news & politics:discussion

[Crazyfool01]

gonna be voting Lib dem anyway 🙂 

[Guest]

32 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

I think the main thing with starmer is he is leader of labour who are the main opposition to the govt and unless something major happens he isn't going anywhere, so yes he has faults, but he's all we have (those of us who want the tories kicking out).

 

He’s doing all the right things at the moment, playing the game, slowly drip feeding policies out, costing those policies and slowly changing the public perception of the party. He’s making the odd mistakes still but he’s only human and he’s got time to work on that. 
 

Plus the public perception of him has improved recently too. 
 

 

[cellar]

For those fans of Starmer, do you think he can win a majority? Seems like a massive task, even with the Tories doing so badly (and come election there will have been a lot more shit hitting the fan so plays into Labours favour). I don't really have much of an idea what the perception of SNP is these days and whether there might some decent gains to be made there (if that would even be Starmers tactic - recent actions seem like he's targeting blue seats).

If a majority seems unfeasible, would you be happy with a Labour minority, and see this as a success for Starmer?

[Guest]

 

[steviewevie]

16 minutes ago, cellar said:

For those fans of Starmer, do you think he can win a majority? Seems like a massive task, even with the Tories doing so badly (and come election there will have been a lot more shit hitting the fan so plays into Labours favour). I don't really have much of an idea what the perception of SNP is these days and whether there might some decent gains to be made there (if that would even be Starmers tactic - recent actions seem like he's targeting blue seats).

If a majority seems unfeasible, would you be happy with a Labour minority, and see this as a success for Starmer?

I really didn't think a majority was possible until started getting the recent poll leads, now I believe...but 2 years is a long time, other stuff will happen, so who knows. I think Labour can make gains in Scotland, but only small gains from tories, not so much SNP.

If do end up with a labour minority govt then that probably means a higher chance of PR as part of a deal with lib dems...although might end up as some confusing fudge like AV and another referendum and then who knows. If do get PR then could well be RIP Labour and Conservative parties as we know it, which maybe isn't a bad thing, but at same time would be a huge change for this country. They might need to redesign parliament to one of those groovy semi circles things they have in more advanced democracies.

[Guest]

I always veer onto the pessimistic side of prediction (with sport etc) so I’m still wary to predict a Lab majority but the polls have for sometime shown a Lab majority even as far as landslide territory. For Lab to win a majority it would need the biggest swing ever in the UK so for that reason I’m not confident.

I think Labs lead will shrink to around 10% which would be a majority then in a campaign it would narrow a bit more. So I expect a minority Lab government but that would still be great as it would mean the Tories are finally out of power. 

[mattiloy]

9 hours ago, squirrelarmy said:

I’ve worked out the issues with the extreme left. 
 

You don’t like whoever is in power. Corbyn suited you to support as he would always be the protest vote against the government. 
 

Now Labour look like they will be taking power you’re finding any reason you can not to support them. 
 

Just admit it that you hate authority and being told what to do by any government. 

If a government told me that they were going to nationalise rail, water, lecky, childcare and tax wealth, property, dividends, scrap trident, to fund it- i’d be more than happy to do what I was told.

If you disagree with that, you aren’t on the left. Extreme or otherwise.

[mattiloy]

2 hours ago, kaosmark2 said:

The first point is fair. He's not quite Kamala the cop bad, but he's got history 

“run roughshod over internal party democracy" , can you actually back that up with anything others didn't do? Every previous time I've seen this brought up it's just been with whining that he's not Corbyn and isn't protecting anti-Semitic shitbags.

I don’t even know where to begin. But since its happening right now, the restricting of long lists for parliamentary candidate selection to right wingers only for one.

And its not just left wingers. They’ve even blocked a Labour/Coop soft left candidate for liking fairly mundane tweets by Nicola sturgeon several years ago. The guy who is the candidate liked posts by tories as recently as months ago.

Just today they have overriden the selection process completely to reselect former Tory MP ’Labour = c**ts’ whatsapp message guy, also recently made a Labour whip. This is of course contrary to party rules, but they don’t care.

[steviewevie]

7 minutes ago, mattiloy said:

If a government told me that they were going to nationalise rail, water, lecky, childcare and tax wealth, property, dividends, scrap trident, to fund it- i’d be more than happy to do what I was told.

If you disagree with that, you aren’t on the left. Extreme or otherwise

Yeah good luck with that

[Neil]

16 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

a minority Lab government

whill do for labour what govt did for the libdems.

[steviewevie]

Gav's gone.

[steviewevie]

Just now, Neil said:

whill do for labour what govt did for the libdems.

Or do for lib dems what govt did for lib dems.

[Guest]

A good call by Sunak to appoint him, pure integrity. 

[fraybentos1]

45 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

I really didn't think a majority was possible until started getting the recent poll leads, now I believe...but 2 years is a long time, other stuff will happen, so who knows. I think Labour can make gains in Scotland, but only small gains from tories, not so much SNP.

If do end up with a labour minority govt then that probably means a higher chance of PR as part of a deal with lib dems...although might end up as some confusing fudge like AV and another referendum and then who knows. If do get PR then could well be RIP Labour and Conservative parties as we know it, which maybe isn't a bad thing, but at same time would be a huge change for this country. They might need to redesign parliament to one of those groovy semi circles things they have in more advanced democracies.

If Labour gain any scottish seats they will come from the SNP not Tories. They can't win in the borders or aberdeen

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Neil said:

whill do for labour what govt did for the libdems.

