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

[ermie123]

On 2/11/2017 at 00:22, VILLAMARV said:

So, if we're working off the interpretations of communism being at the opposite end of the single axis scale to right wing extremism (Note not Fascism) then again we are having to accept the limitations of the terminology. The political ideology of 'pure' communism is different to the examples used throughout human history in practicality, neither Russia nor China have ever run a system based on 'pure' communist ideology.

Communism is little more than a term for egalitarianism, by the time Marx and Engels come along it is the move away from egalitarianism in their thinking that distinguishes Marxism from the theoretical ideology that is 'pure' communism. Lenin adapts Marxist thinking around a democratic centralism around the time of the Bolshevik Revolution (Founded as the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party) and the birth of the Soviet Union. By Stalin's time he coined the term Marxist-Leninism which was his recognised sociopolitical and economic ideology. Stalinism is more about Stalin's own path in power than any ideology. Death Squads, Show Trials, Purges, Oppressing Dissent and so on. There is an argument from Marxists that says the USSR was more of a State Capitalist system rather than a Communist one due to the 'ownership' of the state. See also variations on the Communist theme - Trotskyism, Left or Christian or Anarchic or Council Communism, Marxist Liberalism and so on.

Marxist - Leninist - Maoism (or Maoism for short) basically applies the same Marxist-Leninist theory around an agrarian society rather than an industrial one. 

Fascism however does not necessarily follow a predesigned ideology moreover that it is based heavily around Nationalism. In fact many of the European fascists including the one you mentioned borrowed heavily from Marxist theory while espousing 'a new, third way'. And whilst the comparisons with Communism don't hold up with the European Fascists acceptance towards private ownership, private profits, class and capitalism not to mention the superior race, the overall state ownership model does. The governance by the state on individual human rights including using secret police, attempting to control religeon, use of propaganda, the dictatorial one party model, the devotion to ideology and state, the abolition of unions and workers rights are all common traits between the 4 ex leaders you mention and the individual mix of ideologies and political theories in play.

The point being that you cannot use Hitler (Fascism) vs Stalin (Communism) and expect to connect them together. The brackets are not clarifying or supplanting useful information anymore than Bobby Charlton (England) vs George Best (N. Ireland) is.

Analogy wise - choosing which piece of excrement is 'better' or 'worse' than the other is surely a pretty futile exercise. Unless you're really into skat I suppose. To do so based on some death toll figures from who knows where is truly farcical. You'd need an axis for time served in office for one to work out their deathsperday ratio and what about assists? Or is it extra weighting towards Stalin for going toe-to-toe with Hitler and 'winning'? Unfortunately I think the complex nature of political ideology in oppressive dictatorships is a bit tricky to boil down to a championship style league table. Or do 2,3 or even 4 wrongs now make a right?

As for Poland @ermie123 again it just over simplifies the situation. Stick the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact / European Appeasement / The Winter War / Munich Agreement / Polish Guarantee on your reading list. And then spare a moment to consider Chamberlain's reluctance to fight two wars at the same time.

As for on topic it does have Chairman Mao in the title.

Very well put and food for thought.

[Xann]

 

[sharkyvilla]

He's right that most people are socialists in some way, it just needs someone to communicate it better and convince people that it's affordable.  At the moment people can't engage with Corbyn because he hates talking to anyone who doesn't agree with him and economically Labour are still toxic from Gordon Brown's era.  Hopefully Clive Lewis is the right man to at least do the first thing and eventually people will be willing to give Labour another go.

[OutByEaster?]

Town Hall looks nice.

 

[TrentVilla]

5 hours ago, sharkyvilla said:

He's right that most people are socialists in some way

Are they?

[chrisp65]

As a few commentator types discussed on the tv last night, the absolute ideal result for the tory party was probably a gain for tories in one byelection with a Labour hold in the other.

They have a mid parliament election gain in a northern seat. Almost unheard of.

UKIP have been given a comedy slap down.

Corbyn hasn't lost everything, so will probably stay at the helm of Labour for a while longer.

The only way the night could have been better for May is if a petting a zoo full of orphans had burnt down.

For all the media hype and for all the politics that has gone on around Stoke, the win was achieved by gaining (in very round numbers) 40% of the votes of the 40% of people that bothered to vote. Hardly a ringing endorsement. So it looks like one of the very few blocks of people disinterested in Stoke, were the people of Stoke. 

 

[HanoiVillan]

12 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

For all the media hype and for all the politics that has gone on around Stoke, the win was achieved by gaining (in very round numbers) 40% of the votes of the 40% of people that bothered to vote. Hardly a ringing endorsement. So it looks like one of the very few blocks of people disinterested in Stoke, were the people of Stoke. 

Indeed, came back to make the same point myself. Check out the enthusiasm gap!

