[Politics] Tory meltdown finally arrived [was: incoming]...

[Bodian]

This stuff amazes me:

The “15-minute city” is an urban planning concept that focuses on placing local amenities within about a 15-minute walk of people’s homes. It is designed to make urban areas more pleasant places to live. A conspiracy theory has grown up around it that claims it is actually an attempt to restrict people’s freedoms – locking them into areas around their homes and preventing them travelling freely beyond.

With absolutely zero due respect to the people who buy into this nonsense - how? How on earth do you think this is a) plausible and / or b) enforceable?

Oh sure, we don't have enough police officers to respond to crimes in timely fashion but somehow they're going to be, what?, stationed at a 15 minute border to stop people from leaving?

It's f***ing mind-boggling to me that people believe this bollocks.

/endrant.

And further down that article:

The Conservative party declined to answer when asked if it accepted that Caulfield’s claim the local council planned to charge motorists was incorrect, or if it recognised the distinction between the 15-minute city idea and the conspiracy theory. A spokesperson said: “This is nothing more than a pathetic attempt from the Liberal Democrats to distract from their war on motorists.”

 

[Pevenseagull]

This stuff amazes me:

The “15-minute city” is an urban planning concept that focuses on placing local amenities within about a 15-minute walk of people’s homes. It is designed to make urban areas more pleasant places to live. A conspiracy theory has grown up around it that claims it is actually an attempt to restrict people’s freedoms – locking them into areas around their homes and preventing them travelling freely beyond.

With absolutely zero due respect to the people who buy into this nonsense - how? How on earth do you think this is a) plausible and / or b) enforceable?

Oh sure, we don't have enough police officers to respond to crimes in timely fashion but somehow they're going to be, what?, stationed at a 15 minute border to stop people from leaving?

It's f***ing mind-boggling to me that people believe this bollocks.

/endrant.

This morning I shuffled along to the chemist, taken a jacket in for dry cleaning, gone for a nice coffee, popped in the library and picked up some milk and vegetables. Might pop to my local for a pint later on.

It's a dystopian nightmare.


Edit ... and had a couple of friendly chats with people from the neighbourhood while out and about. I feel like I'm living in a Kafka novel.

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

And further down that article:

The Conservative party declined to answer when asked if it accepted that Caulfield’s claim the local council planned to charge motorists was incorrect, or if it recognised the distinction between the 15-minute city idea and the conspiracy theory. A spokesperson said: “This is nothing more than a pathetic attempt from the Liberal Democrats to distract from their war on motorists.”

I'm happy to see this.

It's the ludicrous detachment from reality which is driving people further away from them.

Tories trying to chase the conspiracy theory vote is always fine with me

 

[MJsGhost]

And further down that article:

The Conservative party declined to answer when asked if it accepted that Caulfield’s claim the local council planned to charge motorists was incorrect, or if it recognised the distinction between the 15-minute city idea and the conspiracy theory. A spokesperson said: “This is nothing more than a pathetic attempt from the Liberal Democrats to distract from their war on motorists.”

Daisy Cooper, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, one of the main parties on the council in question, said: “Maria Caulfield should apologise to local people and report her leaflet to the ministerial ethics adviser. That would be the honest and decent thing to do.”​

​

​

She called the leaflets “dishonest”, adding: “After years of Conservative sleaze and scandal, the public desperately wants a return to integrity in politics, yet Maria Caulfield is spreading baseless claims. [She] is deliberately misleading the public to try to save her own job. This is a new low for the Conservative party.”​

​

This Daisy Cooper seems a bit dim...

First, she expects a Tory to do the honest and decent thing and then she claims that this is a new low for the Conservatives. Has she not been paying attention?

As for Caulfield, this is just a Hail Mary attempt as she knows she's 99.9% certain to lose her seat (good riddance)

 

[Greg Bobkin]

This stuff amazes me:

The “15-minute city” is an urban planning concept that focuses on placing local amenities within about a 15-minute walk of people’s homes. It is designed to make urban areas more pleasant places to live. A conspiracy theory has grown up around it that claims it is actually an attempt to restrict people’s freedoms – locking them into areas around their homes and preventing them travelling freely beyond.

With absolutely zero due respect to the people who buy into this nonsense - how? How on earth do you think this is a) plausible and / or b) enforceable?

Oh sure, we don't have enough police officers to respond to crimes in timely fashion but somehow they're going to be, what?, stationed at a 15 minute border to stop people from leaving?

It's f***ing mind-boggling to me that people believe this bollocks.

/endrant.

Not to me it isn't - some people are just facking thick!

 

[pb21]

This stuff amazes me:

The “15-minute city” is an urban planning concept that focuses on placing local amenities within about a 15-minute walk of people’s homes. It is designed to make urban areas more pleasant places to live. A conspiracy theory has grown up around it that claims it is actually an attempt to restrict people’s freedoms – locking them into areas around their homes and preventing them travelling freely beyond.

