Not a super socialist Chas, just a socialist. This was a perfect opportunity to do the thing the Labour Party was set up to do - support workers. It was a perfect opportunity because public opinion is overwhelmingly on the RMT's side, which you'll surely be very aware isn't always the case with strikes. The BBC went out canvassing the public about the rail strikes and failed to find a single person condemning it, standing in solidarity with the RMT strikers would have been a massive vote winner - especially in the red wall seats. Scrolling around on Twitter shows that the sacking of Sam Tarry looks to have had precisely the opposite effect.
I listened to a great interview with Adam Curtis a while back who perfectly articulated the problem as I see it - Labour (and the actual left too) currently offers no vision for what a better future would look like. The tories create a narrative that "you too could be super-rich" like they are. They've done this since Thatcher - council housing sell off and the public offering of shares in formerly public owned institutions like the BT sell-off. The left has never gotten to grips with the rise of individualism since Thatcher, selling the concept of "society" and the "social good" to people who have been taught that there's no such thing as society is very, very hard. If Labour aren't going to sell a vision, and aren't going to support working people, then I'm not sure what the point of them is. "We're the tories, but not quite as corrupt" isn't going to cut it for most people who really need actual change.
Incidentally, Blue Labour founder Maurice Glasman once wrote an article for hard-right, online magazine Unherd, calling Starmer "a true conservative". He thinks that's a compliment.
I read all the heavyweight political stuff on here and, without being sure if I’m a true socialist, I was slightly shocked to hear @drcongo described as a complete moron. A little uncalled for, I think.
If you are involved with the RMT @ChasHarps then you know full well that the RMT is not affiliated to the Labour Party, this of course leave them free to follow their own course and support the political party that best represents the views, wishes & needs of their members. I would suggest that Labour with Keir Starmer at the helm is not that party.
No-one on here, to my knowledge, is advocating that we do not need to replace the current government, as they only represent the interests of their MPs & their ultra-rich benefactors; however the Labour Party has drifted further and further rightwards under Starmer & has broken or quietly dropped the 10 pledges he got elected on. Further, it is well documented that his leadership campaign was funded by wealthy Israeli industrialists and he is busy brown nosing the rich to try to fund Labour now the membership has been decimated on his watch. That is not the Labour Party of Hardie or Attlee or Bevan or Foot or Benn or Smith; which was the party I joined 40+ years ago because it spoke to me of a fairer, better, more just & equitable society, where we could all share in the fruits of our labour. As I have previously said I left when Clause 4 was dropped under Blair (a Christian Democrat masquerading as a Social Democrat) though I seriously thought about rejoining when Corbyn was elected as leader.
Anyway, short of the turkeys voting for Christmas, it is 2 long and probably painful years until the next election during which time Shanker Singham, Barbara Kolm, Erick Brimen & their associated think tanks will be encouraging the likes of Truss & Sunak to follow their neo-liberal lead and remove more and more of the rights of ordinary working people. The only way to resist this is to get educated, get active in trades unions and fight back against the removal of our rights,
Thank goodness the Starmer Labour party is not the party of Foot and Benn and Corbyn - Foot and Corbyn each lost elections giving the Conservatives very large majorities. Benn largely opposed Neil Kinnock dragging it back to electability. Starmer is closer to the ethos of the Blairite Labour party - you know that dreadful leader who actually won bloody elections.
You have a choice between now and the next election - try to get Starmer elected or undermine him and get 5 more years of Truss.
If Starmer gets elected, lets then reform the electoral system such that the Socialist/Momentumites can put their views to the electorate in a new party, the Social Democrats can do likewise as Labour, The one Nation Tories can set up a party to reflect their views and the Populists can own the Conservative brand. Lets let the electorate decide what they really want rather than this ridiculous two party system in which increasingly both parties are too divided to be sustainable.
If Truss gets elected there will be no electoral reform beyond gerrymandering and voter supression.
