General British politics discussion thread

ancapailldorcha

devnull wrote: »

As someone who has lived in the UK in the past and never voted Tory, I myself would never have been able to vote for Jeremy Corbyn. As a centrist, both a full left wing Labour party and a full right wing Tory party were unelectable.
I'm afraid tCorbyn is stuck in the past and has very questionable friends and despite the fact he is often claimed by his supporters as being the most principled man in politics, he is not much different from your average politician in these things.

I came across him and his team on a train journey and what they thought was an empty carriage when they were discussing tactics, spin and what to say to put people off the scent of various things. They were also drinking a beverage from a place that JC was criticising heavily on twitter a short while before about how they treat their staff and not paying tax. Noticeably once I answered a phone call and they realised someone else was, in fact, in the carriage, all discussion stopped at least until I got off.

The point being, that the often quoted defence that Corbyn doesn't plot and doesn't spin is simply not true. He is a politician and all politicians do it. The idea that he is some kind of white knight, who is the most innocent politician of all time is simply not true. That being said, he's not an evil man like some portray him out to be and I honestly do think he has some good principles. But he was a poor leader and has set the Labour party back years.

If Labour are to ever get in power they need to have a clean break with Corbynism. The UK cannot afford any more years of the racist, xenophobic and out of touch Tory party. They have already done so much damage that it's goign to take a very long time to clear up. If Labour don't win the next election, then even more of that damage could be permanent.

The British left never really got over Thatcherism. Their identity has for so long been defined in terms of undoing what she did to the country through policies like increased nationalisation, a bigger role for the state and by rolling by anti-union legislation.

I'm not going to comment on whether or not these are good or bad policies. What I will say is that British society has moved on. It's why the electorate consistently rejected him. People justifiably point out that the electoral system here is broken and unjust but people were happy to elect Labour three times from 1997-2010.

I don't know whether or not Corbyn himself is antisemitic. In my experience, there's a very short gap between modern British socialism and the antisemitic tropes of elite Jews controlling the world through finance and debt. To reiterate, I am not claiming that socialism is inherently antisemitic, just that it's a short jump.

With Labour under Corbyn, it kept coming up over and over again. A part of this is the horrendously biased media here but they're not inventing it out of nothing. Going forward, Labour need to sort this out and come up with a viable post-Brexit, post-Thatcherism vision for Britain.

devnull

breezy1985 wrote: »

What were they discussing?

What was the beverage?

It must have been about 18 months or so ago at this stage, so as you can imagine a lot has happened in the world in that time so I can't remember everything word for word, but I remember the sentiments and the discussion about when to release tweets, timing of things and how to spin things, which is what all politicians do but we were told over and over again that Corbyn is different. But in reality, he's a career politician, just like the rest of them.

It was when Boris was in charge and there were discussions around the NHS and trade deals and also Boris was posturing around the backstop and wanting to get rid of it. I think there was also some big conference coming up and he was meeting European leaders around the time and they were discussing what to put out for best effect of this to grab the news agenda. It certainly seemed a strategy meeting was taking place on the train. The beverage was a well known British Coffee chain.

I'm not saying that this makes Corbyn a bad person itself, I'm simply saying that he is just your average politician who plays political games and he is not the white knight who is the only person who doesn't engage in what everyone else in politics does. He's a politician who plays political games, maybe he does it less than some others, but he still does it.

The problem is that with many Corbyn supporters is that it almost seems like a cult. He has some good policies and some good ideas that I would agree with and he's campaigned on some terrific stuff but the same people cannot stand any criticism of their hero, no matter how valid. The more extreme elements even said Corbyn lost not because he wasn't popular, but because the voters didn't do what they were supposed to do. That kind of attitude screams of living in a Corbyn wrapped bubble. It's the job of politicians to make people vote for them, not blame them and call them stupid if they don't.

