Off Topic Politics Thread

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Saintjoey said:
I think that’s how it should be. Racism and intolerance because of one’s religion, race or political persuasion is just wrong full stop. Regardless of your own colour or beliefs.
Those protesting in universities under the guise of peace are spewing some of the most vile and hateful rhetoric you could imagine. But they justify it because they view everything in a very binary way of oppressed vs oppressor.
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Where does discussion end and racism begin? When did we reach a point where you cannot make a comment about your own lived experience without losing your career?

I am still baffled on this one. If there are ten people in a room and one is purple and the other nine are green, it stands to reason the purple one is going to find intolerance harder to avoid. Even if one of the green ones has teeth made of bananas while all the other 9 have teeth made of apples. Abbots suspension was exactly an attempt to fit "all racism is equally bad" to her - and it simply doesn't wash.

When I was at school I got mocked for being German. Nazi sausage boy. English teenagers are absolute ****s. But I didn't get that walking down the street. I had to go out of my way to tell people. Therefore my lived experience was nowhere near the lived experience of my black classmates.

Which was what Abbott said. Which is only upsetting if you are desperate to have your otherness "equal" to all other othernesses. And that is not how it is. Not in terms of racism faced day-to-day. Not in terms of outcomes for employability. Not in any stretch of the imagination.

So, no, shutting up anyone who has an opinion on the scales of intolerance faced is not okay. Everything must be open to debate and we must all be willing to listen, or what is the point anyway?
 
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......loading...... said:
We aren't a million miles apart in view. What got Abbott shut down was making a comment comparing lived experience for races. And just mentioning that lived experience might be different for people who look different has cost her her political career. That is the true power of political correctness - it can be abused to quiet the voices of those already disenfranchised. Like Abbott. Or a Palestinian.
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Lived experience definitely is a factor. Walking to Wembley after the pub with my white, 65 year old mate, he just didn’t feel the uneasiness walking past 20-30 chanting Leeds fans in their 20s and all beered up. My lived experience of being a quite tanned person did make me feel quite anxious.
 
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......loading...... said:
Where does discussion end and racism begin? When did we reach a point where you cannot make a comment about your own lived experience without losing your career?

I am still baffled on this one. If there are ten people in a room and one is purple and the other nine are green, it stands to reason the purple one is going to find intolerance harder to avoid. Even if one of the green ones has teeth made of bananas while all the other 9 have teeth made of apples. Abbots suspension was exactly an attempt to fit "all racism is equally bad" to her - and it simply doesn't wash.

When I was at school I got mocked for being German. Nazi sausage boy. English teenagers are absolute ****s. But I didn't get that walking down the street. I had to go out of my way to tell people. Therefore my lived experience was nowhere near the lived experience of my black classmates.

Which was what Abbott said. Which is only upsetting if you are desperate to have your otherness "equal" to all other othernesses. And that is not how it is. Not in terms of racism faced day-to-day. Not in terms of outcomes for employability. Not in any stretch of the imagination.

So, no, shutting up anyone who has an opinion on the scales of intolerance faced is not okay. Everything must be open to debate and we must all be willing to listen, or what is the point anyway?
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I think the BLM movement changed everything in terms of what becomes acceptable and the consequences for dissenting. Times have changed extremely quickly in the last 2 years. I’m all for debate and conversation without immediately accusing anyone of racism but that bar has to apply to everyone.
 
Saintjoey said:
I think the BLM movement changed everything in terms of what becomes acceptable and the consequences for dissenting. Times have changed extremely quickly in the last 2 years. I’m all for debate and conversation without immediately accusing anyone of racism but that bar has to apply to everyone.
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Agreed. Racism exists in all communities and nobody gets an excuse to cling on to it.
 
Archers Road said:
From The Guardian live…


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So why would she say it has? Is she stirring again? Was she expecting it might have done so made these claims so that the press could go mad and Starmer be forced to backtrack? Or has he just flipped anyway.

Some of those explanations potentially show why they don’t seem to really want her around. And it’s got nothing to do with race
 
Gregm1988 said:
So why would she say it has? Is she stirring again? Was she expecting it might have done so made these claims so that the press could go mad and Starmer be forced to backtrack? Or has he just flipped anyway.

