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Politics 2023 (Read 465757 times)

galpinos

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#1425 Re: Politics 2020
September 28, 2021, 07:22:13 am
Could anyone explain to me why the unions sunk the PR got at the Labour Conference? The CLPs were 80% in favour but the Unions/Affiliates 95% against so it lost.

I don’t get it? I realise Labour have to plan to win the current FPTP system but long term electoral reform would benefit them surely?

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#1426 Re: Politics 2020
September 28, 2021, 07:30:26 am
Could anyone explain to me why the unions sunk the PR got at the Labour Conference? The CLPs were 80% in favour but the Unions/Affiliates 95% against so it lost.

I don’t get it? I realise Labour have to plan to win the current FPTP system but long term electoral reform would benefit them surely?

I've read analysis that says that PR would be a disaster for Labour, since the rise in voting Green. I don't know if this was definitive, but I don't know if a change would be a good thing for them. The LDs on the other hand would be better off, but so would the likes of Britain First.

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#1427 Re: Politics 2020
September 28, 2021, 07:41:10 am
Could anyone explain to me why the unions sunk the PR got at the Labour Conference? The CLPs were 80% in favour but the Unions/Affiliates 95% against so it lost.

I don’t get it? I realise Labour have to plan to win the current FPTP system but long term electoral reform would benefit them surely?

I've read analysis that says that PR would be a disaster for Labour, since the rise in voting Green. I don't know if this was definitive, but I don't know if a change would be a good thing for them. The LDs on the other hand would be better off, but so would the likes of Britain First.

PR would lead to a reasonably accurate reflection of the true British psychology, in Westminster. It would mean the largest two political parties having to come to terms with how unpopular they actually are.
So “vote for us, or you’ll get them” suits them just fine.

Oh, yeah. PR means you have to accept that some people have ideas and ambitions that you might find extremely offensive (or plain stupid) zand that those ideas might suddenly gain official voice in parliament. Good. Nothing shows up the stains on a worn out old t-shirt like full daylight and close scrutiny.
« Last Edit: September 28, 2021, 07:46:51 am by Oldmanmatt »

galpinos

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#1428 Re: Politics 2020
September 28, 2021, 07:55:32 am
Could anyone explain to me why the unions sunk the PR got at the Labour Conference? The CLPs were 80% in favour but the Unions/Affiliates 95% against so it lost.

I don’t get it? I realise Labour have to plan to win the current FPTP system but long term electoral reform would benefit them surely?

I've read analysis that says that PR would be a disaster for Labour, since the rise in voting Green. I don't know if this was definitive, but I don't know if a change would be a good thing for them. The LDs on the other hand would be better off, but so would the likes of Britain First.

Surely Britain First etc (fringe parties) doing better would be better for the nation overall? The loons who wnat to vote for them can, and the bigger parties can spend less time pandering to them?

I know I'm a perpetual optimist but I can only see a parliament that actually reflected what the nation thinks/wants as a good thing? Would that many people vote green? Maybe if Labour looked at the reason the Greens were getting popular and embraced some of those policies?

Re the Green Party, they are so all over the place does anyone think they would be a strong challenge to Labour. There anti HS2 stance seems to epitomise them. Their policy is for new high speed rail linking the north of the country to the south, just not HS2. Madness.

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#1429 Re: Politics 2020
September 28, 2021, 08:26:21 am
I don't see how PR could be a net loss to Labour.

Labour governments are, and always have been, a rare thing. Conservative governments are our default under FPTP despite progressive parties usually winning over half the vote.

Far better for Labour to be the major party in a coalition than to be in a state of almost perpetual opposition with an occasional foray into a position of power followed by another decade or more on the sidelines.

Keeping FPTP only helps the Conservatives.

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#1430 Re: Politics 2020
September 28, 2021, 09:25:47 am
I don't see how PR could be a net loss to Labour.

Labour governments are, and always have been, a rare thing. Conservative governments are our default under FPTP despite progressive parties usually winning over half the vote.