My view for what it is worth is that the people would choose the middle ground and reject the extremes from both sides but that would be their choice to make. For what it is worth I, for the first time in my life, would have a vote that had the remotest chance of influencing the outcome and would use it to vote for the Social Democratic centre/left party as I believe that is where the best interests of the majority of the people including the poorest people in our society lie. I respect the right of others to disagree with that judgement and vote accordingly. We could call it democracy.
As an innocent abroad in these matters (but learning fast) I found that a fascinating read @Erroll_Sims, not least because of the absence of blue text links to stuff I generally expect to have difficulty getting my head round.
If I am spared until the next election, I reckon I will have to abstain unless something remarkable happens in the meantime - like Wycombe Wanderers signing a Manchester United player on a permanent basis.
you cannot abstain @micra you just have to try and work out the best worst case scenario. My view of left and right is very simplistic I know, but I always work on the principle that wherever they end up for good or ill, a left-wing person actually starts out wanting to make changes and improve things for people whereas your right wingers tend to think everything's already ****ed , there's no point trying to change it, so how can me and my mates make money out of the status quo. I know there are many shades of argument and intellectual debate, but I've seen nothing much that persuades me otherwise over the years. You've got to decide which candidate you think is going to do the least harm...and then cross your fingers!
Setting aside ideologies, Starmer isn’t much like Blair. Whatever else there is to say about Blair he was a very effective politician. Inspirational, a great orator, able to take people with him on the journey.
Labour won 40% of the vote in 2017 under Corbyn despite a lack of support from Labour HQ.
It isn’t as simple as a choice between an unelectable left and an electable centre.
I want an effective opposition more than anything and I am sure Starmer is a principled man, but I am always disappointed that as a former lawyer, he often struggles to look like he believes what he is saying.
Thank goodness the Starmer Labour party is not the party of Foot and Benn and Corbyn - Foot and Corbyn each lost elections giving the Conservatives very large majorities
Come on Dev, you've proved you can have a good faith discussion, but you're cherry picking and misrepresenting again here.
If Starmer gets elected, lets then reform the electoral system
Absolutely not a cat's chance in hell that Starmer will bring in electoral reform. Not in a million years.
You have a choice between now and the next election - try to get Starmer elected or undermine him and get 5 more years of Truss.
You're missing the point here, he's undermining himself. He's shitting all over the Labour base and pushing voters away with almost every single thing he does. He's chasing tory votes by being a tory, and thinks they don't need the traditional labour voters any more, as evidenced by the WhatsApp messages in the Labour Leaks document where someone messaged something along the lines of "where else are they gonna go?". The famous refrain from the blue labour lot under Corbyn was "any other leader would be 40 points ahead" - Starmer's Labour has only just managed to creep in front of the worst government this country has ever had. How awful do you have to be to be failing against the worst government in history?
I'll be keeping an interested eye on the top graph on this page over the next few weeks after he showed his true blue colours yesterday.
Oh, I meant to add, I think we'll get a hung parliament at the next GE and end up in a cycle of hung parliaments for a long time. This might not be a bad thing though as if it goes on long enough it could force electoral reform.
@drcongo every media vox pops with old people with nothing better to do than talk to the TV in the middle of the day undermines one of those electability graphs completely. I think you'll find that King Bozzer is a very popular naughty boy and the media just chooses to concentrate on the possible poor judgement, laziness, lack of attention to detail, inability to keep trousers closed, or misuse of power and influence. The idea that his party or the public might really vote him out of office is ludicrous. That would be a plot/coup/fake news.👍️ up all round.
May i ask a semi-personal question @Wendoverman. I understand from a fellow Oldie Blues Fan that you are a journalist or are involved in some way in journalism. The guy in question knew you (very slightly I would say) from sitting in the same block in the “main” stand. I said I’d not heard that but then you have never said on here - to the best of my knowledge - precisely what you do, other than hide in a corner eating crisps!
Totally understand if you think I’m being impudent. My interest stems partly from what I suspect is incorrect information and partly from a genuine interest in Gasroomers who give the impression that they would be interesting/entertaining to share a pint with (one each, of course!)