With absolutely zero due respect to the people who buy into this nonsense - how? How on earth do you think this is a) plausible and / or b) enforceable?

Oh sure, we don't have enough police officers to respond to crimes in timely fashion but somehow they're going to be, what?, stationed at a 15 minute border to stop people from leaving?

It's f***ing mind-boggling to me that people believe this bollocks.

/endrant.

Do people really belive it, or do they just like to think it's a thing?

I am sure some oddballs are convinved about this (as part of the wider WEF conspiracy), but suspect most just go along with it as it satisifies some underlying uneasiness.

 

[Machiavelli]

Sunak's latest reset attempt can be summed up succinctly: be afraid, be very afraid, so afraid that you'll have to do the unthinkable and vote for my lot.

How many more resets is he going to attempt ahead of the election?

 

[BBassic]

Do people really belive it, or do they just like to think it's a thing?

I am sure some oddballs are convinved about this (as part of the wider WEF conspiracy), but suspect most just go along with it as it satisifies some underlying uneasiness.

Whenever stuff like this comes up I do my level best to try and understand the viewpoint because I can identify with believing something which has no basis in truth.

Case in point - I believe in the supernatural for which we have absolutely no evidence. But I know the real reason behind that belief is because I'm scared of death and believing in an afterlife of some sort is a way to ease that fear. It's a security blanket

So I get it, I get the illogical belief in something but there's got to be something deeper in their psyche driving that belief.

 

[chickens]

The Conservative Party is now 100% the tinfoil hat party. The Liberal Democrats are shaping up to be the official opposition at this rate. They’d be an improvement.

Edit: it is incredible to me that an incumbent governing party has chosen to be the party of conspiracy theory and deliberate untruth DESPITE HAVING BEEN IN POWER FOR NEARLY FIFTEEN YEARS.

How does it feel this helps it?

 

[Pinkie Brown]

Daisy Cooper, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, one of the main parties on the council in question, said: “Maria Caulfield should apologise to local people and report her leaflet to the ministerial ethics adviser. That would be the honest and decent thing to do.”​

​

​

She called the leaflets “dishonest”, adding: “After years of Conservative sleaze and scandal, the public desperately wants a return to integrity in politics, yet Maria Caulfield is spreading baseless claims. [She] is deliberately misleading the public to try to save her own job. This is a new low for the Conservative party.”​

​

This Daisy Cooper seems a bit dim...

First, she expects a Tory to do the honest and decent thing and then she claims that this is a new low for the Conservatives. Has she not been paying attention?

As for Caulfield, this is just a Hail Mary attempt as she knows she's 99.9% certain to lose her seat (good riddance)

She's surely gone although notably, Caulfield as far as I know hasn't declared she will run yet. Were the constituency the town of Lewes alone she wouldn't have been anywhere near Westminster. Its a large constituency that takes in Seaford, Newhaven and Polegate plus rural areas which got her over the line previously.

 

[nicko31]

Sunak's latest reset attempt can be summed up succinctly: be afraid, be very afraid, so afraid that you'll have to do the unthinkable and vote for my lot.

How many more resets is he going to attempt ahead of the election?

It really does feel at times like the Tories behaving like the opposition. Sunak is doing trying to pretend that everything before 22nd October 2022 was nothing to do with him, utterly bizarre

 

[Peteinblack]

The Conservative Party is now 100% the tinfoil hat party. The Liberal Democrats are shaping up to be the official opposition at this rate. They’d be an improvement.

Edit: it is incredible to me that an incumbent governing party has chosen to be the party of conspiracy theory and deliberate untruth DESPITE HAVING BEEN IN POWER FOR NEARLY FIFTEEN YEARS.

How does it feel this helps it?

I guess it hopes that any claims it makes, however absurd, will divert attention from the absolute fuckwittery of the last 15 years. After all, they've got us discussing it on here right now!

It knows that some people are so gullible that they'll believe anything the Conservatives say, however ridiculous, especially if it is echoed by the Right-wing press. Then anyone who disagrees and points out the utter absurdity, and total lack of evidence, will be denounced as Woke, or a Commie who 'hates their country'.

It's another example of the Tories desperately adopting the tactics of Trump's Republicans.

 

[Audax]

One of our local MPs being a dishonest conspiracy theorist

Maria Caulfield faces calls to refer herself to ethics adviser over false ‘15-minute city’ claims

UK health minister ‘spreading baseless claims’ by saying local council planned to restrict freedom to drive, say Lib Dems

www.theguardian.com

Not the first time this thicko has propagated baseless conspiracy theories, either. She seems to be very, very gullible.

 

[Muzzman]

Hear the Tories are u-turning on criminalising homelessness. Well for one, it's a little too late for that now, and secondly, I forgot they were trying to do that. Don't care if they're u-turning, that's disgusting to think they even thought to do that to people. Utter ****s.