Joe_ Public

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I don't know whether or not Corbyn himself is antisemitic. In my experience, there's a very short gap between modern British socialism and the antisemitic tropes of elite Jews controlling the world through finance and debt. To reiterate, I am not claiming that socialism is inherently antisemitic, just that it's a short jump.

This may well be valid to some degree but seems to me to miss the elephant in the room which is Palestine. Not to excuse it, but it is in the sometimes thin ground between acceptable criticism of Israel and unacceptable anti Jewish tropes where i would think a significant amount of left wing antisemitism springs from. The sinister jew banker trope i would see as at least as much a right wing trope as a left one. Boris Johnson and Rees Mogg are two offenders that spring instantly to mind. A couple of years back a councilor called Lee Anderson quit the labour party before they could eject him. He joined the tories and last year he was under investigation for being an active member of a facebook group that pedalled anti Soros conspiracies. He is now the honourable member for Broxtowe.

ancapailldorcha

Mod: Below standard post deleted. No silly comments please.

devnull

Just saw this now which implied that Corbyn has been deliberately provocative.
https://twitter.com/MockDelbourne/status/1322091132919033859

I would imagine that there is going to be a battle for the soul of the Labour Party now moving forward and I see Momentum are now going to organise a rally in support of Corbyn and there's some people calling for defunding of the Labour Party by trade unions as well. Not surprising really.

It's going to be a tough little period for Starmer I would guess, but it was always obvious to me at least that this was a battle he was going to have to fight sooner or later, to take Labour forward and move on from the past to make it electable to the many people who I know whom turned their backs on Labour for the first time in their lives, come back to voting for them.

Hopefully it's a battle Starmer can win without taking too much of a blow.

breezy1985

devnull wrote: »

It must have been about 18 months or so ago at this stage, so as you can imagine a lot has happened in the world in that time so I can't remember everything word for word, but I remember the sentiments and the discussion about when to release tweets, timing of things and how to spin things, which is what all politicians do but we were told over and over again that Corbyn is different. But in reality, he's a career politician, just like the rest of them.

It was when Boris was in charge and there were discussions around the NHS and trade deals and also Boris was posturing around the backstop and wanting to get rid of it. I think there was also some big conference coming up and he was meeting European leaders around the time and they were discussing what to put out for best effect of this to grab the news agenda. It certainly seemed a strategy meeting was taking place on the train. The beverage was a well known British Coffee chain.

I'm not saying that this makes Corbyn a bad person itself, I'm simply saying that he is just your average politician who plays political games and he is not the white knight who is the only person who doesn't engage in what everyone else in politics does. He's a politician who plays political games, maybe he does it less than some others, but he still does it.

The problem is that with many Corbyn supporters is that it almost seems like a cult. He has some good policies and some good ideas that I would agree with and he's campaigned on some terrific stuff but the same people cannot stand any criticism of their hero, no matter how valid. The more extreme elements even said Corbyn lost not because he wasn't popular, but because the voters didn't do what they were supposed to do. That kind of attitude screams of living in a Corbyn wrapped bubble. It's the job of politicians to make people vote for them, not blame them and call them stupid if they don't.

It sounds to me like they were strategizing the best way to get a message across and the best way to attack Tory policy which seems like a normal thing to do but you made it sound quite sinister and a black mark on Corbyn in your last post and I am interested to have a read of his comments on the "well known coffee chain" he was drinking if you remember the brand as I worked hospitality in London and fought for living wage in my jobs so am interested

blackwhite

quokula wrote: »

This is typical of the redefining of reality that's gone on in the UK media and amongst the establishment of the two major parties.

This book was uncontroversially praised by many people and has been well respected for many decades. Corbyn wrote the foreword in 2011 and that was also completely uncontroversial. It only became controversial when one of the right wing papers, who'd obviously been going through everything he ever did with a fine tooth comb looking for dirt they can create, found the book, wrote up an article about how antisemitic it was, and the rest of the UK media fell in line and followed.

