Kow wrote:

There's a very good chance of SF winning the next general election in the Republic. They would have won the last one but they foolishly didn't run enough candidates. I think their success in the south isn't that much to do with their unification stance. Rather it's that they're a real alternative to the back and forth corruption of the FF and FG, who have been in government since time immemorial. They have also been doing huge door to door campaigns and actually getting things done for people, which is a political method I'm a bit suspicious of. To be honest, the North isn't a pressing issue for many down south. Most would probably like to see unification, logically for historical and idealistic reasons, but not that many would get het up about it.

Thats a pretty accurate summation.

SF have also benefited from a generation of voter with no experience of the troubles but plenty experience of "the usual" politcal set up in ireland letting them down. So i do get the rise in SF popularity

Brooks wrote:

What's Sinn Fein's most objectionable stance? As a lefty, I must police the purity of other lefties.

Politically i find most of their stuff ok, it leans a bit too left for my taste but the left often does when its on the outside and is formin the opposition.

My main objection to SF is their use of Irish Nationality as a key part of their appeall. I dislike any party who does this because no party should be allowed be seen to be more Irish than the rest. Its populist bullshit

I also dont like their tone deaf approach to history. They clearly want to rewrite what happened in a very pro IRA which is massively dangerous especially if we do talk about unification.

Id go as far to see that a SF government would be the biggest block to a united ireland. There is no way they would get trust from the unionist community and i think they belive that a united ireland means getting ride of the prodestant /unionist culture when in reality i think the only way it works is as a marriage of the 2.

A lot of the more extreme and vocal supporters of a united ireland tend to forget that it wont be just kickibg the brits out. I think it would need to see an end of both northern ireland and the republic of ireland and the creation of a new state of ireland.

As @RedDave2 says, SF are probably the biggest obstacle to unity. I'm pretty sure if the IRA didn't exist we would have been damn closer to it, and may have already united. Britain would love to get rid, but not be seen to do it while having a rifle pointed at them.

shrugs.

Their undiluted leftness without ever being in a position to implement would suggest to me an unrealistic economic view. They have sucked at the British teet while stabbing it in the back for so long that I'm not sure they'd know what to do in the real world.

Aye.

I should point out that SF in the North are the alternative to the Old Testament Taliban aka DUP who make Thatcher look moderate but are as inept as SF.

The moderates have imploded in a cloud of infighting, backstabbing, arsehole leader picking irrelevance , a fact that forces me to conclude that we are a parcel of pricks who deserve everything we get.

Not really, no. Until pretty recently Sinn Fein had very little presence in the South. They had tired little offices in towns that people would cross the road to avoid. There was no armed violence in the south. The vast majority of people in the south rejected the IRA and it wasn't until they officially gave up armed struggle and put new faces into the party that SF could become popular.

Brooks wrote:

As a lefty, I must police the purity of other lefties.

Listening to Edwina Curry on BBC-NI this morning (we get Stephen Nolan 9-10:30, Mon-Fri), talking about the Universal Credit cap etc.  Still has that Tory belief that people are workshy and need "encouraged" to get out of the house and find work.

Fuck. Me.

davyK wrote:

Listening to Edwina Curry on BBC-NI this morning (we get Stephen Nolan 9-10:30, Mon-Fri), talking about the Universal Credit cap etc.  Still has that Tory belief that people are workshy and need "encouraged" to get out of the house and find work. Fuck. Me.

Yeah, UC recipients, get out of the job that pays you so little you qualify for UC, and get a job!

It's that Dickensian attitude - the belief of a workshy, scheming, gin-soaked, smoking, shifty underclass. If it ever existed it was as a direct result of the poverty created in a post Industrialised England.

That underclass still exists but in such small numbers as to be irrelevant - and yet strands of the Conservative strategy hinges on dealing with it. Or at least is used as an excuse to put their boots on the necks of the population.  Not everyone out of work is like the odious Mick Philpott.

It's hard to comprehend how that attitude still exists post WW2. And yet it does.

If we want people back in work, earning for themselves rather than being supported by the state(scrounging off depending on your view) the best way would be to ditch 0 hour contracts.
UC and 0 Hour contracts have a symbiotic relationship where the reality is the flexibility of UC has been exploited by big business like Amazon to effectively subsidise work downtime (where downtime is now anytime an employee isn't flogged like a mule)
Put people on proper contracts and UC claims will shrink heavily and people will be working and providing for themselves.

From there more long term solutions can be looked to such as training.

I'm not against UC increases but they are a temporary fix.

davyK wrote:

It's hard to comprehend how that attitude still exists post WW2. And yet it does.

I was thinking the other day that Johnson's joined Churchill and Thatcher as the most popular Tory PMs, and they were followed by Attlee and — discounting Major — Blair. Inasmuch as the latter wasn't regarded as a rightwinger until he won power.

The problem is that Labour don't have a leftwing leader, so the pattern can't repeat.

Those jobs wouldn't struggle to attract low-paid workers if their living costs were already covered.

Aspiration. Getting ahead. Securing a better life for yourself and your family. Let’s be ambitious for ourselves and our country. These are the policies any right thinking Government should be promoting.

By the way also please work this demeaning, dead end job, with no security, pay that doesn’t cover your living expenses, long hours, no chance of a mortgage and no prospects. Ok thanks bye. PS Vote Tory.

There have been a few experiments, the results have been mixed, some have certainly led to people working fewer hours, but there are so many different factors at play that it’s hard to extrapolate what happened in one country and in one experiment with what might happen elsewhere.

They do like an "us and them" scenario, easy play to keep scared housewives reading Mail online on side.
Now that johnny foreigner has been vanquished thanks to brexit it's back to made up stories of northern / scottish scroungers
The sad bit isn't the tactics it's their effectiveness.