Donald Trump. Leg End or Bell End?

[Kevin Mcleod]

Oh and apologies in advance Tarbs, i aint doing this to wind you up i swear.
This one minute speech on Brexit from the British legend was just ohhhhhh for me.

https://amp.lbc.co.uk/radio/presente...love-actually/

[Kevin Mcleod]

Earn 150k a year and are worth tens to fifties of millions. Makes you wnder why they bother eh mate.

If Trump is crooked do you not think it would of come out by now, with the whole world against him and so much of the states conspiring to get him impeached.
Shame lads banter about crumpet dont carry that punishment yet eh?

[Tarbie]

Clinton emails were well spicy last night.

If you ever need more proof of the failure of democracy, you need look no further than the 2 options in the last US election, and the 2 options in the last UK election. Both Clinton and Trump are crooked as hell (despite what some on this thread seem to think about Trump). Then in the UK we have Theresa May (and I'll don my tin hat again), who I think is just a nasty piece of work. Or Jezza Corbyn, a beardy old Lefty who has been kicking around the political world for decades without being taken seriously until the last 5 or 6 years.

The whole system is massively flawed. The idea of 1 man or woman being responsible for the social and economic wellbeing of nations like the US or the UK is hugely unrealistic in this modern age with the internet, ever expanding populations, and an increasingly informed general public.

It's also unrealistic for anyone capable of the job really wanting it. The PM last year took home less than 150k GBP after benefits/bonuses etc. In other words, less than pretty much every CEO on the planet. In return they get to be scrutinised very publicly, every hour of every day, by pretty much everyone in the country.

[Kevin Mcleod]

Clinton emails were well spicy last night.

[Fraggy]

https://youtu.be/LVYlUjRwATw

That's the man Kev.
Handsome, approachable and admits to inhaling.
My beef is that it took me over 2 years to prove to Canadian immigration that I can actually speak English, and multiple hoops had to be jumped through and many shackles parted with before I got my dual citizenship.
During my swearing in ceremony, there was 80+ of us, but only a handful who could actually speak English or French.
Also, since Mr.Trudeau's amazing gesture at bringing in refugees via the fast track system, gun and knife crime looks to have escalated; maybe a coincidence?

[Kevin Mcleod]

Jeems, I live in Canada, so I was referring to the nice guy that is Justin Trudeau.
Only thing of note that I am behind with Justin, is the legalization of marijuana

https://youtu.be/LVYlUjRwATw

[Stanley]

Hubble, BrightonR, here's the thing: When has this country ever had a PM who's divided opinion to such extremes as Thatcher did? She must have surely had something about her to achieve that? But what the #### do I know? I hear both sides of the argument and I always get them both. Some say she was our greatest Prime Minister since Churchill and they even want to build a statue of her in Parliament Square. Speaking of Churchill, I watched The Darkest Hour last night and Gary Oldman portrayed him superbly. It was a great film too. I think the reasons why we get the comparisons between Thatcher and Churchill is because both of them were incredibly strong characters who had the unwavering courage of their convictions in the face of monumental pressures and adversities, and always remained true to these convictions. They were also both natural born leaders. Overall I'd put Churchill slightly above Thatcher though, as the former had a bit more of the common touch about him, he was a better listener and more naturally compassionate. It was incredible to realise that in his true 'darkest hour' the only people that never lost faith in him were the king of England, his secretary, his wife and the general public. Whilst all of Parliament including most of his own party, had done.

[72bus]

hubble u talk a lot of sense mate , thatcher was a wicked lady and a maniac

[Hubble]

You’re making no sense Hubble. What have subsidies to rail companies got to do with overpriced housing?

And the Tory’s stopped being Tory’s when they forced out the only decent leader they’ve had since we were in short trousers.

I'm talking about privatisation. As for overpriced housing, yes, taking millions of homes out of public ownership has ####ed the housing market to the benefit of the wealthy, to the detriment of everyone else.

[brightonr]

Yes Brightonian, in other words Labour simply continued the Tories dire policies. Blairite Labour was basically Tory-Lite.

I'm no fan of the Labour party either mate. They're all shysters as far as I'm concerned. Between them they have ####ed up this country good and proper. It could have been so different if any of them had both vision, pragmatism and a genuine will to help the British people, not the global elite.

Oh, and your views on the huge subsidies handed out to the failing rail companies? The fact that most of our country is now foreign owned? Hmmm.

You’re making no sense Hubble. What have subsidies to rail companies got to do with overpriced housing?

And the Tory’s stopped being Tory’s when they forced out the only decent leader they’ve had since we were in short trousers.

[Hubble]

Hubble,
Sorry, but you don’t half talk some b0110cks.

The state of today’s housing problems are nothing other than a combination of a failure of governments of both sides to replenish housing stock when necessary and a complete and utter mismanagement of the financial services sector between 1997 and 2010. And to be totally balanced, the Tory’s handling of the mess they inherited.

