The Shooting Gallery: Police Violence MEGATHREAD

[Sheilbh]

Demands are different from issues. They're not medieval petitioners with their pleas for the authorities to consider or a political party outlining their reform agenda. It's a protest movement.

The issue they're protesting seems pretty clear: police shoot black people (especially black men) despite it being illegal - when was the last time a cop was jailed for this, by the by?

[Duque de Bragança]

Protests in France almost always work, mostly because of the disruption they cause. You need to hit the pocketbook. Block the infrastructure (don't destroy it). Stop going to work. The government always caves in.

France needs a Thatcher.

Coal mines are already closed, and having a Malouines-like war would be really a huge stroke of luck.

Also, history seems to look less and less kind on her. But still, a leader with the will and the skills to break the constant protests would be nice.

French de-industrialisation happened without Thatcher-like people so she would not be that useful nowadays, anyways. And the unintended  "green" side-effects of her policies would be largely moot in France, given place nuclear energy has in France.

[Eddie Teach]

Protests that aren't aiming to influence a decision seem rather pointless.

[Sheilbh]

Protests that aren't aiming to influence a decision seem rather pointless.

But protests influence through the force of the protest. It raises an issues political salience, if they're on "your" side they hold your feet to the fire, if they're on the "other" side it forces attention onto that issue.

That's a different type of influence than lobbying or think tanks which are maybe a bit more policy-focused.

[Threviel]

French de-industrialisation happened without Thatcher-like people so she would not be that useful nowadays, anyways. And the unintended  "green" side-effects of her policies would be largely moot in France, given place nuclear energy has in France.

Yes, seeing the shitfest that is the UK 30 years after Thatcher makes it quite clear that no-one needs a Thatcher.

[Eddie Teach]

the shitfest that is the UK

[Duque de Bragança]

French de-industrialisation happened without Thatcher-like people so she would not be that useful nowadays, anyways. And the unintended  "green" side-effects of her policies would be largely moot in France, given place nuclear energy has in France.

Yes, seeing the shitfest that is the UK 30 years after Thatcher makes it quite clear that no-one needs a Thatcher.

Nice strawman.
However, iff you meant that a new/updated Thatcher, as bad as it was for the Tyrs and other proles, would have spared the UK a chaotic Brexit compared to the current Tory luminaries, then yes maybe Thatcher was not so bad.

PS: real problem was going full socialist for France between 1981 and 1983 when it too late to do so and simply bad timing. Might have been not so bad during the Glorious Thirties which had themselves a pretty high level of state intervention in France and elsewhere. OTOH, that's one of the few electoral promises Mitterrand kept.

[Josquius]

Eh? Thatcher founded the modern brexit movement. With her we would be just as surely heading for disaster.

[Duque de Bragança]

Eh? Thatcher founded the modern brexit movement. With her we would be just as surely heading for disaster.

Thatcher also milked Europe as much at it could (30 % rebate). She was too smart to leave the EEC/EU in a chaotic way.
I am sure she would have gotten more concessions, unlike say, Cameron.

[Threviel]

Nice strawman.
However, iff you meant that a new/updated Thatcher, as bad as it was for the Tyrs and other proles, would have spared the UK a chaotic Brexit compared to the current Tory luminaries, then yes maybe Thatcher was not so bad.

I'm not entirely serious, Thatcher is one of my political idols, but I am more and more coming to the conclusion that there were a lot of bad with all the good she did.

My point from the beginning was that France needs someone to stand up to all these frivolous protests whenever someone tries to change pensions, labour laws or whatever.

[Duque de Bragança]

Nice strawman.
However, iff you meant that a new/updated Thatcher, as bad as it was for the Tyrs and other proles, would have spared the UK a chaotic Brexit compared to the current Tory luminaries, then yes maybe Thatcher was not so bad.

I'm not entirely serious, Thatcher is one of my political idols, but I am more and more coming to the conclusion that there were a lot of bad with all the good she did.

My point from the beginning was that France needs someone to stand up to all these frivolous protests whenever someone tries to change pensions, labour laws or whatever.

Incrementalism in reforms works better than virago posturing in France. Reforms under Sarkozy were adopted this way. Macron just may have (re-)discovered it.

[garbon]

Eh? Thatcher founded the modern brexit movement. With her we would be just as surely heading for disaster.

Thatcher also milked Europe as much at it could (30 % rebate). She was too smart to leave the EEC/EU in a chaotic way.
I am sure she would have gotten more concessions, unlike say, Cameron.

