Election Year or Fear!

[ramAnag]

I made no cheap dig at your Facebook acquaintances (they aren’t friends really are they?). I just questioned their objectivity. They chose to go on a Tommy Robinson rally. Hardly likely to be critical. Personally I’d trust the BBC more than Facebook.

Sadiq Khan? I know less than you, GP, about London but hasn’t he been democratically elected three times?

Wokeness? I guess it means political correctness to you. To me it means awareness of the need for social justice and that’s no generational thing. There’s about 15 months out of 141 years between us I think.

I’d quite like my country back too.
I’d like to claim it back from flag wavers who’ve turned MY flag from something I once found reassuring into an emblem of frustrated and spiteful nationalism.
I’d like to reclaim the rivers and coasts of my childhood from what greed, profit and privatisation has turned them into.
I’d like to be able support the England cricket team rather than a car or insurance company.
I’d like to see rugby players covered only in grass and mud rather than the advertising ‘paint’ that now adorns the actual pitches.
I’d like football crowds not to ritualistically boo the opponent’s national anthem.
I’d like to see a return to the tolerance and fairness that my parents always showed and that our country was once famed for.
I’d like to see us get rid of bent coppers, selfish politicians and crooked accountants who know how to use the system.
I’d like a properly funded state education system and NHS rather than one system for the wealthy and another for the also rans.
I’d like builders and developers to recognise their responsibility to provide a properly supported infrastructure from the millions they are making.
I’d like a fairer tax system too, where the biggest burden falls squarely on those with the widest ‘shoulders’ and when they start shouting ‘well we’ll leave then’, I’d like to happily wave them off.

Anyone disagree so far? For what it’s worth, I don’t want thousands of illegal immigrants either, but I don’t see how this is all their fault and I do think ‘we want our country back’ is a chant born out of frustrated, ignorant racism in search of a scapegoat manufactured by the likes of Robinson, Farage and, of course, Musk who are all doing very nicely out of it.

[Andy_Faber]

"So, the above is anecdotal. Can't be proven. Her story, as precis-ed above, is on FB. I know her. I believe her. The lesson to be learned is that we shouldn't tar everyone with the same brush. The likes of Robinson are reprehensible, IMO. Not everybody (possibly the vast majority) of those on the unite march are not Robinson supporters, they merely want "their country back". They want the Laws to be upheld, for everybody, regardless of race or colour or creed or religion. They want our representatives in parliament to actually represent us, not take us down paths we don't want to travel. They view it as a them and us situation."

Spot on MA, encapsulates my perception of the vox pop

I could do some cleverdicky finessing of that but just for once I’ll just agree with MA also

[MadAmster]

So who do you think people ?want their country back? from, MA? That?s the question I?d be asking?along with how is annexing yourself (not you obviously) to the likes of Tommy Robinson ever going to achieve that?

I think the answer is not from whom but "back to". Rightly or wrongly they yearn for the "country" in which they grew up. I'm a frequent enough visitor to see that it isn't the country I grew up in. There's several reasons for my thinking that and I've covered them all in the past, you know what they are so I won't bore you with repetition.

I'm not anti business. I understand that entrepreneurs need the incentive of turning a profit in order to invest in new ventures or upgrading existing ones. I also see that there's a difference between socially responsible business and what I find as reprehensible business practices. Example? Burton Upon Trent. I've described this before so I'll not repeat.

PS - it wasn't my point on "wanting the country back" that I put in the post to which you replied, I was explaining what my DJ friend had posted about what she'd experienced when she moved to the "unite" protest.

[SithHappens]

If someone takes down his fence so he gets more sunlight in his garden, but then finds his neighbours dog keeps running on to his garden, who is to blame? His neighbour for not controlling his dog or him for removing the mechanism to keep it out?

[SithHappens]

Of course

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/n...-mass-10506289

[ramAnag]

I think the answer is not from whom but "back to". Rightly or wrongly they yearn for the "country" in which they grew up. I'm a frequent enough visitor to see that it isn't the country I grew up in. There's several reasons for my thinking that and I've covered them all in the past, you know what they are so I won't bore you with repetition.

I'm not anti business. I understand that entrepreneurs need the incentive of turning a profit in order to invest in new ventures or upgrading existing ones. I also see that there's a difference between socially responsible business and what I find as reprehensible business practices. Example? Burton Upon Trent. I've described this before so I'll not repeat.

PS - it wasn't my point on "wanting the country back" that I put in the post to which you replied, I was explaining what my DJ friend had posted about what she'd experienced when she moved to the "unite" protest.

Completely appreciate that it was your friend’s interpretation of the UtK protest and not yours, MA.
I just want to understand what ‘we want our country back’ actually means.

My earlier tiny ‘rant’ - blame the sun - was suggesting that I too want my country back…to something it used to be, but I think the chant of ‘we want our country back’ has become something much more sinister.

AF, I think, and TTR certainly, regularly mock Starmer’s ‘smash the gangs’ mantra but, to me, it makes a damned sight more sense than the vacuous chant of ‘we want our country back’ which begs the questions, from what, from who, to what…and who are ‘we’ anyway?

[SithHappens]

See Trump has told Starmer to use military force to stop the boats

GP why didn't you tell us you had the ear of the POTUS?

😂

[Geoff Parkstone]

Great minds think alike Sith. I will lend by cross channel swimmer friend a hunting knife for piercing hulls on the authority of POTUS

[Geoff Parkstone]

rA "Sadiq Khan? I know less than you, GP, about London but hasn’t he been democratically elected three times?"

I believe the Donald had been democraticaslly elected twice so far, so does this mean that in your opinion he always makes the right decisions and is good for the wider electorate?

Also if you question the validity of the Donald's election victory (as some have), the same charges have been levelled at Khan too. Both have I believe had allegations of votes for sale and fake ballots in common. Allegations that is...

[Geoff Parkstone]

rA "I’d like builders and developers to recognise their responsibility to provide a properly supported infrastructure from the millions they are making."

And this said by a Derby County fan who wouldnt have a club to follow were it not for "the millions they are making"