Comments on: Tories accused of hypocrisy over Withdrawal Agreement ‘power grab’

By: Dodgy Geezer

Dodgy Geezer — Sat, 21 Dec 2019 21:03:25 +0000

“……the main priority for the Tories isn’t boosting democracy, but undermining the rights and standards we currently enjoy through the EU…”

What would those be? The right to be ruled by Brussels?

By: Michaela

Michaela — Sat, 21 Dec 2019 07:56:56 +0000

Old lefty – not sure focussing on Tory errors has much point. As you say, they are unassailable for 5 years and could be in for 15 given the scale of Labour’s defeat and the upcoming boundary changes which are said to remove a bias in favour of labour in seat sizes.
A period of silence might be better while Labour figure out what they stand for – stand for not against – in the current changing world.

By: Old Lefty

Old Lefty — Fri, 20 Dec 2019 21:17:47 +0000

Perhaps the big Tory majority could usefully rid Labour of “parliamentary cretinism”.
It is obviously a complete waste of breath trying to debate issues when the Tory majority can just ignore other policies. So why not just have one or two speakers who point out the many flaws in Johnson’s decisions. But don’t expect the rest of the MPs to bother turning up. It’s not a schoolboy debating club with the possibility of winning over other speakers with an eloquent delivery. The voters aren’t watching, and , if they did, they would despair at seeing all the sound and fury echoing round the Chamber to no effect at all. It actually discredits the MPs by making them appear completely deluded that their words have any effect.

The MPs should be back in their constituencies campaigning about the Tories’ obvious blunders and betrayals. Spouting about them in Parliament is a complete farce.Nobody is listening!

Best to save breath and energy for talking to the voters. They won’t hear about any good points being made in Parliament anyway. The mass media will make sure of that.

By: Michaela

Michaela — Fri, 20 Dec 2019 14:00:24 +0000

Winning an election is now a power grab. How I miss the debates we used have with year 7 on weasel words and hooray words. How do we get such a shower in our parliament?
When J P Sartre had Hell as other people with No Exit he must have had Westminster (both houses) circa 2019 in mind.

By: Alice Aforethought

Alice Aforethought — Fri, 20 Dec 2019 13:13:28 +0000

Well, you see, how this works is that when you don’t have a majority, you make compromises in order to get your legislation passed.

When you’ve got a majority you do what you want and you don’t have to listen to anyone else.

The solution is to win your own majority.

What suggestions do the various worthies quoted above have in that direction? We heard from Caroline Lucas (Green, one MP), Wera Hobhouse (LD, eleven MPs), and Marc Geddes (some sort of academic). What are you lot going to do to establish a coalition of the left with > 326 MPs?