The British Politics Thread - The Bear and Badger

Funkstain

You're probably not going to like this Rouj, but this hyper partisan shit is on both sides, I reckon. The Corbyn lot going on about the trumped up antisemitism, the withdrawal of the whip and so on: his response was fucking terrible, it was badly worded, badly presented, badly timed and he showed his worst qualities: mild narcissism, pedantry and petulance. Do I think the whole campaign was nasty and funded by nefarious actors? Yes. Do I think it's a very dangerous road to equate a nation's policies with the identity / honour / treatment of an ethnic group? Fuck yes. But Jesus Christ he fucked that up, him and his dumb office staff.

In any case it's clearly time to move on because he's a busted flush, mostly because of an aggressive right wing press but also because of his own fuck ups. The correct response to report was not to try and undermine it, but to just go "fuck me they beat us on that" and what we got was a bunch of left wing twitter and faecesbook going all in on Rachel fucking Riley and Israel, which, counter productive much?

This hyper partisan stuff is deeply harmful to society: it tramples on norms like adherence to truth, integrity, consequences for shitty behaviour...never in recent history have politicians in UK or US been so utterly shameless. I have no idea how to remedy it.

Roujin

Sorry Funk you've got the wrong end of the stick, I was doing a pithy shitpost.

I am somewhat bitter about the Corbyn thing, but I understand that that whole thing is over and we have to move forward with Starmer and then hopefully find ways to move from there somehow. It's just cathartic to point out what the conservative party are up to in plain sight and how that compares to the media handling of issues in other parties.

I think also the hyper partisan stuff is a result of a large chunk of the press in the UK or news coverage in the US continually going to bat in the most absurdly skewed way for the interests of those at the top. The more idiotic the coverage has become, the more vocal the backlash against it from those who are idealogically opposed gets in the spaces where their voices are more likely to be heard.

I think where we are going to differ is that in my opinion, the people who are loudly opposing the current status quo are not the ones doing the harm. They are calling out the actions of the elite in the hope that eventually a majority of people will wake the fuck up to what's happening and we can vote these shitlords out of office before it's too late, but it's having to be done against not only the elite, but all the people who are swallowing the bollocks they are fed by the media. I think the only way out is when a large enough majority of the public take seriously the damage being done to them so that those at the top can continue to increase their wealth, but that's not going to be a quick process.

Funkstain

It’s all about being reasonable and acknowledging that both sides can OMG I’m becoming a centrist

Roujin

Both sides can eat my entire ass!

Armitage_Shankburn

Funkstain wrote:

It’s all about being reasonable and acknowledging that both sides can OMG I’m becoming a centrist

Escape

Brexit perfectly set us against each other, offering a poor binary choice that appealed near-totally to the majority. I doubt there'll be a better divide-and-rule setup in our lifetimes.

Armitage_Shankburn

Trans women are women'll do the job. Has middle class, affluent older women up in arms voting lib dem /now starmer, and younglings concentrating on enemies within the left instead of making alliances.

Also, front wipe back wipe, and "spits* standupwipers. Death's too good for the unclean bastards, every last one.

Roujin

The bidet fad of the 80s in the UK ended too soon, think of what we could accomplish as a people united, unconcerned with the concept of directional wiping in all its forms, a nation of immaculate bussies only needing a quick dab to dry ourselves before getting back to solving yet another great social conundrum of our time.

Armitage_Shankburn

Jobs lost in the colonic irrigation economic sector though. It's all about that bottom line.

Roujin

Their next job was in cyber, they just didn't know it yet.

nick_md

Remember when cyber was a cool word?

Escape

What, in the '80s? When we had lime-green bathrooms with stupid little bidets only a determined Skez could straddle.

LivDiv

Remember Tizwaz and Spangles.
Aids was fun, like Covid but for fruity dancers.
Freddie was good though, poor Freddie.

3 day weeks, better than no day weeks. Villa dominating Europe.
Black people in their place.

davyK

We've been hacked by Peter Kay.

g.man

hahaha

dynamiteReady

Funkstain wrote:

It’s all about being reasonable and acknowledging that both sides can OMG I’m becoming a centrist

Though I know your comment is in jest, as someone who grew up with very little, and one that has no desire to see others live that way (or indeed, any worse), I'd like to live in a place that at the very least, is governed by smart, honest people.

Democracy is a weird thing, and while I have no political science qualification, it's obvious that most of the people who vote (in this country, at least), vote in self interest. And this is clearly reflected by the current government.

The only real hope for change, is the fact that the 'voting' population, while sizable, only represents a fraction (albeit large) of the country's population.
So of course, there is a 'battle' to be waged for those potential voters.

So you would expect the self interested group to lie, hide facts, bully, and scream their way into public thoughts, in that bid to gain those undecided votes.