I don’t think it’s comparable. The coalition is different and with the added exposure of being in government could then lead to a Lab majority down the line. 

[fraybentos1]

13 minutes ago, mattiloy said:

If a government told me that they were going to nationalise rail, water, lecky, childcare and tax wealth, property, dividends, scrap trident, to fund it- i’d be more than happy to do what I was told.

If you disagree with that, you aren’t on the left. Extreme or otherwise.

nationalise property? What does that mean in practice.

Is building way more social housing and making BTL an undesirable business not enough?

[Guest]

 

[fraybentos1]

15 minutes ago, mattiloy said:

If a government told me that they were going to nationalise rail, water, lecky, childcare and tax wealth, property, dividends, scrap trident, to fund it- i’d be more than happy to do what I was told.

If you disagree with that, you aren’t on the left. Extreme or otherwise.

Never mind sorry I misread that 

[Guest]

How will the government function without this integral member!?

[philipsteak]

On 11/7/2022 at 3:00 PM, Barry Fish said:

Just wondering if the posters who where so very keen on lockdowns and furlough accept any responsibility for this mess we are currently in ?

From a selfish perspective, furlough was great.

An empty Lake District to enjoy while still getting paid 80% of my salary with a few hours volunteering a week to ease the conscience. 

[kaosmark2]

2 hours ago, cellar said:

For those fans of Starmer, do you think he can win a majority? Seems like a massive task, even with the Tories doing so badly (and come election there will have been a lot more shit hitting the fan so plays into Labours favour). I don't really have much of an idea what the perception of SNP is these days and whether there might some decent gains to be made there (if that would even be Starmers tactic - recent actions seem like he's targeting blue seats).

If a majority seems unfeasible, would you be happy with a Labour minority, and see this as a success for Starmer?

I'm not a major fan of Starmer (although it's largely the past few weeks that have turned me off him), but I think he gets a majority given the current political climate. Frankly, I think a 20 seat majority is the expected minimum now. That said, things can change, and I can see it being anything between a -20 seat minority govt or a +80 seat majority.

[kaosmark2]

1 hour ago, mattiloy said:

I don’t even know where to begin. But since its happening right now, the restricting of long lists for parliamentary candidate selection to right wingers only for one.

And its not just left wingers. They’ve even blocked a Labour/Coop soft left candidate for liking fairly mundane tweets by Nicola sturgeon several years ago. The guy who is the candidate liked posts by tories as recently as months ago.

Just today they have overriden the selection process completely to reselect former Tory MP ’Labour = c**ts’ whatsapp message guy, also recently made a Labour whip. This is of course contrary to party rules, but they don’t care.

So the same bullshit everyone else has spouted, right.

Corbyn parachuted irrelevant candidates in during his reign. It happens during every leader. He parachuted in anti-semitic c**ts.  This isn't "running roughshod over internal party democracy", it's giving preference to candidates with the same ideals.

There's times it happens and I disagree with it, there's times it happens and I like the candidate. Every leader does it, and this is nothing unique to Starmer. Labour did it under Corbyn, Miliband, Brown, Blair, Smith, Kinnock. The Tories have always done it. Look at JRM running in Scotland early in his political career. Look at Bojo having had Henley and now being in Uxbridge. This is just whiny nonsense to undermine Starmer for no good reason apart from not liking him.

Also, Aaron Bastani is a twat.

[pink_triangle]

8 hours ago, kaosmark2 said:

How disruptive do you think these protests are in comparison to how disruptive you think climate change will be?

Being low key disruptive to the general public is part of the point.

Its interesting how different protests are treated differently. In terms of strikes the public seem relatively wiling to accept disruption. 

I remember fairly recently seeing a protest where middle class kids were pouring milk on the floor of posh shop and probably only disrupting the (relatively,) poorly paid cleaners. It's easy to see how that type of protest will never win public support.

I actually don't know what the answer is. Unless protest movements can find charismatic leaders, they will probably struggle to gain public support.

[pink_triangle]

2 hours ago, steviewevie said:

I really didn't think a majority was possible until started getting the recent poll leads, now I believe...but 2 years is a long time, other stuff will happen, so who knows. I think Labour can make gains in Scotland, but only small gains from tories, not so much SNP.

If do end up with a labour minority govt then that probably means a higher chance of PR as part of a deal with lib dems...although might end up as some confusing fudge like AV and another referendum and then who knows. If do get PR then could well be RIP Labour and Conservative parties as we know it, which maybe isn't a bad thing, but at same time would be a huge change for this country. They might need to redesign parliament to one of those groovy semi circles things they have in more advanced democracies.

I suspect it will be the SNP they will need to find an agreement with and not the lib Dems. I think labour could play fairly hardball with the SNP if the alternative is a Tory government and find areas of shared interest to legislate.

[pink_triangle]

2 hours ago, mattiloy said:

I don’t even know where to begin. But since its happening right now, the restricting of long lists for parliamentary candidate selection to right wingers only for one.

And its not just left wingers. They’ve even blocked a Labour/Coop soft left candidate for liking fairly mundane tweets by Nicola sturgeon several years ago. The guy who is the candidate liked posts by tories as recently as months ago.

Just today they have overriden the selection process completely to reselect former Tory MP ’Labour = c**ts’ whatsapp message guy, also recently made a Labour whip. This is of course contrary to party rules, but they don’t care.

I have no doubt that the labour leadership is rigging the system to promote their candidates of choice, it would be naive to think the Corbyn leadership didn't do the same.