General Erection 2019

[THE FOOL]

People vote for their own self interest at the end of the day. The mass media message is that the Tories can be trusted with the economy while Labour will always trash it. In the polling station when putting the X on the ballot paper nobody wants to vote to make themselves and their family poorer.

This is the biggest reason socialism will always struggle in Britain.

We will tax you £20 a month but in return you'll get £30 worth of services.

But your going to take £20 off me, **** that.

 

[saintanton]

I'm not sure on that, in the previous election he had a huge impact, I've never seen anything like it.

He was on stage at Glastonbury, people chanting his name, people really bought into his feeling of hope for the country.

Hes been battered the last two years though, every smear and dirty trick used against him and he just didnt have the same energy and the gloss had worn off.

Coupled with seemingly wanting to give everything away and nationalise everything just smacked of desperation and poorly being thought out.

I wasn't convinced from the start.
It's not about my opinion of the man, it's just my belief that the voting public are scared of socialism because - as we've both said - too many don't understand it.
In the UK, and especially the US, the media have always portrayed socialism as another word for communism. In my youth left-wingers were all portrayed as wanting to sell us out to the Soviet Union, and this **** has stuck.
My Dad voted Tory all his life - when I became old enough to think for myself I simply couldn't understand why he did this. He was disabled fighting fascism during the war and the only thing that prevented him from being completely destitute was the post-war upsurge in social awareness and responsibility. The same philosophy that allowed me, as the child of a poor working class family, access to a reasonable education.
Then we started to be influenced by US economic policy, and then came Thatcherism and society was knocked back 100 years or so.

 

[THE FOOL]

I wasn't convinced from the start.
It's not about my opinion of the man, it's just my belief that the voting public are scared of socialism because - as we've both said - too many don't understand it.
In the UK, and especially the US, the media have always portrayed socialism as another word for communism. In my youth left-wingers were all portrayed as wanting to sell us out to the Soviet Union, and this **** has stuck.
My Dad voted Tory all his life - when I became old enough to think for myself I simply couldn't understand why he did this. He was disabled fighting fascism during the war and the only thing that prevented him from being completely destitute was the post-war upsurge in social awareness and responsibility. The same philosophy that allowed me, as the child of a poor working class family, access to a reasonable education.
Then we started to be influenced by US economic policy, and then came Thatcherism and society was knocked back 100 years or so.

It's a difficult concept to understand for some people, plus the belief from some struggling on minimum wage that their tax goes to john down the road so he can sit on his arse all day.

It's hard for some people to see it's better to have a smaller slice of the cake but make the cake bigger. It's much easier to u understand the money in your pocket at the end of the month.

 

[RogerisontheHunt]

SNP are morons, they think cause they won most of the Scottish seats they'll get a 2nd Indy ref. Its bollocks, a right wing Tory govt will just reject any request for a 2nd one.
All they've done is take potential seats Labour could have won. Unfortunately it still wouldn't have been enough.

 

[Red Hadron Collider]

Dense sweaty ****s

 

[SIR_KENNY_KLOPP_KING]

People vote for their own self interest at the end of the day. The mass media message is that the Tories can be trusted with the economy while Labour will always trash it. In the polling station when putting the X on the ballot paper nobody wants to vote to make themselves and their family poorer.

Couldn’t agree more. The problem we have is that we have a binary choice and the reality is that what we actually need is a bit of both parties. I guess that’s meant to be the Libdems but they’ve rarely stepped up.

With our current set up, our country will only ever have a 5 year vision.....we need a really long term plan that encompasses good financial management AND one that looks after the most vulnerable.

Doubt we’ll ever get it though.

 

[RogerisontheHunt]

BBC trying really hard to sell it that there were lots of reasons Strong Labour seats voted Tory. Bullshit, and even when they interview people on the streets, there are only two reasons, Brexit and Corbyn.

Things are going to have to go really well in the next 5 years or there's going to be hell to pay since those two things will be gone.

 

[Tobes]

People vote for their own self interest at the end of the day. The mass media message is that the Tories can be trusted with the economy while Labour will always trash it. In the polling station when putting the X on the ballot paper nobody wants to vote to make themselves and their family poorer.

Brexit says Hi.

 

[SIR_KENNY_KLOPP_KING]

This is the biggest reason socialism will always struggle in Britain.

We will tax you £20 a month but in return you'll get £30 worth of services.

But your going to take £20 off me, **** that.

This is also why every country under socialism ends up broke after a few years! Socialism doesn’t work anywhere, despite its good intentions.

 

[THE FOOL]

This is also why every country under socialism ends up broke after a few years! Socialism doesn’t work anywhere, despite its good intentions.

The scandinavians seem to be doing quite well. As with everything a commen sense approach rather than ideological ideas need to implemented.

Plus the people need to buy into the idea of a better society for all actually benefits the individual.

Unfortunately there are by far to many people that scoff at the idea and would rather pull it to bits rather than help work towards something better

 

[Tobes]

This is also why every country under socialism ends up broke after a few years! Socialism doesn’t work anywhere, despite its good intentions.

Depends on how you’re choosing to define socialism. Taxing the populous at a level that is sufficient to provide quality public services and infrastructure is something that plenty of other countries manage to do, and these countries aren’t ‘broke’.

