Election Year or Fear!

[ramAnag]

British values? I do miss them a little. Similar ones thrive over here. I hold doors open for others, regardless of their age. Those who don't intimate thanks by word or a nod of the head etc do get thanked by me and it always genders the required response. When using public transport in Amsterdam. I get offered a seat, mainly by late te-en to mid 20s young ladies. I decline, gracefully. I also offer my seat up to elderly folk, less mobile than myself and to pregnant women.

It's that sort of thing, the p's and q's, looking out for more than number 1, basically being a nice, kind and considerate person. One might even describe it as being social.

At last…some sense. So these ‘British values’ are, it would seem, also Dutch values. Indeed they are, as I have been saying, universal values amongst ordinary decent folk throughout Europe and beyond. They are the values of politeness, respectfulness, kindness and consideration. Put another way…do unto others as you would have others do to you…a mantra which, imo, you won’t go far wrong with.

Unfortunately such values seem to have been long forgotten of late by the political classes where disrespect and repetitive manipulation of the truth seems to have become the order of the day. Sadly it seems to be, on this occasion, a practice that GP and AF have also adopted hence the utter and untruthful rubbish about me being anti British, disrespectful of the D-Day veterans and ‘ill-informed’ - the latter all because I happened to have retired from my profession prior to the introduction of a particular curriculum initiative.

You’re both happy to snipe away, but apparently not grown up enough to apologise when hopelessly and offensively in the wrong.

[Andy_Faber]

At last…some sense. So these ‘British values’ are, it would seem, also Dutch values. Indeed they are, as I have been saying, universal values amongst ordinary decent folk throughout Europe and beyond. They are the values of politeness, respectfulness, kindness and consideration. Put another way…do unto others as you would have others do to you…a mantra which, imo, you won’t go far wrong with.

Unfortunately such values seem to have been long forgotten of late by the political classes where disrespect and repetitive manipulation of the truth seems to have become the order of the day. Sadly it seems to be, on this occasion, a practice that GP and AF have also adopted hence the utter and untruthful rubbish about me being anti British, disrespectful of the D-Day veterans and ‘ill-informed’ - the latter all because I happened to have retired from my profession prior to the introduction of a particular curriculum initiative.

You’re both happy to snipe away, but apparently not grown up enough to apologise when hopelessly and offensively in the wrong.

So the Dutch can have Dutch values despite them being non-exclusive, but you’ve wasted 10,000 words arguing that The British can’t, despite all the evidence including HMG. You truly are a complex fellah rA

[ramAnag]

So the Dutch can have Dutch values despite them being non-exclusive, but you’ve wasted 10,000 words arguing that The British can’t, despite all the evidence including HMG. You truly are a complex fellah rA

Now who’s resorting to semantics and, not for the first time…exaggeration? If you read things carefully enough you’d recognise the phrase ‘universal values’. See you’re still avoiding discussing your ‘ill-informed’ allegation. I doubt that I’m complex but I can at least accept when I’m wrong.

[Trickytreesreds]

I did notice and take your point Tricky, however it’s a bit far fetched to say it’s the BBC ‘out to get Farage’ imo…I mean have you watched ‘Have I Got News For You’ this week. Very funny but they gave Starmer a particularly hard time over his repetitive ‘my father was a toolmaker’ line which culminated in Paul Merton saying ‘yeah well…he made you didn’t he!’. Was that the BBC ‘out to get Starmer’? No…it was just funny.

More seriously, on the subject of Farage, there’s a saying that ‘you can judge a man by the company he keeps’. Maybe you, and anyone else on here who’s interested, should Google the name George Cottrell - aka ‘Posh George’. Makes for interesting and disturbing reading.
Birds of a feather and all that.

Sorry RA, but it was all over rthe internet and lots of news debates about that audience and the shots shooting to the same people pullling faces. He was on QT a week earlier and Bruce interrupted him constantly, never let him finish, or stopped short of even letting him answer a question. She's got loads of OFCOM compliants flown in against her.
Of course, if you limit your viewing to the BBC, you are hardly going to know that sir are you?

