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

[blandy]

2 minutes ago, bickster said:

quite frankly most people couldn't give a shite about, not hating them but they want a decent flat / house and a job that pays the bills

Yes. This. The big stuff. Affects the millions. Trans rights and treatment matter to a few. It's important, of course. As are many issues which affect a relatively small number of people, but they're not the things that win elections. Most people will be "Yes, support the trans people, but any chance I could not have to depend on food banks and for the NHS and schools to y'know, not be an exhausted wreck? - Can we have someone competent in charge please, who will look after us all, instead of disappearing down twitter wormholes?" 

[blandy]

2 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I think that's a complete cop-out, and that there's no way in the world you'd say the same thing about racial discrimination. 

Are you comparing the Trans rights thing to racial discrimination? If you are, Think you've got it wrong, and if you're not, then...it's not a valid comparison is it?

Specifically the Trans thing is about a conflict between women's rights and trans rights. Women want and need to be protected against predators (as do men). Under Labour's (or LN and RLB etc.) pledge I could self identify as female and then go to the local swimming pool and use the female changing rooms. I might be a mild mannered moderator bot who likes tea, but I might be a child molester or pervert or whatever. But my rights would trump the women and girl's rights. That's mad.

[chrisp65]

36 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I just kind of hate this analysis. Whether you mean it to or not, it comes across as 'I completely support these people, but I don't think we should ever talk about that in public because normal people hate them'. 

This is where it goes.

I didn’t mean what you’ve taken from it. I didn’t say we should never talk about it I didn’t say ‘normal’ people hate them.

But that in a nutshell is exactly what happens, we’re now debating the acceptable language parameters within a trans debate. My points on housing and shitty Amazon jobs has gone.

So whilst I completely support and love trans people (except the ones who are little shits as some people are throughout all society), I will gain their 500,000 votes and be able to do next to nothing to help them.

Meanwhile the 4 million people that wanted a job and a flat, they drifted off elsewhere when we got down to the detailed arguments around Girls feeling safe in unisex toilet blocks in sixth form school buildings.

Look, without wishing to signal any level of virtue, I go on Pride marches, I’ll happily wear a badge I will stand up for people in any debate.

I would not disappear up my own twitter following, debating expulsions for hate speech based pro nouns.

If it comes across as you say it comes across, I’m sorry. It deserves space and it deserves airtime.

Please please please do not spend the next 5 years in a trans wank fest.

You know what will happen? Five years of ridicule, five years of Stoke saying they despair of you. Three months before the next election the tories will quickly cobble together a basic bit of a promise on the subject without debate and thieve all your pink thunder.

[HanoiVillan]

23 minutes ago, blandy said:

Under Labour's (or LN and RLB etc.) pledge I could self identify as female and then go to the local swimming pool and use the female changing rooms. I might be a mild mannered moderator bot who likes tea, but I might be a child molester or pervert or whatever. But my rights would trump the women and girl's rights. That's mad.

I attend a swimming club on a Saturday night, and we have a unisex changing room with cubicles. My local leisure centre had a unisex changing room when I was a kid, and maybe still does. This is not unfathomable concept. 

25 minutes ago, blandy said:

Are you comparing the Trans rights thing to racial discrimination? If you are, Think you've got it wrong, and if you're not, then...it's not a valid comparison is it?

LGBT rights are human rights, just as the right not to be racially discriminated against is. You wouldn't say to a person from a minority community, 'I take seriously your concerns and value your rights, but I shall never mention them in public and if asked about them I will evasively change the subject' and then expect them to be consider that sufficient. 

[HanoiVillan]

13 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

 

Please please please do not spend the next 5 years in a trans wank fest.

You know what will happen? Five years of ridicule, five years of Stoke saying they despair of you. Three months before the next election the tories will quickly cobble together a basic bit of a promise on the subject without debate and thieve all your pink thunder.

Fun as a 'trans wank fest' sounds, what do you seriously think is going to happen here? Do you genuinely think they might forget to mention the economy or the NHS over the next five years? 

The leadership contenders are being asked about the issue *now*, in the media. They need to defend LGBT rights now, while people are asking about them, and the topic will change soon enough. 

[chrisp65]

I don’t think they’ll forget to mention it, no.

I think it could get lost in with 74 other issues, all genuinely good causes, but diluting the message and causing some people to think that perhaps Labour is more of a political nerd’s debating game than the party to fix some big issues.

