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

[SuperBacon]

He is a fucking cunt.

 

[Loki]

He's absolutely right though, the Labour Party needs to get its message out and The Sun is the UK's largest paper.  His job is bigger than placating Liverpudlians.  He should never have made that pledge in the first place.

[SuperBacon]

23 minutes ago, Loki said:

His job is bigger than placating Liverpudlians.

It's not just people from Liverpool it offends but OK. 

[Jazzy G]

33 minutes ago, Loki said:

He's absolutely right though, the Labour Party needs to get its message out and The Sun is the UK's largest paper.  His job is bigger than placating Liverpudlians.  He should never have made that pledge in the first place.

His strategy has always been "vote for us because we're not them", but this isn't going to go down well. It's another example of his saying the right things during the leadership campaign and then going back on it, and incredible risky given the party conference is in Liverpool. 

[BomberPat]

"Another example" is key to why it's such an issue. It's easy to cynically rationalise why a Labour leader would compromise on a long-standing party tradition and speak to The Sun. But when it's the same leader that has gone back on practically every leadership pledge, and has nothing to offer the Labour movement, refusing to endorse strike actions during the most prolonged and widespread industrial action of my lifetime, it all adds up. It's just another thing, one after another, to make you question why he's entitled to my vote in the first place. 

[tiger_rick]

1 hour ago, Loki said:

He's absolutely right though, the Labour Party needs to get its message out and The Sun is the UK's largest paper.  His job is bigger than placating Liverpudlians.  He should never have made that pledge in the first place.

Absolutely right. I hate The Sun. Can't understand why anyone buys or reads it. But it's a crucial outlet.

Completely agree with Pat and Geoffers but having a governing party who isn't those cunts IS the only thing I am interested in.

Think it was Pat who said yesterday that he's not sure it happens and I'm not either. Stuff like this is why. The only thing that beats Labour next year is Labour.

[Loki]

6 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

he only thing that beats Labour next year is Labour.

Let's hope that rumours of Corbyn standing for Mayor of London aren't true, that exactly the sort of divisive own goal that would gift the Tories endless news cycles.

Meanwhile, Labour have won the Rutherglen and Hamilton by-election from the SNP with a 20% swing.  This is huge as it suggests Labour could regain many of their traditional Scottish seats which would prove crucial at the next general election.  It also neatly counterpoints the narrative that Labour are only up in the polls because the Tories are so hated - they are also making ground against the SNP.

[SuperBacon]

51 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

to make you question why he's entitled to my vote in the first place. 

None of them are, they have to earn it.

I know that's not what you're saying, just always well worth pointing out when people sit there and say "Well you HAVE to vote Labour" 

[Dead Mike]

Given the current polling it was inevitable the Murdoch press would start shifting. It happened when Major's Tories became toxic. Populist media can't be seen to be backing a loser for too long as nobody will want to buy what you're selling. 

The record of Murdoch never backing a loser has less to do with his direct influence (which I believe is significantly less than it was) and more to do with him following the crowd but shouting loudly. Contrasting stories in Scottish & English versions of the same paper show this. 

 

[RedRooster]

The Labour strategy right now is very WWE. For a long while, WWE ignored a portion of its audience on the logic that they’ll watch the product anyway. Labour appears to be doing the same; attempting to appeal to people who don’t vote for them and neglecting those who’d be inclined to, as what other option do they have? They’re assuming they’ll get these votes.

It’s left us in a situation where people are voting for Labour because they’re not the Tories. I’d be surprised if anyone was truly enthused by what Keir Starmer is offering. No one is excited about a Labour government. Maybe they’re excited about getting rid of the Tories, but they’re not excited about Labour.

Excitement is contagious - but so is apathy. And that makes Labour - and the country - vulnerable to a Tory Party swept up in a fervour of fascism; if not now, in the future - when apathy keeps crucial voters away from the ballot box.

[RedRooster]

46 minutes ago, Loki said:

Meanwhile, Labour have won the Rutherglen and Hamilton by-election from the SNP with a 20% swing.  This is huge as it suggests Labour could regain many of their traditional Scottish seats which would prove crucial at the next general election.  It also neatly counterpoints the narrative that Labour are only up in the polls because the Tories are so hated - they are also making ground against the SNP.

Sorry for the double-post, but it doesn’t. For one, even Nicola Sturgeon - at the height of her popularity - struggled to hold on to this seat. The sitting SNP MP also broke the law in quite an astounding way - and you also have to consider the fact a criminal investigation is ongoing into the SNP’s finances.

Finally, there’s the fact that Humza Yousaf isn’t anywhere near as popular as Sturgeon - and isn’t a particularly inspiring leader at all. That brings me back to the concept of apathy. Professor Sir John Curtice put it better than I can - these aren’t voters who are choosing Labour because they love what Keir Starmer is offering, they’re simply fed up of (or not keen on) the alternative. It’s a fragile lead; and in the grand scheme of things in Scotland, it’s only one seat in an area the SNP didn’t have a consistent hold on anyway.

Edited October 6, 2023 by RedRooster

[Chris B]

Also worth pointing out that turnout was half what it was in 2019. While Labour are the beneficiaries, I think the jury is out as to whether it's because people are attracted to them or because people dissatisfied with the Tories and the SNP just haven't gone to vote.

