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UK General Election - 8th June 2017 |OT| - The Red Wedding

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Pandy

Member
Needed an edit, lol

Phew!

EDIT: Damn, top of the page. Better say something worthwhile...

Interesting times in the Scottish Parliament today, as all the other parties lined up to put the boot into the Tories over the Tax Credit two child/rape clause policy.
Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale, who is usually a complete wet blanket, was on fire and made a speech that genuinely brought tears to my eyes.
https://www.facebook.com/ScottishLabourParty/videos/1363523673739829/

It's not going to get much coverage in the mainstream media, but I can see it gaining some ground amongst lapsed Scottish Labour voters on social media. Is there no chance that UK Labour could turn the GE around on actual policies like this rather than play May's game of talking about Brexit the whole time?

(By 'turn the GE around', I of course mean, 'minimize the damage'.)
 
I prefer "Let's talk about the important issues, like rimjobs" as the OT2 title. I'm not sure if that was said here or I read it elsewhere.

There's a PoliticsHome article that's fielding the possibility of Labour losing over 200 councillors nationally... I'll see if I can find it.

I can't imagine it's going to look good for their campaign if they collapse in the local elections.
 

Acorn

Member
Phew!

EDIT: Damn, top of the page. Better say something worthwhile...

Interesting times in the Scottish Parliament today, as all the other parties lined up to put the boot into the Tories over the Tax Credit two child/rape clause policy.
Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale, who is usually a complete wet blanket, was on fire and made a speech that genuinely brought tears to my eyes.
https://www.facebook.com/ScottishLabourParty/videos/1363523673739829/

It's not going to get much coverage in the mainstream media, but I can see it gaining some ground amongst lapsed Scottish Labour voters on social media. Is there no chance that UK Labour could turn the GE around on actual policies like this rather than play May's game of talking about Brexit the whole time?

(By 'turn the GE around', I of course mean, 'minimize the damage'.)
No. Scotland is lost. Union support has jumped onto whatever vehicle Ruth Davidson has been photo op'd aboard this week. England's labour heartlands have been brexit'd.

Yes brexit is a verb, noun and adjective now. Because brexit means brexit as brexit does.
 

PJV3

Member
Phew!

EDIT: Damn, top of the page. Better say something worthwhile...

Interesting times in the Scottish Parliament today, as all the other parties lined up to put the boot into the Tories over the Tax Credit two child/rape clause policy.
Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale, who is usually a complete wet blanket, was on fire and made a speech that genuinely brought tears to my eyes.
https://www.facebook.com/ScottishLabourParty/videos/1363523673739829/

It's not going to get much coverage in the mainstream media, but I can see it gaining some ground amongst lapsed Scottish Labour voters on social media. Is there no chance that UK Labour could turn the GE around on actual policies like this rather than play May's game of talking about Brexit the whole time?

(By 'turn the GE around', I of course mean, 'minimize the damage'.)

I never heard of the rape clause and form before, it's all a bit Dickensian sounding, and yes that was real anger in her voice, I haven't seen her like that before, as you say she's on fire.
 

Moze

Banned
I think the referendum proved that the majority of working class are socially conservative. They simply have no interest in, say, going to live in Amsterdam, Berlin, etc. let alone leaving their home towns. All that stuff is just rich people doing frivolous things according to their point of view. So the single market is really of zero benefit to them based on how they feel. It saddens me that we'll all lose these opportunities, but it is how it is.

They don't care because that sort of lifestyle is completely out of the question for them. It's not possible for a good majority of working class people.
 
I've found myself listening to a lot of LBC recently, because I've craved call in shows.

Anyone else listen? I actually keep finding myself listening to Farage out of curiosity - although that's countered by the hilarious James O'brien.

Any other good call in stations/shows?
 

Real Hero

Member
I've found myself listening to a lot of LBC recently, because I've craved call in shows.

Anyone else listen? I actually keep finding myself listening to Farage out of curiosity - although that's countered by the hilarious James O'brien.

Any other good call in stations/shows?

If you can listen to farage out of curiosity Galloway's radio show is worth a listen
 
Well, despite all my sometimes thoughtless and insensitive rants about brexit I actually genuinely hope the lives of average people will get a lot better in future and everyone gets a shot at prosperity. I'm not so naive as to believe such a future will actually happen though.
 