No-one ever knows me @micra I have worked in newspapers and broadcasting, but strictly well down the food chain...no editorial control or expenses account for me. So not a journalist, secret tycoon or football commentator. Sorry.
Well @drcongo , @Erroll_Sims suggests that todays Labour Party is not the Labour Party of Benn, Foot and presumably Corbyn - it doesn’t seem cherrypicking or misrepresenting to point out that those gentleman lost badly in serial elections. Corbyn managed to get 55 seats less than Theresa May who conducted what is generally considered to be the worst election campaign in history with nothing to say beyond strong and stable.
all of which is entirely irrelevant. The choice at the next election will be Starmer or Truss. If Truss gets 5 years it will be a fecking disaster for the country.
if Starmer gets a majority or leads a minority, any intelligent Labour leader will be well aware that FPTP generally elects Tory Governments. That would be even more likely in the event of Scotland becoming independent or the UK becoming federal. So PR is a highly likely outcome.
Make that happen and you get a good chance of getting PR and hence a chance to put your case to the public with your own party and maybe if popular enough earning representation in parliament - maybe even providing you a route to eventual power and meanwhile getting what even you must accept would be a far better government than Liz Truss.
yet you seem to wish to make Truss government for another five years more likely. I genuinely can’t understand why? It’s almost as if you are prepared to sacrifice the interests of the country so that you can maintain your own ideological purity without having to partake in the compromises that exercising power in Government requires. But I think you are better than that so I find myself confused.
simple question - would you rather Truss or Starmer in No10 or do you genuinely believe there is no difference?
Well @drcongo , @Erroll_Sims suggests that todays Labour Party is not the Labour Party of Benn, Foot and presumably Corbyn - it doesn’t seem cherrypicking or misrepresenting to point out that those gentleman lost badly in serial elections. Corbyn managed to get 55 seats less than Theresa May
He didn’t mention Corbyn, who apparently lives rent free in your head. That’s the misrepresenting bit. The cherry picking bit is you only talking about those who lost some elections.
yet you seem to wish to make Truss government for another five years more likely. I genuinely can’t understand why?
That’s because it’s something you’ve made up.
simple question - would you rather Truss or Starmer in No10 or do you genuinely believe there is no difference?
I genuinely believe there’s no difference. A Lib Dem liar inside the tories who will say or do anything for power vs a tory liar inside Labour who will say or do anything for power. I can’t say this enough, there is no difference.
I'm again in total agreement with Mr DevC. A labour led majority or a labour led coalition is imperative to stop Truss and her cabinet of right wing maniacs wreaking havoc. The attempt to bring in this new law to the railway industry which they seek to make strike action illegal. Is actions of a dictatorship, if the TUC do not respond with the threat of a general strike, to combat this attack on civil liberties, then were off to hell in a handcart.
What I think you’re missing, is that both are bought and paid for by corporate donors. The list of grotesque people who paid for Starmer’s leadership campaign (not to mention the dodgy hiding of said donors) is enlightening.
Agree with the second half of your post @ChasHarps, but despite the aphorism “set a thief to catch a thief”, I don’t see any benefit to replacing one set of right wing maniacs with another set of right wing maniacs.
I do not disagree, as I have said on a number of occasions, that firstly the current government is a disaster & secondly that the country cannot afford to have the Tories get another term. My disagreement with the centrists is whether Starmer is the right person to achieve that.
Regarding the list of vindictive proposed laws being blurted out of Truss & Sunak's mouths, we need all of the opposition parties to be making strident denunciations of them, but currently all we hear are the likes of Lynch, Dempsey, Graham, Beckett, & Stefanovic (RMT/Unite/UCW) calmy & articulately showing the lies the government is selling. Yes the TUC needs to show some steel and leadership but what of the party of the working people?
