Queen hands over the charity reins: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38380285
Thank goodness that in a sea of miserable news recently we have Queenie.
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Yes, just imagine the situation if we were a republic with an elected president. Half the electorate would be disputing the result of the election, querying how a majority of 55/45 could be said to "represent" the country, demanding a recount, challenging the result in the courts, trying to block it in parliament, demonstrating at Westminster, and creating bitter arguments in workplace and between friends.
How very different from the life of our own dear queen.
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It seems to have been a considerable shock to the comfortable well off people that they could be out voted by the great unwashed working folk.
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>> It seems to have been a considerable shock to the comfortable well off people that
>> they could be out voted by the great unwashed working folk.
>>
While the comfortable very well off continue to count their money and the great unwashed 'working' folk lose their jobs. Well done everybody.
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>> the great unwashed 'working' folk lose their jobs. Well done everybody.
>>
Don't know if you're referring to UK or USA
www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/unemployment-rate
UK Unemployment Rate At 11-Year Low Of 4.8%
Employed Persons 30,548,000 near highest ever (peak was a few months ago)
www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate
US unemployment rate fell to 4.6 percent in November 2016 from 4.9 percent in the previous month and well below market expectations of 4.9 percent. It was the lowest jobless rate since August 2007, as the number of unemployed persons declined by 387 thousand to 7.4 million while the labor force participation rate decreased by 0.1 percentage point to 62.7 percent. Unemployment Rate in the United States averaged 5.81 percent from 1948 until 2016, reaching an all time high of 10.80 percent in November of 1982 and a record low of 2.50 percent in May of 1953.
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>> >> the great unwashed 'working' folk lose their jobs. Well done everybody.
>> >>
>>
>> Don't know if you're referring to UK or USA
>>
UK - we haven't Brexited yet.....
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>> It seems to have been a considerable shock to the comfortable well off people that
>> they could be out voted by the great unwashed working folk.
Isn't the Republican party the party of the wealthy???
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>> Isn't the Republican party the party of the wealthy???
Yes but they have to get enough of the proles to vote for them.
A majority of poor people vote Democrat. However that does not apply to poor white people. To me this division on racial lines is troubling. One might think that the Republicans subtly but knowingly appeal to racists. Well not so subtly perhaps - "We'll build a wall to keep [the foreigners] out", "We won't let Muslims in".
In the Presidential election another material factor must have been the disappointment of people who had previously voted Democrat that, after two terms of Obama, they do not perceive that their problems have been solved or their circumstances improved and their vote can be seen as a protest. It is unfortunate that protesting at the Democrats will result in them getting something worse.
Here, the Conservatives are clearly the party of money and of the establishment. Yet workers vote for them.
Education is the best hope, surely. But there is a lot of wilful ignorance. Having a degree does not prevent some people seemingly knowing nothing at all about the world in general.
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Manatee>> Here, the Conservatives are clearly the party of money and of the establishment. Yet workers
>> vote for them.
>>
>> Education is the best hope, surely. But there is a lot of wilful ignorance. Having
>> a degree does not prevent some people seemingly knowing nothing at all about the world
>> in general.
So when the working classes have finally been educated properly they will all vote Labour. Lol.
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How very different from the life of our own dear queen.
Where there is no choice at all....the only way to replace her is by revolution.
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>>Where there is no choice at all...
Isn't that the point?
Why would anyone want to replace a ceremonial head of state, part of whose function is to deny power to political opportunists, would-be dictators and megalomaniacs, extreme zealots etc.?
Unless of course they want the HoS to have executive powers, which would subvert Parliament.
I suppose one of the very few plus points of Trump is that it might put a few people off the idea of deposing Queenie.
Opinion is free of course. For now.
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If Donald Trump does half as good a job as Ronald Reagan - similarly sneered at by the "liberal" establishment as a know-nothing, "not our sort of man/woman, Daaahling", he will have done very well indeed.
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>> If Donald Trump does half as good a job as Ronald Reagan
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmWLJmbytkk
You need to be about 90 seconds in for the punch line.
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>> If Donald Trump does half as good a job as Ronald Reagan -
That's as maybe, but I don't recall Reagan's integrity being at issue. He had some political background too, having been the President of the Actors' Guild for decades IIRC and Governor of California for about 8.
I can't actually remember what I thought when he was elected, but I'm pretty sure the sneering and general hostility to him becoming President was nowhere near what is is with Trump.
With full benefit of hindsight, I don't think he was dumb at all, and perhaps more importantly his judgement was said to be well above average.
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>>
>> With full benefit of hindsight, I don't think he was dumb at all, and perhaps
>> more importantly his judgement was said to be well above average.
>>
Smart enough to let people think he was dumb.
>> Here, the Conservatives are clearly the party of money and of the establishment. Yet workers
>> vote for them.
>>
Thankfully, this being a free country, we can. My definition; working class Tories vote that way because they want to work, the rest vote Labour because they want to be paid, regardless of whether they want to work or not.
Last edited by: Harleyman on Wed 21 Dec 16 at 20:37
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" pretty sure the sneering and general hostility to him becoming President ..."
Isn't that a relatively recent phenomenon? I think in the past people generally had more respect for law and order, democracy and other people than they have now.
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>> Isn't that a relatively recent phenomenon? I think in the past people generally had more
>> respect for law and order, democracy and other people than they have now.
I was thinking about that the other day. If you look at old tv reports of Presidents and smartly-suited Prime Ministers from the sixties and seventies, the reporters tended to call them sir (they were mostly male of course), tended not to be at all rude, tended to ask questions in a polite manner and tended to back off when the politician appeared grumpy.
Then it changed, thankfully, to being a bit more positive and bit more aggressive in the questioning, irrespective of the position of the person.
Then it got more aggressive, and rude, and unpleasant.
Now we have "the internet", where anyone can have a go.
Great chunks of the internet have become like a closed room - open the door and you're met with a 24/7 party of hostile baboons.
Reminds me of some horror film once (or maybe it was just in my head) where hell was in fact just a roar of other dead people each constantly whispering the most vile things at you, without stopping, forever. Everyone making it worse for everyone else.
I think we lost something, somewhere along the way.
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>> Where there is no choice at all....the only way to replace her is by revolution.
>>
Why would you wan to replace her?
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>>
>> Why would you want to replace her?
>>
If the concept of an elected head of state is so precious to anti-monarchists, then why aren't they cheering the election of Donald Trump in America? Isn't that what proper democracy is all about - celebrating the election even of someone you would have preferred not to have won?
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One steps down - Cliff Pope
