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

[Rossman]

Andrea Jenkyns as the inaugural Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire. Lost her seat as a Tory MP last year. Defected to Reform now ran for Mayor. First thing she said she wants to do: Put illegal immigrants in tents. 

One thing I have found strange, Lib Dems have 72 MPs, Reform have 4 MPs. But you never hear anything from them. It's all Reform sound bites. Is the general media that shit now, it just goes for the low hanging fruit. 

 

 

[SuperBacon]

4 minutes ago, Rossman said:

One thing I have found strange, Lib Dems have 72 MPs, Reform have 4 MPs. But you never hear anything from them. It's all Reform sound bites. Is the general media that shit now, it just goes for the low hanging fruit

I think so. Reform are more "newsworthy" aren't they? I mean look at the last election, the media were all over Farage whereas Ed Davey had to turn into Mr Bean to try and get some publicity.

 

[Devon Malcolm]

33 minutes ago, Rossman said:

Is the general media that shit now, it just goes for the low hanging fruit. 

No, the general media is right-wing.

[Carbomb]

To me, there are two potential silver linings I'm hoping for (but, because I don't really understand people, I'm probably the worst judge), which are:

1. Labour finally realise they're just not going to win the right-wing vote over, and finally start doing things that the people who voted for them expect them to do.

2. That the period between now and the next GE is long enough for Reform to finally show their arses as to how shit they actually are to their voters and/or any undecideds.

 

I've also recently been saying something I'd never thought I'd say: I've been giving serious thought to voting Lib Dem solely on the basis that they'll offer a Rejoin EU referendum. All the big three parties are shit, but there's at least one policy I can vote for, as opposed to voting against.

I've no illusions about the EU; it's horrendously corporatist, anti-trades union, anti-nationalisation, and engages in some of the worst excesses of neoliberalism, but we do need to rejoin EFTA/EEA, and, if nothing else, the British government, whatever the party, has proven itself to be demonstrably worse than the EU's.

Edited May 2, 2025 by Carbomb
Andoni Goikoetxea

[RedTwoster]

It’s all very Brexit. Tell most people Reform’s policies, and they hate them. Then they’ll vote for them anyway.

32 minutes ago, Rossman said:

Andrea Jenkyns as the inaugural Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire. Lost her seat as a Tory MP last year. Defected to Reform now ran for Mayor. First thing she said she wants to do: Put illegal immigrants in tents. 

One thing I have found strange, Lib Dems have 72 MPs, Reform have 4 MPs. But you never hear anything from them. It's all Reform sound bites. Is the general media that shit now, it just goes for the low hanging fruit. 

 

 

I think there are enough people in the UK broadcasting industry who have absolutely bowed to the suggestion that the media is biased against the right. Plus many broadcasters have the tendency to follow the newspapers in terms of what they focus on. An organisation with the staffing of the BBC should lead the news agenda rather than follow, and that happens far too often.

I also think broadcasters have utterly failed to figure out how to cope with misinformation, and frequently equate fact with fiction in the name of ‘balanced coverage’. 

[FLips]

I voted Lib Dem in the recent election after voting Labour all my adult life because I just didn’t trust a word Keir Starmer said. I had absolutely no idea him and his Labour government would end up being this awful though. 

[Devon Malcolm]

Labour and all their campaigners and enablers are getting exactly what they deserve. But it's not a cause for celebration at all because the net result will be a major far right-wing presence in our politics. Labour are directly to blame for this situation. We were told to trust they would do the right thing when they got in, and that's only been the case if you don't mind being poorer and a huge transphobe. They're going to have blood on their hands.

[FLips]

It was astonishing how quickly they landed a 1-2-3 combo on the elderly, the disabled and the LGBTQ+ community. Unprecedented hatred.

[SuperBacon]

Have had the BBC election lunch programme in in the background and this just sums it all up.

Labour and Tory politicians more interested in squabbling and blaming each other for the mess, and your man from Reform sitting back and letting them get on with it while he watches on.

Absolutely sleepwalking into this. Darren Grimes has just popped up. He's been elected as a Councillor. Fuck off. 

[Rossman]

Potential silly question. But are all these Reform councillors who have been elected. Do they have any experience in being on or running a county council? Reform are now running Lincolnshire County Council. Lincolnshire is the 2nd largest county in the country but one of the least funded. I live right at the bottom of the county and we still have black bin bags collections once a week. What's the likelihood, the black bags are going to be replaced with white ones...

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

11 minutes ago, Rossman said:

Potential silly question. But are all these Reform councillors who have been elected. Do they have any experience in being on or running a county council? Reform are now running Lincolnshire County Council. Lincolnshire is the 2nd largest county in the country but one of the least funded. I live right at the bottom of the county and we still have black bin bags collections once a week. What's the likelihood, the black bags are going to be replaced with white ones...

