darrenm Posted April 11, 2021 Share Posted April 11, 2021 3 hours ago, bickster said: It really is a neccessary evil. Then nothing ever changes and the billionaire baron press only grows stronger. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted April 11, 2021 Moderator Share Posted April 11, 2021 1 minute ago, darrenm said: Then nothing ever changes and the billionaire baron press only grows stronger. Do you really think a Kier Starmer or John McDonnell Interview in the Sunday Times really grows the paper's readership. You can't possibly think that? I doubt it even has a minor bump in its online advertising revenue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted April 11, 2021 Share Posted April 11, 2021 2 hours ago, bickster said: it it the party that decides policy The NPF decides and they are controlled by the leader's office. It looks democratic but it really isn't, evidenced by Corbyn's office routinely making policy without it and the NPF throwing out various things CLPs sent in. LOTO can just do whatever they like with policy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dodgyknees Posted April 11, 2021 Share Posted April 11, 2021 3 hours ago, bickster said: It really is a neccessary evil. Very much so Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markavfc40 Posted April 11, 2021 Share Posted April 11, 2021 (edited) 3 hours ago, Jareth said: Yes, I suggest he does not court Murdoch editors. In my whole adult life (I'm 47) there hasn't been a Labour government that didn't cosy up to the right wing rags. I don't like it one little bit but the alternative as we've seen over the last 11 years ain't pretty. Unfortunately I doubt I'll ever see a truly left wing/socialist government in this country in my lifetime but I'll take a Labour government that has sold its soul a little and cosied up to the right wing rags if it gets rid of these Tory bastards. Edited April 11, 2021 by markavfc40 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jareth Posted April 11, 2021 Share Posted April 11, 2021 13 minutes ago, markavfc40 said: In my whole adult life (I'm 47) there hasn't been a Labour government that didn't cosy up to the right wing rags. I don't like it one little bit but the alternative as we've seen over the last 11 years ain't pretty. Unfortunately I doubt I'll ever see a truly left wing/socialist government in this country in my lifetime but I'll take a Labour government that has sold its soul a little and cosied up to the right wing rags if it gets rid of these Tory bastards. If it works then good, but I think New Labour 2.0 needs a Tony Blair 2.0 and that isn’t Starmer - haven’t felt like I had a strong opinion on Labours direction but lately it looks like one majorly flawed strategy and it’s hard to un-see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted April 11, 2021 Share Posted April 11, 2021 12 minutes ago, markavfc40 said: In my whole adult life (I'm 47) there hasn't been a Labour government that didn't cosy up to the right wing rags. I don't like it one little bit but the alternative as we've seen over the last 11 years ain't pretty. Unfortunately I doubt I'll ever see a truly left wing/socialist government in this country in my lifetime but I'll take a Labour government that has sold its soul a little and cosied up to the right wing rags if it gets rid of these Tory bastards. I don't see cuddling up to liars and racists as a way forward. And the Daily Mail, Sun, Express, Telegraph and Times are both of those. Calling them a necessary evil is accepting they're evil but saying you're OK to tolerate them to get some power to then remove that power assumedly? Otherwise are you going to tolerate them forever? How do you then get rid of the bad things they cause? Whipping up fear and hatred of anyone or anything different? You don't shy away from evil. You don't shrug and say there's no alternative. You take them on. Labour 2017 took them on and did way better than anyone expected. Those under 50 already distrust the papers, don't tell them they're wrong, just tell the truth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted April 11, 2021 Moderator Share Posted April 11, 2021 1 minute ago, darrenm said: I don't see cuddling up to liars and racists as a way forward. And the Daily Mail, Sun, Express, Telegraph and Times are both of those. Calling them a necessary evil is accepting they're evil but saying you're OK to tolerate them to get some power to then remove that power assumedly? Otherwise are you going to tolerate them forever? How do you then get rid of the bad things they cause? Whipping up fear and hatred of anyone or anything different? You don't shy away from evil. You don't shrug and say there's no alternative. You take them on. Labour 2017 took them on and did way better than anyone expected. Those under 50 already distrust the papers, don't tell them they're wrong, just tell the truth. Darren, it's a democracy, the only way to eventually stop those papers / media is by getting people to not read them. That isn't the job of the National Labour Party (or any other party for that matter) The only way to stop them is to not read them, the Sun still sell jack shit in Liverpool. Democratic Political Parties telling people not to read this or that will only make them want to read it more and it's not a good look. Parties denying access for quotes interviews etc will only lead to the inevitable disdain from the organ in question. