British Politics Thread

Thatcher talked down to everyone. That's probably part of it.

What about John Major*

Major was okay, he just had a lot of Maggie to live down.

Spitting Image did a song bemoaning the fact that there was nothing to work with because nobody hated him.

edited 13th Sep '12 2:00:11 PM by Michael

Says a lot about a bloke when the reaction when an affair in public office actually came out was more... general surprise he had it in him, rather than outrage.

Paddy Ashdown got a similar response. But then his official statement on his own affair was pretty much "Sorry."

Even today, people still forget that John Major was the Prime Minister. He's like the margarine in the Thatcher/Blair sandwich.

In other news, husband appreciates his wife's boobies, France gets off.

Vince Cable to announce cut in what workers can receive in unfair dismissal tribunals. A proposal penned by a venture capitalist, no less.

edited 13th Sep '12 11:38:09 PM by TheBatPencil

Part of me wants to be cynical and wonder if the Hillsborough decision wasn't motivated in some way by the fact that anything that apportions blame to the fans in any way is immediately savaged.

As it fucking well should be. Seriously. Those fans died at the hands of incompetent stadium officials, the F.A., who knew Hillsborough wasn't safe for that amount of fans and a wholly corrupt South Yorkshire Police force who forged and faked and lied and covered up as many details of their own fuck ups as they possibly could. And were aided and abetted in the subsequent cover-up by Thatcher's government, from the top down. And her tame "newspapers"

And, worse: they tried, time and again, to paint an average age of 19 as hardened, drunken hooligans out to cause havoc. Those blood-tests on even 10-year olds? Yick. Actively looking for criminal records of crushed/ suffocated victims? Yick, yick, yick.

Do you honestly expect to be given a criminal background check if you die in a fire caused by a busted circuit, a long curtain and maintenance and structural issues?

All this followed by years of dismissing the families of the victims as wingers and whiners who couldn't move on or face the truth that their darlings were culpable? When... guess what? Some might have contributed through bad personal decisions on the day, but, by no means all of them... and they were not the whole of the story, by a good 9/10ths, if not more. There were a lot of horrible decisions made, most by people who should have known better. And, should have been made accountable sooner. A lot sooner.

What this investigation has made plain is that the fans who got caught up in this were judged by the police force, even before many of them lay dying, as being both culpable and disposable should any problem arise. And, this skewed everything.

edited 14th Sep '12 8:26:30 AM by Euodiachloris

OK, I get it. I'll go sit in the corner and be ashamed of myself for thinking it.

A police constable on duty on the day of Hillsborough warned a judge-led inquiry into the disaster that there was a co-ordinated cover-up by South Yorkshire Police about failings of senior officers at the stadium, documents have revealed for the first time.

David Frost, who as a 21-year-old officer helped to treat fans in the Leppings Lane terraces, told the Lord Justice Stuart-Smith review in 1997 that his superiors made "wholesale changes" to the statements made by him and his fellow officers to "sanitise and protect themselves".

Mr Frost told the judge how, three days after the tragedy, on 19 April 1989, he and fellow policemen were taken to a pub by a senior officer and warned: "It's backs to the wall, boys. We've all got to say the same thing. Unless we all get our heads together and straighten it out, there are heads going to roll."

The damning testimony from Mr Frost, who quit the South Yorkshire force in anger following the cover-up, was heard behind closed doors at the Stuart-Smith inquiry, set up by then Home Secretary, Jack Straw. It has been made public for the first time in 450,000 documents published last week by the Hillsborough Independent Panel. The disclosure means that Mr Frost's evidence, if it had been recognised by the judge, would have revealed a cover-up by police 15 years ago, when many more relatives of the victims would have been alive.

The panel report confirmed families' suspicions that there had been a cover-up, but Mr Frost's evidence to Lord Justice Stuart-Smith reveals that the inquiry judge was warned about the conspiracy back in October 1997. In the end, Lord Justice Stuart-Smith's report found that all the new evidence he had heard added nothing to the earlier inquiry by Lord Justice Taylor.

The judge also heard that there was a suggestion that officers, including Mr Frost, were threatened with allegations that they were involved in accepting bribes from fans to allow them through the gates, and that they "feared retribution" if they later came forward to complain about the cover-up.

Link

Urgh... And, people say the Masons are not a factor?

• New charge for foreign lorries using British roads: We're charged on the Continent...
• Andy Murray walkabout: Fans turn out for Dunblane homecoming
• John Major: Economic recovery may be under way: ...otherwise advertising his new book on Music Halls*
  That is where his Mum and Dad worked, not the circus...

It could be argued that the Freemasons are behind just about every screwup for the last fifty years or so. I'm not going to come down on either side of the argument about whether that's accurate or not.

I wouldn't go so far as to say they're behind everything that goes belly up. Contributing factor? Certainly. Just as they can be a contributing factor for things ticking over. <shrugs>

Well at the very least I blame a mix of Freemasonry and Communism for the death of the British motor industry.

I just dislike closed systems with little accountability. Which... is what happened with Hillsborough. Well, let me be a bit more frank: what accountability was around was being carefully avoided. Repeatedly.

This is what Old Boy networks, etc. do, if left to their own devices and unquestioned.

edited 16th Sep '12 7:08:21 AM by Euodiachloris

Old Boy Networks of all sorts; management, workers, unions etc...?

edited 16th Sep '12 2:00:36 PM by Greenmantle

Yup... once entitlement sets in, and the feeling that accountability happens to other people... <shrugs> It's why watchdogs should be answerable. <sighs>

What's all this hubbub about GCS Es in England?

They're being replaced with an English Baccalaureate that will include core subjects like English and Maths and involve a single exam at the end of the two-year course rather than modular assessment. It's intended to reduce grade inflation and ensure that students are taught the skills they'll need for further academia and employment rather than just made to memorise facts without really understanding the subject. It remains to be seen whether it will achieve any of that; it's not being introduced until 2015, which is after the next scheduled general election and would therefore, if a Labour government were elected, give them the chance to scrap the whole thing and make their own reforms.

The tories know the eng bac will not work. The delay in its introduction was deliberate, connived with with the limpdems and done purely to ensure Labour are left to deal with the mess. The tories, and this should not really be a surpise, do not give a fuck about children's education in England. They know that they and their limpdem appeasers will be out on their arses come the next General Election. They therefore want to punish the voters in advance with an economy which will still not be sorted out and an exam and education system in chaos - so much so that labour end up having to scramble to fix it.

You forgot that they're also trying to undermine the Lib Dem support base. Which is usually students and young adults. By trashing the education system, and getting them involved? It's why I'm stunned Clegg is in on this: it's a major own-goal of massive proportions.

Reform may be needed, but not this. Going back to what was is not going to help what is. And, I, for one, am not convinced that the GCSE system is actually broken. However, it's been dragged in the mud ever since it was put in place, and that mud seems to be sticking, regardless of facts.

If reform in needed, I think it should be such that A-levels and GCS Es are kind of merged into one thing. I honestly don't see the need for a testing system at about 16, if people are going to push for students to stay at school until 18. It negates the whole point of what the O-levels, GCEs and GCS Es were originally for: getting a qualification before leaving school.

Do politicians have to change educational systems every 20 years just for kicks, or something? As, that's when they usually start to bed down well after most of the kinks are knocked out. It's infuriating.

edited 17th Sep '12 5:40:05 PM by Euodiachloris

Does Clegg even have any student support left to alienate?

This all feels remarkably rushed. One minute it's all "the education system is messing up! Look!" and now it's "Oh, hey, we've got a reform for that we were just going to announce!"

What a coinkidink.