Off Topic Politics Thread

The issue still remains that Labour are too unpopular in many areas of the country to win an outright majority.

 

I think (and I am probably guilty of this) is that people see labour as too hard core left and the Tories as just right of centre.

However, what is reality is the opposite as the Tory misdeeds as seen as a bungling Boris rather than something more sinister.

 

Lets hope as the assorted 'gates' are opened and investigated the extent of governmental sleaze and corruption is exposed leading to criminal proceedings when appropriate.

 

Labour will not win an outright majority as long as the SNP is around unless they change pretty radically to capture more votes in England. Notably by pivoting more to the centre on social issues. But they can’t do that due to who make up the actual party

They are seen as too far left and i can’t fathom why people would think that as “too far left economically”. Especially as they haven’t run one in more than a decade.

I point back to the issues from the US this week. In one breath you have people on the left in the US refusing to define what a woman is. And then this decision is leaked and it is suddenly “an attack on women’s bodies / choice”. And the inevitable response from the right over there is “define a woman”. And then within the left the intersectionalists start jockying for position - claiming black women are more likely to suffer from this or changing it to “people who give birth” or the like. And squabble among themselves

Thant is how many people are starting to see “the left” in general. However unreasonable that may be. And we tend to copy America so look to how things happen there

I will always remember watching a left wing YouTube news show after the massage parlour shootings in Georgia. They spoke about it with guest presenters over a few days and where low key fighting over who got to claim the main victimisation for the crime - women, Asian-Americans or sex workers. And then shortly after that an Asian American lady was sucker punched in broad daylight by a black man and his race was not mentioned at all. The lack of action from the non-black security guards was harangued though (even though it wasn’t their building or area). The race of the Georgia shooter - you bet it was mentioned. People notice things like this and pin it more broadly to “the left” and get turned off by it. However fair or unfair it is

Why the equivalent stuff doesn’t stick to the right - I couldn’t say. Other than perhaps the infighting and purity tests on the left that I mention / allude to cause problems. And of course in this country our “anti Tory” vote is very divided. We have too many parties for FPTP

 

Hopefully but don’t the government have a lot of power to try and stifle this ?

 

I’m not disagreeing with that Tom, I’ve said the same on here many times. The only hope for this country is some kind of centre left coalition, and until that happens the Tories are guaranteed to get a majority because of the completely outdated electoral system in this country.

 

Yeah, as I've said a couple times: people need to understand that Britain has undergone exactly the same shift as occurred in the US starting a couple decades ago. The old coalitions are dead, and the white working class in rural and (most) post-industrial areas aren't going to be a part of the Labour coalition for the foreseeable future.

I'll offer another likelihood as well: the current leadership clique of the Tories better not get too comfortable. The strange dynamic of a party of the white working class led by fourth-generation Oxford graduates will only last another decade or so, and then you'll start to see a new sort of Tory candidate emerge: not the genteel sort of nativist moron currently occupying the Cabinet, but a more authentic, brasher form of ethnonationalist, the sort that not only doesn't hide their money in Panama, but would struggle to tell you which continent one might find a Panama.

And if they lose handily in 2024/2025 under whichever hapless twit replaces Boris prior to the election, that change could end up happening all at once.

 

Too simplistic and too negative imo. I think you underestimate working class people, in the U.K. anyway; I can’t speak for the USA, but people in post industrial English towns aren’t white nationalist hillbillies with KKK leanings. Even in Alabama, I suspect that type is a minority.

 

I don't think that they are hillbillies with KKK leanings, but they don't need to be. There are absolutely some post-industrial places where the name Thatcher is an epithet that will never vote Tory, but there are a lot of erstwhile Labour strongholds that just aren't voting Labour for a generation or more. Beyond that, look at the demographics in 2019:

https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election

- There was a sizable swing toward the Conservatives among people without degrees. As there has been in the US.
- The Conservatives won against Labour among white voters by 19%, and lost with identified minorities by 40%.
- A sizable gender gap is opening up, particularly with younger demos, with women more likely to favour Labour or the Lib Dems, and men more likely to vote Conservative.

And here we see that reinforced: big gains for Labour in London, while many former Labour strongholds form a Conservative breakwater.

Those aren't just trends in the US and the UK. It's also the trend in Canada, and most of Europe, as well. Conservative parties are increasingly the domain of reactionary populism, and reactionary populism is increasingly the preferred political flavour of the white working class.

 

Starmer to be re-investigated by Durham police over "Beergate". Now, as they said no offence had been committed before, new evidence must have come to light.

 

Wonder what new evidence has been brought to their attention, can’t imagine any of the muck raked up by the DM qualifies as anything substantial.

If Starmer is fined then I think that will be the end for his leadership, too much is invested in calling for Johnson’s head it just invalidates the whole position.

Even though a beer with dinner whilst working at a constituency office is very different from an actual party, but hey who ever cared about context.

 

Bit of pressure at the lodge no doubt.

Whatever happened at the constituency office palls into insignificance in comparison with the tories bring your own swing breaking suitcase parties.

 

There was a photo of Keir Starmer having a meal with Frank Dobson published by the DM the other day, claiming it as evidence of lockdown breaches.

Frank Dobson died in November 2019.

 

Grounds for a complaint as deliberately misleading. Then further compounded by mad bad Nad twatting the photo. Culture minister you're taking the piss something very wrong about the sycophantic witch.

 

The limited vocabulary of the board means I 'liked' this. I don't like it, but it is sadly a very good analysis. Overall, the Beast of Brexit still looms large. Leave voters being told they were misguided at best and just plain thick at worst keep biting back. That Brexit is an unmitigated disaster is ignored, the pain of the exchanges lives on.

 

The real daily briefing.

 

In fairness, having a meal with a guy who died months earlier would be worth an investigation. Must violate health and safety practices of some sort.

 

I wish the government worked as hard on solving the UK's problems as it does on operation saving big ****ing dog.

 

I know it is the Express, but that is certainly a way to interpret losing 490 councillors…