Election night 2019 / aftermath

[cooky1257]

I just meant I'm able to take some verbal knocks/grief without getting a flounce on, however I would far rather have polite discourse/debate with those who can manage to refrain from calling me scum or mince-like in the brains department whilst disagreeing with me.

Fair enough.

 

[bob]

Fine them.

Fine them? Fine those that have nothing, you want to take from the poorest, those that depend on food-banks, those that live day to day without knowing what hardships might face them tomorrow. So because they don't think their voice would be heard you want to fine them, to make them even poorer.
You call yourself a socialist!

 

[cooky1257]

Fine them? Fine those that have nothing, you want to take from the poorest, those that depend on food-banks, those that live day to day without knowing what hardships might face them tomorrow. So because they don't think their voice would be heard you want to fine them, to make them even poorer.
You call yourself a socialist!

Why do you make the assumption it would be the poor who wouldn't vote?
btw mocking their dire situation to make a crap joke does you no favours.

 

[Funk]

I do, along with others who think it would be better for democracy if we had a parliament that better reflected the votes of the electorate.

Quite agree, This weeks election result is a perfect example.

Both Labour and the Tories have had ample chance and time to change the rules. That's also conveniently forgetting that Labour currently already have an in-built advantage with the way the boundaries are currently drawn.

 

[Tony L]

The two are almost independent of each other? Competence is important if you want to succeed in the real world and there was a marked difference between the parties at this election.

I just can’t view endlessly repeating a three-word soundbite against a campaign backdrop of blatant lies, smears, misrepresentation, and evasion/running from any scrutiny as a good look, but I am clearly anything but the target Tory demographic. That is just not what I am seeking in political representation.

I’ve been criticised for calling racists racists, calling people idiots for voting ‘leave’ to “stick it to the elites” etc, but I honestly can’t imagine anything more patronising and insulting than the Johnson/Cummings election campaign. They were clearly working on the assumption the end-user was well sub-80 IQ. I’d far prefer politicians appeal to the top of the market with well reasoned arguments and coherent strategic planning, i.e. to actually address the issues rather than endlessly burping-up a ‘get Brexit dumb’ mantra or similarly vacuous thug chants.

 

[bob]

Why do you make the assumption it would be the poor who wouldn't vote?
btw mocking their dire situation to make a crap joke does you no favours.

Because that was the people Jez was referring to in his post, those that live on the poorest estates, the dodgiest areas.
They were the people that didn't vote and that should, in Jez's words 'Labour should be hassling them till they are sick to death of it'
I made no assumptions and neither did I mock the poor or their dire situation to make a crap joke.
You suggested fining them would be the answer.

 

[davidsrsb]

The Tories probably do want to build some of those new hospitals. What they didn't say is that they also planned to close more old ones.
Valuable land to be sold and lots of construction contracts to award to friends

 

[Arkless Electronics]

This is the kind of attitude that lost you the election. The sneering, haughty, we-have-the-moral-high-ground attitude is utterly misplaced and frankly pretty unsavoury.


Just...wow. Politics of envy, stirring up hatred, abuse... No wonder the majority of voters don't want to engage with die-hard Labour fanatics (I'm wondering whether I'll regret replying at all to this post as it happens).


Please, PLEASE tell me this is a joke? This is just pretty much 'hate-speech' ranting at this stage.

I've fast realised that PFM is a left-wing echo chamber. I don't expect a civil response but I do feel I have to comment when vitriolic bile is spouted and your post took the biscuit.

Labour and its shrinking voter base have to realise that most people are either slightly left-of-centre, centrist or slightly right-of-centre. When the only choice those people were given was between Corbyn and McDonnell's crazy ultra-left, Momentum/union-controlled vision and the right-of-centre Tory party - well, the evidence is there to see. The Tories were, on this occasion, centrist enough to win over 'safe' Labour seats. To paint it as 'Brexit' being responsible is short-sighted and illogical; the reasons Labour lost (and keep losing, and by greater margins) are myriad. The ONLY time Labour have been in power in the last 40 years was when they moved toward the centre ground and convinced a number of Tory voters to give them a crack. They then set about systematically ****ing up the economy, racking up the borrowing, committing the country to billions in PFI and despite tripling education spending they achieved no real increase in results over that time.