Yes Brightonian, in other words Labour simply continued the Tories dire policies. Blairite Labour was basically Tory-Lite.

I'm no fan of the Labour party either mate. They're all shysters as far as I'm concerned. Between them they have ####ed up this country good and proper. It could have been so different if any of them had both vision, pragmatism and a genuine will to help the British people, not the global elite.

Oh, and your views on the huge subsidies handed out to the failing rail companies? The fact that most of our country is now foreign owned? And how about Carilion? Epitomises exactly what I'm talking about.

[brightonr]

Hubble,
Sorry, but you don’t half talk some b0110cks.

The state of today’s housing problems are nothing other than a combination of a failure of governments of both sides to replenish housing stock when necessary and a complete and utter mismanagement of the financial services sector between 1997 and 2010. And to be totally balanced, the Tory’s handling of the mess they inherited.

[Hubble]

Oh, what I should have added of course, is the situation for young people today. Most of them have no hope of getting on the property ladder, they have been priced out of the market. If this is the state we're in 40 years after Thatcher first came to power then I'd say her policies have failed this nation. And also to add that selling off council housing was a bribe to the working classes - short term gain, but long term pain. Short-termism is the what Tory policies have been about since Thatcher. The irony is that none of this is what true Conservatism stands for. It's not in fact Conservatism, but neo-liberalism masquerading as conservatism.

[Hubble]

Ok, so you're saying this was not beneficial to the country's economy?: "It (small government) allowed the stock markets and industries to compete more heavily with each other and made British goods more valued in world trade."

Yes, even that is moot. The deregulation of the financial system under Thatcher and Reagan is directly linked to the massive collapse of the financial system in 2008. I'd say it was a crazy thing to do, the way they did it. For sure, it allowed the rich to get even richer, and it allowed the poor to get poorer, increasing the debt burden on ordinary people massively. Far from helping people become wealthy, in actual fact, this created a swathe of debt-slaves, a heinous act, IMO. Thatcher's much vaunted 'trickle-down' effect was in fact BS, like so much else that she said.

Or the working classes being given the right to buy their council homes and getting them on to the property ladder was an altogether bad thing?
Pros and cons laid out here: https://www.theguardian.com/housing-...-thatcher-data

This was just another way of breaking up the cohesiveness of communities, and furthermore, taking social housing out of local authority ownership has directly led to the housing problems and shortages we see today, and also the insane property prices that are due to the limited supply . This should never have been done. The whole point of social housing is that it is there for the poorest in society to have security of tenure. Yes, it created a whole new swathe of people entering the capitalist economy, and a by-product of that was more debt-slavery. Of course, for many there were short to medium term benefits - i.e they made money out of it - but if you look at the overall picture, allied to all her other policies, what is the net result? A fractured and divided society. Debt slavery. Increasing divide between rich and poor. Decimated local services. All the problems we're experiencing now have a direct link back to her policies.

Or by encouraging a free market economy, private enterprise and reducing red tape for small / new businesses, which allowed many to thrive and prosper were bad things?

Yes, I'll go with that, in part.

Or are you saying that she had absolutely no redeeming policies which benefited the country?

You haven't mentioned privatisation, which has been a disaster for this country IMO. It has siphoned public wealth away from the people into the hands of a few and furthermore, it has meant so many of our once publicly-owned utilities are now owned by foreign investors and other countries. How ironic that the state-systems she ripped up have profited to the benefit of ordinary people living in state-systems abroad - France, Holland and Germany all owning our once public utilities for example.

Then look at the insanity of rail privatisation, where the tax-payer continues to subsidise the rail companies to the tune of billions - a massive, massive rip-off.

I'm not saying that any of these companies didn't need sorting out and root and branch reform, but it was the way it was done that was so wrong. It was all about siphoning people's money into the hands of the few - her Tory mates and her chums in the city. Vested interests all the way. For me, a stakeholder model should have been implemented, where everyone in a company has a share of its profits, giving them the incentive to do the best job.

When Thatcher met the neo-liberals at the Bilderberg group before she became PM she was basically instructed on how to carry out their policies; the aim of those policies was to destroy any resistance to a neoliberal economy by dividing people up into competing individuals. In order to do this, she had to break down communities and any cohesion amongst the working classes - ergo, destroying the unions. Again, I'm not saying these didn't need reform, but again, it was how it was done. The legacy of Thatcherism is writ large for all of us to see: a divided country, fractured communities, massive private wealth in the hands of a few, huge housing shortages, once publicly-owned companies with overseas owners, years of austerity measures, an imploding NHS (another deliberate Tory policy to pave the way for privatisation), increased crime, under-funded police... I could go on.... you get my point I think.

[brightonr]

Regardless of anybody's views on Mrs T, even her most ardent opponents should surely be grateful to her from saving us from Kinnock, Foot and any more Callaghan.