The Starmer thing, is a piss take.
Farage subliminal programming shots were not funny, it was pre meditated bias. The BBC can be funny when it wants, but even then it is very particular of who gets it. Nish Kumar was prime agitator on that score. When he got cut, he screamed racism.

All politicians have dodgy mates, that is for sure. Starmer has his share believe me.

Lets take the SNP, who for years spent ther time in office slating the corrupt Tories and Parliament. Then oooooooooooooooops, they seem to have the same accountants as DCFC.

[Trickytreesreds]

Indeed. 17,410,742 of them

Maybe Auntie should have installed a head shaking stooge in various audiences in 2016, it would certainly have eased your demeanour in the mean time

It's their worst nightmare if every "far right" Brexit voter, decided to back him.
BTW Swale, you laughed a year ago, at the very thought of Reform challenging the Tories. Is Sunak, still laughing along with you?

[Trickytreesreds]

At last…some sense. So these ‘British values’ are, it would seem, also Dutch values. Indeed they are, as I have been saying, universal values amongst ordinary decent folk throughout Europe and beyond. They are the values of politeness, respectfulness, kindness and consideration. Put another way…do unto others as you would have others do to you…a mantra which, imo, you won’t go far wrong with.

Unfortunately such values seem to have been long forgotten of late by the political classes where disrespect and repetitive manipulation of the truth seems to have become the order of the day. Sadly it seems to be, on this occasion, a practice that GP and AF have also adopted hence the utter and untruthful rubbish about me being anti British, disrespectful of the D-Day veterans and ‘ill-informed’ - the latter all because I happened to have retired from my profession prior to the introduction of a particular curriculum initiative.

You’re both happy to snipe away, but apparently not grown up enough to apologise when hopelessly and offensively in the wrong.

The Dutch core values are very similar to ours if you look them up.
I highlighted the German ones as being more about work ethics.
But all through, politeness etc, is a western thing. Now I made the point, of with all those Immigration movements into Europe, have brought those values into conflict. Crime/ habits/ friction all have the same clash of the vlaues mentioned. What may be accepted in Africa or the middle east, certainly isn't here.

NB, The EU elections take a massive surge to the right, Macron panics and calls a snap election.
Why is that then, that has cased this amssive surge in nationalism and a rejection of the usual EU doctrine?

Couldn't be immigration surely?

[MadAmster]

TTR, I think you'll find that the neo-liberals such as the UK Conservatives and the Dutch VVD etc. are still the right wing parties. The ones who push Laws to help big business, to help the wealthiest top 5% stay in that position.

I have no idea what the socio-economical stance of Farage UK is or that of le Pen etc. What I do know from the Dutch PVV (Wilders party) that they are far right on immigration and very much left socio-economically. They were the biggest party at the Dutch November elections and, depending on your viewpoint, did/didn't become the largest NL party at the EU elections. In the 20 years of their existence they have never had to formulate policy. Fix issues. Come up with solutions. Wilders has been brilliant at slating the government and pointing out what he thinks is wrong but has yet to come up with a single solution. He now has the power in his hands, working together with his 3 right of centre coalition partners, to solve all the stuff he's been complaining about for 2 decades.

IMO, he will struggle. Why? Well, the PVV is a party whose constitution permits just the one member and that is Wilders. As they have been on the fringes they haven't had may MPs etc. No party members who are au fait with how politics and government works. Nobody who has the knowledge and experience to become a Minister or Secretary of State. They also dropped one at the election. Greatly underestimating how many seats they'd win so they didn't have sufficient names on their list of candidates. Enough to fill the 37 seats they won. Others on the list who didn't win a seat are, in football parlance, the bench. I can't remember how many they had "in reserve". Them one of their number was appointed speaker of the house. He moved seats and one of the "subs" took his place. They now have to supply a number of Ministers and SoS's. Some of them will come from outside of politics. The rest will come from the group who have the 37 seats. There is the possibility that they will end up with more MPs taking up Ministerial/SoS posts than they have "subs on the bench". That means that, although they won 37 seats in the election they could well end up with 36 or less votes in the "Commons". Monumental blunder there.