Do I think they’ll forget to mention house building? No. Do I think Labour people will talk and write and argue more about housing than about whether a penis is acceptable in the ladies showers down the leisure centre? Unfortunately, I’m not so sure. 

[HanoiVillan]

48 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

causing some people to think that perhaps Labour is more of a political nerd’s debating game than the party to fix some big issues.

Why would they think that? Statements of support for LGBT people are not difficult to understand, so why would people conclude they're 'a political nerd's debating game'? And here we circle back round to the conclusion that you don't want Labour politicians to defend LGBT rights in public because you've decided it's a lost cause.

 

 

[HanoiVillan]

Back in the 1990's, when in opposition, Tony Blair made two big, emblematic commitments on gay rights: to equalise the age of consent for gay sex, and to allow gay people to join the military. He used the Conservative opposition to these points to draw a clear distinction between Labour and the Tories, painting them as intolerant, out of touch and hypocritical.

But I guess it would have been better if he just hadn't bothered, and had insisted on turning the conversation to any other subject instead.

[chrisp65]

16 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Why would they think that? Statements of support for LGBT people are not difficult to understand, so why would people conclude they're 'a political nerd's debating game'? And here we circle back round to the conclusion that you don't want Labour politicians to defend LGBT rights in public because you've decided it's a lost cause.

Perhaps I’m really not explaining myself very well.

I am not against statements of support for LGBT. I am very much pro rights for absolutely everybody. 

That is not what I am talking about. I am talking about the debate on whether it should be a hate crime to suggest a penis isn’t ok in a safe house for abused women. That is the political nerd’s game. To willingly get repeatedly dragged in to that unwinnable discussion. There really is a difference on the two points.

I have not concluded Labour should not defend LGBT rights. You know that, you’re smarter than that. I’ve suggested that perhaps they shouldn’t spend so much time arguing between themselves over the currently fashionable version of LGBT letter arrangement. Then wanting people kicked out for disagreeing with this week’s update. 

It’s not a lost cause (something else I didn’t say). Far from it. It could be a cause that pisses people off if it drowns out everything else on your side whilst the other side talk trains, roads, employment and wages.

 

 

[blandy]

13 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

I attend a swimming club on a Saturday night, and we have a unisex changing room with cubicles. My local leisure centre had a unisex changing room when I was a kid, and maybe still does. This is not unfathomable concept. 

LGBT rights are human rights, just as the right not to be racially discriminated against is. You wouldn't say to a person from a minority community, 'I take seriously your concerns and value your rights, but I shall never mention them in public and if asked about them I will evasively change the subject' and then expect them to be consider that sufficient. 

Until they all have secure individual cubicles, at whatever cost, then perhaps having nowhere, absolutely nowhere, barring a trans self identifying woman, with rape convictions, from female changing rooms should be somewhere down the pecking order. Maybe fix the roofs, stop them closing down, that kind of thing. It’s not about concepts right now, it’s about being electable.  Throwing people out of labour for pointing out the inconsistencies, Between this I’ll conceived holier than though virtue signalling and labelling them bigots is **** mental.

not a soul has said never mention rights, but that a specific, bonkers version of a trans rights charter should not be an election arguing point. They’re utterly self destructive these numpties who push for those extreme pledges. Call them out, don’t pander to it, RLB and LN.

[HanoiVillan]

 

59 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I’ve suggested that perhaps they shouldn’t spend so much time arguing between themselves over the currently fashionable version of LGBT letter arrangement.

They aren't. All three leadership candidates pretty much completely agree on the issue. All that has happened, is that they have answered some questions from the media on the subject and signed a banal pledge that  supports existing legislation.

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

I have not concluded Labour should not defend LGBT rights. You know that, you’re smarter than that.

If you don't think it's a lost cause, then your position makes no sense. If you don't think that the electorate will hate any mention of LGBT rights, then why not make those defences? What is the cost? So far all you've given me is that it will 'drown out everything else on your side whilst the other side talk trains, roads, employment and wages', presumably in a 'trans wank fest' (I thought we'd established that Labour will, in fact, discuss other issues over the next 5 years), or that making statements or on this issue will constitute 'a political nerd's debating game'. Consider me unconvinced.

 

[HanoiVillan]

58 minutes ago, blandy said:

It’s not about concepts right now, it’s about being electable.

Not really; there isn't an election for nearly 5 years and this debate will have moved on long before then. So it is, in fact, about understanding the candidates' values.