Some of those explanations potentially show why they don’t seem to really want her around. And it’s got nothing to do with race
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Dunno. maybe questions might also be asked of the BBC Journalist who claims she texted him. Perhaps the text was a hoax and he fell for it? No idea tbh.
 
Liz Truss is going on the podcast of Sargon of Akkad? The lettuce didn't only have more staying power; it had significantly more dignity, too.
 
......loading...... said:
I don't disagree. Not my favourite MP. But I do see her as a last vestige of the left in the party. The left side of Labour is the part I vote for. She is part of a quite sinister cleanse of dissenting voices.
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What a pity John Major didn't follow the same path, in his case purging all those Eurosceptics within the Tory party at the time!!
 
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saintrichie123 said:
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Schad said:
Liz Truss is going on the podcast of Sargon of Akkad? The lettuce didn't only have more staying power; it had significantly more dignity, too.
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His podcast is now massively anti-Tory. They despise sunak and try to claim the current government is the most left wing one ever. Or at least have said that. They seem like they will be actively gleeful if the conservatives get zero seats. So platforming Truss is strange. It will either be like other ones on similar shows where they are not allowed to push back or it will be one where she ends up saying something so far off message that she should be deselected to that portion - not for the choice of platform. She won’t be

I guess my point is sunak should be more worried about her appearing on a show that wants his party destroyed rather than whether or not it’s “far” or “extreme” right

They are also anti-reform now as well it seems due to what they claim is “trial by social media” of the prospective candidates and the resulting deselection. Including, as mentioned in the letter above, one of their own presenters

They are also who came to mind when I previously noted how the right wing hate the national service idea as well.

So if Sunak actually had any influence there are a great many reasons this appearance should result in her deselection. And the platform being too right wing for Jess Phillips’ liking is not that high on the list really
 
......loading...... said:
I don't disagree. Not my favourite MP. But I do see her as a last vestige of the left in the party. The left side of Labour is the part I vote for. She is part of a quite sinister cleanse of dissenting voices.
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Yesterday’s circus and the corresponding news cycle yesterday and today is actually evidence of why they might be trying to move her on. Officially she doesn’t seem to have been deselected and yet she has basically held a rally in her constituency to put pressure on the leader. In the middle of the general election. She doesn’t seem a lot better than the likes of Momentum and Owen Jones. Consumed by self interest and seemingly not really interested in helping get the Tory’s out. And if you are of the left and not doing everything you can to help get them out (because that really is step 1 to any improvement in the country regardless of what you think about the current iteration of the Labour Party) then you are part of the problem

People are also ignoring that she apologised for her comments. People trying to bend over to claim what she said was right - she backtracked on it! So it isn’t even defending her views any more. Unless her apology wasn’t genuine. In which case it was once again a self serving decision to avoid being booted from the party.

I wonder what her motivations are. She is constantly in the firing line - more than any MP in the commons. She won’t get any ministerial roles in a new government. So I can only assume therefore that she is genuinely in it for her constituents. Which is admirable. But if she causes so much fuss as to see said constituents once again not be ultimately represented by the party in power - would it have been worth it?

I have no idea what the cut through of this is to the general public
 
Gregm1988 said:
Yesterday’s circus and the corresponding news cycle yesterday and today is actually evidence of why they might be trying to move her on. Officially she doesn’t seem to have been deselected and yet she has basically held a rally in her constituency to put pressure on the leader. In the middle of the general election. She doesn’t seem a lot better than the likes of Momentum and Owen Jones. Consumed by self interest and seemingly not really interested in helping get the Tory’s out. And if you are of the left and not doing everything you can to help get them out (because that really is step 1 to any improvement in the country regardless of what you think about the current iteration of the Labour Party) then you are part of the problem

People are also ignoring that she apologised for her comments. People trying to bend over to claim what she said was right - she backtracked on it! So it isn’t even defending her views any more. Unless her apology wasn’t genuine. In which case it was once again a self serving decision to avoid being booted from the party.

