Hold your nose and vote Labour?

[Silas Loom]

Anyone still think that it’s going to help to vote for Thatcher II: This Time It’s Serious?

Still 57 out of 181 on a board whose centre of gravity is basically Momentum. That’s a good indicator that the triangulation is shrewdly pitched.

 

[Pickman's model]

Starmer & Reeves are the secret Thatcher fanclub.

shammer and reeves sound like they have half of a decent comedy duo

 

[Fedayn]

If it was Matt Kerr, he stood in 2017 (narrowly lost by 60 votes) and 2019, he also said he would only take a workers wage I would have voted Labour. The candidate fat the next election, a surgeon, who ios on and is supported supported by the Right of the party, means I won;'t.

 

[andysays]

Starmer & Reeves are the secret Thatcher fanclub.

Nothing secret about it

 

[Dystopiary]

What we need is neoliberalism, but more, says Labour.

And in five or ten years' time the Tories will be reelected on a reform ticket of outright social repression, murderous border policies, hardcore economic "libertarianism" etc etc. But don't worry, our two-party system means we can't have a "far" right government.

Labour will in turn mirror these policies while mouthing vaguely that they're the only alternative, and "political realists" will continue to tell us that obsessing about the polls is the only viable route to change.

"If you don't vote you're abandoning vulnerable people" will be shouted boldly as the government signs off sales of the last public assets to fund an enlargement of privatised prison places for "public nuisance" protest prisoners. "Just think what the Tories would be doing if they were in power though," the Home Secretary opines.

And happily shouted at people who are themselves vulnerable. [irony-ometer gif]

 

[skyscraper101]

Seems a weird thing to get wound up about that Labour will largely occupy the same neoliberal politics as Thatch et al. It's been the only route to power in the UK for consecutive Tory and Labour governments for the last 40 odd years. The best anyone can hope for is that Starmer & Reeves will keep loons like Truss away from power, and cancel obviously flawed policies like the Rwanda project. Anyone hoping for the next Corbyn will be waiting a long time.

 

[Pickman's model]

Seems a weird thing to get wound up about that Labour will largely occupy the same neoliberal politics as Thatch et al. It's been the only route to power in the UK for consecutive Tory and Labour governments for the last 40 odd years. The best anyone can hope for is that Starmer & Reeves will keep loons like Truss away from power, and cancel obviously flawed policies like the Rwanda project. Anyone hoping for the next Corbyn will be waiting a long time.

It's not the only route, it's the route they think will work so it's what they offered. We'll have unprincipled rw wankers in power whoever wins, it's not that much of a choice is it.

 

[Serge Forward]

Also, didn't Labour say the Rwanda project doesn't go far enough, or something equally racist and shit?

 

[skyscraper101]

It's not the only route, it's the route they think will work so it's what they offered. We'll have unprincipled rw wankers in power whoever wins, it's not that much of a choice is it.

The most recent example of an alternative was 5 years ago when Labour were defeated by the worst margin since 1935. Labour's similar adventures with Foot/Kinnock in the 80s all point to one thing - as long as our current system is in place there is no other route to power other than occupying the centre-right politics of Thatch, Blair/Brown, Cameron etc.

 

[Rob Ray]

And thus the active body politic dies, with The People saying "well, best of a bad lot, nohing to be done" and the ruling elites breathing a huge sigh of relief that they don't have to pretend any more. Boris as a forerunner of our very own Orban, who I'd guess (in my more pessimistic moments) is less than a generation away. It may even be an apparatchik currently learning at the knee of one of the Tory headbangers.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

The centre-right politics of Thatcher?

 

[Larry O'Hara]

How did Diane Abbott provoke the head of a company to make racist and sexist comments about her?

I surmise this was when St Jeremy still headed Labour and the election was due

 

[brogdale]

I surmise this was when St Jeremy still headed Labour and the election was due

Yes, Hester's expressed desire to assassinate her occurred when she was Shadow HS with aspiration to serve in that office after the 2019 GE. Can see why that might have triggered the vile racist.

 

[redsquirrel]

Anyone hoping for the next Corbyn will be waiting a long time.

Significant numbers of Labour members voted for Starmer because he was promising to keep Corbyn's policies without the baggage.

And while it was daft to believe Starmer would not sell out as soon as he could, he has not just shifted the party to the right of the Cornyn era, but to the right of the current Democratic Party and arguably to the right of where it was under Miliband.

