[Non-US] News That Makes You laugh/cry/neither...

[Username17]

Okay, I gotta ask: is Cameron TRYING to go down in history as the worst PM in UK history?

Well, he did manage to throw a temper tantrum and scuttle the latest round of Northern Ireland talks by insisting that agreements between Unionists and Catholics be tied to arbitrary and harsh welfare reforms. So... that was weird.

And he managed to get the conservative president of Europe to bitch him out for his atrocious treatment of immigrants. Oh, I'm sorry, Juncker is a conservative douche, and is totally OK with that shit, it's just that Cameron's anti-immigrant policy managed to go over the line of actually shitting on white Europeans.

And he announced a budget plan that fails basic arithmetic.

And he doubled down on a 4-hour A&E target that isn't actually achievable and won't be achieved.

And so on and so on. The Coalition government has been an unmitigated disaster. Every single thing they've done has been a hilarious failure. It's gotten so bad that the Tories are losing votes to fucking UKIP, even though those guys are ridiculous clowns.

-Username17

[Blicero]

Every single thing they've done has been a hilarious failure. It's gotten so bad that the Tories are losing votes to fucking UKIP, even though those guys are ridiculous clowns.

Are you seriously using RT as your source of choice? There has to be a better way to document the fact that UKIP is a joke than fucking RT.

[Username17]

Every single thing they've done has been a hilarious failure. It's gotten so bad that the Tories are losing votes to fucking UKIP, even though those guys are ridiculous clowns.

Are you seriously using RT as your source of choice? There has to be a better way to document the fact that UKIP is a joke than fucking RT.

Meh. The Farage rant about how immigrants made him miss his appointment by physically taking up space on the motorways is quoted all over the place, including The Guardian and The BBC. On account of being hilarious and retarded. I just wanted a piece that gave a survey of crazy from the UKIP rather than just a documentation of that one insane foot-in-mouth incident. And the RT piece was the first one I found that fit that bill.

UKIP is very very crazy. That's a matter of public record. But you have to go to foreign press to condense all that into a single page rather than spreading it out into a series of incidents of context-less insanity.

-Username17

[Blade]

What's worrying about the state of Europe is not only that extreme right is rising. It's that as people get older, the workforce will go down. Hence, in the next 10 years, unless austerity destroys European economies, unemployment will probably go down.

So if the extreme right get to power in the coming years things could get messy. First, there's a risk of people getting the impression that the extreme right is able to solve unemployment. And second, due to the anti-immigration laws they want to pass, there is a risk of actually having a LACK of workers. But they might actually "solve" that by getting rid of retirement.

[PhoneLobster]

What's worrying...

I think my own experience with the extreme right taking power here suggests to me that when it comes to the extreme right, don't expect them to ever actually look competent and never expect them to not somehow fuck it up.

If anyone can be relied on to either fuck up or piss down the drain some free ride, it's the extreme right.

[Starmaker]

Are you seriously using RT as your source of choice? There has to be a better way to document the fact that UKIP is a joke than fucking RT.

Keep in mind that UKIP likes Putin, and Putin likes them back. So when RT reporting makes UKIP look bad, they're an appropriate source to cite.

[Longes]

For those who don't follow british politics, what's the deal with UKIP?

[GreatGreyShrike]

From back in October:

...wait, they're taking the Mike Mearls approach? Has Cameron not seen the kind of failure that marketing produces?

Cameron is caught between a rock and a hard place. He can't run on his achievements, because his government has been such a disaster that he is in the running with Chamberlain and Lord North for worst Prime Minister. And he has this other problem, which is the United Kingdom Independence Party. They are trying to take over as the Conservative party in parliament, and putting up a good showing of it.

Now, with a name like UKIP, you know it's going to be awesome. The United Kingdom is already independent. In fact, it's the oldest independent country in the world today. Other countries getting independence from it is something people have been fighting and dying over for nearly a quarter of a millennium. The idea that independence for the United Kingdom over what they already have had for longer than any other nation on Earth could be a thing that could even happen, let alone be an issue worth discussing to the point of naming your political party after it is absurd. And yet: here we are.

UKIP gets their raison d'etre from being "Eurosceptics" (that's spelled with a "c" because British people). Basically, the European Parliament is by several measures the most corrupt and unresponsive legislature in the history of mankind. And that includes the classical Roman Senate which is appointed by the Senate, and the Soviet Duma, where people were only offered one candidate to vote for by the Communist Party. So you can get a lot of traction with voters yelling about how the European Parliament is shitty and unresponsive. And here's the best part: once they get voted into the European Parliament they don't have to do anything! They get their voters riled up with stories of European Parliamentarians not showing up for work and taking huge bribes, meaning that they can slack off all day and rake in enormous graft and this makes them more popular. As long as they aren't an actual majority in parliament, they can just shit all over the legislative process and engage in comically ludicrous kickback schemes and get rewarded for it.

