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

[tonyh29]

25 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

see, I presumed you were going to offer an alternative picture of jedward

now I have to google who graig logan is... 

 

ahh! it was a kind of jedward joke, but from an older generation!

I’m going to have to google who jedward are now  

 

[Risso]

Mooney.  You're going to have to Mooney it.

[tonyh29]

6 minutes ago, Risso said:

Mooney.  You're going to have to Mooney it.

Never heard of him 

[darrenm]

On 12/23/2017 at 23:55, chrisp65 said:

Have you had a change of opinion on this? Or are you simply talking about the need to maintain a public perception of there being no difference so as not to scare the horses?

The other godsend for the tories, in their eyes, is Jeremy Corbyn. As popular as he is with his supporters he comes with baggage. That baggage appears to have two consequences. Firstly there's an easy hit for the nasty right wing media to plant the idea and remind their public that he's a dangerous man, that he'll have the lights off and the strikers out and the army decommissioned on week one of a Corbyn government. Secondly, he also has that same impact on the tory party. OK they don't like each other, but they know they dislike the idea of a Corbyn government even less.

Which is interesting in its own way. In that, the common ground is Brexit. So there's surely little ground to be gained there. The differential is on the NHS and taxing the rich and helping the homeless and sticking it to the man. So why are we not seeing campaigns on these issues from Labour? Instead we are getting word games about how different a brexit would be under Labour. it would be a brexit for jobs, apparently. I have no idea what that would mean. 

I know what a penny on tax for the NHS means. I know what building 500,000 council homes means. I know what stopping the pensions rip offs means for steel workers and toys r us workers and bhs workers. But none of the Labour accounts I follow ever ever mention these things. It's got to the point in the last 6 months where local Labour councillors (I appreciate there's little they can influence) just tweet photos of the beach and positive reviews of nice lunches they've had in local coffee shops. There appears to be an absolutely massive disconnect still with a lot of the Labour party. In so many ways, very similar to the splintered tory party. Where the tories appear only to be together to stop labour getting in, and labour are only together as they've realised there's a popularity behind Corbyn that means there's a set of circumstances where he could get in.

At one of the most critical times for us in modern history, I do think we have a particularly poor set of politicians on all sides.

Wow, that cross-quote worked. So, @chrisp65 now Christmas is over the gloves are back off..

No change of opinion, I think my position has always been consistent on this - the PLP are overwhelmingly remain. There are a few who aren't of course but it's far more united than the Tories. As for the leadership, while Corbyn has always been eurosceptic, I think his actions during and after the referendum shows that he was honest with his 7/10 in favour of the EU. He said he wanted to remain and reform rather than leave. Since the ref he appointed Keir Starmer as the shadow brexit secretary, a very impressive barrister and MP who obviously knows what he's talking about and has been pro-EU all the way along. A closet leaver wouldn't do that. By appointing someone who knows what they're talking about they've been able to push the Tories on everything to do with brexit such as the impact reports, the final vote amendment, etc.

The places where Labour haven't been able to vote against the gov is where there haven't been any Tory rebels so it would be pointless as they'd just lose and look bad. Those were:

1. The original article 50 vote where every Tory MP bar Ken Clarke voted for it as it was simply enacting the result of the referendum and to vote against it would have allowed every paper, shock jock and rival party to attack them and they would have lost 50% of their vote.

2. The recent amendment which was to guarantee staying in the single market. Almost no Tories rebelled so it was always going to lose and it was derided as illiterate anyway that wouldn't have had the desired effect.

As I've said many times, Labour (hereinafter referring to the leadership) have to be very careful and tread a very fine line with all of this. They aren't stupid so will know that leaving the single market and customs union will make their costed manifesto very difficult to deliver. They'll want a legacy of proving that socialism works so a failed economy is no good to them. But they absolutely can't back either a 2nd referendum nor any kind of reversal as the leavers will desert them who are currently very sceptical about their commitment to leaving. They can however keep as vague as possible to allow wiggle room as and when the public mood changes, evidenced by them going with 'jobs first brexit' - a meaningless soundbite but something they can use when questioned by the new standard trip-up journalism, then going with 'the best deal', then access to the single market. And most recently, as the polls have narrowly softened towards remain, they've introduced the idea of not ruling out staying in the single market and customs union. Billy Bragg told me that Corbyn will follow whatever public mood will get him into number 10. Whether that's pragmatic or dishonest is how important you see brexit as opposed to how the Tories are running the country.

