Yes or No -AV referendum May 2011

[Proper Tidy]

"First they came for the Compass members, and I did not speak out"

"Because they were all cunts anyway"

 

[Refused as fuck]

Who are you - McCarthy?

You wish.

 

[Santino]

Your Honour, please direct the witness to answer the question.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

I want you to say if you're a member of compass.

You know he is!

 

[Karac]

Im voting yes
It might be a shite version of whatever-but its probably a step forward from the crap system we have now

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Im voting yes
It might be a shite version of whatever-but its probably a step forward from the crap system we have now

In what way is it a step forward?

 

[articul8]

I want you to say if you're a member of compass.

I don't count myself as a Compass member, but am in its general orbit as it least there's some attempt to rethink the role of the Labour party and its relation to the wider left.

 

[Santino]

I don't count myself as a Compass member

Does Compass count you as a member?

 

[butchersapron]

I don't count myself as a Compass member, but am in its general orbit as it least there's some attempt to rethink the role of the Labour party and its relation to the wider left.

There, that wasn't too hard was it? No need for the histrionics. Especially as you were more than likely aware that i asked for a very good reason. A few months ago (IIRC) you made great show of attending the LRC conference rather than the Compass one and made noises about the LRC being the best bet and the left internal grouping representing genuine left-wing elements etc rather than the right-wing compass. Then the LRC came out against AV and you immediately started denouncing them as tribalists, clique-ists, living in the past etc.

Now the week or so after Compass continued their rightward movement by voting to allow lib-dems to join (sparking the walkout of a large number of central members - all followed with very similar cries of tribalists, clique-ists and oddly enough 'party loyalists') you pop up writing on their website - under your brief article it clearly says that it's compass members that write the articles. Hence my question as to whether you are now a member - i wondered if your own rightward drift into working for a lib-dem/labour coalition (no matter how reluctant today you are to say this publicly - you weren't always so shy were you?) was taking place as part of Compass, who are pretty clear about their support for this outcome and see AV as a way to achieve it.

And also, Santino's question.

 

[Proper Tidy]

I'm not sure I've ever seen a rightward drift move so quickly

 

[nino_savatte]

Compass

 

[articul8]

There, that wasn't too hard was it? No need for the histrionics. Especially as you were more than likely aware that i asked for a very good reason. A few months ago (IIRC) you made great show of attending the LRC conference rather than the Compass one and made noises about the LRC being the best bet and the left internal grouping representing genuine left-wing elements etc rather than the right-wing compass.

Your memory does fail - I went to the LRC conference in preference to a Fabian one not Compass. I have a lot more time for McDonnell than for the culture of the circle around him - which is pickled in the worst kind of old labour culture. Actually, LRC had a vote on similar lines to Compass on opening out their membership to members of parties other than Labour - which was narrowly defeated (unfortunately). Some of those most keen to lobby for that were Labour members.

As it happens when I rejoined Labour I joined Compass and the LRC in order as the main left groupings in order to gauge the lie of the land. My membership dues to both are long since lapsed - so I'm not sure is the honest answer to Santino's question.

i wondered if your own rightward drift into working for a lib-dem/labour coalition (no matter how reluctant today you are to say this publicly - you weren't always so shy were you?) was taking place as part of Compass, who are pretty clear about their support for this outcome and see AV as a way to achieve it.

I am not "working for a LD/Labour coalition" - although that outcome would be less damaging than an outright Tory majority (you disagree?).


I don't see Compass's move as a shift to the right necessarily, although that outcome is not ruled out either.But in terms of longer-term goals I'm not after some cosy rapprochement between leaderships of labour and the LDs. But I think there are quite a few people (esp young ones) who voted LD in 2010 seeing them (wrongly of course) as some kind of left alternative. Most of these now don't - although a minority of those actively drawn in will be looking - in vain? - to groups like the social liberal forum or Hughes to lead some kind of internal struggle. And the larger number that have left have not come straight over to Labour. so it's worth engaging them. I'd like to see more of a open dialogue in groups like Compass and LRC with Greens, disillusioned LDs, Nats, and all manner of anti-cuts activists outside Labour.

