Tony Blair/Tory or Labour?
POSTED BY: DallasFirefly
UPDATED: Thursday, June 8, 2006 19:12
VIEWED: 7573
PAGE 2 of 7
oldenglanddry,
Caught between the US and the EU ??? Jeez, what muddy thinking. It's like saying you can't decide between cyanide and steak. The US kleptocracy has no one else's interest in mind (not even its citizenry).
Quote:
Originally posted by oldenglanddry:
we are too scared of the U.S. economy to stand up for ourselves and too mistrustful of Europe to form a block powerful enough to counter the Americans.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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KPO,
Quote:I don't understand this either. Spain did a quick turn-around.
whoever is in number ten would still be trying to pass laws eroding civil liberties because we are too scared of the U.S. economy to stand up for ourselves
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I don't understand how this follows - can you elaborate on this point?
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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It comes to this. Brits have always believed that security both personal and national was the legitimate domain of government. All major parties when in power are vulnerable to claims that they are not doing enough to ensure public safety and public order. The Tories are vulnerable because they actively campaign on a law and order platform, Labour is vulnerable because the Tories catergorise then as being weak on L&O.
So if anything bad happens --- inner city riots, IRA bombings, Islamic militants --- the knee jerk reaction in both parties is to clamp down and to back police requests for more power. Once the crisis has lifted there is a gradual relaxing of powers, either through legislation or by simply not exercising powers that could be used.
Case in point. The Official Secrets act, an act from (I believe) the first world war. If you work for the government in almost any capacity you will have signed a copy. Citizen almost certainly has given his job history. In theory once signed you can't speak about your job at all without home office approval, it's illegal, you can go to jail. Some administrations use it to plug leaks that are politically damaging even if the information being leaked is in the public interest, while other administrations only use it for legitimate national security reasons. It's old legislation, probably violates all kinds of modern human rights ideas but it remains in use because all governments can find a use for it
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But keeping troops in Iraq is like painting a bull's eye on Britain. Why make it a target with a massively unpopular war that originally had nothing to do with the country?
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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It depends on your point of view. The USS Cole and 9/11 happened before Iraq remember? In these cases the US was being hit just for maintaining troops in the gulf region. In which case the UK was already a target for Afghanistan and any number of other reasons. In addition HMG really did believe that Saddam had WMD in which case doing nothing isn't an option either.
As for popularity. Big demos aside (and we have big demos about almost everything because we are a small country with a reasonably good train service) public support for war was very high (80+%) before the war and even higher in the immediate aftermath.
It fell once it became obvious there was no quick victory and well, people felt lied to.
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Fletch2,
I don't know why you continually feel the need to lie.
Quote:http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,879104,00.html
public support for war was very high (80+%) before the war and even higher in the immediate aftermath.
Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Tuesday January 21, 2003
The Guardian
Support among British voters for military action against Iraq has slumped six points in the last month to its lowest level since pollsters ICM began regularly tracking opinion on the question for the Guardian last summer.
This month's Guardian/ICM survey shows that outright opposition to the war has risen to 47%, the highest level on any poll since last August.
The survey results also show that an overwhelming 81% of British voters now agree ... that a fresh United Nations mandate is essential before a military attack is launched on Saddam Hussein."
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:1kFzpSTfhaIJ:www.eriposte.com/war
_peace/iraq/iraq_war_worldwide_support.htm+%22iraq+war%22+%2Bpoll+%2Bbritain+%22poll+2003%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1
"Washington Post 2-18-03: (In the U.K.) Today's poll, conducted by ICM, showed 52 percent opposed to military action, with 29 percent in favor and the rest undecided."
Quote:The Downing Street minutes tell otherwise.
HMG really did believe that Saddam had WMD in which case doing nothing isn't an option either.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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Quote:I have signed the official secrets act.
Originally posted by Fletch2:
The Official Secrets act, an act from (I believe) the first world war. If you work for the government in almost any capacity you will have signed a copy. Citizen almost certainly has given his job history. In theory once signed you can't speak about your job at all without home office approval, it's illegal, you can go to jail. Some administrations use it to plug leaks that are politically damaging even if the information being leaked is in the public interest, while other administrations only use it for legitimate national security reasons
I haven't told anyone anything about what I do that contravenes that
.And in the aspect of whistle blowing the OSA has already been tested and lost...
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
"I had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalog: 'No good in a bed, but fine against a wall'." -- Eleanor Roosevelt.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/11/npoll1
1.xml
Which Downing Street minutes?
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I don't think you are supposed to reveal that you've signed it without Home Office approval.....
Some civil service types were jailed in the 80's for it. I'm kinda out of date these days...
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Well, I've got a few nicknames picked out for you. I need to think about them before I pick an especially juicy one.
BEFORE the invasion, Brtish opinion was more 'against' than 'for'. It was MOST 'against' unilateral action (a paltry 80% against). That was at the same time that 1 - 2 MILLION people showed up in Trafalgar Square to protest the Iraq invasion. You know, those few people you so dismissively mentioned
The invasion started March 20, 2003. Bagdhad fell April 9, 2003. You picked a poll starting April 1 when Britain was engaged (once the war started public opinion was sure to pick up) and things looked to be going well. AND EVEN ON APRIL FIRST, IT WAS ONLY 54 - 40, NOT THE RINGING PRE-WAR ENDORSEMENT YOU CLAIM.
Nearly everything I know I learned by the grace of others.
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