So the UKIP has been doing very well in European Parliament elections in the UK. Last election, they got the most votes of any party contesting that election, which means suddenly everyone has to take them seriously. So they now have the clout to contest the regular parliament elections and they are doing that. And here's the thing: they don't have a shitty record while being in charge the way the actual Tories do. They can make all the feel-good Conservative promises they want, and don't have to talk around their own legacy of failure. They've never been in charge of anything, so they can take everything they want from the Conservatives' platform and can also simply ignore any uncomfortable questions they don't feel like fielding.

It's kind of like the Tea Party in the US. Or in Czech Republic, kind of like TOP09, Public Affairs, New Dawn, ANO11, ProPrahu, Heads Up!, and all the others I can't recall off the top of my head. Right wing policies don't work, but right wing slogans do. So if your conservative parties are flagging under the weight of having repeatedly failed to deliver the economic boomtimes they repeatedly assure us will come from slashing the tax bills of rich people and paying for it by slashing the funding of programmes for poor people, you can always just create a new party from scratch. Repackage the same tired playbook only you claim it's brand new scrappy underdog ideas and deny that it has ever failed - let alone that it's pretty much exactly the deal that conservatives have been offering since the 1920s with no successes to speak of anywhere in the world during that entire near century of repetition.

Anyway, the UK's conservatives are running scared, and that's reasonable for them to do because they have lunatic fringe teabaggers saying everything they want to say plus a bunch of insane and impossible promises that don't even make sense and no one calls them on it because they are new. And their reaction to this is to make promises that are even more outlandish and insane.

-Username17

I am strongly liberal even for a Canadian; I pretty much agree with Frank's assessment here, from what I've seen of British politics as an outsider, but I am perhaps not the best person to represent the views of UKIP sympathetically.

[Koumei]

For those who don't follow british politics, what's the deal with UKIP?

Basically, they're the crazy bunch who think the problem with the current conservative lot is they're not racist enough. That should horrify you such that your balls retract, I imagine.

Also they're generally insane on top of that, and they suck the same milk from the same teats as most of the conservatives anyway - indeed, Tories have defected over to them, thus repainting held districts from "Corrupt Assholes" to "We're Racists Now!" with incredible ease, so this suggests the two parties are really basically the same. Except one is more racist and more crazy. But would still gladly fail almost identically to the Tories when it comes to most things.

[ishy]

What's worrying about the state of Europe is not only that extreme right is rising. It's that as people get older, the workforce will go down. Hence, in the next 10 years, unless austerity destroys European economies, unemployment will probably go down.

So if the extreme right get to power in the coming years things could get messy. First, there's a risk of people getting the impression that the extreme right is able to solve unemployment. And second, due to the anti-immigration laws they want to pass, there is a risk of actually having a LACK of workers. But they might actually "solve" that by getting rid of retirement.

The problem is, that it is not the extreme right that is pushing for austerity. Everybody except the extreme right and the extreme left are pushing austerity.

While the extreme right does say some crazy stuff, they are no worse than any of the other parties. They push for some good, sane stuff that other parties refuse to touch. It is the extreme right who are pushing for women's rights in Muslim communities.

[Kaelik]

What's worrying about the state of Europe is not only that extreme right is rising. It's that as people get older, the workforce will go down. Hence, in the next 10 years, unless austerity destroys European economies, unemployment will probably go down.

So if the extreme right get to power in the coming years things could get messy. First, there's a risk of people getting the impression that the extreme right is able to solve unemployment. And second, due to the anti-immigration laws they want to pass, there is a risk of actually having a LACK of workers. But they might actually "solve" that by getting rid of retirement.

The problem is, that it is not the extreme right that is pushing for austerity. Everybody except the extreme right and the extreme left are pushing austerity.

While the extreme right does say some crazy stuff, they are no worse than any of the other parties. They push for some good, sane stuff that other parties refuse to touch. It is the extreme right who are pushing for women's rights in Muslim communities.

No... not really. The extreme right in Muslim countries are oppressing women. The extreme right in non Muslim Countries are oppressing their own women while claiming to care about Muslim women in a way that definitely justifies being racist in their country and killing people in other countries, but not actually helping women in any real way.

[DSMatticus]

Yeah, it is profoundly weird to say that the people who hate everything Muslim are standing up for Muslim women because everything Muslim includes the Muslim varieties of sexism. By that reasoning, Christian fundamentalists are also standing up for Muslim women because they prefer to get their sexism from a slightly different book which also tells them that women are their property.

