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What is the point of Labour ?


pawpar

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Dorlomin I wouldn't disagree with any of those points.

You can't defend a lack of hard work in preparation or the patronage of an easy life relying on private education and family held contacts.

But your solution seems to be go back to the new labour years, and that solution seems just as morally bankrupt. Are you ok with the Labour party aping the conservative party in terms of policy; in terms of ripping the arse out of expenses; cosying up to the big financial institutions in the city (the c***s who caused the 08 crash, and continue their cuntish practices); and cosying up to America and being a main reason for the war in Iraq?

I couldn't ever vote for that. It's contemptable.

Do you genuinely think that's the right direction for the Labour party?

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2 minutes ago, pandarilla said:

Dorlomin I wouldn't disagree with any of those points.

You can't defend a lack of hard work in preparation or the patronage of an easy life relying on private education and family held contacts.

But your solution seems to be go back to the new labour years, and that solution seems just as morally bankrupt. Are you ok with the Labour party aping the conservative party in terms of policy; in terms of ripping the arse out of expenses; cosying up to the big financial institutions in the city (the c***s who caused the 08 crash, and continue their cuntish practices); and cosying up to America and being a main reason for the war in Iraq?

I couldn't ever vote for that. It's contemptable.

Do you genuinely think that's the right direction for the Labour party?

Christ sake man don’t encourage him, his head is ready to explode.

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2 hours ago, oaksoft said:

Do Labour supporters ever want to see their party elected again?

I ask because I am genuinely puzzled. Left wing policies have been rejected at the ballot box repeatedly for decades but many of you are still in denial about this.

The working classes just aren't interested enough in policies which encourage dependency and pity. They are voting for aspirational politics. I wonder what it will take for Labour to understand this because the rest of the country is shaking its collective head in disbelief at the analysis of this latest landslide defeat.

Define ' the working classes'.

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You can fit an oil tanker sideways in the political space between Corbyn and Blair. Its not either or.

Labour's problems are not economic (though as they try to gain seats in the SE of England they will face issues with economic competence or at least the perception of it) they are social. 

There membership is young and educated. Key voting demographics are not. What the former want in a leader and what many constituencies will want are rather different. 

They need someone who looks competent, who people can imagine being a prime minister and taking tough decisions. 

They need a leadership team that is competent, that can anticipate how policies will be seen by the public and attacked by their enemies. Not simply drawing up what looks like personal wish lists. They will need to make hard choices and think laterally and perhaps ground breaking in some areas. 

It has to pull together a coalition of about 13 million voters who live in different worlds, it needs a leader who will be happy to be stood next to soldiers and police officers, raising defence and crime as areas Labour is strong on, while its membership and urban voters do not collectively loose their minds and start twitter storms about "neoimperialism" or something. 

It needs to be comfortable with capitalism while not having to go down the unfettered markets route. 

We are in increasingly polarised societies (its a general trend). Peoples entire world views are curated by social media algorithms that, for purely financial reasons, promote the most lurid and emotive stories into peoples news feeds. We live in a world where so many people are being radicalised: just think the alt right, incels, jihadis etc. There is a trend of people becoming more and more wound up. And this includes part of the Labour membership (you should see the insane shit some of the popular sites knock out, The Canary, Novaramedia and Swakbox: unrelenting OTT clickbait). 

Large sections of Labours voters are disappearing down different echo chambers. Swathes of the country feels socially and economically excluded, and for 3 1/2 years they have been seeing proBrexit stories, stories about immigration etc on their news feeds. 

2019 needs to be a wakeup call to how polarised and divided we are becoming. We live with almost separate realities to each other. Objective truth is no longer something we agree on and share. 

Its not Blair II we need, and its certainly not Corbyn II. Its a clean out top to bottom and replacing them with people who will face perhaps an impossible task, bridging to many gaps that will likely continue to grow. But we need people to understand how rapidly the country is changing and the social, economic, demographic and technological drivers of those changes. 

The 2020s are going to be "interesting". 

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That's the best post I've ever seen you mhak, and I appreciate the effort (and the time it took).

I don't think I'd necessarily disagree with any of it - I certainly think it's a much more accurate representation of the situation than oaksoft gives above (which is more of the same old same old - skyvers and strivers).

I'll reply to a couple of points in detail later - but now I need to tackle Christmas shopping in Dundee city centre with two kids. Deep breaths required.

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3 hours ago, doulikefish said:

Superb...silly old gammon on the news there saying he voted tory because Labour are too london centric emoji23.pngemoji23.png

I’m not sure how we deal this level of ignorance.  Thank f**k we in Scotland have an alternative.

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A few points for@dorlomin:

At some points in your post you almost suggest that the solution is easy but at the end you acknowledge that it might be impossible. Do you see the Labour party recovering from this defeat anytime soon?

You also seem to suggest that the policies weren't the big problem, and that it was more an issue of style and character rather than a 'left v right' thing. I'm taking your ideal scenario to be a slightly less radical set of policies but a wildly different leader with a more balanced approach so as not to alienate whole swathes of the country.

I'd also defend the Canary as a news outlet. I'm not a regular reader but I've seen a few articles over the last few years and I've been fairly impressed by their stuff. I'm not denying that the "batshit mentalist" stuff exists - but it's certainly not all bad.

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15 hours ago, welshbairn said:

If Rebecca Long-Bailey gets the job it would be a dream PMQs for impressionists, I could see Spitting Image coming back.

It already is.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/sep/28/spitting-image-returns-chaotic-times-trump-putin-zuckerberg

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The establishment is desperate for a right-wing Labour Party to be in place for when people eventually wise up to the corruption of Johnson and his cronies.

Expect Nandy, Phillips and Starmer to get huge amounts of press coverage in the weeks, months and years to come.

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The establishment is desperate for a right-wing Labour Party to be in place for when people eventually wise up to the corruption of Johnson and his cronies.
Expect Nandy, Phillips and Starmer to get huge amounts of press coverage in the weeks, months and years to come.


Surely the establishment would rather have Jeremy Corbyn or someone similar continuing to keep labour away from making any difference to the world
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2 minutes ago, topcat(The most tip top) said:

 


Surely the establishment would rather have Jeremy Corbyn or someone similar continuing to keep labour away from making any difference to the world

 

The pendulum always swings.  When it swings to Labour the establishment want as soft a Labour as possible.

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2 hours ago, topcat(The most tip top) said:

Surely the establishment would rather have Jeremy Corbyn or someone similar continuing to keep labour away from making any difference to the world

People will get fed up with the tories eventually. So they'll need some other tory party dressed up as "left wing" to continue the status quo when the tories are tossed out.

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11 hours ago, BawWatchin said:

People will get fed up with the tories eventually. So they'll need some other tory party dressed up as "left wing" to continue the status quo when the tories are tossed out.

Except that people are already fed up of the Tories.  They saw the last government as one of the worst ever.  Plus Boris Johnson is widely regarded as a liar, a buffoon and a clown.

Yet he was seen as more credible than Corbyn.

Labour should have strolled into power at this election but instead they suffered their worst defeat.

Edited by Fullerene
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