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  • LeoliansBro 5 Feb 2013 12:52:08 35,901 posts
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    Plus PR is shit.

    The parties are pretty much all for the same thing at the moment. Some differences on austherity aside, it's almost always the party in power doing the practical (and often unavoidable) thing and the opposition decrying it, whatever it may be, to make the government look bad. PR would give all sorts of opposition parties real leverage and all sorts of extreme garbage would need to be included to get bills passed.

    LB, you really are a massive geek.

  • Chopsen 5 Feb 2013 13:11:03 13,795 posts
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    Kanjin wrote:
    How are Labour Socialist these days? If anything I thought they were more right wing than ever.
    Well, it's all relative, innit :)

    Generally, many of their policies focus on investment in "state" services from taxation, particularly on their plans for growth. They're not hard-line communist party, no, and certainly they are more centre than they used to be. I'd have a hard time calling them right wing though?

    (Though is the Big Society a socialist idea...? :))

    Edited by Chopsen at 13:11:22 05-02-2013

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  • LeoliansBro 5 Feb 2013 13:13:49 35,901 posts
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    Chopsen wrote:

    (Though is the Big Society a socialist idea...?)
    I'd say absolutely not. Socialism is all about collective bargaining and centralised control to ensure everyone is treated fairly. Big Society (and right wing politics generally) is all about individual freedoms, personal control of your future and responsibility for your own well being.

    LB, you really are a massive geek.

  • Chopsen 5 Feb 2013 13:17:56 13,795 posts
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    But it is a collectivist idea, though isn't it? Just because it operates at a local level and not a national level, doesn't make it about individual freedoms. It's about what the community wants. I don't see why socialism needs to be equated with national level autocracy.

    The national independence parties (Plaid Cymru and SNP) position themselves as socialist, but they're talking about localism not nationalist policy. Though obviously they'd like it be their nation, they are talking about localised collectivism.

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  • LeoliansBro 5 Feb 2013 13:23:23 35,901 posts
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    Of course, but it's a sliding scale. The further left you go, the more centralised you expect to see everything. Obviously there's always going to be some collectivism, just as there is always going to be some individual responsibility.

    It's a move away from Gordon Brown's central bureaucratic behemoth, anyway.

    LB, you really are a massive geek.

  • Moot_Point 5 Feb 2013 13:26:56 1,109 posts
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    darkmorgado wrote:
    You think it's bad having a coalition of 2 parties now with all the bickering that goes on between them? Imagine what it would be like if we suddenly had to have a coalition of about a dozen different ones just to have a government
    Like the EU?

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  • disusedgenius 5 Feb 2013 13:29:49 4,936 posts
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    LeoliansBro wrote:
    Of course, but it's a sliding scale. The further left you go, the more centralised you expect to see everything.
    No different to the right sliding into fascism, really. That's more of an authoritarian/liberal divide. The Big Society is an odd one - combines the right will individualism with the socialist self-ownership (that 'owning the means of production' stuff is still socialism, isn't it?). Basically they seem to have worked out a liberal way of fucking you over in contrast to the more traditional authoritarian ways. Enough rope to hang yourself and all that...
  • darkmorgado 5 Feb 2013 13:53:35 22,983 posts
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    Moot_Point wrote:
    darkmorgado wrote:
    You think it's bad having a coalition of 2 parties now with all the bickering that goes on between them? Imagine what it would be like if we suddenly had to have a coalition of about a dozen different ones just to have a government
    Like the EU?
    Heh :) Pretty much.

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  • Chopsen 5 Feb 2013 14:16:20 13,795 posts
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    It is indeed all about sliding scales. Though people always think in absolutes, and I think that leads to a lot of frustration in the electorate.

    I like coalitions fwiw, because it forces the issue of compromise in to the limelight. As long as it does it in a way that achieves a workable government, it's all good. Just because a given politician or party is not doing exactly the one thing their manifesto that you agreed with to the exclusion of all other things including reality, it doesn't mean they've sold out.

    (though the lib dems have)

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  • DaM 5 Feb 2013 14:19:49 11,835 posts
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    Did one of them just suggest legalising marrying your sister?

    To solve the issue religion, they should just withdraw the power of churches to marry people, and make all marriages civil. If a religious blessing is required, they can go on and do that after.
  • disusedgenius 5 Feb 2013 15:14:16 4,936 posts
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    DaM wrote:
    To solve the issue religion, they should just withdraw the power of churches to marry people, and make all marriages civil. If a religious blessing is required, they can go on and do that after.
    That's why they have to sign the registry after the service currently, no?

