Some on the right of the Conservative Party have call Rushi Sunak Socialist. How Socialist can a Conservative Party PM who was one of the Bankers who caused the crash and has a rich wife and father-in-law be? Look out Corbyn Sunak is after your crown.
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But like in the US, "socialis" is just being used as a bogey man, it means "Someone I disagree with" and is just a different (older) version of "Woke".
There are many things that Sunak is. I would probably get me and/or the ship in trouble if I said most of them.
It's such a bizarre world I am glad I am old and won't be here to see the 'Fall of Rome' - so to speak.
That’s all.
They think he's socialist because the Treasury spent money during COVID. It's a bit of baby-brained political thinking that is not uncommon online and increasingly in parts of the press; socialism is when you are spending money and the more money you spend the more socialist it is.
Except on police, prisons, schemes to export refugees, or defence.
And Keir Starmer is a Labour MP, so what? He's not a socialist either.
I took @Telford's comment in the spirit of an exchange allegedly taking place between Franklin Roosevelt and a reporter...
REPORTER: Mr. President, are you a Communist?
FDR: No.
REPORTER: Are you a fascist?
FDR: No.
REPORTER: What are you, then?
FDR: Well, I'm a Christian. And a Democrat.
Now, granted, the conversation might have gotten a little more complicated had the reporter asked him how he would situate his ideology in relation to that of other Democrats.
That had not stopped other Conservatives MPs calling him Socialist. They want there extreme right wing views to appear normal for the Cons. Instead of running the country they are playing bloody political games.
NB...Nothing wrong with being a socialist by the way.
Does he? He used to say so 3 years ago, but I'm not sure he's said it recently and even if he did there's no reason to believe he's sincere.
In the same way, the Tory Party is a Grand Coalition of paternalistic liberals, free-marketers, libertarians, and neo-fascists.
With an FPTP voting system the only way to get elected is to form your coalition before the polls and pretend to be a united Party.
This.
Not right now, no. But they'll wonder why things are still shit in 5 years' time.
We'll be lucky (or not, depending on your POV) to still be alive.
Some no-cost reforms could be carried out, but then you have to overcome the political opposition to change, which is extraordinarily common in this country. Only today I was reading about a proposed new railway station. You might think that would be uncontroversial. But no, people are arguing the toss over whether it is a good idea/necessary or not.
All I expect is that a future government shall have minimal corruption. Even that is a big ask, given human nature.
How times have changed.
John Crace in today's Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/jan/02/jimmy-dimly-lights-our-way-to-the-glorious-gospel-of-rish
Repent, and believe!
The EU as a whole is somewhat to the political left of the UK average, so from that point of view, "rejoining the EU" looks like a "left" policy, as it hitches the UK more tightly to a political entity that is on average to the left of the UK.
People who like to make this complaint also like to talk about being happy with the EEC when it was "just" a trade bloc, but they don't want interference from the EU with regard to things like providing rights to workers.
As always, what the EU documents say, how the UK government interprets them, and how they are portrayed in the media are three rather different things.
Presumably some people live near the site of this proposed rail station, and so would be adversely affected by both the construction of the station, and by the increased traffic in their area caused by people using the station.
They might also benefit from the better transport links caused by the presence of the station - both in terms of increased property value, and in terms of the actual utility of being able to more easily travel to places by rail.
People will naturally disagree about whether the benefits are worth the costs, not least because the amount of benefit an individual person derives from this new station is strongly dependent on where and how they actually want to travel.
And of course it makes a difference what service is proposed for this new station. A regular commuter service to your local city is a rather different prospect from a twice-a-day wander-slowly-around-the-region route.
Reform UK are bonkers. If the gods are kind, they'll go the way of the UKippers...
Worse, there were people confirming that they'd done so.
On an even more unhappy note (well, IMHO), Sushi Rinak says he won't call an general election until the second half of this year.
O! dread Lord Cthulhu (and dread Lord Yog-Sothoth, if you're not too busy)! Come! Save us from this incessant insanity!
I know I should be careful what I wish for, but sooner would surely be better than later...
Well, sooner would be better for Labour, which is why Sunak will likely exercise his right under Westminister to go with later.
Still, all he has to do is to say that the cost-of-living crisis is over, the NHS is all tickety-boo, and that all the horrid illegal people have been flown to Rwanda, or Ruritania, because everything that he says IS TRUE...according to some fuckwits, that is...
I suspect he's in full-on 'something will turn up mode' - having said that, *if* inflation is under 2% in April as somewhere I've seen suggests (but helpfully can't remember where) and *if* the UK somehow dodges a recession that the Eurozone goes into (both big ifs) then something just might turn up - enough to stem some losses, but not enough to win is my guess, but if you've got colleagues wanting their seats saved, probably from his point of view worthwhile I suppose.
I remember how miffed my late in-laws (traditional, old-fashioned "shire" Tories) were when the Referendum party - Goldsmith's lot - split the Tory vote in Colchester (which had probably been Tory since Roman times), and they got a Liberal MP.
I detect a split between conservatives and the radical right. The problem is that the radical right wants to keep the brand 'Conservative' for themselves as it is a 'trade mark' that a lot of traditional voters will still vote for. But by definition, you cannot be both radical and conservative.
Hence this tendency to diss moderate one-nation Conservatives as socialists. It's nonsense, but a lot of the hard-of-thinking will swallow it whole as it suits their prejudices. In short, this Conservative government has failed because it is 'socialist' and of course 'socialism' always fails. It's a very comforting doctrine for a certain kind of 'thinker'.
I see no current examples of similar people. They may exist, I suppose. But I do know that many people who call themselves Conservatives these days would regard Dame Kathleen as a dangerous leftie.
True, perhaps, but she still stayed in the party whilst the Mad King, followed by the Mad Queen, knackered up the country...