 

[Pickman's model]

The most recent example of an alternative was 5 years ago when Labour were defeated by the worst margin since 1935. Labour's similar adventures with Foot/Kinnock in the 80s all point to one thing - as long as our current system is in place there is no other route to power other than occupying the centre-right politics of Thatch, Blair/Brown, Cameron etc.

that's really not a particularly good example, as it's an outlier in a load of ways - the 'let's get brexit done' election, where the tory party hammered home that one message while an incompetent labour campaign was far less focussed, with an utterly incoherent europe policy. in addition, the then leader of the labour party had been vilified effectively for alleged anti-semitism and being the next thing to a latter-day lenin which didn't go down too well with traditional labour supporters. the election wasn't really about thatcherism / non-thatcherism but 'the will of the people', whether the 2016 'will of the people' was to be accepted: or whether they really ought to be asked to vote again or something. the 2017 election presented a greater choice between some form of 'thatcherism' or the most tepid form of social democracy, and so would be a rather better example for your claim. a surge of support for the diluted social democracy demonstrates that there's considerable interest yet in non-thatcherite options.

 

[skyscraper101]

Significant numbers of Labour members voted for Starmer because he was promising to keep Corbyn's policies without the baggage.

And while it was daft to believe Starmer would not sell out as soon as he could, he has not just shifted the party to the right of the Cornyn era, but to the right of the current Democratic Party and arguably to the right of where it was under Miliband.

Exactly. And guess what, they're 27 points ahead in the polls.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

It's almost as if targeting voters beyond your core vote is a shrewd way to win an election...

 

[skyscraper101]

the 2017 election presented a greater choice between some form of 'thatcherism' or the most tepid form of social democracy, and so would be a rather better example for your claim. a surge of support for the diluted social democracy demonstrates that there's considerable interest yet in non-thatcherite options.

Sure but he still lost. At the end of the day you can surge all you like but it counts for nothing if you can't win. And he failed to win a majority. Twice.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Sure but he still lost. At the end of the day you can surge all you like but it counts for nothing if you can't win. And he failed to win a majority. Twice.

Only losers count vote share and increases. Winners count seats in Parliament. The voting system needs changing...only way a socialist party could do well at the ballot.

 

[redsquirrel]

Exactly. And guess what, they're 27 points ahead in the polls.

You were asking why Labour sympathetic people where depressed by Starmer, I gave the answer that they don't like the politics he (and you) advocate despite being "27 points ahead in the polls"

(Of course you've not shown that Labour are ahead because of the current politics of the LP, there's no proof that a LP running on a Biden-esque type platform would not have a similar type of lead).

 

[Pickman's model]

Sure but he still lost. At the end of the day you can surge all you like but it counts for nothing if you can't win. And he failed to win a majority. Twice.

yeh well he got far nearer a majority than many of his predecessors. simply putting on tory clothing doesn't work otherwise we'd recall kinnock's governments in the 1990s.

 

[Pickman's model]

Exactly. And guess what, they're 27 points ahead in the polls.

View attachment 416502

there is only one poll that matters and this isn't it.

 

[brogdale]

kinnel; her spokesperson's attempt to dig her out of fatchageddon only makes it sound worse:

 

[Pickman's model]

kinnel; her spokesperson's attempt to dig her out of fatchageddon only makes it sound worse:

View attachment 416504

isn't national renewal something in the fascist minimum?

 

[Pickman's model]

Only losers count vote share and increases. Winners count seats in Parliament. The voting system needs changing...only way a socialist party could do well at the ballot.

first we'd need to catch a socialist party

 

[skyscraper101]

You were asking why Labour sympathetic people where depressed by Starmer, I gave the answer that they don't like the politics he (and you) advocate despite being "27 points ahead in the polls"

(Of course you've not shown that Labour are ahead because of the current politics of the LP, there's no proof that a LP running on a Biden-esque type platform would not have a similar type of lead).

I'm not advocating for Starmers politics I'm just explaining the voting tendencies of Britain for the last 40+ years. Of course the the polls aren't just a reflection of approval for Labour party policy any more than they're a disenchantment with the Tories, but I don't buy that Corbyn would be enjoying the same lead. Or even a lead at all.

 

[Pickman's model]

I'm not advocating for Starmers politics I'm just explaining the voting tendencies of Britain for the last 40+ years. Of course the the polls aren't just a reflection of approval for Labour party policy any more than they're a disenchantment with the Tories, but I don't buy that Corbyn would be enjoying the same lead. Or even a lead at all.

well of course he wouldn't when so much of the plp were happy to spend a great deal of time and energy undermining him. an extra four years would have likely driven him to the brink of an early grave

 

[skyscraper101]

well of course he wouldn't when so much of the plp were happy to spend a great deal of time and energy undermining him. an extra four years would have likely driven him to the brink of an early grave

Exactly. He even failed to win over most of his own colleagues.

 

[brogdale]

Exactly. He even failed to win over most of his own colleagues.

His failure was not to purge and expel the tory scum

 

[tommers]

Him getting power was so unlikely that they spent years and years undermining him and attacking him at every turn.

Luckily the only thing that the electorate like is exactly what they want.