Onto the next point about Jezza, yes, while his baggage is definitely good for the right-wing media, his Momentum backing is very bad for them. Neither Owen Smith nor Angela Eagle would have had that kind of social media movement or savviness to create the amount of shift which has consequently denied the Tories an outright majority and stopped them being able to do anything they want either with domestic issues or brexit.

With the bit about Labour not campaigning on social issues more than they do about brexit, I wasn't sure if you were serious. Ever since the election, Labour have been criticised about their non-stance on brexit. As referred to above, they've been purposefully ambiguous. It's a running joke that no-one knows what their stance is because they don't say anything about it. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/26/labour-brexit-corbyn-momentum-eurosceptic-bennite  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41414142 (I could link thousands of articles) but instead focus on their strong areas in which to attack Tories, which is pretty much anything but brexit. So when you say you're not seeing these campaigns from Labour, I have to ask, where are you looking? Labour's strategy has been to ignore brexit as much as possible while the Tories implode over it and keep picking a specific thing to attack Tories over which is generally co-ordinated with news stories they get wind of e.g. the paradise papers, 120,000 homeless kids etc.

e.g. Boxing Day: big social media push on fox hunting, highlighting about how May likes it and how the Tories are after a free vote, potentially driving another wedge between old Tories and moderates. They keep doing it all the time, pick an issue and attack via all channels then use PMQs to get a recordable soundbite for social media on the same issue.

In December on Labour's twitter feed there has been:

Fox hunting: 4
NHS: 5
Universal credit: 11
Brexit: 6
Homeless: 3
Grenfell: 2
Housing: 2
Royal Mail: 1
Social funding: 11

The brexit tweets were basically just about defeating the Tories on the final vote amendment.

Perhaps it's different from the Welsh Labour view? I don't know. But to me, each and every shadow cabinet member is great at their job and they're currently making mincemeat of the Tories, who have lost every age group under 55.

[snowychap]

17 minutes ago, darrenm said:

e.g. Boxing Day: big social media push on fox hunting, highlighting about how May likes it and how the Tories are after a free vote, potentially driving another wedge between old Tories and moderates. They keep doing it all the time, pick an issue and attack via all channels then use PMQs to get a recordable soundbite for social media on the same issue.

In December on Labour's twitter feed there has been:

Fox hunting: 4
NHS: 5
Universal credit: 11
Brexit: 6
Homeless: 3
Grenfell: 2
Housing: 2
Royal Mail: 1
Social funding: 11

The brexit tweets were basically just about defeating the Tories on the final vote amendment.

That people in this country devote so much of their political energy to either speaking in favour of or against fox hunting and have done for so long is criminal.

 

[darrenm]

1 minute ago, snowychap said:

That people in this country devote so much of their political energy to either speaking in favour of or against fox hunting and have done for so long is criminal.

 

I agree it's not a huge issue in perspective but it's definitely a weak spot for the Tories, especially with a leader who publicly admitted to being in favour of it. It's quite an emotive issue for a lot of people (even though those same people happily eat supermarket mass-farmed meat)

[dAVe80]

16 minutes ago, snowychap said:

That people in this country devote so much of their political energy to either speaking in favour of or against fox hunting and have done for so long is criminal.

 

I agree, but it was a bit of a vote winner, when I was canvassing. Knock on the door, ask them who they're voting for? If they were unsure, and I noticed they had a pet, bring up fox hunting. Especially when the Tory candidate said some pretty stupid things about fox hunting in hustings.  

[darrenm]

41 minutes ago, dAVe80 said:

I agree, but it was a bit of a vote winner, when I was canvassing. Knock on the door, ask them who they're voting for? If they were unsure, and I noticed they had a pet, bring up fox hunting. Especially when the Tory candidate said some pretty stupid things about fox hunting in hustings.  