I've found myself listening to a lot of LBC recently, because I've craved call in shows.

Anyone else listen? I actually keep finding myself listening to Farage out of curiosity - although that's countered by the hilarious James O'brien.

Any other good call in stations/shows?

I've been a huge fan for years. I actually phoned in one night many, many years ago when I was working late to talk about sex education. Good fun.

Also, go ahead and hate me, but Katie Hopkins is a great radio host.
 

AHA-Lambda

Member
I've found myself listening to a lot of LBC recently, because I've craved call in shows.

Anyone else listen? I actually keep finding myself listening to Farage out of curiosity - although that's countered by the hilarious James O'brien.

Any other good call in stations/shows?

You listen to Farage but O'Brien is the hilarious one?
 

HaloRose

Banned
UKIP are finished as a political force. We are now seeing the pitiful downward spiral of the remnants.

Will only serve to consolidate the Tory vote and strengthen the inevitable May victory. I'm looking very forward to watching this play out.

Last ukip members probably merger with tory party,
 

PowderedToast

Junior Member
I think the referendum proved that the majority of working class are socially conservative. They simply have no interest in, say, going to live in Amsterdam, Berlin, etc. let alone leaving their home towns. All that stuff is just rich people doing frivolous things according to their point of view. So the single market is really of zero benefit to them based on how they feel. It saddens me that we'll all lose these opportunities, but it is how it is.

Labour is in a real quandary now, which is why Keir Starmer has a real hard task to try and hold on to both of their bases. He's been talking about changing how free movement works whilst trying to keep a lot of the benefits of the single market for example. I think Labour is fucked no matter what.

This is a gross oversimplification of why the working class voted for brexit. very few people in general care or even have the time to understand the complexity of Europe. a vote to leave was about reclaiming a sense of agency over your own life and trying to change it for the better. then the tories co-opted the debate and redirected all the frustration towards brown people.

To suggest working class people don't have ambitions to leave the country is honestly asinine and classist. what human being doesn't want to leave this grey shithole for a weekend in sunny Madrid? It's because they can't afford it mate
 
This is a gross oversimplification of why the working class voted for brexit. very few people in general care or even have the time to understand the complexity of Europe. a vote to leave was about reclaiming a sense of agency over your own life and trying to change it for the better. then the tories co-opted the debate and redirected all the frustration towards brown people.

To suggest working class people don't have ambitions to leave the country is honestly asinine and classist. what human being doesn't want to leave this grey shithole for a weekend in sunny Madrid? It's because they can't afford it mate

I think one of the big problems we're having is that people really don't understand the other people outside their bubble. Like just after the Brexit vote I was back home from uni, and an old mate from mine from school was talking about how he was confident about leaving, and I honestly still don't have much of a clue at how he could come to that conclusion. Maybe the trends show it's because people are less educated, or secretly somewhat racist, but even if that's true, we've gotta try and understand how these things come together to make it so their opinions seem reasonable to them.

Everyone around me doesn't like May and Co. I'm more curious what the public who's voting them in are thinking and how that can change
 
You listen to Farage but O'Brien is the hilarious one?

I meant hilarious in a good way. Listening to clips of his show got me into the station and talk radio itself.

I listen(ed) to Farage out of curiosity and because I have a genuine interest into how he frames his arguments.

Edit: Probably could have worded that initial post better, but I like James' show overall.
 

Acorn

Member
I've been a huge fan for years. I actually phoned in one night many, many years ago when I was working late to talk about sex education. Good fun.

Also, go ahead and hate me, but Katie Hopkins is a great radio host.
Oh come on. She's a posh Kelvin Mackenzie cosplay.

She isn't even original. *Issue comes up* "Inflammatory​ opinon" repeat because lefties keep falling for it shoring up my support.
 

boxoctosis

Member
This is a gross oversimplification of why the working class voted for brexit. very few people in general care or even have the time to understand the complexity of Europe. a vote to leave was about reclaiming a sense of agency over your own life and trying to change it for the better. then the tories co-opted the debate and redirected all the frustration towards brown people.

