I read the news today oh boy! Page 1,522

Quote: Renegade Carpark @ 13th April 2014, 7:14 PM BST

Now here is where we get into a deeper and more disturbing argument - feminists say we live in a rape culture and yet this woman resigned for making a trivial reference to rape - so someone is wrong. My money as always is on the feminists.

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And my money as always is on you.

Quote: sootyj @ 13th April 2014, 6:59 PM BST

Oops you just torpedoed your own argument irreversibly.

I like mumsnet its entertaining, but that's just gossip and no substance.

That and no one sacks a politician, you resign or get voted out.

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Well, if they are local people their views of local politics may well have substance. In reality, we don't know if it was just this that caused her to resign.

Whatever view you take of the comment itself, it was clearly a massive misjudgement. Should we have politicians who are capable of such gaffs?

I rather enjoyed the UKIP - Fruitcake or Looney? section of HIGNFY last week. Anyone who reckons the floods were caused by gay marriage does not have the judgement to be a decent politician.

Boris Johnson, Winston Churchill, Lady Thatch, Jackie "you know where to find me" Spliff, Disraeli,

yes lets have them faulty, failing and foolish. Do you really want the army of smooth, smiling, on message automantons who've polluted our parliament for years.

You're using gossip from a tittle tattle website and saying that we should sack politicians for one mistake, because they probably did worse.

Not only do you sound like you've been smoking the Daily Mail.

But and I usually only find myself saying this to RCP.

I don't believe you're convincing yourself.

Quote: Jennie @ 13th April 2014, 7:40 PM BST

I rather enjoyed the UKIP - Fruitcake or Looney? section of HIGNFY last week. Anyone who reckons the floods were caused by gay marriage does not have the judgement to be a decent politician.

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Which is why UKIP sacked them, all of them.

They all went off to do whatever fruitcakes do when their parties fired them.

I won't use loony, it can join rape in the pile of ugly words that slipped back into our language/

Quote: sootyj @ 13th April 2014, 7:48 PM BST

I don't believe you're convincing yourself.

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Of what?

1. That we don't know the whole story here? We don't.

2. That to make the comment was a big misjudgement? It was.

3. That judgement is an important quality in a politician? It is.

4. That a lack of judgement must raise the question as to an individual's ability as a politician? It does.

I haven't really said anything particularly controversial and I'm not convinced of anything one way or the other. (Other than my complete revulsion at the comment).

Quote: sootyj @ 13th April 2014, 7:48 PM BST

Which is why UKIP sacked them, all of them.

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And they held those views before joining UKIP, often as Conservative councillors who served for many years at a local level and were endorsed by their party.

The Tories wouldn't sack them, but UKIP certainly did. They should be applauded.

Quote: sootyj @ 13th April 2014, 7:48 PM BST

I won't use loony, it can join rape in the pile of ugly words that slipped back into our language/

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I was quoting HIGNFY, I don't particularly like it either.

Quote: Jennie @ 13th April 2014, 7:52 PM BST

Of what?

1. That we don't know the whole story here? We don't.

2. That to make the comment was a big misjudgement? It was.

3. That judgement is an important quality in a politician? It is.

4. That a lack of judgement must raise the question as to an individual's ability as a politician? It does.

I haven't really said anything particularly controversial and I'm not convinced of anything one way or the other. (Other than my complete revulsion at the comment).

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Oh I agree with you on all of that.

What I don't agree with and I doubt you agree with is.

1 That unsubstantiated gossip has any place in a discussion on someone's career.
2 That a single error should lead to one publicly and humiliatingly losing their job.

Quote: Jennie @ 13th April 2014, 7:53 PM BST

I was quoting HIGNFY, I don't particularly like it either.

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So who is to be the arbiter of acceptable language in the public arena?

Hard working career politicians, or the smug urban elite of the BBC?

Do counselors even get paid?

Quote: Renegade Carpark @ 13th April 2014, 7:52 PM BST

And they held those views before joining UKIP, often as Conservative councillors who served for many years at a local level and where endorsed by their party.

The Tories wouldn't sack them, but UKIP certainly did. They should be applauded.

