General Politics Thread

[DrewDon]

Pile on by '#NoDealNow' types on Twitter against Greer has sort of proved his point that it is difficult to raise any legitimate criticisms of Churchill without your arguments being immediately shouted down or utterly misrepresented.

[Benjamin_Nevis]

Argument is more nuanced than either Greer or Morgan make out, but Morgan was skewered. He needed a wee chat with Susanna and no Ross afterwards so he could have the final say, he was destroyed that badly

I missed his appearance, but assumed Morgan had been telt as afterwards he was literally begging folk to pile on to Greer's Twitter to have a go at him. He then proceeded to crawl up Toby Young's arse in a hilariously Yer Da debate on mental health. He's a weapons grade impotent c**t.

[ICTJohnboy]

6 minutes ago, jupe1407 said:

51 minutes ago, sparky88 said:

Argument is more nuanced than either Greer or Morgan make out, but Morgan was skewered. He needed a wee chat with Susanna and no Ross afterwards so he could have the final say, he was destroyed that badly

I missed his appearance, but assumed Morgan had been telt as afterwards he was literally begging folk to pile on to Greer's Twitter to have a go at him. He then proceeded to crawl up Toby Young's arse in a hilariously Yer Da debate on mental health. He's a weapons grade impotent c**t.

 

Here you go mate, enjoy...

https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/1079295/ITV-Good-Morning-Britain-Piers-Morgan-Ross-Greer-MSP-Winston-Churchill-tweet-itv-video

 

Sorry...That is very abridged.I'll try and find a link to the full version. It is worth a watch.

Edited January 29, 2019 by ICTJohnboy

[Benjamin_Nevis]

 
Here you go mate, enjoy...
https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/1079295/ITV-Good-Morning-Britain-Piers-Morgan-Ross-Greer-MSP-Winston-Churchill-tweet-itv-video
 
Sorry...That is very abridged.I'll try and find a link to the full version. It is worth a watch.

That's tremendous [emoji38]

[Jan Vojáček]

I wasn't a fan of Ross Greer from the moment he rocked up at my school when he was standing for the Youth Parliament or something. That wee smug smile thing he does when other people disagree with him is hugely annoying, and he comes across as every Bearsden posh boy stereotype - despite his political beliefs.

He got Morgan absolutely fizzing this morning though, so for that reason alone, fair play to him. 

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

I wasn't a fan of Ross Greer from the moment he rocked up at my school when he was standing for the Youth Parliament or something. That wee smug smile thing he does when other people disagree with him is hugely annoying, and he comes across as every Bearsden posh boy stereotype - despite his political beliefs.
He got Morgan absolutely fizzing this morning though, so for that reason alone, fair play to him. 

Yeh I kinda agree! I know his ex modern studies teacher and she says he’s alright but theres just something really smug and arseholey about him that gets me raging. I really dislike the boy but he got the better of Morgan and said a few things that some would crap out of saying on his program, so fair play. The amount of mouth breathers on his twitter saying ‘ Piers beat you’ etc is staggering, breathtakingly staggering.

[ICTJohnboy]

I'm just glad he's in the Greens and not an SNP MSP.

If he had been SNP,  war would have broken out between Scotland and England by this time.

I certainly wouldn't quibble over any of his utterances on Churchill - seems like he's done his homework on this. 

[mizfit]

He made some very good points against Morgan, but again as others have said his smarmy arrogant smile really puts me off him.

[doulikefish]

If i had one bullet and was stuck in the middle of them 2 twats i would use it on myself

[dirty dingus]

To much Red White and Gammon, cuts out as ginger kid is about to deliver the coup de grace.

[D Angelo Barksdale]

No fan of Greer but fair play to the lad. Quite right to call out the deification of Churchill.

Superb levels of seethe generated also.

[renton]

Of course Churchill was racist, of course British imperial policy was inherently racist. The US army was also segregated, with black soldiers mostly excluded from combat roles. It goes without saying that the axis powers all practised racial superiority as part of their creed. The Red army raped and pillaged it's way through Eastern Europe. The allies were no angels.

Was Churchill a genocidal maniac who organised for the disposal of the rural Bengali population in the same vein as Hitler disposed of the Jewish populations of Eastern Europe? There are certainly arguments in favour of that interpretation. I tend to think however that it was a case of a series of avoidable policy failures and the proximity of the war to Bengal. The loss of Burma in 1942 eviscerated the rice trade into Bengal, concurrently it created a massive build up of allied forces in Bengal that inevitably took priority on the transport infrastructure and supply.  The loss of Singapore and the lack at the time of significant naval forces in the Indian Ocean meant that axis forces could operate freely against shipping in that region. There was also  a blight in the existing crops after the tropical storm season. 

The battle of the Atlantic reached a crescendo in the middle of 1943. However the nature of that conflict meant the allies would not know they had prevailed until several more months of relatively unmolested shipping had occurred.  A great deal of shipping, merchant and military was tied up in the Mediterranean at this time, from the Torch landings, through to Sicily and then the invasion of Italy. Only by September 1943 could shipping be safely diverted through the Suez canal again.  Then of course, planning for Overlord took priority for shipping.

