>Rishi Sunak has taken an astonishing gamble in going for a general election at a time when there is still a little room to delay and the governing party is in such poor shape with public opinion.
>The Guardian’s poll of polls shows Labour 21.7 points ahead of the Conservatives, with 44.7% of the vote to 22.9%. Poll leads of more than 20 points are usually only seen at exceptionally bad moments in the midterm.
>Labour’s poll lead now is a little narrower than it was at the equivalent stage of the contest in 1997. Support for both the main parties is down on 1997, with Reform UK (11.5%) and the Green party (6.5%) picking up. The swing since the December 2019 election is a mammoth 16.8 percentage points; the previous postwar record was the 1997 swing of 10 points.
>>597016reposting another anon's post from the last thread
>Conservative official reason: uhh the economy is starting to recover, our policies are working (not really) and it's time for people to have their say so we can get the stability we need for the next phase of governingOverall official reason: they know they're fucked no matter what they do since labour are polling so far ahead (on the back of TOTALLY NATURAL public opinion) and they've looked forwards and concluded they're only going to get more fucked the more they delay calling an election. (for example, the party can pretend to be vaguely unified now but later in the year there will be a party conference at which point everyone who wants to be leader of the opposition after they inevitably lose the election will be setting out their leadership campaign unofficially, with the result the party will look like a disunified mess that clearly has no trust in its leader, leading to even bigger losses.) Moreover there's a tiny chance that Labour are caught unprepared (they haven't finished their manifesto or selected candidates in some seats, so now they have to rush that) which might give the govt some tactical advantage although, of course, the Conservatives will also be unprepared.
Outside reasons I'd like to believe: he picked now because it'll annoy journalists, who have to cancel all their summer holidays to follow a boring election campaign with a preordained result.
Parapolitical reasons and similar: not sure tbh, the official story here seems reasonably trustworthy to me (save the bit about natural public opinion, which is where the obvious fuckery lies. The Conservatives are evil cunts who all belong in Jail, but the people who truly run Britain are clearly rigging the game against them at the moment… they want Capital's B team…)
>>597025>KenNo Faggot.
Ken was based.
Keif does not deserve to even have the name uttered in front of him
>>597029Trashfuture is British Chapo (But they actually understand countries outside of this one).
In terms of Nuts and Bolts the New Statesman one's tend to be good but they have really weird biases (very pro-KatIe Forbes for whatever reason).
>>597029>>Are there any good podcasts focusing on contemporary UK politics?Politics Joe isn't bad, Novara probably but i can't speak for the quality they're just all twitter addicts as far as i understand.
>>597031>Sign up dont live in london
or vote >>597031I want nothing more than for him to win
Labour could take 649 seats and still seethe if seat 650 was Islington North
>>597047Not even exclusive to the UK, literally all libshit countries are like this.
In Bulgaria not too long ago neo-nazi organization BNU (Bulgarian National Union) just casually sells nazi merch at a "Christmas Charity" and sets up tents to give food to homeless people.
There's an article in the New Yorker (lib magazine) about the absolute state of Britain but I found it interesting how they're talking about it.
>These observations are surely right, but I worry that they obscure two basic truths about Britain’s experience since 2010. The first is that the country has suffered grievously. These have been years of loss and waste. The U.K. has yet to recover from the financial crisis that began in 2008. According to one estimate, the average worker is now fourteen thousand pounds worse off per year than if earnings had continued to rise at pre-crisis rates—it is the worst period for wage growth since the Napoleonic Wars. “Nobody who’s alive and working in the British economy today has ever seen anything like this,” Torsten Bell, the chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, which published the analysis, told the BBC last year. “This is what failure looks like.”
>High levels of employment and immigration, coupled with the enduring dynamism of London, mask a national reality of low pay, precarious jobs, and chronic underinvestment. The trains are late. The traffic is bad. The housing market is a joke. “The core problem is easy to observe, but it’s tough to live with,” Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England, told me. “It’s just not that productive an economy anymore.”[…]
>“Austerity” is now a contested term. Plenty of Conservatives question whether it really happened. So it is worth being clear: between 2010 and 2019, British public spending fell from about forty-one per cent of G.D.P. to thirty-five per cent. The Office of Budget Responsibility, the equivalent of the American Congressional Budget Office, describes what came to be known as Plan A as “one of the biggest deficit reduction programmes seen in any advanced economy since World War II.” Governments across Europe pursued fiscal consolidation, but the British version was distinct for its emphasis on shrinking the state rather than raising taxes.
>Like the choice of the word itself, austerity was politically calculated. Huge areas of public spending—on the N.H.S. and education—were nominally maintained. Pensions and international aid became more generous, to show that British compassion was not dead. But protecting some parts of the state meant sacrificing the rest: the courts, the prisons, police budgets, wildlife departments, rural buses, care for the elderly, youth programs, road maintenance, public health, the diplomatic corps.https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/04/01/what-have-fourteen-years-of-conservative-rule-done-to-britain>>597065You've gotta remember that you live in a managed democracy and that old people are some of the lowest information voters out there. (they have access to a lot of "information", but they're going to be reading the newspaper rather than the twitter leftist "this you?"ing the disingenuous cunt journalist writing for it, so they're actively going to be
more ignorant than people who read nothing) Even then, 27% of 60-69 year olds and 19% of 70+ year olds voted Labour in 2017, which isn't terrible when you take account of all the factors in play. (media disinfo, poorer people die younger, moderate insulation from how terrible things are getting for people in work, etc.)
Imagine that it's Russia in 1996. You could blame this or that demographic for not backing Zyuganov, but the truth is that before the election was even called the people who really ran the country (not to mention the US…) had already decided Yeltsin was to be president. The election was merely a rubber stamp of approval for the decisions of those in power. UK elections are very similar - they don't stuff ballot boxes like they did in Russia, but that's only because when you control the media and the institutions of power in a modern half-functioning state as well as our establishment, you don't have to.
>>597043azog battalion shed their far right association long ago
according to the guardian lmao
>>597054>>597056Yes everyone was speaking about the potential lost generation in 2008, nothing was done and they let it happen.
What happens next i don't know.
>>597060>>597065This is a leftist forum, you dumb faggot, leave the generation politics at the door.
>>597081The UK is having an election where some polls suggest Labour will win by a seat margin that makes North Korea look pluralist (Every other party combined will have about the same % seats as the Korean SocDems) where the two primary parties have more in common than the parties in the Democratic Front for the Reunification of Korea, and where even fairly moderate sites like the electoral calculus suggest that Labour are going to take 70% of the seats in parliament. (Blair got 63%, the last government to do so well was the National Government in 1931 and - as the name suggests - that was a national government!)
Would it be any less pathetic if we were doing a Marxist analysis on Labour's planned Office For Value For Money? (here you go: it's a fucking moronic idea that duplicates the work of the Office for Budget Responsibility, ironically making it a huge
waste of money. It's first and only report should be to recommend its own abolition, with its costs to be paid out of pocket by the chancellor for being dumb enough to set it up in the first place.)
>>597086do you take this view to all legislatures or do you imagine that congresses or other such institutions are better?