The extreme right in Europe absolutely 100% does not give a fuck about women (and would like to return to the days when they don't have to pretend to and can go back to chaining them to the stove until it's time to sell them), but they do give a fuck about convincing everyone else to help them shit on Muslims. And to that end, they will without shame be the pot that calls the kettle black and point at examples of horrific sexism in order to earn support for their horrifically racist and also sexist agenda. But you shouldn't give them props for that. You should just call them racist, sexist fuckwads.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Whenever your inner Very Serious Person starts banging from inside your ribcage and you feel the neurotic urge to try to find some kernel of good in conservatism (or any right-wing movement), remember this:

Conservatives do not give a fuck about non-tribesmen's rights. If you see a right-winger who is supposedly on the 'right' side of environmentalism, gay rights, education, etc.. then the absolute best case scenario is that they feel their subtribe being threatened and are willing to budge on this one issue while not otherwise advancing an inch in the direction of questioning the underlying ideology of arbitrary hierarchical domination. The vast majority of them won't even try to universalize the right but will instead try to sneak in a special exception for them and their loved ones while going right back to denying other people what they reserved for themselves.

Usually, though, the conservative reversing course and adopting some kind of non-scummy political position is just them scrounging for some special pleaded political advantage. For example, you can see American and Canadian conservatives preparing to do a 'meh' on gay rights while not apologizing for their stances on racial minority and women's rights. It's not because they're slowly grokking the idea behind human rights, it's because they think that currently bashing gays gets in the way of more tax cuts and abortion restrictions. If the tide of public opinion or political power was to somehow shift they'd be right back to their old homophobic tricks.

Conservatives do not give a fuck about non-tribesmen's rights. Repeat that to yourself whenever you see a 'reasonable' conservative and you'll do just fine.

[ishy]

The point is, the extreme right here does care about women's right and gay rights. And in fact back in 2002, the leader of one extreme right party actually was gay himself.

[Omegonthesane]

The point is, the extreme right here does care about women's right and gay rights. And in fact back in 2002, the leader of one extreme right party actually was gay himself.

[citation the fuck needed]

[DSMatticus]

The point is, the extreme right here does care about women's right and gay rights.

No, the point is that the exact opposite of that is true! You have gone from licking your toe to putting the whole goddamn foot in your mouth.

Let's talk about UKIP; they are against maternity leave, against regulations against sexual harassment in the work place, and against anti-discrimination laws. They specifically want to make it easier to refuse to employ women because they're women, rape the women you have hired, and fire women who get pregnant. UKIP also does not support same-sex marriage; they support the separate-but-totally-equal-I-swear-oops-not-really civil partnerships because otherwise it would trample on the religious freedom of Christians to tell everyone else what marriage is and also there are more important things to talk about than civil rights so let's default to "no civil rights for [EDITED]" and stop talking about how evil that makes us because hey look shiny things.

The far right parties of Europe that are picking up steam are socially conservative and they fucking hate extending civil rights and basic human dignity to anyone who isn't a straight white male (preferably Christian). It is offensively uninformed to claim they are for womens' rights and gay rights. You may as well fucking tell us about Romney's binders full of women.

[Kaelik]

The point is, the extreme right here does care about women's right and gay rights. And in fact back in 2002, the leader of one extreme right party actually was gay himself.

Yeah no. You are wrong. I don't even know what country you are talking about and I know you are wrong.

The extreme right whereever you are does not in fact care about women's rights or gay rights. Having a gay person in the party does not mean they care about gay rights any more than Michael Steele proves that American Republicans care about black rights.

Caring about women and gay rights is not determined by giving lip service to caring about Muslim women to beat the drums and rattle the sabers. It is determined by actually seeking and striving for concrete changes to current laws to make things better for those groups.

[ishy]

Yeah no. You are wrong. I don't even know what country you are talking about and I know you are wrong.

The extreme right whereever you are does not in fact care about women's rights or gay rights. Having a gay person in the party does not mean they care about gay rights any more than Michael Steele proves that American Republicans care about black rights.

Caring about women and gay rights is not determined by giving lip service to caring about Muslim women to beat the drums and rattle the sabers. It is determined by actually seeking and striving for concrete changes to current laws to make things better for those groups.

And the extreme right here does support concrete changes to the law to make things better for those groups.
For example in 2011 there was a discussion about gay marriage. Specifically whether civil servants can refuse to perform gay marriages based on religious beliefs.

The position of the extreme right (translated): All civil servants have a duty to marry everyone, whether they are homosexual or heterosexual. We want to change the law to accomplish that.

And they did in fact support a motion to change the law.

[Stahlseele]

Have they gone full circle from extreme right to extreme left? O.o

[DSMatticus]

Yeah no. You are wrong. I don't even know what country you are talking about and I know you are wrong.

The extreme right whereever you are does not in fact care about women's rights or gay rights. Having a gay person in the party does not mean they care about gay rights any more than Michael Steele proves that American Republicans care about black rights.