If it is Starmer who leads Labour into the next election he will struggle to get close to the results Labour achieved last time round, his best hope will be an understanding with the other centre & left parties to pick off the 50 or so most marginal Tory seats through tactical voting. My view is that the country is pissed off enough with the government that a well organised campaign could achieve this, resulting in a hung parliament with a possibility that Labour will be the largest party. The price of allowing Starmer (or whoever is Labour leader in 2 years) to form a coalition government absolutely has to be electoral reform and an agreed early follow up election.
Labour also needs a proper plan and policies to galvanize the electorate, all I currently see is a set of wooly, wishy washy virtue statements and a desire to do Tory better than the Tories. The electorate, even the left/wet wing of the Tories, have had enough of diaster capitalism and cronyism and seem to want a fairer deal for all, including a properly staffed NHS, greater state control/common ownership of utilities, cheaper/free tertiary education, limits on profits/profiteering, and limits on executive pay to name but a few things I hear round the town I live in (currently a moderately safe Tory seat).
you are entitled to your view of course @drcongo and of course this is primarily a football forum on which we are on the same side. I understand you desire a more left wing government than I believe is in the interests of the country and particularly the poorest people or that that a Starmer lead Government would deliver. That's fine, there is nothing wrong with disagreeing.
honestly though I don't understand how you can possibly not see a difference between the likely outcomes of a Starmer lead Government and a Truss lead Government. i just find that incomprehensible from someone who clearly is an intelligent guy.
Frankly if that was the first time I encountered such views , I would doubt that you really believed what you say. But at the last GE, I was campaigning in a Tory Lib Dem marginal on election day and spent much of the day "telling" in polling stations usually with a Tory opposite number. While we didn't agree politically we were perfectly capable of getting on socially as decent human beings and have a laugh or two. At about 10 to 10 on my way back to my car, I encountered a group of labour campaigners with similar political stance to yourself. I thought I would go over and say hello and maybe share a laugh at our collective experience at spending our time campaigning on a cold wet December evening. i was greeted with some of the most aggressive unfriendly uncompromising abuse i have ever experienced. Clearly you were either totally one of them or the enemy - no shades of grey, no room for finding common ground or allies against a shared foe, no recognition that there were degrees of disagreement . I was the enemy even though I had spent the day trying to stop the Tory winning the seat which could only make a Labour government more likely. it was a depressing and salutory experience. how on earth are those of us in this right leaning country who dont want a series of Tory governments going to achieve our aim if we cannot recognise that we must work together and seek to find compromises between us to allow us to do so, at least for one parliament to deliver electoral reform which doesn't penalise split votes.. Honestly I find your post, (although to be clear not in any way abusive or aggressive) equally as depressing.
Anyway it has been interesting discussing politics with you. Footy starts on saturday. Back to discussing VAR......
how on earth are those of us in this right leaning country who dont want a series of Tory governments going to achieve our aim
This is the bit I find depressing in the centrist world view. We're currently a two tory party state, so personally I don't think the answer is voting for a different set of tories.
I have no depth and little intellect but I do know that the past tense of ‘lead’ is ‘led’, unlike ‘read’, which would be even more confusing if it was ‘red’ rather than ‘read’ pronounced ‘red’.
Difficult language, English, which, to me, makes it staggering that a Ukrainian footballer like Mykolenko at Everton has picked it up so well in a matter of months.
Comments
I know you are trying to portray yourself as some kind of "super socialist' Mr Dr Congo.
But I'm heavily involved with the RMT and met Mr Starmer less than 3 weeks ago.
You must be a complete moron if you don't realise what Shapps and the Tory govt are trying to do.
They have deliberately created a political war with the RMT, by attempting to rip up contracts and impose fire and rehire on the railway workers.
The Tories are a long way behind in the polls, and are trying to whip up a shit storm by placing the Labour Party holding hands with the RMT.
Keir has rightly seen what they are trying to do, and has instructed front line ministers not to fall into this trap.
Without power trade unions and the working class will continue to be attacked.
Let's just get rid of the worst goverment in living memory .
