Posts by DeepRed
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Hard News: Grenfell: a signal moment, in reply to Bart Janssen,
The nanny state exists because things like this happened in the past and the only thing that stopped them then was the intervention of socialist governments. We know from history that businesses and unrestrained markets will be abused and people, usually poor people, will die.
As I mentioned upthread, Grenfell could well be British Thatcherism's Winter of Discontent moment.
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The Hillsborough Stadium disaster was the year after. Police fed false stories defaming the football fans to compliant media: most notably The Sun. It was only last year that a second coroner's inquest finally found that the crush had been caused by gross negligence on the part of the police and that supporters were not to blame at all. Ninety six people had died.
And as a result of the fake stories, Liverpudlians rightly declared The Sun persona non grata in their city.
This feels like a signal moment in the history of a country. I realise the Queen's not going to go over to Downing Street and relieve Theresa May of the keys to the nation. But Britain can not and must not go on like this.
It could well be the mirror image of the 1978-79 Winter of Discontent, where Britain's trade unions were seen to have pushed their luck. In the case of Grenfell, it's the British rentier class which has pushed its luck.
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I've only just noticed the UKIP vote was divided up between Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May. I'm guessing the economically anxious wing of UKIP flocked to Corbyn while the culturally anxious went to May. The few who have both types of anxieties weren't enough to keep UKIP in the House of Commons - pity it's the same kind of dual-anxiety that's in the White House right now.
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Theresa May thinks she's Thatcher 2.0, but history might look back at her as Ted Heath 2.0. It may not be long before 1974 makes both of its presences felt again.
United Kingdom general election, February 1974
United Kingdom general election, October 1974 -
Hard News: Interesting Britain!, in reply to Rob Stowell,
It runs into two immediate problems: it clearly won't be accepted by many of the 'brexit means brexit' crowd. And it's far from clear the rest - or any - of the EU would go along with it.
But it is a position :) and possibly now the best hope.
[ets - lots here http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/soft-brexit-soft-landing-interpreting-labours-brexit-strategy/ but I haven't time to read itThe Brexit vote can be roughly divided into 3 distinct camps:
D. Those rejecting the EU's prevailing economics but accepting, at least to some extent, the social dimension (many Laboure supporters)
E. Those rejecting both (quintessentially UKIP)
F. Those comfortable with many of the EU's economic provisions, if only they could easily exit the Social Chapter (Conservative) -
Hard News: Interesting Britain!, in reply to Russell Brown,
Wow. The Conservatives' only success yesterday – the Scottish party – is saddling up and riding off on its own, having established a view on Brexit it does not share with London.
It's easy to see it go all Shipley-Peters.
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Either way, a lot of tweets about Jeremy Corbyn being the end of his party have aged poorly. That an absolute Tory majority has just been reduced to a hung parliament might just be political caffeine for Little, Turei and Shaw.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Asking the…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Correct!
The shit came down afterwards, I gather.
Baysting exiled himself to the other side of the Tasman for a few years, only coming back after the whole affair was quietly forgotten about. I suspect the original recording with the profanity on it got wiped and reused, since VCRs probably weren't yet widely available in NZ. From this Billboard article, VCR penetration in NZ was ~10,000 in early 1982.
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Hard News: Public Address founder…, in reply to WH,
From that particular song, which sounds more relevant than ever:
"Poor man wanna be rich
Rich man wanna be king
King ain't satisfied till he rules everything..." -
Were a carbon trade war to happen, Trump might just find himself in the same position as Anthony Eden during the Suez Crisis.
* CNN: Trump could start a trade war by ditching the Paris climate accord
