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

[Jareth]

3 minutes ago, bickster said:

It was a speech to the Progressive Britain Conference

A conference that discusses Labour Party policy with Labour members

As someone who consumes a lot of political content you surely know better than most that a speech like that is intended to be picked up by the news cycle and broadcast to the country. 

[OutByEaster?]

Quote

 

But this ambition must never become unmoored from working peoples’ need for stability, for order, security.

We must understand that there are precious things – in our way of life, in our environment, in our communities – that it is our responsibility to protect and preserve, to pass on to future generations.

Somebody has got to stand up for the things that make this country great and it isn’t going to be the Tories.

Has taken an axe to the security of family life.

Has trashed Britain’s reputation abroad.

Has totally lost touch with the ordinary hope of working people.

The Conservative Party can no longer claim to be the party of our traditional values.

It conserves nothing – not our rivers and seas, not our NHS or BBC, not our families, not our nation.

But the lesson for progressives must be that if a tide of change threatens to sweep away the stability working people need, we have to be in there - fighting for security just as fervently as we fight against injustice.

It’s not our job to lecture working people that change is coming – it’s our job to lead them through it. To bring people together and chart a new course. To use the power of government to help, support, protect and lift up.

 

There you go, it's not hard - there has been a conscious and deliberate effort to squeeze the bit about Conservative sympathies in.

[LondonLax]

4 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

There you go, it's not hard - there has been a conscious and deliberate effort to squeeze the bit about Conservative sympathies in.

Could it be because he’s trying to win a large majority that includes dissatisfied conservative voters in that mix?

[bickster]

18 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I'd say it's a very odd choice to have selected it - you almost have to build the speech around the word in order to get it in.

 

You'd ban the word that is the name of your main political opponent and their supposed philosophy form speeches made by the party you support.

I really don't get the logic.

It's a kind of willful self-destruction

14 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

There you go, it's not hard - there has been a conscious and deliberate effort to squeeze the bit about Conservative sympathies in

That isn't squeezed in, its the entire focus of the speech

ALso that just says what I said above about not wanting Labour to win by getting former Conservative voters to vote for them. I find it quite mind blowing that people think like that

It's also a very common theme for those on the left.

This factional thought process and us vs them mentality on the left is actually why I left the Labour Party way back in the 80s. It is amazingly self-destructive

 

[OutByEaster?]

5 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

Could it be because he’s trying to win a large majority that includes dissatisfied conservative voters in that mix?

He is. 

But in doing so he's trolling his own base - unnecessarily - he's also raising questions about his actual values which will make the job a lot harder when he does get in. 

For no good reason whatsoever, he's making a rod for his own back.

 

 

[bickster]

17 minutes ago, Jareth said:

As someone who consumes a lot of political content you surely know better than most that a speech like that is intended to be picked up by the news cycle and broadcast to the country. 

Yes, of course, what is your point? That Starmer shouldn't try appealing to former Conservative voters?

Madness

[bickster]

3 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

But in doing so he's trolling his own base - unnecessarily - he's also raising questions about his actual values which will make the job a lot harder when he does get in. 

For no good reason whatsoever, he's making a rod for his own back.

The base are trolling themselves, the logic of wanting this ideologically pure victory is why Labour keeps on losing. It's a massive turn off  and why Labour will nearly always snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

[OutByEaster?]

1 minute ago, bickster said:

You'd ban the word that is the name of your main political opponent and their supposed philosophy form speeches made by the party you support.

I really don't get the logic.

No. I wouldn't and indeed I've just adjusted the speech in a way that includes the word - I'd perhaps avoid making positive and supportive statements on a regular basis about your main political opponent and their supposed philosophy from speeches made by the party you support.

Quote

I really don't get the logic.

I noticed.

Quote

Well that just says what I said above about not wanting Labour to win by getting former Conservative voters to vote for them. I find it quite mind blowing that people think like that

It really doesn't - if it blows your mind, then I suspect it's because your mind isn't open to debate on Starmer. I think it's a massive leap of logic. I can't get my head around people deciding that the way to beat the Tories is to adopt Tory thinking and be more Tory. Surely you're not still working on the basis that he's playing the big bluff - do people still believe that?

Starmer is going to win the election - Tory voters will either not turn out or they'll vote against this awful government and Labour voters will vote Labour because the choice is Starmer or this awful government - regardless, he wins. He doesn't need to need to flirt with Thatcherism to get there.

Quote

This factional thought process and us vs them mentality on the left is actually why I left the Labour Party way back in the 80s. It is amazingly self-destructive

And yet here you are, wilfully ignoring any kind of argument that paints the great and glorious centrist in a light that offers any kind of criticism after a history of slaughtering his predecessor - a more factional non-Labour voting view on Labour would be difficult to imagine. I reckon he could turn up in Thatchers blue suit with a copy of Cameron's manifesto tucked under his arm and an "I love Tories" badge on his lapel and you'd still have him down as cleverly influencing the floating vote.

 

 

 

[OutByEaster?]

5 minutes ago, bickster said:

The base are trolling themselves, the logic of wanting this ideologically pure victory is why Labour keeps on losing. It's a massive turn off  and why Labour will nearly always snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

That there is factionalism. 

 

[bickster]

3 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

That there is factionalism. 

 

Yes, absolutely it is. It puts people off voting Labour

[OutByEaster?]

Just now, bickster said:

Yes, absolutely it is. It puts people off voting Labour

So you left Labour because of factionalism, because you wanted to help Labour become less factional?

I don't disagree by the way, factionalism does put people off voting Labour (or at least create the types of Labour party that puts voters off) but Starmer is factional Labour made flesh, the very epitome of one faction imposing itself on the party.