I wonder what her motivations are. She is constantly in the firing line - more than any MP in the commons. She won’t get any ministerial roles in a new government. So I can only assume therefore that she is genuinely in it for her constituents. Which is admirable. But if she causes so much fuss as to see said constituents once again not be ultimately represented by the party in power - would it have been worth it?

I have no idea what the cut through of this is to the general public
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Let’s start with the apology. This is apology culture. Whether you are sorry or not you have to apologise. Do you think she genuinely is sorry that she dared insinuate racism is first and foremost a colour thing? What a world we live in where the facts of the past are now ignored because of today’s ideology. Only a total buffoon would think people who look different don’t suffer a more specific type of racism to those who look the same. So, is an apology you are forced to make by a society that has lost the capacity to see in shades a self-serving decision? Maybe - but what decisions in life aren’t? And again, are we not judging her more harshly than her peers?

I tend to read the Labour party comments yesterday as being ‘we hadn’t banned her - yet - but no way was she getting selected’. This is her job, her career, and she has built an impressive majority in her seat. The fact is that she will win if runs for Labour. Flip your ‘she doesn’t care’ attitude on its head. Where is the support she should be getting from her party? Why has nobody put their arm around her shoulder and said, sorry you went through all this, we will of course support you in the GE?
 
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......loading...... said:
Let’s start with the apology. This is apology culture. Whether you are sorry or not you have to apologise. Do you think she genuinely is sorry that she dared insinuate racism is first and foremost a colour thing? What a world we live in where the facts of the past are now ignored because of today’s ideology. Only a total buffoon would think people who look different don’t suffer a more specific type of racism to those who look the same. So, is an apology you are forced to make by a society that has lost the capacity to see in shades a self-serving decision? Maybe - but what decisions in life aren’t? And again, are we not judging her more harshly than her peers?

I tend to read the Labour party comments yesterday as being ‘we hadn’t banned her - yet - but no way was she getting selected’. This is her job, her career, and she has built an impressive majority in her seat. The fact is that she will win if runs for Labour. Flip your ‘she doesn’t care’ attitude on its head. Where is the support she should be getting from her party? Why has nobody put their arm around her shoulder and said, sorry you went through all this, we will of course support you in the GE?
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Perhaps because she is MP for Hackney, and as well as having a high proportion of black voters, Hackney is also home to a large and well established Jewish community. Allegations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, justified or not, had a significant impact in London, and Abbott’s closeness to Corbyn may have made a lot of Jewish Labour supporters uneasy. So some of the resistance to her may be coming from within her own constituency LP, rather than from the top.
 
Archers Road said:
Perhaps because she is MP for Hackney, and as well as having a high proportion of black voters, Hackney is also home to a large and well established Jewish community. Allegations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, justified or not, had a significant impact in London, and Abbott’s closeness to Corbyn may have made a lot of Jewish Labour supporters uneasy. So some of the resistance to her may be coming from within her own constituency LP, rather than from the top.
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So your point is that Abbott is correct and she was indeed being forced out of her seat?

Closeness to Corbyn - i.e. having an ideology - are the dirty words of parliament.
 
......loading...... said:
So your point is that Abbott is correct and she was indeed being forced out of her seat?

Closeness to Corbyn - i.e. having an ideology - are the dirty words of parliament.
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No, that wasn’t my point, and I consider it dishonest of you to pretend it was.

Closeness to Corbyn though, is political poison, sure. I have met Jeremy Corbyn many times, and consider him an honourable man, many of whose opinions I personally share. But his leadership delivered the worst result for Labour in a GE since the 1930s, so in the world of real politics, “You know what Jeremy old chap? Thank you and goodbye” is no less than he should expect.
 
Archers Road said:
No, that wasn’t my point, and I consider it dishonest of you to pretend it was.

Closeness to Corbyn though, is political poison, sure. I have met Jeremy Corbyn many times, and consider him an honourable man, many of whose opinions I personally share. But his leadership delivered the worst result for Labour in a GE since the 1930s, so in the world of real politics, “You know what Jeremy old chap? Thank you and goodbye” is no less than he should expect.
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By that exact same reasoning, Abbott should be kept on. Her results in the last election were way above expectations...
 
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