However, here, the right wing have successfully groomed the populous into believing that taxation to provide quality services is somehow akin to Govt theft. The idea that those who earn more can afford to pay more is also treated with horror, often by people who must consider themselves to be ‘temporarily embarrassed millionaires’. As they don’t fall into the higher taxation category, but have been so successfully gaslit, that they’ll defend the rights of the wealthy to not have to help create a society where all can see the benefits of the collective national wealth.

 

[THE FOOL]

Depends on how you’re choosing to define socialism. Taxing the populous at a level that is sufficient to provide quality public services and infrastructure is something that plenty of other countries manage to do, and these countries aren’t ‘broke’.

However, here, the right wing have successfully groomed the populous into believing that taxation to provide quality services is somehow akin to Govt theft. The idea that those who earn more can afford to pay more is also treated with horror, often by people who must consider themselves to be ‘temporarily embarrassed millionaires’. As they don’t fall into the higher taxation category, but have been so successfully gaslit, that they’ll defend the rights of the wealthy to not have to help create a society where all can see the benefits of the collective national wealth.

The definition of socialist countries matters alot, considering most cant tell the difference between socialism and communism, alot of communist countries get held up as a failure of socialism.

The most recent beating stick Venezuela has alot in common with communist ideas, but the biggest reason it failed was they put everything into oil and neglected everything else.

Also corruption on an epidemic scale which unfortunately afflicts every political ideal

 

[saintanton]

Depends on how you’re choosing to define socialism. Taxing the populous at a level that is sufficient to provide quality public services and infrastructure is something that plenty of other countries manage to do, and these countries aren’t ‘broke’.

However, here, the right wing have successfully groomed the populous into believing that taxation to provide quality services is somehow akin to Govt theft. The idea that those who earn more can afford to pay more is also treated with horror, often by people who must consider themselves to be ‘temporarily embarrassed millionaires’. As they don’t fall into the higher taxation category, but have been so successfully gaslit, that they’ll defend the rights of the wealthy to not have to help create a society where all can see the benefits of the collective national wealth.

Perfectly put.

 

[saintanton]

This is also why every country under socialism ends up broke after a few years! Socialism doesn’t work anywhere, despite its good intentions.

Like I said earlier, too many people equate socialism with communism - this is like saying all right-wing governments are fascist.
Things aren't that black-and-white. As the posts below your comment point out, there are plenty of examples of socialist governments that function perfectly well.
I mentioned yesterday that my parents and I benefited enormously from a social awareness that swept Europe after World War II. Many other countries managed to hold on to that ideal (though there are repeated attempts by neo-Nazis to re-establish themselves), but ours was soon eroded due to an attachment to the anti-social, reactionary philosophy of the US. The influential right-wing section of our media constantly vilify and demonise anyone left of centre, labelling them either treacherous or incompetent.
Brexit will be a disaster - the constraints that EU membership has laid will be lost, and we will sell out to America and see all of their shockingly bad social policies finding their way here.
I feel no affinity with my government, they don't speak for me or the millions like me. I feel like a stranger in my own country.

 

[Mr Beej]

Brexit is just "dog whistle" politics. The tory machine was much more effective in getting their message out and could rely on their friends in the media to attack anything Labour said or did.
Not that Labour were without their own issues.

 

[THE FOOL]

Like I said earlier, too many people equate socialism with communism - this is like saying all right-wing governments are fascist.
Things aren't that black-and-white. As the posts below your comment point out, there are plenty of examples of socialist governments that function perfectly well.
I mentioned yesterday that my parents and I benefited enormously from a social awareness that swept Europe after World War II. Many other countries managed to hold on to that ideal (though there are repeated attempts by neo-Nazis to re-establish themselves), but ours was soon eroded due to an attachment to the anti-social, reactionary philosophy of the US. The influential right-wing section of our media constantly vilify and demonise anyone left of centre, labelling them either treacherous or incompetent.
Brexit will be a disaster - the constraints that EU membership has laid will be lost, and we will sell out to America and see all of their shockingly bad social policies finding their way here.
I feel no affinity with my government, they don't speak for me or the millions like me. I feel like a stranger in my own country.

Very well said. There are a lot of attitudes prevalent at the moment that I just dont recognise, as you so eloquently put, I feel like a stranger.

 

[Zanjinho]

Brexit is just "dog whistle" politics. The tory machine was much more effective in getting their message out and could rely on their friends in the media to attack anything Labour said or did.
Not that Labour were without their own issues.

They didn't need to be better at getting the word out, they just needed to sit back and watch Labour self destruct!

 

[Mr Beej]

They didn't need to be better at getting the word out, they just needed to sit back and watch Labour self destruct!

True. But they were better anyway. They hid away some of their wackier MPs like Pritti Patel, Rees-Mogg and Liz Truss and stage managed a lot of what Boris did. Boris still fcuked up but a lot of voters don't seem to care.

 

[organic red]

The definition of socialist countries matters alot, considering most cant tell the difference between socialism and communism, alot of communist countries get held up as a failure of socialism.

The most recent beating stick Venezuela has alot in common with communist ideas, but the biggest reason it failed was they put everything into oil and neglected everything else.

Also corruption on an epidemic scale which unfortunately afflicts every political ideal

US sanctions are ****ing Venezuela aswell, 2017 and 2018 claimed 40,000 lives in the country

 

[astro]

This is also why every country under socialism ends up broke after a few years! Socialism doesn’t work anywhere, despite its good intentions.

The country is in more debt than ever because of the financial crisis of capitalism, not socialism.