Far better for Labour to be the major party in a coalition than to be in a state of almost perpetual opposition with an occasional foray into a position of power followed by another decade or more on the sidelines.

Keeping FPTP only helps the Conservatives.

Progressive parties, yes. Labour, no.

Labour will never win/very very rarely win, until they learn to include the progressives that don’t hold extreme socialist ideologies (yes, yes, I know. Cue the Labour stalwarts claiming most of their party are closet conservatives and a greater enemy than the right etc etc).

Latest Labour party conference, to anyone outside the party, looks to be just another exercise in “true socialist” gatekeeping, again. Honestly, given the open goal presented by the current clowns driving the bus, you have to wonder how Labour do manage to still score in their own goal so often.
Labour, all defenders fighting with each other to get ball time, no strikers.
Tories, do what the fuck they want, anyone complains or call them out, they trot out “we’ll bring back the good old days” and enough of the population go back to their pint or Bacardi and lemonade, discussing “Love Island” that the crisis is averted.

PR would be better for everyone, but it really might clip Labour’s wings. Being the “only credible alternative to the Tories” is not as strong a manifesto as thy seem to think.

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#1431 Re: Politics 2020
September 28, 2021, 10:43:46 am
I don't see how PR could be a net loss to Labour.

Labour governments are, and always have been, a rare thing. Conservative governments are our default under FPTP despite progressive parties usually winning over half the vote.

Far better for Labour to be the major party in a coalition than to be in a state of almost perpetual opposition with an occasional foray into a position of power followed by another decade or more on the sidelines.

Keeping FPTP only helps the Conservatives.

Progressive parties, yes. Labour, no.

Labour will never win/very very rarely win, until they learn to include the progressives that don’t hold extreme socialist ideologies (yes, yes, I know. Cue the Labour stalwarts claiming most of their party are closet conservatives and a greater enemy than the right etc etc).

Latest Labour party conference, to anyone outside the party, looks to be just another exercise in “true socialist” gatekeeping, again. Honestly, given the open goal presented by the current clowns driving the bus, you have to wonder how Labour do manage to still score in their own goal so often.
Labour, all defenders fighting with each other to get ball time, no strikers.
Tories, do what the fuck they want, anyone complains or call them out, they trot out “we’ll bring back the good old days” and enough of the population go back to their pint or Bacardi and lemonade, discussing “Love Island” that the crisis is averted.

PR would be better for everyone, but it really might clip Labour’s wings. Being the “only credible alternative to the Tories” is not as strong a manifesto as thy seem to think.

I think that I generally agree Matt, although simple PR might not be the best solution, our voting system entrenches a confrontational two party system, which leads to a see-saw between administrations (although a see-saw weighted heavily on one side) and a politics which, looking at most of the rest of Europe right now, looks rather shabby.

I don't think that Labour needs to point out that there are fuel shortages, people can see that pretty easily for themselves. I thought that Rachel Reeves' quiet comment yesterday that Brexit was 'definitely a factor' was probably about right. I do think that they ought to point out what they would do / would have done to govern a country that might encourage a situation which isn't quite as bad as we're currently in.
The business news has been full of industry figures saying every day for the last 6 months that there were going to be huge issues with lorry drivers over the winter, and now...

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#1432 Re: Politics 2020
September 28, 2021, 10:49:41 am
Re the 'own goal' for Labour, I don't know about that; I was barely aware of who Andy McDonald is / was anyway, and the average person with no interest in politics definitely won't. If much of the country just hears that someone on the far left of the party has left the front bench, that might actually benefit them, rather than harming them. A £15 minimum wage is a pretty foolish proposal and would only out off voters who value fiscal responsibility; it'd only devalue entry level professional jobs, lead to an acceleration of inflation and ultimately not really help anyone.

