GMB plan move against (Blairites) Progress

[articul8]

Yes you did - these were your people. Literally.

No actually. do you know who came up with the purple crap? Billy Bragg.

 

[butchersapron]

Odd that you claimed it was your mate Anthony Barnett at the time then eh?

 

[butchersapron]

Nothing at all difficult here. I don't know why you are having such problems.

"They tolerate a residual handful of left MP's as a screen for their single-minded neo-liberalism". Perhaps. In the short term. "but that this is a price potentially worth paying for the idea that you can change the party". n ow these people will turn the tide an influence the direction of the party

You might say - dream on, it won't happen etc etc. But it's a perfectly coherent position to take. The point is whether the position who do the "tolerating" is undermined altogether. It's a risk.

For who? A risk for who? For people playing your stupid bubble game sure.

And no, it's not a coherent position to argue that something that is stopping something happening (regardless of whether it could ever happen) is a key part of it happening. That's beyond incoherence.

 

[articul8]

Odd that you claimed it was your mate Anthony Barnett at the time then eh?

Good memory - Actually it was
Bragg: Pick a colour, pick a fucking colour (looks at Barnett, wearing a purple shirt). Purple that's it.

 

[articul8]

something that is stopping something happening (regardless of whether it could ever happen) is a key part of it happening. That's beyond incoherence.

If the left being in the Labour party were stopping Labour turning it's back on neoliberalism, of course it would be mad/incoherent. But I'm not arguing this!!!

 

[butchersapron]

Exactly, you're arguing that they're not so let's have some more of that.

 

[articul8]

Exactly, you're arguing that they're not so let's have some more of that.

they're not yet, but they might

 

[butchersapron]

And I would like to be spoon fed apple pie by scandanavian virgins. But I'm realistic enough to know we don't live in that kind of world

 

[ViolentPanda]

typical ultra-left. Confuses transitional demands with reformism.

Hardly, because history shows us that "transitional demands" generally become status quo.

 

[ViolentPanda]

err like we don;t have stasis already? You (and your fellow travellers) have given a shot in the arm of the system that keeps it that way.

So what you're saying here is "you should have voted for AV because stasis with AV would be better than stasis with FPTP".

You twat!

 

[Delroy Booth]

Lot of caring going on here. Just sayin.

 

[articul8]

So what you're saying here is "you should have voted for AV because stasis with AV would be better than stasis with FPTP".

You twat!

Err, No - I'm saying AV would have been a step towards undermining the stasis we already have. Whereas sticking with the status quo is a good way of staying stuck.

 

[Delroy Booth]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jun/16/labour-policy-radical

Cruddas is a snake, when he's talking about "national story of renewal" he's dog-whisting nationalism. he's got form thats what he did to counter the bnp in his constituency.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Being a bubble type like Booth (honestly no one else cares), I am vaguely interested in this union sabre rattling about Progress; I wonder what Usdaw will say, as they're the most sympathetic of the unions to this camp, in fact I think their GS might be a member.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

He's also a member of the Low Pay Commission, which went along with the government to freeze the minimum wage for under 21s, so as to effectively help undercut other already low-paid workers. Has he ever talked about a living wage for all in Progress magazine?

 

[nino_savatte]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jun/16/labour-policy-radical

Cruddas is a snake, when he's talking about "national story of renewal" he's dog-whisting nationalism. he's got form thats what he did to counter the bnp in his constituency.

I always laugh when the media refers to him as "left wing". At best, he's a fig-leaf for the neoliberal tendencies of the leadership.

 

[articul8]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jun/16/labour-policy-radical

Cruddas is a snake, when he's talking about "national story of renewal" he's dog-whisting nationalism. he's got form thats what he did to counter the bnp in his constituency.

Agree with this - worth trying to get a handle on his role in the development of Hope Not Hate broadening out from fascism to "extremism" (far right, islamic...but also left further down the line?) His links with some of David Miliband's friends (he's a big buddy of Purnell's) means I wouldn't trust him with a barge pole.

 

[butchersapron]

Happy to work with and use his arguments over PR and how to beat the BNP though weren't you?

 

[articul8]

Yes - he was right there, but didn't understand why. My point was it would encourage Labour not to write off the white w/c as "racists" but would have an incentive to work at ground level (again).

