Following Le Pen’s loss in France, is this the end of the road for the alt-right? — Michael, Dundee
FRANCE defeated fascism like an absolute boss last week! Much like the Dutch a few months ago, the French took one look at the morons currently sitting in No 10 and the White House and engaged in intelligent voting.
Indeed, it’s becoming pretty evident now that Brexit and Trump were the peak of modern stupidity in the West. Any claims that the EU would implode following Britain’s vote to leave have been unwaveringly rebuked.
With Brexit in chaos, the Dutch discarding extremists, Trump falling on his rump and France saying “non” to a fascist, it looks like the “unstoppable” alt-right has screeched to a halt mighty fast.
If you ask me, these bigoted morons have as much longevity as they do smarts; most humans will quickly realise that these callous conservatives only care about themselves.
With any luck, America and England will soon realise that the alt-right are completely wrong, and vote them out as soon as possible.
Why were the Tories so successful in the local elections across Britain? — Phil, Edinburgh
I WOULD not trust the Tories, the party that caused Brexit, to organise wheelie bin collections, but that’s sadly what much of Britain voted for last week. Having successfully utilised Ukip to both shrink the Labour vote and allow them free reign as a patriotic, anti-EU brand, the Tories “welcomed home” what seemed to be the entirety of Nuttall’s Numpties. Why England did this to itself is somewhat of a mystery, as switching from Ukip to the far-right Tories is like saying you’re going to eat healthier by switching from McDonald’s to Burger King. Nonetheless, this tragedy happened, and Corbyn’s Labour was left high and dry … and totally bewildered.
Labour’s woes continued above the Border, as their northern branch office saw what was left of its support make the illogical leap to the Tories as well. Of course, unlike in England, this had a rational explanation. In Scotland, Labour framed the SNP as the villains, and gave the Tories a free pass with a steadfastly anti-independence campaign. Kezia Dugdale was never going to out-Unionise the Tories, who were obviously the most significant enemy at this election. Instead of realising that, she spent months bashing the SNP. Had Scottish Labour attacked the Tories as much as they did the nationalists, perhaps all their voters wouldn’t have jumped to the Conservatives.
Although the Tories still came a distant second to Sturgeon’s winning team, they did take a surprising number of seats in Scotland – surprising because they were in some very deprived areas. The Conservatives managed this through sheer flag-humping Unionism. A glance at Tory policy would tell you that the poor voting for their party would be like slugs endorsing salt, but unfortunately many voted for the nasty party in the name of British nationalism.
Poor people voting for the Tories just because they worship a red, white and blue flag is one of the most tragic things imaginable. Certain segments of the working class have empowered a group of toffs who do not have their interests at heart. Iain Duncan Smith recently stated that he considered some immigrants to be “low-value”. Can you imagine what will happen to some of the poorest areas of our society now that they’re overseen by Tories capable of categorising a human life as “low-value”? Regrettably, reality will soon dawn on BritNat voters that electing a Tory to help a community is like pouring gasoline on a fire and expecting it to go out.
What did you make of the coverage of the Scottish local elections? — Barbara, Glasgow
THE SNP have now won three different campaigns under three different electoral systems in the past three years. However, you wouldn’t know that by the way the media covered the local election story. The SNP were once again victorious, with more than 70 per cent of the Scottish electorate not voting for the Tories; yet the press were heralding Ruth Davidson’s minions as the real winners of the vote last week.
Soon after the final results were in, Ruth, right, was on television claiming that the SNP made losses, despite them actually gaining six seats since 2012. These blatant lies weren’t called out by the interviewer, and consequently became facts in the minds of many viewers.
The final results clearly showed that the SNP won, and the Tories only took Unionist votes from Unionist Labour, with the pro-Yes Scottish Greens also making gains.
Yet, the narrative in the media was that the Yes bubble had burst and the Great British Tories were back in town – a completely fabricated story. This spin was largely accomplished by the media comparing the 2017 local election results with those of the 2015 General Election, which was malarkey - as they employ completely different voting systems. It was akin to comparing a football score with rugby points whilst playing basketball.
I know the British Broadcasting Corporation likes to take a British perspective of things, but this is just getting silly. Claiming that there was a Tory victory in Scotland was like saying that the Russians beat the Americans to the moon.
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