It's a great way of asking voters which party they identify with when these are presented as Tories:

[snowychap]

6 hours ago, darrenm said:

I agree it's not a huge issue in perspective but it's definitely a weak spot for the Tories, especially with a leader who publicly admitted to being in favour of it. It's quite an emotive issue for a lot of people (even though those same people happily eat supermarket mass-farmed meat)

 

6 hours ago, dAVe80 said:

I agree, but it was a bit of a vote winner, when I was canvassing. Knock on the door, ask them who they're voting for? If they were unsure, and I noticed they had a pet, bring up fox hunting. Especially when the Tory candidate said some pretty stupid things about fox hunting in hustings.  

Sadly, chaps, your posts reinforce my point and increase my anger.

[darrenm]

4 hours ago, snowychap said:

 

Sadly, chaps, your posts reinforce my point and increase my anger.

I know. It's politicking. No-one's excusing it. Simply acknowledging it.

[chrisp65]

23 hours ago, darrenm said:

No change of opinion, I think my position has always been consistent on this - the PLP are overwhelmingly remain. There are a few who aren't of course but it's far more united than the Tories. As for the leadership, while Corbyn has always been eurosceptic, I think his actions during and after the referendum shows that he was honest with his 7/10 in favour of the EU. He said he wanted to remain and reform rather than leave. Since the ref he appointed Keir Starmer as the shadow brexit secretary, a very impressive barrister and MP who obviously knows what he's talking about and has been pro-EU all the way along. A closet leaver wouldn't do that. By appointing someone who knows what they're talking about they've been able to push the Tories on everything to do with brexit such as the impact reports, the final vote amendment, etc.

The places where Labour haven't been able to vote against the gov is where there haven't been any Tory rebels so it would be pointless as they'd just lose and look bad.

......

With the bit about Labour not campaigning on social issues more than they do about brexit, I wasn't sure if you were serious. Ever since the election, Labour have been criticised about their non-stance on brexit. As referred to above, they've been purposefully ambiguous. It's a running joke that no-one knows what their stance is because they don't say anything about it....... So when you say you're not seeing these campaigns from Labour, I have to ask, where are you looking? 

e.g. Boxing Day: big social media push on fox hunting

Perhaps it's different from the Welsh Labour view? I don't know. 

I've butchered your quote right down. Not to cleverly mis quote anything, I'm just wrecked after a good christmas and I couldn't digest anything that big anymore!

We're not a million miles away in our views, other than I appear to have got a bit naive in my politics in my old age. If there are recorded votes in parliament that allow someone to put down a marker for what they believe in, and they choose not to, I'm at odds with that. For the PLP to be constantly sold to me as pro remain, but abstain during votes because they might lose. I'm just blown away by that. I just hate it. There are people trying to explain an alternative view to the country, trying to explain how wrong this could go. The official opposition chooses to abstain and deliberately have a policy of quietly letting it go wrong so they can benefit later? 

I think that could backfire horribly. When it does go wrong, some people might be asking 'where were you?'. What's the answer going to be? We could see the car crash but thought it best to say nothing and hope we could profit from it later. I'm probably in a minority, that really really doesn't do it for me. 

I've checked back over the social media I've been watching or seeing repeated over all of December. There are a few issues around here at the moment. The Pinewood film studio appears to have closed down in some weird secret deal with the Labour run Assembly. The assembly is saying nothing, there appears to be a deal that's staying confidential. The short version is we appear to have paid a lot of money out and got nothing in return but it's 'business sensitive' so we mustn't be told what happened. Strangely, no mention of this on any Labour feed.

The ford plant appears to have closed down 4 months earlier than planned. No mention of this on any labour feed. Not mentioned at all on the social media of the local labour MP. Strangely, during all of December, that same MP hasn't mentioned one single time the pensions scam that has been run at Tata Steel. His constituency is 7 miles from the plant, some of the workers appear to have been ripped off for tens of thousands of pounds. Couple of nice tweets of his christmas tree, can't see anything about pensions. 