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#1433 Re: Politics 2020
September 28, 2021, 10:56:05 am
The business news has been full of industry figures saying every day for the last 6 months that there were going to be huge issues with lorry drivers over the winter, and now...
Even the Transport Select Committee report published post-referendum in 2016 warned of exactly these shortages “if the UK becomes relatively less attractive as a place for foreign drivers to work, as it may do as the consequences of Brexit play out”.

No govt minister can ever say they weren’t warned.

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#1434 Re: Politics 2020
September 28, 2021, 11:09:15 am
Quote
Labour governments are, and always have been, a rare thing

Rare is nonsense. LibDems in power, this century, is rare. Admittedly for anyone born post-1977 you've had 13 years of Labour and 31 of Tory, but 30% is still not rare. From 1945-2010 it is somewhat more balanced at 28:33 (years, approx, couldn't be arsed digging up and adding months) . Pretty successful for a party formed in 1900 to have been constantly in power or opposition (as in second biggest) since 1922. That's not to offer any approval or support for either.

What Labour seem completely blind to the fact is that they've lost Scotland with next to no chance to get it back. Without that they will never win on FPTP and will be at best in coalition with the SNP, briefly, as a condition of that will be a referendum on independence and following that Labour will lose power forever without PR.

The wider argument is that now surely a central tenet of being progressive is electoral reform. Without it Labour have little to offer the wider electorate they need to even be the biggest loser.

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#1435 Re: Politics 2020
September 28, 2021, 11:34:07 am
The business news has been full of industry figures saying every day for the last 6 months that there were going to be huge issues with lorry drivers over the winter, and now...
Even the Transport Select Committee report published post-referendum in 2016 warned of exactly these shortages “if the UK becomes relatively less attractive as a place for foreign drivers to work, as it may do as the consequences of Brexit play out”.

No govt minister can ever say they weren’t warned.

Yup. Although they probably just weren't listening. Also, although there may be shortages across Europe, they don't have food and fuel shortages (or a CO2 shortage) across Europe. As pretty much every other European country has been eager to point out: https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/london-playbook/you-got-to-pump-it-up-mac-the-knife-heir-to-blair/ this is a consequence of Brexit, although there are clearly other factors, we're in the shit, and the EU aren't.

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#1436 Re: Politics 2020
September 29, 2021, 09:08:56 am
"The slow-motion contest is well under way. Any Labour figure with a high profile, or even a low one, is presumed to be a candidate: Angela Rayner, Rachel Reeves, David Lammy, Wes Streeting, Andy Burnham (always), Yvette Cooper (again). The roster changes. Names rise and fall in the speculative race – painted wooden horses on a rumour carousel spinning jauntily on the Brighton beachfront, with a queasy-looking Starmer carried along for the ride. And all that the public hears is the repetitive strains of the hurdy-gurdy, reminding them of a faded attraction, somewhere off in the distance, going round in circles."

Rafael Behr (Guardian) sees Labour as treading water whilst searching for Starmer's replacement. I think he's right.

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#1437 Re: Politics 2020
September 29, 2021, 11:29:53 am
Wes Streeting is gathering lots of ££££s from financial backers for some reason? 

Apparently the right of the party hate Starmer as much as the left do.  He's (Starmer's) a puppet on a string, merrily breaking the 10 pledges he made when standing in the leadership election before he clears the path for a 'coronation' of a new leader. 

Despite a motion on the Green New Deal (that includes a commitment to public ownership one of Starmer's pledges) being overwhelmingly voted through, Rachel Reeves was soon wheeled out to say 'They'll take a pragmatic approach' and essentially ignore motions they don't agree with.

The new rules, regarding the election of a leader, that were shoved through as a motion at conference will ensure that the process excludes the diversity of views and communities the party alludes to represent.  They restrict the choices of the membership by raising the nomination threshold 10% to 20% of MPs. James McCash a primary school teacher and member made an excellent speech highlighting what this would have meant over the last 40 years of LP election contests. 
In 1994 neither John Prescott nor Margaret Beckett would've made the ballot. In 2010 no Ed Balls, no Diane Abbott, no Andy Burnham.  In 2020 the choice would've been Keir Starmer or Keir Starmer.  In the last 40 years it would mean that just 1 woman would've been on the ballot and zero black candidates.  To use James' words, 'making  debate, our debate within the party PALER, MALER and STALER'.