Not a super socialist Chas, just a socialist. This was a perfect opportunity to do the thing the Labour Party was set up to do - support workers. It was a perfect opportunity because public opinion is overwhelmingly on the RMT's side, which you'll surely be very aware isn't always the case with strikes. The BBC went out canvassing the public about the rail strikes and failed to find a single person condemning it, standing in solidarity with the RMT strikers would have been a massive vote winner - especially in the red wall seats. Scrolling around on Twitter shows that the sacking of Sam Tarry looks to have had precisely the opposite effect.
I listened to a great interview with Adam Curtis a while back who perfectly articulated the problem as I see it - Labour (and the actual left too) currently offers no vision for what a better future would look like. The tories create a narrative that "you too could be super-rich" like they are. They've done this since Thatcher - council housing sell off and the public offering of shares in formerly public owned institutions like the BT sell-off. The left has never gotten to grips with the rise of individualism since Thatcher, selling the concept of "society" and the "social good" to people who have been taught that there's no such thing as society is very, very hard. If Labour aren't going to sell a vision, and aren't going to support working people, then I'm not sure what the point of them is. "We're the tories, but not quite as corrupt" isn't going to cut it for most people who really need actual change.
Incidentally, Blue Labour founder Maurice Glasman once wrote an article for hard-right, online magazine Unherd, calling Starmer "a true conservative". He thinks that's a compliment.
At least he didn’t give him a capital ‘c’.
I’d better be careful or I’ll be called a capital c.
I read all the heavyweight political stuff on here and, without being sure if I’m a true socialist, I was slightly shocked to hear @drcongo described as a complete moron. A little uncalled for, I think.
I've been called worse @micra.
If you are involved with the RMT @ChasHarps then you know full well that the RMT is not affiliated to the Labour Party, this of course leave them free to follow their own course and support the political party that best represents the views, wishes & needs of their members. I would suggest that Labour with Keir Starmer at the helm is not that party.
No-one on here, to my knowledge, is advocating that we do not need to replace the current government, as they only represent the interests of their MPs & their ultra-rich benefactors; however the Labour Party has drifted further and further rightwards under Starmer & has broken or quietly dropped the 10 pledges he got elected on. Further, it is well documented that his leadership campaign was funded by wealthy Israeli industrialists and he is busy brown nosing the rich to try to fund Labour now the membership has been decimated on his watch. That is not the Labour Party of Hardie or Attlee or Bevan or Foot or Benn or Smith; which was the party I joined 40+ years ago because it spoke to me of a fairer, better, more just & equitable society, where we could all share in the fruits of our labour. As I have previously said I left when Clause 4 was dropped under Blair (a Christian Democrat masquerading as a Social Democrat) though I seriously thought about rejoining when Corbyn was elected as leader.
Anyway, short of the turkeys voting for Christmas, it is 2 long and probably painful years until the next election during which time Shanker Singham, Barbara Kolm, Erick Brimen & their associated think tanks will be encouraging the likes of Truss & Sunak to follow their neo-liberal lead and remove more and more of the rights of ordinary working people. The only way to resist this is to get educated, get active in trades unions and fight back against the removal of our rights,
Thank goodness the Starmer Labour party is not the party of Foot and Benn and Corbyn - Foot and Corbyn each lost elections giving the Conservatives very large majorities. Benn largely opposed Neil Kinnock dragging it back to electability. Starmer is closer to the ethos of the Blairite Labour party - you know that dreadful leader who actually won bloody elections.
You have a choice between now and the next election - try to get Starmer elected or undermine him and get 5 more years of Truss.
If Starmer gets elected, lets then reform the electoral system such that the Socialist/Momentumites can put their views to the electorate in a new party, the Social Democrats can do likewise as Labour, The one Nation Tories can set up a party to reflect their views and the Populists can own the Conservative brand. Lets let the electorate decide what they really want rather than this ridiculous two party system in which increasingly both parties are too divided to be sustainable.
