Poll: Poll: Prime Minister Theresa May calls General Election on June 8th

[gettothechopper]

Obama said similar things to Corbyn.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...llowed-libya-to-become-a-s-show-a6923976.html

Obama was criticising Cameron for getting involved for the easy shooty parts, but not for the long expensive and hard work needed afterwards to get stability and not a power vacuum or civil war
Corbyn is saying we shouldnt ever get involved.

 

[scorza]

So Corbyn's saying we'll all have to convert?

No but changing our foreign policy as a result of the Manchester bombing would certainly be seen as a form of submission by the jihadis - they were given a massive boost after the Madrid bombings when the predicted outcome of the election was reversed a few days later. Corbyn can gloat about how he was right about Iraq all along, but the cat is out of the bag now, we can't go back in time as much as we might want to - we have to deal with this threat by standing up to them, not giving into them.

 

[XeNoN89]

IMO he really believes that just by being decent you bring out the decency in other people, that is "really there beneath the surface just waiting to come out" and can't see the fallacy in his thinking.

That sounds like extremely dangerous ignorance to me.

Yeah lets all hug a Jihadi then they won't want to blow us up anymore.

That isn't how the world works.

 

[Dolph]

I'd scrap HS2, international aid and Trident. That would give us a few billion to sort more pressing problems.

Hs2 and trident replacement only yield about 4 or 5bn a year if they are cancelled. In a budget of 700bn or so a year, that's peanuts.

 

[Greebo]

Hs2 and trident replacement only yield about 4 or 5bn a year if they are cancelled. In a budget of 700bn or so a year, that's peanuts.

Its not though. Im fed up with hearing rebuttals that "its only a billion, its only 500m, its only 4 billion" and each of them are meaningless in the scale of what we spend when if you start adding them up they become very large.

On the opposite foot you could argue that the one billion the govt is looking to save with their Dementia Tax is equally just peanuts and hence not worth doing.

 

[dowie]

No but changing our foreign policy as a result of the Manchester bombing would certainly be seen as a form of submission by the jihadis - they were given a massive boost after the Madrid bombings when the predicted outcome of the election was reversed a few days later. Corbyn can gloat about how he was right about Iraq all along, but the cat is out of the bag now, we can't go back in time as much as we might want to - we have to deal with this threat by standing up to them, not giving into them.

exactly, what next - do we ban certain cartoons next time someone inevitably insults the prophet again and we get the inevitable backlash... perhaps we shouldn't have intervened in East Timor a non-muslim country facing mass killings - that was the justification for the Bali bombings... basically we're supposed to do everything and anything a bunch of backwards people following a medieval set of beliefs* want us to do in case they get offended and decide to attack... even then that wouldn't be enough as ISIS pretty much wants to carry on its fight regardless.

*referring to fundamentalists and conservative followers of Islam - not *all* muslims, especially not liberal ones

 

[Greebo]

exactly, what next - do we ban certain cartoons next time someone inevitably insults the prophet again and we get the inevitable backlash... perhaps we shouldn't have intervened in East Timor a non-muslim country facing mass killings - that was the justification for the Bali bombings... basically we're supposed to do everything and anything a bunch of backwards people following a medieval set of beliefs* want us to do in case they get offended and decide to attack... even then that wouldn't be enough as ISIS pretty much wants to carry on its fight regardless.

*referring to fundamentalists and conservative followers of Islam - not *all* muslims, especially not liberal ones

So okay then. Lets say Corbyns approach wont work. Clearly May's approach isn't working either. So what do you suggest we do?

 

[Rroff]

That sounds like extremely dangerous ignorance to me.

Yeah lets all hug a Jihadi then they won't want to blow us up anymore.

That isn't how the world works.

Yup - this is what kind of frustrates me with him - it isn't a bad goal as an overarching thing to work towards in general but you simply can't just blindly embrace it like he appears to think.

 

[dowie]

So okay then. Lets say Corbyns approach wont work. Clearly May's approach isn't working either. So what do you suggest we do?

I don't think the idea that we're not going to have any attacks at the moment is too plausible. What in particular re: May's approach isn't working? Personally I'd not cut the police but frankly I think tackling ISIS is something we ought to do, I think we ought to increase cooperation with Russia in that regard - granted I don't think we need to forget about Assad but trying to achieve a peaceful settlement between then Kurds, FSA and Assad's forces should still be pursued. ISIS on the other hand shouldn't be ignored and the intervention there (something others are in line with us on) ought to carry on.

 

[Hagar]

The fact is that we are the worlds policeman, along with the other permanent members of the security council. We can make mistakes, but if we abrogate all responsibility or veto all actions, the world would probably be in a worse place.

We are also a country that does put a lot of our wealth towards alleviating poverty and providing assistance to the poorer areas. More so than many in the so called developed countries.

 

[Dolph]

Its not though. Im fed up with hearing rebuttals that "its only a billion, its only 500m, its only 4 billion" and each of them are meaningless in the scale of what we spend when if you start adding them up they become very large.

On the opposite foot you could argue that the one billion the govt is looking to save with their Dementia Tax is equally just peanuts and hence not worth doing.

It isn't so much that it isn't worth saving, but trident, hs2 and international aid are often cited by opponents as the solution to public spending problems, and they must aren't.

 

[ubersonic]

Reopening

Better late than never I guess

Polling has closed up between Tories and Labour. 8% gap according to Kantar, 5% for Yougov.