He has, and credit to him, been outspoken on child poverty and disability benefits. He has truly worked hard on those issues. Just not anything actually relevant to the local area. Nothing I can see anyway. But that's been the same for local councillors and Assembly Members. I think it probably is a case of Wales Labour being different and either being complacent, or having simply run out of puff.

The exception here, appears to be Stephen Kinnock. Not someone I'm naturally positive about, but he does appear to be working for those steelmen and great credit to him for that.

Scottish Labour (I believe) are currently campaigning to end or drastically curb zero hours contracts. Welsh Labour have so far voted down seven attempts to start the same conversation here. Seven times the Labour majority have voted down motions on zero hours contracts. What the **** are they playing at?

Anyway, not the most coherent response ever. But I do suspect there is a difference between 'national' party and local party.

 

[darrenm]

40 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I've butchered your quote right down. Not to cleverly mis quote anything, I'm just wrecked after a good christmas and I couldn't digest anything that big anymore!

We're not a million miles away in our views, other than I appear to have got a bit naive in my politics in my old age. If there are recorded votes in parliament that allow someone to put down a marker for what they believe in, and they choose not to, I'm at odds with that. For the PLP to be constantly sold to me as pro remain, but abstain during votes because they might lose. I'm just blown away by that. I just hate it. There are people trying to explain an alternative view to the country, trying to explain how wrong this could go. The official opposition chooses to abstain and deliberately have a policy of quietly letting it go wrong so they can benefit later? 

I think that could backfire horribly. When it does go wrong, some people might be asking 'where were you?'. What's the answer going to be? We could see the car crash but thought it best to say nothing and hope we could profit from it later. I'm probably in a minority, that really really doesn't do it for me. 

I've checked back over the social media I've been watching or seeing repeated over all of December. There are a few issues around here at the moment. The Pinewood film studio appears to have closed down in some weird secret deal with the Labour run Assembly. The assembly is saying nothing, there appears to be a deal that's staying confidential. The short version is we appear to have paid a lot of money out and got nothing in return but it's 'business sensitive' so we mustn't be told what happened. Strangely, no mention of this on any Labour feed.

The ford plant appears to have closed down 4 months earlier than planned. No mention of this on any labour feed. Not mentioned at all on the social media of the local labour MP. Strangely, during all of December, that same MP hasn't mentioned one single time the pensions scam that has been run at Tata Steel. His constituency is 7 miles from the plant, some of the workers appear to have been ripped off for tens of thousands of pounds. Couple of nice tweets of his christmas tree, can't see anything about pensions. 

He has, and credit to him, been outspoken on child poverty and disability benefits. He has truly worked hard on those issues. Just not anything actually relevant to the local area. Nothing I can see anyway. But that's been the same for local councillors and Assembly Members. I think it probably is a case of Wales Labour being different and either being complacent, or having simply run out of puff.

The exception here, appears to be Stephen Kinnock. Not someone I'm naturally positive about, but he does appear to be working for those steelmen and great credit to him for that.

Scottish Labour (I believe) are currently campaigning to end or drastically curb zero hours contracts. Welsh Labour have so far voted down seven attempts to start the same conversation here. Seven times the Labour majority have voted down motions on zero hours contracts. What the **** are they playing at?

Anyway, not the most coherent response ever. But I do suspect there is a difference between 'national' party and local party.

 

Glad you had a good Christmas.

I believe, that with the current media climate, that if you don't play the game of appearances, you get wiped out. And that the current situation only allows the following to happen:

a. Labour to oppose everything Tory-sourced and brexit related as long as it doesn't specifically say 'definitely remain in the CU & SM', 'reverse brexit', or 'have a 2nd referendum', until they win a GE majority, at which point with enough majority they could try to put the brakes on a bit more inventively.
b. Labour to oppose brexit altogether, or endorse a 2nd referendum and the leave voters who denied the Tories a majority in the GE all go back to Tory or UKIP, Labour's polling plummets and May calls a snap general election where Labour get wiped out and Tories march on with whatever Dacre and Murdoch tell them to do.

