Poll: Poll: UK General Election 2017 - Mk II

[Macro]

May wants her own "UK internet" where every communication is plain-text, and information the UK govt doesn't like is silently censored.

UK Internet, Only Plain Text communications and Government deletion/censorship of ANYTHING the government doesn't approve of. Source?

 

[Uther]

It's crazy how much everything is turned updside-down in this election. I now have Owen Jones on my Twitter feed, praising George Osborne to the hilt because he implied something nasty against Theresa May, he seems to be expecting people to believe it's genuine criticism because it's Tory on Tory, rather than the word of a bitter, failed Chancellor who was unceremoniously sacked by Theresa May.

And yet I can't help feeling if Osbourne was still chancellor you would be defending him to the hilt. Have you changed your vote from Labour to Con in the poll yet or are you still trolling?

 

[Trusty]

Corbyn, jesus. Free childcare yea? It's just lies

 

[ubersonic]

I now have Owen Jones on my Twitter feed, praising George Osborne to the hilt because he implied something nasty against Theresa May, he seems to be expecting people to believe it's genuine criticism because it's Tory on Tory, rather than the word of a bitter, failed Chancellor who was unceremoniously sacked by Theresa May.

Osbourne was a bit of a ****, and probably is bitter about May sacking him just so she could give the public the illusion of a new start. But he was hardly a failure, he turned a £100+ billion deficit into £14bn in just over five years. I may not like the way he did it but the results speak for themselves, if it hadn't been for Brexit it would have been eliminated either this year or next.

 

[McBain]

No I was pointing out that summarily executing a suspect without due process falls well short of the standards expected from a first would nation with a high standard of justice (like Corbyn pointed out).

I wonder if Corbyn would be happier had the US decided not to kill him. Based on his comments I suppose so, who knows.

I certainly don't see it as a tragedy anyway, and that's really where the conversation started.

 

[Narj]

Tactical vote to stop my constituency changing hands and turning blue, I'm afraid. Not that it makes any difference because most of the others support insanely authoritarian policies too.

EDIT: FPTP really needs to die.

 

[Hagar]

I'm amazed the Tories get so much support on this tech savy forum, with their zero knowledge and attitude to the internet and encryption.

Because it is a minor issue in the scheme of things, it would need a real nerd to have it as the only reason to vote one way or the other.

It is of some concern to me and I have corresponded about this with my MP. However he still gets my vote as he is competent and a good hard working Conservative member of parliament.

 

[FoxEye]

UK Internet, Only Plain Text communications and Government deletion/censorship of ANYTHING the government doesn't approve of. Source?

I'm not playing that game. Anyone who wants to can Google her proposals; they are variously and comprehensively reported all over the place.

Source = just look around.

Here's a quote from May herself:

Britain should become "The global leader in the regulation of the use of ... the internet".

She wants a blanket ban on porn.
She wants to tell Google/all search engines not to return certain search results, specified by her government.
She wants Police to be able to have back-door access to all personal data, communications, etc.

Read up on the proposals. I'd seriously use the words "shocking" and "unparalleled" to describe the regulations she wants. Commentators have described her proposals as being "worse than China; NK" in their scope.

Seriously.

 

[FoxEye]

Because it is a minor issue in the scheme of things, it would need a real nerd to have it as the only reason to vote one way or the other.

It is of some concern to me and I have corresponded about this with my MP. However he still gets my vote as he is competent and a good hard working Conservative member of parliament.

A minor issue? It's an attack on your freedom and your privacy.

Some people seriously would sleepwalk into a facist dictatorship, sacrificing freedom and personal liberties for "think of the children; terrorists".

 

[No1newts]

I saw about this, Boris said it will cost every home owner and extra £4,500 per year in "garden tax", a claim which has been totally refuted by labour.

EDIT: That article is rubbish about its claim people would see off their gardens. I suspect on the average house value of £233k, the average garden is valued at £1 to £2k so would barely make any difference on the amount of the new land tax would be.

Round were I live the plot value with planning permission is around £50k for a £250k house so that would be £1,500 so probably what the council tax is anyway or maybe even slightly less.

And I totally agree with this charge been applied to empty plots. It will stop people sitting on them for years.

The losers are going to the Chelsea brigade where the 3% of their land value will be a lot more than their council tax now.

Your edit beat me

On a general point after Brexit if Boris said water is wet I'd be off running all the taps in my house to check the fact first before believing anything out of his mouth. I used to genuinely like Boris but he's (probably unsurprisingly) just another self serving politico.

 

[ubersonic]

I certainly don't see it as a tragedy anyway, and that's really where the conversation started.

I doubt anyone does aside from Al-Qaeda members, but the conversation actually started because you said that Corbyn was wrong to consider killing a suspect without trial a travesty of justice.

 

[Freakbro]

Because he didn't, he quoted the official £32bn figure, the Radio show quoted the £52bn figure (it's also worth noting that both are quoting 2011 figures).

The figure was revised upward by the Govt in 2015 to £52 Bn...so that is now the official figure

 

[scorza]

And yet I can't help feeling if Osbourne was still chancellor you would be defending him to the hilt.

Check my post history, never been a fan of Osborne or his policies. A large part of the reason why I'll be voting Conservative for the first time in a general election next Thursday is because Cameron and Osborne are no longer setting the direction of that party.

 

[JohnnyG]

She wants a blanket ban on porn...

This would be a deal breaker for me, thank **** it's not true.

 

[McBain]

I doubt anyone does aside from Al-Qaeda members, but the conversation actually started because you said that Corbyn was wrong to consider killing a suspect without trial a travesty of justice.

That's not what I said, Corbyn thinks killing Bin Laden was a travesty, I disagree.