Copeland - largest English constituency in geographical size, extremely rural, long distances to polling stations on crap roads with a big storm happening, Tories in with a chance - 51% turnout

Stoke Central - small constituency, city centre, short distances to local neighbourhood polling stations also with big storm, Tories have no chance - 38% turnout

The conclusion that all meaningful political debate in England and Wales is happening in the Conservative party looks safer than ever. 

Edited February 24, 2017 by HanoiVillan

[HanoiVillan]

John Curtice makes typically good points:

The remain vote is now Labour's urgent priority - Stoke and Copeland prove it

'Byelection nights are typically a source of succour for the opposition. Its vote usually goes up while the government almost invariably suffers some kind of reverse.

But this pattern was entirely absent in both Copeland and Stoke. In Copeland Tory support increased by no less than 8.5 points – the biggest increase in support for a government party since Harold Wilson’s Labour government won the Hull North byelection in January 1966 (at the cost, incidentally, of a promise to build the Humber Bridge).

This swing was enough to deliver the Tories a seat they had not won since 1931. Indeed, never before in the whole history of postwar British byelections has a government overturned so large an opposition majority as Labour was defending in Copeland.

Doubtless Labour, whose support fell by five points, will argue that it had its own particular local difficulties in Copeland – the party’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, used at least to be antipathetic to the nuclear power industry, on which the constituency is heavily dependent. But for his critics, this local difficulty will be regarded as symptomatic of the wider unpopularity of some of his policy stances.

Meanwhile, although the contest in Stoke had been widely portrayed as a two-horse race – and thus the third placed Conservative vote was supposedly vulnerable to a squeeze – Conservative support also increased there (by a couple of points) too. While Labour held the seat quite comfortably, its vote still fell by a couple of points.

Labour’s share of the vote has now dropped in every single byelection since the Brexit referendum. From leafy Richmond to windswept Copeland the message has been the same : the party is struggling to hang on to the already diminished band of supporters who backed it in 2015.

The party’s problems were, of course, in evidence long before 23 June last year. But the vote to leave the EU has exacerbated them.

Labour seems to have decided in recent weeks that its first priority is to stave off the threat from Ukip to its traditional working-class vote, much of which supposedly voted to leave in the EU referendum.

But in so doing it seems to have forgotten (or not realised) that most of those who voted Labour in 2015 – including those living in Labour seats in the North and the Midlands – backed remain. The party is thus at greater risk of losing votes to the pro-remain Liberal Democrats than to pro-Brexit Ukip.

And the Liberal Democrats edged up in both Stoke and Copeland, just as they have done in every byelection since the EU referendum.

Ukip itself shares this misapprehension about the importance of the Labour leave vote. Hardly anyone who voted remain is willing to vote for Ukip. Yet it insists on targeting a Labour vote that voted by two to one to remain rather than a Conservative vote where well over half voted to leave.

The seeds of Paul Nuttall’s failure to win Stoke, or indeed to register anything more than a two-point increase in the party’s share of the vote, almost undoubtedly lie in his failure to squeeze what will almost undoubtedly have been a predominantly leave-inclined Conservative vote in Stoke.

Meanwhile Ukip did see its own vote badly squeezed in Copeland, suffering a drop of nine points, the party’s worst byelection performance yet in this parliament. Most probably it was the advancing Conservatives who primarily benefited – a stark warning to Ukip that Theresa May’s allegedly hard Brexit could enable her to steal the party’s clothes.

On 24 June the Conservatives were in turmoil. Now, seven months on they must be wondering whether it was fortunate after all to have lost the EU referendum.'

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/24/stoke-copeland-labour-remain-richmond-copeland-ukip

[Jon]

I can't see how Jez can survive Copeland. Isn't that the first by-election gain by a governing party since 1982? Given what the Tories have been doing these past 7 years, that is absolutely incredible.

The music has started up, and the fat lady is clearing her throat.

That the Labour party is falling away in these austere times, with a crisis in the NHS, is a dereliction of duty on their part, and there can be only 1 outcome.

For me, Jez seems to be happy to be a more marginalised opposition party, a party geared to oppose rather than govern.

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

1 minute ago, Jon said:

For me, Jez seems to be happy to be a more marginalised opposition party, a party geared to oppose rather than govern.

Agreed, he could never lead a dog let alone a country.

 

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

28 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

The only way the night could have been better for May is if a petting a zoo full of orphans had burnt down.

Out of order,  Tories would never let the animals burn and I think you know that,  they have an interest in killing live animals for fun or interfering with dead ones.  

 

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

Question,  can a organisation such as the Labour Party be deemed "not fir for purpose"  ? If the purpose is the regain power and look after their own supporters and the rest of the population then they are closer to creating a real need for a gnome in every kitchen in the land than that.