The local colonial government were incompetent. They were slow to act, and then their actions were inadequate to the moment. After the elevation of the former soldier, Archibald Wavell to the viceroy position, there was a marked concentration on the problem and improvement in conditions as he called on a large military operation to repair the railways damaged by the war, and support the transport of food into the region.

There was certainly indifference in Whitehall and negligence in the colonial administration, implicating not just Churchill but the entire war cabinet. Priority calls on shipping were elsewhere and Churchill certainly regarded the Far East then as a running sore that he'd rather not think about too hard. There is the argument that there was no way they could divert enough shipping and escorts to make the required difference without sacrificing the aims of the war elsewhere, which of course would have it's own knock on effects to those populations who were being systematically eradicated. The Colonial government should have done more sooner. 

I don't think it was murder or genocide. The vast dislocation of the war pretty much promised famine somewhere, and you could argue that Churchill ultimately decided where it would happen via his unwillingness to accord it sufficient priority. That could well be influenced by his racism, indeed it probably was - it'd be difficult to imagine the same famine being allowed to occur in any of the majority white dominions. On the other hand, even the allied armies in India were bottom of the priority list for pretty much everything. The US was making the main effort through the pacific, and South East Asia command was to prosecute the war with what little it could find in theatre (they even resorted to making parachutes from Jute, because they couldn't get enough of a supply from home). It's no surprise then that the civilian populace was even worse off, ill served as it was by the very third rate civil servants punted out there. negligence for me is the main criminal activity associated with the British Government in this matter.

[Guest]

I'm no great lover of Churchill, however it's pretty difficult to find any historical figure who won't in some way fall foul of today's standards of righteousness.

Even those who are often held up as pillars of virtue such as Nelson Mandela and Che Guevara were both directly and indirectly responsible for multiple atrocities, however this often seems to be overlooked for some strange reason.

 

[renton]

1 minute ago, WATTOO said:

I'm no great lover of Churchill, however it's pretty difficult to find any historical figure who won't in some way fall foul of today's standards of righteousness.

Even those who are often held up as pillars of virtue such as Nelson Mandela and Che Guevara were both directly and indirectly responsible for multiple atrocities, however this often seems to be overlooked for some strange reason.

 

To be fair we are talking about contemporary standards of righteousness, not modern ones. If Churchill had presided over the deliberate starvation of the Bengali population then by the standards applied at Nuremberg he'd be guilty of war crimes. Indeed, it's hard not to think he, and Roosevelt, didn't traduce their own victor's standards with some if not all of their strategic bombing campaigns.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, renton said:

To be fair we are talking about contemporary standards of righteousness, not modern ones. If Churchill had presided over the deliberate starvation of the Bengali population then by the standards applied at Nuremberg he'd be guilty of war crimes. Indeed, it's hard not to think he, and Roosevelt, didn't traduce their own victor's standards with some if not all of their strategic bombing campaigns.

Indeed, the likes of Dresden was totally raised when the war was effectively over and was seen by many as revenge for Coventry.

Where you have war, empires, occupation of foreign territory etc then it's pretty obvious that everyone involved will be committing horrific crimes against their fellow humanity as pretty much par for the course, irrespective of whether they are the victors or the defeated, although being the victors generally allows you to rewrite history in your favour..........

[welshbairn]

I'm surprised he was given any responsibility at all after the Gallipoli shambles. He went on to advocate using mustard gas against Kurdish rebels in 1920 though it didn't actually happen. Here was his earlier justification.

Quote

"I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have definitely adopted the position at the Peace Conference of arguing in favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare. It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gasses: gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected."

 

Edited January 29, 2019 by welshbairn

[D Angelo Barksdale]

You can't even starve a few Bengalis, order civilians to be shot, be in favour of concentration camps and gassing colonized natives without the PC brigade jumping all over you these days.

Shameful, u wud all be speeking German if it wasnt for this grate man.

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, Henderson to deliver ..... said:

You can't even starve a few Bengalis, order civilians to be shot, be in favour of concentration camps and gassing colonized natives without the PC brigade jumping all over you these days.

Shameful, u wud all be speeking German if it wasnt for this grate man.

I got my O level and also started my Higher before I dropped it in 6th year.

It was nicht gut............

[pandarilla]

I'll be annoyed if Greer didn't demolish those three cheap points made by Morgan at the end.

1. No-one would've been forced to speak German. That's not a thing.

2. Why should he provide balance to the tweet when Churchill has been the recipient of the most positive mood music in British media history? The c**t gets very little comeback for all the things that Greer mentioned.

And 3. Piers Morgan calling someone smug? f**k me.

[Londonwell]

For anyone interested take a quick look at Morgans twitter feed- full of retweets/tweets on his interview from the darkest depths of twitter britnattery. You'd be forgiven for thinking the rinsing he got has bothered him so.

Edited January 29, 2019 by Londonwell