Gonzo's Erection Thread

First WWIII, now this.
The world's doing its best to distract us from footie.

 

Meanie.

 

Minie

 

That's nothing. Wait until Marine Le PenIs the French president too.

 

So do we think the probable heavy losses will be the final split in the Labour party between the hard left groups and moderates? How can the PLP recapture the areas where their traditional base come from otherwise?

The language of the hard left just doesn't identify with today's working classes (even that terms definition doesn't fit well with what ordinary lower to middle income workers see as themselves anymore).

The progression of many individuals has changed so much...both financially and culturally...the old recognisable..get a trade/profession, wife house kids...retire at 60...it's just not that way anymore for many people. The New Labour eras biggest mistake imo was devaluing trades and telling people...any uni degree and you're now middle class..you'll get the house and white collar job etc...it was if not a lie a misunderstanding of what a WC that had been left behind really needed.

Also...do we think May will try a purge of the hard right? I know most on here will see even the wettest Tory as hard right lol..but ..within the party itself May would instinctively be on the moderate side. Can she get rid of her own loonies.

Will a result of the election maybe be another move towards center ground?

 

In the ancient days there really was no alternative. As a small "s" socialist it was the only viable opposition to the Tories, who I've always seen as backward-looking and a party for the privileged.
The Labour party has had many incarnations during my lifetime and none of them fully represented my beliefs, it has always been a case of the lesser of two evils.
Having said that, a party for the people, however deeply flawed, is wholly necessary - as before its creation all we had were rival factions drawn from the upper classes.

 

Surely that's a result of the aspirational "because you're worth it" culture, though? And that is just a marketing gimmick to get you to think you "deserve" everything and therefore spend more money on it.
Anyone who doesn't know my past, and who met me these days would no doubt think of me as middle-class, but I'm not - I come from a wholly working-class background and just benefited from a post-war social inclusiveness that gave people like me access to better levels of education than my parents. An attitude which was attacked by Thatcherism and has never really recovered.
I'm neither proud nor ashamed of my background - it is what it is.

 

Sorry you misunderstand me. I regarded the Blair policy as flawed because it inherently denegrated anything other than uni education. By all means make sure the availability and inclusiveness is there fr those that are gifted in academics (I managed to be from a single parent council house family and go to uni because I was academically directed pre Blair years lol. Tbh looking back I'd rather have been given options for trade related or even office based skills ...technology etc. My degree wasn't really applicable other than life experience and an indication I could apply myself.

And that's more what I meant...there wasn't enough planning put into preparing for the policy to give people course and skills that the country and workers needed. It was still that old fashioned idea that a degree in itself was aspirational and would result in graduate level incomes...result? Loads of people with degrees the country couldn't apply to available jobs and gap in qualified people in the industries we needed to replace the old with. Worse still a raft of people given the idea that they should now be on middle class incomes when there weren't the jobs available...Basically: it put a 3/4 year delay into the unemployment market rather than solve the issue.

As to your highlighted part. It's the language...the basic ideas might still be relevant ...maybe even more so but in the detail it still clings to divisions of labour that are out of date. Swap service or technology industries for ship building, traditional manufacturing etc..

I'm not explaining myself well...I'll go away and think of a more concise presentation lol

 

That's ok, Frank. I wasn't really disagreeing with you - just going off on one on my own.
I didn't go to uni, because in those days it was either that or a trade. I came from a family that couldn't afford to put me through uni - I didn't even complete sixth form because that would have made me too old to take an apprenticeship that eventually gave me an income that was on a par with that of a graduate in those days anyway. And there was no stigma attached to it either back then.
Nowadays it seems degrees are ten-a-penny, and possessing one appears to be proof of no more than basic educational aptitude.

My tangential rant was about the culture that tells everybody they deserve whatever they desire just basically for existing. This is appealing because on the surface it appears to be putting a value on people, when in reality it's just another way to separate us from our money.

 

I actually think the Lib Dems might grab this.

