Murder of an MP

[Addie]

Possibly not.

 

Wasn't there talk of another person injured? If so, was that person the target and the MP somehow got involved with tragic consequences, or was the murder random?

[Chinahand]

I must say the tributes on the BBC, especially the Jo Cox: In her own words; and Neil Kinnock's tribute to her, show we have lost a hard working and principled person who wanted to get on and help people no matter their backgrounds. Her work for Oxfam, Save the Children and the NSPCC show her priorities, as did her commitment to see what unites the different communities within her constituency rather than what divides.

 

Too much political rhetoric at the moment divides and "others" different people. It is only by doing that that it becomes possible to use violence against a person who wished to use persuasion and dialogue to search for ways to make a better world.

 

My politics may be different from her's, but the methods we aspire to use are the same and at total variance to those spreading fear and hate.

[magneto]

From the reports it sounds like it's another extremist terror attack.

 

Such a sad event for her young family

Interesting that Thomas Mair is already being written off by some as a lone nut mentally deranged lunatic. When in fact he is a product (victim?) of the UK's prevalent extremist right-wing media.

 

Will any action be taken?

[woolley]

The UK doesn't have a prevalent extremist right wing media. Not in the mainstream anyway. Quite the reverse.

 

One of the problems is so called care in the community which routinely places disturbed or inadequate people, who are unable to cope and should rightly be institutionalised, out in the public to sink or swim in whichever way they can.

[Mr. Sausages]

The extreme right wing stuff does give violent deranged people something to justify their anger at the world.

[pongo]

The UK doesn't have a prevalent extremist right wing media.

Yes it does.

 

[Mr. Sausages]

Plus facebook, e.g. "Britain First".

[woolley]

 

The UK doesn't have a prevalent extremist right wing media.

Yes it does.

 

 

So you can't have a negative view on immigration without being extremist? Don't be silly. It is a perfectly respectable and logical view. Although I don't support the infantile language employed in much journalism nowadays, I don't think you can term it incitement to murder.

[pongo]

 

 

The UK doesn't have a prevalent extremist right wing media.

 

Yes it does.

So you can't have a negative view on immigration without being extremist? Don't be silly. It is a perfectly respectable and logical view. Although I don't support the infantile language employed in much journalism nowadays, I don't think you can term it incitement to murder.

The gutter press dangerously exploits racism and the fear of immigration. Just the same as UKIP - eg their inflammatory poster launch yesterday morning - which would likely have been on today's tabloid front pages had it not been for this murder.

[Rhumsaa]

 

 

The UK doesn't have a prevalent extremist right wing media.

Yes it does.

 

 

So you can't have a negative view on immigration without being extremist? Don't be silly. It is a perfectly respectable and logical view. Although I don't support the infantile language employed in much journalism nowadays, I don't think you can term it incitement to murder.

 

 

You can't speak for how it will impact on people who are mentally vulnerable to this sort of propaganda? I assume

[Declan]

 

The UK doesn't have a prevalent extremist right wing media.

Yes it does.

 

 

 

The trouble is Woolley is like a linesman, even a right winger is to the left of him.

[John Wright]

And when they distort the facts to whip up fear.

 

Fact: in the last 25 years less than a quarter of net immigration to the UK has been from the EU;

 

Fact until 1991 net immigration between EU and UK was negative, ie more Brits went to work in the EU (remember Auf Wiedersehn pet).

 

Fact that in any integrated market people will move where the jobs are until the jobs are filled or that area stops growing or their home area starts doing better or until those who want to move have moved, that was the Irish experience until the 1990's they had decades of emigration, then as their economy took off immigration and return, and since 2008 emigration again.

 

Fact murderers and other serious criminals from the EU can be deported and excluded, just the UK government seem not to use their powers fully

 

Fact the UK does not have to pay any benefits for the first three months they claim from their home state, but for some reason the UK chooses to do so, not because it is forced to do so

 

Fact the UK doesn't have to pay benefits to non working EU migrants, just in work benefits to those that are working (and paying tax and NI) cannot be treated any differently to UK born ones but for some reason the UK chooses to do so, not because it is forced to do so

 

Fact there are more UK born claiming non work benefits in other EU states than EU born claiming in the UK

 

But the Mail, Express, Sun, and the Times will never put those facts forward as it doesn't suit the politics of their owners. (most of whom are non UK resident or domiciled and in tax exile)

 

Yes there is a lot wrong with the EU and there is waste, but it really is good value for what it set out to do, which was to integrate the economies of Europe so that we were all so interdependent that never again would Europe go to war, or be able to go to war, as had happened every 25 to 30 years for the previous 150 years. On that it has succeeded, beyond anyone's wildest dreams.

 

If it falls apart due to financial stringency and austerity due to an economic down turn and the right fanning the problems by identifying scapegoats and devils to blame (rather than bankers and politicians) we will see protectionism, even worse austerity and the extreme whipping up of xenophobia which has the serious side effect risk of the rise of totalitarian regimes.

 

And its not just the stability of the core states, even although they may be having economic tough times the EU guided and assisted fund the stabilisation of the democracies in Spain, Portugal and Greece post right wing or military dictatorship from the 1980's and it has done the same for the ex communist states from the early 1990's.

 

Without it Europe and UK would have been much poorer, developed less and may have had many more wars such as those in former Yugoslavia and now the Ukraine.

 

UK is going to have to stay in the single market, the City would be finished without. The price for that is a single market in labour, which is what Norway and Switzerland and Lichtenstein have. So UK would have to comply with all of EU rules and regulations and allow EU immigration but would no longer have any say, lose its veto.

 

Far better to be inside and working for change.

 

And finally on the democracy question. The Commission imposes nothing, bit like the UK cabinet. They propose and then it has to be agreed to by member state parliaments or the EU parliament. By exiting we lose any part in that democracy. Any democracy has its limits and failings, take the Lords in UK, profoundly undemocratic, take the US system of checks and balance which results in grid lock, even take Swiss referendums on anything at the drop of a hat and their decision to stop EU immigration, which their Government couldn't implement because to do so they wold have to leave the single market, which they analysed would be a disaster.

 

I know I've moved off topic from the death of the MP, but it is the same with the (mis)reporting of facts, we are led to expect media and politicians to respond immediately and without the full facts. We don't know that Orlando or the MP is the result of terrorism (of any sort), a personal grudge, extreme political ideology, mental illness, or in the case of the MP that she came between two other people rowing. I think I can be certain that non of it is helped by whipping up fear and blame and doing nothing to educate and resolve.

[Rhumsaa]

You're as bad as piebaps with your bloody facts

[Mr. Sausages]

Yes there is a lot wrong with the EU and there is waste, but it really is good value for what it set out to do, which was to integrate the economies of Europe so that we were all so interdependent that never again would Europe go to war, or be able to go to war, as had happened every 25 to 30 years for the previous 150 years. On that it has succeeded, beyond anyone's wildest dreams.

This is something that nobody's really talking about. People are so used to peace that they think it will never go back to anything else.

[Donald Trumps]

"believed in a better world and fought for it everyday"

 

sounds an admirable example to follow, or aspire to anyway