 

[butchersapron]

Whereas he would have been better to have been wrong for the right reasons!

And i'm not sure exactly which argument of his you are referring to - i'm on about you using 'one of labours smartest thinker' who you wouldn't touch with a barge pole to make a wider point about the sort of rhetorical militancy allied with practical sell-outs that a) this pretend dispute is about and is an example of and b) that the remains of the labour left use to defend their rotten positions.

 

[articul8]

He's intelligent. But slippery. As for practical sell outs, what have you in mind here? I'm not exonerating the GMB leadership in general.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Err, No - I'm saying AV would have been a step towards undermining the stasis we already have. Whereas sticking with the status quo is a good way of staying stuck.

Okay, you're making a claim.

Now substantiate it. Please tell me just how, in any way that wasn't a wafty delusion in a Guardian leader-writer's head, "AV would have been a step towards undermining the stasis we already have".

 

[articul8]

Okay, you're making a claim.

Now substantiate it. Please tell me just how, in any way that wasn't a wafty delusion in a Guardian leader-writer's head, "AV would have been a step towards undermining the stasis we already have".

We've been through these arguments - at length - on the AV thread. My arguments were that it would have two pretty immediate effects:
1) Demonstrating that people think there is a problem with FPTP, that the way we elect our MPs is "up for grabs" not an immutable part of how elections to Westminster have to be.
2) That the left vote won't be squeezed at the first stage, but would AV would have allowed a disaggregration that would help lefts/green target their vote better.

This being the case, the true pattern of 1st preferences would show that AV was still highly disproportional in its effects. It might take 10-15 years and a further hung parliament to move beyond beyond AV (to AV+ or STV).

How long are we going to have to wait before PR is back on the agenda now? I'd be very surprised to see it for the Commons within the next 2 decades.

 

[Delroy Booth]

http://gyazo.com/6504b04b4fd125c3222b469968acb544

I think this is called "trying to have your cake and eat it"

 

[articul8]

Saw that

 

[articul8]

I didn't see this para first time round:

Cruddas says he will be knocking on the doors of David Miliband and James Purnell in coming weeks to ask them to play their part. He talks confidently of "reforming the band", by which he means enrolling the biggest New Labour beasts, including Tony Blair, behind project Ed.

Dread to think what talk of being "bold" and "radical" mean in this context

 

[ViolentPanda]

We've been through these arguments - at length - on the AV thread. My arguments were that it would have two pretty immediate effects:
1) Demonstrating that people think there is a problem with FPTP, that the way we elect our MPs is "up for grabs" not an immutable part of how elections to Westminster have to be.
2) That the left vote won't be squeezed at the first stage, but would AV would have allowed a disaggregration that would help lefts/green target their vote better.

This being the case, the true pattern of 1st preferences would show that AV was still highly disproportional in its effects. It might take 10-15 years and a further hung parliament to move beyond beyond AV (to AV+ or STV).

How long are we going to have to wait before PR is back on the agenda now? I'd be very surprised to see it for the Commons within the next 2 decades.

How long? Just as long as if AV had been voted in.

To address your points:
1) It's already obvious to the political classes as well as to the masses that there is a problem with FPTP. It's part of the complex of reasons for a general trend of falling turnout even as the amount of people with the franchise increases.
2) It's easy to posit this, but very difficult to actually show any mechanism by which this would have happened except that hoary old favourite of "wishful thinking".

 

[ViolentPanda]

I didn't see this para first time round:


Dread to think what talk of being "bold" and "radical" mean in this context

Probably deliberately not washing his hands after pissing.

 

[articul8]

1) It's already obvious to the political classes as well as to the masses that there is a problem with FPTP. It's part of the complex of reasons for a general trend of falling turnout even as the amount of people with the franchise increases.

the NO vote has meant that politicians have - quite cynically - been able to claim that FPTP has had a ringing endorsement from the public. Not true, of course, but it's now received wisdom that there's "no appetite for voting reform".

 

[ViolentPanda]

the NO vote has meant that politicians have - quite cynically - been able to claim that FPTP has had a ringing endorsement from the public. Not true, of course, but it's now received wisdom that there's "no appetite for voting reform".

Among you and your fellow-travellers that may be true, but outside the bubble it's not at all the received wisdom.