The Chairman Mao resembling, Monarchy hating, threat to Britain, Labour Party thread

[HanoiVillan]

50 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Both sides of this debate are right.

There is a male orientated drinking culture network among managers that a vast number of people need to be a part of if they want to 'get on'. This is very different to the lads from work having a Friday pint. It's very different to the women in my office that go for a once a month ironic bingo evening.

There are two kinds of London trip from my office. There travel down in 'mixed' company, do the work, travel back. Then there's get the train, do the work, get smashed and somehow get yourself on a late train and then get a taxi home. If you don't do a proportion of late night London trips, you get a very limited chance of going on London trips.

It's not the biggest issue of the day. But, if people can be pissed off about more than one thing at a time, perhaps they can also be conscious of more than one problem at a time.

Don't say you'll never change the culture. If that was true, most of you would be uneducated farm hands that never saw life outside the local Lord's farm boundary. The only black person you'd meet would be a slave. Foreign travel for working class boys would mostly be adventures in killing muslims in the middle east.

I'm not sure the VT demographic is the one to decide what women want or need. I don't think VT would argue with helping the disabled towards equality (why the **** should we spend money on ramps in to 'Spoons, they don't drink anyway, do they?) I don't think VT would argue with anti racist rules (it's not racist to call a colleague sambo, he really is black, he doesn't mind) and I don't think VT would object to people's sexual orientation being made less of an issue (except in football obviously, we don't want some poof turning the whole dressing room). If the discussion was legalising more drugs, a big portion of VT would be well up for that being a topic of national debate, whatever the current sterling exchange rate was or regardless of whether there was a doctor's strike coming. 

But something that might help women if it was fully discussed? A step too far. Far more important to discuss trade tariffs on car parts so we are at the forefront of some business based shit or other. The agenda you think you want has been hijacked by the establishment.

 

I somewhat resent the idea that I am part of a 'demographic' that would rather discuss 'trade tariffs on car parts' rather than 'help women', given I regularly find myself on here being one of a small number acknowledging that feminism isn't just a conspiracy to keep men down or whatever. Never mind. 

On the broader argument here, there may well be a 'male orientated drinking culture', but the point is people like socialising. We can only socialise with the people we know, and colleagues are frequently some of the people we know best. Networking out of work hours will happen in some place or other. It doesn't have to be a pub, but it will happen. Inevitably, it will happen after work, since work is what happens during work hours, not socialising (in theory, anyway). 

Having children leads to all sorts of costs. Not only can you not just go to the pub whenever you want, you can't go to the cinema whenever you want or go clubbing whenever you want or whatever. This is part of the choice that you make when you have children. It's not even just having kids either. I go to the pub after work less than I used to after getting married as well. 

The examples of cultural change that you give are things that happened over hundreds of years as a result of fundamental changes in the economy. You surely aren't seriously arguing that this policy is going to popular or a vote winner in the short term? Which is all I'm saying. Yes, in the long run, pubs won't exist and alcohol will be banned or shunned and work will be rationed as jobs as we know them thin out and disappear. In the long run we're all dead. None of this is helping Labour win in 2020. 

[chrisp65]

It was nothing personal Hanoi, don't think that for a second.

But these things have absolutely not been hundreds of years in their evolution. The very first work place race discrimination legislation in this country was in my life time. The first disability discrimination legislation was in the 1990's. Equal pay for women was first 'acted' in 1970, it didn't work, they had a go at redrafting it in 2010, many women still earn less for no apparent reason.

Each and every time any of these acts has been passed, it's later been seen as an obvious and fair thing to do. But right up to the law being passed many would have argued there were far more important things to concentrate on first.

From votes for all men, votes for women, health and safety at work there are always detractors saying it's a step too far.

I've already said many people socialise with work colleagues, male and female, they always will. I've said women in my office go out together. They should. But what Corbyn said wasn't the top middle and bottom of a new law to ban men being friends with other men. It was the start of an idea. It certainly wasn't some organic Islington lesbian vegan idea. It's a real thing all across the country. Make work your life, or don't expect to get on.

It's changing. Some men can now feel brave enough to ask for paternity leave where their family finances allow. Some men can confess to knowing their children's names and what year they are in at school. Talking about it makes it easier to talk about it. I have the confidence to tell my office I can't do 'x' meeting because it's a parent teacher evening. My dad couldn't and wouldn't have done that.

