General Politics Thread

I’m 60/40 for it due to internet being considered a human right and the fact the government expects people on UC to use computers and internet when I can’t imagine being able to afford it if I was on it it makes me think it should be free and I feel a lot of people would try it then and realize the potential of it. Without internet I couldn’t apply for jobs, finish my degree etc it’s become that essential and unless libraries reopen which I doubt it needs to have easy access for everyone. Oh and this is only happening because Openreach failed massively.
 
Mr L said:
I don't know if I'd risk the blackouts though! Don't get me wrong, I'm all for nationalising the trains, an industry that's inherently anti-competitiv,e but I'm not convinced about utilities, especially power. Broadband? I'm really not sure. Would have need to look into if its worked out well elsewhere.
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When it comes to utilities, I'd much rather that the government set up a nationalised company to compete with the private companies so that we'd have the choice. It might bring prices down to a fairer level. But I so want water renationalised. When you can't change the supplier when faced with shoddy service or high prices, then it's a localised monopoly, completely anti-competitive.

thedoctor2016 said:
I’m 60/40 for it due to internet being considered a human right and the fact the government expects people on UC to use computers and internet when I can’t imagine being able to afford it if I was on it it makes me think it should be free and I feel a lot of people would try it then and realize the potential of it. Without internet I couldn’t apply for jobs, finish my degree etc it’s become that essential and unless libraries reopen which I doubt it needs to have easy access for everyone. Oh and this is only happening because Openreach failed massively.
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Nationalise Openreach, fine. Drop a whole lot of money on getting every address in the UK connected to fat fibre on the government's money, not a problem. But supplying free broadband, that's a pandora's box no government wants to open. Let's face it, a big chunk of the Internet is still porn, and you'd have the UK government as the national pornographer. Concerned citizens and puritans alike will demand that stop, but once the government starts censoring the Internet, you're looking at state control of information. Then someone will complain about all those foreign cartoons on the Internet....

Fat pipe fiber, yes, pipe all the free TV channels down there and shut off the terrestrial broadcasts, sell that bandwidth off. Offer free access to all local and national government websites, and free phone calls to the same, skype to Doctors, nurses and pharmacies, But anything vaguely consumerist should be bought from from an ISP.
 
Just Passing Through said:
Let's face it, a big chunk of the Internet is still porn, and you'd have the UK government as the national pornographer. Concerned citizens and puritans alike will demand that stop,
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Nationalised porn is an interesting concept. I think you’re probably overestimating the number of people in the UK who care about such things though, I feel like the British public at large is fairly relaxed about pornography (probably we always have been - Orwell’s Proles anyone?) with the upper-middle classes being the real drive behind prudish moralising (the upper classes pretend to be in order to keep up appearances, but catch them in private with a pig or on Jeffrey Epstein’s island and it’s another story) but few of them even care about it any more. Hence the reaction to Theresa May’s failed porn firewall, did anyone complain when that didn’t happen?
 
Taxes taxes taxes, that’s what I’m worried about giving the government all the stuff like transport and utilities. They won’t be free, they’ll just take tax from working people like me. Sure I’ll get the benefit of transport, free internet and that but I’ll barely have anything left for myself for the taxes that will pay for those, hell, I work long shifts and I’d need to live on UC as well as my job thanks to the money that never reaches my hands

Getting too into it though with a bit of philosophy, that’s textbook communism, with the government operating practically everything that would be competitive under something more capitalist, and communism works on ideals like working for the betterment of your fellow man, the UK has been invaded half a billion times and has had a tonne of immigration more recently than that, we’re all born from different classes and cultures, the UK has never worked on socialist ideals and it won’t now, money has talked far too much in our history for that
 
Captaaainuniverse said:
that’s textbook communism, with the government operating practically everything that would be competitive
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Captaaainuniverse said:
that would be competitive
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The things Labour’s talking about nationalising are the very things that aren’t competitive due to the (formerly publicly owned and sold off by the Tories) infrastructure being owned by a private company which has a monopoly. Want to build some competitive water mains and telephone lines to compete with the current suppliers? Good luck. You’d need billions of pounds and planning permission to dig up all the (thankfully, still public) roads, and I don’t imagine you’d attract a lot of investment when people can put their money into those private monopolies for a guaranteed return.

