Duncan wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2020 2:14 pm

Khmu Nation wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2020 11:04 am I haven't lived in The UK since 2008 and I have not missed a single thing about the place. It's a horrible, backwards looking, over crowded, stupidly expensive, class besotted, Kasi populated by a hideous bunch of self righteous, bone idle, identity politics obsessed whingers who blame everyone always and accept zero responsibility for their own actions whilst slobbing about stranded in front of soul destroying tv shows like Strictly and that jungle show presented by a pair of twee northern midgets in between watching endless football games on some sports channel that costs about sixty quid a month. And then there's the weather. Cold, damp and forever grey. And the royal family. And the identical provincial towns with the same shops. And the crap countryside. And the price of a train ticket. And the terrible pub restaurants. And and and.

Are you trying to tell us it is nothing like as portrayed in the Coronation Street series .

It's more like Zulu at the moment.

Apparently Bojo's father Stanley Johnson has applied in writing for French citizenship.
Oh how I wish he'd known about French Letters 56 years ago.
At least his family will be ok when the shit happens next year, so good to see the elite are looking
after themselves.

Apparently Bojo's father Stanley Johnson has applied in writing for French citizenship.
How I wish he'd known about French Letters 56 years ago.

Are you laughing at your own joke Yorkie? Or did you forget to log in to your other account?

Obviously a drunken schoolboy error.
I threw a Boomerang a few years ago.
It never came back to me.
I now live in constant fear
Oh, dear I appear to have had a accident involving gin,martini ice cubes and lemon rind.
They appear to have been mixed together and decanted into a glass.

What to do......Oh what to do

lagrange wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2020 8:46 am It is said that people get the leaders they deserve...and the Brits certainly deserved Boris badly enough to vote him into power in large numbers. But it fits with the UK mind-set and culture - the class system, the inherited wealth, the obsequiousness when it comes to anything to do with the awful 'royals', the worst National Anthem in the world, the street thugs, the decades of open immigration that is coming home to roost, I could go on forever, but as an ex-Brit (left town nearly 40 years ago for cleaner pastures after thankless service to 'my' country) I should feel some patriotism. Nah, f**k that, its a sinkhole.

he only got 30% of the vote

Just watching china on the news they can't speak highly enough of thier president, and don't blame them the way he has turned the country around, a complete contrast to what people think of Boris and Biden or Trump.

Are people allowed to criticise in China ?

The problem isn't Boris, the problem is that there is no real democracy there. The two-party system is deliberately set up that way - you get two choices. When I was young and starting to take a bit of an interest in politics, I remember being confused at the notion of a supposed democracy that only ever seemed to offer two real choices. I would occasionally ask people how that could possibly be the case, expecting them to react in a lightbulb moment way, as if they'd never thought about it before, but instead they'd just shrug their shoulders and say something about it always having been like that or it was the best way to ensure stability, or most of the time, they had better things to think about and couldn't really care less.

I still find it difficult to accept that others don't seem to have a problem with this system. There was even a referendum to change it - if anyone can remember - back when the Lib Dems went into coalition with the Tories, but Brits being Brits.. better the devil you know etc... seemed happy to keep things the way they were. Yet they wonder why we end with the politicians and leaders that we do.

There's a very simple reason Boris is PM. It's because there is only one other realistic alternative party to vote for, and that alternative is even worse. This is what happens when you have a two party system. Most people end up voting for the least worst of two rather than the better ones of a group. It's why the likes of Trump and Bided get into office. Does anyone really believe that if the 'anyone can be president' mantra were really true, that we'd ever see the likes of these two within a mile of the white house? In a real democracy, a president would be the best a country had to offer. I doubt anyone but his most loyal supporters could honestly say that Trump was the best America could come up with.

Other countries with alternative systems, such as the AV system, seem to get better leaders with higher approval ratings than the likes of the US and UK and the people generally feel more represented. It does mean that one single party doesn't have as much overall control, but why do people talk about that as if it's a bad thing? Surely a government that has near-absolute control with little, if any, checks and balances, and a poor opposition to keep an eye on things would invite all kinds of corruption, much like all we ever hear about the Boris government these days.

Boris isn't the problem. It's the system. That Guy Fawkes fella might have been on to something all along...