To suggest working class people don't have ambitions to leave the country is honestly asinine and classist. what human being doesn't want to leave this grey shithole for a weekend in sunny Madrid? It's because they can't afford it mate

It's a gross oversimplification to assume anything broad about the British working class, and also a mistake the so called middle class make all the time, and also a contributory factor to Brexit, which is deliciously ironic.
 
Judging by the working class people I work with, if they had the money they'd be in Spain/Portugal/Italy/Greece every other weekend if they could afford it. Seems like every second shift someone's talking about their upcoming trip away for the sun.
 
The other terrible thing you see people to do is try and do regression analysis on income and make conclusions about class based on that. That means you end up grouping the fresh-out-of-university undergraduate earning £18,000 as part of her first job but who can rise to a management position earning £40,000 within 5 years together with a 55-year old who used to work in the steel factory but got let go and has taken up a position in retail with no career prospects at £18,000. They're very obviously not in the same class.

[snip]

Of course, the depressing thing is that once you realise this, you also realise that the Conservatives are relatively more working class (in terms of support) than Labour is - a greater proportion of Labour's supporters are of the middle classes. And that's Labour's problem! Too many educated university students with degrees, not enough people who dropped out of school.

This is happening everywhere, incidentally - the Republicans are now the party of the American working classes. The Front National had a plurality of the French working classes. It's new and terrifying and completely at odds with the historical precedent.

Two great points here. The first one is so obviously applied when considering any individual's status it should be banal, but how few analyses ever mention it. A 20-something working in a law firm or a bank may well be earning under the national average, but he or she surely does not see themselves as belonging to the same class as, say, a supervisory retail worker on a similar wage, or a 30-something mechanic earning slightly more, because of the gulf in career expectations and the nature of the work. Income plotted against age might be a more meaningful indicator of class, but even that has some big distortions - there are plenty of middle class mothers who work part-time (or not at all) who would blanch if you called them working class.

And the other point is steadily being picked up on, but is indeed new and counter-intuitive. It also helps explain why the geographical divide in politics is becoming city v suburbia than region v region. No matter how badly Labour does in the upcoming election, it'll still dominate London and compete reasonably in the big cities outside Scotland. Same pattern as in the US and France. Students and graduates congregate there.

This all ties in with the massive decline in private sector unionisation too. I don't know how many of you guys have experience working in the casualised lower end of our private sector, or with people who're currently doing it. It's pretty rough. The sheer number of people on part-time contracts or self-employed is astounding - in the one supermarket I work in you could quite reasonably have 70+ employees on during one day, most bar the supervisors and managers for a small number of hours. The fast food shops nearby all operate similar schedules - though they have worse/less scrupulous management, as far as I can tell. There's actually a pretty big cross-section of classes here too, of course, from the wives of well-employed husbands picking up some extra money, to those relying on child tax credits, to the young students or recent graduates (often supervisors), to the straight-from-school men and women, and the older managers, which I suspect mitigates any kind of unionisation effort - we all have wildly differing interests anyway.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
George Eaton: "...Corbyn allies say he will stay on even in event of defeat."

https://twitter.com/georgeeaton/status/857164742661681152

Gotta lead that small movement.... :/

Not at all surprised. Corbyn knows he can't win an election personally, but thinks a more charismatic candidate with the same beliefs but less historical baggage might - if only they could make the internal ballot. So t's his duty to stay until the balloting procedure/party composition can be reformed.
 

*Splinter

Member
George Eaton: "...Corbyn allies say he will stay on even in event of defeat."

https://twitter.com/georgeeaton/status/857164742661681152

Gotta lead that small movement.... :/
Suddenly "Lib Dems to be official opposition in 2022" doesn't seem like such a wild fantasy.

Not at all surprised. Corbyn knows he can't win an election personally, but thinks a more charismatic candidate with the same beliefs but less historical baggage might - if only they could make the internal ballot. So t's his duty to stay until the balloting procedure/party composition can be reformed.
Ah I had forgotten about this. Interesting times ahead at any rate.
 

empyrean

Member
I just find it baffling who all these people thinking positively of Theresa may are? I can understand not being a massive fan of corbyn (though I find most people's opinions of him come from either right wing media or just "I don't like him" rather than based on policy or principles) but I don't personally see what positives you can take from Theresa may? She isn't corbyn?
 
