I am going to try and provide an ‘impartial’ analysis each week for the December 12th election. I can be ‘impartial’ because I don’t hold a torch for any of the parties and I don’t regard any of the leaders as competent or trustworthy – which is not to say they don’t have their good points, or that there are not good people seeking to become MPs – it just that the cesspit that is UK politics just now has few political leaders of genuine high quality. But I will still vote – even if in the end it ends up being a spoilt paper saying ‘none of the above’. Or I may just vote for the least worst option in my local constituency. Anyway here is the ‘form’ guide for this week – which is already making my predictions from last week look dodgy!
It’s Been a Bad Week For:
The Tories and Boris Johnson – They have started off high in the polls but already they have had a series of minor gaffes which in this era of instant concocted outrage just get turned into memes. So Jacob Rees-Mogg says that he would have left the burning Grenfell Tower and this is cited as proof of his disdain for the poor! The Welsh secretary resigns, Philip Hammond is leaving (although most would regard this as good news). But in general there is a sense that this has not been a good week for Boris Johnson and the Conservative party.
Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP – A poll suggested that the Tories were a close second to the SNP in a number of seats in Scotland and may not get the wipe out that they had feared. The SNP were found to have lied about the state of Scottish education and this video of Nicola Sturgeon speaking at an Indy rally went viral.n alone had almost 50,000 retweets!). She came across really badly – an angry, bitter, ‘nippy sweetie’ with little empathy or understanding of those who disagree with her. The SNP has also complained about numerous things – including the BBC getting their name wrong. They are the ultimate grievance party.
Jo Swinson and the Lib Dems: Nicola Sturgeon is not the only one with a Messiah complex. Jo Swinson has decided that the whole Lib Dem campaign is going to be based on her and the possibility (around 0%) of her being the next Prime Minister. To me Swinson comes across like a student union politician with delusions of grandeur. She has had a dreadful start to the campaign with a couple of disastrous interviews, the Lib Dems having been found to have made up electoral figures on some of their leaflets – and the ridiculous lie that there would be a “Remain dividend’ of £50 billion.
Nigel Farage and the Brexit Party – Twenty of his candidates have resigned. His determination to fight 600 plus of the Westminster seats (whilst refusing to stand himself) is the one thing that is most likely to prevent the Tories coming to power. Ironically we could end up with the man who was largely responsible for us getting an EU vote, being one of the main people responsible for that vote not being fulfilled!
It’s Been A Good Week For:
The Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn – Despite the fact that their position on Brexit is nonsensical and that their promises read like a fairy story (they actually promised that the next Labour government would end poverty! Apparently under Labour we will not always have the poor with us!) – they have had a good week. Firstly it’s now clear that the Lib-Dems will not overtake them – and so they are very likely to hoover up the Remain fanatics (who wouldn’t care if a Maoist anti-Semitic Communist came to power – as long as they stop Brexit!). Secondly they have a good campaign team who will continually hammer home the NHS message. It doesn’t matter that the NHS will be no safer under Labour than it is under the Tories, because the NHS is the nearest thing to a religion that secular Britain has, all Labour has to do is keep shouting ‘blasphemy’ and they will get significant support.
Even as I write there is breaking news which may be worse for the Labour party – although it will keep the focus on them – Their deputy leader, Tom Watson has resigned (joining the 60 plus MPs who are stepping down at this parliament).
The thought of Corbyn in power terrifies me though – especially when you see some of the people he will put in power – like his former mistress, Dianne Abbott – hear seen stating that Mao did more good than harm!
Kate Hoey – Labour MP – Gave an excellent farewell speech to parliament. She will be sorely missed.
Andrew Neil – whose programme is absolutely essential viewing if you want to see intelligent and informed questioning of candidates.
The House of Commons – with the appointment of the new Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle. He is an honest, balanced and un-self-important politician – unlike his predecessor, John Bercow. To no one’s surprise – the old Speaker John Bercow admitted that he was not impartial on Brexit, declaring it “the greatest foreign policy mistake since WW 2”. Apart from the fact that WW2 was not a ‘mistake’ – Bercow seems to have forgotten about Suez. I can only hope that with the likes of Hammond, Bercow and Watson gone – they will be replaced with higher quality. But so far in a depressing, negative and bitter campaign, it ain’t looking good. Who needs Russian Twitterbots – when we have our own?!
Hopefully the second week will be better….
By the way if you want to know how surreal and unreal modern politics is then consider – Theresa May has just signed a deal with an international speakers company to be an ‘inspirational speaker’!
Ah! A common sense appraisal of the madness that is now the uk. How refreshing!
I chuckled @ “nippy Sweetie” , dangerous person with a “small person syndrome “
It grieves me greatly that she’s from Ayrshire could she not be from the east coast or even Dundee ??!!!!!!
Would love to quote some great piece of scripture, Infact didn’t I read recently
“ Why do the heathen rage “ etc
Quite apt
I can see why you used inverted comma around impartial.
I appreciate you seem to have some researched and grounded opinions but you are honest and brazen in your disdain for Sturgeon and Corbyn repeating points that are proven false.
You also appear to me to be painfully sympathetic of the Tories and Rees-Mogg his actual quote you didn’t include which was categorically snobbish and unsensitive.
Reading that you are a pastor I’m concerned that you would let someone talk about the unfortunate the way he did without including a quote to hold him to account?