It does contain one (and only one) sentence that features an antisemitic trope, which is completely aside from and irrelevant to the thrust of the book. The trope is there because the book is over a century old and many such tropes were commonplace then. It's like saying someone is homophobic because they quote Churchill. I studied the Merchant of Venice in school and that's full of egregious antisemitism yet nobody is cast as an anti-semite for quoting Shakespeare.

It's worth checking the wikipedia summary of the book from before the UK media linked it to Corbyn here which just talks about what the book is actually about and doesn't mention anti-semitism at all, since the book was never remotely about antisemitism, and then compare it to the wikipedia summary after the media linked it to Corbyn and antisemitism here which has a huge section about antisemitism, which when you read it is actually about other things the author said during his lifetime over a century ago, that aren't actually in the book at all.

And I know wikipedia isn't the greatest of sources, but the fact you can go back through the history allows you to really see the revisionism in action that occurred in order to bend reality to what the right wing rags wanted people to believe.

Hobson was well known to have pushed anti-semitic conspiracy theories in many of his writings, not just this one. His recurring theme was that all of the world's ills were caused by a shadowy cabaal of Jewish financiers.
To play it off as just "of it's time" is disingenuous - purely to try and defend Jezza.

Corbyn's endorsement of it is strikingly similar to his defence of the anti-semitic "Freedom for Humanity" mural. He gives the impression that he's quite happy to turn a blind eye to anti-semitism once the overall message aligns with his own.

Sam Russell

The UK press did the same hatchet job on Labour leaders - Wilson, Foot, Kinnock, Milliband, Corbyn. They go through the archive looking for anything - anything at all, and then, relentlessly, hammer on and on about it in the hope some of it will stick, and, of course, they make sure it does.

Blair and Brown appear to have got away lightly, although Brown had that incident of being heard in his car being nasty to a woman voter because he left his mike on.

Joe_ Public

Sam Russell wrote: »

The UK press did the same hatchet job on Labour leaders - Wilson, Foot, Kinnock, Milliband, Corbyn. They go through the archive looking for anything - anything at all, and then, relentlessly, hammer on and on about it in the hope some of it will stick, and, of course, they make sure it does.

Blair and Brown appear to have got away lightly, although Brown had that incident of being heard in his car being nasty to a woman voter because he left his mike on.

Having Rupert on speed dial probably had something to do with the coverage for Tone, I'd have thought. Once they don't perceive you as a threat to the cosy establishment consensus, there's a fair chance they'll go soft on you. Starmer is almost certainly clever enough to figure that out.

breezy1985

Sam Russell wrote: »

The UK press did the same hatchet job on Labour leaders - Wilson, Foot, Kinnock, Milliband, Corbyn. They go through the archive looking for anything - anything at all, and then, relentlessly, hammer on and on about it in the hope some of it will stick, and, of course, they make sure it does.

Blair and Brown appear to have got away lightly, although Brown had that incident of being heard in his car being nasty to a woman voter because he left his mike on.

Khan gets it too as did the GLC back in the day. Brown got a similar treatment to Cowen as the bumbling follow up man but in Browns case it wasn't as deserved as Cowen.

Starmer seems a tough one to crack for them so far though. But we will see how long that lasts closer to an election especially if he has the guts to run on left wing policies

Sam Russell

Sam Russell wrote: »

The UK press did the same hatchet job on Labour leaders - Wilson, Foot, Kinnock, Milliband, Corbyn. They go through the archive looking for anything - anything at all, and then, relentlessly, hammer on and on about it in the hope some of it will stick, and, of course, they make sure it does.

Blair and Brown appear to have got away lightly, although Brown had that incident of being heard in his car being nasty to a woman voter because he left his mike on.

So the EHRC report is based on media coverage and there is no truth to it?

Sam Russell

Aegir wrote: »

So the EHRC report is based on media coverage and there is no truth to it?

I have not read the EHRC report and no intention of reading it. I have never liked Corbyn and have always considered his election as leader as disasterous, as was the election of the wrong Milliband.

