General Politics Thread

[Benjamin_Nevis]

7 hours ago, Henderson to deliver ..... said:

His m.o. is to retweet or say something stupid, get called out for it, then mewl endlessly about it.

Rinse and repeat.

Exactly this. 

He's a minor celebrity desperately trying to stay in the public eye and has figured out the best way to do this is to post of a load of attention-seeking nonsense, then greet about getting attention. He's basically the Bennett of TV historians. 

[invergowrie arab]

Can we stop calling TV presenter Neil Oliver a historian. He isn't 

[vikingTON]

10 hours ago, pandarilla said:

I disagree with Oliver on many, many things - but he's clearly going through a pretty nasty time trying to deal with this.

A few years ago he was doing very well, and generally an uncontroversial tv historian. Now he's openly abused and his views on anything and everything are dismissed by masses of people on social media.

I listened to an excellent Adam Buxton interview today (his podcast series) discussing this very thing with a former editor of the new statesman. This woman had interviewed Jordan pieterson a while back and her and buxton were discussing the effects of these social media storms on people's lives.

It's a horribly toxic thing to go through, and i genuinely don't think we've realised how damaging these things can be for individuals.

His views on everything should in fact be dismissed because he's a TV airhead with no credible insight on anything other than how to stick a trowel in the ground.

Edited September 7, 2020 by vikingTON

[8MileBU]

1 hour ago, invergowrie arab said:

Can we stop calling TV presenter Neil Oliver a historian. He isn't 

If only P&B had a “qualified historian” to back this claim...

39 minutes ago, virginton said:

His views on everything should in fact be dismissed because he's a TV airhead with no credible insight on anything other than how to stick a trowel in the ground.

Right on cue.

[WhiteRoseKillie]

10 hours ago, Henderson to deliver ..... said:

He's a massive bell end.

I really can't stress this enough.

If you're happy to pile into the culture war shite, you can't really complain when you get pulled up about it.

His m.o. is to retweet or say something stupid, get called out for it, then mewl endlessly about it.

Rinse and repeat.

This. Absolutely this.

As Pandarilla said earlier, we haven't seen how the social media sphere can affect peoples' lives, and I wouldn't wish anyone to have their lives affected like this. EXCEPT any cúnt who validates themselves by how many followers they have, if their tweets popup in news coverage, or if they're seen - by anybody, anybody at all - as having an opinion worth hearing. As for anyone who describes themselves, or aspires to be, "an influencer"... really, words fail me.

If you build your self-image on such ethereal things as mentioned above, you're probably going to get a few people telling you you're a cúnt - and, with that kind of self-validation, probably not going to react well when it happens.

All my limited SM interactions take place behind one pseudonym or another. This way, my personal cúntishness is only on display to those I meet personally. I can then deal with any fallout personally, and occasionally address the issues identified and/or even more occsionally, meet new friends through the interaction. WhiteRoseKillie and the other wee chaps who wander the Superhighway on my behalf can take the flak because, guess what, they don't exist.

[welshbairn]

Like many talking heads he's following the Katie Hopkins model of upping his fees by appearing "controversial". After leaving uni he claims to have spent an unspecified time as a "freelance archaeologist", usually code for being unemployed, before training as a journalist and reaching the heady heights of working on the BT corporate website. Even he admits he's no historian.

[D Angelo Barksdale]

This the type of dogshit cultural marxism nonsense Oliver is into.

 

[Detournement]

We should all remember that in the actual Cultural Revolution current planet earth boss President Xi got punted out to the countryside to grow rice and it didn't do him any harm. 

Neil Oliver and Toby Young would be fortunate to get such an opportunity to develop a historical materialism perspective while residing in a cave. 

Edited September 7, 2020 by Detournement

[NotThePars]

“Maoist Cultural Revolution” the planet is on fire you baldy c**t

[welshbairn]

I'm beginning to think that the entirety of 2020's political/cultural talking points began as jokes on 4chan.

