General Politics Thread

Also I will be honest who cares about local elections and BJ was only in 4 months and made an impact the new leader can make the impact in 2 months and during the leadership election.
 
thedoctor2016 said:
Also I will be honest who cares about local elections and BJ was only in 4 months and made an impact the new leader can make the impact in 2 months and during the leadership election.
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Depends who it is, Leftish candidate might do well, If Labour head to the centre, might as well give up, How many "moderates" are there left?
 
The problem isn’t the message, it’s the messenger. Labour needs someone who can sell radical policies as mainstream, can sell socialism as small ‘c’ conservatism, someone who is charismatic, and who the media can love. It’s all in the delivery.

But I tell you one thing. If Corbyn quit now, and the PLP installed a caretaker leader, someone held in respect by the house, maybe Hillary Benn or even better, Margaret Hodge, then the appearance of the party can begin to change.

Besides, who wants to see another PMQs with Boris vs Jeremy? It’ll be half an hour of Tories pointing and laughing.
 
Hilary Benn or Margaret Hodge? Oh please god no, not those idiots. That's just my opinion of course.

I just disagree with you JPT that anyone who is selling the message and policies of Corbyn or anything like them will ever be "loved" by the mainstream press. It's a fantasy to think the press really care about how loveable or likeable a leader is personally. If that leader suits the press's interests they will make even a monster look good (as we've just seen with Johnson) and if not they will vilify them with no regard for reality or facts. You can't simply charm the mainstream media, and it's a waste of time for a left wing party to even try now in my opinion. We have to find a new way of cutting through.
 
Labour's position, ideally, needs to something that can both win over Tory voters in Englland and Wales as wel, as SNP voters in Scotland. A tough nut to crack but not impossible.
 
What you suggest is practically impossible, Tory voters (if you can use that term? sweeping terms don't do anybody favours) seem to want a small state presents, would rather have a "self centric approach" to finance and seem to heading into a coffin soon, since the average age of the Tories supporters is 59.
SNP support is what used to be Labour before Blair and Brown betrayed the Scots, with a mixture of illegal wars and trials of policies that would make Thatcher blush ( if you could ever make that bloody woman show any form of human emotion)
So to try and appease both of these divergent ideologies is not possible, whose ever heard of a selfish liberal socialist,
Labour doesn't need Hodge and Hillary Benn anywhere near the leadership, Hodge because the left side of the party truly hate her for all the anti semetism bullhorning, and Hillary Benn is nothing like his father, If Tony was still alive I doubt the press and media would have been quite so brazenly pro tory, that is by the by.
 
I think Scotland is lost as if I lived in Scotland Id vote SNP. Plaid Cymru luckily I cant see doing it in Wales as they love being viewed as the welsh speakers party ergo meaning never getting my vote.
 
Darren Skippings said:
What you suggest is practically impossible, Tory voters (if you can use that term? sweeping terms don't do anybody favours) seem to want a small state presents, would rather have a "self centric approach" to finance and seem to heading into a coffin soon, since the average age of the Tories supporters is 59.
SNP support is what used to be Labour before Blair and Brown betrayed the Scots, with a mixture of illegal wars and trials of policies that would make Thatcher blush ( if you could ever make that bloody woman show any form of human emotion)
So to try and appease both of these divergent ideologies is not possible, whose ever heard of a selfish liberal socialist,
Labour doesn't need Hodge and Hillary Benn anywhere near the leadership, Hodge because the left side of the party truly hate her for all the anti semetism bullhorning, and Hillary Benn is nothing like his father, If Tony was still alive I doubt the press and media would have been quite so brazenly pro tory, that is by the by.
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Every historical 'grudge' a region might have has uts limit. The Scottish Tories, even with their losses in this election, are still doing better than they have in many elections. Many Northern areas with maybe the most reason to hold said grudge just went Conservative.

Plus the SNP's dominance in Westminster elections only started in the 2015 election, after the independence referendum. Before that, Labour were the biggest party. Even through the later years of Brown/Blair.

P,us you still have many 'floating' voters who are far less ideological where just the right policies at the right time can sway them. And tbey are especially ital in FPTP voting systems. I suppose in some ways I might count. I do have certain political beliefs and values, my vots gave gone between Labour and Lid Dem (occasionally independents for more localised elections). With my current stances, they're the only two parties I'm ever likely to vote for at this time in my life.
 
“We send the EU £350 million a week, let’s blow half a million on making a bell ring once”

Nice to see the government tackling the issues that really matter to those millions of people who voted leave. Jobs? Housing? Immigration? Nah, bell ringing in remain voting London is where it’s at. This is topping even blue passports in levels of inconsequential nonsense. That this and a family falling out amongst a bunch of toffs is what’s dominating newspaper front pages speaks volumes about this country’s priorities. Jesus.
 
I do think the historical significance of Big Ben is massive (So i support it getting repaired) but this fascination is weird, and just sums up Brexit to me a fascination with the past and this theory Britain was great.
 
ayase said:
“We send the EU £350 million a week, let’s blow half a million on making a bell ring once”

Nice to see the government tackling the issues that really matter to those millions of people who voted leave. Jobs? Housing? Immigration? Nah, bell ringing in remain voting London is where it’s at. This is topping even blue passports in levels of inconsequential nonsense. That this and a family falling out amongst a bunch of toffs is what’s dominating newspaper front pages speaks volumes about this country’s priorities. Jesus.
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Farage wanted a fireworks display for Brexit didn’t he? I'm sure there's a way of doing that and solving the problem of Westminster refurbishment costs all in one go, though I'd suggest it would be better done during the day when Parliament is in session.