I know media coverage of Corbyn has always been toxic towards him, as it has been to all the other Labour leaders I mentioned. The Tory press are propagandists, not troubled by facts that they do not agree with - they have alternative facts that suit their agenda. Always was and likely always will be.

FPTP is the enemy of democracy as it favours the large parties and suppresses the smaller ones.

breezy1985

Sam Russell wrote: »

I have not read the EHRC report and no intention of reading it. I have never liked Corbyn and have always considered his election as leader as disasterous, as was the election of the wrong Milliband.

I know media coverage of Corbyn has always been toxic towards him, as it has been to all the other Labour leaders I mentioned. The Tory press are propagandists, not troubled by facts that they do not agree with - they have alternative facts that suit their agenda. Always was and likely always will be.

FPTP is the enemy of democracy as it favours the large parties and suppresses the smaller ones.

There was no right Milliband really. Labour were never gonna win that election

Sam Russell

breezy1985 wrote: »

There was no right Milliband really. Labour were never gonna win that election

The reason I say the wrong Milliband was because he was not favoured by the party but by the unions - and they were wrong. The other Milliband was not so left wing, and had a better media presence, and was more savvy, lighter on his feet.

breezy1985

Sam Russell wrote: »

The I say wrong Milliband was because he was not favoured by the party but by the unions - and they were wrong. The other Milliband was not so left wing, and had a better media presence, and was more savvy, lighter on his feet.

Ya fair enough but ide say neither had what it takes to get the message out and the real pity was that they were the choices available.

Sam Russell

breezy1985 wrote: »

Ya fair enough but ide say neither had what it takes to get the message out and the real pity was that they were the choices available.

That is always the way.

You do not have to look far to see the same thing in other jurisdictions, including ours.

ancapailldorcha

breezy1985 wrote: »

There was no right Milliband really. Labour were never gonna win that election

I'm inclined to agree. They allowed the Conservatives the right to frame the debate and just limply followed with silly carry on like mugs claiming to be tough and fair on immigration, freezing energy bills and lowering tuition fees by £3,000.

They need to work out a coherent vision for the country their various factions can tolerate. If that were easy, it'd have happened by now but until it does, they'll be waiting for a disaster caused by the Tories which doesn't seem unlikely to say the least.

breezy1985

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I'm inclined to agree. They allowed the Conservatives the right to frame the debate and just limply followed with silly carry on like mugs claiming to be tough and fair on immigration, freezing energy bills and lowering tuition fees by £3,000.

They need to work out a coherent vision for the country their various factions can tolerate. If that were easy, it'd have happened by now but until it does, they'll be waiting for a disaster caused by the Tories which doesn't seem unlikely to say the least.

Personally I loved Corbyn but I completely understand why he was never gonna get elected but I'm hoping that Labour won't be allowed to ditch everything he stood for and he hopefully but certain things on the agenda that can't be forgotten easily.

The dream would be if that coherent vision ends up being the best of Corbyns ideas added to some policy and a leader that can appeal to the middle without going past the middle to the right like Blair did

Sam Russell

Sam Russell wrote: »

FPTP is the enemy of democracy as it favours the large parties and suppresses the smaller ones.

Every electoral system favours the bigger parties. FPTP isn’t ideal but to call it the enemy of democracy is daft in the extreme.

ancapailldorcha

breezy1985 wrote: »

Personally I loved Corbyn but I completely understand why he was never gonna get elected but I'm hoping that Labour won't be allowed to ditch everything he stood for and he hopefully but certain things on the agenda that can't be forgotten easily.

The dream would be if that coherent vision ends up being the best of Corbyns ideas added to some policy and a leader that can appeal to the middle without going past the middle to the right like Blair did

I did in 2015 as well. I was further to the left but Brexit was the tipping point for me. He was clearly a Eurosceptic. Nothing wrong with that but he clearly flipped and voted to remain as he claimed or he lied. He's been voting against integration measures for decades and was the first to call for the triggering of Article 50.

