Friday 19 August 2016

Things you really should not say out loud...weekend thread

"I will negotiate with ISIS" Owen Smith

"I won't go to War in honour of NATO Commitments" Jeremy Corbyn








These two are obviously playing a very funny summer game 'double-down' where you compete to say the most silly things and see if you can get away with it. It is like a political version of the world's dirtiest joke...


So - where do we go from here - what is your political double-down to join in the fun?


I will start with:


"We need to help more Syrian refugees - open borders are the only correct moral choice"

22 comments:

Steven_L said...

It's essential for the economy that we lower policy interest rates to the extent you have to pay to deposit money in the banks. And unless we get the Bank of England buy billion of pounds worth of bonds so savers can't get a return there either, there will be a recession.

Scrobs. said...

Potential Calais immigrants have Standards too!

They also have Ford Populars, old Mini Clubmans and someone has a Velocette motorbike, so he'll probably be let in...

Anonymous said...

paedophilia is an illness that should be treated with compassion.
Sufferers should be supported with generous funding and integrated into the community just like other vulnerable people

obv anon

dearieme said...

We used to say "double up" in Britain. Now everyone speaks subAmerican so it's become "double down". Sad.

Electro-Kevin said...

There aren't enough Big Issue sellers - we must import some !

andrew said...

I think you need to extend the rules to so that it is not only unsayable but also to some extent arguably true.

One major issue facing anyone under 40 is the cost of housing.
I will solve this problem by buying the entire green belt at £3000 per acre and then anyone who can pay £300 will enter a lottery and will receive 1/10th of an acre in a random place.
Planning permission will be abolished.

Nick Drew said...

Bleedn'll, Andrew, that's Creative Policy-Making !

(are you available for Brexit negotiations?)

Raedwald said...


How about a universal tax-free income of £25k a year (linked to the CPI) paid to everyone from 17 upwards, whether in work or not? Obv, we'd need marginal tax rates of 95% on all income above £25k to pay for it - but this would still allow a banker on a £3m salary to take home £173,750. Though a GP on £100k would only take home £28,750.

I'm sure everyone would be happy to pay high marginal rates and all would remain in the UK, just to make the country a fairer and happier place .....

Anonymous said...

Out of the mouths of fools and children.

When it comes to ISIS the UK has no effective role to play, the fight is a proxy war between big boys that has gone long past any hope of one 'side' winning. So of course the answer is political and that means discussion. Maybe disgusting, but that is what diplomats are paid for. Thankfully the UK's role in any discussion will be 'one lump or two?'.

If some aggressor made a frontal attack on say Germany then we would probably think of calling out the cavalry. But said aggressor would have taken that into account and be prepared to play hardball - or credibly threaten hardball - in which case we might leave the cavalry in the stables and wait for our own fate. But a sane aggressor won't do a full frontal, a nibble at the edges approach is more likely and carefully calibrated not to instigate much more than a token gesture. The political equivalent of coastal erosion with much the same reaction. Two can play that game, try it.

We may not like Corbyn or Owen, but they have spoken an inconvenient truth, sorry to break the rules.

Anonymous said...

Banning of Green Belt.

Bang goes our beautiful country.

Conversation with Gramps via Ouija Board

"So how did the Common Market, mass immigration and multiculturalism turn out then ?"

"OK Gramps. Well. We decided to quit the EU (they kept changing its name.) The police now dress like Robo-Cop (I'll explain later) and are armed in all but name. We have to be careful what we say in public. We have to be searched in airports and are subject to interminable public announcements about security - various people have been murdered and robbed and there have been race riots. There has to be 'affirmative' discrimination and there is a shortage of doctors and school places - oh ... housing has become near impossible for the young to find... but that's OK. We're going to build all over the lovely common that you used to love walking on. Otherwise it's gone well."

Do you think he would have voted to stay in the Common Market hearing that ?

I suppose the EU saved us from WW3... so they tell us.

Electro-Kevin said...

Roger

Talk to ISIS maybe.

But what about ? Our surrender ? Because that's ALL they're interested in.

Don't you (or Owen) get it ?

Anonymous said...

Thigs you shouldn't say out loud?

"We definitely shouldn't bail out the paralympics to help lots of developing countries attend - that way, we will win all the mdeals"

Nick Drew said...

"Trust the people. The next referendum is to be on the Death Penalty"

Bill Quango MP said...

My favourite from Remain was their argument that

"Open, unrestricted borders,and the all EU citizen's right to free movement, have no effect on immigration.
Without those rights..Immigration would be higher."

Anonymous said...

@EK - the whole point of warring is to gain the upper hand in the eventual negotiations. Every war ends in negotiations, usually when the losing side does the math and eventually realises that any later deals are just going to a lot worse for them and it's time to cash in what little bargaining chips they have left.

The closest parallel to the mentality of ISIS we have are the Japanese in WW2, they eventually surrendered - albeit after a couple of nukes underlined exactly what they had to lose if they didn't discuss terms of surrender.

The very cold reality is that war is a brutal bargaining tool, and recognising that is how you win wars. You want country X's territory? Take it and more, so when you negotiate you keep what you wanted and give back the rest in order to look reasonable at the table.

With ISIS, we need their leaders to recognise their only way out is to sell out their lieutenants and followers in exchange for a fat life some place nice. And most will do it when the other options are a lot less palatable, the more rabid who would never surrender would be dealt with by the ones with a firmer grip on reality.

They come to the table, they provide us with some interesting names, who will later be visited to either be made useful or made dead, they go off with new names, a nice home and a padded bank account, their lieutenants get tried and sentenced, and the followers get to see what a mess the current brainiacs in the west can make of a 21st Century Marshall Plan.

Steven_L said...

The Netherland labour party is well ahead of the curve here:

"The Dutch government has set a date for parliament to host a roundtable discussion that could see the sale of petrol- and diesel-fuelled cars banned by 2025. If the measures proposed by the Labour Party in March are finally passed ..."

Full article at the Indy here

lilith said...

Sod autocorrect

andrew said...


i would vote for raedwald

... probably a v. silly thing to say

Electro-Kevin said...

Anon @ 10.08 - the people behind ISIS are as rich as Solomon. I can't see how they can be bought.

So it is a many headed hyrda.

Anonymous said...

"Brexit proves that [xxx] people can't be trusted with the vote"

Fill in xxx according to preference, eg

"old"
"ignorant"
"rural"
"northern"
"non-metropolitan"
"working class"
"all"

E-K said...

"Hyrda"

One ought not say that out loud.

CityUnslicker said...

Pretty good efforts there. Have to say the freedom of movement will lower immigration is the keeper for me.

Roger, as ever, please feel free to lead our delegation to Raqqa, let me know how it goes.