Snap General Election called - The new UK Politics thread

[Son of Mathonwy]

Badenoch speaks approvingly of mobs burning down people's homes:

“There are some places where, when people behave in that way, a mob turns up and burns their homes down, and then they know that they can’t do that sort of thing,” the Conservative leader told GB News.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... s-badenoch

[Puja]

Badenoch speaks approvingly of mobs burning down people's homes:

“There are some places where, when people behave in that way, a mob turns up and burns their homes down, and then they know that they can’t do that sort of thing,” the Conservative leader told GB News.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... s-badenoch

And describing the perpetrators as "peasants" from "sub-communities". Not quite confident enough in herself to refer to Pakistani men as uncivilised barbarians out loud yet, but certainly getting more comfortable with ever less subtle euphemisms.

This is your scheduled reminder that, despite what Elon and Kemi would like people to worry about, Pakistani-ethnicity men are statistically less likely to be involved in sexual assaults or child abuse than white men are, based on the percentages of the UK population. It is also your reminder that taking a subset of child abuse rings that contain only people of a certain skin colour, rebranding them as a new thing called "grooming gangs", and making sure that gets a lot of publicity is a) very deliberately constructed propaganda and b) deeply, deeply racist.

Puja

[Mellsblue]

I’m loathe to get involved in this as rational debate went out of the window years ago, but the statistics are useless for a handful or reasons, both quality and quantity, so no point drawing anything from them. Even if you’re a titan of the internet, eg own X or moderate RR.

Edit: Smiley added to convey the tone of my post.

[Sandydragon]

I’m loathe to get involved in this as rational debate went out of the window years ago, but the statistics are useless for a handful or reasons, both quality and quantity, so no point drawing anything from them. Even if you’re a titan of the internet, eg own X or moderate RR.

Edit: Smiley added to convey the tone of my post.

The police often don’t record ethnicity properly, so you’re quite right to be cautious. It is absolutely racist to describe all men of Pakistani heritage as being rapists. It’s also wrong to focus on only those grooming gangs where the majority were from ethnic minorities.

It is also wrong to ignore a problem, which is sadly what happened in many towns and cities. If local authorities had addressed the problem properly instead of trying t9 ignore it, the issue would carry the weight it does today. Regardless of the attackers ethnicity, the state completely failed to protect hundred if not thousands of young girls from abuse, despite plenty of reports. That’s not acceptable.

[Puja]

I’m loathe to get involved in this as rational debate went out of the window years ago, but the statistics are useless for a handful or reasons, both quality and quantity, so no point drawing anything from them. Even if you’re a titan of the internet, eg own X or moderate RR.

Edit: Smiley added to convey the tone of my post.

The police often don’t record ethnicity properly, so you’re quite right to be cautious. It is absolutely racist to describe all men of Pakistani heritage as being rapists. It’s also wrong to focus on only those grooming gangs where the majority were from ethnic minorities.

It is also wrong to ignore a problem, which is sadly what happened in many towns and cities. If local authorities had addressed the problem properly instead of trying t9 ignore it, the issue would carry the weight it does today. Regardless of the attackers ethnicity, the state completely failed to protect hundred if not thousands of young girls from abuse, despite plenty of reports. That’s not acceptable.

Coming in strong there with the controversial opinion of "The police and justice system's ineptitude at catching and punishing paedophiles is bad and I don't care who knows it!"

Puja

[Sandydragon]

I’m loathe to get involved in this as rational debate went out of the window years ago, but the statistics are useless for a handful or reasons, both quality and quantity, so no point drawing anything from them. Even if you’re a titan of the internet, eg own X or moderate RR.

Edit: Smiley added to convey the tone of my post.

The police often don’t record ethnicity properly, so you’re quite right to be cautious. It is absolutely racist to describe all men of Pakistani heritage as being rapists. It’s also wrong to focus on only those grooming gangs where the majority were from ethnic minorities.

It is also wrong to ignore a problem, which is sadly what happened in many towns and cities. If local authorities had addressed the problem properly instead of trying t9 ignore it, the issue would carry the weight it does today. Regardless of the attackers ethnicity, the state completely failed to protect hundred if not thousands of young girls from abuse, despite plenty of reports. That’s not acceptable.

Coming in strong there with the controversial opinion of "The police and justice system's ineptitude at catching and punishing paedophiles is bad and I don't care who knows it!"

Puja

The failure was wider than just the police. As the inquiry has already demonstrated. And the concern at upsetting a minority group was one of the reasons why that failure occurred. Again, as per the finding of that original inquiry.

As per my previous post, the anger surrounding this would not be there as much to be exploited if the police and other agencies had done their job without fear or favour.