[Bairnardo]

Got sent a funny tweet about Matt Hancock earlier, then it backfired as I ended up utterly fucking seething about the c**t. He is the very worst of "privelege". Raging at the temerity of of someone questioning him or calling him out, knows he is protected but doesnt know how or why.

Then I got to thinking, imagine the c***s that live in his constituency.... A majority of whom vote for that clammy little weasel.

[NotThePars]

Matt Hancock perpetually has the face of a husband in a cuckolding video

[Bairnardo]

Matt Hancock perpetually has the face of a husband in a cuckolding video

Hes totally inappropriate for any public facing role. If you asked him to sell used cars for you, you would go out of business in a sea of scathing reviews.

[GNU_Linux]

I for one am utterly shocked Westminsters attitude to drug reform is a bit shit.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-54048122

A cross-party group of MPs has accused the UK government of the almost "wholesale rejection" of moves to tackle Scotland's record drug deaths.

It comes after the Scottish Affairs Committee published a report in November calling for a radical re-think of current drugs policy.

Their recommendations included decriminalising drugs for personal use and backing consumption rooms.

However, the UK government has rejected most of the recommendations.

They include calls to declare Scotland's record drug deaths - 1,187 in 2018 - a public health emergency.

The UK government also said a recommendation to reform the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act and decriminalise drugs for personal use would not "eliminate the crime committed by the illicit trade, nor would it address the harms associated with drug dependence".

They added: "There is a strong link between drugs and crime, which is why we reject the assertion that the Department for Health and Social Care should lead on drug misuse. We know that people who regularly use heroin, cocaine or crack cocaine are estimated to commit around 45% of all acquisitive crime."

Since 2008 the Scottish government has treated drug misuse as a health issue rather than a criminal justice issue.

On the idea of consumption rooms, the UK government responded that: "We want to do all we can to stop people having access to drugs that could ultimately kill them. No illegal drug-taking can be assumed to be safe and there is no safe way to take them."

They added: "Our approach on drugs remains clear - we must prevent drug use in our communities, support people through treatment and recovery, and tackle the supply of illegal drugs."

What are safe drug consumption facilities?

Glasgow City Council has proposed allowing users to take their own drugs under the supervision of medical staff at a special facility in the city, but the idea has been blocked by the Home Office.

Sometimes dubbed "fix rooms", the aim would be to encourage users who inject heroin or cocaine on Glasgow's streets to enter a safe and clean environment.

It was hoped the scheme would encourage addicts into treatment, cut down on heroin needles on city streets and counter the spread of diseases such as HIV.

Last week, a recovering heroin addict launched a drug consumption van in Glasgow despite warnings it could break the law.

Peter Krykant said he hoped it would prevent overdoses and blood-borne viruses among drug users.

The cross-party committee currently comprises chairman, SNP MP Pete Wishart, and includes five Conservatives, two Labour members, two Lib Dems and two other SNP MPs.

Mr Wishart said this report, which was worked on by the committee when its membership was made up of MPs from the last parliament, was based on one of the most "extensive drugs inquiries in Scotland ever conducted".

Following the government's response to the report, he said: "We are surprised and disappointed by the government's almost wholesale rejection of recommendations by a Westminster Select Committee after collecting a substantial body of evidence from people with lived experience, charities and academics, as well as legal, criminal justice and health professionals…few of these will find comfort in this response."

He also accused the government of providing little evidence to support its stance and called for what evidence there was to be made available following of a drug summit in February.

He added: "What is evident is there's little change in the government's drugs strategy despite the death rate in Scotland from problem drug use remaining stubbornly higher than any country in Europe.

"This fact itself should demonstrate that the current approach isn't working. This is undoubtedly a public health emergency."
The governments' views

All UK drugs misuse legislation is currently reserved to Westminster.

A spokesman for the Home Office said it was committed to preventing drug use, supporting people through treatment and recovery and tackling the supply of illegal drugs.

"We have no plans to introduce drug consumption rooms or decriminalise drugs. Illegal drugs devastate lives and communities, and dealers should face the full consequences of the law," he added.