The membership has quickly been made an irrelevance by this leadership team and their democratic participation in decision making has been swiftly removed.  Apparently MPs 'have a better feeling for things on the ground' and therefore should have more power in choosing a leader.


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#1438 Re: Politics 2020
September 29, 2021, 11:37:58 am
Matt lets hear these 'extreme socialist ideologies' that you speak of which ones are you frightened of?

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#1439 Re: Politics 2020
September 29, 2021, 01:08:55 pm
Matt lets hear these 'extreme socialist ideologies' that you speak of which ones are you frightened of?
That requires more time than I have right now.
I’ll be back…

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#1440 Re: Politics 2020
September 29, 2021, 02:11:44 pm
What Labour seem completely blind to the fact is that they've lost Scotland with next to no chance to get it back. Without that they will never win on FPTP and will be at best in coalition with the SNP, briefly, as a condition of that will be a referendum on independence and following that Labour will lose power forever without PR.

Absolutely right JB. Its extremely strange that this rarely if ever gets mentioned despite being the most stark staringly obvious hindrance to Labour's electoral chances. Basically Labour already lost their most reliable red wall of 40-50 seats, seemingly for good (so far), in 2015, to the SNP. Somehow this has been memory-holed??? Maybe because 2015 is again pre-the usual "culprits" of B****t and C****n.

Without any strategy to regain these previously inbuilt circa 40-50 Scottish seats; either by winning them directly, or some kind of deal with the SNP, then Labour's only option to win an absolute majority i.e. more than 50% of all Westminster seats is to absolutely annihilate the Tories in England (Wales is too few seats to affect things either way under this scenario). This has only happened in 1945, 1997, 2001, and 2005. There were other years where Labour beat the Tories in England, but in those particular years they smashed it. Obviously they went on to win the UK election overall by a landslide in those years. The latter 3 were the Blair years.

Given the persistent radio silence on Scotland from Labour, plus other indicators e.g. rightwards drift, then for me the likeliest ​interpretation is that taking England by a landslide appears to be the current strategy. Personally I fundamentally disagree with it for a whole load of reasons, but we will see if it works - I don't think it will (which is my main objection!).

If the strategy is simply to win in England, rather than smashing it, then, depending on the margin of victory plus outcomes in Wales / Scotland, that most likely still needs an arrangement with the SNP to have a simple majority in Westminster. Back to square one i.e. conversations about referendums and PR. Its strange that these conversations are not ongoing at the conference, because for all the focus on winning, without grasping the nettle on this issue they will definitely lose both short and long term.

If in fact the strategy is to win the Scottish seats back, that is going to need an awful lot of explaining on how it will be done too...

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#1441 Re: Politics 2020
September 30, 2021, 09:00:02 am
In reply to Nigel; it's not just Labour,  all the Westminster parties have basically ignored Scotland.  The SNP are so dominant I can't see any of them making any significant headway there.
In terms of election prospects obviously Labour would struggle to get a majority without Scotland,  but then if a post election alliance or agreement is their plan,  its probably best not to mention it until the time as it'd only be weaponised by the conservatives and harm their prospects. 

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#1442 Re: Politics 2020
September 30, 2021, 11:22:09 am
In reply to Nigel; it's not just Labour,  all the Westminster parties have basically ignored Scotland.  The SNP are so dominant I can't see any of them making any significant headway there.
In terms of election prospects obviously Labour would struggle to get a majority without Scotland,  but then if a post election alliance or agreement is their plan,  its probably best not to mention it until the time as it'd only be weaponised by the conservatives and harm their prospects.

Don't panic, Kier has appointed Gordon Brown to sort it out.

