The General Politics Thread v2.0 (AKA the "Labour are Cunts" thread)

[David]

Just now, Hannibal Scorch said:

Thanks for clarifying

I honestly have zero idea what your point was. I pointed out how corrupt the SNP are and said that I don't know how Scottish voters can entertain the idea of voting for them, and you mention the Tories. 

Unless you're engaging in a little bit of whataboutery? 

[Hannibal Scorch]

1 hour ago, David said:

I honestly have zero idea what your point was. I pointed out how corrupt the SNP are and said that I don't know how Scottish voters can entertain the idea of voting for them, and you mention the Tories. 

Unless you're engaging in a little bit of whataboutery? 

I don’t think it’s whataboutary, I think the comment you made was equally applicable to voters in England who entertain voting for the Tories still despite everything they’ve done.

Point is the general population are thick and vote for the worst option because they believe any old bollocks said.

[BigJag]

Those that vote. Have, largely, stupidly voted for a bunch of scumbags. Non voters are the biggest problem. Engaging them and trusting them to vote intelligently is an even bigger problem. 

[RedRooster]

14 hours ago, David said:

I honestly have zero idea what your point was. I pointed out how corrupt the SNP are and said that I don't know how Scottish voters can entertain the idea of voting for them, and you mention the Tories. 

For now, at least, she's been released without charge. That said, I think it's a case of voters to separate the alleged actions of individuals from the wider Holyrood/Westminster party - for example, is Mhairi Black corrupt? Stephen Flynn? Mairi McAllan? Humza Yousaf? There's certainly no evidence to suggest that they are. 

I would never vote for the Tories. And while I actually do quite like Anas Sarwar, I could never vote for Keir Starmer's Labour. To me, that's essentially an endorsement of their lurch to the right. I would genuinely prefer to live through 4 more years of Tory hell, than for Labour to conclude that morphing into the form they're currently in is the way ahead. Pro-Brexit, anti-immigration, abandoning green policies and ignoring expert evidence and advice in order to cozy up to billionaire media barons; or attempt to, at least. I just can't vote for that. 

So come the next Westminster election, I likely will be voting for the SNP. The same goes for Holyrood. Of course, I have my limitations - I would never vote for pro-Salmond or anti-trans rights members of the party. I couldn't vote for someone like Joanna Cherry, Ash Reagan or Angus MacNeil. I'd likely vote for whichever non-Tory candidate was best place to oust them, if they were my local representative. 

[Loki]

On 3/8/2023 at 11:29 AM, David said:

Sturgeon left very quickly. And burn-out wasn't the reason. I'm interested to see how it all unfolds down the line.

Hats off to @David, our Scottish correspondent.  The SNP are imploding at a perfect time for Labour - if Starmer can pick up a bunch more seats in Scotland due to the ruling party there having all their skeletons dragged out of the closet, it could cement a healthy majority at the next election.

[RedRooster]

2 hours ago, Loki said:

Hats off to @David, our Scottish correspondent.  The SNP are imploding at a perfect time for Labour - if Starmer can pick up a bunch more seats in Scotland due to the ruling party there having all their skeletons dragged out of the closet, it could cement a healthy majority at the next election.

I'm not sure how much it'll matter. Polling certainly suggests that Labour will do better in Scotland this time round, but it also suggests that support for independence is strong, particularly among younger voters. I've no idea how that'll manifest itself in an election, because in a Westminster election; the only realistic pro-independence voice is the SNP. Is a pro-independence supporter likely to vote Labour, in spite of Starmer's "no in any circumstance" stance to a referendum? I'm not so sure, even if they feel let down by the situation with the SNP's finances. And heck, perhaps it'll go away by then and no charges will be brought. Even if it doesn't, the influence of the constitution on how people vote here can't be underestimated. I imagine it'll be a very tight race in many of the seats Labour could feasibly win. 

But it might not matter, it certainly seems that Starmer will do well enough in England for Scotland not to matter. 

On a separate note, has anyone heard from @Keith Houchen recently? The forum - particularly the off-topic session/political threads - just aren't the same without him. Hopefully all is OK with him, he seems to have been gone for some time. 

[King Coconut]

43 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

has anyone heard from @Keith Houchen

He's been having fun celebrating his anniversary. We'll never get rid of him.

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

I caught a bit of Nicky Campbell's phone in yesterday. They were talking about Johnson and a woman rang in to complain that they shouldn't call him Boris, so I automatically assumed Keith had been going through a transition. 

That show is dogshit the though. It's where the comments sections of the Daily Mail and the Guardian come to life to call each other cunts. 

[BigJag]

Labour abstaining from today's fatal motion vote. The heel turn is almost complete.

[LCJ]

4 hours ago, BigJag said:

Labour abstaining from today's fatal motion vote. The heel turn is almost complete.

Starting to wonder what the point of Labour is now. An opposition that doesn’t really oppose.

[Vamp]

Reading the Uxbridge and South Ruislip vote as proof that they need to be more cautious about green policies like ULEZ feels like a very deliberate misreading.

The Tories winning a safe Tory seat doesn't mean that the policy will alienate the rest of the nation. Even in the local area Uxbridge is a bit of an outlier. 

I know the strategy is if you stand for nothing you'll fall for nothing, but I'm not really sure why this one result would worry you. 

[Dead Mike]

58 minutes ago, Vamp said:

Reading the Uxbridge and South Ruislip vote as proof that they need to be more cautious about green policies like ULEZ feels like a very deliberate misreading.

 

Only if you really want it to 

[Chest Rockwell]

ULEZ is massively unpopular and it's not because it's a green policy. It's because it's seen as disproportionately impacting poorer people during a cost of living crisis (i say seen as because I personally haven't seen the data). 

[SuperBacon]

I agree with ULEZ as a traffic control/pollution measure, and I think in a city like London its needed and welcome, but I was really taken back by the charge amount when I looked into recently. It seems a bit excessive.

[Loki]

We all want the earth not to explode into a fireball, in a vague awareness of our incipient doom, but when it's actually even a possibility we might have to make a sacrifice ourselves, well fuck that.

For many people opposed to ULEZ, it's far, far more the principle of the thing than an actual expectation it will put them out of pocket.  It's also been cleverly tied up in the sort of Facebook right-wing nonsense that most us won't ever come across, as part of a wider "15-minute cities" conspiracy theory that has white van-driving  middle Englanders pissing themselves with fear that they'll be barricaded into their own homes.

If you step back from the specifics of London, this is the early stages of a far, far greater problem, which is that we're either going to have to start making serious global lifestyle changes or accept blowing through the 1.5 percent global warming target and taking the onrushing climate catastrophe as a fait accompli.  And in all honesty, a lot of people are quite happy with the latter - just do absolutely nothing and then get to act all outraged when the population of Northern Africa decides it wants to live somewhere cooler.

I don't have a lot of time for Just Stop Oil's methodology but I have some sympathy with the frustration of seeing the train coming but everyone's fighting to stay on the tracks.

ULEZ is such a pissy place to make a stand as well, because the number of vehicles affected decreases every month.  There are subsidies available to convert vehicles to be ULEZ compliant that the vast majority of small business owners who potentially fall foul of it can absorb into their business models.  In 5 years time it will have become an almost non-issue but right now it's just convenient sand in the home counties' vagina.