news & politics:discussion

[steviewevie]

Labour are screwed. UK govt has actually got someone competent in charge of the whole levelling up thing...if tories can actually make people in old red wall seats feel like their lives are improving, they will keep voting tory.

[steviewevie]

2 minutes ago, mattiloy said:

Liberalism is dead as an ideology.

not sure what that means. You mean freedom of the individual? How is Starmer any different to Corbyn when comes to liberalism?

[topmarksbri]

1 hour ago, mattiloy said:

 

 

The polls give the, the polls taketh away

[mattiloy]

6 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

not sure what that means. You mean freedom of the individual? How is Starmer any different to Corbyn when comes to liberalism?

 

Liberalism has a great myth at its heart, that people can ever be free in a system of liberal economics. Freedom only exists for those with cash to burn.

Starmer is a globalist, an arch europhile, a member of the trilateral commission, which believes that democracy should be reduced for the common man and the world ruled by technocrats.

Edited May 4, 2021 by mattiloy

[steviewevie]

8 minutes ago, mattiloy said:

 

Liberalism has a great myth at its heart, that people can ever be free in a system of liberal economics. Freedom only exists for those with cash to burn.

Starmer is a globalist, an arch europhile, a member of the trilateral commission, which believes that democracy should be reduced for the common man and the world ruled by technocrats.

and Corbyn was a nationalist?

[steviewevie]

Anyway...this is one by-election...in Hartlepool...not sure it's a bellwether seat for whole country...but it certainly shows that labour is still losing the old industrial towns of the north who have more older, socially conservative voters.

[steviewevie]

Labour have polled well or badly over last year not because of anything they've offered, but just on how the govt's handling of the pandemic has been...people want to vote labour because they don't like tory govt, not necessarily because they actually want a labour govt.

[Ozanne]

4 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

Labour have polled well or badly over last year not because of anything they've offered, but just on how the govt's handling of the pandemic has been...people want to vote labour because they don't like tory govt, not necessarily because they actually want a labour govt.

Also national polling shows the polls have narrowed in the last week but still show a Tory lead. It’ll take time but without the vaccine this Tory government would be nowhere, they have nothing else to offer.

And Johnson, they have him, he’s a vote winner. 

Edited May 4, 2021 by Ozanne

[eFestivals]

26 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

not sure what that means. You mean freedom of the individual? How is Starmer any different to Corbyn when comes to liberalism?

Starmer doesn't plan to sieze private property from private individuals. 

[MEGABOWL]

15 hours ago, steviewevie said:

vaccine bounce over?

They’ll be riding that wave for a while. So many in the public now see the U.K. as having a similar death rate to other Countries but a quicker Vaccine program. And they got Brexit through. There isn’t a target for Labour to hit, best bet is to sit back and hope this is the low point.

[Ozanne]

That Hartlepool poll is 8 days old as well, before all the main stories really hit from last week. The Tories probably still lead up there but it likely to be tighter than that. 

[mattiloy]

😂

[steviewevie]

1 hour ago, mattiloy said:

 

Liberalism has a great myth at its heart, that people can ever be free in a system of liberal economics. Freedom only exists for those with cash to burn.

Starmer is a globalist, an arch europhile, a member of the trilateral commission, which believes that democracy should be reduced for the common man and the world ruled by technocrats.

I get confused with the word liberalism. There's liberals, liberalism, economic liberalism, social liberalism, neo liberalism and libertariansim!

Looks like Johnson is moving tories away from liberalism in that he is not afraid of state intervention, not sure about Sunak and co though. And Biden is moving away from economic liberalism too, right? So, maybe it's the way western economies are going anyway.

Not sure if Starmer is liberalist. He is internationalist, but so was corbyn. When you say he was an arch europhile, he was a remainer, but corbyn campaigned to remain too...and labour brexit policy under Corbyn and Starmer was a softer brexit than May's, but was still brexit...and they only went for the 2nd referendum thing under pressure from their own party mps, members and supporters.

[mattiloy]

29 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

I get confused with the word liberalism. There's liberals, liberalism, economic liberalism, social liberalism, neo liberalism and libertariansim!

