news & politics:discussion

[steviewevie]

4 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

I’m not sure what your point is. My point is that he regularly voted against the Labour government so seems pretty pointless him being a Labour MP. 

Because he was voted in as a labour MP by his constituents for the last 4 decades?

[Guest]

Just now, steviewevie said:

Because he was voted in as a labour MP by his constituents for the last 4 decades?

If he doesn’t agree with the policies a Party puts forward he shouldn’t be in the Party. I assume he was in it because of the mechanisms available within the LP as opposed to say a Socialist party. 

[steviewevie]

12 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

If he doesn’t agree with the policies a Party puts forward he shouldn’t be in the Party. I assume he was in it because of the mechanisms available within the LP as opposed to say a Socialist party. 

Labour have always been a coalition between socialists, social democrats and the unions...and not all MPs are always going to agree with party policy...but yeah he did seem to disagree more than most!

If we had PR he'd be in a different party no doubt.

At the moment looks like Starmer wants to narrow the labour coalition, and that may hurt them eventually, that's all...

 

Edited April 26, 2023 by steviewevie

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

Labour have always been a coalition between socialists, social democrats and the unions...and not all MPs are always going to agree with party policy...but yeah he did seem to agree more than many.

If we had PR he'd be in a different party no doubt.

At the moment looks like Starmer wants to narrow the labour coalition, and that may hurt them eventually, that's all...

 

Starmer wants to get Labour into government and that means making the party look like it’s learnt from previous mistakes. I’m pretty sure Starmer doesn’t care about any ‘Labour coalition’, he’s mainly focused on the key swing voters that will impact the next election. 

[pink_triangle]

30 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

We'll see, they may need those votes one day when middle ground voters are put off by labour infighting and the fact things are still a bit shit.

I voted for labour in 2019 thinking Corbyn was shit. Most Corbyn supporters will vote labour in 2024 even if they think Starmer is shit. The alternative is conservatives and Sunak. 
 

I honestly think those who won’t vote labour because Corbyn is not an MP is relatively small, despite the noise they make. Take away all those who live in safe labour areas (who vote makes no difference) then it’s even smaller.

[pink_triangle]

17 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

Because he was voted in as a labour MP by his constituents for the last 4 decades?

We would have been voted in that constituency if we stood with a red rosette. Admittedly I am too young to have made 4 decades!

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, pink_triangle said:

I voted for labour in 2019 thinking Corbyn was shit. Most Corbyn supporters will vote labour in 2024 even if they think Starmer is shit. The alternative is conservatives and Sunak. 
 

I honestly think those who won’t vote labour because Corbyn is not an MP is relatively small, despite the noise they make. Take away all those who live in safe labour areas (who vote makes no difference) then it’s even smaller.

I think you are right, those people won’t impact the next election in the slightest. 

[pink_triangle]

8 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

Labour have always been a coalition between socialists, social democrats and the unions...and not all MPs are always going to agree with party policy...but yeah he did seem to disagree more than most!

If we had PR he'd be in a different party no doubt.

At the moment looks like Starmer wants to narrow the labour coalition, and that may hurt them eventually, that's all...

 

He wants to get rid of people who cost labour votes, in that respect good for him. Last time I checked Mcdonnell, Burgon, Sultana were all in the party, I seems to me all areas are represented.

I think we need to repeat however that if the coalition is narrower with Corbyns absence, that is down to Corbyn and not Starmer. If he said the words no comment he would still be a labour MP. His ego wouldn’t allow that.

[Neil]

55 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

Voted against.

and many other things, mostly he was voting with the tories when he didn't support labour,

[steviewevie]

5 minutes ago, Neil said:

and many other things, mostly he was voting with the tories when he didn't support labour,

No he wasn't

[steviewevie]

Actually just looked it up, he voted against labour whip 428 times! Now that is impressive. 7 of those were with Tories... although I expect for different reasons.