A: I will start a company based on donations,  I aim to get interstellar travel of the ground in the next 5 years ? 

OR

B: My name is Jeremy and I will be Prime Minister of Great Britain.

In my world both of these are not achievable so why is it allowed to continue.  Making the UK a one party system is dangerous and that is in effect what he is doing.  If the Scots are |SNP and the rest is Tory what's the f'in point of it all ? Turning the UK into China is treason and Corbyn should be charged with this at the very least the word removed.

 

 

[TrentVilla]

51 minutes ago, Jon said:

I can't see how Jez can survive Copeland. Isn't that the first by-election gain by a governing party since 1982? Given what the Tories have been doing these past 7 years, that is absolutely incredible.

The music has started up, and the fat lady is clearing her throat.

Diane Abbott again?

[Chindie]

The by election result isn't going to change a thing about the Labour Party.

Corbyn doesn't care. There isn't a good alternative that has revealed themselves for the leadership.

The Party is done. Grassroots and their leader wants a more left party, the country won't vote for that and the more high profile front line party MPs won't support that shift. They can't square the Brexit result with their support or their ideology. 

They have to become New New Labour, but that is so tainted it's a poison chalice. Blair and Brown soiled it, Milliband couldn't rescue it, and Corbyn has killed it in trying an alternative medicine to make it better than it was.

They're done. 

[dAVe80]

Some of the people from my CLP went to help canvass in Copeland, and came back with stories of whole villages left behind and neglected. Couple this with JC's nuclear stance, and its total dominance on the area, and its impact on jobs. Labour was always facing a battle for Copeland, especially when the political culture in Copeland has become so insular, and the lack of an alternative had been talked down (by the previous MP, and the local CLP) to the point where the left leaning Labour candidate (at the point of choosing their candidate) wasn't given a chance of being selected. People will look at this as defeat for Jeremy Corby's Labour, but unfortunately it's also another chapter in the long running saga of the battle of the soul of the party. It pisses me off we continue to fight internal battles, while the country slips further into the grips of one of the most odious bunch of Tories we've seen in a long time. What happens now, and how it gets sorted, I've no idea. 

The only silver lining is the fact Labour saw off UKIPs in Stoke, and Labour now has a blueprint as to how to defeat them.

[Davkaus]

 

9 minutes ago, dAVe80 said:

 

The only silver lining is the fact Labour saw off UKIPs in Stoke, and Labour now has a blueprint as to how to defeat them.

Have they ****. Nuttall defeated himself. And with all the shit that poured out of his mouth, they still gained voters and Labour were still down 2 points. That's not a silver lining, in my book, it's **** appalling.

Meanwhile Corbyn's mates continue to stick their head in the sand and blame "disunity" (not doubt muttering about Blairite scum under their breath) for the Copeland defeat, while ignoring the glow in the dark, radioactive elephant in the room which is they almost certainly lost because of Jezza's policy.

Edited February 24, 2017 by Davkaus

[darrenm]

58 minutes ago, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

Agreed, he could never lead a dog let alone a country.

 

 

22 minutes ago, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

Question,  can a organisation such as the Labour Party be deemed "not fir for purpose"  ? If the purpose is the regain power and look after their own supporters and the rest of the population then they are closer to creating a real need for a gnome in every kitchen in the land than that.

A: I will start a company based on donations,  I aim to get interstellar travel of the ground in the next 5 years ? 

OR

B: My name is Jeremy and I will be Prime Minister of Great Britain.

In my world both of these are not achievable so why is it allowed to continue.  Making the UK a one party system is dangerous and that is in effect what he is doing.  If the Scots are |SNP and the rest is Tory what's the f'in point of it all ? Turning the UK into China is treason and Corbyn should be charged with this at the very least the word removed.

 

 

Change the record pal.

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

John Curtice makes typically good points:

The remain vote is now Labour's urgent priority - Stoke and Copeland prove it

'Byelection nights are typically a source of succour for the opposition. Its vote usually goes up while the government almost invariably suffers some kind of reverse.

But this pattern was entirely absent in both Copeland and Stoke. In Copeland Tory support increased by no less than 8.5 points – the biggest increase in support for a government party since Harold Wilson’s Labour government won the Hull North byelection in January 1966 (at the cost, incidentally, of a promise to build the Humber Bridge).

This swing was enough to deliver the Tories a seat they had not won since 1931. Indeed, never before in the whole history of postwar British byelections has a government overturned so large an opposition majority as Labour was defending in Copeland.

Doubtless Labour, whose support fell by five points, will argue that it had its own particular local difficulties in Copeland – the party’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, used at least to be antipathetic to the nuclear power industry, on which the constituency is heavily dependent. But for his critics, this local difficulty will be regarded as symptomatic of the wider unpopularity of some of his policy stances.

