Change UK: Chuka Umunna resigns from Labour party and launches Independent Group

[mauvais]

Would she balls. The last coalition took them from 57 seats to 8 seats. Do you really think they'd risk that again?

There's an old folk tale about this called, appropriately enough, Jo Swinson And The Frog.

Jo Swinson asks a frog to carry her across a river. The frog hesitates, afraid of Jo Swinson entering into a coalition with the Tories, but Jo Swinson argues that if she did that, they would both drown. The frog considers this argument sensible and agrees to transport Jo Swinson. Jo Swinson climbs onto the frog's back and the frog begins to swim, but midway across the river, she enters into a coalition with the Tories, dooming them both. The dying frog asks Jo Swinson why she entered into this coalition with the Tories, to which Jo Swinson replies, "I think it's a genuinely good idea."

 

[Gerry1time]

There's an old folk tale about this called, appropriately enough, Jo Swinson And The Frog.

Jo Swinson asks a frog to carry her across a river. The frog hesitates, afraid of Jo Swinson entering into a coalition with the Tories, but Jo Swinson argues that if she did that, they would both drown. The frog considers this argument sensible and agrees to transport Jo Swinson. Jo Swinson climbs onto the frog's back and the frog begins to swim, but midway across the river, she enters into a coalition with the Tories, dooming them both. The dying frog asks Jo Swinson why she entered into this coalition with the Tories, to which Jo Swinson replies, "I think it's a genuinely good idea."

Ok, you've completely lost me now.

 

[Lord Camomile]

Ok, you've completely lost me now.

A variant of the scorpion and the frog story The Scorpion and the Frog - Wikipedia

 

[Gerry1time]

A variant of the scorpion and the frog story The Scorpion and the Frog - Wikipedia

Ah right. So it's in Jo Swinson's essential nature to support the tories? If so, this particular avenue of this thread has become genuinely absurd.

 

[kabbes]

Ah right. So it's in Jo Swinson's essential nature to support the tories? If so, this particular avenue of this thread has become genuinely absurd.

It’s in the Lib Dem’s nature to think that a coalition with the Tories is a genuinely good idea.

 

[kebabking]

It’s in the Lib Dem’s nature to think that a coalition with the Tories is a genuinely good idea.

More nuanced than that - it's in the nature of the lib Dems to think that coalitions involving lib Dems are a good idea. There were lots of lib Dems - including 'big beasts' of the party like Paddy Ashdown, Charles Kennedy and David Steele - who were opposed to varying degrees to the coalition with the Tories. Their opposition/misgivings were public knowledge, but in the halcyon days of party discipline they made their views clear and then kept quiet.

The Libs were very happy in the Lib-Lab coalition governments in Scotland from 1999 to 2007, and it's very clear that had the Blair government of 1997 not achieved the huge majority it did, and it needed some help, the LibDems would have happily provided it.

 

[Proper Tidy]

More nuanced than that - it's in the nature of the lib Dems to think that coalitions involving lib Dems are a good idea. There were lots of lib Dems - including 'big beasts' of the party like Paddy Ashdown, Charles Kennedy and David Steele - who were opposed to varying degrees to the coalition with the Tories. Their opposition/misgivings were public knowledge, but in the halcyon days of party discipline they made their views clear and then kept quiet.

The Libs were very happy in the Lib-Lab coalition governments in Scotland from 1999 to 2007, and it's very clear that had the Blair government of 1997 not achieved the huge majority it did, and it needed some help, the LibDems would have happily provided it.

Also current Welsh labour govt is strictly speaking a lab/lib coalition as it's propped up by the one sole Welsh LibDem AM (as well as former Welsh republican/ex mate of current & longstanding Communist Party supremo Robert Griffiths' mate Lord Daffyd Elis-Thomas) to make a majority

 

[SpookyFrank]

Ok, you've completely lost me now.

It's a parody of an old folk tale called Star Trek: Voyager.

 

[moochedit]

0%!

'Change UK' now polling at 0%

 

[cupid_stunt]

0%!

'Change UK' now polling at 0%

Most polls since the start of June have had them on 0%, nice to see the Indy waking-up to the fact.

Opinion polling for the next United Kingdom general election - Wikipedia

 

[Argonia]

0% seems a bit high

 

[Proper Tidy]

Thing is, in abstract and from their view you can see why setting up a new venture made perfect sense.

Here you had two centre parties - Tories and Labour - both of which had enjoyed recent electoral success by occupying centre, both of which had moved away, Labour to a social democratic position which in today's terms is considered radical and Tories to a more openly reactionary & nationalist position sometimes in conflict with business. The only other major party occupying centre had a history through latter half of 20c of being thoroughly underwhelming and after a spell in coalition govt were a busted flush trusted by nobody, particularly those who had voted for them previously. So in abstract they were on to a banker.

Of course in wider context liberalism/centrism/whateverism is in decline globally which is largely why movements within Tories & Labour have moved them away.

