Politics

[Rayvin 5176]

That's a domestic issue. I'm curious as to why Owen Smith appears to be trying to conflate criticism of a racist state with the whole anti-semitism debacle.

 

Well I'm not actually, I understand why he's doing it. I just think he's a cunt.

[Christmas Tree 4686]

20 minutes ago, Rayvin said:

I'd be curious to understand their motivations though. Are they really about supremacy or is there a pragmatic reason for it...

 

Either way, I still don't understand why a country that isn't a threat to the UK in any way (despite being racist), is the Labour party's main foreign policy issue right now.

 

I don’t understand the fascination either. My best guess is it’s not the Labour Party as such, more some of the membership it’s dragged in over the last few years and some of the shadowy figures in the background who have risen to prominence. 

 

Cant say I remember much of this from Labour under Blair, Brown or Miliband.

 

Just a massive own goal for the party given everything else going on that people actually care about.

[Rayvin 5176]

Tbf, if I thought this nonsense had the slightest chance of unseating Corbyn, I'd actually be prepared to go along with it.

 

But it doesn't. It's not washing with the membership, so it's a total waste of time except to harm Labour's chances in any manner of election.

[Meenzer 15401]

This is literally the only message Labour needs to be hammering home right now, and instead we're relying on the presenter of The Word to say it.

 

Might as well appoint Huffty as Shadow NI Secretary while they're at it, she probably knows more than Karen Bradley anyway.

 

 

[ewerk 30259]

13 minutes ago, Rayvin said:

That's a domestic issue. I'm curious as to why Owen Smith appears to be trying to conflate criticism of a racist state with the whole anti-semitism debacle.

 

Well I'm not actually, I understand why he's doing it. I just think he's a cunt.

Modern day Israel has barely been mentioned in all this.

[Rayvin 5176]

Apart from by Owen Smith, in that tweet.

[NJS 4371]

It's the only thing they can get Corbyn on that's supposedly nasty enough to force him out. 

 

Thing is with the membership as it is, if he does go, the next leader will probably follow the same moderately leftist agenda so they'll have to get him or her on something else. 

 

Would almost be funny if Ed milliband returned but more true to his beliefs this time - we'd be back to bacon fucking sandwich critiques. 

[Rayvin 5176]

3 minutes ago, NJS said:

It's the only thing they can get Corbyn on that's supposedly nasty enough to force him out. 

 

Thing is with the membership as it is, if he does go, the next leader will probably follow the same moderately leftist agenda so they'll have to get him or her on something else. 

 

Would almost be funny if Ed milliband returned but more true to his beliefs this time - we'd be back to bacon fucking sandwich critiques. 

 

Well yeah at this point we have to hope that we get someone with a similar vision to Corbyn (possibly a little more globalist for my tastes) who isn't a fucking nugget. Thornberry would be my choice at present.

 

This stuff isn't going to force him out though. I mean if May can get away with the horror show she's presided over, there's no chance this shit is going to take Corbyn down.

[ewerk 30259]

38 minutes ago, Rayvin said:

Apart from by Owen Smith, in that tweet.

Yes but it hasn’t been part of the wider discourse.

[PaddockLad 17079]

7 hours ago, ewerk said:

So it makes sense now why Johnson took so long to move out of his grace and favour house. His wife has kicked him out again after cheating on her for the third time. 

 

Old Max here speaks for us all I feel...

 

 

[Rayvin 5176]

20 minutes ago, ewerk said:

Yes but it hasn’t been part of the wider discourse.

 

I know but... I did say "I'm curious why Owen Smith etc etc..."

 

I acknowledge they're two different things, but his attempts to conflate the two are why I called him a cunt.

[strawb 4181]

2 minutes ago, PaddockLad said:

 

Old Max here speaks for us all I feel...

 

 

It helps that she looks like she died in a house fire I imagine

[TheGingerQuiff 2412]

 

 

[Rayvin 5176]

Looking kind of shakey in Sweden atm... 19% for the far right.

 

At some point you would think that Europe in general needs to respond to this with a narrative sea change or something...

[Ayatollah Hermione 13794]

A world war worked last time

[Rayvin 5176]

2 hours ago, Ayatollah Hermione said:

A world war worked last time

 

I vote we don't let the fascists into power this time around. Controversial maybe but y'know...

[ewerk 30259]

12 hours ago, Rayvin said:

Looking kind of shakey in Sweden atm... 19% for the far right.

 

At some point you would think that Europe in general needs to respond to this with a narrative sea change or something...

They got 12.9% at the last election which is pretty much what UKIP got in 2015. FPTP does have some advantages.

