Football hooligans?

The_Piper wrote:Football hooligans?

Oh yes. It's a bit of a throwback to the 1970's and '80's when the National Front and later the BNP centred their recruitment via football clubs and pubs. Gangs of hooligans beating up anyone who looked "not right" used to be a real problem on match days when they could easily blend in with tens of thousands of incoming away fans. Concerted efforts were made to clean up the sport in the '90s and CCTV and the cost of tickets made ID'ing the arseholes and enforcing bans much easier.

It's not solely a British problem, some of the European clubs still have their associated bands of fascists as well.

Tortured_Genius wrote:"Braverman's Brown Shirts"

I think the last r is entirely optional.

Daily Hail going with Bravermann...

Trust Gove to plan his travel like a total pillock.

I think from 300k in attendance they had something like 6 potentially offensive signs. The fash came tooled up for a fight and if Braverman had her way things could have gotten nasty.

Aye.

Has Cruella got something on Rishi? Something that's keeping her in her job?

Tortured_Genius wrote:

The_Piper wrote:Football hooligans?

Oh yes. It's a bit of a throwback to the 1970's and '80's when the National Front and later the BNP centred their recruitment via football clubs and pubs. Gangs of hooligans beating up anyone who looked "not right" used to be a real problem on match days when they could easily blend in with tens of thousands of incoming away fans. Concerted efforts were made to clean up the sport in the '90s and CCTV and the cost of tickets made ID'ing the arseholes and enforcing bans much easier.

It's not solely a British problem, some of the European clubs still have their associated bands of fascists as well.

That's fascinating. I assume they weren't beating people up because of which team they were fans of. Well, in most cases. Fenway Park in Boston was a wild place in the old days too, and I'd be surprised if no Yankees fans were beaten up because of their NY hats.

The_Piper wrote:
That's fascinating. I assume they weren't beating people up because of which team they were fans of.

There are some quite extensive Wikipedia articles on Football hooliganism and Football hooliganism in the United Kingdom. The UK gets it's own article which gives you some idea of how bad it was at times.

It did also spawn a suggestion for a classic solution to the problem:

When I was about 13 I was walking through town on match day and ended being pushed against a wall by 3 Leicester City fans, who lifted my t-shirt and carved an 'L' on my chest with a sharpened fork. I don't think they were more than 18 yo themselves. Then again, if I lived in Leicester in the late 70s I would have wanted to take it out on someone!

Suella Braverman sacked as home secretary after article criticising police.


"If you sack me now I'll become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!"

"Somehow Ol' Honeyroast returned."

Lolz

Do the ToryCunt Party has run out of fresh twats to appoint to Cabinet jobs, and is now recycling spent twats ...

The cabinet more or less picks itself from who is available and currently untainted. The Tory Party have gone full
ouroboros. It's like they are trying to be the lesser evil to themselves now the monster is out of the cage and eating the villagers. How many fucking times can it be "No THIS is the new weirdest 72 hours in Politics." Because it keeps fucking happening. Gaslit by buffoons who you can't trust to even be competently evil.

THWOTH wrote:When I was about 13 I was walking through town on match day and ended being pushed against a wall by 3 Leicester City fans, who lifted my t-shirt and carved an 'L' on my chest with a sharpened fork. I don't think they were more than 18 yo themselves. Then again, if I lived in Leicester in the late 70s I would have wanted to take it out on someone!

Troubled yoots!

Tortured_Genius wrote:

The_Piper wrote:
That's fascinating. I assume they weren't beating people up because of which team they were fans of.

There are some quite extensive Wikipedia articles on Football hooliganism and Football hooliganism in the United Kingdom. The UK gets it's own article which gives you some idea of how bad it was at times.

It did also spawn a suggestion for a classic solution to the problem:

I'll enjoy reading some of that article.
My father used the word goolie coming from an Italian language background, I thought.

Cameron back in the cabinet. Seems a bit desperate to bring the villain from season one back for the climax of season five eh?

Before we celebrate Braverman's exit too quickly, let's reflect on a moment on this episode, and consider the catastrophe we luckily avoided.

Anyone who thinks what follows to be hyperbolic, bear in mind that I consider the evidence to point robustly to this conclusion.

Braverman, through her pestilential rhetoric, sought no less than to precipitate a British version of Kristallnacht. She sought, for her own vicious political purposes, to trigger a full blown race riot with an accompanying body count. Which, it should be obvious, was an objective pursued specifically to provide her with a pretext for even more lowbrow comments about "tofu eating wokerati", followed by the drafting of more legislation aimed at destroying human rights in this country. It's even possible that she had already drafted her own version of the Enabling Act in preparation for a bloody aftermath to her exhorting mutant Gammons to go on the rampage.

Make no mistake, this individual's vision of the future is violently antithetical to genuine British values, no matter how much she mendaciously clothes her naked, hate driven fascism in a Union Jack. She's basically Julius Streicher wearing a bra, seeking power by degrading others.

She belongs not in office, but in prison, because her act of incitement constitutes de facto sedition.

Further to Cali's post - and to back it up, the BBC published her departure letter here (BBC).