"We are committed to tackling drug misuse and held a UK-wide drugs summit in Glasgow earlier this year to discuss the most effect ways to tackle drug misuse and their terrible impact across Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland."

The Scottish government has said it welcomes support for the introduction of a safe drugs consumption room in Glasgow as part of efforts to reduce deaths there.

A spokeswoman said when the report was published in November: "The outdated Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 should be amended to allow us to implement a range of public health focused responses, including the introduction of safe consumption facilities in Glasgow.

"We call on the incoming UK government to amend the Act or to devolve those powers to Scotland."

[D Angelo Barksdale]

Mind when the last Labour government sacked their top scientists because they didn't agree with their position on reclassification and in doing so torpedoed any chance of meaningful drug policy reform for a generation ? Good times.

This is an area where Holyrood needs to be bolder.

[Gordon EF]

16 hours ago, pandarilla said:

I disagree with Oliver on many, many things - but he's clearly going through a pretty nasty time trying to deal with this.

A few years ago he was doing very well, and generally an uncontroversial tv historian. Now he's openly abused and his views on anything and everything are dismissed by masses of people on social media.

I listened to an excellent Adam Buxton interview today (his podcast series) discussing this very thing with a former editor of the new statesman. This woman had interviewed Jordan pieterson a while back and her and buxton were discussing the effects of these social media storms on people's lives.

It's a horribly toxic thing to go through, and i genuinely don't think we've realised how damaging these things can be for individuals.

I'd draw a line between the likes of Oliver and, presumably, Cathy Newman?

Newman is a journalist. I don't think any journalists are really poltically 'neutral' but she's not some kind of 'activist journalist' like some are. It's ridiculous that she got piled on for the Petersen interview.

Oliver's effectively a minor celebrity. Celbrities of all kinds can get their opinions to f**k, unless you're actually prpared to do something about it, like Marcus Rashford. Anything that discourages these idiots from spouting their opinions as if we should all be listening is fine with me.

Edited September 7, 2020 by Gordon EF

[pandarilla]

Can we stop calling TV presenter Neil Oliver a historian. He isn't 

I don't think he's a very good historian but to claim he isn't one at all is a bit churlish (no-one needs a 'show us your degrees' debate).

He's fronted major historical documentary series for the bbc. I fully understand that he's not a 'qualified academic' - but he's very much a tv historian. The same applies to Andrew marr.

[Antlion]

16 hours ago, pandarilla said:

Aye but this is all relatively recently is it not?

He wasn't particularly political or controversial before. He came out as a no voter but was there anything after that?
 

Fawning over racists and deciding to wade into the trans issue (stoutly against trans folks’ rights). Zero sympathy. Oliver obviously thought that cosying up to those he thought were mainstream (Starkey, Rowling) would keep his underserved and unfathomable profile riding high. I can’t see how you or anyone can sympathise with someone who set out to court a particular branch of people only to have it backfire when those he worshipped and tried to ally himself with on issues - and these are issues separate from independence - found themselves behind the times.

If Oliver is struggling mentally - and I don’t know that he is - then it’s a result of his trying to manipulate public opinion on a range of controversial issues and losing.

[topcat(The most tip top)]

I don't think he's a very good historian but to claim he isn't one at all is a bit churlish (no-one needs a 'show us your degrees' debate).

The pecking order between qualified archeologist and qualified historian might mean nothing to me or you but it seems to mean something to them

[invergowrie arab]

 

46 minutes ago, pandarilla said:

I don't think he's a very good historian but to claim he isn't one at all is a bit churlish (no-one needs a 'show us your degrees' debate).

He's fronted major historical documentary series for the bbc. I fully understand that he's not a 'qualified academic' - but he's very much a tv historian. The same applies to Andrew marr.
 

Show us your degrees ( and your post-graduate qualifications and peer reviewed work) are literally how we decide who are historians and who aren't.

I am increasingly of the view that your reasonable man fetish is some kind of trolling as nobody could possibly hold these opinions.