Election Year or Fear!

[Geoff Parkstone]

Well even a stopped clock is right twice a day, rA!!

Interestingly you've chanced upon a benefit of Brexit above: you won't have to contribute to Farage's EU parliament pension post Brexit!

[ramAnag]

Interestingly you've chanced upon a benefit of Brexit above: you won't have to contribute to Farage's EU parliament pension post Brexit!

Possibly my single greatest achievement.
Although we do have to keep paying to keep The Lyin’ King and Lettuce Liz in the manner to which they’re accustomed.

[MadAmster]

Possibly my single greatest achievement.
Although we do have to keep paying to keep The Lyin’ King and Lettuce Liz in the manner to which they’re accustomed.

... not to mention "Call me Dave" and the Roland Rat lookalike. Fortunately, I don't have to pay towards their future upkeep.

Conversely, as long as Farridge draws both breath and his EU Pension, I will, unfortunately, be contributing to that. Once the former stops, so will the latter...

[MadAmster]

So I take it from your comments that you will only vote for a party that guarantees to INCREASE you personal tax burden?

I offer good rates for comprehension lessons. That is, most decidedly, NOT what he posted.

What he said was that IF taxes went up a little to fund better services, he'd be OK with that.

That's a stance I'd fully agree with. Where would my tick go? As I put in a previous post, I decided not to use my returning right to vote after 25 years of not being allowed to. That on the basis of "I don't pay into the system so I really shouldn't influence who mucks it up".

I'd like to think that, had I been (God forbid) a Blue Tory voter in the past, the level of lies, sleaze, scandal and rules don't apply to us over recent years would see me abstain at best and probably vote for someone else.

Red Tory? A much better name than Labour for them these days as they are no longer the party of the working man, IMO. I think that Starmer has gone a step or two in the right direction with his policy of going after non-Doms and reducing Tax evasion etc. There is something he could announce that, I believe, would guarantee a landslide victory. Namely, announce that they would go after the "Covid Billions". Get back all monies paid to those who failed to deliver any PPE. Idem ditto those who delivered sub standard PPE. Investigate the getting on for £40Bn that went into the failed Test and Trace system and claw back as much of that as is possible. Then there's the £4Bn write off from Covid contracts, chase that up. The opinion polls already point to a probable win, promising the recovery of as much of the "Covid Billions" as possible would guarantee it, IMO.

A little aside... AF, have you ever appeared on "Home under the hammer"? If they wanted to cover one of your revamps, would you do it? Off topic, I know, but this is the thread where I became aware of your being a landlord and thought a new thread might be OTT.

[ramAnag]

I offer good rates for comprehension lessons. That is, most decidedly, NOT what he posted.

What he said was that IF taxes went up a little to fund better services, he'd be OK with that.

That's a stance I'd fully agree with. Where would my tick go? As I put in a previous post, I decided not to use my returning right to vote after 25 years of not being allowed to. That on the basis of "I don't pay into the system so I really shouldn't influence who mucks it up".

I'd like to think that, had I been (God forbid) a Blue Tory voter in the past, the level of lies, sleaze, scandal and rules don't apply to us over recent years would see me abstain at best and probably vote for someone else.

Red Tory? A much better name than Labour for them these days as they are no longer the party of the working man, IMO. I think that Starmer has gone a step or two in the right direction with his policy of going after non-Doms and reducing Tax evasion etc. There is something he could announce that, I believe, would guarantee a landslide victory. Namely, announce that they would go after the "Covid Billions". Get back all monies paid to those who failed to deliver any PPE. Idem ditto those who delivered sub standard PPE. Investigate the getting on for £40Bn that went into the failed Test and Trace system and claw back as much of that as is possible. Then there's the £4Bn write off from Covid contracts, chase that up. The opinion polls already point to a probable win, promising the recovery of as much of the "Covid Billions" as possible would guarantee it, IMO.

A little aside... AF, have you ever appeared on "Home under the hammer"? If they wanted to cover one of your revamps, would you do it? Off topic, I know, but this is the thread where I became aware of your being a landlord and thought a new thread might be OTT.

Thanks MA. Always helpful when someone is willing to distinguish between what has actually been written and how others might, conveniently, choose to interpret what has been said.

Agree with the rest of the post too. Beggars belief to me that, after the behaviour which has typified the last five or so years, even someone with Conservative sympathies would vote for this incompetent and dishonest rabble again and I’d love to see us go after the ‘Covid Billions’ and racketeers. Perhaps, looking at how costly and time consuming other inquiries have been, it’s a question of whether we can afford the time and the expense. I hope so.

[MadAmster]

Thanks MA. Always helpful when someone is willing to distinguish between what has actually been written and how others might, conveniently, choose to interpret what has been said.