If Truss gets elected there will be no electoral reform beyond gerrymandering and voter supression.
My view for what it is worth is that the people would choose the middle ground and reject the extremes from both sides but that would be their choice to make. For what it is worth I, for the first time in my life, would have a vote that had the remotest chance of influencing the outcome and would use it to vote for the Social Democratic centre/left party as I believe that is where the best interests of the majority of the people including the poorest people in our society lie. I respect the right of others to disagree with that judgement and vote accordingly. We could call it democracy.
As an innocent abroad in these matters (but learning fast) I found that a fascinating read @Erroll_Sims, not least because of the absence of blue text links to stuff I generally expect to have difficulty getting my head round.
If I am spared until the next election, I reckon I will have to abstain unless something remarkable happens in the meantime - like Wycombe Wanderers signing a Manchester United player on a permanent basis.
you cannot abstain @micra you just have to try and work out the best worst case scenario. My view of left and right is very simplistic I know, but I always work on the principle that wherever they end up for good or ill, a left-wing person actually starts out wanting to make changes and improve things for people whereas your right wingers tend to think everything's already ****ed , there's no point trying to change it, so how can me and my mates make money out of the status quo. I know there are many shades of argument and intellectual debate, but I've seen nothing much that persuades me otherwise over the years. You've got to decide which candidate you think is going to do the least harm...and then cross your fingers!
Setting aside ideologies, Starmer isn’t much like Blair. Whatever else there is to say about Blair he was a very effective politician. Inspirational, a great orator, able to take people with him on the journey.
Labour won 40% of the vote in 2017 under Corbyn despite a lack of support from Labour HQ.
It isn’t as simple as a choice between an unelectable left and an electable centre.
I want an effective opposition more than anything and I am sure Starmer is a principled man, but I am always disappointed that as a former lawyer, he often struggles to look like he believes what he is saying.
@Erroll_Sims said:
That is not the Labour Party of Hardie or Attlee or Bevan or Foot or Benn or Smith;
@DevC said:
Thank goodness the Starmer Labour party is not the party of Foot and Benn and Corbyn - Foot and Corbyn each lost elections giving the Conservatives very large majorities
Come on Dev, you've proved you can have a good faith discussion, but you're cherry picking and misrepresenting again here.
If Starmer gets elected, lets then reform the electoral system
Absolutely not a cat's chance in hell that Starmer will bring in electoral reform. Not in a million years.
You have a choice between now and the next election - try to get Starmer elected or undermine him and get 5 more years of Truss.
You're missing the point here, he's undermining himself. He's shitting all over the Labour base and pushing voters away with almost every single thing he does. He's chasing tory votes by being a tory, and thinks they don't need the traditional labour voters any more, as evidenced by the WhatsApp messages in the Labour Leaks document where someone messaged something along the lines of "where else are they gonna go?". The famous refrain from the blue labour lot under Corbyn was "any other leader would be 40 points ahead" - Starmer's Labour has only just managed to creep in front of the worst government this country has ever had. How awful do you have to be to be failing against the worst government in history?
I'll be keeping an interested eye on the top graph on this page over the next few weeks after he showed his true blue colours yesterday.
Oh, I meant to add, I think we'll get a hung parliament at the next GE and end up in a cycle of hung parliaments for a long time. This might not be a bad thing though as if it goes on long enough it could force electoral reform.
@drcongo every media vox pops with old people with nothing better to do than talk to the TV in the middle of the day undermines one of those electability graphs completely. I think you'll find that King Bozzer is a very popular naughty boy and the media just chooses to concentrate on the possible poor judgement, laziness, lack of attention to detail, inability to keep trousers closed, or misuse of power and influence. The idea that his party or the public might really vote him out of office is ludicrous. That would be a plot/coup/fake news.👍️ up all round.
May i ask a semi-personal question @Wendoverman. I understand from a fellow Oldie Blues Fan that you are a journalist or are involved in some way in journalism. The guy in question knew you (very slightly I would say) from sitting in the same block in the “main” stand. I said I’d not heard that but then you have never said on here - to the best of my knowledge - precisely what you do, other than hide in a corner eating crisps!