I just find it baffling who all these people thinking positively of Theresa may are? I can understand not being a massive fan of corbyn (though I find most people's opinions of him come from either right wing media or just "I don't like him" rather than based on policy or principles) but I don't personally see what positives you can take from Theresa may? She isn't corbyn?

Her big areas of support come from older, 50+, voters. Leavers overwhelmingly like her, too.

The older generations in this country are overwhelmingly Tory and UKIP.

EDIT: Oh yeah, the polling I link above was the 19th to the 20th. As Farron has just been on national TV saying "I doesn't think gay sex is a sin but I don't like talking faith", my hunch is that there will be less don't knows the next time that question is asked.

Should be interesting how the polls evolve, but I think that a reduction in uncertainty will probably just mean more people decamp to the existing ratios.
 

StayDead

Member
These people and Teresa May are deranged. I think at this point she could literally throw petrol over each and every one of them while holding a match and they'd still say they liked her.
 
I just find it baffling who all these people thinking positively of Theresa may are? I can understand not being a massive fan of corbyn (though I find most people's opinions of him come from either right wing media or just "I don't like him" rather than based on policy or principles) but I don't personally see what positives you can take from Theresa may? She isn't corbyn?

She looks "Prime Ministerial", and appears competent. The second one is probably the most important thing in British politics imo.
 

Mr. Sam

Member
Not at all surprised. Corbyn knows he can't win an election personally, but thinks a more charismatic candidate with the same beliefs but less historical baggage might - if only they could make the internal ballot. So t's his duty to stay until the balloting procedure/party composition can be reformed.

At what point do Labour MPs break off and form their own party? The ancient, mystical party of No Homers. Is there any historical precedent for doing so (in larger numbers than the SDP)?
 

phisheep

NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
My local LibDem candidate has been announced, and it's the one I wanted to stand. Good. He came within 3,000 votes last time he stood, excellent local recognition, good sound practical politician. Being as Labour is toast here on account of Corbyn being a plonker it should be a tightly fought seat.
 

PJV3

Member
At what point do Labour MPs break off and form their own party? The ancient, mystical party of No Homers. Is there any historical precedent for doing so (in larger numbers than the SDP)?

They should have done it when he didn't give in to the shit coup, sitting behind him looking miserable has been a disaster.
 

StayDead

Member
At what point do Labour MPs break off and form their own party? The ancient, mystical party of No Homers. Is there any historical precedent for doing so (in larger numbers than the SDP)?

Isn't that exactly how the Labour party was formed to begin with? As far as I've always been aware it used to be a race between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, but then some more left leaning liberals went and set up the Labour party while splintering off from the Lib Dems.

I'm probably wrong on this though.
 

Hazzuh

Member
Not at all surprised. Corbyn knows he can't win an election personally, but thinks a more charismatic candidate with the same beliefs but less historical baggage might - if only they could make the internal ballot. So t's his duty to stay until the balloting procedure/party composition can be reformed.

I do wonder how things would have played out if 1981 Tony Benn was the one who became leader in 2015 instead of Corbyn.

Isn't that exactly how the Labour party was formed to begin with? As far as I've always been aware it used to be a race between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, but then some more left leaning liberals went and set up the Labour party while splintering off from the Lib Dems.

I'm probably wrong on this though.

The early Labour party wasn't founded by people breaking away from the Liberal party, it sort of coalesced out of various "left-wing" groups and organisations that existed in the late 19th century such as the Fabian society, the independent Labour party, etc. However, in the late 19th century the Liberals had trade union backed MPs which stood as Liberal candidates, there members later switched to back Labour.

Additionally, the Liberals made a deal with the early Labour party to avoid splitting the anti-Conservative vote.

A great example of how murky the idea that the Labour party was ever a purist "socialist" party really is. It is also interesting to think about how different the historical relationship between the liberal and "socialist" parties in the UK is compared to other countries such as Germany and Russia. In Germany the liberals supported the suppression of the SDP in the 19th century, in Russia the hostility was even more virulent. If you read left-wing authors from these countries you can see how it created a (dangerous) contempt towards liberalism.
 

