• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Galloway is back

For our non-UK folk, the Telegraph's nickname is often "Torygraph" because of its influence with and support of the Tories.
 
Darat said:
For our non-UK folk, the Telegraph's nickname is often "Torygraph" because of its influence with and support of the Tories.
Click to expand...


It's said that it was the Telegraph which encouraged Johann Lamont, the Labour Party leader in Scotland, to lodge an official complaint about the First Minister's behaviour.

http://www.newsnetscotland.com/inde...urs-distribution-of-tea-party-complaint-story

It's hard to know just how true this is, but NNS does have some rudimentary journalistic standards. The thesis is that the Telegraph wanted to run with a story about the SNP leader entertaining a major party donors to cover up the Tory "cash for access" scandal. Labour initially regarded the Weir story as "too petty" to pursue, but were persuaded by the Tory-supporting broadsheet.

The difference is that the Tories were charging businessmen £250,000 for an meeting with the PM, with heavy hints that they would be able to use the meeting to influence policy to favour their business interests. The Weirs, who were invited to tea at Bute House, were long-standing SNP members and activists who had won the lottery. There was no question of them being solicited for a donation in order to influence policy to suit their business interests. Bute House is Alex Salmond's home, as FM. He is allowed to invite people to tea, even longstanding party members, even if they have just become eye-poppingly rich.

It's the concept that the Labour party actually went along with this idea, apparently preferring to assist the Torygraph in burying bad news for the Tories by smearing the SNP, than to allow the "cash for access" story to run unopposed.

Rolfe.
 
Last edited:
andyandy said:
Easy answer - I don't support him. I do support the widening of the political sphere to allow anti-war,
Click to expand...
Galloway is not anti-war, he's just against the side the UK is on.

He is pro-war when it comes to any power that wants to fight the west. You have been completely duped if you think he is anti-war.
 
I heard Galloway was the actual cause of the extinction of the dinosaurs, not to mention the mastermind behind the Great Train Robbery, the inventor of root canal surgery and the guy who sold Mount Doom to Sauron. The disappearance of all those children in Hamlyn has his fingerprints all over it too.

Some people are so evil it should be illegal even to think about them.
 
WildCat said:
Galloway is not anti-war, he's just against the side the UK is on.

He is pro-war when it comes to any power that wants to fight the west. You have been completely duped if you think he is anti-war.
Click to expand...


If you think that was what andyandy was posting then you have totally
misunderstood his posts.

andyandy has been describing the platform that Galloway and his "party" campaigned on.
 
Democracies can fail badly. Democracies can collapse.

And people like Galloway are the harbingers. The man has no talent for governing competently, or even any detectable desire to do so. He is a demagogue. A wide, flapping mouth. Nothing more.
 
Toontown said:
Democracies can fail badly. Democracies can collapse.

And people like Galloway are the harbingers. The man has no talent for governing competently, or even any detectable desire to do so. He is a demagogue. A wide, flapping mouth. Nothing more.
Click to expand...

And saying so appears to excuse you listening to, let alone hearing, analysing or competently commentating on the words that trip from his wide flapping mouth.

How dare he speak :o

What demonstrates a talent for governing competently? Other than the obvious ''choosing the policies I would choose'? I've always held that those who desire power least deserve it, but stepping into your world for a moment, why should George desire to govern? He appears to desire to oppose government. Opposition is an essential part of democratic government, is it not? Actually, stepping into your world for a moment, no it isn't. The opposition should shut their wide flapping mouths.
 
commandlinegamer said:
I merely provided it as an example of typical GG rhetoric.

I was however a bit scared at how much of Charles Moore's post* regarding the coaltion's flaws yesterday in the Telegraph I found not to be completely objectionable.

* - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pol...der-what-do-this-lot-know-about-anything.html
Click to expand...

That's a really good article, actually. I think he gets it right when he shows that Call me Dave's affected casualness may have seemed friendly and down-to-Earth in opposition but when he's lounging about with all the security surrounding him it just makes him look arrogant.

I don't know why this coalition hasn't fallen yet, but...

Toontown said:
Democracies can fail badly. Democracies can collapse.

