Bijou Drains
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Yes Lizzie45, everyone north of Watford spends their time in the pub, apart, of course, from when they’re cleaning out the pigeon loft, exercising their whippets, making black pudding and saying “whey aye pet”
I wonder if you would be as comfortable stereotyping disabled people or people of colour in such a lazy way.
“You know nothing about me”
Well, I know you prefer to dish out distracting insults and obfuscation rather than addressing the arguments.
It also appears that you have not travelled north of Potters Bar.
I know from your postings that you think reforms are worthwhile, despite the evidence.
I can assume that you have no answer to my point that the current fuel emergency is a result of supply side issues and that the actions you suggest will not address this, other wise you would have countered this contention.
I can also assume that your similar silence about the changes to welfare, human rights, etc offered by the Irish state without the need of campaigns you suggest, is for the same reason.
Also, based on your previous posts about former members, I strongly suspect that you were either a member of the SPGB or that you knew the party well at some point in the 1980s – 90s.
I would surmise that this did not end well.
I am however, at a loss to understand, given that you know the SPGBs view on reforms, quite why you would start a post publicising the event you support.
One last thing, if I am correct that you are of a similar vintage to myself, I always feel that using things like LMFAO, LOL, etc. when you reach our age, is a bit like when your granny said things like “groovy” back in the 1960s, you know, just a little bit uncomfortable.
Supporters of reformism, such as Lizzie45, argue that without the campaigns of the labourists and their reformist associates, “Gains” such as welfare reforms, health service support, better unemployment benefits, retirement benefits, union recognition, collective bargaining, equality and diversity reforms, et al, would only have been achieved by Labour Party style campaigns, and that without all of these Labourist campaigns, the working class would have been deprived of these benefits.
Yet the Republic of Ireland, with a long history of highly reactionary and right wing governments, where the Irish Labour Party have a long history of supporting the “Blue Shirt” Fine Gael party, have probably a more “progressive” and worker friendly state than most in Europe. So much so that many, me included, have applied for Irish Citizenship.
Looks to me like they the reformists could have saved their time, money and emotional investment shouting for reforms, the ones that were “achieved” would have been given regardless of their requests.
The term “Uncle Tom” has been used as term to describe those who were passive and docile in terms of slavery. Perhaps we can use the term Lizzie45 to describe someone who is equally accepting of wage slavery.
Your reformist view of the world clearly only covers the warm South. Those of us beyond Lancaster and Sheffield presumably are used to be be bloody freezing, so they know how cope with fuel poverty.
Just to enlighten you, roughly about 2/3rds of the area of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is North of the line between Lancaster and Sheffield. A small point but very revealing.
The problem with this particular reform (and many other reformist solutions) is that the reformists misunderstand the problem!
The high prices for energy have not arisen because of some whim of the ruling class that can be adjusted by a cut in prices. The high price of energy has occured because of a cut of in supply.
If the reform argued for by Lizzie45 and his/her friends occured, consumption would pick up and supply would disappear, so even more social distress, freezing older and vulnerable people. The logic of capitalism is that we ration goods through price. If the reform mongers were arguing for a needs based rational rationing system, where for example, the old and infirm were given bigger rations than the younger and more healthy, I would understand the logic of their argument. Cutting the prices just pushes the problem down the road while until the supply runs out.
I am not saying that high prices are equitable, correct or supportable, just that muddle headed reformism often don’t solve even the limited problems they aim to solve.
And 118 years of piecemeal reforms have achieved what? Only another cry for another piecemeal reform!
I have starting to refer to results of Russian Sanctions on the West, which makes some people I speak to look twice. I am a little sceptical about whether the population of the west will react to sanctions in a way that brings an end to the war. The track record of solving international disputes through the use of sanctions is not good. Iran, the Taliban Regime, Iraq under Saddam, Venezuala, Russia, Cuba, Syria, etc.
Regardless of whether it is from an ecological perspective or not, any organisation that targets bloody golf will get my blessing. Fucking clowns, dressing themselves up like fools and talking shite in the club house, cannot stand them!
Funnily enough in the North East we used to have a high skill and high wage workforce, they were called miners and shipbuilders, I wonder what happened to them?
I prefer a PDF, you can print off a PDF and then sit in the bath and read the Standard, not possible (well not sensible) using a computer.
Is Brexit something we should consider, either for or against. As far as I could see it was a squabble between Big Capital (pro EU) and Small Capital (pro Brexit). Either way the working class get screwed.
He was Danish, I meant competency in comparison to other Kings of the Anglo Saxon world. I was trying to avoid the term English King, because the boundaries and levels of control of the “English” king were very fluid.
Cnut (Cnut the Great) was from 1016 to 1035, not 1500 years ago.
Often seen as pretty competent as an Anglo Saxon king. If his line rather than the Norman line, the UK might have still been part of the Scandinavian world.
I have a vision of lots of conflicted Tory members, all struggling to work out whether their inbuilt sexism is stronger than their on built racism.
The Liberals might demand electoral reform as part of the package to support a minority government or form a coalition. Might actual get greater support this time around.
One thing that I am sick of hearing is that Johnson won a landslide victory with a huge majority. He won 43.6%, which is a plurality, not a majority and he only won 330,000 more votes than Theresa May.
He only got roughly 14 million votes, from a population of 47.5 million voters, about 29% of the possible votes.
