Bob Piper has been a Labour Councillor for the Abbey
Ward in Sandwell, West Midlands, for 10 years. He is a lifelong supporter of Aston Villa Football Club and a follower of Yorkshire County Cricket Club.
The views expressed here are mine in a personal capacity, not those of the Labour Party, Sandwell MBC, Aston Villa or Yorkshire County Cricket Club. Get it! Mine... just mine!
Promoted by Bob Piper of 115 Barclay Rd, B67 5JZ on behalf of the Labour Party, care of 39 Victoria Street London, SW1H 0HA . Hosted (printed) by Swaithe Internet Solutions who are not responsible for any of the contents of these posts.
Please note however, that The Labour Party is not responsible for the content of this website or individual posts as, unless specifically stated, I am writing solely in a personal and individual capacity.
Promoted by Bob Piper of 115 Barclay Rd, B67 5JZ on behalf of the Labour Party, care of 39 Victoria Street London, SW1H 0HA . Hosted (printed) by Swaithe Internet Solutions who are not responsible for any of the contents of these posts.
Please note however, that The Labour Party is not responsible for the content of this website or individual posts as, unless specifically stated, I am writing solely in a personal and individual capacity.
Bob Piper has posted saying that anyone who blames Labour for the four fold rise in gun homicide is wrong.
Errm, yes, except, actually , Bob Piper didn't say anything of the sort. I didn't mention a four fold increase in gun crime in my piece, nor did the three posts I criticised. I said it was a simplistic answer to a complex problem, and in fact I think David Cameron's 'There is such a thing as society' approach is to be welcomed. Certainly far more than that of the moron who suggested that locking up children and throwing away the key for anti-social behaviour, which Dizzy doesn't appear to take issue with. Dizzy goes on…
and that you could as easily blame Thatcher as the parents were brought up under her and she was of course a baby eater.
Except… errm, I didn’t, I actually said blaming Thatcher for everything was equally simplistic.
Having made the mistake of not properly reading what I had written, Dizzy then uses this false premise to construct his argument:
This is how it works you see. Something tragic happens. You express your dismay at the tragedy and say why you think something has gone wrong, in this case the four fold rise in gun homicide over the last ten years, and your "playing party politics" if you don't support the Government.
But again, there is nowhere I said in my piece that anyone should ‘support the government’. In fact I went out of my way towards the bottom of the piece to talk about what I consider to be some of the faults, and even mention the Blair-Brown years (although perhaps Dizzy had given up even misreading the piece by that stage), which is hardly absolving the Government of blame, let alone urging people to ‘support it’. Nor was I responding to a piece which mentioned the four fold rise in gun homicide over the last ten years so I could hardly be accusing anyone of playing party politics by mentioning it.
Dizzy’s final rapier like thrust against the false premise he has established in his own mind is…
There is nothing point scoring about saying "err excuse me, I think we have a problem here, and I think you're not being honest about the scale of it".
No, but there is about using simplistic ‘it’s all the government’s fault because these toddlers grew up under a Labour Government’ arguments. Or trite assertions that it was Labour’s iron grip over inner city councils that caused the problem… and then listing half a dozen local authorities, four of which are ruled by Conservative/Lib Dem administrations.
Of course, I could also pick holes in Dizzy's views that Tony Blair started the Second World War, that Gordon Brown is a direct descendant of Jack the Ripper, and that the Tories didn't support the war in Iraq. Ok... he didn't actually say any of those things... but, what the hell, it seems like a fair way to proceed!
"No, but there is about using simplistic ‘it’s all the government’s fault because these toddlers grew up under a Labour Government’ arguments."
No there isn't Bob, you can't cite motivation, that is as fallacious as the reasoning that you say you're annoyed with. And that's the point right, you're complaining bad argument with bad argument. Hence, you;re talking bollocks.
Your second to last quote from my post is funny as well. I was explaining how the "party political point scoring" argument works in general. It's true. That is how it works. It is used to seek a closure of discussion by attacking motivation, which, as it happens, is what you did, unless you;re saying that you're not attacking motivation (which you cannot possibly know) when you say they're just scoring cheap points out of tragedy - this last point by you of course was not you taking the moral high gorund.. oh no.. never... not at all. :rolleyes:
Bob Piper said:
August 26, 2007 1:16 PM | permalink
They obviously open early around your way dizzy. Hence the rolling eyes, presumably. If someone advances a simplistic argument, it is just that, simplistic. I see nothing wrong with trying to work out the reasoning behind the twisted logic of Tory bloggers. Someone has to try to understand these people.
Some twerp who wants to lock kids up and throw away the key for anti-social behaviour may well be doing so as part of his wider Masters thesis on crime and punishment in the 21st Century, and you can subscribe that motive to the nobhead if you wish. Me, I think its a nobhead trying to score a cheap party political point... and I am sure readers will make up their own mind... but that in itself is not a party political point.
Anyway... I'm going down the pub now to see if I can try to induce the same state of mind you have managed to get.
August 26, 2007 12:40 PM | permalink
"No, but there is about using simplistic ‘it’s all the government’s fault because these toddlers grew up under a Labour Government’ arguments."
No there isn't Bob, you can't cite motivation, that is as fallacious as the reasoning that you say you're annoyed with. And that's the point right, you're complaining bad argument with bad argument. Hence, you;re talking bollocks.