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Oh Britain, what have you done (part ∞+21)?

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If I understand you correctly, Brexit is just another stepping stone and disrupter on the path to your radical political and social model? Im not sure how a majority would democratically choose it unless they were living in desperate times. A bit like fundamentalist Christians hoping for the end times so they can vanquish evil and wave to the sinners, Muslims, Hindus and atheists on the way up to their eternal life.
Hey, you're the one wailing and gnashing your teeth about the coming fire. For me Brexit is a morbid symptom of a senescent conservatism based on wealth extraction and compensatory sadism, a press culture built on telling people that a corrupt lefty elite is perversely withholding simple common sense solutions to everything, and of Labour's decision, a lifetime ago, to model itself on all this instead of opposing it. And now...
You do realise this is a Brexit thread? The Tory Party has been wrecked by Brexit but unfortunately it appears Labour have too. A search for scapegoats (beyond the party leadership) is going to be a fruitless exercise- the energy would be best put to ensuring Corbyn comes out for a second referendum or better still, just acknowledge Brexit is a colossal act of political and economic self harm and tell the public.
...why, it looks like that old lefty bastard is perversely withholding a simple solution to all the problems! Corbyn! Get that toothpaste back in the tube this minute!

Labour's been trying damp down the flames on this phony war so that it can get into government and deal with its causes. Doesn't look like it's going to be possible now, and maybe it never was: it'll have to start wetting itself and shouting at people if it wants to rally the progressives. But the best chance of taking the heat out of it long term is still radical reform, and that means a Labour government. Maybe you'll be alright in Scotland.
 
I think what’s going on is that you now see the calamity that’s coming with Brexit and while I welcome your first signs of buyer’s remorse, I’m afraid I’m unable to assist with your need to spread the culpability elsewhere.
:D Back to business as usual.

Fact is, hard though it is for you to accept, you are implicit in brexit by enabling a tory government. Me? It's nowt to do with me. I haven't done anything that enabled a tory government, I do not support their ideology or their policies. Not only are you implicit in brexit, you wish to inflict economic damage on Scotland. Unicorns are alive and well in your world, it seems.
 
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. But the best chance of taking the heat out of it long term is still radical reform,


The first, and in many ways only . radical reform needed to to do away with the First Past The Post electoral system that we use. It is ridiculously outmoded and anti-democratic.
 
Your brand view isn't broad enough.

After each of you points include the words "this time"

Then you get... 'Christian Democrats down this time' ...and so on.

To every swing in any direction there has always been a swing back again next time... it has been thus all my life.

I admit, it is taking a little longer this time but you have to remember that labour under Blair/Brown were in power a long time until the fickle public decided that they wanted a change.

Speaking of change... I remember doorstepping for Labour when Thatcher was first running for PM. I was talking to Labour voters on the doorstep who, when asked if we could rely upon there vote in the upcoming election replied " No love, I think its time we give a woman a chance "

Consequently the referendum result didn't surprise me one little bit.
This time, and last time, and the time before that...Face facts: there is a long term decline of centrism across Europe and no plan for dealing with it. Centrist parties are still aping the right and talking about borders and camps despite having been shown multiple times that this only fuels the right.
 
On closer inspection is the continued decline of the centre actually a resurgence?

So, to recap: Tories & Labour dead in the water/moving backwards. Lib Dems, Greens, SNP all substantially up. As PSB says this ties in with Europe too; self-identifying ‘socialists’ are taking a beating from the alt-right, but the centre is hanging in there.

Labour are clearly dead in the water with ‘70s ideologues Corbyn and McCluskey in control, why not just admit it?
 
This post is surreal. Corbyn has spent his whole career standing for what's right.

He opposes the sick imperialist wars that have left hundreds of thousands of innocents dead and tens of millions homeless.

He opposes selling arms to terrorist states like Israel and Saudi Arabia - both of which have atrocious human rights records.

He opposes the nefarious influence of the giant banks and corporations which helps to create ever growing inequality.

He opposes all forms of racism and bigotry.

He has stood strong in the face of a coordinated smear campaign involving the right-wing British establishment, pro-Israel shills, the media and the warmongering neoliberal/neocon right-wing Labour politicians you love so much.

Even when it must have been unbearable, when he barely had a handful of his own party's MPs standing with him, when every newspaper and news programme was asking when he would go, he kept going, because he knew he had a once in a lifetime opportunity to help the long-suffering people who came out to vote for him on two occasions in their hundreds of thousands. People you obviously don't give a shit about!

I can't think of a stronger leader, of a more principled and resolute leader who could have withstood the onslaught he faced.

His balls must have their own moons!

Anyone can take a stance on anything. When you look at the way he has dealt with the two biggest issues facing Labour you see how inept he is. The polls indicate that just 18% of the public now holding a favourable view of him, compared to nearly four times that number (71%) who have an unfavourable view. And this at a time when the Tories are going down the toilet. Maybe the moon people swirling around his gonads will vote for him, very few others are impressed.
 
What all this noise about Brexit has done is to blow a smokescreen over the fact that the EU as a construct is deeply flawed , undemocratic and fundamentally a power grab by the old Empires of Europe. There is increasing discontent in European states over the structure of the EU. People are voting accordingly and the old centrist powers will be the losers in that movement. Britain rather went overboard when it was asked what it thought of the EU but the general trend is the same in Europe. Time will tell.
 
The centre is where most people sit politically. They include the people without any political party loyalty. If you can’t get them to vote for you, you can’t win an election. I don’t see Corbyn doing anything to win them over, in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if Seamus Milne despised them.
[Shakes fist] Seumas Milne, you old lefty bastard!