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ml1dch Posted April 11, 2021 Share Posted April 11, 2021 4 minutes ago, darrenm said: You don't shy away from evil. You don't shrug and say there's no alternative. You take them on. Labour 2017 took them on and did way better than anyone expected. Yup. Way better than anyone expected. And 55 seats behind the party who ended up in Government. So, to quote myself with the question that I asked Jareth earlier: Who do you see as the "missing" 10-15% of voters needed for a Labour majority who don't vote Labour now and could be convinced to? Without either (a) losing large numbers of current voters to the Tories / Greens / Lib Dems / SNP or (b) entering into some sort of formal or informal arrangement with at least one of the latter three of those parties? Who are those people currently voting for, and what is your plan to attract them? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted April 11, 2021 Share Posted April 11, 2021 I suspect ‘way better than expected’ coupled with losing by 55 seats to Theresa May’s tory clusterfudge of in fighting is telling more about that Labour Party than people are choosing to remember. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted April 11, 2021 Share Posted April 11, 2021 3 minutes ago, chrisp65 said: I suspect ‘way better than expected’ coupled with losing by 55 seats to Theresa May’s tory clusterfudge of in fighting is telling more about that Labour Party than people are choosing to remember. I think that's rewriting history. They were expected to get thrashed. What happened was the biggest increase in vote share since 1945. Theresa May's clusterfudge of infighting only started after they were robbed of a majority by Corbyn's Labour. They ended up 55 seats behind but denying the Tories a majority and forcing May to literally race to the palace to con the Queen by telling her she could form a majority with the DUP in a confidence and supply which was actually not allowed within the confines of the Good Friday Agreement. No-one expected 2017 to happen but it did because millions of people saw a genuinely different choice. One that stood up to Murdoch. More people decided they didn't like that choice but so far, costing up to the press isn't doing Starmer much good. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted April 11, 2021 Share Posted April 11, 2021 34 minutes ago, ml1dch said: Yup. Way better than anyone expected. And 55 seats behind the party who ended up in Government. So, to quote myself with the question that I asked Jareth earlier: Who do you see as the "missing" 10-15% of voters needed for a Labour majority who don't vote Labour now and could be convinced to? Without either (a) losing large numbers of current voters to the Tories / Greens / Lib Dems / SNP or (b) entering into some sort of formal or informal arrangement with at least one of the latter three of those parties? Who are those people currently voting for, and what is your plan to attract them? I'm no longer a Labour member. They don't represent my values so I don't want to attract people to them. My view as an outside commentator is that Labour will never win a general election again because the decline has been 70 years in the making. The only possible way to remove the Tories is a coalition of other parties all agreed to implement PR. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markavfc40 Posted April 11, 2021 Share Posted April 11, 2021 1 hour ago, darrenm said: Labour 2017 took them on and did way better than anyone expected. Those under 50 already distrust the papers, don't tell them they're wrong, just tell the truth. As others have already replied it is all relative though isn't it. In 2017 they were up against a shambolic mess of infighting and a government that had inflicted 7 years of austerity on the country. Labour still lost badly. I think a lot in Labour did though consider that 2017 result a success which is one of the reasons they ended up getting annihilated in 2019. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted April 11, 2021 Share Posted April 11, 2021 7 minutes ago, darrenm said: I think that's rewriting history. They were expected to get thrashed. What happened was the biggest increase in vote share since 1945. Theresa May's clusterfudge of infighting only started after they were robbed of a majority by Corbyn's Labour. They ended up 55 seats behind but denying the Tories a majority and forcing May to literally race to the palace to con the Queen by telling her she could form a majority with the DUP in a confidence and supply which was actually not allowed within the confines of the Good Friday Agreement. No-one expected 2017 to happen but it did because millions of people saw a genuinely different choice. One that stood up to Murdoch. More people decided they didn't like that choice but so far, costing up to the press isn't doing Starmer much good. They were expected to get thrashed, and they were, and to a significant extent it was of their own making. You say May raced to the palace with a DUP partner, but