Why the lib-dems are shit

[Dom Traynor]

Apparently Paddy Ashdown emailed this round members the other day. I can't find a link though.

TheLibDems.org

Here is Ashdown’s second rule for the internet age: “If you see a business model that takes no account of the new technologies, you see a business model which is failing”.

This applies to most newspapers, some old fashioned businesses and nearly all political parties.

Conventional political parties remain immovably stuck in the 1870s.

They are vertical hierarchies, when the paradigm structure of our time is the network.

They are high overhead, narrow membership, high cost of entry, limited participation organisations, while successful social and commercial structures are based on a low overhead, mass membership, low (or no) cost of entry and instant participation model.

They are festooned with lumbering committees and a tangle of elections which pretend to provide accountability and transparency, but actually obscure both, when direct instant democratic participation is the rule for the most successful modern civil society movements and political structures (think Cinque Stella, Momentum, More United and En Marche).

In order to play a full part, today’s conventional political party requires its members to be obsessives prepared to spend evenings in damp village halls and bright September days when they could be on the beach, in stuffy conclaves at faded seaside resorts, passing obscure amendments to policies no-one will ever hear of again. But most ordinary people nowadays conduct their internet lives, not through consuming singular obsessions, but through multiple daily transactions which mix what they believe in, with earning a living and having fun.

Political Parties, as institutions are dying (except those who have in some form or another adopted the internet in their internal structures, like Momentum and Labour). This is one of the reasons why our politics seems so bewildering and senseless to ordinary people and voters.

Our Party is in an extremely hazardous condition. Unless we do something radical and different soon, our old members will become disheartened and our new members will fade away.

Here is my proposition. The Party Board should commission a study which would report in short order (but before the end of July) to investigate whether and if so how and in what time frame, the Lib Dems could be converted into a modern, internet based political organisation (LibDems.org), structured around a low overhead, low cost of entry, mass movement model in which a one person one vote internet enabled democracy, was the normal way of taking all our key decisions.

 

[mather]

Apparently Paddy Ashdown emailed this round members the other day. I can't find a link though.

Another liberal who seems to fancy using meaningless corporate/tech jargon and cliches as a cheap substitute for real politics and policies, neither of which the Lib Dems have. Yes, Labour were the only party to successfully harness new technologies and social media during the last election and they used it to great effect but that was only part of their appeal. They also combined this new approach with policies that turned out to be very popular with a large number of people and they also were the only party to have a proper physical presence (rallies and canvassing) in real life as well as online during the election.

Trying to harness the benefits of new technology and social media whilst ignoring all the other important stuff will leave you with defeat, just as it did with Jon Ossoff in the US. He ran a slick, well funded campaign, using all the buzzwords that Paddy Ashdown used like "networked" and "connected" yet his campaign flopped and he lost the election.



At the end of the day if all you have to offer is more of the status quo, more neo-liberalism, more of the same shit that has been peddled by mainstream politicians for the last four decades, no one is going to be interested in it nor will they be enthused by it, not in this day and age. Social media and tech can be very useful tools but you have to have the politics to go with it.

 

[Jon-of-arc]

Does this sort of stuff still go hear? They did kick him out for some racist tweet in 2011, but he was quite prominent for a while, and had an utterly shit "satirical site" called muckspreading.

EXPOSED: Former councillor downloaded hundreds of indecent images of children AND animals

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Tim Farron: I decided to quit before general election - BBC News

Outgoing Lib Dem leader Tim Farron has revealed he decided to quit several weeks before the general election but did not announce his decision publicly.

Yeah, 'course you did mate.

Fucking massive bellend.

 

[killer b]

I imagine he did tbh - the knew he was close to losing his seat to the tories: the party threw everything they had at it and still only just scraped in. Imagine that might have focused his mind away from leading the party somewhat...

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

I imagine he did tbh - the knew he was close to losing his seat to the tories: the party threw everything they had at it and still only just scraped in. Imagine that might have focused his mind away from leading the party somewhat...

And had they come in with 25-30 MPs he'd still be doing the Frank?

 

[Pickman's model]

I imagine he did tbh - the knew he was close to losing his seat to the tories: the party threw everything they had at it and still only just scraped in. Imagine that might have focused his mind away from leading the party somewhat...

he couldn't lead a question

 

[killer b]

And had they come in with 25-30 MPs he'd still be doing the Frank?

