The Moderate Politics Thread

[VILLAMARV]

2 hours ago, bickster said:

Why do you need it to be defined?

for me it would be so I can join in

But for the thread it's not about agreeing upon a definition for hansard or anything, but so we are not discussing the topic at cross-purposes.

an agreed upon definition so we know what it means to different people seems like a rather practical, reasonable and pragmatic approach......

There seems to be, to me at least, a suggestion that people with more out there ideas lack the ability to be pragmatic and that is obviously untrue.

I'm wondering whether we are talking about moderate political beliefs (As the thread title would suggest), whereas most of the posts seem to be about pragmatism, an ability to negotiate and an ability to comprimise to help positive change. They are very different things to my mind.

Hence me being one of the people wondering what the agreed upon definition, or definitions is/are. Lack of definitions and an ever more emotional attachment to the word is how we bastardise language.

 

[blandy]

1 minute ago, VILLAMARV said:

To use a term from upthread I'm not going for a gotcha moment, but Is it not this "you can't have unicorns!" type argument that @Chindie was referring to?

crackpot fairytales not based in reality screams less intellectual to me.

I have no idea, You’ve lost me there. Unicorns don’t exist, except in fairytales and mythology.  A no deal or hard Brexit where Britain prospers as a result and where “they need us more than we need them” it doesn’t **** exist. It’s a crackpot fairytale. That’s the kind of example I’m thinking of.

I think I may have missed Chindie’s post, or point, so will tread carefully, but it seems like a lot of ideas come from the edges of the spectrum, and this is a good thing. A few are instant genius, ready formed and doable. Most are not, most need evolution, adjustment, or throwing straight in the bin as they are completely unworkable, or frankly deranged.

[blandy]

2 minutes ago, VILLAMARV said:

There seems to be, to me at least, a suggestion that people with more out there ideas lack the ability to be pragmatic and that is obviously untrue

My suggestion is that it’s the ideas that can be un pragmatic, not the people having the ideas, though they may or may not be.

[chrisp65]

14 hours ago, KentVillan said:

There seem to be two threads here. One about what centrism is, and one where people hysterically chuck a laundry list of accusations at Keir Starmer

I think it was only me that mentioned Starmer, once. But I felt it was legitimate, he has made any number of quite impressive ‘pledges’ on his own Keir Starmer website. A pledge being quite a strong turn of phrase. Then, slowly but surely, one by one, he’s finding reasons why it wouldn’t be practical or sensible to keep to his pledges, he’s softening them in multiple ways reducing the promise, pushing out the date, putting less money to it, finding other routes. 

That’s not a shopping list of accusations, that’s reading off his personal website which is still up, and then reading his more recent tweeks to his pledges.

As I mentioned in my first post, that’s my perception of centrists, they know the problem, but they also know all the problems in addressing it, so they sort of try to muddle through a compromised middle ground. Which inevitably actually turns in to not doing all that much about it, and we status quo masquerading as moderate centrism.

He promised £28 Billion for green industries in year 1 of a Labour government. He has a speech later today on the subject. Let’s see if since that promise, he’s found some problems that will force him to do something a bit less than his original pitch.

None of the above makes me a Corbyn supporter though.

[VILLAMARV]

4 hours ago, blandy said:

I have no idea, You’ve lost me there. Unicorns don’t exist, except in fairytales and mythology.  A no deal or hard Brexit where Britain prospers as a result and where “they need us more than we need them” it doesn’t **** exist. It’s a crackpot fairytale. That’s the kind of example I’m thinking of.

I think I may have missed Chindie’s post, or point, so will tread carefully, but it seems like a lot of ideas come from the edges of the spectrum, and this is a good thing. A few are instant genius, ready formed and doable. Most are not, most need evolution, adjustment, or throwing straight in the bin as they are completely unworkable, or frankly deranged.

I was referring to the post you made in direct reply to his, where you claim you were not aware of the centre position being hailed as more intellectual.

I don't disagree with your wider point about extremism and it's usefulness in individual instances.

[blandy]

21 minutes ago, VILLAMARV said:

I was referring to the post you made in direct reply to his, where you claim you were not aware of the centre position being hailed as more intellectual.

I don't disagree with your wider point about extremism and it's usefulness in individual instances.

Ta. I agreed it isn’t, though I’ve never heard anyone claim it was.

You’re definitely not a gotcha cannot apply to me, because I’m not a centrist. I’m not party political, but most of my personal views are left wing. A lot of the time when I post on here about bolitics I don’t post my personal views on policy or whatever, I post my take on what a politician or party might be thinking or their tactics, rather than if I agree with them. Obviously I slag off the baby eaters most of the time and always have, and I despaired at Corbyn’s leadership for giving the tories a free ride, but me posting that I’d probably vote green or whatever doesn’t add much.