Looks like Johnson is moving tories away from liberalism in that he is not afraid of state intervention, not sure about Sunak and co though. And Biden is moving away from economic liberalism too, right? So, maybe it's the way western economies are going anyway.

Not sure if Starmer is liberalist. He is internationalist, but so was corbyn. When you say he was an arch europhile, he was a remainer, but corbyn campaigned to remain too...and labour brexit policy under Corbyn and Starmer was a softer brexit than May's, but was still brexit...and they only went for the 2nd referendum thing under pressure from their own party mps, members and supporters.

Most on the left in the uk are liberal socially, Corbyn included, but not economically.

The problem of new new labour is that they think that people are turned off by the economic part of Corbyn's politics, so they double down on the social part whilst rejecting the economic part.

But its the other way around, people liked Corbyn's economics, but not his social liberalism. 

The more popular left wing leaders, and those that are able to be incisive with progressive economic policies are all those who also pacify the other side by offering, for example, to tighten immigration rules - for example Biden, Jacinda Adern, Mette Fredriksen.

Thats the direction of travel. Economically left, culturally/socially conservative. Waving a flag and drinking a pint doesn't cut it, people know that Starmer is a product of the 'liberal elite', and is a committed globalist and a social liberal.

Edited May 4, 2021 by mattiloy

[DeanoL]

On 5/2/2021 at 10:34 PM, eFestivals said:

If by the marketisstoon you mean pfi that was how they got the money for loads of health care sruff if theyd have done it with tax rises they wouldn't have won as many elections and less would have got done. It was one of the ways that Blair avoided battles that couldn't be won. 

Which meant all the profits from that stuff went to private companies instead of the country leaving us in greater debt.

2 hours ago, Barry Fish said:

Labour are decades from power...

I agree Labour are in a bad spot at the moment, but politics is way faster than that. I mean people were saying that Labour were decades from power on the eve of the 2017 election, everyone was predicting a complete rout for Corbyn but he out-performed Milliband. 

Ultimately didn't win but we were within a hair's breadth of a Labour-led coalition government. 

I don't see Starmer's route to power and I don't see who else in the Labour party would be a good replacement but that doesn't mean there isn't one.

[steviewevie]

2 minutes ago, mattiloy said:

Thats the direction of travel. Economically left, culturally/socially conservative. Waving a flag and drinking a pint doesn't cut it, people know that Starmer is a product of the 'liberal elite', and is a committed globalist and a social liberal.

Yeah...maybe...that's what Johnson is offering anyway....not sure labour can out do them except on the economic stuff.

At same time there will be a lot of people on socially liberal left who will feel left out of this and won't be voting labour if they go full on with the anti-immigration flag waving nationalist stuff.

[steviewevie]

4 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

Which meant all the profits from that stuff went to private companies instead of the country leaving us in greater debt.

and it also means the main motive is profit...which often means making cuts to staff/salary/rights etc etc.

[Homer]

37 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

I get confused with the word liberalism. There's liberals, liberalism, economic liberalism, social liberalism, neo liberalism and libertariansim!

Looks like Johnson is moving tories away from liberalism in that he is not afraid of state intervention, not sure about Sunak and co though. And Biden is moving away from economic liberalism too, right? So, maybe it's the way western economies are going anyway.

Not sure if Starmer is liberalist. He is internationalist, but so was corbyn. When you say he was an arch europhile, he was a remainer, but corbyn campaigned to remain too...and labour brexit policy under Corbyn and Starmer was a softer brexit than May's, but was still brexit...and they only went for the 2nd referendum thing under pressure from their own party mps, members and supporters.

Don't forget you've got Democrat too, which in some parts of America is interchangeable with 'communist' and 'paedophile'.

[mattiloy]

11 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

Yeah...maybe...that's what Johnson is offering anyway....not sure labour can out do them except on the economic stuff.

At same time there will be a lot of people on socially liberal left who will feel left out of this and won't be voting labour if they go full on with the anti-immigration flag waving nationalist stuff.