who were Labour going to partner with? They’d been offered help by the SNP and Plaid and they had not just declined it, they’d made a big deal of declining it. Labour had decided they needed clear water between themselves and the SNP. So who were they going to call? No other combo would give them power. If they’d got the Libs and Greens on board, they’d have still been 50 short. They were strategically inept. Which is a shame, because they had some decent ideas. Just not a clue how to do politics or convey the message they weren’t ‘doing politics’. That they weren’t as badly beaten as previously or as expected is no reason to suggest they were in any way tantalisingly close to winning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted April 11, 2021 Share Posted April 11, 2021 I don't understand the fuss either way to be honest. Surely nobody believes that a behind-the-paywall interview with The Times is going to move many voters in any case? In the final analysis, the number of people 'persuaded' one way or the other is probably in single figures. The content of the interview might be more objectionable than the fact of doing it, but I wouldn't know, because like 99% of the adults in this country I don't have a subscription to The Times, so Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted April 11, 2021 Share Posted April 11, 2021 6 minutes ago, markavfc40 said: In 2017 they were up against a shambolic mess of infighting I think you may be misremembering this. In 2017 May called the election because the Tories were riding high in the polls and she wanted to use her party's current power against the at the time hapless Labour to "crush the saboteurs". There was no (outside of normal) Tory infighting and the election was called because she wanted to increase her majority to be able to force all of brexit through. Labour HQ expected Corbyn, McDonnell, Murphy, Milne etc to be out the morning after the election so had the locks changed, so sure were they and everyone else that Labour would get humiliated. My view is that the feeling of hope that Labour created in 2017 by standing up for right stuff and standing against wrong stuff is how you effect change. Not scaring the fishes isn't it. But that's just me. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jareth Posted April 11, 2021 Share Posted April 11, 2021 26 minutes ago, darrenm said: No-one expected 2017 to happen but it did because millions of people saw a genuinely different choice. I think, for me anyway, this is the problem with Labour currently - it's in many people's interest to erase Corbyn's time leading the party and to say look they lost twice so throw everything out and start again with a formula that worked before but it's fundamentally the wrong direction. Even Boris the massive pri*k can see the wisdom in borrowing Corbyn's popular policies while Labour piss about with flags and fail to agree that tabloids are at all racist. But that's Starmer's choice, can't say I can vote for that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted April 11, 2021 Moderator Share Posted April 11, 2021 I wonder where you imagine saying that all tabloids are racist would actually get Starmer? What do expect him to achieve in saying that? More favourable press in them? Yes, the tabloids are racist, do you honestly expect Starmer not to think that? But if he actually got quoted as saying that, it would almost in an instant be turned back as Starmer think's you're all racist to their readers. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jareth Posted April 11, 2021 Share Posted April 11, 2021 6 hours ago, bickster said: See this nonsense is imaginary. You have no idea where he stands on anything. As anyone with an interest knows, it it the party that decides policy and there hasn't been a conference yet for the party to decide that or for Starmer to address the membership. How does the above quote that nobody has an idea about where Starmer stands on anything - square with the suggestion that he definitely thinks tabloids are racist and is just tricking the tory press? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted April 11, 2021 Moderator Share Posted April 11, 2021 2 minutes ago, Jareth said: How does the above quote that nobody has an idea about where Starmer stands on anything - square with the suggestion that he definitely thinks tabloids are racist and is just tricking the tory press? Do you think those two statements are in some way connected in some sort of meaningful way? The first half of the question is about official Labour Party Policy, the other one very clearly isn't, it's about private thoughts. I doubt many politicians of any hue don't think most of the tabloids are racist in some form or other. I also doubt many of them are stupid enough to tell them out loud. Yes there are a few that will and there are some that don't care and enjoy the racism because it suits them. I certainly think most on any form of the left think they are Life and politics really isn't as black and white as you want it to be. Again this all comes down to pragmatism versus ideology. Ideology rarely wins anything in this country Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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