Anyway whatever happens from here on in, socialism or barbarism and all that, at least we can all take heart at the significant weight of evidence demonstrating the death of the political centre as we've known it for forty long fucking years

 

[redsquirrel]

I said Jo Swinson and those around her. Nick Clegg, David Laws and the orange bookers around them were definitely ideological and neo-liberal.

The idea that Swinson is different is crap, she was part of that government, she pushed its policies, she still defends those policies, she supports that same politics that, via her beloved EU, is increasing inequality and worker exploitation. And any opposition to that politics, even of the mild type suggested by the current Labour Party is currently being attacked by the LDs.

If you want to waste your energy keeping on fighting a party that used to exist then that's of course up to you. I'd rather fight things as they currently are.

To anyone with socialist or even social democratic politics the LDs are every bit as much the enemy as the Tories.

 

[Proper Tidy]

To anyone with socialist or even social democratic politics the LDs are every bit as much the enemy as the Tories.

Would add to anybody working class they're as much the enemy

 

[redsquirrel]

Would add to anybody working class they're as much the enemy

Indeed, yes.

 

[Funky_monks]

Ah right. So it's in Jo Swinson's essential nature to support the tories? If so, this particular avenue of this thread has become genuinely absurd.

Jo "we need a monument to Maggie" Swinson?

Of course it's in her nature to prop up the Tories. She's essentially a remain favouring Tory.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Thing is, in abstract and from their view you can see why setting up a new venture made perfect sense.

Here you had two centre parties - Tories and Labour - both of which had enjoyed recent electoral success by occupying centre, both of which had moved away, Labour to a social democratic position which in today's terms is considered radical and Tories to a more openly reactionary & nationalist position sometimes in conflict with business. The only other major party occupying centre had a history through latter half of 20c of being thoroughly underwhelming and after a spell in coalition govt were a busted flush trusted by nobody, particularly those who had voted for them previously. So in abstract they were on to a banker.

Of course in wider context liberalism/centrism/whateverism is in decline globally which is largely why movements within Tories & Labour have moved them away.

Anyway whatever happens from here on in, socialism or barbarism and all that, at least we can all take heart at the significant weight of evidence demonstrating the death of the political centre as we've known it for forty long fucking years

I think that's all true, but also I think they massively overrated their own political clout as individuals. In the sense that they thought it was something where it's actually absolutely nothing. Someone who actually was what Umunna thinks he is could still do okish from a centrist position I think. None of these could though.

 

[kebabking]

I think - being horribly fair to them - that the nature/extent of their opposition to Brexit coloured their views of the state of the techtonic plates of politics.

They are so horrified by brexit, and so convinced that it genuinely is the Fall of Rome, that it's genuinely the precursor to the dead paving the streets and 65m million people eating rotting turnips in the fields clad in rags before the population drops to Stone Age levels and existence, that they believed that everything was up for grabs, that anyone who tried hard enough could carve out political power in the style of Roman Centurions on Hadrian's Wall after 410.

The problem is that no one outside the Guardian thinks that Brexit poses the existential threat to absolutely everything that the Tinges do, and that therefore the plates weren't being thrown about by erupting magma in they way they thought they could take advantage of.

 

[likesfish]

Also chukka generally thinks he's UK's answer to Obama
Unfortunatly he's the cheap uk remake of a hit US series without the gravitas,humour, intelligence or personality.
He is brown and can wear a suit

 

[Badgers]

 

[belboid]

interesting choice, LibScum, vote a mere 11% last time

 

[The39thStep]

interesting choice, LibScum, vote a mere 11% last time

Fascinating wki page on The One Love Party who contested the last election but have sadly deregistered One Love Party - Wikipedia

 

[Argonia]

Where's Luciana Berger going to stand?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Where's Luciana Berger going to stand?

She was on Today this morning and refused to say.

 

[agricola]

Also chukka generally thinks he's UK's answer to Obama
Unfortunatly he's the cheap uk remake of a hit US series without the gravitas,humour, intelligence or personality.
He is brown and can wear a suit

has that ever happened, though? I can only think of when they've remade our things in such a crass way.

 

[belboid]

has that ever happened, though? I can only think of when they've remade our things in such a crass way.

The Apprentice


or Brighton Belles/The Upper Hand

 

[agricola]

The Apprentice


or Brighton Belles/The Upper Hand

The latter two perhaps, but I am not sure the first had gravitas, humour, intelligence or personality on either side of the pond.

 

[killer b]

Where's Luciana Berger going to stand?

Speculation I've seen says Finchley & Golders Green, but I dunno how real that is.

 

[Argonia]

Speculation I've seen says Finchley & Golders Green, but I dunno how real that is.

The LibDumbs only got 6% of the vote there last time round so it looks like Chuka and Luciana are going to have to head to the Jobcentre the day after the election.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Speculation I've seen says Finchley & Golders Green, but I dunno how real that is.

Is there anything beyond her being Jewish in that?