Another day another dirty Tory

[64]

A chancellor not paying proper tax?
They’ve given up on honesty as they know they’re doomed so are just thinking ,screw it there’s nothing to lose by not being decent.
In the meantime their pals and voters defend them

[Siderite]

I’m bored of politicians trying to ride out scandals, which put them in untenable positions, while their apologists say “what about Labour?” As if that is a defence.

There used to be some consequence for such matters in previous Tory and Labour governments. Now, post-Johnson there’s the endless wriggling, shrugging of shoulders and comments about how others are just as bad or are hypocrites. Meanwhile nothing gets done about the misdeed, it gets lost in the messy defence.

All their defences do nothing to actually justify such scandals, it’s all about how others do it too or critics are too stupid to understand how their deeds are actually above boat. None of it gives any kind of justification and the party who preaches personal responsibility to the public, and how we shouldn’t rely on welfare or whatever for ‘personal responsibility’, never have any personal responsibility themselves.

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Deereyme66

[Iron-awe]

Your right it is getting very tedious but is that exactly what they want? As the moral compass of politicians has fallen further into the cesspit over recent years, particularly since the Johnson influence took over the Tories, do they want this kind of thing to be more acceptable to the public? I think a lot of this is to do with the last twenty odd years, with people looking to become MP’s but viewing it as a career progression rather then a vocation. The majority of people years ago saw being an MP as trying to make a difference to the lives of ordinary citizens, I don’t believe this is the main motivation anymore although not all politicians. What was always demanded was that all politicians at the top of government were seen to act in a fit and proper manner, how times change. Maybe they reflect the mood and mindset of modern day Britain?, very sad if they do.

[Iron Age]

Outsourcing of responsibilities, they’ve been at it for years.

[Gurnelista]

Aye, and there was Farage and his camp followers, playing to the masses with their quick, easy snake-oil cure for austerity, and then the Tories followed suit, playing equally dirty to win back the votes they were losing.

Johnson made it worse, playing to the ERG, normalising lying, breaking his own rules, and undermining the legal framework designed to keep governments accountable. Caught breaking the rules? Then we’ll tear up the rule book!

He prioritised personal ambition over truth over decency and honesty, and the same ethic or lack of them ran through the party. Anyone with integrity was forced out or to resign, leaving the sleazy, incompetent skip fire of a government we have at present, an attitude of ‘every man for himself’ until they finally get booted out of office.

General strike to bring on an election, anyone?

[Iron-awe]

Almost a 100 years since we had one, think it’s a thing of the past TBH and I’m not sure people would want to go down such a route but there should be enough nous around the country to see what a cluster f*** it is right now. An early election could well come if Sunak continues to piss around and achieve very little and his party may want rid of him if these current disputes in health and the railways are not resolved soon. People appear generally to still back the actions of the workers , can’t hear much support around for the government’s intransigence on these matters. Fingers 🤞

[64]

I think resigning has gone from being an honourable way (face saving) out for the guy resigning to being a political point scoring game,for people like Jess Woods and Rees Mogg Westminster and politics is all it’s about ,honesty decency and integrity don’t matter,playing the game and the bubble is it

[Iron Age]

What we deserve is the simple truth. Unfortunately this is the current government’s view.

[Iron-awe]

I’m sure the public can handle the truth, the government probably can’t handle what would happen at the ballot box as a result, which is unfortunate for them because it’s coming anyway.

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Deereyme66

[Bucksiron]

I’m certainly not defending him.

As for “what about Labour”, Siderite, you’re completely missing the point. It has nothing at all to do with being an ‘apologist’. The plain truth is that politicians in all parties do shady things. The idea that Labour politicians are better is nonsense, just as it’s nonsense to claim that socialists are the only ones who want a “better world”.

I’m quite sure that when Starmer becomes PM all sorts of stuff will come out of the Labour woodwork.

[Iron-awe]

Still it’s a first that a PM, a Tory PM, has got fines to his name for breaking the law twice, got to agree on that one Buck’s. All squeaky clean here, nothing to see, move along thank you.

[Siderite]

Bucksiron wrote:

I’m certainly not defending him.

As for “what about Labour”, Siderite, you’re completely missing the point. It has nothing at all to do with being an ‘apologist’. The plain truth is that politicians in all parties do shady things. The idea that Labour politicians are better is nonsense, just as it’s nonsense to claim that socialists are the only ones who want a “better world”.

I’m quite sure that when Starmer becomes PM all sorts of stuff will come out of the Labour woodwork.

Whataboutery is a known logical fallacy, so I am not missing the point, nor am I saying it’s only from Tories. The point you gleefully miss (unsurpisingly, as you have all the self-awareness and critique of a goldfish), is that all accusations of what about Labour do nothing to address the problems at hand.