I'm not surprised the polls are closing, when you bang on about nothing but strength, security and stability for months then dozens of children get blown up by a known terror suspect as a direct result of YOUR decision to slash police funding it doesn't look good.

Yeah lets all hug a Jihadi then they won't want to blow us up anymore.

That isn't how the world works.

Technically speaking it isn't, but nobody was suggesting to hug suicide bombers, the bottom line is if we stopped killing/oppressing/persecuting the middle east then they wouldn't have anything to hate us for so there would be no future generations of terrorists. I.E ISIS wouldn't exist today if we hadn't destroyed Iraq.

 

[Greebo]

It isn't so much that it isn't worth saving, but trident, hs2 and international aid are often cited by opponents as the solution to public spending problems, and they must aren't.

Maybe not the solution but might mean something else which gets cut needed be. I would much rather see Trident spent on infrastructure every year to hopefully increase gdp per capita as currently, and for several years, we have woefully under spent on infrastructure.

 

[dowie]

I'm not surprised the polls are closing, when you bang on about nothing but strength, security and stability for months then dozens of children get blown up by a known terror suspect as a direct result of YOUR decision to slash police funding it doesn't look good.

Direct result??? While I'm opposed to cutting police funding I'm not sure how you can make the above claim, especially given that warnings were given about this person and counterterrorism funding has been on the increase? How would some extra admin staff and bobbies on the beat have stopped this exactly?

Technically speaking it isn't, but nobody was suggesting to hug suicide bombers, the bottom line is if we stopped killing/oppressing/persecuting the middle east then they wouldn't have anything to hate us for so there would be no future generations of terrorists. I.E ISIS wouldn't exist today if we hadn't destroyed Iraq.

LOL they hate our way of life whether we intervene or not, Belgium and Sweden still face threats from these groups and they're not exactly big on intervention. 9/11 occurred before the invasion of Iraq/overthrow of Saddam simply because the US had deployed troops to some bases Saudi Arabia at the request of the government there quite legitimately worried about invasion by Saddam... imagine if the West didn't intervene anywhere - rather a lot of countries would have felt quite emboldened to go to war with their neighbours over the past few decades.

 

[Andy_82]

So okay then. Lets say Corbyns approach wont work. Clearly May's approach isn't working either. So what do you suggest we do?

Personally, I don't think there is really anything we can do. Not without compromising our values liberty and what little remains of privacy. Won't be popular but we have to except we cannot control everything, we've been lucky the amount of plots the security services have stopped. It was only a matter of time before a plot would be successful.

 

[KillBoY_UK]

Technically speaking it isn't, but nobody was suggesting to hug suicide bombers, the bottom line is if we stopped killing/oppressing/persecuting the middle east then they wouldn't have anything to hate us for so there would be no future generations of terrorists. I.E ISIS wouldn't exist today if we hadn't destroyed Iraq.

There was terrorism before (Islamic and not before the gulf war) why do you think it would stop/not happen at all if we were not in the region at all? Such terrorist and some people from the middle east region just plain hate and kill people from the west. Just look at all the people killed by the like of ISIS and AQ who come from states which have nothing to do with western interventions.

Also Iraq could have quite easily imploded by itself during the Arab spring given the tensions and factions there without the Iraq wars. Just Look at Syria, which is case of what happens when the world does nothing. Started off as Bashar al-Assad troops shooting unarmed protestors during the Arab spring, UN voted on sending in peace keepers to stop the violence as part of a peace plan but ofc that was vetoed by Russia (who are still vetoing anything to do with Syria) and China leading to the utter mess we have now.


Dammed if you do and dammed if you don’t

 

[Dolph]

Personally, I don't think there is really anything we can do. Not without compromising our values liberty and what little remains of privacy. Won't be popular but we have to except we cannot control everything, we've been lucky the amount of plots the security services have stopped. It was only a matter of time before a plot would be successful.

I'm not sure if this is true. There are options for us to improve both controls on individuals and information gathering without dramatic day to day changes for the vast majority of the UK population.

In both of the last 2 terrorist attacks in the UK, the perpetrators were 'already known' to the security services. So we can use these two as good examples to investigate whether there was a failure to restrict, an inability to restrict or a failure in intelligence gathering applies.

It is true that the we can never prevent all teŕorist attacks, but that doesn't follow that we are at the point now where nothing more could be done.

 

[Hagar]

I think it was said on the radio this morning, we can and do stop people from travelling, by removing passports, we can and do rescind peoples right to return to the UK, if foreign nationals. We do limit peoples rights by relocation or other conditions. Maybe this should be increased. However the number of police involved in this is relatively small, it is mostly through the intelligence services and Special Branch, counter terrorism that this is sourced.

 

[XeNoN89]

I think it was said on the radio this morning, we can and do stop people from travelling, by removing passports, we can and do rescind peoples right to return to the UK, if foreign nationals. We do limit peoples rights by relocation or other conditions. Maybe this should be increased. However the number of police involved in this is relatively small, it is mostly through the intelligence services and Special Branch, counter terrorism that this is sourced.

We don't need to stop people travelling. we need to let them travel then revoke their citizenship so they can't come back. Let them get killed by a hellfire missile in Syria somewhere. don't trap them here with the rest of us.

 

[Greebo]

We don't need to stop people travelling. we need to let them travel then revoke their citizenship so they can't come back. Let them get killed by a hellfire missile in Syria somewhere. don't trap them here with the rest of us.

Is that possible? It would lead them stateless