The normalisation of the far-right continues

[GNU_Linux]

Far be it from me to give 30p Lee credit but at least he didn't commit the heinous sins of chips as part of a fry up

[Melanius Mullarkey]

Just now, GNU_Linux said:

Far be it from me to give 30p Lee credit but at least he didn't commit the heinous sins of chips as part of a fry up

I’ll bet he had a fucking ramekin of tinned tomatoes though. The racist p***k.

[Marten]

On 17/05/2024 at 11:10, HibeeJibee said:

Agreement in Netherlands for a majority government (88/150 seats) of Far Right (PVV), Conservatives (VVD), Liberals (NSC) and Farmers (BBB).

None of their leaders will be PM or in cabinet.

Dutch populist Wilders reaches government deal after six months - BBC News
2023 Dutch general election - Wikipedia

After quite some time of speculation, the likely new PM has been revealed. His name is Dick Schoof and he is a top civil servant, so not a politician. His cabinet will likely be made up of mainly other top civil servants and high-profile independent politicians. It will be interesting to see if this arrangement will last out the parliament's term.

Considering my opinion of the Far Right PVV, I'm not happy with them being part of a coalition but it was pretty much inevitable. Having looked at the coalition's plans, it's not what I'd have wanted but still considerably better than I feared. Climate policies will stay, support for Ukraine will stay, health care (heavily privatised in NL) will have a lower "contributions" from patients when they need to use it (important for my family). There are still plenty of things I disagree with, but I feared the worst and it's not as bad as that. The liberals especially did get a fair number of compromises through. 

Edited May 28 by Marten

[carpetmonster]

20 minutes ago, Marten said:

After quite some time of speculation, the likely new MP has been revealed. His name is Dick Schoof and he is a top civil servant, so not a politician. His cabinet will likely be made up of mainly other top civil servants and high-profile independent politicians. It will be interesting to see if this arrangement will last out the parliament's term.

Considering my opinion of the Far Right PVV, I'm not happy with them being part of a coalition but it was pretty much inevitable. Having looked at the coalition's plans, it's not what I'd have wanted but still considerably better than I feared. Climate policies will stay, support for Ukraine will stay, health care (heavily privatised in NL) will have a lower "contributions" from patients when they need to use it (important for my family). There are still plenty of things I disagree with, but I feared the worst and it's not as bad as that. The liberals especially did get a fair number of compromises through. 

Magnificent names thread for this. 

[BFTD]

29 minutes ago, Marten said:

The liberals especially did get a fair number of compromises through. 

Good for them. Here they got a half-arsed referendum on something different to what they asked for, and some well-paid New Media "jobs".

[Granny Danger]

2 hours ago, Marten said:

After quite some time of speculation, the likely new PM has been revealed. His name is Dick Schoof and he is a top civil servant, so not a politician. His cabinet will likely be made up of mainly other top civil servants and high-profile independent politicians. It will be interesting to see if this arrangement will last out the parliament's term.

Considering my opinion of the Far Right PVV, I'm not happy with them being part of a coalition but it was pretty much inevitable. Having looked at the coalition's plans, it's not what I'd have wanted but still considerably better than I feared. Climate policies will stay, support for Ukraine will stay, health care (heavily privatised in NL) will have a lower "contributions" from patients when they need to use it (important for my family). There are still plenty of things I disagree with, but I feared the worst and it's not as bad as that. The liberals especially did get a fair number of compromises through. 

I will take your word that this is all accurate.  If it is it’s very worrying.

Having an unelected, and therefore unaccountable, p***k like Cameron holding a government position is bad enough.  Handing over power to a whole group of unelected and unaccountable people has huge potential negative consequences.

[Marten]

44 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

I will take your word that this is all accurate.  If it is it’s very worrying.

Having an unelected, and therefore unaccountable, p***k like Cameron holding a government position is bad enough.  Handing over power to a whole group of unelected and unaccountable people has huge potential negative consequences.

It's worth noting that the political system in The Netherlands is considerably different from the UK. Any cabinet ministers are by definition NOT members of parliament. If they were in parliament when they got appointed they automatically lose their seats as MPs (to be replaced by the next one on the list for their party). Reason for this is that in the Dutch system, parliament officially are the "bosses" of the cabinet. They need to "check" on the work of the cabinet, have to approve their proposals and so on. Also, appointments of ministers are subject to approval in parliament and not just on the whims of the Prime Minister. In theory, political power is with parliament and not with ministers. Ministers are technically seen as civil servants and not as politicians, although normally they are also politicians. Main difference now is that the new PM and possibly most/all other ministers are already civil servants to start with.

