labour mps call for nazanin to be given seat in lords

[Thomas]

Not hindsight at all this was being discussed on the old old forum 12 years ago and it was before that by people who had more of an eye for thye countrys welfare rather than their own popularity or wallets.

I agree with that completely cromwell , and as we have said many a time till we are blue in the face , neither labour nor tory at westmisnter are interested in long term policy on pretty much anything and everything.

Until people stop voting for either , nothing is going to change. Its that simple.

[Thomas]

I am not interested in giving her a peerage Thomas, and I doubt this has any movement in Starmers Labour in any case

What does this actually mean boycey? It was labour mps and peers in starmers labour who are calling for her to be given a peerage.

You're always get a throw away comment by back benchers in the Commons given it makes a great soundbite to (some) voters. But that is different to party policy and I suspect we won't hear much of this from outside the confounds of Pol-tics.

No boycey , you are doing nothing more than making excuses for labour.

I had two simple points to make on this thread.

1. labour leaving yet another ticking time bomb for others to deal with , this 400 million debt. How many times do we see this in politics? It isnt just at westminster level between labour and tory , we see it at every level of politics and governance.

For example , the equal pay dispute in glasgow for glaswegian coucil workers , where labour were in charge for 80 years , as well as 13 years at westminster under blair and brown , fought tooth and nail to stop equal pay including spending £6 million of scottish taxpayers money fighting in courts , then when they got booted out in 2017 , went straight to the unions and stirred up trouble for the snp adminisntration to get equal pay implemented that they had fought against.

This wasnt just blairite labour. It was corbynite labour , and evey other facking strand of labour old and new.

2. Second point was as i said , despite campaigning on various manifestos over 100 years to abolish the lords , they then dont abolish the lords when in power , and to rub further salt in the wounds , try and stack the lords with their toadies.

The fact this non entity woman , whose sole claim to fame is to stupidly go to iran against advice and then got banged up because of labours debts , shouldnt be given  a peerage , or wether or not you agree with an unelected chamber isnt really the point.

Its labour causing problems , breaking promises , and their outright failure to implement thier long held manifesto commitments and rub our noses in that fact that gets my back up.

You seriously wonder why no one takes them seriously?

[johnofgwent]

john i was just looking into why the uk owed the iranians this £400 million. As i understand it , iran under the shah ordered a load of chieftain tanks from the uk labour governments in the seventies of callaghan and wilson. They paid up front to the uk , and that was mostly reneged on (a few tanks delivered) because of the iranian revolution.

Iran then chased the debt  , until it ended up in the international courts , and under gordon browns labour government in 2009 , they were ordered to pay it back , labour again refused.

Then further sanctions came in , then finally the tories paid it.

So we have various labour governments in part up to their necks causing this problem , then without lifting a fackin finger , showing their shallowness and desperateness , they jump on this lassie demanding a seat in the lords to try and use her for their own political expediency?

It was interesting to see Labour's "ethical defence export policy" in action.

In order not to breach it, an entire submarine was declassified so it could be exported to the Germans for completion before selling to the Israelis.

[Borchester]

Not Covid 19 as such but the WHO has been warning of a sars Pandemic for some years.

Ukraine and its problems with the ethnic Russian states in the east has been ongoing since its independence in 1991

And before that the Arabs turned off the oil tap because they kept losing wars to the Israelis. And we didn't have Covid because no one knew what it was and because the cure for the bubonic plague was go to bed and stop making a fuss.

There are always fuel shortages and cases of some sort of pox. I don't know what Greta Glumberg is on about or what is green energy and I am bloody certain no one else does either. Life is about doing what you can with what you have and right now that means oil and gas.

I had a bonfire yesterday and someone from the committee whinged up and asked if I knew that bonfire smoke caused cancer. I said no, but if he sang I would hum. Fuckwit.

[B0ycey]

Not Covid 19 as such but the WHO has been warning of a sars Pandemic for some years.

