Quote Originally Posted by Citizen's Nephew View Post
That's an evasive response response as usual and the last sentence is a good example of what I mean by silencing critique by making light of someone's legitimate and very real-world concerns.

I'm sorry your father has had to use ambulances 3 times this year. Waiting 3+ hours during an emergency is unacceptable in the UK whoever is in charge of the funding and is scary. I hope his experience was better than mine.

You've incorrectly said that I stated we are in some kind of fascist state. I didn't. I feel we have a government with far right ideology. I've never used the word fascist as far as I can recall. I did cite the article which referred to National Socialism in Europe which is pretty worrying.

I also didn't say there were no rights to protest I merely cited the rights to protest. The government's Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 is straight out of the rightwing playbook imo. I've read it. Been active in protesting it and like I said, we already have environmental protesters in custody, without charge, for 6 months.

You can't accuse me of cherry picking then go on and hypocritically cherry pick until you've gorged yourself with sanctimony. You don't get to be this poster boy for the tories on CCMB and then complain when you're called on it.

I think that most of what you say is just right wing propaganda and shilling for the conservatives. It's not nice when someone says things like that is it?
The answer to your concerns is to stop using anecdotal or cherry picked evidence to come to an extreme conclusion that simply isn't accurate.

A balanced look at things, would take stock of the issues you mention, but balance them with other considerations; the rise in NHS funding, implementing a referendum result some wanted to ignore, the rise in the lowest tax threshold, the support shown for Ukraine, investment in offshore wind, the ability ultimately to have peacefully replaced a leader, an immigration policy that treats Africans and Europeans equally, the interventions in the market during Covid, the energy support grants, the very diverse cabinets; all of which point to a government enacting many policies that you would most likely consider to be left-of-centre policies.

Is the current UK government a right-wing one? On balance, yes. But that doesn't mean it is to the right of the party that has just won the Italian election.

Thank you for the sympathy on the ambulances. It's tempting not to mention the irony that some climate protesters were arrested for disrupting ambulances. That isn't a right to protest IMO, it's disrupting peoples lives and there are rightly limits to that. More specifically, the fact we have issues with the NHS across the entire UK, irrespective of government shows the issues are probably not caused by the UK govt and there is something else, perhaps structural at play.

More generally, I would have sympathy for a lot of what you say, but when it's just packaged as being evidence that the UK has some far-right / extremist / fascist (whatever words you use) government, it's hard to take it entirely seriously.

As usual, I'm not blindly defending the government, it's a cry for reason. I'd do the same if someone was claiming Welsh Labour are some communist disaster, but they never do. It's always one-direction, from people who will take any topic and use it to rant.

Now, what about Italy? What has caused this election result do you think? What will happen next? Surely, there is more interest in that topic than you claiming we have some extreme right-wing govt here and me saying hang on a moment ad infinitum?!