Totally understand if you think I’m being impudent. My interest stems partly from what I suspect is incorrect information and partly from a genuine interest in Gasroomers who give the impression that they would be interesting/entertaining to share a pint with (one each, of course!)
We sort of already have haven't we @micra ? I know he was effectively a free agent but still a Man Ewe player when he was training with us. 🙄
No-one ever knows me @micra I have worked in newspapers and broadcasting, but strictly well down the food chain...no editorial control or expenses account for me. So not a journalist, secret tycoon or football commentator. Sorry.
Well @drcongo , @Erroll_Sims suggests that todays Labour Party is not the Labour Party of Benn, Foot and presumably Corbyn - it doesn’t seem cherrypicking or misrepresenting to point out that those gentleman lost badly in serial elections. Corbyn managed to get 55 seats less than Theresa May who conducted what is generally considered to be the worst election campaign in history with nothing to say beyond strong and stable.
all of which is entirely irrelevant. The choice at the next election will be Starmer or Truss. If Truss gets 5 years it will be a fecking disaster for the country.
if Starmer gets a majority or leads a minority, any intelligent Labour leader will be well aware that FPTP generally elects Tory Governments. That would be even more likely in the event of Scotland becoming independent or the UK becoming federal. So PR is a highly likely outcome.
Make that happen and you get a good chance of getting PR and hence a chance to put your case to the public with your own party and maybe if popular enough earning representation in parliament - maybe even providing you a route to eventual power and meanwhile getting what even you must accept would be a far better government than Liz Truss.
yet you seem to wish to make Truss government for another five years more likely. I genuinely can’t understand why? It’s almost as if you are prepared to sacrifice the interests of the country so that you can maintain your own ideological purity without having to partake in the compromises that exercising power in Government requires. But I think you are better than that so I find myself confused.
simple question - would you rather Truss or Starmer in No10 or do you genuinely believe there is no difference?
Well @drcongo , @Erroll_Sims suggests that todays Labour Party is not the Labour Party of Benn, Foot and presumably Corbyn - it doesn’t seem cherrypicking or misrepresenting to point out that those gentleman lost badly in serial elections. Corbyn managed to get 55 seats less than Theresa May
He didn’t mention Corbyn, who apparently lives rent free in your head. That’s the misrepresenting bit. The cherry picking bit is you only talking about those who lost some elections.
yet you seem to wish to make Truss government for another five years more likely. I genuinely can’t understand why?
That’s because it’s something you’ve made up.
simple question - would you rather Truss or Starmer in No10 or do you genuinely believe there is no difference?
I genuinely believe there’s no difference. A Lib Dem liar inside the tories who will say or do anything for power vs a tory liar inside Labour who will say or do anything for power. I can’t say this enough, there is no difference.
I'm again in total agreement with Mr DevC. A labour led majority or a labour led coalition is imperative to stop Truss and her cabinet of right wing maniacs wreaking havoc. The attempt to bring in this new law to the railway industry which they seek to make strike action illegal. Is actions of a dictatorship, if the TUC do not respond with the threat of a general strike, to combat this attack on civil liberties, then were off to hell in a handcart.
What I think you’re missing, is that both are bought and paid for by corporate donors. The list of grotesque people who paid for Starmer’s leadership campaign (not to mention the dodgy hiding of said donors) is enlightening.
Agree with the second half of your post @ChasHarps, but despite the aphorism “set a thief to catch a thief”, I don’t see any benefit to replacing one set of right wing maniacs with another set of right wing maniacs.
I do not disagree, as I have said on a number of occasions, that firstly the current government is a disaster & secondly that the country cannot afford to have the Tories get another term. My disagreement with the centrists is whether Starmer is the right person to achieve that.
