The Politics Thread

I'm not a fan of the Labour defectors, from what little I know of them. I'm also not a centrist. I grew up wishing the US had a major party that was farther left than center-right. But I have to wonder if the Labour party is the way forward for the left at this point. The shrinking number of those involved in manufacturing, combined with Labour remaining one of the two major parties, has had the effect of strengthening both the right and the far right. Labour doesn't really represent the growing numbers involved in the service economy. It's too close to being a relic. What would be better IMO is, well, a better version of the SDP, farther left, more innovative in its thinking, and, above all, principled. Someone needs to fight the oligarchs effectively and Labour isn't cutting it.

 

Someone really needs to fight the neo-liberal economists, as they (well their policies) are in control now of all the major institutions. Debate all you like about those that can potentially be elected, nobody elected the economists but arguably they have far more power.

 

What does that actually mean ?? How are they different from 'old-liberal' economists ??

 

Joan Ryan seems to be on a mission to outdo Angela Smith for sounding like The Infiltration Group Ltd's most batshit insane member, as she's attempting to deny the rumours that she discussed receiving a £1m bribe to Israeli spy Shai Masoud

Here's a video of this bribe that she never offered

...but don't go mentioning it on the Grauniad or Times websites, they couldn't remove your comment fast enough if they did

On the subject of covering things up, Arron Banks should probably start purging tweets PDQ

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In other news, Rachel Riley and Tracy Ann Oberman have taken a break from getting their right wing Twitter followers to dogpile on 16-year old girls who disagree with them by having a shady lawyer threaten a 17-year old girl with legal action via Twitter

 

He's spamming that **** repeatedly at a variety of different accounts.
It's this bloke: https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/m...dt-over-social-media-comments/5067741.article
He claims to have moved to Israel because of a rise in antisemitism in the UK, but he's also getting an experimental treatment for MS there.

 

And I thought it was ridiculous when and ex-colleague who can be accurately described as a talentless psychopath via Myspace back when Myspace was a thing - and, no, said threat of legal action was not for me using that term to describe them, as I made no mention, implication, suggestion, connotation or inference about them at any point

 

Another big stink in America. A black actor named Jussie Smollett from the tv series Empire allegedly posed as a race victim after paying a couple of nuts to pretend to assault him in the name of racial discrimination. You'd think the world has enough problems,wouldn't you.

 

I mentioned this a page or two back

The real problem with this isn't Smollett's lie itself (although that is problematic) but the ripple effect, as we've already seen alt-right commentators jumping up and down with glee that for once their claims of "fAlsE FLaG!!!!" were actually true (as opposed to the countless times they are not) meaning he's given them a ton of ammunition, but far worse it is only a matter of time until a genuine victim of an attack by the far-right and/or racially aggravated assault will be met by a chorus of "You're a liar because Jussie Smollett's a liar" and that is completely and utterly ****ed

 

There was something about him not being paid enough! Like our footballers!

 

Looks like we have a prime suspect for which of The Infiltration Group Ltd was violating the Computer Misuse Act 1990...

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An Independent. Neither left or right.Possibly lost

 

Neither left nor right...but leaving the Labour party and courting Tories, which gives a strong indication which way they're leaning

 

That's pretty bloody awful!

 

It's not the MP's or Parties that need to change it's the voting system. First past the post is designed to keep the two party system intact so to end up with two awful major parties is the inevitable outcome. Proportional representation would ensure a wider representation of parties and that in itself would moderate extremists. Once again Scotland shows the way even though the SNP achieved what they hoped the system would defeat and gained an overall majority for a year or two. It still forces the SNP to pay more attention to their political opponents than they otherwise might. Democracy is referred to all the time as if we have it. Our political systems have been designed by those in power to maintain THEIR interests in retention of that power.
Until the rotten Westminster system is altered you can expect more rotten parties and more rotten governments. The way forward for the whole of the UK is Scottish Independence followed later by English Independence. Then both countries can move into the 21st Century.

 

At first it seemed that Lewis was just an ambulance chaser trying to look like Bertie Big Bollocks...but then Rachel Riley only went and confirmed that, yes, he is representing her as she looks to make an example of people who disagree with her and then bring attention to the fact she and Tracy Ann Oberman unleash their followers onto them to try and harass them into silence

Oddly enough, so far there's been no mention of them going after this writer, who's been documenting what's going on and, suffice to say, Riley does not come out well in this (WARNING: both of them are LONG articles)

 

To the surprise of nobody, Ian Austin has quit the Labour party - although he did a damn good job of giving Chuka Umunna pause when retweeting his resignation statement when, as well as the usual crap we've heard from each of Chuka's Chickens this week, he also thought it would be really, really clever to state that Jeremy Corbyn supported the IRA

I'm looking forward to the libel suit headed his way for that one...

 

First past the post should first be pushed to its limits with :

1. mandatory voting
2. a "none of the above" box

After a few election cycles of that, the realities of PR and
"two party" politics will be clear.

 

Something definitely needs to be done to curb the practice of parachuting people into safe seats, because it leads to one of two inevitable conclusions
i.) Embarrassment when the party loses a safe seat due to the MP either being unpopular, incompetent, or simply never seen within a ten mile radius of the constituency (i.e. Oona King losing Bethnal Green & Bow in 2005, Lembit Opik losing Montgomeryshire in 2010)
ii.) Constituents are stuck with a choice of either voting for the party but having to keep a deeply unpopular MP in place for another five years, or not voting and having the seat go to another party (i.e. Frank Field, Kate Hoey, Joan Ryan, Angela Smith etc etc)

A local party should have a say on who their MP will be, because nobody wants to be lumbered with a careerist who treats the constituency like a stepping stone nor do they want somebody who appears to have signed up for the wrong political party

 

When "none of the above" is the majority in a constituency, then a
"black/white ball" draw should be done for the two parties with
the highest vote proportions.

If grass roots polling tells you that your candidate is case ii,
and voters support your party but will vote "none of the above"
because of it, are you going to risk fielding such candidates
when you may lose the seat in a lottery ??

 

The issue is that some parties may still get away with it, for example either the population of Christchurch all hate women to an alarming degree and happily vote for Christopher Chope, or they just see the Tory rosette and think that's enough

A real test would be if the ballot paper only had the candidate's name and nothing else. That alone could see some majorities significantly drop, while also exposing how obvious it is some people never bother looking up who their candidates are and simply tick the relevant box on the paper. I'm sure the Christian People's Alliance would be all for that, as their vote share might increase overnight by people blindly guessing which candidate sounds like the one they want to vote for...