It is quite common for certain posts to not be filled by an elected politician but by an expert in that field, usually those experts still represent one of the coalition parties as they tend to be picked by the leader of their party, but they aren't even always members of a coalition party. Occasionally, independents get appointed as ministers as a result. An example of that was during Covid, when a retired politician and medical infectious disease expert got appointed as health secretary despite being member of an opposition party rather than one of the coalition parties. Due to the situation, all parties agreed that it was better to have him in that position at the time so they had his expertise within cabinet.

Edited May 28 by Marten

[GordonS]

1 hour ago, Granny Danger said:

I will take your word that this is all accurate.  If it is it’s very worrying.

Having an unelected, and therefore unaccountable, p***k like Cameron holding a government position is bad enough.  Handing over power to a whole group of unelected and unaccountable people has huge potential negative consequences.

As a Minister would you rather have someone who was elected but a rank amateur with no experience of the thing they're in charge of, or someone who is an experienced professional but was appointed by parliament instead of being elected by a constituency?

There's a case for either.

[Jacksgranda]

On 21/05/2024 at 22:40, tongue_tied_danny said:

That looks like it's from a breakfast buffet in a Travelodge.

The sausages are overdone and the bacon has congealed because the lazy b*****d couldn't get out of bed until 5 minutes before they stopped serving.

Tomato ketchup should be nowhere a full English near any food whatsoever.

.

FTFY

[Granny Danger]

13 minutes ago, GordonS said:

As a Minister would you rather have someone who was elected but a rank amateur with no experience of the thing they're in charge of, or someone who is an experienced professional but was appointed by parliament instead of being elected by a constituency?

There's a case for either.

For me the issue is accountability.  As we know only too well representative democracy is far from perfect but it’s still better than the other options.

 

[GordonS]

2 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

For me the issue is accountability.  As we know only too well representative democracy is far from perfect but it’s still better than the other options.

 

They are accountable though, in fact arguably more accountable than our Ministers.

Here some rando gets selected by a constituency association of chinless weirdos, gets 25,000 votes in Dunny-on-the-Wold, a constituency that has voted Tory since 1685, he's in a party that get an outright majority of seats off a little over 40% of the vote, and suddenly he's in charge of the NHS having never before run so much as a tuck shop. He serves as long as the prime minister wants.

In the Netherlands Ministers can be dismissed by parliament, which is elected on PR, so they need to command the support of a much wider range.

The US doesn't have elected Ministers either, the heads of the executive branch of government are appointed by the President.

I'm not claiming the Dutch system is better (or worse), there are obviously problems, just that I don't think it's less accountable.

[Marten]

13 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

For me the issue is accountability.  As we know only too well representative democracy is far from perfect but it’s still better than the other options.

 

Ministers are still accountable to Parliament though. If they lose the support of Parliament, they'll be removed. There are pros & cons to the different systems but an advantage of the Dutch system is that the ministers can't vote for their own plans which often results in more scrutiny even from within their own parties.

[Granny Danger]

39 minutes ago, GordonS said:

They are accountable though, in fact arguably more accountable than our Ministers.

Here some rando gets selected by a constituency association of chinless weirdos, gets 25,000 votes in Dunny-on-the-Wold, a constituency that has voted Tory since 1685, he's in a party that get an outright majority of seats off a little over 40% of the vote, and suddenly he's in charge of the NHS having never before run so much as a tuck shop. He serves as long as the prime minister wants.

In the Netherlands Ministers can be dismissed by parliament, which is elected on PR, so they need to command the support of a much wider range.

The US doesn't have elected Ministers either, the heads of the executive branch of government are appointed by the President.

I'm not claiming the Dutch system is better (or worse), there are obviously problems, just that I don't think it's less accountable.

Any system involving PR is going to be more representative.  That’s a different argument.

 

The Dutch system, from how you’ve described it may be accountable, but the US one is definitely not.  No Presidential system which vests so much power in one person regardless of the makeup of the other branches of government is fair; particularly in the US where they have similar problems to the PR one, namely a President who can win office despite losing the popular vote by millions.

Also, and I am not joking when I say this, I wouldn’t hold the US up as an example until we see if Trump is getting elected again.  He has already pledged to appoint zealots to run the various branches of government, that’s totally different than appointing apolitical civil service types or supposed experts.