[bickster]

19 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Not really; there isn't an election for nearly 5 years and this debate will have moved on long before then. So it is, in fact, about understanding the candidates' values.

Who says there isn't an election for 5 years?

How many parliaments have reached a full 5 years before an election is called under the FTPA?

There's all manner of situations that could break out in the next five years. There could be a huge schism in the Tory Party, who knows? 

Yes, is less likely given the current majority but stranger things have happened and full-on B-Word is yet to happen. It's a rocky road ahead for this government or it could be given an effective opposition party

3 years in and the Tories are still marginally ahead in the polls and dropping fast, they might decide to go again whilst they've still got a chance, Labour aren't going to say no 

Johnson could drop dead tomorrow, leaving a huge power vacuum in the Tory Party. Anything can happen

An effective opposition, should always be ready

[Awol]

31 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Not really; there isn't an election for nearly 5 years and this debate will have moved on long before then. So it is, in fact, about understanding the candidates' values.

As Bicks says, abolishing the FTPA will definitely be on Johnson’s to-do list. It’s rubbish legislation anyway. 

You’re right that it’s about values. Values and priorities. Labour just got humped by the Tories in their heartlands, no-one can debate that it was a catastrophe. We all need an effective opposition party, and the very niche focus on Trans rights - whether media led or not - instead of forming the impression they need to with the national electorate is a major mistake. 

The views that the average punter forms of the next Labour leader now are likely to endure. People generally decide how they feel about something and move on. Busy lives and all that. If this contest pigeon-holes Labour as some eccentric, minority focused pressure group it’ll likely stick - and that’s not A good outcome for anyone. 

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

allowing a trans self identifying woman, with rape convictions, in female changing rooms should be somewhere down the pecking order.

Also should have pointed out earlier, that trans women have been legally allowed to enter female changing rooms since the Equality Act 2010, and no major political party proposes repealing that legislation.

[HanoiVillan]

Typed out several further responses here and deleted them all. As important as this issue is, I don't think the thread will be improved any further by me having arguments with four different people all saying variants of the same thing.

Good evening all.

 

[chrisp65]

43 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

 

They aren't. All three leadership candidates pretty much completely agree on the issue. All that has happened, is that they have answered some questions from the media on the subject and signed a banal pledge that  supports existing legislation.

If you don't think it's a lost cause, then your position makes no sense. If you don't think that the electorate will hate any mention of LGBT rights, then why not make those defences? What is the cost? So far all you've given me is that it will 'drown out everything else on your side whilst the other side talk trains, roads, employment and wages', presumably in a 'trans wank fest' (I thought we'd established that Labour will, in fact, discuss other issues over the next 5 years), or that making statements or on this issue will constitute 'a political nerd's debating game'. Consider me unconvinced.

 

Again again again I have not said the electorate will hate any mention of LGBT rights.

You are determined to argue extensively on LGBT over points of detail and points that have not been made. Looking for perceived enemies to take the good fight to.

Which was kind of my original point about many people in the Labour Party right now. 

If your unconvinced, there’s not much I can do about that. Personally, fwiw I think we’re both on the right side of the line here.

 

 

 

 

[LondonLax]

8 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

Typed out several further responses here and deleted them all. As important as this issue is, I don't think the thread will be improved any further by me having arguments with four different people all saying variants of the same thing.

Good evening all.

 

Well it’s just a simple argument about whether it is better to stick to idealism or pragmatism. It’s been shown repeatedly in real world examples that parties who choose idealism over pragmatism lose elections and a lot of us on the progressive left are getting frustrated with losing all the time.

It’s time to switch back to pragmatism.

[HanoiVillan]

3 hours ago, LondonLax said:

Well it’s just a simple argument about whether it is better to stick to idealism or pragmatism. It’s been shown repeatedly in real world examples that parties who choose idealism over pragmatism lose elections and a lot of us on the progressive left are getting frustrated with losing all the time.

It’s time to switch back to pragmatism.

You know, liberal minded urban voters can vote for other parties, or not bother to vote at all, just as much as bigoted pensioners in TOWNS. 

[Jon]

Idealistic parties can and do still win elections.  Yes, it's not easy, when all the instruments of the capitalist state and the establishment are against you.  But let's not give up the good fight.  The powers that be are desperate for labour to drift back to capitalist, centrist blairesque policies.  The people and the planet need better than that.