Even if the Labour messages were remotely sensible, do you really think calling those who vote differently to you 'scum', 'thick as mince' and 'racists' is the best way to get them to listen to what you have to say and convince them to agree with you? For a group who are all (supposedly) all about fairness, equality, inclusion and hugs the typical left-wing voter seems to generally be rather unpleasant (and there are many, many examples of that in this thread). Not only that but The Left seem pathologically incapable of accepting defeat with grace - it's always someone else's fault, the 'wrong sort of democracy' and we've already seen people marching around with placards objecting to the outcome of a democratic vote! It's the adult equivalent of a sulky, stampy-feet temper-tantrum.

It's no wonder most moderate, quiet people just simply don't want to put themselves in the way of the vile abuse routinely hurled around by left-wing voters; they just quietly vote the way they feel is best and stay off the radar. I'm sure I'm about to get a torrent of it myself but I'm a big lad and I'll happily have a civil conversation about it.

I not only admit everything you accuse me of, I'M PROUD OF IT!!! You can shove a "democracy" won out of brainwashing the thick as mince to vote against their own interests right where the sun don't shine! That sort of "democracy" is almost as abhorrent as the "patriotism" that gets the youth of a country slaughtered to protect the wealth and ascendancy of the rich who stayed behind from war in their luxury existences! "Lions led by donkeys" is insufficient by a country mile! The same "patriotism" that rallies racism and xenophobia and will excuse a British soldier of mass murder of civilians simply cos they're British and "those they murdered are foreign therefore the British soldier is intrinsically in the right".

Tory beliefs are a disease that blights the nation and pours venom over communities. The arch milk snatcher Thatcher proudly flaunted her evil with the phrase "There is no such thing as society".... Society... from the same root as socialism... the Latin word Societas... meaning "friend ally or comrade". This is what the Tories are most worried about of course.... That people may work together towards the common good of everyone with no one left struggling without a hand of friendship and a societal leg up... no the Tories want to divide and conquer... make scapegoats where they can.. immigrants trying to "take whats your's" behind every lamp post... "reds under the bed"... Far better for profits if everyone is at each others throats and too scared of losing whatever they have to stop running on the "hamster wheel" of capitalism! "I'm alright Jack and screw you" could be the Tory party motto! And isn't it telling that both I and others have failed thus far to get any of pfm's arch Tories to admit their real motivations.... be they ever so writ large in virtual neon...

There is a variously attributed saying along the lines of "the civility and measure of any society can be judged from the manner in which it treats its sick, its poorest and its animals"... by that metric we ain't exactly much to be proud of! And the animals better put in some practice at being cuter than the sick and poor at this rate... The Tories will be in there soon to tell them that some animals are more equal than others.... and there's no such thing as society.

 

[Funk]

I not only admit everything you accuse me of, I'M PROUD OF IT!!! You can shove a "democracy" won out of brainwashing the thick as mince to vote against their own interests right where the sun don't shine! That sort of "democracy" is almost as abhorrent as the "patriotism" that gets the youth of a country slaughtered to protect the wealth and ascendancy of the rich who stayed behind from war in their luxury existences! "Lions led by donkeys" is insufficient by a country mile! The same "patriotism" that rallies racism and xenophobia and will excuse a British soldier of mass murder of civilians simply cos they're British and "those they murdered are foreign therefore the British soldier is intrinsically in the right".