True enough, thats the challenge of FPTP, how to form a majority coalition of people with opposite views.

If Labour wants to it could smash the tories on immigration. For all their talk, net migration, asylum seekers, illegal immigrant numbers have remained at basically record levels throughout their governments. They haven’t delivered at all but nobody mentions it, so long as they very publically treat a handful of migrants particularly cruelly in those camps and throw an evil soundbite out now and then they get off the hook.

Edited May 4, 2021 by mattiloy

[steviewevie]

 

[steviewevie]

4 minutes ago, mattiloy said:

True enough, thats the challenge of FPTP, how to form a majority coalition of people with opposite views.

If Labour wants to it could smash the tories on immigration. For all their talk, net migration, asylum seekers, illegal immigrant numbers have remained at basically record levels throughout their governments. They haven’t delivered at all but nobody mentions it, so long as they very publically treat a handful of migrants particularly cruelly in those camps and throw an evil soundbite out now and then they get off the hook.

yeah...but that hurts my liberal metropolitan elite pro-immigration mind so I'm not going to agree.

[fraybentos1]

24 minutes ago, mattiloy said:

Most on the left in the uk are liberal socially, Corbyn included, but not economically.

The problem of new new labour is that they think that people are turned off by the economic part of Corbyn's politics, so they double down on the social part whilst rejecting the economic part.

But its the other way around, people liked Corbyn's economics, but not his social liberalism. 

The more popular left wing leaders, and those that are able to be incisive with progressive economic policies are all those who also pacify the other side by offering, for example, to tighten immigration rules - for example Biden, Jacinda Adern, Mette Fredriksen.

Thats the direction of travel. Economically left, culturally/socially conservative. Waving a flag and drinking a pint doesn't cut it, people know that Starmer is a product of the 'liberal elite', and is a committed globalist and a social liberal.

Would you be satisfied if Labour went for that approach? Surely it would go against a lot of core values for younger Labour voters?

It is pretty hard to marry the desires of older past Labour voters in mining towns and those of younger Labour voters who are extremely socially liberal. How is it possible to satisfy both these groups without pissing off the other?

Would Labour suddenly becoming more socially conservative not be similar to their kind of pro-austerity and kind of anti-immigration rhetoric of 2015? All it seemed to do then was piss of their younger voters and nobody really believes that Labour will be tougher on those things than the Tories.

[steviewevie]

meanwhile...

 

[mattiloy]

5 minutes ago, fraybentos1 said:

Would you be satisfied if Labour went for that approach? Surely it would go against a lot of core values for younger Labour voters?

It is pretty hard to marry the desires of older past Labour voters in mining towns and those of younger Labour voters who are extremely socially liberal. How is it possible to satisfy both these groups without pissing off the other?

Would Labour suddenly becoming more socially conservative not be similar to their kind of pro-austerity and kind of anti-immigration rhetoric of 2015? All it seemed to do then was piss of their younger voters and nobody really believes that Labour will be tougher on those things than the Tories.

Yeah. It could work, because of the concentration of those most likely to be offended by these policies in labour strongholds.

For the remainder, a credible compromise position based on tighter, but humane immigration rules could be doable. Say matching tighter immigration with a large increase in spending on foreign aid, targetted specifically at places Where infrastructure had been devastated by whatever humanitarian crisis.

I also think that will be the future internationally. Its not on to watch them drown in the sea or put them in camps so the EU has said that it will focus on incentivising returns with ’resettlement payments’, but of course, who would take it if your former town was rubble, but that accompanied with large scale NGO rebuilding intervention, rather than military - I think Thats Where policy will go towards in the future. And there is an issue, after a war or whatever, there is usually destruction of all the infrastructure but worse, massive brain drain as people flee to the west - when they don’t go back, the country’s problems run on and on- see post revolution Iran. So there are policies and framing of those policies that I think are marketable to both sides, and I think that will be the future of immigration policy (which will only become more weighty in politics as the earth heats up and conflict arises over scarce resources)

[Ozanne]

22 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

meanwhile...

 

The Scottish election is the most fascinating one for me, the implications are pretty huge.