[chrisp65]

21 minutes ago, blandy said:

. A lot of the time when I post on here about bolitics I don’t post my personal views on policy or whatever, I post my take on what a politician or party might be thinking or their tactics, rather than if I agree with them. Obviously I slag off the baby eaters most of the time and always have, and I despaired at Corbyn’s leadership for giving the tories a free ride, but me posting that I’d probably vote green or whatever doesn’t add much.

Its a good way for others to see if their ideas actually stand up to any scrutiny.

I’ll often have a think before I throw some random opinion / policy idea to the VT world.

Not always, but often.

 

[KentVillan]

Maybe it's helpful to look at the centrist vs radical debates in the Tory party for a clearer idea of why centrism appeals, and get away from what it means on the left.

The really, really destructive stuff the Tories have done since 2010 has mostly been when they've tried to be "radical" and "visionary" and run into reality:

• Lansley's NHS reforms
• IDS's universal credit
• Osborne going way beyond the soft austerity "consensus" in areas like justice, policing, etc because they'd ringfenced pensions and health
• Brexit

If you look at things like tax policy or foreign policy, where they've been closer to the centre... you can find lots of faults with it, but nothing stands out as a generational mistake which urgently needs to be reversed by a new govt.

The problem with this idea that you shouldn't "water down" policy ideas is that it usually means you're trying to do things that either haven't been thought through, or at the very least haven't convinced most people they will work (including the people you're relying on to implement them). So they just run into tons of road blocks and cause chaos while you're implementing them.

[bobzy]

I've read 3 pages of guff and still have no idea what a "centrists" views would even appear to look like.  Just being left wing on some things and right wing on others, presumably?  If so, I think people will always fall naturally one way or the other rather than being "centrist".

 

On 18/06/2023 at 08:40, CVByrne said:

Obviously this would be the view of someone from pretty far left such as yourself. It's why it's not really possible to define a centrist it means different things to different people depending on if the hold left wing or right wing views as the centre is right or left of those positions. 

I hold views that would be highly unpopular to the right and popular with the left and vice versa. I think of things from both perspectives. 

What views would these be, out of interest?

[VILLAMARV]

33 minutes ago, blandy said:

Ta. I agreed it isn’t, though I’ve never heard anyone claim it was.

You’re definitely not a gotcha cannot apply to me, because I’m not a centrist. I’m not party political, but most of my personal views are left wing. A lot of the time when I post on here about bolitics I don’t post my personal views on policy or whatever, I post my take on what a politician or party might be thinking or their tactics, rather than if I agree with them. Obviously I slag off the baby eaters most of the time and always have, and I despaired at Corbyn’s leadership for giving the tories a free ride, but me posting that I’d probably vote green or whatever doesn’t add much.

I think you're missing my point by over thinking it. What I'm pointing out is that you claim to have never heard the centrist position being hailed as more intellectual, yet in a subsequant post suggest that the crackpot fairytales of the not based in reality extremists doesn't stand up to the scrutiny of the centrists.

On 17/06/2023 at 23:49, Chindie said:

I find the centrist position is often a bit holier then thou, and positioned as the intellectual choice

I'm suggesting you're engaging in the behaviour chindie was talking about and that you claim not to have witnessed.

No biggie, no ill will, no attempted gotcha moment, just saying what I see like Roy Walker.

[KentVillan]

9 minutes ago, bobzy said:

I've read 3 pages of guff and still have no idea what a "centrists" views would even appear to look like.  Just being left wing on some things and right wing on others, presumably? 

Not clear you’ve read it at all tbh if that’s your takeaway. It mostly means finding the workable middle ground between left and right, not cherrypicking different ideas from each side … although maybe a bit of the latter too.

Sometimes left and right are in consensus on something anyway - gay marriage for example.

[The Fun Factory]

The post war census in Britain (round about 1945 to 1970) was basically a centrist ground of both Labour and conservatism, with Labour becoming more moderate than its pre war period and the tories accepting of the new welfare state and social housing being built. Also known as Butskellism.  It all fell apart when right wing nutters like Keith Joseph influenced the conservative proto Thatcherists and Labour started having it's once every 20-year ideological warfare between each other.

[TheAuthority]

8 minutes ago, The Fun Factory said:

The post war census in Britain (round about 1945 to 1970) was basically a centrist ground of both Labour and conservatism, with Labour becoming more moderate than its pre war period and the tories accepting of the new welfare state and social housing being built. Also known as Butskellism.  It all fell apart when right wing nutters like Keith Joseph influenced the conservative proto Thatcherists and Labour started having it's once every 20-year ideological warfare between each other.