    Edited by disusedgenius at 15:14:29 05-02-2013
  • DaM 5 Feb 2013 15:27:57 11,835 posts
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    disusedgenius wrote:
    DaM wrote:
    To solve the issue religion, they should just withdraw the power of churches to marry people, and make all marriages civil. If a religious blessing is required, they can go on and do that after.
    That's why they have to sign the registry after the service currently, no?
    Well yes, but the minister/vicar/iman carries out the service - I think the words/vows have some legal meaning too.
  • RedSparrows 5 Feb 2013 15:39:33 17,495 posts
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    Moot_Point wrote:
    darkmorgado wrote:
    You think it's bad having a coalition of 2 parties now with all the bickering that goes on between them? Imagine what it would be like if we suddenly had to have a coalition of about a dozen different ones just to have a government
    Like the EU?
    If there's a table, would you want to be at it, or waiting in the ante-room, ear to the thick doors?

    P.S. if you're looking a way to suggest that the EU is undemocratic, using an analogy of PR is not it.

    Edited by RedSparrows at 15:42:43 05-02-2013
  • disusedgenius 5 Feb 2013 15:41:38 4,936 posts
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    DaM wrote:
    Well yes, but the minister/vicar/iman carries out the service - I think the words/vows have some legal meaning too.
    Of course (on the first point, I don't see how your second statement is true there), but the registry thing which legally says you're married is a secular document - it's just being signed in a religious building.
  • DaM 5 Feb 2013 15:51:04 11,835 posts
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    disusedgenius wrote:
    DaM wrote:
    Well yes, but the minister/vicar/iman carries out the service - I think the words/vows have some legal meaning too.
    Of course (on the first point, I don't see how your second statement is true there), but the registry thing which legally says you're married is a secular document - it's just being signed in a religious building.
    If they don't want to marry homosexuals, then this right should be removed from them. Marriage is a legal state, not a religious one.
  • disusedgenius 5 Feb 2013 16:11:28 4,936 posts
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    Seems cheaper and easier to just let whoever did the service carry on witnessing the signing as they do now. Less antagonistic as well.
  • DaM 5 Feb 2013 16:11:36 11,835 posts
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    DaM wrote:
    disusedgenius wrote:
    DaM wrote:
    Well yes, but the minister/vicar/iman carries out the service - I think the words/vows have some legal meaning too.
    Of course (on the first point, I don't see how your second statement is true there), but the registry thing which legally says you're married is a secular document - it's just being signed in a religious building.
    If they don't want to marry homosexuals, then this right should be removed from them. Marriage is a legal state, not a religious one.
    To be fair I can't imagine why you would want to have anything to do with a religion that would not marry you.
  • El_MUERkO 5 Feb 2013 16:15:01 16,216 posts
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    @DaM

    I saw that, he was proposing a Civil Union law that'd give the legal rights of marriage to any two people. Not something I'd be opposed to as it's nothing to do with incest it's related to caring for the heavily disabled and the like.

    However he was still a grossly offensive shitbag with regards marriage being between a man and women. Many of the religiously opposed people like to suggest marriage is somehow a catholic creation when people have been doing it in one form or another for all of recorded history.
  • disusedgenius 5 Feb 2013 16:16:36 4,936 posts
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    DaM wrote:
    To be fair I can't imagine why you would want to have anything to do with a religion that would not marry you.
    If it's your religion then it's your religion, seems fair they'd want big moment in their lives acknowledged by their god.

    I don't see what it has to do with this though- they're not going to force churches do perform same-sex marriages anyway.
  • LeoliansBro 5 Feb 2013 16:25:50 35,901 posts
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    Sigh.

    So, bluff Northern 'expert' putting the world to rights in an interview for the BBC on yesterday's Government announcements on the banking sector. He recommends that the government goes further and splits up Lloyds HBoS and RBS and brings back something similar like the old Building Societies, that made money by simply 'taking customer deposits for which they got a little bit of interest and then lending these out as mortgages.'

    Question for the class - what has he misunderstood?

    LB, you really are a massive geek.

  • DaM 5 Feb 2013 16:30:04 11,835 posts
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    They make bugger all money doing this? And it's this money they use to speculate?

    Edited by DaM at 16:31:02 05-02-2013
  • LeoliansBro 5 Feb 2013 16:39:23 35,901 posts
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    Nope, that's the basic method banks use to make money anyway (after all, they are 'speculating' on the people drawing mortgages).

    Banks failed for two reasons.

    1) It wasn't clear where the ultimate risk lay with various loans. They made high risk unsecured loans and then packaged and passed these around with their own guarantees (as they were hugely bigger than the loans). This is the thing we need to fix.