No, of course. But it was obvious weeks before the election they were going to do shit. Had they pulled of an unexpected result I'm sure he'd have changed his mind. But they did pretty much exactly as expected.

 

[Pickman's model]

No, of course. But it was obvious weeks before the election they were going to do shit. Had they pulled of an unexpected result I'm sure he'd have changed his mind. But they did pretty much exactly as expected.

they did pull off an unexpected result by retaining any mps

 

[teqniq]

 

[Dom Traynor]

Is 6% or so in the polls becoming the new norm for the Libdems?

 

[Ptolemy]

Is 6% or so in the polls becoming the new norm for the Libdems?

Not low enough, imo.

 

[Dom Traynor]

Not low enough, imo.

It's another rung on the ladder

 

[Puddy_Tat]

Not low enough, imo.

i'm not sure it's possible to get a minus number in an opinion poll...

 

[killer b]

This article from Tim Farron is quite something.

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/tim-farron-youre-meant-feel-marginalised-christian/

people don’t mind people of faith in politics – so long as their faith is only of the cultural variety. So, if you wear funky garb, have nice colourful festivals, have interesting buildings and ceremonies, then we are absolutely fine about your faith – in fact your religious culture makes us more diverse and allows me to define myself as very liberal and tolerant by demonstrating how cool I am with your religion.

'funky garb'
'colourful festivals'
.... 'natural sense of rhythm'?

 

[Ptolemy]

This article from Tim Farron is quite something.

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/tim-farron-youre-meant-feel-marginalised-christian/

people don’t mind people of faith in politics – so long as their faith is only of the cultural variety. So, if you wear funky garb, have nice colourful festivals, have interesting buildings and ceremonies, then we are absolutely fine about your faith – in fact your religious culture makes us more diverse and allows me to define myself as very liberal and tolerant by demonstrating how cool I am with your religion.

'funky garb'
'colourful festivals'
.... 'natural sense of rhythm'?

I thought this was something like the Daily Mash until I opened it up and saw, yes, his name and picture in the author section.

Bloody hell.

 

[teqniq]

I dunno if it's so much sub-textually borderline racist or 'other' so much as 'poor me' or rather 'poor us'.

 

[killer b]

A little from column A, a little from column B. It's got everything.

 

[Libertad]

Look at that puppy face.

 

[Ptolemy]

I dunno if it's so much sub-textually borderline racist or 'other' so much as 'poor me' or rather 'poor us'.

Regardless of intent, it feels a little bit Alan Partridge. He tries to do this "cool teacher down with the kids" way of talking that just comes across as a bit naff and rubs you up the wrong way.

 

[teqniq]

Yup it's a load of old toss either way.

 

[butchersapron]

Christianity is counter cultural and it always has been.

Oh wow, on top of the passive-aggressive stuff and accusing everyone else of not actually really believing in god it seems like his understanding of christian history stopped sometime before Constantine. Even articul8 hasn't offered that nonsense.

 

[Ptolemy]

Farron in misunderstanding everything about Brexit/Labour shocker.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Regardless of intent, it feels a little bit Alan Partridge.

Needless to say, everyone else had the last laugh

 

[DotCommunist]

This article from Tim Farron is quite something.

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/tim-farron-youre-meant-feel-marginalised-christian/

people don’t mind people of faith in politics – so long as their faith is only of the cultural variety. So, if you wear funky garb, have nice colourful festivals, have interesting buildings and ceremonies, then we are absolutely fine about your faith – in fact your religious culture makes us more diverse and allows me to define myself as very liberal and tolerant by demonstrating how cool I am with your religion.

'funky garb'
'colourful festivals'
.... 'natural sense of rhythm'?

dissing every cathedral and church building in britain somehow as well lol

 

[DaveCinzano]

If there's one thing Jeebus totally loves and respects, it's a well-off white dude with a persecution complex

 

[butchersapron]

 

[butchersapron]

The last night on the bus included a late-night drive from rural Welshpool to Solihull, where Lib Dem aides switched on the luxury coach’s disco lights and Farron led the busload of activists and journalists in raucous karaoke, singing The Whole of the Moon, by the Water Boys.

He's making it too easy now.

 

[Rob Ray]

Vince Cable named Lib Dem leader as no other candidate emerges

"Wisest man in British politics"

Amazing.

 

[butchersapron]

They like old white blokes now then? Poor old ming, not old enough now.