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[Visualante2]

Cameron got a majority because his coalition partners got a kicking and Labour were an incompetent mess.

Labour's problem last time around was that they weren't bold enough. They were just a Tory lite. £6000 tuition instead of £9000. A shadow welfare secretary that doesn't want to represent the unemployed youth who graduated into a recession. I suppose you could call anything that loses an incompetent mess but they should have had easy gains from Liberal Democrats yet clung to the centre.

 

[War Peaceman]

I think the answer is simpler, that most people prefer not to think about politics and would rather let someone who is roughly decent and competent get on with it.

Corbyn is just shit. He was a victim of bad press and a failed coup but given the chance he has done nothing. He is inertia. His problem isn't ideological, he is rubbish.

 

[Maledict]

Labour's problem last time around was that they weren't bold enough. They were just a Tory lite. £6000 tuition instead of £9000. A shadow welfare secretary that doesn't want to represent the unemployed youth who graduated into a recession. I suppose you could call anything that loses an incompetent mess but they should have had easy gains from Liberal Democrats yet clung to the centre.

It's actually quite hard for labour to get seats from the lib dems. A lot of lib dem seats are in areas where the main opposition was the tories, so for labour to win they had to steal almost all the lib dem votes and some Tory votes.

 

[Visualante2]

Corbyn is just shit. He was a victim of bad press and a failed coup but given the chance he has done nothing. He is inertia. His problem isn't ideological, he is rubbish.

Yet sadly, everything the PLP has managed to cough up has been even more so. Who is the popular alternative to Corbyn? Owen Smith?

 

[Real Hero]

Yet sadly, everything the PLP has managed to cough up has been even more so. Who is the popular alternative to Corbyn? Owen Smith?

Literally anyone would be better at this point

 

[Charles Brandon]

Yet sadly, everything the PLP has managed to cough up has been even more so. Who is the popular alternative to Corbyn? Owen Smith?

Probably Jarvis, Starmer, Cooper, Watson, Umana off the top of my head (assuming the Corbyn cabal don't get the rules sewn up so that it will be one of theirs). None of them are sticking their necks out because they kn ow that have no chance while the membership is riddled with fools and communists.

 

[IdreamofHIME]

The 13 MPs who voted against an election:

No surprise in Liz McInness on the list, May did ruin her mother's funeral after all.

 

[CyclopsRock]

I do not think people care nearly enough about these issues. People are happy to vote for a party that is committing genocide on disabled people and making life a misery for other poor people. Do they want to see these things happen? I don't know, but they do not care enough to do anything about it. Anyone voting for the Tories is voting for policies that are killing vulnerable people.

I do believe people like to see poor people suffer.

It's a bit simplistic to posit it as the rich vs the poor, though. Generally speaking there hasn't been, since universal franchise, a government that's come to power without the support of a good chunk of the working class. Thatcher did, for sure, and currently May is polling better in literally every social demographic than Corbyn. So it can't just be about people sadistically enjoying the pain of the poor, can it?

 

[hydrophilic attack]

It's a bit simplistic to posit it as the rich vs the poor, though. Generally speaking there hasn't been, since universal franchise, a government that's come to power without the support of a good chunk of the working class. Thatcher did, for sure, and currently May is polling better in literally every social demographic than Corbyn. So it can't just be about people sadistically enjoying the pain of the poor, can it?

The rubbish FPTP electoral system, biased press, and authoritarianism being instilled in kids already in school likely play big parts as well

In Sweden, where we have proportional representation, accurate news media, and a school system that encourages democratic participation of kids, not nearly as many people vote against their own economic interest

 

[Huw_Dawson]

There's two kinds of Tory - your one nation Conservative, who would probably cope fine on the right of the Lib Dems (the very right - especially now that Farron has declared the Orange Book as dead) except on policies like nuclear defence, cannabis reform or sex work reform, and your Thatcherite/upper-middle class small-state small-c conservatives such as you'd find in most countries.

There's quite a few Tories who are out of sync with their current leadership. It's not for no reason that commentators have called out the current set of parties as being too broken to accurately cover the actual political groupings:

Socialists - TUSC, most Greens and the left of Labour
Liberal Unionists - the Lib Dems, the remaining Greens, the left of the Conservative party
Social Nationalists - the SNP, Plaid
Conservative Nationalists - UKIP, the far right.

 

[Charles Brandon]

The rubbish FPTP electoral system, biased press, and authoritarianism being instilled in kids already in school likely play big parts as well

In Sweden, where we have proportional representation, accurate news media, and a school system that encourages democratic participation of kids, not nearly as many people vote against their own economic interest

yeah, yeah, yeah, everything in Sweden is rainbows and unicorns, we know, bore off.

 

[CyclopsRock]

The rubbish FPTP electoral system, biased press, and authoritarianism being instilled in kids already in school likely play big parts as well

In Sweden, where we have proportional representation, accurate news media, and a school system that encourages democratic participation of kids, not nearly as many people vote against their own economic interest

Once you get into the territory of "the people are brainwashed and don't know what's good for them", there's not much else to talk about to be honest. At that point the left becomes a sort of grand shepherd, trying to herd their flock from self inflicted wounds and largely frees it from the need to actually justify or argue for anything its doing on the grounds that, well, the people simply won't get it.

 

[Moze]

It's a bit simplistic to posit it as the rich vs the poor, though. Generally speaking there hasn't been, since universal franchise, a government that's come to power without the support of a good chunk of the working class. Thatcher did, for sure, and currently May is polling better in literally every social demographic than Corbyn. So it can't just be about people sadistically enjoying the pain of the poor, can it?