[Stom]

The police often don’t record ethnicity properly, so you’re quite right to be cautious. It is absolutely racist to describe all men of Pakistani heritage as being rapists. It’s also wrong to focus on only those grooming gangs where the majority were from ethnic minorities.

It is also wrong to ignore a problem, which is sadly what happened in many towns and cities. If local authorities had addressed the problem properly instead of trying t9 ignore it, the issue would carry the weight it does today. Regardless of the attackers ethnicity, the state completely failed to protect hundred if not thousands of young girls from abuse, despite plenty of reports. That’s not acceptable.

Coming in strong there with the controversial opinion of "The police and justice system's ineptitude at catching and punishing paedophiles is bad and I don't care who knows it!"

Puja

The failure was wider than just the police. As the inquiry has already demonstrated. And the concern at upsetting a minority group was one of the reasons why that failure occurred. Again, as per the finding of that original inquiry.

As per my previous post, the anger surrounding this would not be there as much to be exploited if the police and other agencies had done their job without fear or favour.

All of which happened under who's watch?

[Mellsblue]

Coming in strong there with the controversial opinion of "The police and justice system's ineptitude at catching and punishing paedophiles is bad and I don't care who knows it!"

Puja

The failure was wider than just the police. As the inquiry has already demonstrated. And the concern at upsetting a minority group was one of the reasons why that failure occurred. Again, as per the finding of that original inquiry.

As per my previous post, the anger surrounding this would not be there as much to be exploited if the police and other agencies had done their job without fear or favour.

All of which happened under who's watch?

a) I’m fairly certain you’ve missed Sandy’s point.
b) Predominantly Labour run councils.

[Stom]

The failure was wider than just the police. As the inquiry has already demonstrated. And the concern at upsetting a minority group was one of the reasons why that failure occurred. Again, as per the finding of that original inquiry.

As per my previous post, the anger surrounding this would not be there as much to be exploited if the police and other agencies had done their job without fear or favour.

All of which happened under who's watch?

a) I’m fairly certain you’ve missed Sandy’s point.
b) Predominantly Labour run councils.

I did. Or rather, I chose to "ignore it" in order to get back to the original point about the stupidity of Kemi Bad-at-this ranting about this issue when she was in charge for part of it...

On b), I think pretty much all councils are crap in the UK, no matter who runs them, and local politics needs a root and branch reform. But then again, so does parliament...

[Mellsblue]

Drain the swamp.

[Sandydragon]

Coming in strong there with the controversial opinion of "The police and justice system's ineptitude at catching and punishing paedophiles is bad and I don't care who knows it!"

Puja

The failure was wider than just the police. As the inquiry has already demonstrated. And the concern at upsetting a minority group was one of the reasons why that failure occurred. Again, as per the finding of that original inquiry.

As per my previous post, the anger surrounding this would not be there as much to be exploited if the police and other agencies had done their job without fear or favour.

All of which happened under who's watch?

The local councils were Labour run.

[Sandydragon]

All of which happened under who's watch?

a) I’m fairly certain you’ve missed Sandy’s point.
b) Predominantly Labour run councils.

I did. Or rather, I chose to "ignore it" in order to get back to the original point about the stupidity of Kemi Bad-at-this ranting about this issue when she was in charge for part of it...

On b), I think pretty much all councils are crap in the UK, no matter who runs them, and local politics needs a root and branch reform. But then again, so does parliament...

I’d agree with you that the conservatives ranting about the need for a new inquiry after they set up the last one is pathetic.

[Puja]

The police often don’t record ethnicity properly, so you’re quite right to be cautious. It is absolutely racist to describe all men of Pakistani heritage as being rapists. It’s also wrong to focus on only those grooming gangs where the majority were from ethnic minorities.

It is also wrong to ignore a problem, which is sadly what happened in many towns and cities. If local authorities had addressed the problem properly instead of trying t9 ignore it, the issue would carry the weight it does today. Regardless of the attackers ethnicity, the state completely failed to protect hundred if not thousands of young girls from abuse, despite plenty of reports. That’s not acceptable.

Coming in strong there with the controversial opinion of "The police and justice system's ineptitude at catching and punishing paedophiles is bad and I don't care who knows it!"

Puja

The failure was wider than just the police. As the inquiry has already demonstrated. And the concern at upsetting a minority group was one of the reasons why that failure occurred. Again, as per the finding of that original inquiry.

As per my previous post, the anger surrounding this would not be there as much to be exploited if the police and other agencies had done their job without fear or favour.

Again, I don't think, "The police/powers that be should've done better and should've worked without fear or favour," is a controversial opinion that will find too many detractors.

The issue under discussion was the fact that this famous set of utter failures of policing due to skin colour has been repackaged for propaganda as "Asian grooming gangs" to imply that the majority of child abuse rings are within one ethnicity, simply because this famously mishandled set were, and that therefore this is a problem of culture/race, rather than a problem of awful monsters who appear to go across most statistical groups.