And people like Galloway are the harbingers. The man has no talent for governing competently, or even any detectable desire to do so. He is a demagogue. A wide, flapping mouth. Nothing more.
Click to expand...

Ha ha ha ha ha!

I'm not sure if this is another invitation for everyone to soil their undies or if you are cackling with glee but the sky has not fallen.

Indeed he is a wide flapping mouth and "nothing more" is pretty much correct. He's not one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
 
Why is he even allowed to hold office? He should be in jail for financing a designated terrorist organization.
 
angrysoba said:
Dennis Skinner is really from another generation. It's nice to see people like him still there but most of the House of Commons has been taken over by an army of very bland PR-trained people with very little interest in ideology. It doesn't really matter which party they are from because ultimately they are all the same.

People like Skinner are really just the last of a different breed. In fact, Tony Benn and Margaret Thatcher are these days pined for by some of the same people only because they at least stood for something and weren't useless grey suits.
Click to expand...


I used to be able to put a name to pictures of all the cabinet and shadow cabinet, but nowadays so many of them look like clones that I can only recognise the main ones*.

If only they'd cloned Skinner or Benn instead of Blair! [/nostalgia]






*Or is it just me getting old? :eek:
 
jiggeryqua said:
I've always held that those who desire power least deserve it, but stepping into your world for a moment, why should George desire to govern?
Click to expand...

Because that's the job he got elected to do.

He appears to desire to oppose government. Opposition is an essential part of democratic government, is it not? Actually, stepping into your world for a moment, no it isn't. The opposition should shut their wide flapping mouths.
Click to expand...

There is nothing axiomatically good about any and all opposition. Furthermore, I note that you aren't even trying to defend his actual positions. It's only by abstracting the issues to one of generic, content-free opposition that you can make an even superficially credible defense of Galloway. But that's all it is: superficial.
 
Ziggurat said:
Because that's the job he got elected to do.
Click to expand...

No. Simply no, and you should be embarrased to have made that mistake. He got elected as a member of parliament to represent his constituents. Feel free to show evidence that he performs less than averagely in that regard.

Meanwhile, we (in the uk at least) are governed by our government, which does not include all MPs of the leading parties, let alone staunch oppositionists like Galloway.

Ziggurat said:
There is nothing axiomatically good about any and all opposition. Furthermore, I note that you aren't even trying to defend his actual positions. It's only by abstracting the issues to one of generic, content-free opposition that you can make an even superficially credible defense of Galloway. But that's all it is: superficial.
Click to expand...

I am not trying to defend his positions. Well spotted. I am not delivering instructional information on underwater soot juggling either. I am pointing out that opposition is axiomatically good (indeed, essential) for democracy.

You, meanwhile, are artificially shifting anything and everything to 'side with me or be a nazi' (or communist or such as may suit, I'm not paying attention to which cause you attach your zealotry). I've only been here a couple of years and standards have noticeably slipped already. Maybe it's my fault...
 
Ziggurat said:
There is nothing axiomatically good about any and all opposition.
Click to expand...

Traditionally Parliament is an adversarial body, so while it is true that not all opposition is necessarily good it is necessarily good to have (some) opposition.

Furthermore, I note that you aren't even trying to defend his actual positions.
Click to expand...

Again, in an adversarial system it is not necessary to defend both positions. In fact, it would be somewhat schizophrenic to attempt to.

It's only by abstracting the issues to one of generic, content-free opposition that you can make an even superficially credible defense of Galloway. But that's all it is: superficial.
Click to expand...

No. He was fairly elected to his Parliamentary seat, so you can defend the principles on which he was elected (we call this thing "democracy") without having to defend every single person who gets elected and all their views.
 
jiggeryqua said:
I am pointing out that opposition is axiomatically good (indeed, essential) for democracy.
Click to expand...

No, it really isn't axiomatically good. Opposition to the end of slavery, for example, was incredibly destructive to the United States.

You, meanwhile, are artificially shifting anything and everything to 'side with me or be a nazi' (or communist or such as may suit, I'm not paying attention to which cause you attach your zealotry).
Click to expand...

Well, you got part of this statement correct.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom