Oh no - another festival right after the election!

[eFestivals]

9 minutes ago, liamium said:

Again, i'm playing fast and loose and probably unfairly. I'm not really talking about the worthiness of one ideology over another. More a party that makes commitments, inspires a generation and then fucks them over wholesale, hiding behind the paper thin excuse of tempering the worst of Tory excess. Which, in all fairness, they did do. But I don't trust them and I don't trust that they have convictions about anything. 

Just out of interest, do you support PR as a voting method? If you do, you need to resolve the conflict you have there. 

I read shit loads of political comment, and something i see all the time is people saying they back PR, but that the LibDems aren't be trusted because they'll make compromises around a coalition ... where i end up concluding that people only think as far as what makes them happy, rather than what's actually possible to achieve.

[Havors]

2 minutes ago, kalifire said:

He needs to be bolder than he's being right now, that's for sure. It's not good enough to say things people would expect from Labour. Yes, we know you're for the NHS and against foodbanks and for renationalising the railways and against tax cuts for the wealthiest. Everyone knows that. It's uninspiring. Say something different; revitalising; inspiring. That's what people are clamouring for. Labour have been merely living up to expectations in the most banal, predictable for the last fifteen years.

Without a doubt he needs to change something. His current angry school teacher approach is useless. 

He need to make a huge list of how the Tories shaft people and fucking hammer it right home every chance he gets. He cant win on how he will be a great leader the only chance he has is to undermine the Tories so much that people stop and think.

Wishful thinking though. 

[clarkete]

14 minutes ago, liamium said:

A little cheeky maybe, yes, but I think my point, poorly made, was that something they promise to be wholly opposed to could be up for negotiation if they find themselves in a position of coalition again. 

Certainly I would have been opposed to it, but at the time immediately after the 2010 election they were forced into a corner.  The Labour Party started their negotiations by insisting that Brown would remain their leader (and therefore PM), yet it was widely felt at the time that he was the most unpopular PM of modern times.  So they either supported the biggest party, who made all sorts of pledges which they later broke, or the labour party who were already unpopular and now had dramatically less MPs than before that election.

In short, they were screwed either way.

[liamium]

4 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Just out of interest, do you support PR as a voting method? If you do, you need to resolve the conflict you have there. 

I read shit loads of political comment, and something i see all the time is people saying they back PR, but that the LibDems aren't be trusted because they'll make compromises around a coalition ... where i end up concluding that people only think as far as what makes them happy, rather than what's actually possible to achieve.

I'm not a fan of PR, no. Increased likelihood of repeat hung parliaments and the potential for extremist parties to hold power in a parliamentary soup is off putting. But i've also not read a huge amount about PR to weigh in with any great clarity sorry. 

[mjsell]

3 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Just out of interest, do you support PR as a voting method? If you do, you need to resolve the conflict you have there. 

I read shit loads of political comment, and something i see all the time is people saying they back PR, but that the LibDems aren't be trusted because they'll make compromises around a coalition ... where i end up concluding that people only think as far as what makes them happy, rather than what's actually possible to achieve.

PR is a funny one aint it. I fully support it but am aware that it comes at a pretty big cost - I don't think many of those left leaning voters that want PR would be happy when they realise that UKIP would currently have 83 seats.

[liamium]

5 minutes ago, clarkete said:

Certainly I would have been opposed to it, but at the time immediately after the 2010 election they were forced into a corner.  The Labour Party started their negotiations by insisting that Brown would remain their leader (and therefore PM), yet it was widely felt at the time that he was the most unpopular PM of modern times.  So they either supported the biggest party, who made all sorts of pledges which they later broke, or the labour party who were already unpopular and now had dramatically less MPs than before that election.

In short, they were screwed either way.