(i sympathize with the first view but not the second)
>>597047No one cares because nazi aesthetic and ideas have been so systematically subverted and decridibilized over the decades it just do not matter anymore. You have slavic neonazis having debates with high-caste indian and lebanese rightoid about who's the real aryan while actual whites just believe in varying forms of Liberalism.
It's just a Halloween costume by now, much like the soviet aesthetic. There are probably more online femboy neets owning a nazi suit than normal men.
>>597087Republics and senates reproduce the parliamentary form with the elected executive being the prime minister without his shadow government, and so leads to popular revolt more easily - but this also preserves democracy as an objective relation to the rights of the people.
But i dont glorify democracy and republicanism either, where cromwell became a worse tyrant than charles i, or where napoleon sprung principally from the grounds of the french nation-state.
Now both were modernists, which might be beneficial to an impersonal "progress", but is immediately suffered (like the transition of feudalism into capitalism).
I am a political pessimist in this way. I dont believe in perfect systems, only different versions of badness. But thats also necessary evil.
In my naivety i consider myself a populist and so principally a republican, but caesar too was a "man of the people" and inspired the regal foundations of the roman empire. So democracies become dictatorships by proceeding from their inmost being. This is my irreconcilable heresy. I am a democrat, but i am also a tyrant (but these have typically been seen as synonymous notions anyway).
We need men of the people, and a parliament only makes filibustering opportunists. The commoner revolt is just a reappropriation of the old aristocratic cynicism of a contractual "natural rule". At least caesar started out as a slave, not a middle class twat whose title goes all the way back to hastings.
>>597089>At least caesar started out as a slave, not a middle class twat whose title goes all the way back to hastings.??
He was literally a middle-ranking patrician
>>597090Yeah youre right lol
i was exaggerating the story of his captivity by the cicilian pirates in my own memory
also i saw that he claimed to be descended from lulus; a family part of the roman foundation myth lol
So my whole post literally means nothing from my final sentiment since caesar is literally that guy.
But its less than nothing, its opposite, even
I endorse the very thing i swear against
But here see the meaning of my meaning itself. I claim that democracies turn into dictatorships, and my democratic orthodoxy was in fact a prescription for noble autocracy.
So, disregard my intellect, but preserve my spirit as a mark of shame and irony
>>597085Thanks for the horserace update, honestly I appreciate it.
>burger students are protesting>countries are voting to finally recognize Palestine as a state in the UNWhat's pathetic is that people itt are demoralizing each other instead of talking about how to exploit this election at this moment to put more pressure on Israel.
>>597092>instead of talking about how to exploit this election at this moment to put more pressure on Israel.both parties are fanatical zionists though. pressuring starmer won't really serve any purpose since he knows he will win easily anyway (not saying people doing it aren't doing good work but yeah)
sorry if I'm demoralised, my life sucks and my country sucks. also my dog just got put down :(
>>597094>both parties are fanatical zionists thoughGoodwife anon, you must then work to get anti-zionist candidates elected. jesus christ. contact them, makes plans and then get on a bus to go there.
>maw dawgalright. this is legit. I still think about that dumb fuck that used to eat my stuff until he died (young) in my arms. Make a thread about it.
NOT ITT - THIS IS NOW A MANDATORY HIGH MORALE THREAD The British left really needs to pull it's head out. I go read all the British left spaces and figures online, and all they do is whine about Starmer being a hypocritical cunt (he is) and then go on about Trans genocide and "Transphobia" because the Cass report BTFO'ed their Tumblr idpol woo.
As I stated, Left needs to rebuild it's movement outside of Labour or The NIMBY radlib Greens, and these are the policies it should stand on initially
>Removing First Past the Post and replacing it with Ranked Choice lower house, while replacing the Lords with a Proportional Senate (Washminster Governance)
>Federalization of the UK, with State Level Governments with populations around 6-8 million that are able to tailor policy and revenue raising to their local regions, while being able to internally coordinate infrastructure beyond single council boundaries. This solves a lot of the issues with Councils and planning that the UK struggles with. The collapse of "levelling up" along HS2, with Labour functionally supporting the scrapping of the Northern leg has proven now without a doubt, that the South largely doesn't give a single fucking shit about the North of England and those who live there, and Westminster can not be trusted to seriously Govern all of of the UK to the Centralized level it does.
>Instead of "waaah I'm moving to Australia waaah" maybe actually look at the gains of the Australian Labour movement and copy them in the UK, Mandatory Overtime Rates, Weekend Penalty Rates and Industry Award Rates are very serious policy that there is no reason couldn't be copied in the UK, and the vast majority of working class people would support.
>State Owned Enterprises - If this is a "free market" why shouldn't the Government be competing? SOEs for Energy, Rail, Broadband, Housing should be a minimum. Call it the "Singapore Solution" to make Neolibs seethe.
These are all realistic solutions, that would likely have broad popular appeal, that the left, should form a movement around initially. They are chosen because they play on alot the fact Brits jerk off to Australia, so "Australia did it" is actually a pretty convincing argument for a lot of working class people.
Sad reality is, serious leftists get converted to Neolibs by the Young Labour machine, and the experienced lefties are way too cucked and spineless to truly go against Labour. I bet Corbyn if he wins, will still deep throat the Labour party at every opportunity, and try funnel the left into Labour membership.
>>597107Was friends with one of his top party staffers of Respect. The dude is apparently a deeply narcissistic grifter. "If he only had the brains to match his ego" was a direct quote.
He's great as an attack dog, but Galloway shouldn't be leading the left. The left needs smart, charismatic people who are deeply interested in forming actual good "sensible" policies. The left needs to crib a lot of policy from China, Singapore and Australia.
The Australian ones I mentioned above, but Singapore with SOEs and housing policies, and China with it's nation building policies like East West Pairing.
>>597110>hearsay story about a friend of a friend on an anonymous imageboardfuck off with that shit retard
>The left needs to crib a lot of policy from China, Singapore and AustraliaSingapore and fucking Australia. Fuck off you Labour shill. Vote for The Workers Party for Palestine, if nothing else.
>>597110>I go read all the British left spaces and figures onlineDon't care. Fuck off. Go offline.
>>597110>in forming actual good "sensible" policies. The left needs to crib a lot of policy from … Australia.They will. UK famously looks to Aus for it's ques… off-shoring migrants is literally the Tories large policy for the last few years. With a Labour government in australia that looks set to be relatively sucesful it actually gives me hope this will happen. TBQH It personally gives me some hope that we will get some decent actual policy that lifts the boot of the working class, sure, call me a socdem cunt and etc but it's very very bad out here atm and has been for a while.
>>597113>UK famously looks to Aus for it's ques… off-shoring migrants is literally the Tories large policy for the last few yearsOff-shoring migrants was probably the best policy the Tories brought to the table in their entire 14 years of governance. But of course they massively fucked up the implementation, and it was only a desperate attempt to fix a problem which was caused by their own policies in the first place.
Starmer saying he will scrap the idea immediately tells me all I need to know about what the next ~15 years of Labour governance is going to look like.