For example, at the weekend some transactivists in Glasgow had placards threatening violence against women (“I eat TERFs” “Decapitate TERFS”). Nicola Sturgeon condemned the ‘violence on both sides’ in response. Yet there are no both sides in this instance, just as there is no both sides to the corruption of Zahawi. Pointing out hypothetical problems on another side does nothing to justify problems on your own and those using it do so to deflect from their own problems.

Just look at Labour anti-Semitism. It was ludicrous that Corbyn and his supporters deflected by saying “what about Tory Islamophobia?” None of that justified Labour anti-Semitism, yet according to the Bucks theory of debating this is some killer point. It isn’t, and those using it always look like apologists for their own side’s misgivings. Don’t like that? Tough, I am not obliged to think a common debating style you use is good, and many people do use it in the same manner to deflect and distract.

I have never said Labour politicians are inherently better or only after a better world. If you bothered to read my response to 64 you would see I disagreed with that point. However, that doesn’t suit your agenda as to how everyone on here is averse to criticising Labour and thinking we’re above everyone else (which is ironic). Some Labour are better than Tory, some Tory are better than Labour. Obviously I lean more to Labour thinking, so have more of a positive mindset towards Labour MP ideas. However, this does not make me ‘dubious’. It’s politically correct drivel to have to both sides everything and pretend we have an equal opinion of both.

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Deereyme66

[Heath]

Tories 15.2m from second jobs, Labour 1.2m.

Zahawi 5m unpaid tax including penalty whilst he was chancellor. Feel free to post the Labour MP with a similar claim.

Mone 30m in dodgy PPE contracts. Labour equivalent?

Owen Pattinson, cash for questions, defended by the PM. Labour….?

There are plenty more!!

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Deereyme66

[Heath]

“I’m certainly not defending him”.

You are not commenting on him either. Lester Piggott and many others were sent to jail for being “careless” with their tax.

Do you agree that Zahawi should be jailed? Especially because the odious sod was threatening journalists with legal action for asking questions about facts that have emerged as the truth!!

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Deereyme66, Siderite

[Deereyme66]

‘Especially because the odious sod was threatening journalists with legal action for asking questions about facts that have emerged as the truth!!’

O-oh! Remind you of anyone closer to home?

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Northumbiron

[Siderite]

This is what I mean, Heath. It may not always be the intention, but every time someone plays the what about x tactic it just comes across as deflection. I couldn’t care less if x is Tory, Labour, Lib Dem, atheists, Christians, Muslims, elves, orcs or sugar plum fairies, the charge of what the other side does offers no defence for the miscreant.

I would have a better time believing it wasn’t to deflect from criticism if it wasn’t made in response to valid complaints. It’s why so many who do have the intention to obfuscate and distract use this argument in a debate. It doesn’t matter what Labour do or have done, it’s still wrong for Zahawi to do this (the same would be true for any Labour MP caught in a genuine sleaze scandal and what about Tories?) and we don’t create a better society by forever wagging fingers about what the other side do.

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Heath

[Iron-awe]

It’s the only defence he seems to have nowadays, he must be so disappointed with his Tory favourites, when Johnson got in he was chirruping like a budgie.

[Bucksiron]

Siderite, quite why you have to come out with some quasi-intellectual rant about “whataboutery” is beyond me (as for “whataboutery” being a “known logical fallacy”, really? Which ‘expert’ came up with that one? No doubt you’ll enlighten us. I can hardly wait to find out).

The reason I said you’re missing the point was/is because you are (still) missing it. I really have no idea what part of “I’m certainly not defending him” do you don’t/can’t/won’t understand.

I’d also say you have to be pretty daft to interpret “I’m certainly not defending him” as being a deflection; and you’d have to be even more daft to interpret it as a “defence”.

As for chirruping like a budgie, as I’ve said on many occasions I can live with Starmer. The key thing was to get Corbyn and his Communist mates out of the way.

[Iron-awe]

Aye alright Buck’s, go and have a lie down and chill out with a box of Trill.

[Siderite]

If you want to die on the hill of arguing that “what about x” is some great debating techinique, be my guest. It just makes you look illogical. I laid out why it’s a bad technique, because “what about x” does nothing to justify the wrong in the first place. You have ignored the examples I have given to demonstrate this, along with the explanation. I take it you think Corbynites saying “what about Tory Islamophobia?” is a good debating technique to charges of Labour anti-Semitism. Good to know. I think it looks daft, because it does nothing to counter the criticism. You don’t need to be an expert in anything to understand why this is a bad debating technique, but seemingly I must be an idiot for thinking “what about” does sod all to argue against the charge.