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I'm trying to find the UKIP policy on criminal justice. I thought it might be on their website, but I was sadly mistaken. There is a lovely section on Nigel though.

Any ideas?

Quote: Renegade Carpark @ 13th April 2014, 7:52 PM BST

And they held those views before joining UKIP, often as Conservative councillors who served for many years at a local level and were endorsed by their party.

The Tories wouldn't sack them, but UKIP certainly did. They should be applauded.

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The conservatives slyly got them out of the back door, UKIP took a principled stand.

I'd never vote for them, but as I often say they serve a very useful purpose in politics.

A democracy where you're not offended by someone else's views isn't really a democracy.

Quote: Jennie @ 13th April 2014, 8:01 PM BST

I'm trying to find the UKIP policy on criminal justice. I thought it might be on their website, but I was sadly mistaken. There is a lovely section on Nigel though.

Any ideas?

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Bless they just had to rewrite the whole thing after someone found a section in the old one, about repatriating foreign footballers.

Their main policy seems to be turning NHS hospitals into aircraft carriers and having a free vote on leaving the EU.

Quote: sootyj @ 13th April 2014, 8:01 PM BST

I'd never vote for them, but as I often say they serve a very useful purpose in politics.

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Very useful; they will split the Tory vote.

Quote: sootyj @ 13th April 2014, 7:59 PM BST

Oh I agree with you on all of that.

What I don't agree with and I doubt you agree with is.

1 That unsubstantiated gossip has any place in a discussion on someone's career.

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My source is unsubstantiated. But the gossip itself may be entirely accurate. We don't know, not living in leafy land. So it is relevant because we may not know what political pressure this woman was under before this incident.

Of course, it may all be nonsense. But it is very likely we do not know the full story.

Quote: sootyj @ 13th April 2014, 7:59 PM BST

2 That a single error should lead to one publicly and humiliatingly losing their job.

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Depends on the job and the error. Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield ordered that Gate C be opened and 96 people died. He didn't lose his job. I would argue that perhaps he should have done.

And the liberal vote, but I want all views in politics, in the bright lime light.

No skulking around saying your views are too dangerous to be heard.

Quote: sootyj @ 13th April 2014, 8:03 PM BST

Bless they just had to rewrite the whole thing after someone found a section in the old one, about repatriating foreign footballers.

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They are sweet. I notice they had something in the 2010 manifesto about repealing the Human Rights Act and therefore "withdrawing the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights". It must have slipped their notice that we were subject to the European Convention for 50 years before the HRA was passed. They operate independently of each other.

Anyway, what it does show is that they wrote the manifesto without talking to a lawyer. Or indeed, anyone who knows anything about human rights law. I'm not saying you have to take what they say as red, but wouldn't it be useful to at talk to someone who might know what they are doing?

Edit: 2000 posts for me. Yay.

Quote: Jennie @ 13th April 2014, 8:06 PM BST

Depends on the job and the error. Chief Superintendent David Duckenfield ordered that Gate C be opened and 96 people died. He didn't lose his job. I would argue that perhaps he should have done.

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If he did that without sufficently appraising the risks etc, then yes.

But making a shit joke you probably heard Thatcher make at the Monday Club in 1983, is not akin to murder.

I don't like the press hounding people out of office, I don't like being ruled by smuggos with good pr.

I don't like how so often a politicians career depends on their ability to appease journos.

Quote: Jennie @ 13th April 2014, 8:10 PM BST

They are sweet. I notice they had something in the 2010 manifesto about repealing the Human Rights Act and therefore "withdrawing the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights". It must have slipped their notice that we were subject to the European Convention for 50 years before the HRA was passed. They operate independently of each other.

Anyway, what it does show is that they wrote the manifesto without talking to a lawyer. Or indeed, anyone who knows anything about human rights law. I'm not saying you have to take what they say as red, but wouldn't it be useful to at talk to someone who might know what they are doing?

Edit: 2000 posts for me. Yay.

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You're looking at the mouse in the cup, not the elephant on the table.

They're budget doesn't balance.

So they're not getting in, people would vote Gary Glitter if he could balance the budget.

Erm . . "whispers" what's wrong with the term 'dutch auctions' ?

It's prejudicial against the Dutch, you bigot.