Ukraine and its problems with the ethnic Russian states in the east has been ongoing since its independence in 1991

It is very difficult to foresee the link with a virus to a gas crisis whatever type of virus it was (Covid is sars ironically). And again, a Ukraine civil war and a gas crisis, not easy to link without hindsight. Besides, the gas crisis in the West will be self inflicted. As I said, I would be more inclined in accepting the Greens POV of getting off carbons like 40 years ago as an argument today (as they really have been saying that), than those who claim we should have gone nuclear 20 years ago. People really don't appreciate the cost of a new nuclear plant nor that we weren't that far off from being self sufficient in renewables.

[Streetwalker]

Were they? Covid didn't even exist and Ukraine was a Russian satellite.

Not Covid 19 as such but the WHO has been warning of a sars Pandemic for some years. 

Ukraine and its problems with the ethnic Russian states in the east has been ongoing since its independence in 1991 

[B0ycey]

They were , its just that nobody wanted to hear

Were they? Covid didn't even exist and Ukraine was a Russian satellite.

[Streetwalker]

And nobody was talking about Ukraine and Covid twelve years ago. 

They were , its just that nobody wanted to hear 

[B0ycey]

Not hindsight at all this was being discussed on the old old forum 12 years ago and it was before that by people who had more of an eye for thye countrys welfare rather than their own popularity or wallets.

You mean discussed at the time of the £92 kwh charge given to EDF? Nuclear power is expensive in any case and takes years to set up. It isn't so easy to just say "build the plants" given each one is twice the cost of the London Olympics. In contrast with wind, which is far quicker and far less expensive. I am not against nuclear I might add and can see its merits given its power output. But it isn't a joke to say we could easily be off carbons by now had we spent the investment and R&D in renewables at the same time we replaced cfcs. But we were slow to act and instead set the date as 2040. So again, this comes down to hindsight. We could build nuclear plants which then would be obsolete is fission came about or we could keep gas and push the green initiative. And that wasn't a bad way to go as it happens. But it relied on a sustainable supply of gas. And nobody was talking about Ukraine and Covid twelve years ago. Only now does going nuclear make sense. But given the waste, even that isn't without consequence. Which then goes back to hindsight.

[cromwell]

The benefit of hindsight Cromwell. Twenty years ago I doubt anyone considered cutting ourselves from the oil and gas market nor the Covid rebound so why would anyone have acted differently back then? There is nothing wrong with being self sustained in renewable technology which was the plan only two months ago. A lot has happened since them clearly, but if you are going to act on any potential scenario then I guess we best start building underground for the possibility of asteroid attack or tsunami. And let's not forget Fusion which may replace fission in the next decade or so which would make building these plants now in large numbers counter productive. But if you want me to be totally honest with you, being renewable self sufficient could have actually been possible already had we not been tied down to Shell and BP CEO profit merchants. I don't know how much you know about renewable technology, but hydrogen power has been possible for years, carbon capture, tidal power, solar wind, you name it, it has all existed way beyond 90s and 2000. What hasn't existed is the investment in them. Oil tycoons own all the patents. And none of them were going to make us carbon neutral until all the oil ran dry. Capitalism again I am afraid.

Not hindsight at all this was being discussed on the old old forum 12 years ago and it was before that by people who had more of an eye for thye countrys welfare rather than their own popularity or wallets.

[Borchester]

 keir starmer is an incredibly poor lawyer learning to be a bad politician

I don't know if that is true, but it is a hell of a good line and I wish that I had said it and I will.

[B0ycey]

Give me strenghth BOycey,the definition of long term strategy is we'd be sorted in the here and now all planned in 90's and 2000's

The benefit of hindsight Cromwell. Twenty years ago I doubt anyone considered cutting ourselves from the oil and gas market nor the Covid rebound so why would anyone have acted differently back then? There is nothing wrong with being self sustained in renewable technology which was the plan only two months ago. A lot has happened since them clearly, but if you are going to act on any potential scenario then I guess we best start building underground for the possibility of asteroid attack or tsunami. And let's not forget Fusion which may replace fission in the next decade or so which would make building these plants now in large numbers counter productive. But if you want me to be totally honest with you, being renewable self sufficient could have actually been possible already had we not been tied down to Shell and BP CEO profit merchants. I don't know how much you know about renewable technology, but hydrogen power has been possible for years, carbon capture, tidal power, solar wind, you name it, it has all existed way beyond 90s and 2000. What hasn't existed is the investment in them. Oil tycoons own all the patents. And none of them were going to make us carbon neutral until all the oil ran dry. Capitalism again I am afraid.