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

Actually just looked it up, he voted against labour whip 428 times! Now that is impressive. 7 of those were with Tories... although I expect for different reasons.

Yet he’s happy to take the resources and brand that the Labour Party give to him. 

[pink_triangle]

15 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

Yet he’s happy to take the resources and brand that the Labour Party give to him. 

It’s funny how so few independent minded MPs have the confidence to stand as an independent in an election, almost as if most people vote party and not candidate!

[steviewevie]

8 hours ago, pink_triangle said:

It’s funny how so few independent minded MPs have the confidence to stand as an independent in an election, almost as if most people vote party and not candidate!

it is hard as an independent without the money, resources and brand of being in a main party...also why smaller parties hardly ever succeed. It's why with fptp we've always really had two or three main parties (I guess 4 now with SNP). So yes could ask if Corbyn ever really belonged in Labour party, but could ask same of Benn or Skinner or Blair.

[pink_triangle]

Good quote from Keir from PMQ

"Sunak boasted that he didn't know a single working class person.. He proudly told a Tory garden party how he moved money from poorer areas and handed it to rich ones.. He looks at a petrol pump and debit card as if they just arrived from Mars.

 

[lost]

1 hour ago, steviewevie said:

 So yes could ask if Corbyn ever really belonged in Labour party, but could ask same of Benn or Skinner or Blair.

For me labour has always been a social democrat party rather than democratically socialist. I get Blair was quite a big jump but you have to put it in the context of the time. During that period between the berlin wall coming down and September 11th we pretty much had as much of an economic consensus mankind has ever had. Some academics were calling it year zero with no more ideological battles going forward. I actually think that contributed to Iraq, we had democracy in eastern Europe and then peace in northern Ireland, the middle east adopting the western model probably appeared achievable with what had just gone on just before.

[Neil]

1 hour ago, steviewevie said:

. So yes could ask if Corbyn ever really belonged in Labour party, but could ask same of Benn or Skinner or Blair.

that's the nayutre of the coalition which is labour, the tories are a similar disparate coalition, the dividing lines are normally better hidden than within labour, but the tory differences have been loud with brexit.

[Kurosagi]

11 hours ago, Ozanne said:

Yet he’s happy to take the resources and brand that the Labour Party give to him. 

Age can make a difference how you perceive things, if someone was a teenager in the 90s then Blair and New Labour would probably have been a positive formative experience. I had my teenage years in the 70s/80s and so, like many older Labour supporters at the time, had to hold our nose when voting for Blair, especially because of the change to Clause IV.

Don't get me wrong, it was intoxicating on election night to witness New Labour being swept into power. After the long slog of life under Thatcher it was almost unbelievable. The reality of what was achieved once in power was arguably less impressive.

I understand people's gritted determination to get the tories out and I get that many here are on tenterhooks about making Labour electable *at all costs*. I also get the cliche about perfect being the enemy of the good, but I'm uncomfortable with the idea of purging the party of anyone that represents old Labour's past as though they are the embarrassing uncle/aunty at the family party.

There is substance to Labour's long history and under FPTP it will always be the measure of the leader (Labour or Tory) how broad they keep their internal coalition. I still think McDonnell's interview yesterday struck the right tone for engagement with the left and right of the party.

[Kurosagi]

1 hour ago, lost said:

During that period between the berlin wall coming down and September 11th we pretty much had as much of an economic consensus mankind has ever had.

But didn't that halcyon economic consensus escalate the speed at which we fucked the planet and turbo boosted the rich vs poor divide both at micro and macro levels?

I read a lot of Adbusters magazines (boo, hiss) during that period and they usually had one or two economic based articles in it. I can't remember exactly the argument, but it was something along the lines of economic models don't incorporate the cost of using finite resources. So the pursuit of growth at all costs predicated on finite resources isn't necessarily the smartest strategy in the world. Again, sorry, I can't remember the details and may be misstating the argument.