True. Though they couldn't have walked away from either deal and triggered another election? I know it's much easier for me to suggest that now, and for the Lib Dems to suggest they regret coalition 7 years after being faced with a shot at government, but they'd have clung onto massive amounts of support they could've potentially counted on in 2015

[DeanoL]

1 minute ago, mjsell said:

PR is a funny one aint it. I fully support it but am aware that it comes at a pretty big cost - I don't think many of those left leaning voters that want PR would be happy when they realise that UKIP would currently have 83 seats.

It's a fallacy to assume people would vote the same way if we had PR though. UKIP was a protest vote for many, one they wouldn't make if it converted directly into MPs. I still imagine they'd have a fair chunk of MPs, but so would the Greens.

[eFestivals]

2 minutes ago, Havors said:

It sounds like we have very similar views. I think I just absolutely despise the Tories more than you do that I would gladly take the antichrist Corbyn as PM?

Hmmm .... "despise" ... now there's a thing.

I can often be heard speaking like russy (see other thread), and yet I'm smart enough to realise they're no more or less blessed with integrity and honesty as a group than a party i might personally support, but just with different ideas about how people are best served by a govt.

And no, I don't want Corbyn as PM, tho that doesn't mean I want May instead. He'll put 'socialism' back decades, and will ensure that May or a doppelganger will rule the roost in the same way as now for much longer into the future.

I have my fingers firmly crossed, not that the result will happen in the way I think (with Labour being slaughtered), but that when the result does happen that way he'll quit - but I'm a very VERY long way from thinking that's certain even after a slaughter.

After all, why would lack of support in the country get him to quit when lack of support by his own MPs won't? He can keep the same justification as now, that he's popular with members, and particularly when the GE result is likely to show him (tho really labour, and not him) with stronger support in the country than he has with the 17% of Labour MPs that support him.

If he quits Labour can start to work towards victory in 2022. If he doesn't quit, that's Labour dead forever, i'm certain.

[eFestivals]

11 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

Yup. And plenty of people hoped Corbyn would have changed that and he hasn't. Ironically enough, had the PLP known how shit and uninspiring he was going to be they might not have opposed him so much from the start!

I think those MPs were crediting the membership with more intelligence than the membership has shown itself as having.

[eFestivals]

9 minutes ago, liamium said:

I'm not a fan of PR, no. Increased likelihood of repeat hung parliaments and the potential for extremist parties to hold power in a parliamentary soup is off putting. But i've also not read a huge amount about PR to weigh in with any great clarity sorry. 

Just about every other country in the world is run via PR - and extremists aren't pulling the strings.

And the all-or-nothing approach of FPTP gets to mean nothing for the vast majority of the time for anyone of 'the left'.

Via PR, 'the people' get more of what they want more of the time, and given that even across tory/Labour there's more they're in agreement about than against, that can only be a good thing - better than the factional interests of FPTP, anyway.

Edited April 19, 2017 by eFestivals

[eFestivals]

9 minutes ago, mjsell said:

PR is a funny one aint it. I fully support it but am aware that it comes at a pretty big cost - I don't think many of those left leaning voters that want PR would be happy when they realise that UKIP would currently have 83 seats.

the 'cost' is 'the people' getting more of what they want more of the time. If that's the cost, I'm buying shitloads.

And while i'd dislike UKIP having that number of seats, as a democrat, I can't really object to them getting seats proportional to the support they have. If that's how the shit flies it has to be lived with.

[liamium]

13 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Just about every other country in the world is run via PR - and extremists aren't pulling the strings.

And the all-or-nothing approach of FPTP gets to mean nothing for the vast majority of the time for anyone of 'the left'.

Via PR, 'the people' get more of what they want more of the time, and given that even across tory/Labour there's more they're in agreement about than against, that can only be a good thing - better than the factional interests of FPTP, anyway.

They aren't pulling the strings yet. As the centre repeatedly fails to deal with rampant inequality and a complete lack of social mobility, they might. The centre has folded in Poland, from which my other half has fled and is terrified at the thought of being forced to return. The centre could fold in France. There were worries about the Netherlands. 'The people' are being lied to and bought off with easy answers to difficult questions, so doesn't PR give the peddlers of these easy answers an easier in?