Improved my Apple News experience today enormously by sending “Royal Family” to join the illustrious company of ”Piers Morgan” and ”Kanye West” in my blocked topics.
 
I feel so very tired. Tired of actually privileged middle class liberals creating divisive language which is then seized on by the hard right to sow further division, both sides aided and abetted by a media hungry for controversy and clickbait. Tired of people throwing these terms around like insults or thought-terminating-cliches only to take offence when people take them as such, and explain with a kind of smug superiority that no, you shouldn’t take offence because here’s what this term actually means and why it’s not an insult, as an extra passive aggressive insult that they’re stupid for not already knowing the complex definition of their made-up liberal terminology.

Here’s an idea; How about we stop using factors of people’s birth to discredit their opinions or right to an opinion? How about we accept that everyone’s experience of life is going to be different, and that being a particular race or gender does not guarantee their life experience can be compared to other people who share that arbitrary factor of birth? How about we work together to help and support all underprivileged people and don’t give politicians and the media fodder to divide them further with stupid, divisive language about their race and gender? That’s my wish for the world today.
 
I totally agree with you. I feel for you guys in GB having to put up with Boris Johnson, Brexit, and the "errant" royal family, etc. Here in the us we've got my arch-enemy, trump who is the worst thing to happen to this country on 50 years. What really gets me is that there were a lot of people dumb enough to fall for trump's bs spiel-hook , line and sinker and vote for the asshole. I had hated him since long before he even dreamed of running for president and after he was elected my hatred grew 10 fold. The things he stands for are totally incompatible with my beliefs. I've gotten into more than a few arguments with "trumpers" and my reply to them is "If you voted for trump than that's your problem-not mine". End of conversation.
 
The two things tie together. Whose votes gave us Brexit, Trump and gave Boris his Conservative majority? Angry, underprivileged white people who feel left behind and ignored and who the middle-class liberal left refuses to engage with except to antagonise and belittle them.

Guess what the several homeless people I see every day have in common. Guess what a lot of the long term unemployed in my area whose jobs were outsourced to China and India (because it's easier to exploit and pay workers there less) have in common. They're overwhelmingly white men. Now imagine how these people feel when they hear other people (mainly middle-class, comfortable white people) bandying around the phrase "white male privilege" which is then amplified by a shocked and appalled right-wing media to produce the exact result they want - For those people to vote for the right-wing candidates who don't have their interests at heart at all (they're the exact same people who enabled the outsourcing of their jobs and made them unemployed, who cut welfare and made them homeless and reliant on food banks). Because hey, at least they're not insulting them, ignoring their concerns or denying them the right to an opinion on account of their race or gender - Not something I ever wanted or expected to use to criticise the left.

But if I point this out, other people on the left tend to think I'm some sort of ally of the far-right. The bottom line for me is that I don't think it matters what anyone means when they talk about "white male privilege" what matters is that kind of terminology is utterly toxic to the vast numbers of poor white people who are a necessary voter block for anyone who wants to win an election in the US or UK. It's so toxic that I hesitate to even use it in order to criticise it, and I wish I didn't have to. So for the sake of everyone just stop, liberals. Stop dividing the underprivileged white, black and brown people who should be fighting the actually privileged people who happily screw them all over at every turn together.
 
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What I find so amusingly tragic is how many people lambasted America for voting in Trump.... Then a large portion of them clearly voted for Boris.
I was talking to one of my partner's friends who voted Boris because of all the propaganda that they stupidly believed about Corbyn and how Boris was 'funny'. The problem with voting I think isn't a lack of voters, it's too many casual voters who don't bother to put any effort into understanding who or what they're voting for beyond the headlines which in this case was vote for brexit or vote for scruffy, evil, commie, liberal, racist, terrorist sympathiser.

It's a shame politics is too volatile for a basic introductory class to be taught in schools. I'm all for everyone having the right to vote but I think they should have an understanding of it first or instead of ticking a box, a short multiple choice where you can select key policies that matter to you which then votes based on your choices, it would certainly be a lot more impartial and anyone who wants to actually vote tactically for a specific party could play the system anyway by doing their research before hand; at least it would still be an educated vote.
 
I think the happiest possible ending for humanity now is where we reach the technological singularity ASAP and the machines take over. Machines aren’t self-interested, corruptible, discriminatory, nostalgic, terrified by their own mortality or any of the things that make human politicians so useless. So whatever they decide to do with us at that point, whether it’s create a post-scarcity utopia, plug us into the Matrix or take care of us Terminator style you know it will at least be fair and rational.
 
D1tchd1gger said:
Have you seen The Animatrix? 😜 That's exactly why they made the Matrix. To turn us into compliant batteries because we cut off their power source of the sun. Of course it's a bit of stupid lore writing as that would have killed us too, but then again most humans are stupid enough to think that was a good plan!
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If that goes to be Canon wasn't it all because of a woman that got too attached to her vibr*/robot; forbidden fruits and all that. Haven't watched it for a long time but that stuck with me. So the exact reason is due to humanity developing in a robot which was amusing as the architect claimed to be completely lacking in understanding of those emotions and that was the reason they needed a messianic figure
 
For me identity politics is kinda making me vote for Keir as Labour Leader undeniably he is best qualified for the job he is the ex head of the CPS for god sake, but now all the female candiates keep saying it’s awful if we vote for a man. But he’s the best person I don’t like being guilted for liking him because he’s a man.
 
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