I've mentioned before that I struggle with economics, so I'd welcome knowing from someone who does whether those (probably minor, obscure) views back then ever took hold and were incorporated into mainstream economic modelling?

[lost]

1 minute ago, Kurosagi said:

But didn't that halcyon economic consensus escalate the speed at which we fucked the planet and turbo boosted the rich vs poor divide both at micro and macro levels?

These trade deals the west signed in the mid-90's with India , China, E.Europe have actually pulled more people out of poverty than any other period in human history. The issue is yes that they have increased the rich vs poor divide in the West as the jobs have moved out there.

On the use of resources well its a question that instead should the average Brit have dropped to consumption levels at $1 - $10 a day to match these countries and if not is it fair for us to stop them reaching our consumption levels?

[steviewevie]

36 minutes ago, Kurosagi said:

Age can make a difference how you perceive things, if someone was a teenager in the 90s then Blair and New Labour would probably have been a positive formative experience. I had my teenage years in the 70s/80s and so, like many older Labour supporters at the time, had to hold our nose when voting for Blair, especially because of the change to Clause IV.

Don't get me wrong, it was intoxicating on election night to witness New Labour being swept into power. After the long slog of life under Thatcher it was almost unbelievable. The reality of what was achieved once in power was arguably less impressive.

I understand people's gritted determination to get the tories out and I get that many here are on tenterhooks about making Labour electable *at all costs*. I also get the cliche about perfect being the enemy of the good, but I'm uncomfortable with the idea of purging the party of anyone that represents old Labour's past as though they are the embarrassing uncle/aunty at the family party.

There is substance to Labour's long history and under FPTP it will always be the measure of the leader (Labour or Tory) how broad they keep their internal coalition. I still think McDonnell's interview yesterday struck the right tone for engagement with the left and right of the party.

can relate to that...except I reckon you're a bit older than me!...and also I wasn't really paying much attention in the 90s except it was a right good buzz when labour won in 97.

[Kurosagi]

11 minutes ago, lost said:

On the use of resources well its a question that instead should the average Brit have dropped to consumption levels at $1 - $10 a day to match these countries and if not is it fair for us to stop them reaching our consumption levels?

Didn't the BoE analyst recently tell us that's where we're heading there anyway and that brits need to get used to it? Cheap joke, sorry.

Well, it's a hypothetical, but if it means that our species continues to exist on this planet rather than just rich people living on the moon then that would get my vote. The proviso being that we achieve that through global emergency cooperation without it deteriorating into idiots spotting the chance to take us into war to compete for what's left.

But I get your implied real politik point that we should be grateful for what we've got cause the short-term alternative is worse and a global solution is pie in the sky.

 

[Kurosagi]

1 minute ago, steviewevie said:

can relate to that...except I reckon you're a bit older than me!...and also I wasn't really paying much attention in the 90s except it was a right good buzz when labour won in 97.

13 when milk snatcher came to power. So supporting the strikers, opposing the poll tax and endless demos was my political upbringing. Once Thatcher was finally deposed and after Bill Hicks died I found politics quite dull for awhile with no one left to liven it up, until Dubya came along and it made Hicks' original iraq war sketches timeless.

[lost]

7 minutes ago, Kurosagi said:

Didn't the BoE analyst recently tell us that's where we're heading there anyway and that brits need to get used to it? Cheap joke, sorry.

Yes and its true. We've shipped out the working class jobs of the traditional poor in the rich countries to create a middle class / rich in the poor countries. We've then tried to prop up living standards with cheap credit and that now appears to be coming to an end. We could now be at the next stage where AI starts to take a bite out of middle class jobs and so things could get worse 😂

This is why the working class abandoned labour who moved to a position of globalisation being just one of those things and progress. Brexit was a cry for help so to speak.

[steviewevie]

when we going to get to the point where robots do everything and we can just kick back and have a nice time?