 

[Peteinblack]

Hear the Tories are u-turning on criminalising homelessness. Well for one, it's a little too late for that now, and secondly, I forgot they were trying to do that. Don't care if they're u-turning, that's disgusting to think they even thought to do that to people. Utter ****s.

Were planning to criminalise the homeless - while (last month) watering-down legislation to ban no-fault evictions, after lobbying from landlords. Surprise, surprise!

The current Tories really are complete and utter *****

 

[MJsGhost]

She's surely gone although notably, Caulfield as far as I know hasn't declared she will run yet. Were the constituency the town of Lewes alone she wouldn't have been anywhere near Westminster. Its a large constituency that takes in Seaford, Newhaven and Polegate plus rural areas which got her over the line previously.

I live in a rural village within the Lewes constituency. The absence of Conservative placards for any recent elections has been remarkable. Either CCHQ has given up on Lewes and withdrawn budget, or their traditional supporters (even the farmers) have given up on them. Neither is a good sign for their election prospects. I suppose they might just be too embarrassed to show support in public, but that's not exactly an endorsement either.

The Greens have made huge gains in the local elections round here, which might offer a sliver of hope to Caulfield that the anti-Tory vote will be split, but I suspect we'll end up with a comfortable win for the LibDems.

 

[Stato]

The Conservative Party is now 100% the tinfoil hat party.

Their problem is that they follow the US Republican Party playbook and that party was a busted flush and hollowed out by the Tea Party / MAGA / Christian Right lunatics some time ago.

There is no longer any kind of respectable political / economic theory coming from the right. They have had every opportunity to test their theories in real life over coming up for half a century and they just don't work. There is no trickle down effect. Low taxes do not produce growth that lifts all boats. Small Government does not save money. Society is not more equal. Individuals are not more free. It was all wrong. It all failed for all except the richest who were responsible for pushing it in the first place. All they have left is to hang on to electoral power and they have fearmongering about nonsense as their only tactic left to do that, or bypassing electoral power totally which is the step they seem to have been attempting.

 

[Peteinblack]

Their problem is that they follow the US Republican Party playbook and that party was a busted flush and hollowed out by the Tea Party / MAGA / Christian Right lunatics some time ago.

There is no longer any kind of respectable political / economic theory coming from the right. They have had every opportunity to test their theories in real life over coming up for half a century and they just don't work. There is no trickle down effect. Low taxes do not produce growth that lifts all boats. Small Government does not save money. Society is not more equal. Individuals are not more free. It was all wrong. It all failed for all except the richest who were responsible for pushing it in the first place. All they have left is to hang on to electoral power and they have fearmongering about nonsense as their only tactic left to do that, or bypassing electoral power totally which is the step they seem to have been attempting.

Brilliant summary.

In some respects, today's Tories remind me of the Communist headbangers in the old Soviet Union.

Rather than looking at the destruction, misery and total failure of their ideology and policies, they either insist that the 'program' simply needed more time to bear fruit, or it needed it be applied more energetically; a doubling-down.

There was also a common assumption that heretical non-believers and unpatriotic traitors in key civic and political institutions (civil service, media, universities, etc) were sabotaging the policies. These people needed to be weeded-out and replaced. Critics and opponents of the regime were either smeared and misrepresented to discredit them, or silenced - to defend freedom and democracy from 'enemies within'.

Hence Liz Trussolini's recent claim that she and Kwasi Kwarteng were victims of a conspiracy by the 'deep State' (the same claim made by Trump), as if the Treasury, Office of Budget Responsibility, and the Governor of the Bank of England, were swivel-eyed Marxists!

You couldn't make it up; sadly, you don't need to.

 

[Lyndhurst 14]

 

[Thunder Bolt]

I live in a rural village within the Lewes constituency. The absence of Conservative placards for any recent elections has been remarkable. Either CCHQ has given up on Lewes and withdrawn budget, or their traditional supporters (even the farmers) have given up on them. Neither is a good sign for their election prospects. I suppose they might just be too embarrassed to show support in public, but that's not exactly an endorsement either.

The Greens have made huge gains in the local elections round here, which might offer a sliver of hope to Caulfield that the anti-Tory vote will be split, but I suspect we'll end up with a comfortable win for the LibDems.

Caulfield only has a 2,000 majority anyway, which was down in 2019 from 2017. She had already started losing 'popularity'.

She is trying to curry favour in Newhaven at present blaming the Greens and Libdems for a waste food storage area on the Piddinghoe Road which got planning permission in April, despite very few people actually hearing about it. It was the Greens who voted it through but she keeps insisting on naming the LDs despite being told she is wrong.
She is also saying she will see what she can do to overturn it, which is nonsense because it would need a judicial review, although there are over 100 objections lodged over the weekend. It is slightly possible the Greens didn't do a proper consultation, but if it is overturned it won't be down to her.