Do we tend to ignore the true facts ?

@GagaJo - are you me? You post word for word what I am thinking. Wondering if I have a Schizophrenic alter ego I am not aware off.

You're perfectly entitled to your opinion POGS but I just quoted a string of facts, can you set out similar facts showing how open, democratic and fair to all the UK is and show how the UK government is acting in a clear, honest and consistent way that you might expect in a fair society.

And, btw, don't quote the referendum as an example of democracy because we live in a parliamentary democracy, referendums are advisory.

@Doodledog
There is a rather sinister movement to stop dissenters happening in this country. BJ is trying to stop any negative press by refusing to let certain reporters in. He is manipulating the press and trying to change the constitution in ways that will make it even harder to get rid of him or his govenrment. It is dividing the country, enouraging a scapegoat mentality, punishing the poor, disabled, foreign and those who are different. There is a definite corrulation between these activities and the rise of facism. I am a proud Brit - but Nationalism to the degree that has been encouraged is detrimental.

I will state my feeling at the risk of somebody reporting my post.

The cheap, crass talk of the UK Government and the UK people becoming a Nazi State is nothing new, it has been a tirade that has expended since the last EU Referendum.

It is pathetic.

MaizieD Mon 24-Feb-20 11:12:33

Which Jonathan Sumption lecture does your post quote from please.

I watched the Jonathan Sumption series of Ruth Leith Lectures on BBC Parliament, they were repeated several times and I found myself listening to them more than once and your quote rings a bell.

His lectures deserve to have any context behind his words known and understood.

My memory is making me think of his first lecture 'Law's Expanding Empire' where he talks of the law taking over the space once occupied by politics.

anniezzz09, Very well said.

We live in scary times. As I've said before on other forums, I used to feel the UK was safer than the US. My family and I retreated here from the US because I didn't want my daughter to grow up in such a racist, dangerous country. NOW, I don't want my grandson to grow up in the UK.

Anniezz09 you have never spoken a truer word. We should all be very worried.

The Windrush deportations; the 101 year old Italian man who's lived here all his life and now he has to prove his right to stay (and many like him); a benefit system set up that many can't access or understand that is deliberately punitive and set to deliberately delay and fail some; tests on disabled and sick people assessing them as fit to work in inhuman and unfair ways; openly racist attacks on people with foreign names or who speak a foreign language in public; attacks on Chinese people in the wake of the Coronavirus; abusive and shocking treatment of some people of supposed lesser intelligence being mooted by a government employee who is only sacked after journalists and others keep protesting; a government who attempt to let only some, approved, journalists into public briefings, only failing because the journalists walked out en masse (hurrah); growing wealth inequality and access to resources such as health and education which should be good and available to all. We should ALL be very worried.

We had a neo Nazi on QT last week. AND the audience producer of the show is one also (on the Question Time post).

How do you not see this is becoming dangerous? They are being given air time on our state supported TV channel.

I agree with everything in your last post, Gagajo. It was the leap between that and the idea that we are heading for something to rival the Holocaust that was a step too far for me.

Gagajo I support every word you've written and we shouldn't forget that in the 1930s in the run up to Nazi Germany there were many who looked away at what was happening and who continued to do so - arrests, deportations, attacks on Jews and the disabled, concentration camps around the corner.

Sorry but at this point, I haven't got time to put up a link to statistics for some to disbelieve but we have the highest ever usage of food banks and this morning the Guardian is running a story about increasing numbers of homeless people sleeping in wheelie bins and being killed when undetected by operatives. Horrible for the latter, a lifestyle choice for the former? I think not.

Well said Gagajo. Unfortunately I don't have the energy...

If you choose to believe. ....

Keep telling yourself that tickingbird. I didn't see or report you, before you leap on me as the culprit.

I DO think we are moving away from democracy. Nothing about our election was honest. Brexit was misrepresented. BJ is PM in name only. He is a known racist. They are already going back on things they promised. An unelected man is leading the country. Our NHS is being destroyed, bit by bit, DESPITE the Tories response to the Labour campaign being that they would DEFINITELY not sell it off. And that is because the power behind the government will do whatever they want, and a welfare state isn't what capitalism needs.

I cannot see a way for any other party to have a fair chance at being elected. The power structures that pull the strings to get capitalists into government hold all the power. I'm not even TALKING about the political parties.

We do not have a choice. We get who they decide. BJ is a puppet dictator, happy to play the game for the prestige and acclaim. At least if it was a proper Tory party government they would be running the show.

Censorship rules. There was nothing in that post that merited it’s deletion but when you get the better of people with reasoned arguments it’s their preferred refuge I suppose.

If the deleted message was for me just to let you know I didn't see it.

Lemongrove that is not what I said.

MaisieD interesting.

For those of you who pooh pooh the idea that we are well on the way to having a fascist government I am posting the words of Lord Sumption (*not by any means* a liberal leftie) in conclusion of his Reith Lectures series last year. I think if a tory establishment figure feels this we should be prepared to think, not dismiss out of hand.

There is already plenty of gloomy speculation about how long democracy can last against an adverse economic background without my adding to it. Prophets are usually wrong, but one thing I will prophesy; we will not recognise the end of democracy when it comes, if it does. Advanced democracies are not overthrown, there are no tanks on the street, no sudden catastrophes, no brash dictators or braying mobs, instead, their institutions are imperceptibly drained of everything that once made them democratic. The labels will still be there, but they will no longer describe the contents, the facade will still stand, but there will be nothing behind it, the rhetoric of democracy will be unchanged, but it will be meaningless - and the fault will be ours.

I really don't think he would have said any of this had he felt that our democracy was in healthy, full working order.

To agree with a lot of the points in that article is not the same as thinking that we are on the way to Nazism though.

Well I don't find Annepl silly, I actually agree with them. I also read the Guardian and other rags but find the Guardian backs up my views. Also Annieback, I voted Labour despite not liking or trusting JC but thought well who else? and JC won't be leader for ever. He was the best of a bad bunch.

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

I’m not wanting any arguement/ angry discussion either,
But find Annep’s posts baffling.That no governments ever,
Should be given credit for improving the lives of people in the UK, is certainly quite a comment!

The ONLY perspective I will give on here in relation to your question LG (as in, I'm not going to engage in an argument/angry discussion) is that I think a far left government would help the poor more than the current government.

I'm not bothered about whether it be Corbyn or any other leader. If they help the poor, they'd be OK by me.

End of comment.

Good posts Ticking

annep.... your comments imply that no government of any
Political party do things for the good of the people in this country.I find that astonishing.Think of all the good policies that have helped us from both sides, over the years.
Given that you don’t think that Labour has done anything either, did you imagine that Corbyn ( had he won power) would have done any good?Is that the problem as far as you see it ( and Gaga too) that you think only a far left government would be any good? Genuine question here.

Agree annepl.