Judging by the intelligence displayed by their candidate agent last night who came in to the counting hall and could see 8 teams of people counting ballots only to ask "Who is it that does the counting?" I think the whole county will be on fire within weeks. 

[BomberPat]

36 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Labour and all their campaigners and enablers are getting exactly what they deserve. But it's not a cause for celebration at all because the net result will be a major far right-wing presence in our politics. Labour are directly to blame for this situation. We were told to trust they would do the right thing when they got in, and that's only been the case if you don't mind being poorer and a huge transphobe. They're going to have blood on their hands.

what's staggering is that, even acknowledging that they inherited a shitshow from the Tories, they've completely trashed what reputation they had left in under a year with a series of completely foreseeable own goals and stupid decisions. And they've done all that despite having a whopping great majority, so they don't even have the excuse of other parties' MPs being obstructionist - for anyone who still had any hope that Labour could be something better, they've made it clear that they have no intention of it, that this is just who they are now. It's difficult to blame anyone saying they'll never vote for them again after that. And I've seen emails sent out from Labour during these local elections that are still just saying "the alternative is worse", and for fuck's sake, how many times will it take for centrist politicians to learn that "we're not the other guy" is hardly a rallying cry to inspire people out to the voting booth?

Their situation is different, if only largely because of proximity, but it's made even more annoying by seeing the Canadian conservatives' lead in the polls absolutely tank because voters took one look at the US and thought, "fuck that!" and voted liberal, and seeing absolutely no equivalent movement in the UK. Apples and oranges for a lot of reasons, including these "just" being local elections, but it doesn't bode well.

[Devon Malcolm]

"So what we need to do, lads, is instead of changing direction back to being a party that left-wing voters might want to vote for and siginicantly lessen the possible impact of Reform we will instead double-down on all the deeply unpopular and hostile policies we've trotted out instead. Roll on 2029!"

What a horrible, useless cunt this man is. But at least he was 'electable'!

[tiger_rick]

1 hour ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Labour and all their campaigners and enablers are getting exactly what they deserve. But it's not a cause for celebration at all because the net result will be a major far right-wing presence in our politics. Labour are directly to blame for this situation. We were told to trust they would do the right thing when they got in, and that's only been the case if you don't mind being poorer and a huge transphobe. They're going to have blood on their hands.

Nothing much to disagree with here, other than the rise of the right isn't purely a Labour issue. It's been coming for a decade all over Europe. As a moron who voted for them, I accept my part though. They won't get another vote of mine.

[Carbomb]

1 hour ago, BomberPat said:

what's staggering is that, even acknowledging that they inherited a shitshow from the Tories, they've completely trashed what reputation they had left in under a year with a series of completely foreseeable own goals and stupid decisions. And they've done all that despite having a whopping great majority, so they don't even have the excuse of other parties' MPs being obstructionist - for anyone who still had any hope that Labour could be something better, they've made it clear that they have no intention of it, that this is just who they are now. It's difficult to blame anyone saying they'll never vote for them again after that. And I've seen emails sent out from Labour during these local elections that are still just saying "the alternative is worse", and for fuck's sake, how many times will it take for centrist politicians to learn that "we're not the other guy" is hardly a rallying cry to inspire people out to the voting booth?

Their situation is different, if only largely because of proximity, but it's made even more annoying by seeing the Canadian conservatives' lead in the polls absolutely tank because voters took one look at the US and thought, "fuck that!" and voted liberal, and seeing absolutely no equivalent movement in the UK. Apples and oranges for a lot of reasons, including these "just" being local elections, but it doesn't bode well.

It's not just the politicians, though - it's the voters as well.

I, like many, switched from Twatter to BlueSky, and for the most part it's been great. The worst element of it, however, is all the fucking "centrists" and Liberals, both American and British, still refusing to reflect or take any fucking responsibility for their part in the rise of the far-right. As far as they're concerned, it's still the left's fault. The arrogance is absolutely staggering. They spend years telling us, not just with their words, but their actions as well, that they don't want our vote, then lambast us for not voting for their spoonful of warm diarrhoea. BlueSky is festooned with those pricks.

The American ones are broadly hiding behind the perspective of "Kamala was a black woman, so it was clearly racism/misogynoir", so they've got even less motivation to introspect and consider that she lost the vote by giving them nothing to vote for, and did what Starmer is doing, i.e. pandering to the right-wingers who would never vote for her, and losing the people who definitely would have if she'd just given them one positive reason, not an "I'm not Trump" one.

Edited May 2, 2025 by Carbomb
Dan Petrescu