Off Topic Politics Thread

They won't need a plan to get Corbyn into No10.

Once Brexit is done and dusted he will be catapulted into No.10 in 2022 by the same boost that voted for the EU referendum and Brexit. The very people that most young Corbyn fans hate so much - the anti globalists will switch to Corbyn because every policy his team announces (his team, not Kier starmer and those hoping they can change the direction) is like music to the anti-globalists ears.

End of PFI? Stopping the whole drain on public funds into the investors pockets? Nice
Re-nationlising the railways stopping investors creaming profits off the top of tax funded railways? Nice

You can count me in...............in 2022.

He may say the right things to keep the students and metros on board but his (and McDonnell's) whole policy array is anti-EU and anti-globalisation. I would go further and say that it is unworkable within the globalist ideology.

Many more like me will switch over to that after Brexit.

 

Wtf is an anti-globalist?

And are there really "many more like you"? No offence imps, but god help us all.

 

I just took it as him being Liberal and saying our election system is **** and wilfully ignored everything else

 

I think I get where Imp is coming from, but the major problem of being anti-globalist is the same one King Canute encountered.

 

So in a nutshell, Corbyn's policies are as barmy as those of the present Conservative party. No wonder the UK is up the creek without a paddle with such useless politicians all round. The better ones belong to the minor parties like the Greens, SNP, PC, Lib Dems, and people like Chucka!!! How the country could do with a Tony Blair-like figure. He really was an inspiration when he first became Labour leader and during his first term in office.

 

Plenty of info on anti-globalists on the net. And yes, most people that are labelled as "alt-right" are like me. Not that many are the racist, homophobe lot.

http://www.theworldin.com/article/12633/anti-globalists-march?fsrc=scn/tw/wi/bl/ed/

https://www.greenbiz.com/article/fate-global-corporations-anti-globalist-world

 

All this "progressive" nonsense doesn't make progress. We have more rights because society's values have evolved and progressed not because politicians have fast tracked things. These "progressive" issues would have happened anyway.

the whole anti-globalist thing is a fight against what is causing the inequality. While people keep voting for the "centrist progressives" that move as slow as possible to fight inequality intentionally so that those that hoard the cash can work out a new scheme within the "new rules" nothing improves. That is because nothing is supposed to improve.

So anti-globalists vote for Trump because he said he wanted to drain the swamp. So much for that one. He should have gone into that one first like a bull dozer rather than tottering about and winding up dictators.

They voted for Brexit to eliminate that avenue of globalism. They will vote Corbyn after that even though Corbyn is as mad as a hatter at a tea party.

Normal folks with no racist or homophobic intentions will vote for Le Pen, Trump, Wilders, AfD.

We can't continue with this slow grind where the trickle up system just keeps getting renamed and changed as slowly as possible to give the benificiaries of the scam to re-arrange their strategies. The reset button needs pressing. Corbyn's policies and those of all the others will do that. Hard times to follow but a much needed reset. All those "progressive" issues will continue thoiugh because they are not down to the politicians. That is down to society.

So call me an anarchist if you like but the reset button needs pressing no matter what the initial consequence. Waiting and waiting for something to change just means nothing changes.

IF you read my posts through this thread ( I know it is a long thread but you will probably remember) I have said quite a lot of times that Corbyn is onto a winner with a lot of his strategy and policies. His first PMQs where the commentariat and bubble laughed at his "e-mails" I said it was a great tactic. How could Cameron make fun of a question that comes from a "concerned member of the public?"

Whether it was really from a member of public and not made up by Corbyn's team is by the by. It was the first of many great tactics.

Now he takes on PFI which you will remember is one of my "pet moans." The policy will bankrupt us but so what. We need to cut the trickle of public funds into the private sector on the sly.

The only thing holding Corbyn back is that people like me don;t trust the rest of the Labour party on Brexit. They are constantly trying new things to change policy and Corbyn won;t just come out and say what he really thinks, meandering around rather than just say "I want out of the EU entirely."

He did nearly say it on CH4 news tonight though.

 

Good Morning Imp!! Someone said many moons ago, that the further left you go, the more right-wing you become!!!! That was back in the 70s. If the politics is not a straight line but in fact a circle, the two extreme factions will meet at 360 or 0 degrees!!

 

No one needed to say it. It is quite obvious that the left and the right are much much closer to each other than to the centrists. And I don't mean this fake "moderate" centrist left and right we see in the main Tory/Labour/Lib Dem or Democrat/Republicans. That is the old "horseshoe theory." There is another that suggests that Centrism is actually much closer to the far right called the fishhook theory although this must just mean normal right because most far right groups are actually anti-globalism so this theory sort of falls apart. I think they must be referring to the right wing types of old that were the rich that these days are centrists:

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Look at Melenchon/Le Pen's policies. Worded differently but a lot of it is the same. Maybe they want it for different reasons and want to reach a different conclusion by these policies but the actual policies are the same.

Both anti EU (as it stands.) Both anti free market deals which are not free market at all. They are protectionist trade deals for whoever gets in on the deal. Both anti US. All anti US means is anti big corp. It ties in with the whole "corporate takeover" concept.