Also I think its dishonest to suggest the Labour Brexit position is nonsensical as what they are trying to do is unite a country by promoting policy that will benefit the majority and then allow a second referendum that will be run honestly with clear choices on the ballot to allow the country to unite and heal the wounds of the erroneous result of a criminally ran referendum many years ago.
You seem to still be of the mindset that Labour are being run by Tony Blair and would intend to further privatise the NHS as the Conservatives have been doing and would like to do. Corbyn is 100% against this practice.
Why as a christian would you ever accept we should always have the poor with us?
I note that you didn’t include his quote either – which was basically that he answered the question by saying he would have left the building – despite the fire advice to stay put. I’m curious as to why the outrage is not against the advice given by the fire brigade – or the cladding – which was put there to further the Green agenda? The Labour policy is completely nonsensical – the last thing it will do is unite the country. The last thing the 2nd referendum will be is honest – it will include Labour’s policy (to stay in the EU in all but name) or to stay in the EU in name as well…The EU have already agreed a deal – why would they give Corbyn another one. This dishonest referendum will not include something that I and millions of others could vote for.
The first referendum was not criminal – although the interference of outside bodies like the EU and the dishonesty of the government using public funds to support their position was certainly immoral/
Your final question is easily answered. Why would I as a Christian ever accept that we would always have the poor with us? Because Jesus said so – and as a Christian I believe him. I certainly don’t think that Labour’s promise to abolish poverty in the lifetime of their government is any more reliable than their promise to implement Brexit in their last manifesto. They lied. And they are continuing to lie…In that sadly they are not alone.
As far as I’m aware there is an acceptance there will always be less fortunate but not ‘poor people’. What did Jesus actually say that made you feel this way?
Jesus’ example was to feed and heal those in need and chase out and chastise those who saught to profiteer from them. Surely that’s the example to follow?
I believe in holding those responsible to account (the tory led council that chose the lower cost cladding with the obvious fire risk) too but that doesn’t mean one out of touch tory mp can say what he likes either.
I’m looking forward to seeing more of your perspectives and opinion on the whole GE.
Thanks Paul – Jesus said that in the context of a woman who poured perfume over his feet and the hypocrites complained that this money could have been spent on the poor. By the way it was not low cost cladding – it was actually expensive cladding put there because of environmental pressures – you think the Greens should be blamed for that? Of course we should care for the poor – but turning the UK into Venezula will harm the poor. Don’t you think its amazing that its the rich and middle class who are far more likely to support Corbyn than the working class. Is that because they are very intelligent, or they care about the poor? Or are they just virtue signalling?
With a lot of the people, even those I disagreed with, leaving the Commons and not running again, it really feels like the adults are leaving the room.
“The thought of Corbyn in power terrifies me though – especially when you see some of the people he will put in power – like his former mistress, Dianne Abbott – hear seen stating that Mao did more good than harm!”
I don’t want Jeremy Corbyn in power either but to say ‘terrify’ sounds a bit hyperbolic (and against the ‘impartial’ stance you claim to be writing from).
I think terrify is very appropriate…because the people around him, his past and his anti-semitism are really terrifying…
Who are the heathen? Non – Jews?
It’s not saying he’d have left the burning building that JRM is being criticised for: although given the perilous state of the House of Commons, which is apparently so at risk of fire that every day it doesn’t happen is a mercy from God, he is basically declaring that he expects some poor firefighter to risk their life finding him as he blunders about in the smoke-filled dark looking for his own personal way out instead of going where he’s supposed to. And at least he *chooses* to work in a dangerous place – I’m not sure he isn’t even one of those who voted against the House moving our while repairs were made. The inhabitants of social housing don’t get to have a choice.
The uproar is for the rest of his comment – that anyone with “common sense” would have done it.
Even leaving out the fact that not all the inhabitants were young, fit or mobile enough to do it, tell me *any* way that is not saying that the dead were too stupid to save themselves?
And then tell me what the likely result would be of a platoon of firefighters running up the *single flight of stairs* in that building, only to meet a horde of terrified fugitives coming the other way? There’s a very, very good reason for that “stay put” directive, and it normally works very well. Any of us who has worked in a tall office block knows as much, and takes part in practice evacuations regularly.
I’m entirely with you – and have said so elsewhere – on the culpability of those who created the death trap, with only one way out, and then closed their ears to those trying to tell them of the risk. I have not heard that there was ever a practice evacuation or fire drill: I stand to be corrected if there was.
On the other point: that the poor may be always with us may be true, but I never got the impression from Jesus’s speech that He thought it was a good thing, or that we should be content to leave them to die. Nor do I think that even the most wide-eyed student Corbynite (not that I know any) believes that it’s possible to eradicate all poverty or pain. But that is not an excuse I’d care to try on the Day of Judgement for doing nothing at all – far less persecuting the poor in the bizarre belief that you can terrify people into working for less than it costs to survive. When did we lose the idea that employment was a fair exchange (the employer needs work done, the worker needs money to eat) and make it into a pure exercise of brute power?
Personally, I only vote because people died for me to be able to: I might as well throw my ballot off the end of the local (famously long) Pier, because it’s a rock solid Tory seat and never won’t be. But vote I will: so long as I’m still allowed to do so. And so, I hope, will we all.
David, The Scottish Family Party is fielding a candidate, Richard Lucas, in the Skye, Ross and Cromarty constituency. Worth a consideration.