>>597110You are right, Galloway is not leadership material, but an extremely potent rhetorical weapon.
>SingaporeBruh, you don’t want to copy Singaporean policies, when it is all of yours but made even worse by worse people.
t.Singaporean
>>597109You're naive if you think the Cass report was anything but working back to a political conclusion. (You can tell this because it was embraced: reports that have awkward conclusions, like Chilcot, go on the shelf for historians.) Do not believe the establishment is neutral on an issue simply because you agree with the conclusions they reach.
You've gotta think institutionally rather than programmatically: yeah, as a Labour program that might go down well with the public, and if Labour won't offer it another party could - but this isn't really a democracy and not all parties are created equal. In the 1980s the SDP came along with a degree of institutional support (to undermine labour), a realistic program, high profile MPs, etc, etc… and they were a dismal failure, a footnote in Liberal party history. A new left party with a similar program to yours would have no institutional support and at best 1 high profile MP, who'd have disproportionate power on that basis. As a niche party you don't win on the basis of a sensible national program, you have to hit hard on very specific local or topical issues - it's why the greens and the lib dems are full of NIMBYs, it's why Galloway won the byelection… Nobody would've taken Galloway seriously if he'd said he wasn't running for Gaza, he was running for a senate elected by PR.
The class dynamics of Australia are different to those of the UK. Australia is a big fat coal mine, Britain is a big fat feudal tax haven. A coal mine benefits from representing some of the class interests of its workers (especially when there are environmentalists around…), an aristocratic tax haven does not. Institutions, not programs.
Alternatively if you're really set on your electoral-adjacent hobby or alternative electoral-left programs of the sensible reformist type, go read about Bryan Gould, the guy from New Zealand who lost the 1994 Labour leadership election by a huge margin because people mistook him for a Blairite when he was actually a Keynesian National-developmentalist well to the left of John Smith.
>>5971261992, not 1994.
You can also watch "Labour: The Wilderness Years" on youtube where he has a habit of popping up and being correct.
(How bleak is it that on the eve of Blair's assent, the BBC aired this fairly critical - if, in the 1980s part at least, highly orthodox - look at Labour's recent history, while on the eve of Starmer's we got the hagiography that was "Blair & Brown: The New Labour Revolution"? Can you imagine if in 1997 they'd still been looking back wistfully on Wilson '74?)
https://archive.ph/OPqc1Some key takeaway from Reeves speech.
>…That is why my first step in government will be to deliver economic stability with tough spending rules>…Economic growth only comes from businesses: big, medium and small. Government's role is to give them the stability they need to invest and to remove the barriers to make it harder to do business. That's the model to grow the economy I believe in – and it's the only one that works.>…That is why, if we are elected to power, I will lead the most pro-growth, pro-business Treasury in our history>… a serious plan to get the long-term sick – who have been let down by ballooning hospital waiting lists, failing mental health support, an inflexible welfare state, and inadequate employment support – back to work. If you can work, you should work – that's why we're called the Labour Party.>…At this election, stability is change.Hahahahahahahaha they are literally just Red Tories. Holy shit that part about businesses being the only form of economic growth is the most insane Neoliberal horseshit ever.
>>597129I mean, how many people out there can actually be sold on this idea of
>Depriving the poors so you don't have to fund their lifestyles Because it feels like the results of austerity are affecting most middle class people at this point, like we've got parts of Britain now where tap water is no longer drinking water due to long term Thatcherism, so who the fuck is Mondeo man supposed to be at this point?
>>597133I feel every day that the pieces are firmly in motion for really bad things.
>>597127At least blair and co believed something and got to be the managers of the peak of neoliberalism, even if it was some nonsense.
All we get is nothing, not even the comparitively decent-ish economy and welfare net of the 90's.
>>597136lol she was saying this in 2014 when she was promising to be tougher on benefits than the Tories. worst timeline.
>>597144Britain is a managed democracy. Parties win and lose based not on public support for their policies or people, but based on the whims of a fairly narrow circle of nonces who run the country. Look at the rise and fall of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss (both utter cunts) and tell me that these were organic occurrences and not a stage play written by the people who actually run the country. (In 2016 Johnson was a clown, in 2019 to see off Corbyn he was suddenly the reincarnation of Churchill, in 2022 he was back to being a despicable clown for having a party during lockdown - that was apparently a sacking offense while the mass-death of actual covid policy went totally overlooked - Truss, shortest serving PM ever, even more-or-less officially recognized to have been deposed by the City in favor of the runner-up in the Tory leadership contest… and ever since Johnson, Sir Keir - an actual fucking knight - has been polling ahead… no tough questions, skeletons falling out of closets completely uncommented on, just one big easy ride to a landslide.)
>>597141The thumb says this at the 2:20 mark, after Fiona Lali has barely spoken up to this point
>"Go on tell us… because you're quite young and you've got no idea what you are talking about, do you? You're annoying me already."Other highlights include:
He also calls himself a "super brain"
He makes a point of saying she has 2 minutes to make her case, and then interrupts her after 70 seconds saying "you've had more than 2 minutes"
Later on:
>"You are- are you a Muslim? Are you a Muslim?"The highlight - in the last 6 seconds he gets uncomfortable, starts pointing at the camera and shouts
>"Break now! Break now! Break! Now! Break! Now!"I've somehow managed to never see a clip with this malignant cunt before - hopefully I don't see any more. His partner was bad, but this guy was on another level.
>>597149I couldn't give you a definitive answer but I think it's a fun and interesting question. For example it's easy to say that Blair was totally bourgeois, but Blair always positioned himself [i]against[/i] the party - but the flip side is that Brown did not, and Brown's actions were just as bourgeois of Blair even if his way of getting to them differed. (Brown was by all accounts quite left wing when younger, but he saw the way things were going in the late 1980s and decided he wanted to be on the winning team…)
Then you've got the centrist hubris that lead to Corbyn by letting members of the general public have a say in picking the leader. (since even though Corbyn won with ordinary members, this decision created the impression it was
possible for him to win…) Leading to a semi-participatory role for the party membership for the first time since the 1980s. But then things sort of invert: the party staffers and such actively start to undermine the party so as to maintain their own positions and ideology. They ultimately succeed, and then you get Starmer.
I suppose my view is that you've gotta split the party up to understand it properly: Sometimes the leadership and the staff are at odds with the membership, sometimes the staff are at odds with the leadership and the membership… for the most part, post-Blair, the MPs themselves have been - if not bourgeois then, at least, certainly alienated from the working class.
>>597157GCSEs dont matter except for public service jobs or getting access to A-Level or BTEC courses in college
Then you get UCAS points for uni which matter most
>>597161one view is that it has the upside of increasing discontent, since you're being sent to the management role factory even though you'd be lucky to secure
any job, and when you do it'll be a non-management role. instead of going "well, that's the way it is" you feel actively cheated… of course, where that'll go now is harder to see now than it was with student support for Corbyn. maybe it was a temporary phenomenon and people've had their expectations readjusted downwards again.