[SuperBacon]

14 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

It’s left us in a situation where people are voting for Labour because they’re not the Tories. I’d be surprised if anyone was truly enthused by what Keir Starmer is offering. No one is excited about a Labour government. Maybe they’re excited about getting rid of the Tories, but they’re not excited about Labour.

I was discussing this with my 13yo the other day as through school and me a small bit , she's beginning to understand more and crucially WANTS to understand more, and the best way I could describe this situation to her is through my fizzy pop love.

"You know how I love full sugar Coke? Well I want that and I'm being offered Diet Coke and Coke Zero, both of which are shit" 

The Tories are obviously Diet Coke. Kier Starmers Labour party is Coke Zero, which we all know is a pale imitation of proper Coke.

Erm, New Labour, New Coke?

[Dead Mike]

12 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

The Labour strategy right now is very WWE. For a long while, WWE ignored a portion of its audience on the logic that they’ll watch the product anyway. Labour appears to be doing the same; attempting to appeal to people who don’t vote for them and neglecting those who’d be inclined to, as what other option do they have? They’re assuming they’ll get these votes.

It’s left us in a situation where people are voting for Labour because they’re not the Tories. I’d be surprised if anyone was truly enthused by what Keir Starmer is offering. No one is excited about a Labour government. Maybe they’re excited about getting rid of the Tories, but they’re not excited about Labour.

Excitement is contagious - but so is apathy. And that makes Labour - and the country - vulnerable to a Tory Party swept up in a fervour of fascism; if not now, in the future - when apathy keeps crucial voters away from the ballot box.

Apathy is 100% what the Tories are hoping for. They're essentially defending a lead given their majority so if people don't turn out it's theirs to lose.

Labour aren't ignoring people inclined to vote for them, that was the problem that led us to where we are. The latte drinking, wokeist, middle class lefties is all Labour have left. Their core vote of 'traditional' supporters (Northern, working class, lower income) are the ones who abandoned the party feeling unrepresented.

Trying to win back these crucial, lost seats by 'not being the Tories' is perfectly fine by me. Not being the other lot won the Conservatives the biggest majority in a century. Their literal strategy was keep BoJo off telly. Let Labour talk unopposed and reap the benefits. I appreciate the old thing about people on the right just wanting to rally against something, while those on the left want to be inspired to support something (the former being easier to mobilise) but how much weight does that really hold? Especially when faced with the worst government of our time?

[BomberPat]

13 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

Excitement is contagious - but so is apathy. And that makes Labour - and the country - vulnerable to a Tory Party swept up in a fervour of fascism; if not now, in the future - when apathy keeps crucial voters away from the ballot box.

That's my genuine concern, and I don't think it's far off, nor do I think it's anything like the foregone conclusion people think it is that the Tories lose the next election or, that if they do, that Labour win in any significant sense. Because Starmer offers nothing, no alternative message, nothing beyond "I'm not them". And if, after four years of Not Them, thing don't measurably improve? Or, even if they do, if the Tories are able to convince us that they didn't? A Labour Party with no message and no mission will get destroyed at the ballot box by the next halfway competent Tory, because the media simply don't hold that party to account the same way they do Labour - they're happy to treat a change of leadership as a brand new party, even after thirteen years of government.

Transformative change should be born of national crisis. That's what the Beveridge Report was all about, that we could come out of World War 2 and into a country that actually looked after its people. Britain is far from alone in this, but I think it's a travesty that the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic wasn't - at any level of government or opposition - to give serious cause to reconsidering the way we structure our society, and where our priorities lay. And it's not that there weren't alternative messages out there - Labour under Starmer seem so much more obsessed with ridding themselves of the legacy of Corbyn, and of the Left in general, than with meaningfully opposing destructive Tory policy, or with supporting and standing up for the people the Labour Party is supposed to represent. 

The Labour Party Manifesto in 2019 argued for placing energy and water companies into public ownership, and since then we've seen skyrocketing energy costs and rivers full of shit. They argued for public ownership of rail companies and improved investment in transport infrastructure, and since then we've seen endless transport strikes and the cancellation of HS2. They were ridiculed for arguing for free and subsidised broadband, when a matter of months later everybody was having to work from home, home school, and do just about everything else online. All of these - and plenty more - are policies that the Labour Party should be pointing to as reasons that a Labour government wouldn't have got us into the mess that the Tories have, on multiple fronts, yet it's more important to them that they exorcise any sense of being seen as "left-wing" than that they actually offer an alternative to Tory neoliberalism, or any meaningful solution to our problems.

In the process of sacking off those policies, and distancing themselves from it, they've all but culled the left-wing of the party. And that means that if they win the next general election, and we get four or more years of Labour government, and things carry on much as they were, or even get worse, then what? There is still no alternative argument. Still no call for a fundamental reordering of our economy or our society, just two different colours of the same fundamental political ideology, only one gets to throw us crumbs of incremental change. But if a resurgent Tory Party, and likely one even more populist and even more fascist than what we're currently dealing with, judging by the trends of world politics, comes along to challenge that Labour government? Then we're fucked far worse than we are now. 

In the long-term, "Not The Tories" isn't enough.