I can see this falling into a brexit v remain v left v right sort of fight.

Labour are going no where with Corbyn plus everyone knows hes secretly pro brexit.

Tories will lose the remain vote. I also think they will lose their working class brexiteers who are probably more interested in keeping their benefits with which the tories have been trying to cut a few times.

Leaves everyone with Lib Dems

 

I will eat my hat if the Lib Dems win.

#paddyashdown

 

Labours failure and current position goes back to Blair, he took Labour to far to the right by getting into bed with big business. It was Blair/Brown who pissed money up the wall.

When Blair came to power the country had money in the bank, he spent it and ran up huge debts. His hospital/school building programme was PFI financed thus giving loads of profit to his big business cronies, such as Capita, and crippling debts to local councils and health authorities. His 50% of kids to university policy was just to get them off the dole numbers and cripple future generations with more debt.

Then Brown shafted all the pension schemes by taxing them so they were closed to people on average salaries. Blair/Brown laid the ground for Corbyn and the far left to take over the Labour party. Even if Labour get thrashed the far left and unions will still control it and put up another puppet leader.

Never mind the wars Blair led us into with his fake dossiers on Saddam Hussain, etc.

I need a pint to calm down

 

The issue is hard right can just dress up as gordon gecko.

The hard left just look lunatic to any middle ground person with soknething to lose

Corbyn imo is even less electable than kinnock was and the labour party will lose 120 seats...

Given They only have 229 thats a disaster.

So that might be tories just under 400? 380?

Labour 100?
Snp 58?
Libs 9 going up to 50?

Then the odds and sods....

That in effect is doomsday scenario. Thats no opposition and what the polls suggest.

 

I would say the problems for the left go back much further than that.
Socialism has always been an unpopular idea to the middle (as mito says above) and even where it wasn't a bit looney it's been painted that way by right wing media who would equate it with communism and terrify everybody.
Blair wasn't left wing anyway, and he knew that the only way Labour would gain power would be to water down its socialism.
The only chance for any ostensibly left-wing party to gain power is to be marginally left of centre. Too far and it has no chance.

 

Cheers lol..

I agree. Not everybody can be a brain surgeon..ideally everyone that can be a brain surgeon should have the opportunity and support to become one but that's it.

I know it's the result of our capitalist driven system but it amazes me that despite the huge advancement in technology we still seem to be driven by how much profit can be squeezed out of each individual. While we will always need actual people to carry out certain functions more and more of our working tasks will be carried out by technology. I'm not talking even far fetched things but eventually corporations will see it as cheaper even than screwing menial labour. Take say Amazon for eg...sooner or later they won't need warehouse staff at all. Or delivery drivers etc etc. That will be replicated across transportation industries, service industries...feck me even prozzies will start to see their line of work made redundant by sex robots lol...and I don't think it's too many decades away.

We really are going to have to think seriously about what drives us as a society..what will we do daily to make life meaningful. How will the economy be set up to fit the actual human population into the model? We can't all be viewed as simply consumers if there is no way for us all to make money to buy things.

Do a vast bulk of us sit around waiting to die? Play golf lol..Do we talk population control in harsh terms?

In the mean time further to discussion below this. I just want a govt that has practical solutions. Some will hurt but as long as there is a sensible plan to replace what's broken I don't care what ideology they call it. Continuing with the western way will not work within 40 years. Neither will harping back to unattainable utopias..

I genuinely think we are about to face the most challenging times in human history...if we don't blow ourselves up trying to play 19th century politics.

Does anyone on here think any of the previous modes of political thought is suited to the automated world we are heading towards?

 

shame there isn't some kind of uber like button. top post!

PS we're all doomed!!!!!!

 

Think I'm going to have a relieve-the-tension-w@nk tonight, whilst I still have a prostate.

 

Have fun. Give an extra tug for us!

(Or does that well wish only work when asking someone to "drink an extra pint for me")

 

rhc will eat his remaining leg, shoe and sock still on