IMO, they are also going to struggle with their manifesto wishes. Much of the anti immigration and repatriation stuff in the manifesto, which is the same stuff Wilders has been pushing for 2 decades, has been shelved because it's against one or more of NL Law/Constitution and/or against EU Law and/or against ECHR and/or against International Treaties NL has signed up to. Then there's the socio-economical stuff. He was going to raise the minimum wage substantially. That's been dropped. Every resident has health insurance with an annual €385 excess clause. He called it a tax on ill health and he's right. They would scrap it. Now the plans for the coalition are out there, it appears it won't be scrapped but merely reduced to €165 a year..... in 2027, just in time to win votes for the next election (provided the coalition goes full term and we have the next election in November of that year). There are also some tax breaks for big business and the top 5% as well as some proposed new tax gathering from the rich that now won't happen. Raising the minimum wage and scrapping the health insurance excess are the 2 major policies for the PVV's new voters.

[Andy_Faber]

Now who’s resorting to semantics and, not for the first time…exaggeration? If you read things carefully enough you’d recognise the phrase ‘universal values’. See you’re still avoiding discussing your ‘ill-informed’ allegation. I doubt that I’m complex but I can at least accept when I’m wrong.

Yes of course it’s exaggeration, I don’t have the luxury of scrolling back to post #365 or whatever and count them I’m fitting a kitchen. It does indicate a direction of travel though

[Geoff Parkstone]

Now who’s resorting to semantics and, not for the first time…exaggeration? If you read things carefully enough you’d recognise the phrase ‘universal values’. See you’re still avoiding discussing your ‘ill-informed’ allegation. I doubt that I’m complex but I can at least accept when I’m wrong.

You may indeed accept that you're wrong, but I've never seen any evidence that you admit it publicly 😀😀

[ramAnag]

Yes of course it’s exaggeration, I don’t have the luxury of scrolling back to post #365 or whatever and count them I’m fitting a kitchen. It does indicate a direction of travel though

In other words, you’re busy (me too, but it’s lunch time) and you couldn't check so just made something up. Likewise GP has implied that I’m anti British and that ‘those blokes in boats’ were wasting their time 80 years ago because of views like mine…an unfounded and insulting suggestion that you went out of your way to agree with.

In addition you’ve said I’m ‘ill-informed’ solely on the basis of you appearing to completely misunderstand the issue of BFV in schools which GP had raised.

Now is the time for you both to put up or shut up. If you can’t substantiate something then don’t say it at all, and if you’re entirely wrong then withdraw the comment. As the supposed moderator of this forum I’d have expected you to understand and appreciate those basics. In your own time.

[Andy_Faber]

In other words, you’re busy (me too, but it’s lunch time) and you couldn't check so just made something up. Likewise GP has implied that I’m anti British and that ‘those blokes in boats’ were wasting their time 80 years ago because of views like mine…an unfounded and insulting suggestion that you went out of your way to agree with.

In addition you’ve said I’m ‘ill-informed’ solely on the basis of you appearing to completely misunderstand the issue of BFV in schools which GP had raised.

Now is the time for you both to put up or shut up. If you can’t substantiate something then don’t say it at all, and if you’re entirely wrong then withdraw the comment. As the supposed moderator of this forum I’d have expected you to understand and appreciate those basics. In your own time.

Right, you’re clearly getting upset by this and I agree with GP that accepting you’re wrong hasn’t been a trait we’ve seen around here, but I also accept that you may have the same opinion of me, SO: if you accept that your issue about British values and our subsequent spat was based on your innocent misreading of my original post as including the word ‘peculiarly’ or ‘uniquely’, neither of which were present, then I’ll accept that I should have just shrugged my shoulders at your response, rather than pushed the issue. And on that basis I’m happy to ‘shake hands’ over the ether and call it quits

[ramAnag]