PJV3

Member
I do wonder how things would have played out if 1981 Tony Benn was the one who became leader in 2015 instead of Corbyn.

If you are asking if he could have beaten Thatcher then probably not with the Falklands happening, he would have done better though.

She tried portraying him as a loony pacifist forgetting about his war service and statements about how he enjoyed killing nazis.
 

Hazzuh

Member
If you are asking if he could have beaten Thatcher then probably not with the Falklands happening, he would have done better though.

She tried portraying him as a loony pacifist forgetting about his war service and statements about how he enjoyed killing nazis.

I was more imagining a scenario in which you put Tony Benn in 1981 in a time machine and had him stand in 2015 haha..
 

PJV3

Member
I was more imagining a scenario in which you put Tony Benn in 1981 in a time machine and had him stand in 2015 haha..

He would lose badly, to get really left wing politics in this country will take years of pushing back slowly and doing a good job, or some kind of disaster.
 
At what point do Labour MPs break off and form their own party? The ancient, mystical party of No Homers. Is there any historical precedent for doing so (in larger numbers than the SDP)?

Labour's bloodiest split was in 1931. Ramsay MacDonald remained as PM, but the vast majority of Labour fled into opposition, kicking him out of the party.

Otherwise the bloodiest split so far has been the SDP.

My local LibDem candidate has been announced, and it's the one I wanted to stand. Good. He came within 3,000 votes last time he stood, excellent local recognition, good sound practical politician. Being as Labour is toast here on account of Corbyn being a plonker it should be a tightly fought seat.

What constituency?
 
I just find it baffling who all these people thinking positively of Theresa may are? I can understand not being a massive fan of corbyn (though I find most people's opinions of him come from either right wing media or just "I don't like him" rather than based on policy or principles) but I don't personally see what positives you can take from Theresa may? She isn't corbyn?

Probably because she's clear on Brexit whether you agree on leaving or not in honouring the vote or at least talked "Brexit means Brexit" from day 1 and portrayed the image of delivering it so we can all move on.

That's just my impression from others, "she's getting on with it". I'm sure one can argue "but she did this and that though" from an aggrieved left stance but ultimately she's been a strong figure while others still dwell on the whole thing like its June 2016.
 

PJV3

Member
Especially since one of the rumoured reasons for running was Corbyn standing down after the May elections.

At heart I agree with Corbyn, he was elected and had the right to lead the party and let the people decide, it would be healthy for the party if that could be accepted and actually work together in future.

I mean Burnham is some kind of insult now because he tried honestly to make it work. The party is full of uncompromising lunatics.
 
Probably because she's clear on Brexit whether you agree on leaving or not in honouring the vote or at least talked "Brexit means Brexit" from day 1 and portrayed the image of delivering it so we can all move on.

I don't think that's it - it's because she's the one going through with leaving the EU, which means Brexit voters are massively in favour of her. The polling data shows that she is unpopular amongst remainers, but very popular amongst leavers.
 
Her big areas of support come from older, 50+, voters. Leavers overwhelmingly like her, too.

The older generations in this country are overwhelmingly Tory and UKIP.

EDIT: Oh yeah, the polling I link above was the 19th to the 20th. As Farron has just been on national TV saying "I doesn't think gay sex is a sin but I don't like talking faith", my hunch is that there will be less don't knows the next time that question is asked.

Should be interesting how the polls evolve, but I think that a reduction in uncertainty will probably just mean more people decamp to the existing ratios.

I was watching BBC news yesterday and they showed a clip of an interview with Farron where he said that and it just showed me how much of a shit show this all is. She tried to imply that he had decieved the public one way or the other. Either he was avoiding the question before because he believes its a sin and is lying now or he is now talking about his faith and going against saying he shouldnt talk about his faith.

Its all nonsense because he clearly said he doesnt think questions regarding his faith have any place in politics (and I 100% agree) and him coming out and saying this is him just attempting to get the press to stop asking him this crap and talk about his politics. May doesn't get any questioning like this. Its ridiculous.

