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

[bickster]

IMO the whole "get Corbyn" thing is just a useful distraction as opposed to a genuine attempt to get rid of him. He's a useful idiot for them. Point the finger at the bogeyman, meanwhile they hope to carry out theirBrexit Coup with Boris at the helm.

[Xann]

2 minutes ago, bickster said:

Point the finger at the bogeyman, meanwhile they hope to carry out their Brexit Coup with Boris at the helm.

Oh yes - Exactly that.

Though if the Socialist gets in at the next GE and starts making changes the electorate are onboard with? The crooks don't escape with their spoils and don't get to turn us into little *America.

 

* Failed state.

[Chindie]

Cough.

[HanoiVillan]

Can't believe that the Lib Dems are in a dismal fourth place. I really think their leader [NB: check this and add it in as an edit later] should consider his/her [NB: delete as appropriate] position 

[blandy]

Slagging off Corbyn is a useful thing for the tories as an internal tactic or technique - scare the members about a hard left bogeyman and all that, but like most, if not all, of what the tories do it's about only their party, not the wider world or the UK. In the UK, as far as I perceive it, people overall don't rate Corbyn or the current Labour party - they're perceived as as useless as the tories, pretty much and with equally ineffective leadership and equally divided and not as a Government in waiting.

So slagging off Corbyn, or fear mongering about a Marxist government is pointless in the wider context. There isn't going to be a Corbyn government. It's about as likely as the tories getting back in. It's just not going to happen.

The two old main parties are split, the small parties are, as a consequence much higher up in the polls as a mix of dislike of the main ones, and single issue stuff (Brexit, Climate etc) driving up support for them. So if there was an election parliament would be less unevenly shared amongst the parties. The FPTP system still means the two old parties would get a sizeable chunk of the seats, but no one would get a majority, or close to it.

I know it doesn't work like this, but if the percentages in that poll ended up being the percentage of seats, then 120 Brexit party, 120 Lib Dems, 20 Greens, 180 tories and 150 Labour is (roughly) how it would divide up. So if that's remotely accurate, Labour and the tories would lose huge numbers of seats and throbbers and Lib Dems and Greens and SNP would be dancing in the streets. The likes of Corbyn and Johnson/Hunt  would be hoofed out unceremoniously, and rightly so.

[dAVe80]

Laura Pidcock was amazing at the Durham Miners' Gala today. Future leader material. 

[blandy]

8 hours ago, dAVe80 said:

Laura Pidcock was amazing at the Durham Miners' Gala today. Future leader material. 

Is her brother Stu, still a Tory?

(it must be 2 years since I last had the chance to use that one, sorry)

[HanoiVillan]

21 hours ago, blandy said:

There isn't going to be a Corbyn government. It's about as likely as the tories getting back in. It's just not going to happen.

The two old main parties are split, the small parties are, as a consequence much higher up in the polls as a mix of dislike of the main ones, and single issue stuff (Brexit, Climate etc) driving up support for them. So if there was an election parliament would be less unevenly shared amongst the parties.

Your first sentence here is not a safe conclusion of the others.

We need to bear in mind that a] the polls show something close to a four-way split *right now*, but there isn't an election right now, so there's no particular reason to believe that the polls (which have been very dynamic over the last six months) will be the same as the result on election day, and b] nobody knows what the outcome in terms of seats would be of an election in which four parties each got roughly 22% of the vote and other parties got roughly 12% combined, as that result has never happened before, the Brexit Party is new in its existence, and most seat predictions are based on a Unified National Swing which would be basically irrelevant. 

As a result of these two points it isn't safe to rule out a majority for either national party, though a minority government of one form or another is still also very likely (of course, said minority government is also almost certainly to be led by either Johnson or Corbyn, almost certainly the former). 

[blandy]

11 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

....but there isn't an election right now, so there's no particular reason to believe that the polls (which have been very dynamic over the last six months) will be the same as the result on election day, ... a minority government of one form or another is still also very likely (of course, said minority government is also almost certainly to be led by either Johnson or Corbyn, almost certainly the former). 

Sure the polls do vary and aren’t always spot on about election results, but still, see, there you have it. You’re basically (maybe inadvertently) making the same point as me, aren’t you?

My main point was “there isn’t going to be a Corbyn government, it just isn’t going to happen” ..And you’re saying a minority Tory government led by Johnson is the very likely outcome of an election.

what staggers me is how little impact this analysis has on labour supporters, on Corbyn supporters. Given the appalling state of things, Brexit, NHS, a decade of cuts, councils falling apart, businesses closing or leaving the country..etc, and labour supporters and members are not both up in arms and despondent that they’ve got basically almost no prospect of becoming even the next minority government, that with Corbyn led Labour, almost certainly Boris Johnson would triumph at the next election.

”our prospects of winning against the absolute worst government in history are very low” ought to be a wake up call, but it seems not to be. It’s frankly incomprehensible.

[Xann]

If Labour put forward a candidate that wouldn't rock our Global tax evasion industry, they'd walk it. 

The Grauniad would be straight up their backside and the rest would soften.

Back to Blair and Brown.

[TrentVilla]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

We need to bear in mind that a] the polls show something close to a four-way split *right now*, but there isn't an election right now, so there's no particular reason to believe that the polls (which have been very dynamic over the last six months)

But the polls are never good for Corbyn, never. That is for a reason, because he can't even reach a lot of people that have historically voted Labour let alone people that haven't.

Even when up against the worst Government in a generation he still has been utterly incapable of making an impact.

The trouble is he spent a career shouting from the back benches, he can't lead, nothing he has done to date suggests that he can and people simply won't vote for him in the numbers required.