I dubious about PR but that doesn't mean i'm waving the banner for FPTP

edited: France doesn't have PR, does it? My mistake.

Edited April 19, 2017 by liamium

[eFestivals]

12 minutes ago, liamium said:

True. Though they couldn't have walked away from either deal and triggered another election? I know it's much easier for me to suggest that now, and for the Lib Dems to suggest they regret coalition 7 years after being faced with a shot at government, but they'd have clung onto massive amounts of support they could've potentially counted on in 2015

I think in the circumstances at the time of the election that what the LibDems did wasn't unreasonable. It was a time of crisis, and their choice gave certainty when having none would have been hugely damaging for the country.

(however, I suspect they'd have done the same at any time - tho we'll never know).

What isn't defendable is some of the things they supported which were outside of that coalition agreement, or even the watering down of their want of a ref on PR to a ref on AV.

(AV: not a bad idea but it wouldn't be anyone's first choice )

[mjsell]

1 minute ago, eFestivals said:

the 'cost' is 'the people' getting more of what they want more of the time. If that's the cost, I'm buying shitloads.

And while i'd dislike UKIP having that number of seats, as a democrat, I can't really object to them getting seats proportional to the support they have. If that's how the shit flies it has to be lived with.

Thats what i meant by the cost, not the increased democratic voice, but the probable disappointment I would have with said democratic voice in action. I would accept it obviously as the positives far outweigh the negatives.

But if I had a choice of living behind a shiny new electric fan instead of an old broken down one, or living behind a shiny new electric fan where shit is hitting it I'd be pretty happy with the first option, and a slightly more disappointed with the second

[arcade fireman]

1 hour ago, eFestivals said:

not true.

Few - in any others at all - would have praised the Iranian regime with the same words Jezza chose (i forget what they were now, dammit - but feel free to google)

Still, they do sit nicely alongside his praise of other repressive regimes and organisations. In Jezza's mind if they hate the yanks they must be OK.

You misunderstood me - I'm not saying any British MP would have done it - just that any MP would have done for their purposes - they didn't care he was a nobody by then.

Corbyn's appearance on Press TV was fucking shameful, far worse than most of the other things he's been criticised for (fairly and unfairly) and the only reason I can think of why more people don't know about it is that the Tories must have been saving the really bad stuff for an election campaign.

[eFestivals]

1 minute ago, liamium said:

They aren't pulling the strings yet. As the centre repeatedly fails to deal with rampant inequality and a complete lack of social mobility, they might. The centre has folded in Poland, from which my other half has fled and is terrified at the thought of being forced to return. The centre could fold in France. There were worries about the Netherlands. 'The people' are being lied to and bought off with easy answers to difficult questions, so doesn't PR give the peddlers of these easy answers an easier in?

I dubious about PR but that doesn't mean i'm waving the banner for FPTP

but if extremists are going to run riot within PR, then they're going to run riot with another system too - and quite possibly much more so under other systems.

And easy answers to difficult questions is what the SNP does, what Jezza does, etc, etc, etc. You don't have to go to the right to find those.

(easy jezza example: he wants to nationalise the railways, and says it like it'll cure the problems - yet it won't by itself run a single extra train or provide a single extra seat, no matter how good the idea might be from an ideological point of view).

And when the question is one of resources against hard truths rather than easy answers, why is the hard truth of the central idea of tory austerity something I presume you'd sneer at?

(note: I'm not suggesting that how they've actually done it was the only possibility).

[arcade fireman]

1 hour ago, liamium said:

See, I don't buy this. His fanatics, the cult of crusty old white dudes around him who think him the messiah, they completely ignore how unpopular he is. But there's a huge huge chunk of his electorate, from both leadership elections, that completely understand how poor he is at this. They want someone else to do it from the left, but choose not to bash him publicly because all it does is damage the party further. Believe me, loads of his support really can't wait to see the back of him but don't want that to come at the expense of the party moving back to the right.