Edit: I’ve also just read an article that informed me of the fact that Tory PM Benjamin Disraeli nationalised the private telegraph companies in 1868, which led to an expanded network and the price of sending a telegram being halved within two years. Think of all the public money we’re already pouring into these private monopolies like the railways through subsidies - Surely, surely nationalisation can’t possibly make them cost the taxpayer more than they already do, and the money they make can go back into the service, instead of to shareholders who don’t give a damn about whether a business provides good service or is fair to its employees, only that it’s profitable.
 
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The key 'battlegrounds' are looking to be Scotland, the Midlands and thd South. Polling would suggest the Conservatives are doing a lot better in those places than many expected. Depends how reliable you think they are but still, those are good places to watch.

I'm in the south but somehow doubt i'm in the 'battleground' part considering the Tories have held my seat since time immermoreum.
 
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thedoctor2016 said:
I have no idea who I want to be the next leader of the labour party as I dunno what position on Brexit should we have among other things.
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I think Corbyn has been the ideal representation of the left. The reason I never voted before is because labour's leaders up till then have all basically been Tories anyway.

Sadly my constituency is always Conservative and Labour haven't really even made a real effort as their new candidate has unsuccessfully tried in a number of other constituencies and has no local connection.

This is where our system is so broken, I'd rather vote seperately for overall party to run the country than voting for someone local who may not even be my cup of tea, just to try and get the party in that I want. I'd rather have a local mp of a different affiliation that has policies closer to my heart but voting anyone other than Labour or Conservative is basically a wasted vote.
 
thedoctor2016 said:
Thats why the new argument in Labour was it Jeremy or Brexit. I think both so I will have to accept Brexit look at all the remain parties none did well.
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Well, I agree in so far as it was Brexit (which for some unknown reason enough people clearly think is more important than things like healthcare, children and poverty) and the Tory supporting elite in the media’s relentless unsubstantiated smearing of Corbyn.

If Brexit hadn’t been a thing in this election I think Labour would have done far, far better since, y’know, they had policies with the intention of actually improving the lives of people who earn less than £80k a year.

I think my short-lived flirtation with democracy is done, personally. RIP ayase’s already miniscule faith in humanity. Anyone who earns less than £80k a year and voted Tory because they believed the neolib/neocon media deserves whatever they have coming.
 
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Every election I’ve voted in Labour has lost. But I will still be a member and support it, for my dad. That’s a big thing these people would have had to break long traditions I can never vote Tory after what Thatcher did to Wales.
 
thedoctor2016 said:
Every election I’ve voted in Labour has lost. But I will still be a member and support it, for my dad. That’s a big thing these people would have had to break long traditions I can never vote Tory after what Thatcher did to Wales.
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It’ll all depends for me on who takes over as leader and which direction they take the party. If it stays more or less where it is policy wise I’ll carry on as a supporter, but if it ends up back in the hands of centre-right neoliberals like New Labour under Blair my direct debit will be getting cancelled immediately.

There’s days I wish I was a politician, particularly when I see them all spinning their manipulative bull** on TV. The discourse in British politics is, quite frankly, far too polite. If people like Trump and Farage can succeed on the right then there’s room for that on the left. It’s one of the things I disagreed with Corbyn on - I’d prefer a more aggressive, violent politics, but then one of the reasons I supported him is because I genuinely believe (and will continue to believe) he’s a better person than I am and that’s who I want running the country, not someone like me or somebody who’s a worse person (like pretty much every Prime Minister in my lifetime). But we’ve leaned now that clearly, there’s no room for decency in politics because it just gets you walked all over. Perhaps Labour needs someone who’d tell Philip Schofield to f* off instead of apologising, state plainly that Brexit is an irrelevant distraction caused accidentally by a scheming toff to win votes and incite their supporters to burn down newspaper offices.

Some days I am kind of sad I didn’t get to live in the time when political parties had paramilitary wings.
 
Jeremy Corbyn was truly too good for Britain, we clearly don't deserve him. Seeing all the centrists crawling out of the woodwork now and putting the boot in and blaming 'corbynism' is making my stomach churn. What a truly truly heartbreaking night. I really thought this time a change might come. But here we are again, but worse.
 
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