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Shoe thrown at China's PM
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
First it was Dubya, now it's the Chinese Prime Minister. What is it about protesters and shoes?
A serious note first. I'm quite worried by what I'm seeing. I recognise that China is one of the growing economies and the world can't just shut them out of their business. That would rather blow a hole in the anti-protectionist message that Macavity and Lord Mandy have been telling the world about lately, after all. But I do wonder whether our spineless politicians are prepared to ask the difficult questions about China - in particular, their appalling human rights record. By all means we should involve China in our affairs, but I'm rather uneasy about this. Forgive my note of caution, but something don't seem right. What do you think?
On a side note and just for a bit of fun, which major politician would you like to see a shoe being thrown at, and why? I will think about this question and come back to answer it shortly. Too many possible candidates...
A serious note first. I'm quite worried by what I'm seeing. I recognise that China is one of the growing economies and the world can't just shut them out of their business. That would rather blow a hole in the anti-protectionist message that Macavity and Lord Mandy have been telling the world about lately, after all. But I do wonder whether our spineless politicians are prepared to ask the difficult questions about China - in particular, their appalling human rights record. By all means we should involve China in our affairs, but I'm rather uneasy about this. Forgive my note of caution, but something don't seem right. What do you think?
On a side note and just for a bit of fun, which major politician would you like to see a shoe being thrown at, and why? I will think about this question and come back to answer it shortly. Too many possible candidates...
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
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Comments
Personally I am quite optomistic about the future of China, it will be the rising middle class and the rise in corruption which will bring down the government. But having said that far too many people will suffer before the change happens.
You don't go from that to a perfect democracy overnight...
* Apologies that the content of this thread wasn't terribly clear to start with. A relative of mine died yesterday morning and my head wasn't entirely on political matters.
UPDATE: Forgot to answer my own side question. After much consideration, I think the politician who most deserves to have a shoe thrown at him is James Purnell. Why? For letting staff at the DWP go home early in order to "enjoy the snow". Muppet.
Yes certainly, there are a long list of corruption stories in the UK, and I wasnt in anyway suggesting that we are clean. Its just that the complete lack of accountability does tend to lead to corruption on a much wider scale. In terms of the corruption there bringing in accountability I think it will be the scams involving peoples pension funds, quite a few fund managers for cities have done a runner with hundreds of millions, which strangely has pissed a few people off.
But like I said we really arent in any situation to lecture them, they have money and we dont.
I read an article recently in FHM saying that China has an enormous trade surplus whilst we have a deficit of about £86billion. (I'll double check that figure later) So your point about China having money is pretty valid.
As for corruption, there's a considerable lack of accountability for our politicians as well. Apart from a few outlets on the Right-wing press and a couple of big political blogs asking questions, there wasn't much scrutiny of what Mandy was doing on that yacht. As ever, Mandy refuses to answer the questions put to him - no, he's far too busy running the country whilst McBroon saves the world. Funny how the Labour spin machine protected him whilst setting out to destroy the Boy Osborne in similar circumstances, isn't it? In the House of Lords, it looks like these peers couldn't be expelled even if the allegations are proven to be true. Constitutionally speaking, peers can't even resign their seats in the Lords, so they couldn't even leave if they wanted to! That's not much in the way of accountability.
And finally... your point about pensions is an interesting one. People in this country are finally waking up to the fact that the reasons their pensions are so crap is because Gordon Brown scrapped a tax relief on them in the late 1990s. One of the best pensions systems in Europe quickly became the worst - try finding a final-salary pension scheme that's open to new members if you need evidence of this. The spivs at the City and morons at the banks have done their fair share too, but funny how Gordon's so quiet about this issue. Then again, a man who gave a 75p increase in the state pension one year whist Chancellor isn't exactly in a position to complain, is he?
No wonder Gordon's so keen on the Chinese all of a sudden. They're almost as bad as each other.
What's with attacking the 'middle class' for sleaze? He may be a Lord but Lord Taylor, for instance, is working class. Sleaze does not reside with just those of higher 'social' status. In my opinion' Lord Taylor's infringement is an even greater betrayal of the working classes because, while one would expect him to be on the sympathetic side of the working class, he has used his power and influence to further his own personal financial gain, immersing his whole snout into the trough.
Yep, its running at about 10% of their GDP, which is an amazing amount of money.
Yes we do have corruption cases, but there are varying degrees. I dont think that you can put us against China and say our political system isnt far more open and accountable. Granted the Lords is well overdue for reform, personally I'd like to see both MP's and Lords going to jail if found guilty of taking money to change the law.
Not that they can change the law without a vote. It's not to say what they did should be encouraged, but they weren't taking money to change the law, but to influence others to do so (by argument and persuasion).
The UK remains pretty uncorrupt and whilst China is more so, its not in the same league as places like Cameroon.
i'd also not overegg the balance of payments too much. It's true China is doing well, but I wouldn't assume that the balance will always remain in imbalance (logically it has to even out at some point or else China ends up giving us things from free), as China expands and needs more raw materials, its people get richer and start to demand more holidays/consumer imports and it needs to buy-in more technology to keep its GDP growing you'll see that balance start to fall. The Chinese know that, which is why they've started to build a rainy day contigency.
The West also remains much richer than China and even the most optimistic surveys don't see that changing before 2050 (and that's assuming China can keep growing as quickly/the West doesn't have any major growth spurts)
At York we had some 'Free Tibet' graffiti, promptly followed by 'Tibet belongs to China and always has done' etc. and this prompted a big graffiti argument which was quite fun until the killjoys at the student admin building painted over it and put up a sign saying no graffiti. (It wasn't on the buildings, but on those wooden fences you put up round construction sites).
The effect is the same though isn’t it, and in my opinion this kind of blatant corruption should be dealt with a lot more seriously than the current law allows.
Of course, Bangladesh and Nigeria and frequently the top two countries in terms of corruption, Haiti isn’t that far behind either.
Definitely, and some of that surplus is coming back to us right now in the form of bond sales, and I think we will see a lot more outward investment by China. Well Citibank the largest bank in the World would have gone under had it not been for Chinese money.
I'd say it should actively be punished - and severely at that. Allowing people's political influence to be directly inline with their bank balance is fucking abhorrent.
True - I don't think its a good thing.
However it;s impact is much less than whanging a few quid to someone to pass through a planning application - in that the Lords still have to persaude civil servants, Ministers, MPs and other Lords to support their ammendment; it is not automatic.
Comparing turds offers little consolation for me, and often feels like a diversionary tactic. 'Check this guy shitting in this dude's mouth; never mind that, look at this dude with diarrhoea....'