 

[GordonS]

14 hours ago, Granny Danger said:

Any system involving PR is going to be more representative.  That’s a different argument.

 

The Dutch system, from how you’ve described it may be accountable, but the US one is definitely not.  No Presidential system which vests so much power in one person regardless of the makeup of the other branches of government is fair; particularly in the US where they have similar problems to the PR one, namely a President who can win office despite losing the popular vote by millions.

Also, and I am not joking when I say this, I wouldn’t hold the US up as an example until we see if Trump is getting elected again.  He has already pledged to appoint zealots to run the various branches of government, that’s totally different than appointing apolitical civil service types or supposed experts.

 

I agree about the USA, it's only barely a democracy at all. 

[Claudia Gentile]

For some reason I got a feed from some right wing islamaphobic organisation on X this morning.

It was a shot of some boys 10-12 years old singing 'Who the f**k is Allah'. Whichbis bad enough but then some weirdo was actually filming them. Even X don't allow unsolicited pictures/ videos of youngsters as they could ve targeted.

Utter oddballs.

ETA: Apparently from Turning Point UK. They sound like a charity or NGO project but without research I assume their not?

Edited June 2 by Claudia Gentile

[carpetmonster]

16 minutes ago, Claudia Gentile said:

For some reason I got a feed from some right wing islamaphobic organisation on X this morning.

It was a shot of some boys 10-12 years old singing 'Who the f**k is Allah'. Whichbis bad enough but then some weirdo was actually filming them. Even X don't allow unsolicited pictures/ videos of youngsters as they could ve targeted.

Utter oddballs.

ETA: Apparently from Turning Point UK. They sound like a charity or NGO project but without research I assume their not?

It’s the UK outpost of Charlie Kirk (he of the tiny face)‘s Turning Point USA. That organization is focused on going on college campuses trying to persuade American students to be mad chuds - their most recent venture is to have the fat little murderer Rittenhouse tour unis and be booed loudly. Probably doesn’t work the same in the UK where universities are much smaller in student numbers and more folks live at home so they’ve just gone straight to filming pre-pubescent children and hanging out with Yaxley-Lennon. 

[JS_FFC]

I honestly believe that most of these “far right politicians” are just thinly veiled grifters with no interest in actual power. Farage is the worst of the lot.

 

Often these organisations are bringing in large amounts of donations but pumping out very amateurish looking, low budget campaign materials. It doesn’t take a genius to predict where the rest of the money ended up.

 

Not to mention the very unorthodox way that Reform UK (formerly known as the Brexit Party) has been registered with the electoral commission. It’s effectively private business with Farage owning a majority 53% stake. That means instead of a traditional “one member, one vote” system to appoint the league, old uncle Nige can do whatever he likes including sacking the leader at any point, parachuting in one of his mates, or swanning in himself to take it over. 

[JS_FFC]

10 hours ago, JS_FFC said:

I honestly believe that most of these “far right politicians” are just thinly veiled grifters with no interest in actual power. Farage is the worst of the lot.

 

Often these organisations are bringing in large amounts of donations but pumping out very amateurish looking, low budget campaign materials. It doesn’t take a genius to predict where the rest of the money ended up.

 

Not to mention the very unorthodox way that Reform UK (formerly known as the Brexit Party) has been registered with the electoral commission. It’s effectively private business with Farage owning a majority 53% stake. That means instead of a traditional “one member, one vote” system to appoint the league, old uncle Nige can do whatever he likes including sacking the leader at any point, parachuting in one of his mates, or swanning in himself to take it over. 

Not even 12 hours later, he’s gone and done exactly that. 

[DeeTillEhDeh]

GB News unsurprisingly ranting about the audience for last night's debate and then "polling" their racist fanboys to back up that rant.

https://www.gbnews.com/membership/polls/poll-do-you-think-bbc-tv-election-debate-audience-was-biased-vote-now

 

[Dan Steele]

On 03/06/2024 at 06:09, JS_FFC said:

honestly believe that most of these “far right politicians” are just thinly veiled grifters with no interest in actual power. Farage is the worst of the lot.

No interest in power? D'ye think that pandering to knuckle dragging racists, chuntering the language and arguments from the fascist play-book, and turning the narrative to a far-right agenda is just done for the hell of it? Farage is one of the most dangerous players in politics today.