Their only differences really is that the far left wants open borders and the far right doesn't. Not for the reason stated in the main but of course there is a racist element to each on the fringes. The left want open borders to give people freedom. The right don't because the corporates abuse those freedoms. The racists don't because they hate foreigners.

Both utilise new media and modern campaigning tactics because the mainstream is closed to them. Farage getting asked on TV because they think it will show he is mad doesn't count. The left and right are utilising the internet, rallying to rock concert style audiences, even to several at the same time by hologram in Melenchon's case.

If you look at France's first round and add Le Pen to Melenchelon these "extremists" got 40.88% combined!! If you look at Corbyn despite the media laughing at him and ridiculing his policies as suicidal and a return to the 70s he got 40%. There is a similarity there however that doesn't take into account the Brexit part that skews the figures slightly. For every "young person" that will change from Labour once Jeremy is outed properly for being anti EU there are anti-globalists that voted Tory JUST for Brexit to be achieved by who they perceived were the party most likely to fulfil Brexit.

The EU and Western Democracies needs to stop babbling on about this being a passing phase and "we have defeated populism" when it is gaining ground all over the place. It shows no sign of stopping. Them not winning power is not defeating it when they are improving their voteshares election by election and in some cases substantially.

Is Corbyn not populist? If you took his policies and matched them to Trump they are not much different. "Drain the swamp" that is both of their policies. They are both accused of leading anti-semite parties. They are both leading anti-globalism agendas. Corbyn was quite adamant yesterday that Freedom of movement would end. And month by month he sends out a fresh policy to appeal to the right wing anti-globalists. PFI this week is another vote winner.

Much as I hate the money grabbing self interested Shami Chakrabarti she said something quite telling today:

"This is not about right and left, it is about right and wrong. People are tired of their economy being rigged. They are tired of the media being rigged." She said something else was rigged but can't remember it now. But those are words that if you read them you could think it was Trump speaking!!!

I agree with her. It isn't about right and left. The right and left are both fighting the centrists who just keep the gravy train running for those in their circles. The centrists/globalists are the "wrong."

There are different "anti-globalists" that could crudely be narrowed down to right and left.

The left lot want real globalism. A one world type thing for all people and not the fake globalisation that is nothing more than a corporate takeover. Open borders and such like.

The right would be happy with real globalism IF it was not an avenue for abuse of open borders to flood labour markets in rich countries to bring wages down and boost profits.

I am in the latter group that you might say is the right wing version because I do not trust open borders to not be abused. I have a lot of left wing tendencies though. I love England and the UK. I am proud to be English. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm not racist though. I don't want anybody to be hurt or offended but there is undoubtedly a big con going on pretending we have such low unemployment and pretending that migrants are only doing jobs that Brits won't do when they were doing them pre 2004/5.

I see nothing wrong with a nation looking after its own citizens before they look after non citizens. I just do not see why I should even feel guilty about that. Doesn't mean I don't care about other problems in the world or the plight of non UK citizens.

 

I know you're probably being more specific to the current situation but in general I would have gone the opposite way and say the a far left economy favours closed borders and as equal pay loses skilled workers, they need a planned migration control to combat that. Additionally immigrants with no skills are as much of a burden to the state as higher skilled workers trained using state money.

The far right favours open borders as an elitist economy will attract skilled workers and they can exploit low paid migration too.



Completely agree that it is actually a circle.

 

You don't expect informed political debate in a sports segment. Well played those gentlemen: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/american-football/41412767

 

Yes. you are describing what left right should mean. I am describing what is happening in reality. I pretty much agree with your analysis but that would make me left wing would it not?

Far right is boiled down to a simple welcoming or not welcoming "different" people these days. Far right turbo capitalism seems to now be accepted as normal and relabelled globalisation or centrism because they don't want to be labelled far right.

They are all so sold on the "Hayek model" that every news bulletin drills down to a numerical and/or financial evaluation of everything. Everything including people has a value (not a price.) Why do they follow this model yet ignore its main belief that in the bad times (it will sort itself out) resorting to "Keynesian model?"

 

Listening to Jeremy Corbyn's speech today I truly think that this bloke has more than a touch of stardust about him and he has really caught the zeitgeist of the moment. I don't think that he is mistaken about the Neo-Liberalism that has dominated politics in recent years and, as opposed to coming across as a kind of left wing crackpot, what we are witnessing is the fact that the population of the UK is now wholly ready to embrace socialism. Jeremy Corbyn will emerge as the most significant politician since Margaret Thatcher and he has the potential to lead a government that will prove to be the most significant since the Second World War.

