Rayvin

This next week is going to be painful. The triumphalism from the Brexiteers is goìng to be relentless..

Voted for the Tory austerity welfare bill or whatever it was called. The dismal, pathetic Labour betrayal that prompted me to vote for Corbyn. But mostly it's all relative, isn't it? The spectrum changes. In the US he'd be considered a radical. Although i daresay in the US, he would position himself pragmatically.

If Blair hadn't gone to Iraq, I wonder how different all of this would have been. Labour would have been nowhere near as toxic and perhaps more left wing voters would remember the years fondly. Honestly I see more people go after him over Iraq than anything else.

The party is indeed fucked.

You have to remember, many Labour voters/members are a lot more desperate and disenfranchised by the system than you are. You have a house and a stable job. For people on zero hours, renting, no prospect of really increasing that stability - yeah, intelligent pragmatism of the Blair years isn't going to cut it. It's ultimately the same reason we ended up with Brexit. Nothing has changed though, people's lives aren't better - and hoping that they're going to come back to the centre and be all sensible again, I mean.. yeah it's possible they'll do that, but I'm struggling to see it. So I mean, despair at them if you want - but they're more desperate than you are, and will be despairing at you right back. And yeah, you can say "well just vote for a beige centrist candidate and they'll stop the Tories". Except that the current generational fuck up isn't just on the Tories. It's the entire political system that failed. Every party. Some more guilty than others, but there we go. It's ultimately why I'm comfortable backing Starmer - because even if he is a "centrist" (I think he's sufficiently left wing personally anyway) who has no great plans for achieving actual change, I think circumstance is going to start forcing the hands of our politicians anyway. It already has for the Tories, they're nothing like the party they were a few years ago now. Something in the West needs to change - and it's going to, with or without Labour. As for evidence based policy - the evidence appears to be that we need to knock perpetual growth capitalism on the head asap because it is literally going to kill us all I don't really see any politicians saying that though, do you? I see a lot of people coming up with absolute bullshit in order to be elected, about how jobs are more important... but that's it. "We need to protect the economy, and yeah ok, also the environment where we can".

Corbyn won London though..? I don't think this hurts her there. None of us know anything about what it was like living through Nazi Germany, but you can still look and and study the period, and come to a fairly good idea of what happened, why it was bad, and what we can learn from it. NB - please note, I'm not equating Thatcher with the Nazis. Surely that is what we want our politicians to be? Politically informed and well studied. And honestly, how controversial is it to look at a bunch of policies one leader enacted 30 years ago, and to judge them for what they have done to society. I mean if Thatcher had brought in executions, carried out at random by the police on the streets as a means of maintaining public order, would you be saying "no no, Nandy can't criticise that because she wasn't alive in the time the person who instigated it came to power!" Of course you wouldn't. I also had a thought though - Nandy is a long way behind the other two - so realistically, she needs to be seen as an alternative for both sides. That means she has to appeal to the 20% of the membership that are anticapitalist, and who will be supporting RLB as well as those supporting Starmer. The latter are more pragmatic, clearly, so it's probably a calculated risk to try and win votes off RLB without hurting her chances too much with the Starmer crowd. Come any electoral exercise with the wider public, I think we can safely assume the Blair bashing wouldn't play a big part.

Damn, I like her even more now Tbf I'm potentially with Renton on this. As much as the argument on here the other day confirms that I think she's being sort of truthful there, albeit "Thatcherism" is lazy shorthand for other labels, and that anyone prepared to tell it like it is should be applauded, clearly the country in general isn't prepared to accept factually informed opinions that disagree with prevailing narratives. I doubt she needs the southern middle classes really, but alienating them over something that apparently very few people actually care about seems pointless. If she really believes all of that, keep it quiet and deal with it once in power. It's the only way to get this shit past the incredibly informed and intelligent electorate..

... god dammit, I'm starting to think she's the one to vote for. She just has more about her personality wise than the others. And whisper it but I think Gemmill might be right about her electability...

Pickford he's not going to last much longer there tbh.

I thought that was bizarre too, and probably more to do with the fact that most have them hadn't been paying attention pre-Corbyn. But having said this, I do think the notion that Labour will not be a left wing party is significant. Maybe centrism is viable again now because the Tories have lurched to the right, but Johnson appears to be trying to head that off and to become the new Blair. I honestly don't mind who wins and have said I'll vote for Starmer, but there is a difference between what we want and what we need. And I'm yet to see any evidence that Starmer has much of a plan to capitalise on the latter. We need a great deal.

I rather fancy that, since Yougov won't have asked anything remotely concerned with Neoliberalism, that your statement isn't supported by anything. What if I argued that equality of opportunity, and the end to oligarchy and domination of the markets was all "fair". EDIT - I stand corrected, it specifically mentions Neoliberalism. Well, I concede then. Everyone wants centrism. This is great news for you, surely? And me, given that beyond not wanting the right in power, I broadly couldn't give a fuck which way this goes anymore.

Define fairness? Or rather, how did Yougov define it?

If she wins, are we happy about it? I've lost track of who I'm supposed to be voting for now in order to reconnect the party with the British people.

He has commendably just signed the US up to the program to plant 1tn trees.

Are there any signs yet that he's likely to retain power? It's what I expect, but that's based on how dismal humanity is right now rather than any actual evidence. If the democrats win it, it'll be a big blow to this stupid nationalist movement that's sweeping the West.

Safe trip, hope you enjoy the day. I checked out one of the Oxford forums and it sounds like a very healthy number of you are coming up. Nice to see that. Lets hope it's a good game.

Aye, Rafa should have played more in line with the aesthetic standard of League One. That's where he went wrong. Some clubs even aspire to remain down there, just because the quality of football is so good. Even when given a free goal in a play off final, they still manage to lose - just so that they can enjoy the scintillating football for one more year. No club like that would ever sully its good name with a manager like Rafa. They prefer to hire true tactical magicians, like the guy who contrived to achieve about twenty 1-1 draws in a single season. And the bloke from the local pub that they've since replaced him with.

I noticed the Daily Mail suggesting that the nation was "healing" now that Brexit had been sorted out. I dont feel that i am, although maybe in some ways it is easier now that it's entirely inevitable, to not obsess about it. Is that healing?

What's the taxi thing about..?

Do you get a sense, from watching it, that any of them at all stand even the most remote chance of overthrowing Boris?

I genuinely don't get the feud between TGQ and J69. It's endured through decades and forum names...

Yeah ok, there's reasonable dislike of Blairism and there's just plain vicious. Celebrating the death of Blair, no.

Lisa Nandy front and centre of your inspirational material I guess?

Actually no, I'm thoroughly enjoying myself with it

Fight fire with fire. Smart. I mean, I wouldn't consider a race to the bottom in stupidity to be smart at all actually, but then I'm stupid.