Inch by inch talking about these things raises awareness. Women are still getting the shittier end of the stick in general terms. Anything aimed at improving that should be given some air time. He didn't call for police raids on pubs at 5:30pm, he didn't call for castration of men caught talking to men. He discussed levelling the playing field. Up north, in Cardiff and around Manchester, as well as Islington.

I am still very much of the opinion that the VT demographic is not the pinnacle for knowing what is right to gain true equality for women.

[HanoiVillan]

I don't agree, on several points, but let's leave it there. He will never have the chance to implement any of his ideas, no matter what they are, in any case. 

[chrisp65]

But what don't you agree with? That legislation is a new thing and it can help? That VT isn't the pinnacle of knowing what's right for women? Or that talking about an issue raises awareness and that's a good thing?

If the issue is on the agenda, who knows, a few tens of years for our tory friends to absorb the idea into their selfish brains and they might make it their own idea when they realise that it might actually help improve the economy.

[MakemineVanilla]

It would seem like madness for any government to legislate on what colleagues are allowed to do after work and it is impossible to imagine many people voting for any party which included such an intention in their manifesto.

However it seems far more likely that Corbyn's statement was just another dog-whistle message to the Labour Party's women, who he is trying to persuade to vote for him in the next couple of weeks.

I am sure he chose his words carefully but there is no way he could escape from being accused of some degree of sexism because the trap is designed that way.

He's pandering to the feminist belief in the existence of a self-interested 'patriarchy' which uses such quasi-masonic male-bonding sessions to keep women down and is the sole cause of the 'pay gap', but he didn't want to actually use the word directly.

Presumably, once he is voted in as leader he will start pandering to what he thinks the voters want to hear, with about the same level of sincerity. 

[blandy]

22 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I am still very much of the opinion that the VT demographic is not the pinnacle for knowing what is right to gain true equality for women.

Indeed. I wonder whether Jeremy Corbyn is, either.

[HanoiVillan]

11 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

But what don't you agree with? That legislation is a new thing and it can help? That VT isn't the pinnacle of knowing what's right for women? Or that talking about an issue raises awareness and that's a good thing?

If the issue is on the agenda, who knows, a few tens of years for our tory friends to absorb the idea into their selfish brains and they might make it their own idea when they realise that it might actually help improve the economy.

Tempting though it is I've rather boxed myself into a corner by saying 'let's leave it there'. 

 

[chrisp65]

2 minutes ago, blandy said:

Indeed. I wonder whether Jeremy Corbyn is, either.

agreed

shall we leave it to Theresa May to sort a more equal society then?

[HanoiVillan]

Just now, chrisp65 said:

agreed

shall we leave it to Theresa May to sort a more equal society then?

If anyone on here votes for Corbyn for the leadership, that is exactly what they are doing. 

[blandy]

1 hour ago, dAVe80 said:

To be fair, he had a press conference to talk about the NHS, and most journalists just wanted to ask him about sitting on train floors. From my experience, including talking to a junior doctor, who gave a speech along side Shadow Cabinet member Grahame Morris, Corbyn is 100% behind their cause. 

Sure. I agree. I think I know why they kept asking him about the trains, and we already covered his PR strategy. I like quite lot of Corbyn's/Labour's ideas and I was OK with him being voted as leader at the time. I just think he's effing useless as a leader, form observing his behaviour and tactics and so on. As HV says, he'll never be elected as PM. 

[chrisp65]

So, vote Owen Smith for a more equal society?

Owen Smith, the man that thinks Leanne Wood gets too much airtime and it's because she's a woman.

---

Yep, I do agree that Labour have got themselves in a pickle. 

[blandy]

26 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

But what don't you agree with? That legislation is a new thing and it can help?

HV has sworn silence, so I'll say that I don't agree that it is possible to create credible, robust, legislation to stop people going to the pub with work colleagues on a friday night, in order to improve the lot of (some) women.

You can't, obviously, tell employers not to allow employees to go to the pub outside working hours. You can't write law to stop people with jobs meeting with colleagues for drinks/golf/knitting/walking events in their own free time. As MMV said,

Quote

 

"it would seem like madness for any government to legislate on what colleagues are allowed to do after work and it is impossible to imagine many people voting for any party which included such an intention in their manifesto.

However it seems far more likely that Corbyn's statement was just another dog-whistle message to the Labour Party's women, who he is trying to persuade to vote for him in the next couple of weeks."

 

 He's happy talking about subjects which appeal to his supporters, knowing full well (unless he's daft) that he cannot achieve the objective which he says he shares with them.

[blandy]

3 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

So, vote Owen Smith for a more equal society?