[cromwell]

If it's twenty years away, that by definition is a long term strategy Cromwell. It doesn't solve today's problem which I guess is defined as the immediate strategy. I guess we can always complain about not having enough nuclear power plants, but ignoring Chernobyl for a second or that building them now is decades away from being online, people forget the waste they produce. Sellafield is just one big radioactive dumping ground with no idea or plan to clean it up despite it being decommissioned years ago. As for not investing in renewable, you might want to research that better. We are quickly becoming an island of offshore windmills. The idea of our plan was to close the coal plants and keep the gas plant operating until we became self efficient. At this rate, we will be opening up the coal plants again. And we haven't even got to Europe who really are f**ked given they buy 40% of their gas from Russia. So no, the idea was the correct one. If Russia held off their attack for another ten years, we might have been OK. As it is, we are f**ked. Or not f**ked, but expect power rationing. Where four hours a day, the power will be switched off and petrol will be expensive and long queues when a tanker fills up a station. Iran alone can't fix our problem. But on the plus side, it will be good for our carbon footprint and we do at least have some understanding what might happen given we went through this in the 70s. And as I tell people, poverty isn't always a bad thing. People always appreciate what they have more when they have nothing. Always look for the silver lining.

Give me strenghth BOycey,the definition of long term strategy is we'd be sorted in the here and now all planned in 90's and 2000's

[B0ycey]

If it's twenty years away it's not a long term strategy is it?

Weve been living on an energy hand to mouth instead of investing in nuclear and alternatives for the here and now not bloody twenty years away.

If it's twenty years away, that by definition is a long term strategy Cromwell. It doesn't solve today's problem which I guess is defined as the immediate strategy. I guess we can always complain about not having enough nuclear power plants, but ignoring Chernobyl for a second or that building them now is decades away from being online, people forget the waste they produce. Sellafield is just one big radioactive dumping ground with no idea or plan to clean it up despite it being decommissioned years ago. As for not investing in renewable, you might want to research that better. We are quickly becoming an island of offshore windmills. The idea of our plan was to close the coal plants and keep the gas plant operating until we became self efficient. At this rate, we will be opening up the coal plants again. And we haven't even got to Europe who really are fucked given they buy 40% of their gas from Russia. So no, the idea was the correct one. If Russia held off their attack for another ten years, we might have been OK. As it is, we are fucked. Or not fucked, but expect power rationing. Where four hours a day, the power will be switched off and petrol will be expensive and long queues when a tanker fills up a station. Iran alone can't fix our problem. But on the plus side, it will be good for our carbon footprint and we do at least have some understanding what might happen given we went through this in the 70s. And as I tell people, poverty isn't always a bad thing. People always appreciate what they have more when they have nothing. Always look for the silver lining.

[cromwell]

We do have a long term strategy though Cromwell. It is called renewable energy. But that is twenty years away. Perhaps we can ask Iran to be friends for twenty years before asking them to close their nuclear power plants down again to keep Israel happy. Or maybe we should just deal with Iran in the same way we deal with SA. Ignore all the human right abuses and just buy their oil and sell them all our crap. I mean seriously now, doesnt anyone care about the hypocrisy? We had it easy for far too long. America was the hegemony and what they said goes. But the world has changed now. The world is emerging into superpowers and Iran, Russia, China, India, Europe whoever will start finding new friends and not deal with us if we continue this BS of changing the world to our image if nations aren't our friends. And I write that as someone who is a big supporter of European ideals and democracy and freedom. But it seems to me the world is becoming more unstable every day we try to interfere with someone else's politics and someday and I hope it is soon, people might wake up and say to themselves, we can't change the world but we can promote our values to ourselves so let's make us the best that we can be and leave the world to work out their own problems don't you think?

If it's twenty years away it's not a long term strategy is it?

Weve been living on an energy hand to mouth instead of investing in nuclear and alternatives for the here and now not bloody twenty years away.