Screaming red flags include:

I was clear from day one that if you did not wish to leave the ECHR, the way to securely and swiftly deliver our Rwanda partnership would be to block off the ECHR, the HRA and any other obligations which inhibit our ability to remove those with no right to be in the UK. Our deal expressly referenced "notwithstanding clauses" to that effect.

Because the British Proletariat don't deserve the protection of such inconvenient laws.

Another cause for disappointment - and the context for my recent article in The Times - has been your failure to rise to the challenge posed by the increasingly vicious antisemitism and extremism displayed on our streets since Hamas's terrorist atrocities of 7 October.

I have become hoarse urging you to consider legislation to ban the hate marches and help stem the rising tide of racism, intimidation and terrorist glorification threatening community cohesion.

Britain is at a turning point in our history and faces a threat of radicalisation and extremism in a way not seen for 20 years.

Like most rabid authoritarians, Cruella doesn't understand the meaning of the word "irony" in that it was racist neo-nazis, encouraged by her rhetoric, who were arrested whilst hundreds of thousands protested peacefully over the deaths in Gaza.

She really is a repulsive individual.

Calilasseia wrote:Before we celebrate Braverman's exit too quickly, let's reflect on a moment on this episode, and consider the catastrophe we luckily avoided.

Anyone who thinks what follows to be hyperbolic, bear in mind that I consider the evidence to point robustly to this conclusion.

Braverman, through her pestilential rhetoric, sought no less than to precipitate a British version of Kristallnacht. She sought, for her own vicious political purposes, to trigger a full blown race riot with an accompanying body count. Which, it should be obvious, was an objective pursued specifically to provide her with a pretext for even more lowbrow comments about "tofu eating wokerati", followed by the drafting of more legislation aimed at destroying human rights in this country. It's even possible that she had already drafted her own version of the Enabling Act in preparation for a bloody aftermath to her exhorting mutant Gammons to go on the rampage.

Make no mistake, this individual's vision of the future is violently antithetical to genuine British values, no matter how much she mendaciously clothes her naked, hate driven fascism in a Union Jack. She's basically Julius Streicher wearing a bra, seeking power by degrading others.

She belongs not in office, but in prison, because her act of incitement constitutes de facto sedition.

I'm not sure if Cruella is a true believer or if she just performs the role of a true believer. Regardless, the outcomes render the question somewhat moot. Pathologising her rhetoric is probably a fruitless exercise (though personally her words, mannerisms, and tone of voice are suggestive of someone with severe depression) but her stated political ideals are, as you say, a matter of record.

At one level authoritarianism is a technocratic insistence that subordinates the rights and freedoms of the citizenry to the interests of the powerful, even as authoritarians frame their interests as being the interests of everyone. However, I think the questions to ask ourselves are not about how authoritarianism operates, or what this-or-that authoritarian says and does, but how those who administer power arrive in the position to wield power to begin with. For me this suggests we, collectively, need to reflect on how our democratic institutions and systems can seemingly preferences the interests of those who express fundamentally anti-democratic viewpoints, and then allows them to enact those viewpoints when granted access to the instruments of state power.

Cruella's stated desire to denude the freedoms and protections embodied in the concept of fundamental human rights for so-called 'undesirables' should be a massive red flag here. Removing the checks and balances on the fundamental rights for undesirable others inevitably removes them for everyone, and as you say, some kind of Enabling Act would make that entirely legal and structurally achievable. Nonetheless, her basic assumption (repeated incesently by the right-wing media), that what is legal is not only morally correct but morally necessary, points to major failings at the heart of our democracy. This is further highlighted by the fact that our last four Tory PMs were elevated to power without reference to a general public ballot.

When policies that deliberately renege on international commitments to securing basic human rights, freedoms and protects, or commitments to collectively address the impacts of global heating etc, and when individuals are elevated to the position of ultimate political power only to then enact policies that contradict the manifesto commitments upon which their predecessor was elected, then I believe we have to start asking ourselves if our democracy is up to the task of representing the public interest.

My feeling is that how society is organised is far too important to leave to politicians to decide on our behalf. This has led me to explore alternatives to the technocratic systems we currently rely on, and to look at ways to enhance social organisation and positive community outcomes through systems which preference direct and/or participatory democracy. When representative democracy fails to represent the interests of ordinary people then it's time to try something else. The paradox is, of course, that at present it appears the only people who can change how democracy operates are the very same people who are intimately invested in maintaining the instruments of state power exactly as they are.

The paradox is, of course, that at present it appears the only people who can change how democracy operates are the very same people who are intimately invested in maintaining the instruments of state power exactly as they are.

I only read here because I am not qualified to comment though it does interest me because as I noted before (in the Brexit thread I believe) what happens in the let's say established and strong democracies has some impact on democracies not so established and not so strong like the one I live in. Anyways ..

I do not think that the only people who can change how democracy operates are the people in power. In a hypothetical situation when, for example, only 1% of voters would actually vote in an election, I do not believe the winner of such an election could claim to have legitimacy/mandate. That is why I don't vote. I know it's a long shot but what else? Business as usual is indeed probably not gonna change anything.