>>597164>Yeah but the point of going to uni is to meet people and have experiences,So go to the rave you dumb faggot, University should be to learn
.>>1868297
>Is Labour still a bourgeois workers party or has it become a bourgeois party altogether, and if so when?Of course it's still the Labour Aristorcrat party. Look at these people you're retart if you see them as the bourgeoisie.
>>597168>a bourgeois civil ethic and ideology you're mad about poofs aren't you?
this site is a dying and declining place. its problem is not that people do not read important socialist texts, it is that they do not read one another's posts and that they do not think. (it's possible i'm wrong in my opening accusation! maybe i'm guilty! the great part of this decline is that as others disappoint you, you put in less effort, yourself disappointing others!)
>>597168Don't cone back. Do politics.
It'll be good for you.
>>597175me, i'm working class because i speak with a comedy accent.
my job or earnings? well, i just about get by on the small sum i earn from owning the entirety of Rutland.
>>597178>>597170It's absolutely amazing that you people exist; you see red the moment these values are questioned using the most basic of premises.
People caught defending their progressive racial or identity fetishes because they have not even understood the aim of socialism: the self-abolition of the proletariat.
I can quite literally explain to you why this happens, but what's the point? This site is dead, there are maybe one or two posters with actual knowledge.
I know this post is going to upset the pathetic whiners who call the mods their personal ideology is challenged, so see you never
>>597176Tee hee, British people are universally conceited, it really doesn't matter what your background is, you'll always be better than the others by your own reckoning.
If kids having to pay £9,000 a year to go to a university with "Polytechnic" scribbled out to study music are the same as the son of the Duke of Twatshire reading classics at Oxbridge on a scholarship, then there's really no hope for us.
>>5971781. i conceded i may be mistaken in that reading in the post myself, your post adds nothing
2. i was right lol
>>597179 >>597182The demographic change in this country over the last 14 years of Conservative governance is totally unprecedented. We currently have a higher rate of immigration than Ellis Island America, just to put things into perspective.
>>597183All Russian bots. Every single one of them.
>>597127>You can also watch "Labour: The Wilderness Years" on youtube where he has a habit of popping up and being correct. Are there any other good British political documentaries?
This one is really great, genuinely informative. Sad to see how things fell apart for the left in the 80s.
>>597182>Is immigration really as much of an issue as the far right is making it out to be?It is, but it's not like anyone is actually willing to do something serious about it, otherwise a violent popular pushback would have happenned decades earlier. And by violent pushback i don't mean weakly attacking a small immigrant housing facility every 6 month.
The mass immigration is a global systemic issue not something that will be solved by Anti-Immigration-In-One-Country type measures in an age where moving around is so easy and cheap. Also, pretty much everyone wants to profit off the treats brought by mass immigration. Small business owners and farmers can get their cheaper labor, land owners can speculate more on housing growth and get govbuxx for building more i could go on.
There's a reason immigration never stop when right-wing anti-immigration parties get elected in the west, and it's not like they're "cucks" either, they do push their social-conservative agenda, but they do not ever touch to immigration.
>>597188more or less
>>597194The timeline is basically
>Abbott negotiates to stand down with dignity>Someone runs to The Times and says she's banned>She complains>The press Notice>Sir Keir comes out to go "oh no, she hasn't been banned actually"Now maybe so far as Starmer is concerned that is true, but that still means a rogue right-wing staffer decided to piss all over his plans out of dislike for Abbott.
Realistically, she's under Schrodinger's ban. So long as she's retiring, she is not banned from standing as a candidate - but were she not retiring, she would be banned from standing as a candidate.
>>597206Oh I forgot, we're in the land of make believe, where the capital for such businesses, such as the internal network infrastructure, load balancing, and daily bandwith costs, just magically reproduce themselves.
But let's not forget, this is the land in which the critique of commodity production is acceptable for diligent Marxists such as ourselves, so long as we do not question flags with very pretty colours on them.
>>597208The purpose of mass media is the construction of the world in the minds of a mass audience. The idea that media outlets primarily exist to "inform" the people is pure Smithoid idealism and unsupported by any material analysis. I'm suggesting that you look at the media enterprise not as a business, but as an
institution or
endeavor that happens to proceed through business.
For example, a US-national
Meet the Press viewership isn't very important to the producers; all is well as long as all 538 Federal electeds are watching. An outlet like CNN doesn't need measured viewership; it sells ads based on its default position in many public spaces, and the editorial line tends to be shaped by the needs of the buyers. X or TikTok as moneymaker won't matter if the public uses them as instruments to end the capitalist order (feel free to drop a vanguard party in here if your recipe so requires). Bezos' WaPo helps keep Amazon union-free whether it's in the red or not.
>>597214You won't know about the events until you get on the whatsapp group chat or something, blame the uk cops for this mostly
I suggest reaching out and talking with them by email or social media or something, asking if there's a group in your local area, etc.
>>597216Good point, don't know why I didn't think of that as that's how I've usually found out about things lol. Though tbh that has more been activism or single-issue groups. I'm more looking for a more long-term organisation to get involved with.
Have you heard any good things about RS21, out of interest?
>>597214>Any groups worth joining in the UK? I'm feeling alienated and want to meet comrades. Been wondering about RS21 but there is basically no information about meet ups or anything (seems to be the case with a lot of socialist/left wing groups.)The same thing i tell you all; Just get involved in local politics. Actually doing politics is more important than finding a group to join, you will meet people and eventually fall in to a group that seems suitable to you.
Just get involved. An easy thing ATM is to go to Palestine Solidarity protests and events of which there are many.
>>597215>>597219What's more amazing is that you've done so without complete reference to where, how, or in what fashion at all the commodity is present.
Perhaps we do not actually live under capitalism, but socialism!
>>597203don't put words in my mouth. i am a miser with deep-set identity issues. i would never buy merchandise for sign-value of any kind, not the least to profess an outwardly-coherent identity that i find myself incapable of holding. if i want to posture i'll do it incoherently and i'll do it in words because talk is cheap.
>>597204>>597205you know if you think through your questions before typing, you won't have to make 1 post per sentence. they can be aggregated into a paragraph, perhaps with each question nicely numbered.
my answer to both of your questions is: "weren't you supposed to be leaving?"
i've played this game too long to take your questions at face value: this is not about commodity production or about how social media companies turn a profit. you are not
emotionally invested in these topics. i am aware of this, and so i am not invested in answering: this is not a good faith invitation to elucidate my views on an academic topic, it is an attempt to draw out evidence that i am the social liberal you'd oh-so-desperately love me to be. it is an invitation for me to click "next" so you can lay out some haphazard theory that basically runs: LGBT identity, like all identity topics, is great grist for the social media mill. therefore the gays are bourgeois, blah blah blah. boring shit, i don't care, read marshall mcluhan and start looking at form instead of content.
for all your bluff and bluster you are motivated by social issues and you care about them, you build
your identity around your stance on them, and for all that effort the result is almost certainly a sort of tedious narodism for the 21st century: under socialism we'll all live in our straight nuclear families, the bourgeois mistake of the early 21st century corrected. communism by skipping capitalism and expanding the obshchinas, communism from skipping contemporary social liberalism and building on early fordist norms. boring. i don't want to invite you to develop on this. posting online is a game and this discussion would be the equivalent of an escort level.
if you want my advice: go away and play with the CPGB-ml, write up big essays about the reactionary nightmare of gender fluidity. embrace a vaguely social-conservative bent in a respectable tradition of taking spectacle far too seriously - but in a respectable Marxist way, not the cloying cringe of the CPB's appeal to the sewell convention and the equality act 2010. go away and play workers and resources:soviet republic and indulge yourself with escapism - you'll be doing just as little to advance communism as you are now, but look, the cute little train of logs is running across the map to make chairs for the people! then when you've got it all out of your system, when you want to come back and talk commodity production and hot-vs-cold media in good faith rather than a petty idpol battle using marxist language as a cypher, i'll still be here.