As an athiest I couldn't care less if he actually did think it was a sin as long as he belives everyone hast he right to choose whether to do that or not. Thats whats important. After all he is the head of the party but doesn't speak for the whole party in regards to such matters. He voting history alone should show you where he stands on these issues.

Its to much to hope for some actual impartial jounalism I guess.
 
Gina Miller has launched http://bestforbritain.org/ to promote tactical voting, wonder if it'll make any difference this time?

Whilst I'm perfectly for tactical voting
when it's a bar chart on a leaflet telling third party voters that it's a two horse race between Lib Dems and the main party
I'm personally not for just asking people to vote for MPs who will vote in parliament for a "good deal".

Because three-line whips exist, and because Jeremy Corbyn exists.

IIts to much to hope for some actual impartial jounalism I guess.

I am OK with him getting grilled, because he's probably the best party leader (on the left - May is alright one-on-one) at interviews. He knows his stuff, but he also is able to keep on message.

This is to me why the homosexuality came up. The media have *no* scandal to talk about with him, so they came up with a gotcha religious question. The alternative was presenting their readers with "here's the boring Lib Dems and their boring leader" - which at the end of the day isn't impartial. Making everything big news is modern politics and the media, even if it's really fake news.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
Isn't that exactly how the Labour party was formed to begin with? As far as I've always been aware it used to be a race between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, but then some more left leaning liberals went and set up the Labour party while splintering off from the Lib Dems.

I'm probably wrong on this though.

Not really, no. The Trade Union Congress used to endorse the Liberals in most cases, but found that the Liberals rarely responded to the Trade Unions and didn't value their endorsements, since prior to the existence of the Labour Party, you weren't going to do any better than the Liberals, so the Trade Union Congress decided to look into endorsing and sponsoring other parties to make the Liberals work for TUC endorsements. To do this, they invited a lot of smaller socialist parties from around the country and asked them to work together, since as it stood, they weren't a serious threat to the Liberals. The largest of these smaller socialist parties was the Independent Labour Party, founded and led by Keir Hardie.

Together, they founded the Labour Representation Committee, which wasn't a party, per se. It simply gave endorsements and trade union funding to the best socialist cause in any given constituency and attempted to negotiate stand-downs if, say, an Indepedent Labour Party candidate had to compete with a Social Democratic Federation candidate in the same constituency. You did have to sign up to a particular set of commitments in order to receive this endorsement, though. You might think of it as a slightly more centralised version of Open Britain in this election - a supposedly cross-partisan organisation that was really a cover to take out insufficiently pro-labour (small-l) Liberals/insufficiently pro-Remain Conservatives.

In 1900 the LRC endorsed 15 candidates and did pretty terribly, only electing 2. This was a horror-story election for the Liberals. They won 46.5% of the vote to the Conservatives 51.0%... but this translated into 383 Conservative seats to 182 Liberal seats (seats were a lot more marginal then, for very interesting reasons that would take too long to digress into). Small margins in the vote really, really mattered and the Liberals became terrified that the Labour Representation Committee would deny them government for the foreseeable future. So in 1903, they offered the Labour Representation Committee a pact, offering them a free run in some industrial seats in return for not challenging the Liberals elsewhere.

1906 turned into an absolute land-slide election in the end, and the Labour Representation Committee-endorsed candidates swept to 29 seats on the coat-tails of the Liberals. They realised they needed a proper party structure, with a more formalised Chairman, whip, party rules, nominating system, and so on, and so shortly after the 1906 election they formed the Labour Party (only by one vote! It was very nearly the Socialist Party!).

There was very little overlap between the Liberals and Labour. There were some candidates in the late 1800s who ran as Liberal (Labour) candidates, but that just meant they were Liberals who received a TUC endorsement and wanted to shout about it. In fact, it was the entire failure of the Liberals to embrace the TUC that led to the TUC taking its ball elsewhere. Of particular blame in that respect is Lord Roseberry. He was the last Prime Minister to be specifically chosen by the monarch against the wishes of the party, and Queen Victoria did so because he was a Liberal Imperialist and strongly anti-socialist, at a time when some of the newer Liberals were starting to have some socialist sympathies.

Ironically, it looks like Vic's decision backfired!
 
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