mistercrayon wrote:

@funk I just think that a no deal will be unconscionable and the majority is healthy enough and for now loyal enough to let a thing that is acceptable enough to pass. Consider: the likelihood of a wrecking faction in Parliament is going to have low power and their motivations should be low anyway as Johnson won them an election. So my hope is that a deal should be feasible in that context.

Alright, you've ruled out option the worst: no transition extension together with no deal.

So which of the other shitty (as for as Bohnson's concerned) options will he choose? Years of transitionary powerlessness, or surrender to the EU? Would be interested in learned opinions of alternatives also

Though if Corbo'd gone full Respect the Decision I'd still have voted for him.

LivDiv wrote:

This frankly ridiculous thing surrounding Thornberry. The party need to have a word about her taking it to court.

Or maybe Flint should apologise for slandering her?

It's worse than that - it potentially poisons any political chances Thornberry may have. I'm not exactly a fan but people like Flint need to be held to account for their everlasting shitwittery

Funkstain wrote:

monkey wrote:

The EU will get what it wants. The Tories and the tabloids will claim victory. eg fishing. The EU access will continue, but it will be under some mutually agreed new treaty that a ‘future government can leave at any time thereby putting us in charge of our own waters once more.’ Even though it won’t because we’d still need to agree new access with the EU. The impact on fishing will be identical as if we’d never left except it’s now operating in a depressed domestic economy.

I just don't know how Bohnson sells this to the leavers, but tbh it's probably the least worst option, I agree

Or... Long term is the goal to form a super union of America and UK, maybe add Israel, Australia and even Russia. Screw Access to Europe for a few years with the plan being to create a new market that can really rule over the weakened EU and take on China.

I know, thats all very Tinfoil hat. But the world seems to have adopted madness as the norm so I thought I'd go a bit crazy.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/18/demagogues-power-rewilding-party-trust-power-government

Montbiot also comes to the conclusion grassroots is one of the ways to fight back against the cons. Good points although I do believe them having a stranglehold on all of the media will continue to be a problem.

Perhaps space gazelle had a point all along. If we want society to change we have to start small with ourselves, a bottom up approach? Win back the trust of local communities in local politics and build from there.

Heh, it's the media thing I'm worried about. The cons are using tabloids, TV and online targeted social media ads to max effect. And the working class' gaze is mesmerized by it. As long as that gaze is unbroken, the cons won't ease their grip.

Leftism? People like Che Guevara shirts but that's about it.

I have now joined Labour so I can vote for whoever sucks Tony Blair's dick the longest.

Paul, what's your view on the bar of personal responsibility? Is it simply "vote for the non evil party", and a bit of recycling? Nothing else at all or are there other, useful steps we can take?

Do you acknowledge that large scale change can be achieved through grassroots movements, or is it simply a waste of time until a) Labour get in (?) or b) our corporate overlords finally take action?

monkey wrote:

I have now joined Labour so I can vote for whoever sucks Tony Blair's dick the longest.

Thought that Starmer's interview in the Guardian was interesting. Lots of "see I'm working class too" bullshit, sprinkled with careful "I could have campaigned better than that lot" asides, but a real focus on remaining progressive whilst airing legitimate concerns / criticisms of the manifesto, policies and decisions of leadership. Stating that Blair would disown him.

Blair of course coming out this morning with "Labour must change course or face oblivion" and all the rest saying " to effect change you gotta be in power" with literally no regard to the consequences of getting into power by kowtowing to reactionary forces... He's a winner though!!!!

Funkstain wrote:

monkey wrote:

I have now joined Labour so I can vote for whoever sucks Tony Blair's dick the longest.

Thought that Starmer's interview in the Guardian was interesting. Lots of "see I'm working class too" bullshit, sprinkled with careful "I could have campaigned better than that lot" asides, but a real focus on remaining progressive whilst airing legitimate concerns / criticisms of the manifesto, policies and decisions of leadership. Stating that Blair would disown him.

Blair of course coming out this morning with "Labour must change course or face oblivion" and all the rest saying " to effect change you gotta be in power" with literally no regard to the consequences of getting into power by kowtowing to reactionary forces... He's a winner though!!!!

I really wished all these people had a fucking idea.

For corbyns bollocks he at least he had an idea about changing things.

Blair has been shit on corbyn for four years and his conclusion after the big loss is that corbyn is shit.

I mean literally what have you been doing other than arguing “not this”.

What then??????????????

Funkstain wrote:

monkey wrote:

I have now joined Labour so I can vote for whoever sucks Tony Blair's dick the longest.

Thought that Starmer's interview in the Guardian was interesting. Lots of "see I'm working class too" bullshit, sprinkled with careful "I could have campaigned better than that lot" asides, but a real focus on remaining progressive whilst airing legitimate concerns / criticisms of the manifesto, policies and decisions of leadership. Stating that Blair would disown him. Blair of course coming out this morning with "Labour must change course or face oblivion" and all the rest saying " to effect change you gotta be in power" with literally no regard to the consequences of getting into power by kowtowing to reactionary forces... He's a winner though!!!!

Yeah, but... it's kind of true. In an ideal world, you get to power and you can impliment all the changes you want. But thats not realistic, be it politics or business or whatever. Even if Labour had of got a majority, there is no guarantee that they could have got all or even most of their policies in. 

One of the things I remember when Fine Gael came to power in Ireland after the collapse of the celtic tiger was a comment their finance minister made at the time. They had gone in, promising that they would turn the economy around, they had costed out better policies and plans than Fianna Fail (the party which had both built and ruined the celtic tiger economy) and this was probably true. But when they got in, they saw the full scale of the problems that had been left for them. They had to adapt, had to change.  

You have to be able to compromise and also (and this is key) accept that maybe some of your big ideas might not work or need a lot more legwork to get them to the point that they do work. The fact is, you have a better chance of convincing people when you are in power than when you are on the outside shouting in. Anyone can do that part. It's why (and I'm not looking to start this up again, I know many disagree) I dont really respect the extinction rebellion stuff. Shouting in is easy. Getting in and finding the actual solution? That's the really hard bit. 

So long story short, Labour need to get in first. Everything else, it's great, I would support it myself and it should inform the actions once they get in. But they need to get in first.

It feels a little bit like Labour is close to the brink. The postmortem warfare all seems very personal rather than people jockeying for position. I always thought that long term the blairites needed to head off to the lib dems or a new party, but the fate of the MPs who did that before the election probably means everyone will be staying put and running to the papers every few weeks.

Many people seem to think the point of being in politics is to identify what people think they want, then promise them that to get elected, when in fact it should be to tell people what type of society you want to live in, what you would do to make that happen, and then convince people that what you want is what's best for them too.