Meanwhile, although the contest in Stoke had been widely portrayed as a two-horse race – and thus the third placed Conservative vote was supposedly vulnerable to a squeeze – Conservative support also increased there (by a couple of points) too. While Labour held the seat quite comfortably, its vote still fell by a couple of points.

Labour’s share of the vote has now dropped in every single byelection since the Brexit referendum. From leafy Richmond to windswept Copeland the message has been the same : the party is struggling to hang on to the already diminished band of supporters who backed it in 2015.

The party’s problems were, of course, in evidence long before 23 June last year. But the vote to leave the EU has exacerbated them.

Labour seems to have decided in recent weeks that its first priority is to stave off the threat from Ukip to its traditional working-class vote, much of which supposedly voted to leave in the EU referendum.

But in so doing it seems to have forgotten (or not realised) that most of those who voted Labour in 2015 – including those living in Labour seats in the North and the Midlands – backed remain. The party is thus at greater risk of losing votes to the pro-remain Liberal Democrats than to pro-Brexit Ukip.

And the Liberal Democrats edged up in both Stoke and Copeland, just as they have done in every byelection since the EU referendum.

Ukip itself shares this misapprehension about the importance of the Labour leave vote. Hardly anyone who voted remain is willing to vote for Ukip. Yet it insists on targeting a Labour vote that voted by two to one to remain rather than a Conservative vote where well over half voted to leave.

The seeds of Paul Nuttall’s failure to win Stoke, or indeed to register anything more than a two-point increase in the party’s share of the vote, almost undoubtedly lie in his failure to squeeze what will almost undoubtedly have been a predominantly leave-inclined Conservative vote in Stoke.

Meanwhile Ukip did see its own vote badly squeezed in Copeland, suffering a drop of nine points, the party’s worst byelection performance yet in this parliament. Most probably it was the advancing Conservatives who primarily benefited – a stark warning to Ukip that Theresa May’s allegedly hard Brexit could enable her to steal the party’s clothes.

On 24 June the Conservatives were in turmoil. Now, seven months on they must be wondering whether it was fortunate after all to have lost the EU referendum.'

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/24/stoke-copeland-labour-remain-richmond-copeland-ukip

Absolutely this. I've been saying for ages that he chose to listen to others who said he needs to unite the party at the wrong time. He decided that his own remain stance was at odds with the Labour core support in the poorer towns and the north so went with a bit of populism, decided to sit on the fence, and used the excuse of democracy 'hey, our hands are tied, you guys chose this'.

Problem is, they can't fight the battle on multiple fronts and be a force in each. UKIP seemingly aren't the threat they were, the Corbyn following new age liberals are all remain, and it seems everyone else is entirely apathetic. The messages they've been trying to get across with the huge save the NHS campaigns and trying to nail May over the lack of a Brexit plan were good but just haven't landed with the hugely ignorant electorate and ever increasingly irrelevant moderate media.

No-one cares what's good or bad any more. Or what's right or wrong. They just want to be entertained. The wildest stuff sticks, the sensible stuff doesn't. It seems the only way to get the tramp-freezers out will be to promise stuff even more bonkers than them but then not actually do it when you get in. Which is what the people want anyway 'We didn't actually expect you to do it'.

So Corbyn needs to do a 180 and go full on remain. No-one will care they've completely changed their stance. Position themselves properly as the brexit opposition and hope to ride the wave of opinion change as everything starts to **** up and a GE is called.

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

5 minutes ago, darrenm said:

Change the record pal.

It was tongue in cheek,  I was having a laugh so calm down or you will do yourself a mischief or damage your keyboard  

[dAVe80]

13 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

 

Have they ****. Nuttall defeated himself. And with all the shit that poured out of his mouth, they still gained voters and Labour were still down 2 points. That's not a silver lining, in my book, it's **** appalling.

Meanwhile Corbyn's mates continue to stick their head in the sand and blame "disunity" (not doubt muttering about Blairite scum under their breath) for the Copeland defeat, while ignoring the glow in the dark, radioactive elephant in the room which is they almost certainly lost because of Jezza's policy.

Yes Nuttall left an open goal, but the heartening side of it is that a less grassroots base, and a less organised  Labour party on the ground could have easily still lost the seat. As for Copeland, and the nuclear issue, Labour were completely aware that this was the major factor in the by election. As I stated, the exiting MP, and the hierarchy at local level made it completely about jobs in the industry, as did the Unions representing the work force. The idea that it could be about anything else was removed from the agenda. It was totally set up that way from the start. 

.

[snowychap]

2 hours ago, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

Question,  can a organisation such as the Labour Party be deemed "not fir for purpose"  ?

I don't think it fair to o-pine on the matter.