Tory beliefs are a disease that blights the nation and pours venom over communities. The arch milk snatcher Thatcher proudly flaunted her evil with the phrase "There is no such thing as society".... Society... from the same root as socialism... the Latin word Societas... meaning "friend ally or comrade". This is what the Tories are most worried about of course.... That people may work together towards the common good of everyone with no one left struggling without a hand of friendship and a societal leg up... no the Tories want to divide and conquer... make scapegoats where they can.. immigrants trying to "take whats your's" behind every lamp post... "reds under the bed"... Far better for profits if everyone is at each others throats and too scared of losing whatever they have to stop running on the "hamster wheel" of capitalism! "I'm alright Jack and screw you" could be the Tory party motto! And isn't it telling that both I and others have failed thus far to get any of pfm's arch Tories to admit their real motivations.... be they ever so writ large in virtual neon...

There is a variously attributed saying along the lines of "the civility and measure of any society can be judged from the manner in which it treats its sick, its poorest and its animals"... by that metric we ain't exactly much to be proud of! And the animals better put in some practice at being cuter than the sick and poor at this rate... The Tories will be in there soon to tell them that some animals are more equal than others.... and there's no such thing as society.

Thank you for proving my point in the best possible way.

 

[Arkless Electronics]

Thank you for proving my point in the best possible way.

No I thank you... your being so unmoved by any peon in favour of human decency and dignity and failure to have enough imagination to see how things could be so much better kind of proves my point as well... And the twain shall never meet!

 

[matt j]

To be fair I reckon PFM has the makings of a better government than either of these showers.

We'd just gave to careful of the quite Tories sneaking in to empty the till and kicking to death all the gypsy sympathisers, we could probably put Jez Skinner in charge of weedling them out.

 

[cooky1257]

Because that was the people Jez was referring to in his post, those that live on the poorest estates, the dodgiest areas.
They were the people that didn't vote and that should, in Jez's words 'Labour should be hassling them till they are sick to death of it'
I made no assumptions and neither did I mock the poor or their dire situation to make a crap joke.
You suggested fining them would be the answer.

Are you daft? Fines are already in place for failing to pay council tax. It’s the deterrent that incentivises compliance from everyone. Voting (or in this case not voting)isn’t confined to any one socio-economic group and unlike council tax, costs nothing. so with no burden other than a social obligation backed by a cost for failing to comply it actually makes it a no brainier for the poor. Probably why a Tory gov will never make it law.

 

[oldius]

I find the triumphalism and name calling boorish and enlightening at the same time. It shows, if nothing else, that we are as divided a society as we have ever been. I grew up in and have spent most of my life in what would be called working class communities, including places that have switched their allegiances in this election to a party that would have been unfathomable only a decade ago. We have become a nation split on the Brexit divide and more and more communities have switched to the leave campaign, believing that leaving the EU will allow Britain to control its own destiny. It will, so the question then is only which party will control Britain's destiny in a way that serves the population of the UK in the best way possible.

My family has been split down the middle. In fact, it hasn't as I am the only one in my entire family who does not support the will of the people. I am dismayed when I speak to my family of former coal miners and my former shop-steward father. I am dismayed that they would seek to ride on the Brexit bus when we are a family of Irish immigrants who fled poverty and famine for a new life in England. I do not ignore their concerns - they believe that they cannot get an appointment at their GP because of immigration and they believe that the record numbers of homeless are because of immigration and that road journeys have become intolerably busy because of immigration. Meanwhile, in a world they describe as nonsense, I suggest to them that not building any affordable housing, despite a manifesto promise, is a part of the homelessness plight. When I say that the NHS and schools have seen declining budgets for a decade they say that the previous Labour government are to blame, as they do when I remind them of a doubling of National debt over the last decade. And when I ask why my family, who have moved for a better life to Tenerife, are ex-pats and not immigrants, and that we will need to deal with the 5.5m UK nationals who live abroad, they say I shouldn't criticise my cousin.

I only hope that it is I who is proven wrong because if I am right, Moss Side where I grew up is doomed. Burnley, where I worked for five years and which is now Conservative for the first time in living memory, is doomed. If I am wrong, the steel works of South Yorkshire and the North East will grind into action once more as we can independently control what we do.