Caring about women and gay rights is not determined by giving lip service to caring about Muslim women to beat the drums and rattle the sabers. It is determined by actually seeking and striving for concrete changes to current laws to make things better for those groups.

And the extreme right here does support concrete changes to the law to make things better for those groups.
For example in 2011 there was a discussion about gay marriage. Specifically whether civil servants can refuse to perform gay marriages based on religious beliefs.

The position of the extreme right (translated): All civil servants have a duty to marry everyone, whether they are homosexual or heterosexual. We want to change the law to accomplish that.

And they did in fact support a motion to change the law.

You know what would be great? If you would be specific enough about what party this is that it didn't boil down to a discussion about how hot your Canadian girlfriend is. Because odds are fucking fantastic that it will turn out to be a bunch of bigots making the minimum necessary concessions to avoid criticism or secure useful political capital, but until your story is a little more concrete than "meanwhile, somewhere in Europe" we can't actually apply that sort of scrutiny.

[Username17]

Ishy is Dutch, and he's talking about Fortuyn. It's actually an example not of a far right party embracing gays and womens' rights, but of a completely incoherent ideology favoring the political ambitions of some guy. So it's like the Five Star Movement in Italy, not Golden Dawn in Greece. Except that it was a lot more racist than the Five Star Movement and the leader got assassinated before it really went anywhere. The man in question was actually just a guy from the Labour party who took his ball and went home because the official left weren't racist enough.

So again and still, conservatives do not care about the rights of women and minorities. If you think they might, you're wrong.

-Username17

[DSMatticus]

I'm just going to point out that Fortuyn himself never lived to see his political party do... anything, but in his absence the party coalitioned with a socially conservative centre-right party largely opposed to gay rights and then gradually bled members into a bunch of other political parties who all, to varying extents, hate the first article of the dutch Constitution, which is the article guaranteeing equal rights under the law and prohibiting discrimination. And while I have no idea how Dutch law actually works, that seems like a pretty fucking important article if you don't actually want people to fire homosexuals for being homosexual.

Basically, it was the exact same shit soup of fascism, libertarianism, and social conservatism that you see in every other rightwing movement; the government should shit on people who are the wrong tribe, corporations need the "freedom" to do whatever the fuck they want, and if you happen to be one of the little people whose civil rights protections get disappeared by their policies "oops, we're sorry and we don't mean it, except we aren't and we do." Kaelik's Michael Steele example is spot-fucking-on; congratulations, you found a homosexual leading a bunch of bigots who wanted to weaken the laws protecting homosexuals (because those laws were getting in the way of their racism).

[ishy]

Ishy is Dutch, and he's talking about Fortuyn. It's actually an example not of a far right party embracing gays and womens' rights, but of a completely incoherent ideology favoring the political ambitions of some guy. So it's like the Five Star Movement in Italy, not Golden Dawn in Greece. Except that it was a lot more racist than the Five Star Movement and the leader got assassinated before it really went anywhere. The man in question was actually just a guy from the Labour party who took his ball and went home because the official left weren't racist enough.

So again and still, conservatives do not care about the rights of women and minorities. If you think they might, you're wrong.

-Username17

Actually no. I was mostly talking about the PVV and only mentioned Fortuyn.
Fortuyn was never a labour politician though.

[PhoneLobster]

So anyway. Queensland Australia, the worst state, has been spiraling into a severe case of fascist banana republic under the LNP conservatives.

You know, destroying anti corruption bodies, undermining the independence of the judicial branch, stacking the electoral commission, banning public gatherings and stuff.

Arguable they are doing things worse even than the evil mad monk in federal government as they are outright undermining the basis of modern democracy in QLD.

Being desperately unpopular and in danger of losing the upcoming election (and I suspect at that point in danger of the next government exposing their corruption to the light of day and the courts, which explains a certain hint of extreme desperation) they called it at the last moment over the xmas holidays as a desperate play to win it.

And boy have they been pulling some dodgey shit.

But the big news item of the moment is that they are now flat out bribing the electorate with public money. Not just pork barreling but conditional bribery.

As in they have promised barrels full of money to numerous key electorates but only on the literal and publicly declared requirement that those electorates elect LNP stooges.

As in even if the LNP wins if those electorate voted "wrong" they don't get the bribe money.

It's just about unprecedented... since last time Queensland was a fascist banana republic. Still. It sets really bad precedents.

HOPEFULLY the QLD residents will respond poorly and kick the worst state branch of the worst Australian party clean out of power... buuuut... they ARE Queenslanders so... yeah... no sure thing.

Still. If they DO clean Newman's scum out of office word on the street is that would spell the end for Abbot federally by Easter. And this time the speculation seems pretty convincing. IF Newman cops it. Man I hope he cops it, boy does that guy deserve it.

[Schleiermacher]

How the fuck is that not flagrantly illegal, when it's that blatant?