Trial, or no trial, I still disagree.

 

[MissChief]

Every time I see May on the telly it's 'blah blah, Strong and stable, blah blah, Brexit, Strong stable, blah blah Strong blah stable, blah brexit'. SHe's like a stuck record.

A post on Bookface said it all, and I've seen a lot of this when she gets a question she doesn't like from someone she sees an beneath her.

Former British Ambassador Craig Murray has this to say about May.

"May has continually tried to pitch this as a question of who you would wish to act as the negotiator of Brexit, either her or Jeremy Corbyn. But why would anybody believe that a woman who is not even capable to debate with her opponents would be a good negotiator?

In fact she would be an appalling negotiator. She becomes completely closed off when contradicted. She is incapable of thinking on her feet. She is undoubtedly the worst performer at Prime Minister’s Questions, either for government or opposition, since they were first broadcast. Why on earth would anybody think she would be a good negotiator? As soon as Michel Barnier made a point she was not expecting across the table, she would switch off and revert to cliché, and probably give off a great deal of hostility too.

The delusion she would negotiate well has been fed by the media employing all kinds of completely inappropriate metaphors for the Brexit negotiations. From metaphors of waging war to metaphors of playing poker, they all characterise the process as binary and aggressive.

In fact – and I speak as somebody who has undertaken very serious international negotiations, including of the UK maritime boundaries and as the Head of UK Delegation to the Sierra Leone Peace Talks – intenational negotiation is the opposite. It is a cooperative process and not a confrontational process. Almost all negotiations cover a range of points, and they work on the basis of you give a bit there, and I give a bit here. Each side has its bottom lines, subjects on which it cannot move at all or move but to a limited degree. Sometimes on a single subject two “bottom lines” can be in direct conflict. Across the whole range of thousands of subjects, you are trying to find a solution all can live with.

So empathy with your opposite number is a key requirement in a skilled negotiator, and everything I have ever seen about Theresa May marks her out as perhaps having less emotional intelligence than anybody I have ever observed. Bonhommie is also important. Genuine friendship can be a vital factor in reaching agreement, and it can happen in unexpected ways. But May has never been able to strike up friendships outside of a social circle limited to a very particular segment of English society, excluding the vast majority of the English, let alone Scots and heaven forfend continentals. The best negotiators have affability, or at least the ability to switch it on. It is a vital tool.

That is not to say occasionally you do not have to speak and stare hard to make plain that one of your bottom lines is real. But that is by no means the norm. And you need the intelligence and sharpness to carry it off, which May does not. That is one of the many differences between May and Thatcher.

Frankly, if I had the choice between sending in Jeremy Corbyn, with his politeness and reasonableness, or Theresa May, into a negotiation I would not hesitate for a second in choosing Corbyn. I am quite sure there is not another diplomat in the World who would make a different choice. May’s flakiness and intolerance of disagreement represent a disaster waiting to happen."

Why do you think she's refused a debate with anyone, never mind with Corbyn? She'd be destroyed on live Telly and the Tories know it. She's a horrible, horrible woman.

Also, why is it we should respect democracy when it comes to Brexit and Scottish Independence yet she's happy to put another fox hunting ban up for Commons vote? And why isn't she being slaughtered about it?

 

[FoxEye]

This would be a deal breaker for me, thank **** it's not true.

It's true in the sense that Google searches will not be allowed to return porn results.

You can still go directly to a site if you know the URL, etc. But no more searching for Brazillian midget fart porn and getting pages of results in Google.

Actually I don't want to focus on porn exclusively. May has labelled lots of stuff "extremist" or "harmful", and Google won't be allowed to return results for those either.

 

[No1newts]

Tax is not a punishment for doing well. This seems to be a theme that many people adopt, that somehow, taxing higher earners is a punishment and a deterrent against personal prosperity. It's not - it's asking those who earn the most to shoulder a little more of the cost of maintaining a society that everyone (including those earners themselves) benefits from. If it was a punishment then no-one would be encouraged to do their best to earn more, but I don't think that's the case.

Even if you think that the amount of tax you pay is disproportionate to the benefit you receive back, surely you can see that it's worth it for the benefit of society as a whole? I'm not a high earner in terms of my tax bracket, but I work hard, I have a decent degree and I have a well paying job - I wouldn't object to paying slightly more in tax if it meant improved education, healthcare, national transport, etc, even if they are things I rarely use, because these things improve the standards of the society in which I live. I certainly wouldn't find myself discouraged from trying to better myself and earn more simply because it meant paying more tax.

It's an unfortunate truth that the neo liberal agenda which has been what most all governments have subscribed to since Thatcher/Regan pushed by the likes of Friedman/Hayek is all around shaft everyone else and if you aren't rich you are useless as you clearly haven't tried hard enough.

It has been around so long now it's almost ingrained in the US/UK (most scandanavians remained primarily Social Democracy in broad definition and avoided this trap) it's extremely apparent we are wealth chasing society and the poor aren't worthy.

 

[JohnnyG]

It's true in the sense that Google searches will not be allowed to return porn results.

You can still go directly to a site if you know the URL, etc. But no more searching for Brazillian midget fart porn and getting pages of results in Google.

Actually I don't want to focus on porn exclusively. May has labelled lots of stuff "extremist" or "harmful", and Google won't be allowed to return results for those either.

So not true then.

 

[ubersonic]

That's not what I said, Corbyn thinks killing Bin Laden was a travesty, I disagree.

I don't mean to be rude but you can't actually disagree with a fact, you can only be of the wrong opinion. Killing a suspect without due process or a trail is a travesty of justice, especially when a first world nation with established legal process is holding the trigger. It's that simple.