I don't think I want to vote for anyone acting in that way to gain my support.

New media might make this bullshit appear to be a new problem, but it's as old as fuck.

Also, it's rarely mentioned, but in the case of the UK, the government will always be a reflection of the Royal Family. The colours will change from time to time, but at best, this country will vote for 'centrists', at worse, this country will be scammed into voting for a small minority of bankers and landowners.

Roujin

Funkstain

Yeah keep it up “leftists”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/nov/24/corbyn-supporting-labour-faction-stage-nec-mass-walkout

Definitely the best way to get your message across you don’t look like petty idiots refusing to engage at all

mistercrayon

Democracy is a weird thing, and while I have no political science qualification, it's obvious that most of the people who vote (in this country, at least), vote in self interest. And this is clearly reflected by the current government.

I disagree that this is truly the case. Firstly if people only voted in self interest (whatever that means) then surely Corbyn’s freebie-a-thon would have been more popular?

I also have a slight difficulty about criticising voting in self interest. even though favouring a more wealth distributive party is considered to be “not in self interest” because on one metric you are materially worse off but in others you want create a space where you feel more comfortable for yourself (for example the soothing that comes with you don’t have to feel bad about having money but also the niceness of not having to do any extra work to make other people’s lives better because the admin and bureaucracy takes care of it).

Roujin

Funkstain wrote:

Yeah keep it up “leftists” https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/nov/24/corbyn-supporting-labour-faction-stage-nec-mass-walkout Definitely the best way to get your message across you don’t look like petty idiots refusing to engage at all

I mean, what are they supposed to do? It's not like they don't have grounds for the grievance they have? It was a walk out on a zoom meeting?

They have the reports that show a group of people within the party actively worked to undermine Corbyn and they have the feedback from the antisemitism report. There are a large number of members in the party who voted for Corbyn and still want to stand behind him, or the policy direction change that he represented and to them, I imagine watching labour just do everything it can to move away from that isn't going down too well with them.

mistercrayon

Aren’t they doing what they accused the right wing were doing though? Undermining the democratically elected leader. Corbyns annointed one was handily beaten by twice the vote.

Roujin

Well, they aren't saying they don't agree with the results of the vote, they're mad that the system was changed back and a critic of Starmer ended up being passed over for an ally of Starmer as head of the NEC.

To them it is another example they can add to the list of things which are deliberately or just by happenstance seem to be erasing any influence of the left wing in the party.

Funkstain

Ach I sympathise with some of it but they / we lost. They / we were outplayed and lost. Much of the momentum (ha) has been lost, lots of the belief has been lost - hasn’t it? Or is that just me projecting my personal belief erosion?

In any case, I don’t see this kind of virtue signalling having much impact. What does it achieve (other than the usual negative “Labour civil war” headlines)? What’s the endgame, permanent walk out and split? It’s so unstrategic. Sure there’ll be some positive tweets and a nice article in socialist worker but the whole point is to widen the progressive movement, broaden the church, work better together (look to Finland) - not factionalise further.

The antisemitism war is lost. There is no way back from there. Move on. Accept losses. Regain influence with smart inclusive politics and positive groundwork and grass roots momentum driving pressure. This doesn’t pressure the leadership - it just makes the rebels look out of touch, quaint, petty, and worse: powerless

Funkstain

Lord help me I prefer starmer to Corbyn as leader, because Corbyn was just such a shit awful politician, he was just so bad at his actual job.

Diluted Dante

I too prefer abstaining on fuckawful bills rather than voting them down.

Brooks

I'd rather the proper lefties left Labour to it and did something else. Labour are at least as dead an end as the Democrats in the US.

mistercrayon

I think they should push for prop rep and then do it. Otherwise they’d be dead as dead as change uk.

Or they could try and be a force outside of parliament and create more of a real change. Use the network to create a helping network or whatever.

Funkstain

Diluted Dante wrote:

I too prefer abstaining on fuckawful bills rather than voting them down.

An irrelevant point, at least regarding my statement. Corbyn is and was a terrible politician and I don’t think he was a good leader of the opposition and I don’t think he’d have made a good prime minister.

What you think of Johnson’s capabilities is not relevant to that, what you think of how starmer votes and whips (you know I agree with you) is not relevant to that.

I think Brooks is right, that a new party is needed, but Christ that’s waiting a long long time to get something done.

Roujin

I think a new party is needed for anyone who wants to carry on with the drive to the centre, and all the lefty cunts and the trade unionists should be able to stay because it was their party originally.

Funkstain

Hmm I dunno. You can get something going with something new, and the fact is the direction of the party is indeed set by its members isn’t it? Who overwhelmingly voted for starmer. So..?

Howdy, Stranger!

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