Owen Smith, the man that thinks Leanne Wood gets too much airtime and it's because she's a woman. 

Yep, I do agree that Labour have got themselves in a pickle. 

 

Haven't they just.

 

1 hour ago, blandy said:

Corbyn makes me despair, as does the other pygmy on a stool.

 

Pair of absolute tools.

[HanoiVillan]

I would add, this is why the coup was so stupid. I'm sufficiently confident in Corbyn's hopelessness that I believe half of those defending him now would have been prepared to remove him in a couple of years' time. I think the party would have gladly dumped him in 2018 or 2019 and appointed somebody with at least some kind of strategy and ability to bring the party together. By being impatient, and trying to overthrow him before all but the die-hards were convinced of his uselessness, they've made him into a martyr. 

[chrisp65]

8 minutes ago, blandy said:

HV has sworn silence, so I'll say...

woah!

it's a tory apologist tag team..

deliberately outrageous ridiculous joke, we're all within an inch of agreeing with each other here

Again, I don't think (I hope) he isn't suggesting police raids to break up gangs of males in pubs at 5:30pm.

You can't prove an individual case of race discrimination between two equal candidates. Race discrimination legislation as helped in the round. You can nudge the big companies in to changing their culture and the little companies will follow when they see it is the enlightened path. Legislation will not stop me going up the Cricketers on a Friday. It would eventually stop EC Harris with a workforce of thousands only promoting men that stay behind for group drinks on Friday.

 

[blandy]

2 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

we're all within an inch of agreeing with each other here

No we're not there's a gulf of 2.54 cm.  Honestly!

3 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

You can nudge the big companies in to changing their culture and the little companies will follow when they see it is the enlightened path.

 This what's already happened (IMO) I work for a very large manufacturer, and they do a ton of stuff on supporting and helping and changing things, particularly for women and people who want to spend more time with children and so on, or other relatives. It's not perfect, but I've worked there a long time now, and the change that's happened has come about through (IMO) the Labour Gov't of Blair and Brown and what they did, through the Union, through the EU, and through the management seeing that it worked for them too - and a lot more of the management and various layers are now Women, which no doubt also helps.

Sure not every company does it yet, and there's a way to go. I'm not sure that it's possible to legislate at a micro level to address inequality of treatment said to emanate from pub visits. The legislation currently in place is pretty decent, by and large. Like you say it takes time for society to change, but it is changing and will continue to do so.

The media have taken a single aspect of a wider discussion JC was making, true. All politicians (except the loony UKIPs) say things like "Equality is good and...we need to do more...kittens are cute..." it's meaningless noise, unless they can effectively implement good policies to genuinely change the whole country.

[Jon]

3 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

If anyone on here votes for Corbyn for the leadership, that is exactly what they are doing. 

Condescending bullshit.  Thanks for that. 

[blandy]

1 hour ago, Jon said:

Condescending bullshit.  Thanks for that. 

Harsh, Jon. I totally get that people will vote for Corbyn because they agree with him, or like him, or prefer him to the pygmy on a stool or whatever.

All the polls (yeah, I know) show that in terms of the wider nation, Corbyn is a liability to Labour. So it's less condescension than simple logic. It's what happened with Michael Foot, and to a lesser extent with Kinnock, for all their various qualities, the wider electorate just didn't rate them as "prime ministerial" and....well, we are where we are.

It's like the reverse of George Osborne - if he had become leader of the nasty party, it would have been a massive bonus for Labour.

[chrisp65]

Ramsgate, Kent, today. It's called South Thanet in politics, a UKIP Tory marginal close to where all them immigrants get in. Yep, it's another Corbyn speech.

All those Kinnocks and Smiths and Eagles possibly should have spent their time working out how to harness this, not how to stop it voting.

[dAVe80]

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

Ramsgate, Kent, today. It's called South Thanet in politics, a UKIP Tory marginal close to where all them immigrants get in. Yep, it's another Corbyn speech.

All those Kinnocks and Smiths and Eagles possibly should have spent their time working out how to harness this, not how to stop it voting.

Nailed it. If the PLP had could get its shit together and stop all this ridiculous infighting, there would be a real chance to utilise the massive membership the party. They keep telling us he's unelectable, they keep telling us people don't like him, but I couldn't name one other politician in the UK who can draw a crowd like Corbyn. Of course the media, and the right of the party will tell us they're all Trotsky entryists. It's a wonder the SWP have been such a small party all of these years. There seems to be thousands of them! 

Edited September 3, 2016 by dAVe80