Oh, dear mob rule?

Have you got the wrong poster here ?

I cannot remember been involved in any exchange of views about the First Minister of Wales or any donations from convicted criminals.

With regards to the Right wing Populists meeting in Brussels - mixed feelings - no it generally is not right to shut down any political meeting simply because you dont agree with the politics, with the exception of any political movement of the extreme who advocate violence, disorder or promotes hateed or divisions in society.

On the other hand, after just reading about what happened, there were threats of violence and disruption from Belgian "Anti (that word I cant use) N" groups, and the conference venue had been changed, so perhaps the police and / or local authorities did have genuine concerns.

Remember the controversy over allowing Nick Griffin of the BNP to appear on Question Time ?, I argued that it was the right thing to do, but the oxygen of publicity meant that the BNP were exposed that night, their popularity fell away, and where arethey now. 

Once again, I had to read up on the background of this story

My personal view on this is that whilst Mr Gething has not broken any rule or law, I think it was wrong to accept the donation knowing that Mr Neal was head of several compaies which had been fined for breaking environmental regulations.

As all the donations were properly handled, and declared to both the Electoral Commission and The Senedd, and no legal questions raised, however from a moral point of view, he should not have accepted the donations.

Reactionaries are not confined to either Right or Left or followers or any organisation or religion any more than is the use of misinformation and smears.

Leaders who have crushed opponents don’t necessarily have good track records — Boris didn’t need to set the dogs on Corbyn, who had got to lead Labour and by the votes of the Labour Party’s newly-joined young members.

Corbyn’s Left-wing student politics was ridiculed and attacked by the Tory press so much that it scared the crap out of the UK’s mostly moderate electorate. The result was he dragged Labour down to an inglorious defeat.

I doubt Johnson’s famed charisma played much more than a token part in the 2019 Tory landslide…

What Labour went through is precisely what the Conservative Party is currently going through, a broad Church is fine, but to stretch it too far means you reach breaking point.

The Labour Party is now fully under the control of "Social Democrats", the moderate Left as opposed to "Socialists", and Starmer has learned from the huge success of Blair how to widen the electoral appeal of the Labour Party to the middle classes, business people, the self employed and at the same time keep Labours principles.

The Tory Party is in a civil war, its been pulled and fought over between traditional Conservatives, one nation Conservatives and the populist Right who play more on culture wars rather than focus on REAL politics.

I find it absolutely alarming that a potential Tory leader has come out and backed Donald Trump for President, a man who would throw Ukraine AND EUROPE to the dogs ( To Russia ), and who has little interest in NATO.

When I stated "the success of Blair" I specifically mean the record majority achieved by Labour under his leadership, and the fact that he is the only Labour leader in history to win three consecutive terms of office.

Blair's unpopularity is largely restricted to the far Left, the Corbynites, Momentum types, and I see no evidence that he is as unpopular as you seem to believe amongst the wider electorate, indeed I often hear people say that they wish he was in charge now.

I wonder where you get the idea that Blair "trashed the country" ?

Throughout Blair's term of office, borrowing remained lower than its peak during John Majors term, in fact the UK budget was actually in surplus for 4 years, something which never happened under the Major government. 

Unemployment was low - interest rates low - we had sustainable growth - public services all improved, but in particular our NHS - living standards improved.

There is nothing today which is in a better position than it was under Blair, not borrowing, not the National Debt, not growth, not living standards, the NHS is in a terrible state, as are all public services, everything is worse.

As for mass immigration, the three people responsible for Free Movement were (1) John Major, (2) Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd, and (3) Europe Minister Francis Maude, all of who's signatures appear upon the Treaty which opened the doors to Free Movement.