[Rayvin 5176]

Indeed. In fact the stifling of UKIP is pretty much the only good thing about FPTP. On the other hand, the Tories gave them what they wanted anyway.

[Rayvin 5176]

So 17.6% in the end. First election since they let in 160k asylum seekers, more than any other EU country.

 

Tbh, that doesn't seem like such a big deal to me but i guess Sweden is a smaller country, so proportionally it's a bigger issue.

 

The consistency of these far right gains in Europe should be telling us something, and it continues to be dismaying that the left and centre refuse to answer it with anything other than lipservice.

Edited September 10, 2018 by Rayvin

[PaddockLad 17079]

There’s not much you can say to convince someone who’s had enough of immigration though. They want to believe its the biggest issue in their lives and will vote accordingly. I work with people every day like this. People with blessed lives who think everything is shit because there’s a Polish lass with a pran in the doctors surgery. Never mind the homeless junkie crashed out on the green outside the surgery at half one on a Tuesday lunchtime. He was born in England, it’s his right to intimidate everyone in the area, mug people, smear his own shit all over the wall of the car park undercroft where he sleeps. This is all happening just over a mile from millionaires playground Sandbanks. Bigots more offended by EU nationals grafting their arses off than the utter scumbags they went to school with, basically because of fuckin flags. 

[Rayvin 5176]

I still think the bigger issue is the collision of cultures between Islam and the West rather than the Poles - although frankly I don't know, so I could be entirely wrong.

 

I would say you develop a narrative attacking another group. A group that can take it, maybe. The rich perhaps...

 

EDIT - even better, corporations - no human face to them.

Edited September 10, 2018 by Rayvin

[Rayvin 5176]

Different topic, but I came across this post in the Guardian by a commenter who was formerly a LibDem member - obviously I agree with the sentiments:

 

Full disclosure - I was a Lib Dem member for 29 years. I helped set up the SDP and worked on the merger with the Liberals. I can say with a degree of certainty but with a heavy heart that there is no room left in British politics for the Lib Dems and it is all their own fault.

I left the Lib Dems on the day the Coalition Agreement was signed and from that point on the Lib Dems were finished. Our special sauce was the "none of the above vote". The minute we were in bed with the Tories we were no longer the radical free thinkers of the Kennedy era. We were just a temporary brake on a Tory government which we should never have trusted. Nick Clegg has a great deal to answer for.

The current Lib Dem brand of reasonableness is out of tune with the times. Corporatism and right wing nationalism requires more radical opposition and sensible moderation does not cut any ice. Only the Labour Party can get this country out of the mess it is in. In some respects they are doing a good job of changing the agenda away from austerity and pandering to big business. In others they are hamstrung by a leader more interested in Gaza than Gateshead.

There is no room for the Lib Dems or any cobbled together centre party - especially one run by Chuka Ummuna and Tony Blair.

[PaddockLad 17079]

27 minutes ago, Rayvin said:

I still think the bigger issue is the collision of cultures between Islam and the West rather than the Poles - although frankly I don't know, so I could be entirely wrong.

 

I would say you develop a narrative attacking another group. A group that can take it, maybe. The rich perhaps...

 

EDIT - even better, corporations - no human face to them.

 

Jezza is doing that. But most of his political power bases voted to leave. 

[Rayvin 5176]

2 minutes ago, PaddockLad said:

 

Jezza is doing that. But most of his political power bases voted to leave. 

 

Yeah but the membership didn't. This is what I don't get about Corbyn, and is probably the source of most of my disappointment with him - it's not like it would be hard for him to just rock up one day, point to the membership (and now, 2:1, even the unions) and back a second referendum. I mean his power base can't really argue that one without hamstringing the party apart more effectively than the Blairites have been trying to do. Even if he is a Brexiteer, he should have the vision to see that if Labour u-turned, even now, they'd have all the ammunition they needed to take the Tories on properly - and that he will have a better chance to enact his program as a result.

[PaddockLad 17079]

Nothing matters more to the real left than their precious fuckin principles though. He’d rather have his teeth pulled out with pliers than  go against what he believes in. The EU stops  the march to true socialism.  

 

There was a middle way but he’s probably out of time for it now, heard a couple of people mention it. Earlier this year Corbyn could have suggested  a referendum on whether to accept the inevitable dogs dinner currently being negotiated by D Raab & the dickheads or just to crash straight out. Either way we’ll be out but there would be a chance of some Vaseline being applied beforehand. I think a lot of Europhile MPs might have gone for that and it may have forced a GE.