In 2017, we got this weak campaign based on trying to appease Leave voters which just ended up burning bridges with Remain voters. In 2019 we got the pledge to hold a second referendum which was just too little too late. Too many Labour voters in the north and midlands didn't want more prevarication and there weren't enough pro-EU voters left to cause a win.

21st century Britain is the gig economy, financial services and tech. The days of nationalised industries, unions and the state propping up failing companies are over. They need something more compelling than undoing previous Tory governments like austerity and stripping away Britain's heavy industry and manufacturing.

The Conservatives, as loathsome as some find them have two strengths that Labour need to develop as soon as possible. They can adapt with the times and they can see when a hill is not worth dying on. The Labour left would prefer to remain ideologically pure than win power so they'll lose unless Johnson or his successor truly ravages this country.

Aegir wrote: »

Every electoral system favours the bigger parties. FPTP isn’t ideal but to call it the enemy of democracy is daft in the extreme.

Not to this abusrd degree, they don't. A government should have more than half the popular vote. It's not much to ask for.

breezy1985

I agree about Brexit and it's no surprise his best showing was 2017 when he made a good effort of making it about wealth inequality as Brexit seemed a done deal then.

Would have been nice to see how he would have done if he became leader after Brexit is all over but it was probably the craziness of Brexit was the only way he was ever winning a leadership contest in the first place

Joe_ Public

Some stats from the 2019 election. Of the 54 seats Labour lost to the tories, all but 2 were in leave voting constituencies.

While labours share of the remain vote declined in 2019, mostly bled to the lib dems, the 30 point lead over the tories was unchanged since 2017. Conversely, on the leave voting side, the tories increased their 2017 lead by a massive 20 points. All according to you gov polling figures.

It's not hard to diagnose the issue was with brexit supporting areas. How this could have been tackled is open to debate, and the fudge they ended with was clearly inadequate, but the notion that pushing further for remain or a PV was ever the answer is just not supported by the available data.

ancapailldorcha

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Not to this abusrd degree, they don't. A government should have more than half the popular vote. It's not much to ask for.

Should the government not win the popular vote at least?

ancapailldorcha

Aegir wrote: »

Should the government not win the popular vote at least?

Below 50% is not a majority. FPTP is designed for a two-horse race and works well in that regard. Modern British politics has become more diverse with Scotland and NI beyond the reach of the main parties. Then you have the Lib Dems and Greens still doing the rounds elsewhere.

ancapailldorcha

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Below 50% is not a majority. FPTP is designed for a two-horse race and works well in that regard. Modern British politics has become more diverse with Scotland and NI beyond the reach of the main parties. Then you have the Lib Dems and Greens still doing the rounds elsewhere.

so two main parties that flip flop power between them, a couple of smaller single agenda parties, the greens and a few regional MPs no one cares about outside of their own fiefdom.

wow, only FPTP could give us that kind of make up. :P

breezy1985

Aegir wrote: »

so two main parties that flip flop power between them, a couple of smaller single agenda parties, the greens and a few regional MPs no one cares about outside of their own fiefdom.

wow, only FPTP could give us that kind of make up. :P

What FPTP denies England is the chance for them single issue parties to make a difference. I moved to the UK a few years after Ireland had the first green coalition and it was shocking to see how far behind they still were with bags and recycling and the likes. I know people are going to point to UKIP and theyre influence was overstated in getting the EU vote going

Rjd2

I've recommended it before but with Labour not in the best place atm,,,the 4 part docu series Labour the Wilderness years which focused on the time when Thatcher and Major between them won 4 elections and how Labour lost with obvious focus on the fighting inside the party.

It aired just as Blair was to take power, so got access to all the players, Foot, Kinnock , Benn, Blair and yes Jez.

Its on this chap's youtube page.

Part 1.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXaxAbZwrd1QgaiM8Jz98Jg/videos

Capt'n Midnight

Aegir wrote: »

Every electoral system favours the bigger parties. FPTP isn’t ideal but to call it the enemy of democracy is daft in the extreme.

In normal years 60% of UK MP's have safe seats.