I cannot recall being some enthused by a political leader who is so sincere and genuine in what he wants to achieve. For once, here is a leader who realises that the economy is there to serve the people and not the other way around. With his vision, more people will reconnect with politics and I genuinely expect that, come the next election, he will not only sweep aside the Tories but also the Scottish Nationalists. A year ago, this would have seemed unlikely but his vision of a socialist future has captured the public imagination to the extent that anyone who is opposed to this view comes across a decidedly old-fashioned. The emergence of Tony Blair in the mid 1990s saw politics shift towards the centre ground and we are no witnessing a seismic change towards the Left which has been deeply unfashionable and discredited by many for over forty years. I think that this change is now pretty unstoppable. Corbyn offered a new vision for this country for those people unable to recall the market-led / capitalist model so espoused since the days of Thatcher and his ideas now seem hugely attractive. The election marked a sea-change in British politics and stripped of the cynicism of New Labour, there is not only a credible alternative to the Conservatives but the potential of a change for the benefit of everyone which makes the need for any alternative highly undesirable. All of a sudden May, Johnson, Hammond, Sturgeon and Cable all seemed marooned in a different era which now seems to be unpopular with the younger population.

 

The problem with so many terms in politics, and a lot of things really, is that they mean different things to different people, especially with something as complicated as politics. Its why i try to avoid labels and just use logic as much as possible, although its often impossible to describe a concept without them. for example i would describe myself both nationalistic and a globalist which would make some peoples head explode. if i do use them then i usually try to use what i think my audiences definition is.

Given the choice I prefer to use left wing/right wing for purely economic principle. Then use authoritarian/ liberalism as a more political spectrum with liberalism meaning more freedoms such as freedom of movement. doesn't work perfectly but makes more sense to me.

Anyway what i said earlier is whats happening in the world in more authoritarian countries that have less accountability to its population. For example China and North Korea for the left, both have a large amount of control over their population. whereas for the Right, you have the EU which is also Liberal. Its when a country has to appease the whims of its population it gets screwed up. And thats most modern countries. I think a lot of people vote "left" because they like the idea of equality, but they're often idealist, so they like the idea of welcoming poor immigrants and a country with the population having a lot of freedoms, even though socalism needs a powerful government and government control to work properly. So they will often vote for liberal ideals. Off the top of my head i can't actually think of a single functioning government i would consider to be both left wing and liberal, i'm sure there must be some. Maybe in Scandinavia.

Then the competitive nature of the "right" breeds elitism which brings self entitlement and a belief you are and deserve better than others, and that VvD should join you just because you are Liverpool. but people don't want to know about the poor that they've trodden on to get there so would rather keep them out of the country and pay the few that are here a token amount to say we care and decorate their buildings in pretty and highly flammable decorations so they can pretend they don't exist, despite the right needing the poor to prop up the base of their pyramid and provide them with food from African farms.. The EU was welcoming in the poor, although its starting to feel the pressure filter in from the population of its members.


Anyway to sum up that rambling nonsense, the left- right principle still works when a government can keep control away from the dirty hands of the peasants, but when democracy gets involved the entire concept goes out the window so its pointless to discuss. So no, i don't think of you as left or right wing, just the guy who writes massive walls of text i can barely skim read .


Also why i think we need a better voting system that isn't just Left - Right.

 

massive walls of text (looks above (wanted to insert a whistle emoticon here but it isn;t working.)

I agree with your first paragraph and I am the same. I would bet most are the same where they use labels formed by the other side to make their point understood. Of course some will throw those labels back at the other side as their form of insult. I also agree with your seperaration of social values from economy because liberals campaigning against capitalism just makes no sense.

I disagree on the EU though. I think it is liberal purely in economic terms with crumbs thrown out to pretend they care about people. The migration crisis was Merkel "being nice" not the EU. And Merkel is well aware that Germany "needs more people" because of their birthrate. I am very suspicious of things like this being sold as "for people" when the reality is often that it is "for business." Both of course classic liberal values. Social engineering to support business with no real thought to appeasement of their plebiscite.

 

John Mann - Got to love him (and I think he is Labour's best) just said live on CH4 news in that debate that Jeremy Corbyn was more pro-Brexit than Theresa May with a chuckle as if it was not even a close thing. Wasn't even bothered about it.

If only Corbyn had come out and said that pre referendum or even in the run up to the election he would be Prime Minister now!!!

 

If you're not watching Newsnight now..........watch it at 11.15 on BBC News channel or anytime on iplayer. The first story is very interesting both for left or right thinkers!!! and is on topic of what we are saying.

Headline is that productivity is at a 200 year low and that capitalism IS struggling. Not a question of IF but a statement of IS!!!

I need to read Prof. Wolff's book as he sounds music to my ears.

 

The big UKIP logo rebrand is here.

Oh dear, looks very familiar, voted for the one on the left.



Less lion king, more les miserables

Premier league not happy.

 

Not that I like UKIP in the slightest but if the Premier League wins any case thinking they have the rights to a lions head and the colour purple then this country's legal system has gone nuts.

 

Trump's cabinet seems to be running short of members. The latest bloke up for scrutiny in this oh-so-sharp-team is health secretary, Tom Price. He has taken private aeroplane rides to the tune of £223,000 in U.S. taxpayers money when he is supposed to take scheduled flights on anything less than security matters.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41450290

The odd thing is, one supposes that someone informs these people of what they need to do in these circumstances. So the only possible reason for the resultant error must be either arrogance [this rule certainly doesn't apply to me], or stupidity [say what.?], or a bit of both [don't ask me, Donald says I'm above all this Everyman stuff]. I'm reckoning on the 3rd option.