"The centre" here just means "common sense stuff I believe." When we stop to ask what actually existing centrism really means, substantively, there's nothing common sense about it: it means continued support for austerity, ongoing privatisation, arms sales to Saudi Arabia, constant belligerence in the Middle East to keep everything ticking over, bit of immigrant bashing to keep the papers happy. That is not where most people sit politically, and if it were Change UK would be 20 points ahead in the polls right now.
 
Had you considered that as a site moderator you should set your own bar a little higher?

What I do? Remind me of what I do will you?

What I did? Well, unlike you I resigned from the Labour Party over Iraq. Or are you referring to your ad hom attack on my employment of over a decade ago? If you are I'd say that's pathetic but as always I'll let others judge as they have in the past.

As for the champagne socialist comment I think we can file that under ad hom again. Pathetic. Again. But do carry on as I appear to have touched a nerve.

Ooh, seems we’ve touched a nerve! You are though a champagne socialist aren’t you, a house worth a fortune, bikes and hi-fi likewise, always telling us how well you did out of working for a right wing rag...

Do as I say not do as I do springs to mind!!
 
Okay that was a pretty good aspect of austeritynonics, silver linings and all.
Claire, pfm is litted with anti police statements, like the above, from your goodself.
As someone who has had many dealings with the police through work and once sadly under investigation, with one exception I have found them professional and polite.
How have your dealings differed?
 
Anyone can take a stance on anything. When you look at the way he has dealt with the two biggest issues facing Labour you see how inept he is. The polls indicate that just 18% of the public now holding a favourable view of him, compared to nearly four times that number (71%) who have an unfavourable view. And this at a time when the Tories are going down the toilet. Maybe the moon people swirling around his gonads will vote for him, very few others are impressed.
This is the tragedy- a leader like May, exceptional in political misjudgment, can lead an insubordinate government with 30 odd ministerial firings and resignations and take the country down with her, and yet the official opposition is incapable of laying a glove on her. It falls to her own party to attack itself. The worst Prime Minister in living memory married to the most incompetent and divided official opposition and now the far right are taking control of the mob.
 
Ooh, seems we’ve touched a nerve! You are though a champagne socialist aren’t you, a house worth a fortune, bikes and hi-fi likewise, always telling us how well you did out of working for a right wing rag...

Do as I say not do as I do springs to mind!!

I find it's best to assume that HarryB is a natural, money-loving, boasting Tory. That is how his posts comes across to me. I think the hating Tory stuff is classic 'doth protest too much' cover. I know nothing of other people's wealth, houses, jobs, etc on pfm. Never noticed. Only HarryB (probably cos he likes people to notice).
 
Claire, pfm is litted with anti police statements, like the above, from your goodself.
As someone who has had many dealings with the police through work and once sadly under investigation, with one exception I have found them professional and polite.
How have your dealings differed?
You’re not a Special Constable by any chance?
 
[Shakes fist] Seumas Milne, you old lefty bastard!

"The centre" here just means "common sense stuff I believe." When we stop to ask what actually existing centrism really means, substantively, there's nothing common sense about it: it means continued support for austerity, ongoing privatisation, arms sales to Saudi Arabia, constant belligerence in the Middle East to keep everything ticking over, bit of immigrant bashing to keep the papers happy. That is not where most people sit politically, and if it were Change UK would be 20 points ahead in the polls right now.
Milne a lefty? Interesting POV. Not a disaster National Socialist labour equivalent of, and co worker with, the disaster capitalist ERG?

Because that's a better fit with the facts...
 
So, to recap: Tories & Labour dead in the water/moving backwards. Lib Dems, Greens, SNP all substantially up. As PSB says this ties in with Europe too; self-identifying ‘socialists’ are taking a beating from the alt-right, but the centre is hanging in there.

Labour are clearly dead in the water with ‘70s ideologues Corbyn and McCluskey in control, why not just admit it?
[shakes fist] Corbyn and McCluskey, get out of the way!

I honestly don't know where PSB gets his resurgent centre story from! It's f___ed! Lots of reasons why the left isn't making headway in Europe but it's not just them that getting worn down by the right. The question is: who has the answers, and what might they be? Because mostly what I'm seeing is more talk about defending borders, as if the problem were not being too right wing economically, but failing to be right wing enough culturally.
 
Claire, pfm is litted with anti police statements, like the above, from your goodself.
As someone who has had many dealings with the police through work and once sadly under investigation, with one exception I have found them professional and polite.
How have your dealings differed?
My partners cousin was wheeling his pushbike home from central Edinburgh late one night. Was then set upon by a bunch of men. "Help, Police" , he shouted. "We are the Police", came the answer.

A complaint produced little in the way of results, except his Ducati moterbike was mysteriously burned out on the drive in front of the house.
 
As for your pathetic ad hominem dig at my previous employment aren't you supposed to be a mod? Outrageous.

I have no dog in this race but he was questioning your principles and went on to ask a question impinging directly upon those principles. Where is that argumentum ad hominem ?

, unlike you I resigned from the Labour Party over Iraq.

.

Maybe a true Socialist would have stayed within the party and fought for new better and more representative leadership. You left over one issue ?

Didn't take much then did it ?

Others stayed and got a shiny new leader much more aligned with their own thinking.
 
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My partners cousin was wheeling his pushbike home from central Edinburgh late one night. Was then set upon by a bunch of men. "Help, Police" , he shouted. "We are the Police", came the answer.

A complaint produced little in the way of results, except his Ducati moterbike was mysteriously burned out on the drive in front of the house.
Should have done what my friend did when the police stopped her for a traffic violation cycling back from mine one night (drink had been taken) in Edinburgh about 25 years ago. Name? Fanny. Fanny What? Fanny Price. Address? Mansfield Park. What number? Eh, 53. Right, you’ll be hearing from us.
 
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