But I'm happy to write for them and speak to them.

 

[butchersapron]

You were one of those people actively encouraging people to vote lib-dem in 2010 and long before weren't you though - the evidence is all over the web. And that's always been the long term goals of the circles you move in - you damn well know that it is and that's a move to the right no matter how you try and colour it. And you do try and colour it by pretending a lib-dem/lab coalition would not be about the leaders but the members - please, don't try and fob us off with that.

 

[butchersapron]

NO

In my round up of AV polling earlier this week I said that while different companies were showing different topline figures, all the companies that had polled in the last month or so were united in showing the tide moving in the direction of the NO camp.

ComRes’s monthly poll for the Independent on Sunday is out now, and follows the same trend. The YES campaign are on 34% (down 6 since February), the NO campaign are on 37% (up 7 since February). Don’t know is at 28%. Notably while YouGov’s polls that preface their question with an explanation of FPTP and AV have been showing a NO lead for a long time, this is the first poll asking the bare referendum question to have shown NO in the lead.

 

[DownwardDog]

Why are you excluding possibiity of a majority Labour government - entirely possible under AV

 

[nino_savatte]

Your memory does fail - I went to the LRC conference in preference to a Fabian one not Compass. I have a lot more time for McDonnell than for the culture of the circle around him - which is pickled in the worst kind of old labour culture.

Old Labour is: 1. a pejorative that was trotted out by the Tory press and 2.a binary construction that was initiated by Blair to make some distinction between his evidently right-wing policies and the party under Michael Foot. It was a false position because it ignored Labour right-wingers. Oddly enough, some of those Labour right-wingers (like Hattersley) were critical of Blair's Nu Labour project.

 

[articul8]

You were one of those people actively encouraging people to vote lib-dem in 2010 and long before weren't you though - the evidence is all over the web.

This is hugely misleading. My position was to vote Labour wherever and whenever Labour stood a realistic chance of winning the seat (except Brighton Pavillion). I did say that voting for the LD was the best thing to do in seats that would otherwise have gone Tory.
But I also argued in public against those (like Anthony Barnett and Laurie Penny) who were saying that the LDs were the great white hopes for delivering a new settlement. Which I never believed then, and which looks plain daft in retrospect.

 

[butchersapron]

Laurie penny said the exact same as you - vote lib-dem if they can win, vote labour if they can't. Where's the misleading?

 

[articul8]

That is NOT what I said. In LD/Lab marginals I advocated a LABOUR vote. I said vote Labour where the candidate could win. I did not give cart blanche support for LDs - I did so only reluctantly where as a consequence of the stupid voting system you would happily keep in place, that was the only viable option for keeping out a Tory.

 

[butchersapron]

You said exactly the same as Laurie Penny - the gist being that labour needed a lib-dem left wing. And you both said it because you both piss in the same pot.

 

[ViolentPanda]

See, you think that's Ed Miliband spilling a cuppa into his lap, but I happen to know that what he was actually doing was following the ancient Kabbalistic practice of Galgal, a form of divination through tea leaves. Ed is merely emptying the liquid from his cup to get access to the leaves.

 

[butchersapron]

I knew he was one of them

 

[ViolentPanda]

You said exactly the same as Laurie Penny - the gist being that labour needed a lib-dem left wing. And you both said it because you both piss in the same pot.

twoliberalsonecup?

 

[ViolentPanda]

I knew he was one of them

It helps immensely in politics to be "one of them".

 

[butchersapron]

This is what AV is:

Miliband and Clegg dispute causes cancellation of alternative vote event

As a result of the spat, the planned event has been cancelled, but discussions are apparently continuing about the possibility of a joint platform before the 5 May referendum.

These people and their party leaders deciding.

 

[butchersapron]

It helps immensely in politics to be "one of them".

Shh.

 

[goldenecitrone]

It helps immensely in politics to be "one of them".

Never did Jeremy Thorpe any good.

 

[butchersapron]

He was never one of the them. RIP Rinka. We will never forget.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Binka?

 

[butchersapron]

Odd piece on the Pro AV site saying just why the Yes campaign is fucked.