My question to this is for those that lived through it. Why after all of this social investment were the mid to late 70's considered so bad? Trash in the streets, unemployment etc. What allowed for someone as extreme as Thatcher to come in?

[Chindie]

13 minutes ago, TheAuthority said:

My question to this is for those that lived through it. Why after all of this social investment were the mid to late 70's considered so bad? Trash in the streets, unemployment etc. What allowed for someone as extreme as Thatcher to come in?

Obviously I didn't live through it, but as I can recall...

The oil crisis, combined with industrial action by miners which lead to the 3 day week, which contributed to severe inflation, which lead to a political crisis when repeated elections returned weakened governments which couldn't make any headway into the economic crisis, which lead to things like the IMF bailout and massive waves of strikes and unemployment, which then lead to Thatcher, who crushed the unions, had a convenient war and managed to reduce inflation, which gave them strong government majorities and the things at the very top end got good enough that crises were thought to be over (although the UK only got back what it had lost through the 70s and 80s for the poorest in society through unemployment, to an extent, midway through Blairs tenure.

[The Fun Factory]

26 minutes ago, TheAuthority said:

My question to this is for those that lived through it. Why after all of this social investment were the mid to late 70's considered so bad? Trash in the streets, unemployment etc. What allowed for someone as extreme as Thatcher to come in?

The rise of right-wing journalism like the Sun? Statistically, for most of the 1970s this was the most equal society Britain has ever been in. I think the strikes in the winter of 78 were exploited by the Tories and brought in the new era of conservatism. 

[blandy]

1 hour ago, VILLAMARV said:

What I'm pointing out is that you claim to have never heard the centrist position being hailed as more intellectual, yet in a subsequant post suggest that the crackpot fairytales of the not based in reality extremists doesn't stand up to the scrutiny of the centrists.

No I didn't, (did I? - I didn't mean to ). What I meant to try and get across is not that centrists are more intellectual (they're not, as I agreed with Chindie) but that other than extremists themselves those mad ideas don't stand up to scrutiny by anyone other than themselves -  from extremists on the other end of the spectrum, to the non-engaged/aligned/ or to me, or to Fact check organisations....I'm neither making the point as a centrist, nor singling them out as the scrutineers. Extremists tend to have some (as I also said) wacky ideas, sometimes genius, often rather less so in terms of not surviving contact with reality. It's not that these or those are more intellectual, it's that eccentricity, particularly when driven by zeal (e.g. Brexit) can be genius, but is often daft, because of the zeal obscuring the view.

[bobzy]

1 hour ago, KentVillan said:

Not clear you’ve read it at all tbh if that’s your takeaway. It mostly means finding the workable middle ground between left and right, not cherrypicking different ideas from each side … although maybe a bit of the latter too.

Sometimes left and right are in consensus on something anyway - gay marriage for example.

But how is that a view?  I guess I don't fully understand.

If someone said "what's your view on healthcare funding" (as an example), I may expect my left-wing view to be that there should be an increase in public funding to deal with the backlogs whereas a right-wing view may be that the private sector is brought in to deal with the backlogs.  What is a "centrist" views?  Have some increased public funding but also use the private sector?

[The Fun Factory]

6 minutes ago, bobzy said:

But how is that a view?  I guess I don't fully understand.

If someone said "what's your view on healthcare funding" (as an example), I may expect my left-wing view to be that there should be an increase in public funding to deal with the backlogs whereas a right-wing view may be that the private sector is brought in to deal with the backlogs.  What is a "centrist" views?  Have some increased public funding but also use the private sector?

Well yes. That is what happened in the 1990s in PFI's in public spending.  HIghly debatable if they were actually good value for money.

[KentVillan]

8 minutes ago, bobzy said:

But how is that a view?  I guess I don't fully understand.

If someone said "what's your view on healthcare funding" (as an example), I may expect my left-wing view to be that there should be an increase in public funding to deal with the backlogs whereas a right-wing view may be that the private sector is brought in to deal with the backlogs.  What is a "centrist" views?  Have some increased public funding but also use the private sector?

Well no because nothing is binary. There’s always a spectrum. eg with university education, it goes from totally free, to free for those in need, to part subsidised, to private with price caps, to completely private with no regulation … and there’s a lot of ground in the middle there. Left and right are always relative … Corbyn is a centrist relative to Lenin.

[Chindie]

Can you be an extreme centrist? So sensible you won't even consider pushing for anything that might change something?