Sorry but this just simply isn't true. Look at the headlines post Copeland on Novara Media, the Canary etc. Look at the most liked comments on the Momentum pages. Look at what prominent left wing figures like Paul Mason and Ken Loach were saying. Copeland wasn't apparently down to Corbyn's failings, it was Tony Blair and New Labour's fault! That was the narrative from the Corbyn side and by no means from the crusties either.

And your last sentence sums it all up. Many would rather have the Labour left wing leading the party in opposition rather than having the centre/right wing of the party having a chance of winning the election. New Labour did a hell of a lot wrong but those thirteen years were much better than if the Tories were in charge.

[Havors]

16 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Hmmm .... "despise" ... now there's a thing.

I can often be heard speaking like russy (see other thread), and yet I'm smart enough to realise they're no more or less blessed with integrity and honesty as a group than a party i might personally support, but just with different ideas about how people are best served by a govt.

And no, I don't want Corbyn as PM, tho that doesn't mean I want May instead. He'll put 'socialism' back decades, and will ensure that May or a doppelganger will rule the roost in the same way as now for much longer into the future.

I have my fingers firmly crossed, not that the result will happen in the way I think (with Labour being slaughtered), but that when the result does happen that way he'll quit - but I'm a very VERY long way from thinking that's certain even after a slaughter.

After all, why would lack of support in the country get him to quit when lack of support by his own MPs won't? He can keep the same justification as now, that he's popular with members, and particularly when the GE result is likely to show him (tho really labour, and not him) with stronger support in the country than he has with the 17% of Labour MPs that support him.

If he quits Labour can start to work towards victory in 2022. If he doesn't quit, that's Labour dead forever, i'm certain.

I think (hope) he would resign. I don't think he would be able to come back from it.... surely is not that big of a c**t??  It is the only upside of this election as I dont see anything other than slightly larger Tory majority unfortunately. 

Stranger things have happened though? Maybe all this brexit stuff will make a few hundred thousand people get off their arses for once after their complacency bit them in the ass? 

[arcade fireman]

54 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

That's true. But at this point in the referendum campaign, and the US Presidential election, and the 2015 UK elections, every bit of evidence pointed to the result being a strong success for Remain, a Clinton whitewash and an hung parliament.

And while I'm sure the pollsters are doing a lot of work to improve their models, this snap election will have taken them by surprise too.

Doesn't mean that I think Corbyn will win either. Just that I have less faith in the evidence than some do

Polls are quantitative measures. Analyse them quantitatively, not qualitatively.

What I mean is that for Brexit and the 2015 elections the polls were 3-4% out, that just made a big difference on the result.

For Trump the polls were predicting popular vote from which people tried to extrapolate electoral college votes. The prediction of the popular vote from the polls was very close to spot on. The extrapolations of the popular vote weren't.

And in every single measure the left has been overestimated and the right underestimated.

There's been some correction in the polls so this is less likely to happen now. And I think the polls will narrow a bit as election approaches. But I have absolute faith even from those polling misses that the 20% lead is within 3-4% of the current state of play and this is wholly insurmountable for Corbyn and Labour. Just giving examples of polling misses and thinking this has a chance of applying here makes no sense given the magnitude of the numbers.

[clarkete]

22 minutes ago, liamium said:

True. Though they couldn't have walked away from either deal and triggered another election? I know it's much easier for me to suggest that now, and for the Lib Dems to suggest they regret coalition 7 years after being faced with a shot at government, but they'd have clung onto massive amounts of support they could've potentially counted on in 2015

At the time there was lots of bleating that we needed a government in charge and that the country couldn't afford to be left in limbo.