His counter point will be the later Bruges speech

https://www.dw.com/en/would-margaret-thatcher-be-in-favor-of-brexit/a-43252699

[Duque de Bragança]

https://www.dw.com/en/would-margaret-thatcher-be-in-favor-of-brexit/a-43252699

I know, but it is still not a pre-Brexit stance. Anti soon-to-be Maastricht EU perhaps as implicitly criticizing Delors' ideas
She even acknowledges historical links to Europe, much to Brexiteers' chagrin

We British are as much heirs to the legacy of European culture as any other nation. Our links to the rest of Europe, the continent of Europe, have been the dominant factor in our history.
For three hundred years, we were part of the Roman Empire and our maps still trace the straight lines of the roads the Romans built.
Our ancestors—Celts, Saxons, Danes—came from the Continent. [end p1]
Our nation was—in that favourite Community word— "restructured" under the Norman and Angevin rule in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

The European Community belongs to all its members.
It must reflect the traditions and aspirations of all its members.
And let me be quite clear.
Britain does not dream of some cosy, isolated existence on the fringes of the European Community. Our destiny is in Europe, as part of the Community.

No way Brexiteers would agree with the bolded part.

Maggie not in favor of a supra-national Europe? Obviously, but that does not make her a proto-Brexiteer.

https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107332

PS: I like the "restructured" euphemism for the Normand invasion. 

[Josquius]

Eh? Thatcher founded the modern brexit movement. With her we would be just as surely heading for disaster.

[img width=681 D1JSK4OX4AAhbOa.jpg[/img]

Thatcher also milked Europe as much at it could (30 % rebate). She was too smart to leave the EEC/EU in a chaotic way.
I am sure she would have gotten more concessions, unlike say, Cameron.

His counter point will be the later Bruges speech

https://www.dw.com/en/would-margaret-thatcher-be-in-favor-of-brexit/a-43252699

It's shocking how little the events of 1988 are known. The whole thing went completely unmentioned during the brexit referendum. Thanks to Jaques Delors British politics did a complete 180 on Europe.

[Sheilbh]

His counter point will be the later Bruges speech

https://www.dw.com/en/would-margaret-thatcher-be-in-favor-of-brexit/a-43252699

Yeah but the Brexit-encouraging was more of a post-PM thing and a factor of internal Tory politics.

She was removed by her (pro-European/pro-ERM) cabinet because she opposed entering the ERM and, in retrospect, she was right. Her two fears about it were that it would open the pound to speculation - which it did - and that it would be a step on the road to a more powerful European Central Bank and single currency which the UK would be expected to join - which would have been right if we didn't fall out of the ERM. Also key was Germany, she was very suspicious of a reunified Germany and basically thought you need to stage it more slowly - establish multi-party democracy and capitalism in East Germany and, eventually, move to unification. I think her diary says here first thought was "this is wonderful, everything we ver dreamed of, and the people are doing it, not the government", seconds later apparently she thought "My goodness! This is dangerous! We'd better be sure this doesn't get out of hand." It's the anti-German feeling that's really key, she actually got a group of historians together to discuss what German reunification might mean for Europe. Needless to say this strand of her thinking was encouraged by Mitterand in true machivellian style

She started to be swayed by the idea of ERM as a disciplinary measure on UK governments (a bit like Italy or France in theory) because her government was struggling with that. But her fundamental issue was if Europe has good German economic management, it would mean the Germans had too much powers; if Germany didn't have that power, then Europe wouldn't benefit from German economic management and end up with spendthrift policies led by undisciplined countries like France (or Britain). She could not reconcile unified Germany with Europe which is why she starts pushing hard for expansion of the EU to the East before almost anyone else does, and that became British policy under both Tory and Labour governments.

And in a weird way she was kind of right that reunification of Germany caused issues for the UK. It was the 1:1 conversion of the Ostmark that caused German interest rates to rise, the Bank of England then tried to defend Sterling but it led to a Sterling crisis and, despite raising interest rates by 2% in one day, Sterling was forced out of the ERM.

I don't think there's any doubt that whatever you think of Thatcher she would be a significantly more competent PM than Theresa May or Boris Johnson (or, in my view, Cameron). You might not like what she'd do but I don't think "chaotic" is a word that's often applied to her government.

Edit: It's also a bit crazy to guess - for example Nigel Lawson was her Chancelllor in 1988 and he was a passionate advocate of ERM, of European federalism and of the UK entering a single currency. By 2016 he was a prominent Brexiteer.