Yet the Labour party continues to act as the cult of Jeremy blindly shouting down anyone that doubts their leader seemingly oblivious to the fact he isn't leading them anywhere.

[Dodgyknees]

21 minutes ago, TrentVilla said:

But the polls are never good for Corbyn, never. That is for a reason, because he can't even reach a lot of people that have historically voted Labour let alone people that haven't.

Even when up against the worst Government in a generation he still has been utterly incapable of making an impact.

The trouble is he spent a career shouting from the back benches, he can't lead, nothing he has done to date suggests that he can and people simply won't vote for him in the numbers required.

Yet the Labour party continues to act as the cult of Jeremy blindly shouting down anyone that doubts their leader seemingly oblivious to the fact he isn't leading them anywhere.

I was hounded out of the Labour party by Blairites in the 2000s, because I questioned the WOT, so this "cult' thing was going on a long time before Corbyn, it's just that now it's seen as bad.

[blandy]

54 minutes ago, Xann said:

If Labour put forward a candidate that wouldn't rock our Global tax evasion industry, they'd walk it. 

The Grauniad would be straight up their backside and the rest would soften.

Back to Blair and Brown.

Yes, I think that's broadly right, but with a caveat. Because I don't think there's any desire in society for Global Tax evasion to continue, and I don't think amongst Labour there's any desire for it. Or even much of the tories. I think people want stuff to work - trains on time, NHS appointments, Schools, Roads, Housing, Environment, energy, water, Policing and all the rest. There's no taste for War, for trade disputes, for ideology.

Yes big business in some aspects wants what it wants - untrammelled wealth for the people at the top, but equally most people either work for or depend on big business for their livelihoods - whether it's the car worker, the manager, the butty shop, supermarket or pub landlord whose trade depends on people's wages and so on.

So Any party that can capture that national desire for things to work for the people without wrecking the economy would walk in to power if they can get the message across, look unified and keen to implement those things. Right or left, that swings a bit and single issues are becoming more impactful.

Take, as an example, Water. Some people will say yes to the idea that Water should be a publicly owned utility. It seems persuasive, superficially, to say "it's an essential need, why should shareholders and executives profit from the supply of water to people - it just puts the bills up higher than they ought to be?" But then there's another argument, that says it is (like it or not) privatised. So if bills are too high, or go up too much, then legislate against it. Nil cost. The idea of nationalising water would mean spending a ton of money, as much time on complex parliamentary legislation to take it back public, there would be negative impact on ordinary people's pensions, with a consequential effect on state pensions and for what - so the government can run it, and not put up the prices? To me that's pursuit of ideology over practicality.

Rail is different - because it's franchises they expire and could be brought back nationally owned without the same penalties. So practically that's an option which makes more sense. I think that kind of contrast is where Labour goes wrong, under Corbyn. Prioritising superficially appealing ideology over actually making things work better for people. A more low level example is the Labour council in Brighton deciding to bring back service provision to council run. But charity runs much of to - benefitting from free accommodation for the services, and run not at profit. By bringing it back to council run, the cost to the tax-payers goes up, as the accommodation has to be paid for. ideology over people, again.

There's plenty to like about Labour policies, about half of them seem entirely decent and reasonable proposals, but the other half are ill thought through ideological clap-trap or rather suspect in whether they actually mean it or are "stealing clothes" to neutralise (in their eyes) green or Lib Dem areas - like the tories did with Cameron's Greenwash and NHS "promises".

We can have something well to the left of the tories, it's highly possible, and is desirable for much of the country and voters, but it has to be practical and realistic, and not look like left over 1970s class war. And Corbyn is preventing it.

[Xann]

39 minutes ago, blandy said:

Take, as an example, Water.

Where the companies spunked the present and future maintenance and expansion monies as dividends for the suits and shareholders?

Ensuring it'll be extra expensive when it's taken over, because it's been rinsed already.

[blandy]

27 minutes ago, Xann said:

Where the companies spunked the present and future maintenance and expansion monies as dividends for the suits and shareholders?

Ensuring it'll be extra expensive when it's taken over, because it's been rinsed already.

Yeah, I know. So don't take it over, regulate it.

[Xann]

1 minute ago, blandy said:

Yeah, I know. So don't take it over, regulate it.

They expect to grow profits, not service.

They were given the privilege of running the system and abused it.

They can feck off.

[Dr_Pangloss]

2 hours ago, Xann said:

If Labour put forward a candidate that wouldn't rock our Global tax evasion industry, they'd walk it. 

The Grauniad would be straight up their backside and the rest would soften.

Back to Blair and Brown.

How about they put someone forward who is at least semi-competent. 

[Xann]

29 minutes ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

How about they put someone forward who is at least semi-competent. 

It's in noone important's interest that he's seen to be competent.

The Tories are about to rack up a hat-trick of the worst PMs in living memory.

Unfortunately with people voting for the same old shit or racists, a less hateful brand of incompetence is maybe the best that can be hoped for?

[Dr_Pangloss]

1 minute ago, Xann said:

It's in noone important's interest that he's seen to be competent.

The Tories are about to rack up a hat-trick of the worst PMs in living memory.

Unfortunately with people voting for the same old shit or racists, a less hateful brand of incompetence is maybe the best that can be hoped for?

Still talking about the Tories here?

Neither party are bearable for me.

Edited July 14, 2019 by Dr_Pangloss

[VILLAMARV]

Doesn't it make people question why are all these candidates so awful? Trump Hillary, BJ Hunt etc. You'd be hard pressed to find less electable people. Surely it cant be by mistake all the time?

Who was it that convinced Corbyn to stand? May/Johnson themselves?