For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
  • 1
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
User avatar
By GolfHotel
#1519869
Boing_737 wrote:My view on the whole thing is we need to see it through now. We've taken a big dump in our own back yard, and Junkers et al will do their utmost to make like hard if by some miracle we stayed in.

That, however, means that The Government needs to act professionaly on the world stage, and both Tories and Labour need to stop being a bunch in self agrandising, head burying morons.


I can't agree that junkers et al will make it hard to stay. I think they would like that, because post big dump we would look stupid. I think they will make Brexit, be it hard soft or cliff edge, as bad for us as they can. They will see that as best for them so as to put others off leaving. May seems to think there is a common interest in a good deal. It would be nice to think that might happen.

I fully share your thoughts on our current bunch of politicians.
eltonioni liked this
User avatar
By matthew_w100
#1519878
GolfHotel wrote:I fully share your thoughts on our current bunch of politicians.


But that always seems to be true. They appear to be a bunch of posturing buffoons while in power. But then they leave or retire or whatever and it turns out that a surprisingly high proportion of them are actually very intelligent with a strong sense of public duty. Name me the last politician to look good *while in power*? I've come to the conclusion it's the system not the people that makes politicians appear inept.
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1519879
Name me the last politician to look good *while in power*?


Possibly Harold MacMillan, in turn name me one who has turned into an "elder statesman" in retirement......
User avatar
By eltonioni
#1519887
matthew_w100 wrote:
eltonioni wrote:We don't need a picture of better, we just need to imagine what's worse; increased German hegemony, increasingly poorer southern nations, Turkey, the EU Army, more democratic deficit, French political incompetence, and ever more citizen discontent at their reduced standard of living and opportunity.


And there it is again - I find it so depressing! We *do* need a vision of better - it is impossible to *lead* without a vision of the future. If you take the "imagine what's worse" approach you just end up with a population mired in the spiteful hope that those we have left spiral into a miserable collapse. How can that be a future to look forward to?

As Clive Woodward so beautifully articulated when he was taking England to win the Rugby World Cup, if you want a team of winners you have to have them live and breathe the image of winning. You have to paint them the picture of them standing on the podium, holding the trophy, crouds cheering.

We need to motivate the masses with an image of success. Otherwise we (a peculiarity of the British) will just bicker and blame and expect the other bloke to take responsibility. And then we'll end up back in the seventies.

This is where we part company on the agreement. Its just too early to expect any kind of outcome to be clearly indicated. As Remainers revel in reminding us all, Article 50 hasn't even been activated yet. and just as they say that WW3 and financial disaster can't possibly have happened yet because of that, neither can any clarity on a negotiation be expected because there's not been any negotiation. All we've done so far is to recognise that the EU isn't fit for purpose and that we need a new model.

Patience mon brave, patience! :)
User avatar
By kanga
#1519895
johnm wrote:., in turn name me one who has turned into an "elder statesman" in retirement......


of recentish UK ones in retirement from Party/HoC politics (although peerages may have given some a platform, which sometimes seem to be 'Party' based, or may be unfairly painted as such by hostile media):

of the top of my head:

'Paddy' Ashdown, Shirley Williams, David Miliband, Chris Patten, William Hague

outside UK, in their time more honoured both after their most prominent domestic office and outside their own countries, and a while ago:

Willi Brandt, Jimmy Carter, Romano Prodi, Mikhail Gorbachev, Eduard Shevardnadze, Lester Pearson, Tunku Abdul Rahman
By Highland Park
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1519902
I wonder whether this will widen the possibility of a fissure within the Labour Party? I would imagine the Corbinistas might go into spontaneous combustion and while I'm no fan of Comrade Corbyn, his complete ineptitude is doing the country a massive disservice by leading an ineffective opposition. Splitting it would only make things worse?

As for President Blair's comments, I'd be interested in how they've been received in my home town (I no longer live there) where 71% voted to leave the EU.
User avatar
By GolfHotel
#1519915
matthew_w100 wrote:
GolfHotel wrote:I fully share your thoughts on our current bunch of politicians.


But that always seems to be true. They appear to be a bunch of posturing buffoons while in power. But then they leave or retire or whatever and it turns out that a surprisingly high proportion of them are actually very intelligent with a strong sense of public duty. Name me the last politician to look good *while in power*? I've come to the conclusion it's the system not the people that makes politicians appear inept.


Of course everyone has some supporters while in power, so someone must think the almost everyone looked good at some point. To achieve what they do, getting elected, they must be intelligent.

The main thing I didn't like about Blair was that he seemed to have no principals. Everything was done on the basis of what the sound bite would do to the next opinion pole. As a Thatcherite (only kidding) of course I approved of his right wing policies. I still don't understand why he took us to war.

Maybe May will look good in the end as she tries to avoid playing to the press. I'm not sure that will end well, but maybe. She did look rather daft in trying to avoid the rule of parliament. Of course she has no personal mandate for Brexit as she was, maybe still is, a remainer.

To me Thatcher, Ashdown, Williams, and quite a few others did appear to me to be of a different caliber to the current crop. Not that that automatically made them effective.
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1519918
Ashdown and Williams I'd agree but Thatcher was as mad as a box of frogs :roll:
User avatar
By GolfHotel
#1519943
johnm wrote:Ashdown and Williams I'd agree but Thatcher was as mad as a box of frogs :roll:


The question was who looked good in power not who did you like. MT was reelected and was in power for several years so it would seem that she looked good for quite a while.
johnm liked this
By cockney steve
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1519956
I think Thatcher shone merely because she was a pearl among swine.

The woman refused to back down ,even if she was very obviously wrong. stubborn to a fault, but the best we had at the time....currently we seem to just have dross, as for that greedy, self-serving, duplicitous, toxic T Bliar.....don't get me started or I might say what I really think of him and his equally dishonest,amoral family.
User avatar
By matthew_w100
#1519997
kanga wrote:
johnm wrote:., in turn name me one who has turned into an "elder statesman" in retirement......

of the top of my head:
'Paddy' Ashdown, Shirley Williams, David Miliband, Chris Patten, William Hague
outside UK, in their time more honoured both after their most prominent domestic office and outside their own countries, and a while ago:
Willi Brandt, Jimmy Carter, Romano Prodi, Mikhail Gorbachev, Eduard Shevardnadze, Lester Pearson, Tunku Abdul Rahman


Plus Dennis Healey, 'Badger' Lamont, Tony Benn. Heavens - even Michael Portillo turns out to be a bloke you might quite like to have round to dinner.
User avatar
By kanga
#1520037
matthew_w100 wrote:..

Plus Dennis Healey, 'Badger' Lamont, Tony Benn. Heavens - even Michael Portillo turns out to be a bloke you might quite like to have round to dinner.


is it not likely to be true of most politicians of whose policies, actions, and possibly private lives and relatives you may disapprove (all, of course, likely to have been misreported, especially of UK ones in UK press) , that if you got to know them personally, possibly even at a dinner table, you might find that they are actually pleasant, wise, and well-intentioned ?
  • 1
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9