Agree with the rest of the post too. Beggars belief to me that, after the behaviour which has typified the last five or so years, even someone with Conservative sympathies would vote for this incompetent and dishonest rabble again and I’d love to see us go after the ‘Covid Billions’ and racketeers. Perhaps, looking at how costly and time consuming other inquiries have been, it’s a question of whether we can afford the time and the expense. I hope so.

Thieves, and that is basically what they are although some might prefer the term "fraudster", shouldn't prosper. Should we ever find ourselves in a similar position, I would hope that action taken against the CV19 profiteers would dissuade others from trying similar. That deterrent would make any costs, IMO, worthwhile.

[Andy_Faber]

A little aside... AF, have you ever appeared on "Home under the hammer"? If they wanted to cover one of your revamps, would you do it? Off topic, I know, but this is the thread where I became aware of your being a landlord and thought a new thread might be OTT.

Yes I’ve been asked a number of times and the answer has always been no, and always will be. Main reason is, apart from when I’m fronting a band, I don’t really like the limelight, we don’t do it for the glory. Also, I wouldn’t want to be one of those souls who makes no progress when the cameras return, and, on a couple of occasions (because we’ve ‘parked’ purchases to do something else) we would have been. I wouldn’t want the pressure of s TV schedule buggering up our process

thanks for asking

[Trickytreesreds]

Possibly my single greatest achievement.
Although we do have to keep paying to keep The Lyin’ King and Lettuce Liz in the manner to which they’re accustomed.

Farage could have milked the EU gravy train forver, like many have and still do. I notice you never slate the Kinnock family for milking it for all its worth.
Farage, voted himself out of a job, just like he promised his voters he would do.
Pity the liars we have had go into the EUP, never had the same intentions as him, and slotted into the EU mantra. Please pay me my loyaty bonuses and extras for spreading the EU propaganda. (yes they do exists)

[Trickytreesreds]

The south Koreans have been spurred on by these elections and devoloped a new car, that will do a full U-turn automatically,by voice command immediately.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the KIA Starmer

[Trickytreesreds]

Sunak and Starmer do not have a clue. And anyone else who cries these poor people and bleeding heart mentality, I'm going to scream.

https://news.sky.com/story/migrants-look-to-uk-as-germany-toughens-laws-and-warn-that-people-smuggling-could-increase-13154988

[ramAnag]

Oh please! ‘Voted himself out of a job’? He joined something to destroy it, pick up a £73k per year pension from something he condemned and then jumped to support Trump, where he was doubtless paid another fortune, to be laughably touted as the ‘King of Europe’ before making a TV career out of ‘GBeebies’.
He didn’t want to spend time in Clacton this time last month, thought the US - and the ‘bravest man he’d ever met’ - was more important…then things began to look a little dodgy on that front and…guess what?
Opportunistic spiv!

P.S. Quite reliable, KIAs I hear. Make a nice change.

[Trickytreesreds]

Oh please! ‘Voted himself out of a job’? He joined something to destroy it, pick up a £73k per year pension from something he condemned and then jumped to support Trump, where he was doubtless paid another fortune, to be laughably touted as the ‘King of Europe’ before making a TV career out of ‘GBeebies’.
He didn’t want to spend time in Clacton this time last month, thought the US - and the ‘bravest man he’d ever met’ - was more important…then things began to look a little dodgy on that front and…guess what?
Opportunistic spiv!

P.S. Quite reliable, KIAs I hear. Make a nice change.

and yet he rattles you all so much. He did destroy it, as promised, by the people who voted him in to do so. Like a turkey for Christmas, he threw that job away gladly. Seeing as the EU has raped all us tax payers for their bloated pensions, he can keep it with my blessing. In 2016, they were wasting £150M a year just moving parliament every month, to pacify the French, yet you moan about one mans pension?
More RIGHT WING MEPS will now sit in that parliament, expect to see more destroying going on.

Recent surveys after the debates, show the public trust his words more than the other two and the fact checkers had him more or less spot on.
Pity the other two couldn't match it.

[swaledale]

and yet he rattles you all so much. He did destroy it, as promised, by the people who voted him in to do so. Like a turkey for Christmas, he threw that job away gladly. Seeing as the EU has raped all us tax payers for their bloated pensions, he can keep it with my blessing. In 2016, they were wasting £150M a year just moving parliament every month, to pacify the French, yet you moan about one mans pension?
More RIGHT WING MEPS will now sit in that parliament, expect to see more destroying going on.

Recent surveys after the debates, show the public trust his words more than the other two and the fact checkers had him more or less spot on.
Pity the other two couldn't match it.

Farage rattles us? Mm no he is an irrelevance other than its rather funny watching people like yourself paying homage to a spiv, being paid by billionaires to shift the Overton window further to the right, obviously in order to give the "ordinary person" better opportunities!

Jeez one would have to be dumb to think that the extreme right really are the solution to the problems we face, mind you I guess thats what the German's and indeed the Italians did a few decades ago and I mean bar a few million deaths and wholesale destruction it worked out fine for them!