I think they pretty much bet the farm on two things; firstly their overconfidence that they could keep the tories in check (which they did to some degree, even to the extent that cameron was able to hold back his MPs more easily when they were in coalition), but the bigger thing was what they had always fought for - a PR referendum - only of course when it happened it wasn't actually that and was dead in the water.

They certainly did some good work at a council level and had some great MPs, so I find it very regrettable.

A two party system never served anyone well, including the two parties.

[GlastoSimon]

2 minutes ago, arcade fireman said:

Sorry but this just simply isn't true. Look at the headlines post Copeland on Novara Media, the Canary etc. Look at the most liked comments on the Momentum pages. Look at what prominent left wing figures like Paul Mason and Ken Loach were saying. Copeland wasn't apparently down to Corbyn's failings, it was Tony Blair and New Labour's fault! That was the narrative from the Corbyn side and by no means from the crusties either.

Hmm, not so sure about that. Lots (legitimately) put the loss at Copeland down to the party having an anti-nuclear leader in a constituency which has Sellafield as its biggest employer.

While I agree with the general sentiment, Copeland isn't is an example of that. 

[Havors]

6 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

but if extremists are going to run riot within PR, then they're going to run riot with another system too - and quite possibly much more so under other systems.

And easy answers to difficult questions is what the SNP does, what Jezza does, etc, etc, etc. You don't have to go to the right to find those.

(easy jezza example: he wants to nationalise the railways, and says it like it'll cure the problems - yet it won't by itself run a single extra train or provide a single extra seat, no matter how good the idea might be from an ideological point of view).

And when the question is one of resources against hard truths rather than easy answers, why is the hard truth of the central idea of tory austerity something I presume you'd sneer at?

(note: I'm not suggesting that how they've actually done it was the only possibility).

Something I have always wondered about privatization, I am not too clued up on it from fiscal point. I cant help but think... if the likes of companies like Virgin Rail, EDF, blah blah make billions in profit... why would you sell it off when all that profit (or less to make life more affordable) could go back into the country?

My understanding is Maggie and her mates all have board positions or consultancy positions waiting for them with these companies. Or that these companies funded their party machine? 

I may be wrong. 

[eFestivals]

6 minutes ago, Havors said:

surely is not that big of a c**t??

he's already shown that he is by refusing to step down after he'd lost the support of 83% of MPs.

Imagine how you'd like at the tory leader if the tory leader was doing that! Even IDS wasn't that much of c**t - cos he still had support from tory members, but stepped down.

Corbyn has been bettered by IDS - that's how dreadful he is.

[arcade fireman]

6 minutes ago, GlastoSimon said:

Hmm, not so sure about that. Lots (legitimately) put the loss at Copeland down to the party having an anti-nuclear leader in a constituency which has Sellafield as its biggest employer.

While I agree with the general sentiment, Copeland isn't is an example of that. 

Scroll back on your facebook to the date of the Copeland by election and have a look at the top comments on Momentum, the highest rated comments. It's an imperfect measure but the best window onto what thoughts most Corbyn supporters agreed with since most are heavily active on social media. Time and time again it's the same stuff about how the vote was declining under New Labour, how it was their fault etc etc. Look at what the stuff the publications most allied with Corbyn supporters were publishing. Of course many did cite the nuclear thing too but not to the same degree.

Also I don't buy the anti nuclear thing being the primary reason when there was an excellent counter argument of the Tories getting rid of the local hospital and maternity services. That's huge in an area like Copeland and arguably would personally affect more people than the nuclear stuff. Particularly as it was the Tories in power actually doing it and the voters had an opportunity to send a message.

Edited April 19, 2017 by arcade fireman

[eFestivals]

6 minutes ago, arcade fireman said:

What I mean is that for Brexit and the 2015 elections the polls were 3-4% out, that just made a big difference on the result.

the polls for brexit were within the margin of error. For Trump too. For the 2015 election, too.

In all cases the polls changed in the last few days, but the reference to 'wrong' is made about how they were weeks before.