Regarding the list of vindictive proposed laws being blurted out of Truss & Sunak's mouths, we need all of the opposition parties to be making strident denunciations of them, but currently all we hear are the likes of Lynch, Dempsey, Graham, Beckett, & Stefanovic (RMT/Unite/UCW) calmy & articulately showing the lies the government is selling. Yes the TUC needs to show some steel and leadership but what of the party of the working people?
If it is Starmer who leads Labour into the next election he will struggle to get close to the results Labour achieved last time round, his best hope will be an understanding with the other centre & left parties to pick off the 50 or so most marginal Tory seats through tactical voting. My view is that the country is pissed off enough with the government that a well organised campaign could achieve this, resulting in a hung parliament with a possibility that Labour will be the largest party. The price of allowing Starmer (or whoever is Labour leader in 2 years) to form a coalition government absolutely has to be electoral reform and an agreed early follow up election.
Labour also needs a proper plan and policies to galvanize the electorate, all I currently see is a set of wooly, wishy washy virtue statements and a desire to do Tory better than the Tories. The electorate, even the left/wet wing of the Tories, have had enough of diaster capitalism and cronyism and seem to want a fairer deal for all, including a properly staffed NHS, greater state control/common ownership of utilities, cheaper/free tertiary education, limits on profits/profiteering, and limits on executive pay to name but a few things I hear round the town I live in (currently a moderately safe Tory seat).
The ghost of policies that never were?
you are entitled to your view of course @drcongo and of course this is primarily a football forum on which we are on the same side. I understand you desire a more left wing government than I believe is in the interests of the country and particularly the poorest people or that that a Starmer lead Government would deliver. That's fine, there is nothing wrong with disagreeing.
honestly though I don't understand how you can possibly not see a difference between the likely outcomes of a Starmer lead Government and a Truss lead Government. i just find that incomprehensible from someone who clearly is an intelligent guy.
Frankly if that was the first time I encountered such views , I would doubt that you really believed what you say. But at the last GE, I was campaigning in a Tory Lib Dem marginal on election day and spent much of the day "telling" in polling stations usually with a Tory opposite number. While we didn't agree politically we were perfectly capable of getting on socially as decent human beings and have a laugh or two. At about 10 to 10 on my way back to my car, I encountered a group of labour campaigners with similar political stance to yourself. I thought I would go over and say hello and maybe share a laugh at our collective experience at spending our time campaigning on a cold wet December evening. i was greeted with some of the most aggressive unfriendly uncompromising abuse i have ever experienced. Clearly you were either totally one of them or the enemy - no shades of grey, no room for finding common ground or allies against a shared foe, no recognition that there were degrees of disagreement . I was the enemy even though I had spent the day trying to stop the Tory winning the seat which could only make a Labour government more likely. it was a depressing and salutory experience. how on earth are those of us in this right leaning country who dont want a series of Tory governments going to achieve our aim if we cannot recognise that we must work together and seek to find compromises between us to allow us to do so, at least for one parliament to deliver electoral reform which doesn't penalise split votes.. Honestly I find your post, (although to be clear not in any way abusive or aggressive) equally as depressing.
Anyway it has been interesting discussing politics with you. Footy starts on saturday. Back to discussing VAR......
Please, not VAR.
how on earth are those of us in this right leaning country who dont want a series of Tory governments going to achieve our aim
This is the bit I find depressing in the centrist world view. We're currently a two tory party state, so personally I don't think the answer is voting for a different set of tories.
Roll on Saturday.
I have no depth and little intellect but I do know that the past tense of ‘lead’ is ‘led’, unlike ‘read’, which would be even more confusing if it was ‘red’ rather than ‘read’ pronounced ‘red’.
Difficult language, English, which, to me, makes it staggering that a Ukrainian footballer like Mykolenko at Everton has picked it up so well in a matter of months.
You might enjoy this video about the French language @micra - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1oa9yYWo9s
I’ll take English over German anytime, three genders, formal/informal ways of addressing people and compound nouns
Mind-boggling @drcongo. How the feck did I pass French A-level.