The skin colour was relevant to the police's failure and important to make sure that it can't happen again, but that is a separate issue to it being used as propaganda by those in need of outrage.

And it does need to stay separate because conflating them is the heart of the propaganda - Yaxley-Lennon et al deliberately framing things so that it sounds like speaking against the racism is speaking for child abuse and vice-versa

Puja

[Mellsblue]

Coming in strong there with the controversial opinion of "The police and justice system's ineptitude at catching and punishing paedophiles is bad and I don't care who knows it!"

Puja

The failure was wider than just the police. As the inquiry has already demonstrated. And the concern at upsetting a minority group was one of the reasons why that failure occurred. Again, as per the finding of that original inquiry.

As per my previous post, the anger surrounding this would not be there as much to be exploited if the police and other agencies had done their job without fear or favour.

failures of policing
police's failure
Puja

Policing and social services and senior council officers and councillors.

[Puja]

The failure was wider than just the police. As the inquiry has already demonstrated. And the concern at upsetting a minority group was one of the reasons why that failure occurred. Again, as per the finding of that original inquiry.

As per my previous post, the anger surrounding this would not be there as much to be exploited if the police and other agencies had done their job without fear or favour.

failures of policing
police's failure
Puja

Policing and social services and senior council officers and councillors.

Yes, apologies - very correct that the fuck-up went far beyond the police. Was using it as shorthand for "the justice and protection system in general" but it wasn't a clear or accurate shorthand and doesn't cover the political bit either. Good correction.

Puja

[Which Tyler]

Kemi Badenoch criticises labour for... agreeing with Kemi Badenoch
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... ommunities

[Mellsblue]

(Playground) Politics, innit.
Labour are about to bring in planning laws they voted against in opposition. Starmer is suddenly in favour of another runway at Heathrow after previously being against it.
The list is endless for any party that is or has been in power.

[Which Tyler]

Fair point, well made.

Ridiculous from all of them

[Son of Mathonwy]

I've only just become aware of something positive about the budget! Something I actually agree with. So credit where credit is due, Reeves did something good.

The "right to buy" for tenants of council properties has been seriously reduced. Previously, the maximum discount available was £136k in London and £102k outside. Now, the amounts vary across the country but are mostly less than £30k, and a tiny £16k in London. So, while I'd rather see this scheme ended completely (and hope this is the first step on that road), this is a welcome thing, and something (as far as I could see) not raised by the press.

[Mellsblue]

I read about it in the press and Rayner got most of the credit.

[Mikey Brown]

I've only just become aware of something positive about the budget! Something I actually agree with. So credit where credit is due, Reeves did something good.

The "right to buy" for tenants of council properties has been seriously reduced. Previously, the maximum discount available was £136k in London and £102k outside. Now, the amounts vary across the country but are mostly less than £30k, and a tiny £16k in London. So, while I'd rather see this scheme ended completely (and hope this is the first step on that road), this is a welcome thing, and something (as far as I could see) not raised by the press.

What’s the logic here? Not arguing, I just haven’t ever considered it.

[Stom]

I’ll post a video as to why it’s important. A very good watch:

Simply, the right to buy makes building new council homes a loss maker for many councils, so they just have not been doing it since thatcher.

Hence the boom in house prices since then.

Removing right to buy would be a wonderful thing for the UK, though this is a good start.

[Mikey Brown]

Cheers. Will give that a look.

[Son of Mathonwy]

I’ll post a video as to why it’s important. A very good watch:

Simply, the right to buy makes building new council homes a loss maker for many councils, so they just have not been doing it since thatcher.

Hence the boom in house prices since then.

Removing right to buy would be a wonderful thing for the UK, though this is a good start.

Exactly! Great video.

[Son of Mathonwy]

I've only just become aware of something positive about the budget! Something I actually agree with. So credit where credit is due, Reeves did something good.

The "right to buy" for tenants of council properties has been seriously reduced. Previously, the maximum discount available was £136k in London and £102k outside. Now, the amounts vary across the country but are mostly less than £30k, and a tiny £16k in London. So, while I'd rather see this scheme ended completely (and hope this is the first step on that road), this is a welcome thing, and something (as far as I could see) not raised by the press.

What’s the logic here? Not arguing, I just haven’t ever considered it.

Stom beat me to it! Basically it stopped councils from building houses because it would be financial madness to do it (because of the losses the huge discounts would cause). It also transferred huge assets of the state to individuals who were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time - enriching them and their descendants but leaving out poorer people who came along later. Obviously the government needs to make a big investment in housebuilding, and it can't rely on the private sector to do so (because they will just drip feed properties to the market to prevent prices from falling), but getting rid of the right to buy is an essential step towards solving the housing crisis.