Right, you’re clearly getting upset by this and I agree with GP that accepting you’re wrong hasn’t been a trait we’ve seen around here, but I also accept that you may have the same opinion of me, SO: if you accept that your issue about British values and our subsequent spat was based on your innocent misreading of my original post as including the word ‘peculiarly’ or ‘uniquely’, neither of which were present, then I’ll accept that I should have just shrugged my shoulders at your response, rather than pushed the issue. And on that basis I’m happy to ‘shake hands’ over the ether and call it quits

Lol…be off with you. You flatter yourself if you think I’m going to get ‘upset’ over a forum ‘spat’, and neither am I likely to ‘shake hands’ over something which you want settled completely on your terms.
Tbh I’m not even sure you recognise where the problem lies and we can call it quits if you like, I’ll simply remember that GP makes unfounded and defamatory comments that he can’t defend or substantiate and that you, as moderator, back him up on that and then can’t accept when you’re at fault for completely misinterpreting a subsequent matter.

[Trickytreesreds]

TTR, I think you'll find that the neo-liberals such as the UK Conservatives and the Dutch VVD etc. are still the right wing parties. The ones who push Laws to help big business, to help the wealthiest top 5% stay in that position.

I have no idea what the socio-economical stance of Farage UK is or that of le Pen etc. What I do know from the Dutch PVV (Wilders party) that they are far right on immigration and very much left socio-economically. They were the biggest party at the Dutch November elections and, depending on your viewpoint, did/didn't become the largest NL party at the EU elections. In the 20 years of their existence they have never had to formulate policy. Fix issues. Come up with solutions. Wilders has been brilliant at slating the government and pointing out what he thinks is wrong but has yet to come up with a single solution. He now has the power in his hands, working together with his 3 right of centre coalition partners, to solve all the stuff he's been complaining about for 2 decades.

IMO, he will struggle. Why? Well, the PVV is a party whose constitution permits just the one member and that is Wilders. As they have been on the fringes they haven't had may MPs etc. No party members who are au fait with how politics and government works. Nobody who has the knowledge and experience to become a Minister or Secretary of State. They also dropped one at the election. Greatly underestimating how many seats they'd win so they didn't have sufficient names on their list of candidates. Enough to fill the 37 seats they won. Others on the list who didn't win a seat are, in football parlance, the bench. I can't remember how many they had "in reserve". Them one of their number was appointed speaker of the house. He moved seats and one of the "subs" took his place. They now have to supply a number of Ministers and SoS's. Some of them will come from outside of politics. The rest will come from the group who have the 37 seats. There is the possibility that they will end up with more MPs taking up Ministerial/SoS posts than they have "subs on the bench". That means that, although they won 37 seats in the election they could well end up with 36 or less votes in the "Commons". Monumental blunder there.

IMO, they are also going to struggle with their manifesto wishes. Much of the anti immigration and repatriation stuff in the manifesto, which is the same stuff Wilders has been pushing for 2 decades, has been shelved because it's against one or more of NL Law/Constitution and/or against EU Law and/or against ECHR and/or against International Treaties NL has signed up to. Then there's the socio-economical stuff. He was going to raise the minimum wage substantially. That's been dropped. Every resident has health insurance with an annual €385 excess clause. He called it a tax on ill health and he's right. They would scrap it. Now the plans for the coalition are out there, it appears it won't be scrapped but merely reduced to €165 a year..... in 2027, just in time to win votes for the next election (provided the coalition goes full term and we have the next election in November of that year). There are also some tax breaks for big business and the top 5% as well as some proposed new tax gathering from the rich that now won't happen. Raising the minimum wage and scrapping the health insurance excess are the 2 major policies for the PVV's new voters.

How you can call this current Tory government right wing eludes me. It makes Blairs government look far right.
As for the rest of it, I aint no expert on Dutch politics. I was pointing out, that the rise across the EU to the right, has been fuelled by EU failures with Immigration.
As is here in the UK, terror/crime/over crowding/ spiralling costs/ culture friction.
The EU , is criminal in how it treats its borders and expects everyone to just accept it. That aren't and what you now , is the biggest right wing swing since the Axis

[Trickytreesreds]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsbRrTULpgA

[ramAnag]

How you can call this current Tory government right wing eludes me. It makes Blairs government look far right.

How does it and in what way?