In the remaining 40% of seats any vote not for the the top two is wasted.
If Lib Dems had stepped aside it's likely that IDS would have lost his seat.


“MPs are not chosen by 'the people' - they are chosen by their local constituency parties: thirty-five men in grubby raincoats or thirty-five women in silly hats.”
- Sir Humphrey Appleby, Yes Minister



Two of the four countries in the UK barely even vote for government parties.

When was the last time Northern Ireland elected an MP from the three big English parties ?
And Scotland recently only elected one MP from each party.



Here thanks to multi-seat constituencies you can can vote for the party without having to vote for the person.

Here you don't need to vote for the person most likely to beat the person you don't want to win. You can actually give your first pref to the person you want, and then vote for the one you need.


It's a duopoly, the middle ground is ignored in the pursuit of harder left or harder right. Here at least some parties try to attract the middle ground.

Sam Russell

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

In normal years 60% of UK MP's have safe seats.

In the remaining 40% of seats any vote not for the the top two is wasted.
If Lib Dems had stepped aside it's likely that IDS would have lost his seat.


“MPs are not chosen by 'the people' - they are chosen by their local constituency parties: thirty-five men in grubby raincoats or thirty-five women in silly hats.”
- Sir Humphrey Appleby, Yes Minister



Two of the four countries in the UK barely even vote for government parties.

When was the last time Northern Ireland elected an MP from the three big English parties ?
And Scotland recently only elected one MP from each party.



Here thanks to multi-seat constituencies you can can vote for the party without having to vote for the person.

Here you don't need to vote for the person most likely to beat the person you don't want to win. You can actually give your first pref to the person you want, and then vote for the one you need.


It's a duopoly, the middle ground is ignored in the pursuit of harder left or harder right. Here at least some parties try to attract the middle ground.

The effect of FPTP is more insidious than simply removing the choice of MP from the people and giving it to Appleby's:

“MPs are not chosen by 'the people' - they are chosen by their local constituency parties: thirty-five men in grubby raincoats or thirty-five women in silly hats.”
- Sir Humphrey Appleby, Yes Minister

If I have no say in the choice of MP and no effect on the result of the election, then why would I have any interest in the election, and then, why would I be bothered about Politics or even politics? That applies to 60% of the seats.

It is obvious to any observer that the general UK population has little but a passing interest in politics. It is not surprising, either, that their knowledge of the EU is as close to zero as it is, and probably less than any other EU member state.

It suits the politicians that this is the case as all issues bring huge headlines for a while and then disappear, never to bother the people again. There is always another outrage coming along to divert that attention from the current one. Brexit barely gets a mention currently even though the hammer falls in 90 days. What is getting the attention is feeding hungry, poor kids during half-term, and the privations of the next lockdown.

However, SNP have kept their supporters fired up, and expect to get results from an informed support base.

Hawkeye9212

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

In normal years 60% of UK MP's have safe seats.

In the remaining 40% of seats any vote not for the the top two is wasted.
If Lib Dems had stepped aside it's likely that IDS would have lost his seat.


“MPs are not chosen by 'the people' - they are chosen by their local constituency parties: thirty-five men in grubby raincoats or thirty-five women in silly hats.”
- Sir Humphrey Appleby, Yes Minister



Two of the four countries in the UK barely even vote for government parties.

When was the last time Northern Ireland elected an MP from the three big English parties ?
And Scotland recently only elected one MP from each party.



Here thanks to multi-seat constituencies you can can vote for the party without having to vote for the person.

Here you don't need to vote for the person most likely to beat the person you don't want to win. You can actually give your first pref to the person you want, and then vote for the one you need.


It's a duopoly, the middle ground is ignored in the pursuit of harder left or harder right. Here at least some parties try to attract the middle ground.

Only Tories run in NI and they don't take it seriously. Lib Dems are aligned with Alliance. Labour don't run. A fairer system would see a lot more MPs being elected from the big 3 parties (they aren't English parties).