As I said, I think they're constantly watching the polls and trying to keep on the right side of history for when it all goes bang. I think this poll will certainly have raised a few eyebrows though (ignore bottom 2 lines, quoting got messed up and can't remove):

Quote

In the poll, 63% of self-identified Labour supporters say they would be “delighted or pleased” if Labour said it would stop Brexit and stay in the European Union.

Another 21% would oppose such a policy, 11% said they would be angry and 10% disappointed if the leadership adopted such a stance. Ten per cent said they would not mind.

By contrast, only 22% of Labour supporters said they would be delighted or pleased if Labour said it would proceed with Brexit and ensure the UK leaves the EU, 51% said they would be disappointed or angry, and 19% said they would not mind.

Just over 50% of the group that said they were currently Labour supporters but may change their mind claimed they would be either angry or disappointed if Labour promised to proceed with Brexit.

It may well give them a bit more confidence that they won't lose a huge amount of their vote by drawing a line.

And yeah, I don't know a lot about how close Welsh Labour relates to Westminster Labour, but they certainly seem clueless in comparison.

It may well give them a bit more confidence that they won't lose a huge amount of their vote by drawing a line.

And yeah, I don't know a lot about how close Welsh Labour relates to Westminster Labour, but they certainly seem clueless in comparison.

Edited December 28, 2017 by darrenm
quoting messed up

[snowychap]

20 minutes ago, darrenm said:

a. Labour to oppose everything Tory-sourced and brexit related as long as it doesn't specifically say 'definitely remain in the CU & SM', 'reverse brexit', or 'have a 2nd referendum', until they win a GE majority, at which point with enough majority they could try to put the brakes on a bit more inventively.

b. Labour to oppose brexit altogether, or endorse a 2nd referendum and the leave voters who denied the Tories a majority in the GE all go back to Tory or UKIP, Labour's polling plummets and May calls a snap general election where Labour get wiped out and Tories march on with whatever Dacre and Murdoch tell them to do.

Are you therefore suggesting that the strategy of Milne et al. is just to hope that there is another general election very soon (but not called by May as a snap one like earlier this year because that would have required the Labour party to be well behind in the polls again) and then win a majority, having presumably campaigned along similar grounds to this year's election on the topic of brexit - i.e. the people have spoken and the Labour party has voted for the triggering of A50, and then to 'put the brakes on inventively'? All the while as negotiations are taking place and the deadline of March 2019 hoves in to view?

Either they've been contacted from the future and know this is going to work or it's the riskiest and most stupid strategy that could be conceived (if the real intent and desire is to prevent brexit).

[chrisp65]

I can see why you think you messed up the quote.

According to the Guarniad version:

Quote

In the poll, 63% of self-identified Labour supporters say they would be “delighted or pleased” if Labour said it would stop Brexit and stay in the European Union.

Another 21% would oppose such a policy, 11% said they would be angry and 10% disappointed if the leadership adopted such a stance. Ten per cent said they would not mind.

That appears to come to 115% the way I read it. Can't find the actual poll on the YouGov site, to try and pick something useful out of it.

But it does suggest there's a party who's PLP is remain, the majority of voting support is remain or not bothered, and the policy is say leave but hope something happens that means we stay without looking like that was what we wanted.

Way too complex for me, that one. 

 

[darrenm]

57 minutes ago, snowychap said:

Are you therefore suggesting that the strategy of Milne et al. is just to hope that there is another general election very soon (but not called by May as a snap one like earlier this year because that would have required the Labour party to be well behind in the polls again) and then win a majority, having presumably campaigned along similar grounds to this year's election on the topic of brexit - i.e. the people have spoken and the Labour party has voted for the triggering of A50, and then to 'put the brakes on inventively'? All the while as negotiations are taking place and the deadline of March 2019 hoves in to view?

Either they've been contacted from the future and know this is going to work or it's the riskiest and most stupid strategy that could be conceived (if the real intent and desire is to prevent brexit).

For a number of reasons it's likely there will be a general election in 2018. With Heseltine saying a Labour government would be better for the country than brexit suggests the hardcore Tory remainers who recently rebelled and seemed to enjoy being attacked in the Telegraph might be prepared to agree to a no confidence motion. Or the Tories might reach an impasse with the DUP over the NI border, or anything where 7 Tory / DUP MPs would vote against the gov. For Labour to form a coalition they only have to take around 10 more seats than they did last election. Current polling suggests they would.