“Which ‘expert’ came up with that one? No doubt you’ll enlighten us. I can hardly wait to find out).”

I am sure they’re just an ‘expert’ because they disagree with you. You can never be wrong, of course, and it has been well documented. If you cannot understand something so simple, it’s not my fault. These reasons are why it’s a fallacy, not because some expert just said so with no justification. Don’t like it? Provide arguments against its fallacious nature then, instead of moaning that others don’t think that your debating technique is always superb. It’s hardly ‘quasi-intellectual’ to point out something like this. The illogical nature of whataboutery should be evident.

“I’d also say you have to be pretty daft to interpret “I’m certainly not defending him” as being a deflection; and you’d have to be even more daft to interpret it as a “defence”.”

You forgot to mention that this post was not the first response of me on this thread. I made it quite clear as to my objections in my original post, and you objected to those points. I am not missing the point to my own damn debating topic in this thread. Where did I say that I’m certainly not defending him to be deflection? Please don’t lie and twist words to suit your own agenda, yet again. It should have been obvious I was speaking as a generalisation about this tactic and on about whataboutery being a deflection, which is a thing people do, as to which this statement is not.

I’d say it’s pretty daft to think that “what about x” is a good defence to a point, but that’s obviously because I am an ‘expert’ and not up to speed of the great Bucks school of debating where every instance can be dismissed with a whataboutery. Maybe they should teach it to law schools. Murderers can be found not guilty because of the killer defence of “what about the other case where someone in a similar circumstance got away with it?” After all, only ‘experts’ think this is a bad argument, and they can just be dismissed.

[Heath]

As stated before, you are very careful with your I’m not defending him stance, to not include any critical opinions.

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Siderite

[Deereyme66]

Does Trill still exist?

[TwoWrights]

Bucksiron wrote:

Siderite, quite why you have to come out with some quasi-intellectual rant about “whataboutery” is beyond me (as for “whataboutery” being a “known logical fallacy”, really? Which ‘expert’ came up with that one? No doubt you’ll enlighten us. I can hardly wait to find out).

The reason I said you’re missing the point was/is because you are (still) missing it. I really have no idea what part of “I’m certainly not defending him” do you don’t/can’t/won’t understand.

I’d also say you have to be pretty daft to interpret “I’m certainly not defending him” as being a deflection; and you’d have to be even more daft to interpret it as a “defence”.

As for chirruping like a budgie, as I’ve said on many occasions I can live with Starmer. The key thing was to get Corbyn and his Communist mates out of the way.

Usual superciliousness. 🙂

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Siderite

[Iron-awe]

Deereyme66 wrote:

Does Trill still exist?

Where do you think Buck’s gets his shiny feathers from, stilton and port 🤔

[Bucksiron]

Oh Lord, now Heath’s getting in on the act; and, of course, TW just comes out with the usual “you think you’re superior” comment.

This is the problem with quasi-intellectual nonsense about things such as “whataboutery”, which is a ridiculously contrived word that wouldn’t be out of place in some pseudo-cerebral Radio 4 discussion between academic “experts” who know better than anyone else (spot the irony, TW), or some BBC Newsnight reporter dissecting the minutiae of some trivial person’s speech (the once excellent Radio 4 and Newsnight have seriously gone down the pan in recent years, but I digress).

Will it ever be possible again, one wonders, for the simple words “I’m certainly not defending him” actually to mean I’m certainly not defending him. This board gets more like a Monty Python sketch every week — we even have a budgie, which might not be a parrot but is pretty close.

[TwoWrights]

TW just comes out with the usual “you think you’re superior” accurate comment.

[Siderite]

In other words you cannot offer a defence for why whataboutery is a good defence, which isn’t a surprise, because it is a logical fallacy. It doesn’t matter what you call it, or how quasi-intellectual you think it sounds, it doesn’t detract from the point that whatabputing is not a defence against anything and those who use it for such (as they 9ften do) are making an error. It’s got sod all to knowing better, it’s a term to describe a type of flawed arguments. It really doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out why, but evidently we are all idiots and faux experts for thinking Bucks’ ‘expertise’ is flawed.

I don’t know why you’re trying to gaslight me into this debate about you saying you aren’t defending Zahawi, my point was never in response to that. My original point on this predated that, so once again, pack it in with the deliberate misrepresentations.

[Siderite]

Or, in Bucks’ world, is it now quasi-intellectual to point out flawed debating styles and fallacies? Should we be politically correct and accept crap argument styles because it might hurt precious feelings?

[Deereyme66]

‘the once excellent Radio 4 and Newsnight have seriously gone down the pan in recent years,’

Quelle surprise!

[Heath]

3 more paragraphs of nothingness!

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TwoWrights

[Author]

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