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#1443 Re: Politics 2020
September 30, 2021, 11:31:45 am
In reply to Nigel; it's not just Labour,  all the Westminster parties have basically ignored Scotland.  The SNP are so dominant I can't see any of them making any significant headway there.
In terms of election prospects obviously Labour would struggle to get a majority without Scotland,  but then if a post election alliance or agreement is their plan,  its probably best not to mention it until the time as it'd only be weaponized by the conservatives and harm their prospects.

Don't panic, Kier has appointed Gordon Brown to sort it out.

Frankly, this might not pull up any trees but at least he actually has a sensible plan; unlike the Conservative party, who I think have just as much of a problem with Scotland, although it is a different problem to Labour's. They've appointed Gove, and their strategy (really) is not to talk about it as much as possible, and to try just repeating how well the UK is doing all the time.

Instead of debating Labour party internal matters, I think what matters more is that the government appears to be in total chaos; it's failing to do anything effectively and I see in the news today that Raab's latest plan is to get asylum seekers to do the jobs that were done by EU migrants in agriculture etc.
So not content with interring them in camps, and trying to turn migration into France's problem, the Conservatives are going to bring back slave labour?

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#1444 Re: Politics 2020
September 30, 2021, 01:56:01 pm

In terms of election prospects obviously Labour would struggle to get a majority without Scotland,  but then if a post election alliance or agreement is their plan,  its probably best not to mention it until the time as it'd only be weaponised by the conservatives and harm their prospects.

My crystal ball says that the conservatives will weaponise it regardless of whether it is mentioned in advance or not. And unless Labour are 20 points ahead in the polls then they will have a point.

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#1445 Re: Politics 2020
September 30, 2021, 05:26:38 pm

In terms of election prospects obviously Labour would struggle to get a majority without Scotland,  but then if a post election alliance or agreement is their plan,  its probably best not to mention it until the time as it'd only be weaponised by the conservatives and harm their prospects.

My crystal ball says that the conservatives will weaponise it regardless of whether it is mentioned in advance or not. And unless Labour are 20 points ahead in the polls then they will have a point.

You might be right, although on reflection by the time of the next election the Conservatives might be very keen to avoid any mention of Scotland whatsoever; Boris Johnson is clearly very bothered about his legacy as PM, and desperate not to be the PM who split up the UK, even though he's pretty much done that already, it just hasn't really come to fruition yet.

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#1446 Re: Politics 2020
October 01, 2021, 09:44:27 am
It would be very nice to think that voters might equate this: https://www.politico.eu/article/brexit-is-going-badly-say-brits-in-new-poll/
with how completely incompetent the government is,  bug I'm not holding my breath. 

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#1447 Re: Politics 2020
October 01, 2021, 03:13:16 pm
Cressida Dick; the Teflon commisioner. How she's still in a job is anyones guess.

A serving Met police officer convicted of murder, a whatsapp group with racist and sexist language between met police officers, and Dick just says they they will learn 'any lessons' that need to be learned.

If anyone was in any doubt of the size of the problem, the North Yorks commissioner has said Everard 'should never have submitted to the arrest." Also: "women, first of all, need to be streetwise...perhaps women just need to consider, to learn a little bit about the legal process.'

Unbelievable. Tear it all down and start again, its beyond help.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-58762029

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#1448 Re: Politics 2020
October 01, 2021, 06:07:05 pm
How he could expect Everard to understand that she was being arrested unlawfully is anyone's guess when even his own officers didn't understand the rules (see Almscliff policing earlier in the year). Idiot.

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#1449 Re: Politics 2020
October 01, 2021, 06:19:33 pm
The fucking desperation to avoid criticising the police is disgusting, tying himself in knots to find some way that it was Everard's fault, that its women's fault. These people need to be fucked off out of public life. The fact he's still in a job this evening is unbelievable, he should have been gone within the hour!

Also, like its a reasonable line of advice to say that lone women should refuse arrest. Police are so famously open to having their authority questioned after all.

 

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