There's a horrible lose-lose nature to it where you can either have values but no power or power with no values - and I think that's based on a lie - the worst of Starmer is that I think he had a chance to prove that's based on a lie, but he's decided not to risk it.

[bickster]

2 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

So you left Labour because of factionalism, because you wanted to help Labour become less factional?

No, I left Labour because I couldn't be arsed dealing with ideological dickheads who were far too preoccupied with selling their newspapers, recruiting people to their little  club , slagging off the other clubs (in a true Life of Brian style) with absolutely no pretense of actually doing any good by winning elections. And that goes for the left and the right of the party

I've viewed them from afar through that lens ever since.

RIght now, I won't be voting Labour because they are on the wrong side of two policies that are right at the top of my list but I actually want a lot of what Labour want and it drives me up the wall watching all the factionalism where instead of actually reading or listening to what Starmer says he gets criticised for "appealing to Tories" and using the c-word. I can only conclude that Labour supporters really don't want to win elections. 

What Starmer was saying in that speech, to me, appears perfectly reasonable, I want clean water in rivers and our seas and so do Tory voters but apparently appealing to them over that issue is wrong. Tory voters also, believe it or not, like the NHS and the BBC, maybe he should actively campaign to close those institutions down just so he doesn't appeal to those voters. Is it wrong of him to appeal to Tory voters by pointing out the absolute destruction of our economy?

Sorry but I just don't get the criticism of what he said nor do I get that he shouldn't be trying to appeal to the part of the UK electorate that decides elections, the middle ground.

[bickster]

1 hour ago, Jareth said:

As someone who consumes a lot of political content you surely know better than most that a speech like that is intended to be picked up by the news cycle and broadcast to the country. 

You say that like its wrong and that the message is wrong. I disagree with that

[blandy]

2 hours ago, bickster said:

This factional thought process and us vs them mentality on the left is actually why I left the Labour Party way back in the 80s. It is amazingly self-destructive

Purity and self righteousness is much more important than actually winning elections.

[Jareth]

On a more positive note, there is discussion underway to make policy the right of 16 year olds and EU nationals living here to vote. Just under half of all 16 year olds registered to vote in Wales recently and it would be great to have kids engaged in the election as it might mean as they get a bit older they remain engaged. Tories will shout that it's rigging the system and of course it would be given how much the yoof dislike the tories - but it's a positive idea and I hope to be more pro-Labour once they've distilled their policies and can start talking about them.

[chrisp65]

31 minutes ago, blandy said:

Purity and self righteousness is much more important than actually winning elections.

Winning elections is more important than doing the things you promised when you got the gig as party leader?

I do completely get that we shouldn’t prevent good whilst waiting for perfect. But as a non Labour voter, he does appear to be deliberately challenging a whole wing of his own party with some easily avoidable stuff that smacks of an internal culture war.

He is a man that is naturally bland and sober, which is an absolute virtue when we’ve had all these ‘personalities’ around the world recently. So why would he appear to go out of his way to make personal pledges of his socialist credentials, stick them on his own personal website, then one by one backslide on them whilst using language that is set up to antagonise some of his core vote?

I don’t get why he can’t avoid that, for an easier life?

I say that as a bit of an outsider, I don’t imagine at the moment I would be voting labour any time soon, based on my experiences around here from the last three elections when they’ve refused deals and most recently thrown an election, due to this factionalism.

[blandy]

11 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Winning elections is more important than doing the things you promised when you got the gig as party leader?

If you don't win an election, you can't do any of the things you want to. Winning elections is absolutely, totally a pre-requisite.

[bickster]

There seems to be a common misconception that the left of the Labour Party is the Labour Party's core vote,  it certainly does not represent the core of anything the party needs to get elected. The left of the Labour Party is a raggle - taggle amalgamation of little clubs battling for their own ideologies among themselves and all pointing the finger at their big common enemy in different ways. The common enemy is usually the leader of the party they claim to be members of. There will be as many non-aligned fellow travellers in tow that shout with them but in reality they are very much on the fringes of the set of people Labour needs to support them for them to get elected.

Labour's core vote if anything, is bloke who goes down the pub, the mobile hairdresser... all those people that vote Labour regardless and there's far far more of them than the empty vessels on the left of the party. Labour's core vote doesn't give a shit what Starmer pledged to do 3 years ago, they give a shit about what he wants to do now

[chrisp65]

From my experience of the last GE, it was the right of the party here that wouldn’t play ball. There was an effort not to get elected, the candidate did zero canvassing, no presence on social media, Labour was the only party I didn’t get a leaflet from. There was a clear decision not to genuinely try, in a seat that has swung labour / tory many times and a seat where other parties didn’t stand in order to try and get rid of the tory.

The left or the right of any party is never going to be representative of the majority of people as the majority of people just want to feel slightly better off than last year. They are not interested in whether the trains are private or nationalised, they just like one to turn up on time, with seats available, at a sensible price. Starmer is absolutely completely within his rights to go after those people with the promise of more seats at better prices. He’s got to that point however, by telling his first electorate he was pro nationalisation. I think I’d be a bit sceptical about the guy if I’d voted for him based on his pledges which are still posted up on his own website, only for him to row back on them.

By definition, anyone with an active interest in politics is not going to be a typical voter. So I guess left or right of the tories or labour or Lib Dem’s are never going to get what they projected on to their leader. But if that leader uses language that could appear to go out of its way to alienate some of those people that put you in power, I could understand those people feeling a bit less than 100% about the guy.

‘I might carry out some of my 10 stated pledges, I’m a small c conservative, so hold your nose and vote for me rather than the big c word conservatives.’ That’s a hell of a pitch and good luck with it.

 

 

[bickster]

It is still Labour / Starmer policy to re-nationalise the railways as far as I'm aware