What Do You Think Today?

[peter]

I was wrong about Osbourne making a pitch for the leadership - but I do note that he has not resigned as many called for him to do and with Chillcott being at last published in a couple of days time the attention should be drawn away from the referendum sufficiently for him to survive.

But what about Gove's brutal slaying of Boris. Again, take a moment to think on it. In my view Boris was way too quick to throw in that particular towel: it just doesn't fit that particular bruisers character. No - Boris was ducking and running for cover, as was Cameron, in the face of a meltdown that has the potential to get ugly, very ugly indeed! When the proverbial hits the fan, those guys will be nowhere to be seen.

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Is there going to be a fundamental shift in UK politics? Or is it going to end up just being more of the same, albeit with perhaps different faces?

--A

[I'm Murrin]

Things are sliding rightward because it's been shown that that can win votes. Less honesty, more appeals to emotion.

This article, all about the Remain campaign, how it worked, and why it failed, goes a little into the idea that the appeal to a liberal centre ground that has worked for the last 20 years is no longer working.

[I'm Murrin]

Things are sliding rightward because it's been shown that that can win votes. Less honesty, more appeals to emotion.

This article, all about the Remain campaign, how it worked, and why it failed, goes a little into the idea that the appeal to a liberal centre ground that has worked for the last 20 years is no longer working.

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Is the shift to the right an inevitable consequence of previous "leftist" tendencies I wonder?

Do these things move in cycles?

--A

[aliantha]

Probably. I liken it to the swing of a pendulum. Things go too far right, and the lefties realize they're getting a raw deal and rise up. Things get better for a while, 'til the pendulum swings too far in the other direction, and the right pulls things their way. Lather, rinse, repeat.

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Sorta makes you wonder what the point is, dunnit?

--A

[aliantha]

It does.

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--A

[peter]

Nigel Farage as meanwhile resigned as UKIP leader (again) on the grounds of " My work is done". What he fails to say is that the second runner for the Tory leadership, Andrea Leadsom is virtually a UKIP member herself and has garnered massive support from UKIP voters on social media. If she were to win, then a plum job in the cabinet would be a very real possibility, but of course it would be a bit sketchy to (even very humbly of course ....... no maybe not - this is Farage after all!) accept such a post while still leader of a different party. We await the biography Farage: The Wilderness Years with anticipation.

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Ah, politics as usual...

--A

[peter]

So Theresa May has the leadership and will be installed in number 10 within days. This is when Farage says to himself "F***, **** **** **** ****!"

Theresa May, I think had no real side in the recent referendum question. She was 'on the fence' in respect to in or out, and thus played a longer game. She kept 'above the mud slinging' and waited for her main-chance, which she knew would come in the form of a mortally damaged Cameron.

Meanwhile the opposition continues apace in its efforts toward self-destruction.........

[peter]

So Boris is back. A case of keep your friends close and your enemies closer still methinks!

[I'm Murrin]

Johnson as Foreign Secretary is almost like Theresa May telling the rest of the world "I really don't care what you think of us."

[peter]

Totally - and if you saw that front page on 'The Mirror' the day after his appointment was made you know what that will be!

[peter]

France has once again been hit by an event of almost incomprehensible tragedy, horror and senseless futility. Nothing good can result from it: the perpetrators goals (if they have any beyond the mindless slaughter of innocents) can not be advanced by the smallest iota. If the motivation behind such an act is simple vengeance in response to France's role in the bombing of Syria, then I suggest that the lines of dead men, women and children on the streets of Nice will provide cold comfort indeed. If evil exists it is to be found in the hearts of men and nowhere else.

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Indeed so. The same place that good is found. The terrible irony of existence.

But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,
So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.

--A

[peter]

In an attempt to project a caring face onto its activities the UK gambling industry has adopted a warning slogan which it attaches to all of its advertisements. When the fun stops - stop reads the slogan, ignoring the obvious fact that it's because the addict can't stop that the fun stops in the first place. Such egregious insincerity is sickening.

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Here they have "Winners know when to stop" IIRC.

--A

[aliantha]

I stopped into a casino near my hometown when I was researching the Land, Sea, Sky series. I'm soooo not a casino person -- gambling doesn't appeal to me at all. But I was a little surprised by the posters near the entrances warning about gambling addiction, and where to call for help if you've got one. Seemed a little to me like the anti-tobacco PSAs that Philip Morris was ordered by a judge to produce -- like maybe they were sneakily designed to encourage the behavior they were ostensibly trying to prevent.