Are you really that dumb? To which the answer must be yes, because you seem proud to demonstrate it.

[ramAnag]

and yet he rattles you all so much. He did destroy it, as promised, by the people who voted him in to do so. Like a turkey for Christmas, he threw that job away gladly. Seeing as the EU has raped all us tax payers for their bloated pensions, he can keep it with my blessing. In 2016, they were wasting £150M a year just moving parliament every month, to pacify the French, yet you moan about one mans pension?
More RIGHT WING MEPS will now sit in that parliament, expect to see more destroying going on.

Recent surveys after the debates, show the public trust his words more than the other two and the fact checkers had him more or less spot on.
Pity the other two couldn't match it.

Sorry Tricky…he doesn’t ‘rattle’ me at all. Just depresses me that people like you can be so gullible. Johnson last time…Farage this.
I’ve told you previously about Farage’s association with the likes of ‘Posh George’…now he’s aligning himself with Andrew Tate - the revoltingly malevolent and misogynistic ‘social influencer’.
He now claims that Tate could be an ‘important voice for men and the emasculated’ and ‘perhaps provide boys in the classroom with more confidence’.

You and I have always disagreed, that’s the nature of politics when you have two posters with such opposite stances, but if you and those who think like you really can’t see that there’s something very, very wrong and dangerous with all this then frankly you’ve genuinely lost the plot.

[MadAmster]

and yet he rattles you all so much. He did destroy it, as promised, by the people who voted him in to do so. Like a turkey for Christmas, he threw that job away gladly. Seeing as the EU has raped all us tax payers for their bloated pensions, he can keep it with my blessing. In 2016, they were wasting £150M a year just moving parliament every month, to pacify the French, yet you moan about one mans pension?
More RIGHT WING MEPS will now sit in that parliament, expect to see more destroying going on.

Recent surveys after the debates, show the public trust his words more than the other two and the fact checkers had him more or less spot on.
Pity the other two couldn't match it.

Did he, really?

The answer is, of course, no he didn't. He destroyed it so much that, just 15 days ago, there were the 4 yearly EU elections for a new EU Parliament. Those elected are now juggling themselves together into their little political enclave groups to see which group has the most MEPs. Then the new commission will be appointed and off they go on the next 4 year chapter of the institution you believe to have been destroyed.

There are, indeed more right wing MEPs this time round. They've grown in number in their own countries of late and a similar outcome in "Brussels" was as clear as daylight. I, for one, am not surprised that it happened. Totally logical that it would. It's also totally logical that their influence will, over the next 2 or 3 election cycles, both nationally and in the EU, lose ground and once more become the irrelevance they were 10 years ago. Why? Simply because they are, basically, one policy parties. Immigrant bashing. They also have a lot to say on all the tings they perceive their national governments have got wrong. What they say, and never have, never will, is what they would do if in power.

Take the Dutch PVV (please, somebody take them ). The party has ONE member, Wilders. He built up a following by hammering immigration, hammering Islam, pointing out what he found wrong with governement policy. He did that without explaining what he'd do to rectify all the problems. He never offered a single solution, Why not? Because he doesn't have one.

Now he's the largest single party in the Netherlands with 37 of the 150 seats. That meant he had to form a coalition. I didn't think he's manage it but he has. His "partners" are the BBB (Farmer and Public Movement) who have sided with the PVV throughout this election. The new NSC (New Social Contract) who always said they'd never join a Wilders pact but have. Why they changed tack is clear. Their leader, Peter Omtzigt, is probably the best Parliamentarian we've had in my 40 years of living here. He got into talks, got most of what he wanted. He got Wilders to agree that each and every Law and Policy had to be 100% legal, within the Constitution AND executable. That led to Wilders dropping his Ultra right wing plans to ban the Koran, lose Mosques etc. Then they got into the nitty gritty. He had promised to scrap the Health Insurance excess of €385 a year. He regularly hammered the VVD, the CDA, D66 and other parties because they didn't announce that policy. The recently reached coalition agreement will reduce the excess by about 40%... in 2027. they hope to be able to afford it. Another election promise was a large rise in the minimum wage. That has been sccrapped. There's more of the same but you get the gist. He scrapped a lot of his election promises because they were either illegal or unaffordable or just simply aren't workable. He will disappoint his voters. Next election he will do well again as he will blame the "other parties". He may well be given a 2nd chance by the voters but, he'll fail again for the same reasons. Legal issues, unworkable or unaffordable. Over 2 or 3 election cycles his share of the vote, both for den Haag and for Brussels will shrink.

It is my opinion that the AfD in Germany and the other far right populists will suffer the same fate. they found an audience but their "fame" will not survive more than a couple of elections. Why? because their policies are NOT for the good of the populace as a whole. Jingoism at best.