good point.

Monstrousities like this are more likely to happen, and grow bigger, if having a political conscience is still lazily regarded as a marginal part of what makes a person whole.