4 ms·

>In the UK our austerity program at the height of 2010-15 was a reduction in the growth of spending (not a nominal cut). In the UK the cuts were directed - lar

>In the UK our austerity program at the height of 2010-15 was a reduction in the growth of spending (not a nominal cut). In the UK the cuts were directed - largely at public sector jobs and wages and benefits, foodbanks, etc. You can take £1,000 of money spent on foodbanks or soldier wages and just give it to a military contractor or Carillion and technically public sector spending hasn't been cut by £1000, but the effect is as if it had. Nonetheless, the effect of austerity in the UK was a lot milder than it was in Greece and, as a consequence, we don't have people waving swastika flags around like they do.

pjc50 9y ago
> We don't have people waving swastika flags around like they do. .. yet. We did have an MP shot by a member of a far-right organisation, and we do have an ongoing problem with fascist newspapers. "Crush the saboteurs" and all that. It has now become alarmingly routine to refer to the leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition as a traitor.
- lifeisstillgood 9y ago
  Corbyn's vilification is not a sign of fascism but a different problem over Brexit - like I said our next challenges will not look like the 1930s - we will invent our own new cballenges
  - crdoconnor 9y ago
    Corbyn's villification by the political establishment does mirror the KPD's villification by Weimar, as well as Sanders' villification by Hillaryites. The KPD was annihilated though, while Corbyn held on. If anything he makes the rise of the far right much less likely by presenting a viable anti-austerian alternative. I don't imagine UKIP will be around much longer.
    - pjc50 9y ago
      UKIP are already dead - kipperism is mainstream cabinet policy now. It was only ever a shell for Farage. The rest of the party was a set of cranks who'd been ejected from mainstream politics and who couldn't get on with each other. Their only ever MP, Douglas Carswell, quit the party. They had no real "ground game" and a very limited council presence. It's a mystery why Farage was and continues to be invited onto BBC Question Time week after week.
      - crdoconnor 9y ago
        They did really well in the European elections though. That's what spooked the Tories and caused, y'know, "that" referendum. That would probably not have happened if all mainstream parties had not looked like weimaresque mirror images of each other at the time.
  - gaius 9y ago
    but a different problem over Brexit Corbyn, like May, was a lukewarm campaigner for Remain, but unlike her Corbyn has a 40-year track record of voting against everything EU every chance he got. Had he nailed his colours to the mast at the time of the Referendum there is no doubt in my mind he would be PM now.
- gaius 9y ago
  It has now become alarmingly routine to refer to the leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition as a traitor. It's also become alarmingly routine for revelations about him being associated with this or that enemy of the country, tho'. He even had a codename given to him by the Czech secret police at the height of the Cold War, Agent Cob, they called him. He's not and never was called a traitor simply for his position as head of the Loyal Opposition, so you are being disingenuous there.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    One of the people who was libelling him with this has admitted that this was "wholly untrue and false", and paid a substantial amount of money. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/25/jeremy-corbyn-spies-communist-czech-cold-war-ben-bradley https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/25/jeremy-corb... That's as close as you're going to get to an official declaration that it's fake news. (Best check your source for the Czech claim, what else are they lying about?)
  - crdoconnor 9y ago
    >It's also become alarmingly routine for revelations about him being associated with this or that enemy of the country Establishment politicians (especially those with strong links to corporate elites) and media representing the 0.1% almost never try to take him down on the basis of his policies. There's a good reason for that. Polls have been done that ask about policies and ask voters to choose 'faceless' parties solely on the basis of those policies and people overwhelmingly choose him without realizing it. Those policies are simultaneously a highly understated threat to the wealth and power of the 0.1%. Attacking those policies directly would likely just draw more attention to them (Streisand effect). So, they attack his character instead. The Czech stuff you fell for was badly formulated propaganda that attempted to do exactly that. It backfired spectacularly.

pjc50 9y ago

> We don't have people waving swastika flags around like they do. .. yet. We did have an MP shot by a member of a far-right organisation, and we do have an ongoing problem with fascist newspapers. "Crush the saboteurs" and all that. It has now become alarmingly routine to refer to the leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition as a traitor.

lifeisstillgood 9y ago
Corbyn's vilification is not a sign of fascism but a different problem over Brexit - like I said our next challenges will not look like the 1930s - we will invent our own new cballenges
- crdoconnor 9y ago
  Corbyn's villification by the political establishment does mirror the KPD's villification by Weimar, as well as Sanders' villification by Hillaryites. The KPD was annihilated though, while Corbyn held on. If anything he makes the rise of the far right much less likely by presenting a viable anti-austerian alternative. I don't imagine UKIP will be around much longer.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    UKIP are already dead - kipperism is mainstream cabinet policy now. It was only ever a shell for Farage. The rest of the party was a set of cranks who'd been ejected from mainstream politics and who couldn't get on with each other. Their only ever MP, Douglas Carswell, quit the party. They had no real "ground game" and a very limited council presence. It's a mystery why Farage was and continues to be invited onto BBC Question Time week after week.
    - crdoconnor 9y ago
      They did really well in the European elections though. That's what spooked the Tories and caused, y'know, "that" referendum. That would probably not have happened if all mainstream parties had not looked like weimaresque mirror images of each other at the time.
- gaius 9y ago
  but a different problem over Brexit Corbyn, like May, was a lukewarm campaigner for Remain, but unlike her Corbyn has a 40-year track record of voting against everything EU every chance he got. Had he nailed his colours to the mast at the time of the Referendum there is no doubt in my mind he would be PM now.
gaius 9y ago
It has now become alarmingly routine to refer to the leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition as a traitor. It's also become alarmingly routine for revelations about him being associated with this or that enemy of the country, tho'. He even had a codename given to him by the Czech secret police at the height of the Cold War, Agent Cob, they called him. He's not and never was called a traitor simply for his position as head of the Loyal Opposition, so you are being disingenuous there.
- pjc50 9y ago
  One of the people who was libelling him with this has admitted that this was "wholly untrue and false", and paid a substantial amount of money. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/25/jeremy-corbyn-spies-communist-czech-cold-war-ben-bradley https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/25/jeremy-corb... That's as close as you're going to get to an official declaration that it's fake news. (Best check your source for the Czech claim, what else are they lying about?)
- crdoconnor 9y ago
  >It's also become alarmingly routine for revelations about him being associated with this or that enemy of the country Establishment politicians (especially those with strong links to corporate elites) and media representing the 0.1% almost never try to take him down on the basis of his policies. There's a good reason for that. Polls have been done that ask about policies and ask voters to choose 'faceless' parties solely on the basis of those policies and people overwhelmingly choose him without realizing it. Those policies are simultaneously a highly understated threat to the wealth and power of the 0.1%. Attacking those policies directly would likely just draw more attention to them (Streisand effect). So, they attack his character instead. The Czech stuff you fell for was badly formulated propaganda that attempted to do exactly that. It backfired spectacularly.