So (in my opinion) it's quite likely Labour will be in power in 2018. Wanting to pull back from a hard brexit with a bit more freedom to do so wouldn't be that surprising.

What you've framed as far-fetched seems to me to be the only possible option available to them anyway, for the reasons I've already described.

[darrenm]

27 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I can see why you think you messed up the quote.

According to the Guarniad version:

That appears to come to 115% the way I read it. Can't find the actual poll on the YouGov site, to try and pick something useful out of it.

But it does suggest there's a party who's PLP is remain, the majority of voting support is remain or not bothered, and the policy is say leave but hope something happens that means we stay without looking like that was what we wanted.

Way too complex for me, that one. 

 

I think some of the responses overlap. Here's a bit more of a sensible representation

 

[snowychap]

 

26 minutes ago, darrenm said:

For a number of reasons it's likely there will be a general election in 2018.

I disagree with you but, even if I were to share your take that one is 'likely', you don't seem to have taken in to account parliamentary timing, parliamentary procedure, the general timings concerning the A50 timetable as it is without any negoations to the contrary, election timetables, negotiations over coalitions, &c.

 

26 minutes ago, darrenm said:

So (in my opinion) it's quite likely Labour will be in power in 2018. Wanting to pull back from a hard brexit with a bit more freedom to do so wouldn't be that surprising.

Having campaigned in this new general election on what basis on the topic of Brexit?

It would have to be substantially and substantively different to the June campaign.

Edit: I'm not saying that what you've suggested is impossible, it's just that the way you've suggested it might happen has lots of holes in it and appears to be little more than wishful thinking. I admit that sometimes what is wishfully thought occurs but for it to be 'the only possible option for them' is quite flimsy.

Edited December 28, 2017 by snowychap

[HanoiVillan]

I think this misunderstands Labour's position. What seems more likely to me is that they would prefer to continue with Brexit, yet negotiating a transition deal that is as long as possible and kicks the can as far down the road as they can. 

I don't think Labour are planning to reverse the referendum result, so much as hoping that the future will help to usefully fudge it. 

[snowychap]

5 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I think this misunderstands Labour's position. What seems more likely to me is that they would prefer to continue with Brexit, yet negotiating a transition deal that is as long as possible and kicks the can as far down the road as they can. 

I don't think Labour are planning to reverse the referendum result, so much as hoping that the future will help to usefully fudge it. 

The thrust of @darrenm's position over the past few months, though, has been: it's not happening.

If it's just about negotiations over how long an actual exit can be delayed by getting a long transition deal which means BINO then this would have to be the thing on which they (and thus presumably the Tory party arguing something differently) would have to campaign, surely?

If so then they're still going to find themselves in the same kind of position that they don't appear to want to put themselves now for fear of falling behind in the polls and being (probably unfairly) criticized by the brexit cheerleading media outlets.

[HanoiVillan]

13 minutes ago, snowychap said:

The thrust of @darrenm's position over the past few months, though, has been: it's not happening.

If it's just about negotiations over how long an actual exit can be delayed by getting a long transition deal which means BINO then this would have to be the thing on which they (and thus presumably the Tory party arguing something differently) would have to campaign, surely?

If so then they're still going to find themselves in the same kind of position that they don't appear to want to put themselves now for fear of falling behind in the polls and being (probably unfairly) criticized by the brexit cheerleading media outlets.

I just don't agree with Darren on this. It is happening, barring a parliamentary vote in which Conservative backbenchers would have to effectively bring down the government. So far they have shown absolutely no appetite for doing any such thing - no matter what Michael Heseltine is saying - so there's currently no reason to assume that Brexit (maybe In Name Only) won't happen. 

I also disagree with Darren on the proximity of the next election (because of the reason given in the previous paragraph). So I don't think Labour are going to be placed in an immediate rush to clarify the ambiguities in their position. 

Edited December 28, 2017 by HanoiVillan