(actually that's a lie, if you take more than about a month i'll be off.)
>>597222I come back to read the comedic gold that retards like you produce, becasue it's like taking a time machine back to when humans first discovered fire to hear such stunning arguments like this one
>>597215But I've learned my lesson. Never ask such dedicated Marxists HOW businesses produce profit.
>>597223all you're doing by telling me this is validating my contention that you're acting in bad faith.
now apologise for putting words in my mouth.
>>597224No no, you're right. I'm a reactionary for asking how businesses produce profit and tying that to an imminent crtiique of various social forms.
You've got me.
>>597225no, you're not a reactionary
for asking, you're just a
reactionary asking.
actually i don't really think you are a reactionary,
you're not anything. this is why i don't take you seriously. you're interested in questions of identity on boring culture war grounds, i'm here thinking: "hang on, most of these self-proclaimed marxists don't
do anything, they're not an ideology, they're a
fandom." i'm spending half this conversation talking about the obvious dynamics of the conversation itself, you're angling between pretending you were just here for a laugh and pretending you really do just want someone to explain how businesses produce profit. you admitted, in the process, that it's just a pretense for you to present your "critique of social forms", validating my earlier supposition this was the case… i'm doing well
now i'm very at ease with the idea i'm nothing if i do nothing, but i bet if i'd posted only the first line you'd have gotten worked up in some way by the accusation you're a reactionary. "oh, so it's reactionary to be a marxist now is it??" - but you are not a reactionary and you are not a marxist. you are an anonymous poster acting in bad faith because you want to rant about stupid topics in an imageboard thread that will be deleted in a month or so. you are nothing.
>>597233There isn't an argument.
Literally all I've done is ask these tortured poets how they think commodity production takes place in the 21st century. Literally anyone whose read the first 300 pages of the first volume of capital can drum up an answer.
There is literally no trick answer.
>>597228you've missed the central conceit of my character: find one post where i have called myself a marxist and you can win a motorboat. you will not succeed: i do not call myself things, do not identify myself with things. it is my actions and not my beliefs that matter, and not being anything i have nothing to gain by impressing you.
>>597230i think my general points are quite clear although i concede that since i know i'm engaged with someone acting in bad faith the primary value of the post i write will be to amuse myself. feel free to ask for clarification if anything takes your interest.
>>597234as i said earlier: it is too obvious
why you ask. people can read a conversation, they can immediately tell that asking for an explanation of commodity production in response to
>>597184 itself derived from
>>597170 is not a good faith engagement with anything you have actually read. you have come here demanding to play an idpol argument game, and i have instead given you metacommentary and told you that you are nothing and that you should play workers and resources: soviet republic.
you do not appear to have responded flexibly to this, instead coming back again and again to the bad faith question that i am not going to answer because it is clearly not being asked for its own sake and because you still haven't apologised for putting words in my mouth. you are not even playing your best strategy against me here, which would be to just make whatever point you want to make without regard for what i say and then bait engagement from other people who cannot resist the allure of the game. that would work better than continuing to try to draw me in: i will write you ten thousand words, but they will be the words i want to say and not the words you want to hear.
>>597235Try reading this
>>597225 and asking yourself why someone might start asking you if you have even understood the principal form of profit production in contemporary capitalist society when you derrivatively accuse someone criticisng bourgeois fetishisms as 'being obsessed with gays'.
>>597237>>597235The issue was even spelt out in the very beginning for the hard of reading such as yourself: given that socialism is the means through which the proletariat will achieve self-abolition, why is it that they are coming into contradiction with other socialists.
But please, continue scribbling paragraphs of absolute fucking nonsense as you have to tackle with, for once, an issue with contradictions.
>>597217I don't know much about them, I think they're pretty small. I know some people who worked with them a few times, didn't hear anything bad which on the left is practically a glowing recommendation, so eh
Talk to them and find out, or read their povs on their website and see if you agree with it
>>597233this isn't about marxism, it's just a silly conversation. fundamentally: anon wants to talk about liberal idpol and no matter how many more interesting approaches or angles i take in replying to him, he'll demand an explanation for the profit motive under capitalism in the hopes he can use it as a jumping off point to talk about liberal idpol.
because it's clear that he just wants to complain about idpol and because
i don't care about discussing idpol, i don't indulge him. i explain that i can see what he is doing, that i know he doesn't actually want to have a discussion with me except to mine what i say for evidence that i am a liberal. instead, i throw out a lot of prompts for a more interesting conversation and develop some of my own thoughts. his continued failure to engage with any of these points (even to attack obvious vulnerabilities) and my continuing churn of long replies to posts that, fundamentally, just repeat a demand i've said from the beginning that i will not meet should then create a farcical effect for anyone who reads the conversation.
it's a conversation about the pointlessness of trying to have a conversation on an imageboard. about the obvious, rote, predictable ways arguments play out and how anons react when you don't go along with the pattern. this is a board game where one player is trying to play chess and the other is trying to play draughts, and of those two is a pretentious bore who insists on explaining why boardgames are pointless and why the other player is making bad moves. there is no argument between us: my early posts are: a prediction that does not invite a serious response and an observation that the prediction was correct. his subsequent response put words in my mouth, and the closest thing to a thread of argument since then is that i would like him to apologise for that, which i know he will not do. we're not really talking to one another at all: he is talking to himself, i am talking to him safe in the knowledge he will not hear me - but that someone else might. the only serious demonstration that he was actually reading the words i had typed before replying was to show he didn't catch some obvious wordplay in the very first line of the post (
>>597227 ), and i'll end on that because i'm quite proud of that quip really.
>>597240Like if you aren't a GPT bot and are in fact a real person, well done.
Anything to avoid thinking critically.
Like I said from the beginning, this site, along with most sites for socialist discussion, are dead.
This
>>597240 user has about as complex and well rounded view on Marxist theory as a mystic has in seeing the future with tarrot cards.
They cannot talk of real practically existing concepts and their relationships with the phenomena of the world, because they are so hopelessly lost in what are essentially political star-signs. When you read an explanation from someone like this, you are essentially reading a horroscope.
And they will feel free to infect everything fucking leftist space they can because they are, after all, a 'real' Marxist.
>>597246I have literally just come back to laugh at some of the most outlandish posts this board generates. I've gone through the grieving process of believing you can argue with these idiots.