Working class people are not the poor underclass. Working class people hate underclass/long term unemployed people. Do not group working and underclass people into the same group. They are not the same.

 

[AHA-Lambda]

People just don't give a shit about things that don't impact them. It's apathy more than deliberate evil.

This. People are selfish, that's why tories win.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

yeah, yeah, yeah, everything in Sweden is rainbows and unicorns, we know, bore off.

Explaining the benefits of the Swedish approach to anyone (whether they want to hear it or not and until their ears fall off) is to Swedes what complaining about immigrants and/or the weather is to the English

 

[CyclopsRock]

Working class people are not the poor underclass. Working class people hate underclass/long term unemployed people. Do not group working and underclass people into the same group. They are not the same.

I didn't? I said poor people. When the working class stop being poor, they stop being the working class in any meaningful sense, given the general small-c conservative nature of that demo. As you say, they "hate" the underclasses and tend to skew right in terms of economics.

 

[Huw_Dawson]

Once you get into the territory of "the people are brainwashed and don't know what's good for them", there's not much else to talk about to be honest. At that point the left becomes a sort of grand shepherd, trying to herd their flock from self inflicted wounds and largely frees it from the need to actually justify or argue for anything its doing on the grounds that, well, the people simply won't get it.

Welcome to Momentum's Labour.

This is how Trotskyites take over parties.

 

[AHA-Lambda]

The 13 MPs who voted against an election:

Good old Dennis

 

[Air Zombie Meat]

Explaining the benefits of the Swedish approach to anyone (whether they want to hear it or not and until their ears fall off) is to Swedes what complaining about immigrants and/or the weather is to the English

Riiight because no one in sweden complains about immigrants.

 

[Randy Lanzarote]

Yet sadly, everything the PLP has managed to cough up has been even more so. Who is the popular alternative to Corbyn? Owen Smith?

To be kind to the PLP, I think anyone half decent has retreated to the backbenches to avoid being associated with Corbyn and the dregs of the party who now make up the shadow cabinet. And anyone with half a brain knew that they wouldn't be able to topple Corbyn, Smith was little more than a sacrificial lamb. I'd say Yvette Cooper has posed more challenging questions to May than Corbyn has over the past year at PMQs, could be in with a shout. Safe pair of experienced hands and all that.

But as for a Blair or Cameron type figure lurking in the wings.... :/

 

[hydrophilic attack]

Once you get into the territory of "the people are brainwashed and don't know what's good for them", there's not much else to talk about to be honest. At that point the left becomes a sort of grand shepherd, trying to herd their flock from self inflicted wounds and largely frees it from the need to actually justify or argue for anything its doing on the grounds that, well, the people simply won't get it.

Well, the big problem is that modern UK labour doesn't actually try to explain the benefits of their policies and the negatives of Tory policies. Instead of allowing the Tories to blame the EU for everything, why haven't they argued for partly reversing the dismantling of Unions under Tory governments? Why have they accepted the austerity dogma wholesale (even though most academic economists have a consensus against it)?

A big part of the problem is Labour fecklessness, but the factors I outlined in the post you quoted contribute as well

Riiight because no one in sweden complains about immigrants.

I don't think a referendum could be won off of anti-immigration sentiments in Sweden, no. Not even close

 

[Charles Brandon]

Explaining the benefits of the Swedish approach to anyone (whether they want to hear it or not and until their ears fall off) is to Swedes what complaining about immigrants and/or the weather is to the English

touché

 

[Moze]

I didn't? I said poor people. When the working class stop being poor, they stop being the working class in any meaningful sense, given the general small-c conservative nature of that demo. As you say, they "hate" the underclasses and tend to skew right in terms of economics.

Working class people often aren't poor. When I say poor, I am mostly talking about the underclass. Working class people can and often are very well off.

The middle classes can deal with and respect the working class. Everybody hates the underclass.

 

[Hazzuh]

Gisela Stuart quits

Controversial Labour MP Gisela Stuart has told her CLP that she will not contest the next election. In 1997, her victory in Birmingham Edgbaston was the first big Labour gain of the night from the Tories and she was a symbol of the new wave of Labour MPs. Latterly however, as a prominent advocate of leaving the EU, she alienated many PLP colleagues and local former supporters.

This morning on the Today programme, she was unable to say she would back Jeremy Corbyn for PM. In her e-mail to her members she said,

“I wanted you to hear from me that I have decided not to contest the Birmingham Edgbaston constituency at the general election in June.

After 22 years of campaigning and 20 years of having had the privilege of being the MP for this diverse, forever surprising and wonderful marginal seat I know when it is time to stand down and pass on the baton.

Together we have done amazing things; things we never expected when I became the first “Labour gain” of the Labour 1997 landslide as well as the first ever Labour MP for Bartley Green, Edgbaston, Harborne and Quinton. We won local battles, brought people together, challenged established assumptions about voters (and sometimes our own) and won elections against Tories that we didn’t think were possible. But together we did it . We are Labour and our values are Labour.”

 

[Billy_Pilgrim]

This is so relentlessly depressing. The feeling of absolute impotence and immense doom is hard to fathom. Much of the nice world that I grew up in between the late 90's and early '00s is being dismantled, the country's existence is on a knife edge and the only thing that can stop it is Jeremy Corbyn, who wants it all to go boom anyway.

 

[Jezbollah]

ELECTION OT IS UP!

 

[tomtom94]

Gisela Stuart quits

So is there anyone who DOES like her?

 

[Air Zombie Meat]

This is so relentlessly depressing. The feeling of absolute impotence and immense doom is hard to fathom.

This is nothing. Just wait for the election results.

 

[Funky Papa]

Please continue the conversation at the OT.