    2) They mismatched liquidity from the money they borrowed and the money they lent. This was the problem that Northern Rock had - if all the customers turn up wanting their money at once, and that money has currently been promised to other people for 30 years, then someone's going to be unhappy.

    So this expert isn't addressing 1) and is suggesting that 2) isn't something that we should 'go back to', like we're not doing it anyway.

    LB, you really are a massive geek.

  • Moot_Point 5 Feb 2013 16:54:36 1,109 posts
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    RedSparrows wrote:
    Moot_Point wrote:
    darkmorgado wrote:
    You think it's bad having a coalition of 2 parties now with all the bickering that goes on between them? Imagine what it would be like if we suddenly had to have a coalition of about a dozen different ones just to have a government
    Like the EU?
    If there's a table, would you want to be at it, or waiting in the ante-room, ear to the thick doors?
    darkmorgado made a point about coalition governments, which can be equally equated to the EU.
    RedSparrows wrote:
    P.S. if you're looking a way to suggest that the EU is undemocratic, using an analogy of PR is not it.
    You may think that the EU is democratic, but unless the central banks OK the budgets for policy to be implemented, who really has the power?

    Edited by Moot_Point at 17:10:20 05-02-2013

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  • kalel 5 Feb 2013 17:49:24 77,130 posts
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    Anyone following the gay marriage debate?

    I was actually with this guy...
    Roger Gale, Conservative

    "There is a way forward. It's been suggested, but it's been ignored. I don't subscribe to it myself, but I recognise the merit in the argument, and that is this: if the government is serious about this, take it away, abolish the civil partnerships bill, abolish civil marriage, and create a civil union bill that applies to all people regardless of the sexuality, or their relationships...
    Until he said this:
    ... and that means brothers and brothers, and sisters and sisters, and brothers and sisters as well. That would be a way forward."

    How can politicians use that kind of bullshit strawman rhetoric? WE wouldn't stand for that kind of thing on here for a second. How do they get away with it?
  • darkmorgado 5 Feb 2013 17:50:46 22,983 posts
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    DaM wrote:
    Did one of them just suggest legalising marrying your sister?
    Yep. One of them earlier on the back benches shouted "it's a gay conspiracy" earlier too.

    It's like playing "spot the homophobe" on the tory benches this afternoon.

    Edited by darkmorgado at 17:51:06 05-02-2013

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  • darkmorgado 5 Feb 2013 17:53:29 22,983 posts
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    kalel wrote:
    Anyone following the gay marriage debate?

    I was actually with this guy...
    Roger Gale, Conservative

    "There is a way forward. It's been suggested, but it's been ignored. I don't subscribe to it myself, but I recognise the merit in the argument, and that is this: if the government is serious about this, take it away, abolish the civil partnerships bill, abolish civil marriage, and create a civil union bill that applies to all people regardless of the sexuality, or their relationships...
    Until he said this:
    ... and that means brothers and brothers, and sisters and sisters, and brothers and sisters as well. That would be a way forward."

    How can politicians use that kind of bullshit strawman rhetoric? WE wouldn't stand for that kind of thing on here for a second. How do they get away with it?
    There has been an awful lot of that this afternoon unfortunately. It's genuinely worrying to hear some of the things that have been said.

    Obviously Peter Bone, Stewart Jackson and Iain Paisley couldn't resist the opportunity to have a rant about the gays.

    And IIRC, they get away with it because whatever is said in Parliament has immunity from legal proceedings.

    Edited by darkmorgado at 17:54:57 05-02-2013

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  • kalel 5 Feb 2013 17:54:20 77,130 posts
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    It's astonishing how many against the Bill have essentially argued semantics. Is that really the best they can come up with?
  • darkmorgado 5 Feb 2013 17:55:56 22,983 posts
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    kalel wrote:
    It's astonishing how many against the Bill have essentially argued semantics. Is that really the best they can come up with?
    What makes me roll my eyes is the amount of people saying "all of the people who have written to me are against it".

    Well yes, but people don't really tend to write to politicians when they're happy about things.

    What made me raise an eyebrow earlier was when a Tory MP said that in a private discussion with the PM, Cameron had described civil partnerships/gay marriage as "marriage lite".

    Which shouldn't surprise me, given his voting history on gay issues (he voted against scrapping Section 28 for example), but it says a lot about his real feelings and the front he puts on to get the gay vote.

    Edited by darkmorgado at 17:59:34 05-02-2013

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  • Deckard1 5 Feb 2013 17:58:20 19,190 posts
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    I hope someone plays the "Adam and Steve" gambit soon.
  • LeoliansBro 5 Feb 2013 17:58:55 35,901 posts
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    That's the most outrangeous strawman!

    LB, you really are a massive geek.

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