You literally cannot force these people to read. All you can do is make fun of them
>>597221Where is the commodity in picking up trash, or any other act of spontaneous but necessary contribution to the civic order? Templetonians are cancer. Pdfs
>>597240>this is a board gameMaybe they send Eglin trolls here for R&R.
>>597248Ah yes, social media companies are actually trash companies.
And you're calling me a troll.
>>597252I'll legitimately be interested to see how their new governmental departmental revisions go. They're restructuring, to what extent and how are unknown, government spending such that budgetary decisions will be driven by the central premise of 'economic growth' (their words).
There's no coherent position in the media because everything is simply a policy proposal with the most pathetic apologia mixed in with impenetrable technocrat-babble.
The language and rhetoric they're using is exactly the same as Cameron's fourteen years ago: fiscal decisions slouched behind an ideological complex that completely distorts the economic and social reality ('tightening our belt', etc).
They're aiming to drive economic growth at a time when the two leading economies are on the verge of a trade war.
>>597252The only thing to look forward to in this government is that there's no way these people will settle down once they've won. They do not know how to govern as such - but they know very well how to give hostile briefings, play the victim to sympathetic journalists, abuse party processes, etc. I give them a few months in office before they turn on one another with the exact same level of vitriol they previously aimed at the left.
There is precedent for this: the inane Blair/Brown conflict. (remember Gordon Brown accusing Tony Blair of "Trotskyism"?) But at least for all their flaws they had a certain model of party and countrty governance in their heads - New Labour was an actual semi-coherent political project, but one that failed. The Blair/Brown dispute did at least have a personal element that made sense: the two made a deal, and Blair later tried to renege on it. (this plot point was stolen from 1980s Australian Labor. If you see a novel plot point in British politics, it's never original.)
"Starmerism" is a sort of void, it is based not on a coherent analysis of where the world is going and what Labour's role is in it, it is based only on the received wisdom of the aged, nostalgic Blairites. It's like Blairism 2007 continued to decay indefinitely, embracing all of the worst traits and slowly going demented. Shortly after this lot take power the press are going to start Noticing things and Wes Streeting is going to think: wait, I'm so brilliant, I'm the clever little boy of this government… why am I health secretary and not PM?
And at that point you are going to see people of the same class and social status, with the same basic material interest in staying in power, who all basically
agree with one another about everything fight against one another with such viciousness that you'd think they were Tutsi and Hutu, Serb and Bosnian, IRA and UDA. It will be quite a show.
>>597266>People who aren't quite bourgeois, but who earn well above median incomePMC is a functional relation to the economic foundations of society, not an income rank. It applies specifically to those salaried mental workers who do not own the means, but whose function in the
social order is the reproduction of capitalist culture and capitalist class relations. It's important not to hate them just based on neo-Weberian income "class" but to hate them for reproducing capitalism at all.
>they actually have to tryAren't there still unis where you can show up for five years and receive a doctorate? On the other hand, surely there must be a Varsity Blues type of thing going on very quietly in the background.
>>597269The worst part is that it's explicitly sold as labour accreditation; education is sold to you as an investment into yourself, because they are literally charging labour a percentage of its overall value for its own reproduction.
What's even funnier is that foreign fees for internationals are charged at double that of nationals.
>>597248I thoroughly enjoyed the reaction to these posts. Here's some more from that special section on the retrograde neoliberal "character education" movement: the intro to the section, an analysis of the means and point of production of that ethic, and the parallels to trite Victorian moralism in the movement.
>>597275>if nobody cares, why put them in the platformPush marketing, manufacturing consent, etc. Their proposal in the platform is an assertion of their importance.
>>597281>One by one we shuffle into the cinema, all in our New-Labour party uniforms>Take my seat>Notice Alistair Darling, an inner party member, sitting a few rows back>He gives me knowing nod>A few seats to my right is a woman with long ginger hair (I think her name Is Angela)>She's wearing a pro-Israeli pin with another of the pride symbol next to it>The lights turn out, and the screen comes on>Hideous grinding screech starts>Pictures of pro BDS activisits appear>Pictures of unemployed mothers with prams>Alcoholics, drug addicts, and the homeless>And at last, him>Corbyn>He begins decyring the economic progress of modern Britain>He begins to say how he is for pro-justice movements with a socialist base>He face briefly transforms into that of a goat, before it begins to sing 'Red Flag'>We all stand, yelling at him, cursing>Somebody throws a New-Labour manifesto at the screen, hitting him on the nose to much cheering>Pictures of Xi Jingping, Putin, and Maduro appear behind him, with row upon row of enemy soldiers marching towards us>A slow rhythymic drum begins to emerge>The picture fades, and at last appears the face of our saviour>Big Starmer. His mutton cheeked aristocratic high brow, and deep deep eyes>We all hold our arms outstretched, chanting rhythmically>"Starmer, Starmer, Starmer" >>597285Sorry, I know I seem like a glowie, I promise I am not, I am just a little unsure of what you all believe. What is Cromwellisim?
>>597286Do you like labour or do you hate them? Again sorry for being vauge.
>>597284 - Nationalise Greggs
- Re-open the pits (second industrial revolution)
- Mandatory pot banging every Tuesdays and Thursdays (for the NHS)
- Students to be sent to farms
- Centrally planned economy
- Possession of receipts from M&S or Waitrose to be punnishable by firing squad
- EV car production of a single make, all other cars banned
- Landlords to be sent for 're-education'
Mandatory curfews of 10pm.
The Smiths to be broadcast continuously on the single public radio channel
UKTV gold brought under state possession, all other tv channels banned
>>597287I was doing a slightly contrived joke. "Socialism is what a Labour government does" is a quote from Herbert Morrison (A Labour MP and Minister in the 1940s-50s) which you can read two ways: That the aim of a Labour government is socialism, or that everything that a Labour government does
is socialism.
So the joke, which isn't totally wrong, is to invert that ambiguity and say that the ideology of this thread is that the aim of a Labour government is not socialism, and that anything a Labour government does is not socialism.
(My real view would be that this thread is too slow and has too few posters to really have a clear, identifiable line like it did back in - say - 2017.)
My view of Labour is basically a strong enthusiasm for its history and some of its figures matched with a total contempt for everything about it since 2020. You could say that I hate them, but it's important to qualify that it's not the eternal hate of the communist for the social democrat, it's the hate of someone who loves everything about the Labour party
except the actually existing Labour party of today.
(But don't confuse that for my being a Social Democrat, or for my view being typical. I just have a particular historical hobby.)
>>597288I hope it is Stop Me If you Think
>>597289Haha
>>597290Thank you for being patient, I'll try and read through these papers as soon as I can, giving them a little look over one of them is on "character" and moral failings and how its inacurate is that one of the pillars of what you all believe?
>>597291Sorry for making you explain the joke, please forgive me I am a little autistic.
>total contempt for everything about it since 2020 Is this becuase you are a fan of Jeremy Corbyn, or hate Keir Starmer or both?
>Social DemocratI made a thread, and someone implied these are bad, is this true?
>existing Labour party of today. What do you wish the labour party was?
>>597294Don't worry, it was one of those jokes that's more about showing off than about being funny.
I like Corbyn and I dislike Starmer. My view of social democrats is more sympathetic than most of the board: I am generally positive towards people I think are acting in good faith to make things better, even in small or ineffective ways. This is why I hate Starmer - not because his program isn't radical, but because he is a serial liar, because his program is to make things worse, and because it is too obvious that his election win was decided by powerful people years ago. (I like to follow elections almost as entertainment. I feel cheated that he hasn't "earned" his victory.) I don't really think of social democrats in terms of good or bad - I suppose I would say that the ones I like nowadays are well-meaning but naive, and the ones I like historically were doing an okay job in a difficult situation.
But I'm an odd anon in that regard: most people on this site are hostile to non-radical electoral parties since they can only tweak around the edges while ignoring the big problems caused by capitalism, and possible communists might get mislead into joining them hoping to change things in a "safer" way. (Like people who joined Labour under Corbyn and are still inside it, voting for left-wing candidates in internal elections and such, even though the party is now hopelessly run by the right wing.) I look at it differently: Communists and Communist parties ought to know better. The people who stay in Labour and fight for left policies are naive and wasting their time - but they've got the excuse of ignorance, the people who run our current Communist parties also get nothing done, but they don't have the excuse of ignorance, their rhetoric comes across to me as arrogance, and they show no sign of coming up with bold ideas to be more successful in the future. So I wind up going: if you're not going to change anything anyway, you could at least be nice or interesting…
Labour could be a lot of things and still satisfy me: It could be a fairly moderate party that rolls back a few bad ideas like tuition fees and prescription charges (like the SNP was until about 2016), or it could've stuck to the course it was on under Corbyn with a more exciting (but still, by European standards, moderate) program, or it could've tried to find a middle ground - something a lot like Starmer's leadership campaign pitch. It'd just have to do something. In terms of an actual historical tradition, I'd be looking at the kind of national economic development program it had in 1945, 1964 or 1974 - try to develop the UK's internal economy, rather than just coasting on finance in London.
(But again, I'm odd: what I want is Communism. It's just that I'm happy to have second, third, fourth, and fifteenth preferences for what we could do while waiting for Communists to get their act together…)
>>597296I legitimately think if Corbyn had won I wouldn't as ardent in my position today as I am.
For example, had he won and simply abolished tuition fees, I could restart my degree in political philosophy and would push all the way to a doctorate. This isn't even his major campaign promise: Starmer had previously committed to this position before the (inevitable) retraction.
The sector in which I worked, private care, would have either seen an overhaul or renationalisation; state spending for elderly care would no longer consign dementia patients to what are essentially cattle sheds in which private companies battery farm them for profit, slashing their staffing levels in half, if less than, of what is required whilst doubling the duties of the worker - all whilst paying the legal minimum allowed.
The NHS would not be a cash cow, houses would not be trifles for the rich, homelessness would have doubtlessly recieved attention, drug addiction would have been openly dealt with, Britain would not have lined up behind the US in the braindead support for the massacre in Gaza, profit for the purpose of profit would no longer be the guiding principle behind British society, because however dimly, Corbyn's socially democratic views would have moderated in the liberal democratic political establishment this debasement of life to the bourgeois ideology in which the sole aim in life is to roll around like pigs in shit.
If i had to write a story about Luke it would be that he did specialized pr0n in which he started as a scotch egg.
>>597300Did anyone who uses that fagsite save them?
>>597301Yeah I have absolutely no doubt of that. The entire biterness is caught up with the fact that, however, fleeting, there may have been some existential agency for 'what could have been'. How can you have any sense of self-worth when you are afforded no direct partition from the fact that you are, in the definite material sense, a commodity; the entire purpose for your existence is to derrive profit, the ideological invective is consumption (to the degree that one consumes one's own existence itself), and that this form of existence is universal.
It's insane that people consent to the nursing home system in its current state: the council is legally obliged to pay, but the standard of the home they will put you in is horrendous, because it will very likely be the cheapest. There are countless documentaries on this issue, because they are all rife with abuse, but the abuse is principally from a form of neglect, caused by their profit structure. If you are not physically or emotionally neglected, you are simply sitting, staring at a television in a room with 10 or 12 other individuals, doing nothing (homes will hire 'activities organisers' who are literal jesters, in which you may have the privilege of being spoken to or do some colouring in).
If you are bedbound, you will have at most a televisin (half of whom cannot individually operate). Dementia principally affects individuals in different ways, but one of the most common is the breakdown in the day-night cycle. You will lie awake in the dark, believing you are ten years old, wondering where your parents are, in a room you do not recognise surrounded by people whose names you literally cannot remember. Empathy is always a precondition for these roles, because it is the only thing you will not be paid for.
In order to escape what is a literal hell, your family must conjure up, either in stripping your assets (your family house), or divying among them, around 4 grand a month: even then, price does not mean an escape from this, as it varies from home to home and quality is usually by word of mouth.
The system as it is in under strain from the fact that nursing home corporations are grinding their employees down through the refusal to pay above minimum wage: they would literally rather eat a partial cost inflation in labour, through contracting the absence of their own work force out to staffing agencies who bring in temporary workers (these agencies charge a higher fee and pass some of the profit onto the worker) than actually raise the minimum wage they pay. They do this because they know full well that those who end up applying for a job with them are scraping the literal bottom of the barrel.
Even had it been a marginal victory, a social democrat promising light health reforms would have been a massive sanity check. The idea that an aging population in 40 or so years is going to press on social care costs reveals what everyone knows of the world today: it simply cannot be sustained. Everywhere you look in society, wherever the ideology of profit finds purchase, failure abounds.
>>597306>>597301Oh and I forgot the best part: you do not understand that you are incontinent.
Fecal matter and urine causes skin irritation. You will go to scratch your body and will likely end up smearing shit across your face. If you try to escape the sensation by attempting to free yourself of your diaper, you will likely loosen the pad and it will rub not just up your back, but down your legs, and onto the bed sheets themselves. You will have shit down your arms, in your nails, and in your hair.
Why? Because nursing homes will not pay for adequate staffing levels: they will use a call bell system that is simply triggered by a button a patient can press or by a matt sensing that you have fallen out of bed. The button system routinely fails to work and the beds more often than not have guard rails on them.
If nursing homes were mandated a safe legal level (for example double that of what the current average night staff were), i.e. were their profits cut into, the standard of this occurence would be cut drastically and quality of life for these patients would be immensly improved. The call bell system could be replaced by a system of organized routine checks where needed: the call bell system works for those who are compos mentis, but not in end of life care facilities.
Again, a Corbyn minority government would have, through the process of ordering an independent health review into the conditions in nursing homes, discovered this. But we do not live in that world.
>>597309For what reasoning though?
Whilst Faiza has been dropped, there are other politicians who will still be running as candidates.
Maybe they'll get dropped by Labour for following Corbyn on twitter too, but if that happens after the election then what does it matter? They're still elected MPs even without the whip.
Could be a way for otherwise left-wing independents getting into parliament for the next 5 years.
>>597311Traditionally, no. It used to be a matter for local party branches to select their candidates. There were shenanigans with local factions in the party (for example, the Blair and Brown factions used to compete over which centrist would be selected in each area because it'd determine their loyalty in parliament) and try to stitch up selections in comically undemocratic ways, but fundamentally it was corrupt locally - maybe with the NEC rejecting candidates as a last resort.
Starmer has been a devious little shit and asked retiring MPs to delay announcing their departure until the election is called because it means he can say there's not enough time for local parties to decide for themselves. (Blair also did something similar, where he'd give MPs peerages in the house of lords to encourage them to retire so the his faction could parachute someone into the seat.)
Someone has posted the line up for the next question time debate on 4chan's /Brit/, which is obvious race-bait.
But take one look a the book of the most promising member of the panel (because they actually talk of social mobility):
https://www.amazon.co.uk/People-Like-Us-Modern-Britain/dp/1788161130Quite literally a love letter to the capitalist social enterprise.
But because all the panelists have black coloured skin, they are authorila prophets on the vision of social progress. I wish Fanon were still alive.
>>597337The race-bait in question.
'Chair of social enterprise UK' has me absolutely chuckling.
>>597338I'm sure it's because they're trying to show black people in positions of power or something, but there's a weird impression resulting from everyone on the panel being a high ranking public-sector adjacent type figure (Clergy, Peer, Think-Tanker and Professor, Lawyer & BBC presenter.)
I think it's because none of them are bourgeois (i.e. their main claim to fame is owning/running a business), or are working-class adjacent (i.e an MP, lefty journo or trade unionist.), they're all firmly in that intermediate zone. Or maybe it's because they all sound basically "progressive" (as distinct to left), and there isn't an obvious token reactionary like (say) Trevor Philips that all the spectator readers can root for.
>>597340>Think takFrom Mark Fisher:
>We are in such a period. Today we see liberal capitalism and its political system, parliamentarianism, as the only natural and acceptable solutions. Harvey argues that neoliberalization is best conceived of as a 'political project to re-establish the conditions for capital accumulation and restore the power of the economic elites'. Harvey demonstrates that, in an era popularly described as 'post-political', class war has continued to be fought, but only by one side: the wealthy[…]
>As Harvey shows, neoliberals were more Leninist than the Leninists, using think-tanks as the intellectual vanguard to create the ideological climate in which capitalist realism could flourish >>597348The changes he proposes are almost entirely for the worse. His victory is comically preordained not because he's genuinely popular (his net approval rating is negative) but because institutional support for the Conservatives has been withdrawn. Newspapers that credulously reported that a Labour activist had assaulted a minister's aide in 2019 (didn't happen) now openly laugh at what an awkward weirdo the PM is. They stay very quiet, however, about what an awkward weirdo the leader of the opposition is.
Here's the general thrust of their proposals, partly from memory, with their pledge card (i.e. their retail offer, the ones they're really emphasizing) for reference:
1. no tax rises, no major spending increases except when funded by economic growth, even though growth is forecast to be dismal.
2. an energy company that is marketed like it means nationalised electricity (with particular emphasis on cutting bills), but which is really just an investment fund that might give money to private sector power firms. (i.e. 0% chance of bills falling as a result of it), to be funded by a one-off windfall tax on oil profits. (the current government created such a tax, it's a Blair throwback idea.)
3. hire like 6500 new teachers. (a drop in the bucket: 40,000 teachers quit in 2022-3 alone)
4. use spare capacity in private healthcare providers to reduce NHS waiting times. (the owners of some - who stand to make money!! - openly say there isn't really any capacity to spare because private providers cater to a very small number of people and often use staff who also work for the NHS…)
5. use "counter-terror style tactics" to stop illegal immigration by asylum seekers, plus other general reactionary posturing around cutting immigration. (they will almost certainly fail.)
6. set up "great british railways", which will basically plan and brand all the trains while still contracting their day-to-day operation (and ownership!!) out to private companies - so basically like a big version of many cities metros, except with the addition of the dumb policy of not owning the trains. (this is-and-was Conservative policy)
7. create "respect orders", i.e. bring back "anti social behaviour orders (ASBOs)" with a lamer name. (this is a blairite throwback, posturing as tough on crime. oooh, we'll give wronguns a court order to behave themselves..)
8. 100% chance they launch a big, top-down NHS reform aimed at wider use of private provision, market mechanisms, and all the other fetishes of the labour right. (Blair launched like 5 of them and genuinely wasted something like 25% of the extra money he put into the NHS on administering insane reforms that only fucked things up more.) without increasing funding appreciably. Wes Streeting, their future health secretary (barring an electoral miracle in his seat…) is one of the worst right-wing ghouls in the country.
9. create some kind of "public interest company" status so that the private water companies currently pumping shit into the water can continue to do so without being nationalised, but the government can say they did something. (this plan leaked out years ago, with 90s communitarian has-been Will Hutton - who was already humiliated by Blair flirting with his ideas in the mid-1990s before totally ignoring him post-1997 - offering to front the idea!! i believe they'll still go ahead with it despite this.)
10. 95% chance they increase tuition fees, possibly completely removing the current cap on what can be charged to domestic students. (He was elected Labour leader on a promise to abolish them, he has since played very coy about whether they'll go up as Unis are begging for money…)
11. Reform the welfare system to force more disabled people who aren't fit for work to get a job or starve, on the basis that a private sector creep with no medical experience and targets for how many applications to reject has decided that they
are fit to work.
12. create an "office for value for money" to audit public spending projects. (this would duplicate functions from the existing office for budget responsibility, ironically meaning it will itself represent horrible value for money.)
basically: Biden 2020 was Corbyn 2017 compared to their offer. Tony Blair in 1997 was offering the Common Program of the CPC compared to their offer. the best idea of the lot is Great British Railways and, as noted, that's a Conservative policy developed by the incumbent Conservative government. This is quite possibly the single bleakest platform that Labour has ever stood on - nothing captures it better than the accidentally Orwellian slogan of their shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves:
Stability is Change. The election is interesting not so much for what Labour will do or what will change as it is for watching a managed democracy in action, and for the prospect that - after they've won - the people doing the managing will have no more reason to prop them up, and the people (like the aforementioned shadow health secretary) who've been quietly accepting their second-tier positions are going to start making their bid for the prime ministership…
>>597350>but because institutional support for the Conservatives has been withdrawn.Why?
>Newspapers that credulously reported that a Labour activist had assaulted a minister's aide in 2019 (didn't happen) now openly laugh at what an awkward weirdo the PM isYeah they're now throwing Rishi under the bus like the two Tory PMs before him. But why the change in party?
>They stay very quiet, however, about what an awkward weirdo the leader of the opposition is.I bet they'll turn on Sphere soon enough when he's PM.
>1-12Wow lot of detail. The I got most of it but not all of it not being a bong, but my takeaway was privatization, privatization, privatization. This has been my general awareness of Bong and Euro politics for my life. The long march to American kind of libertarian standards.
>>597353it's a long story: first of all, Conservative support was artificially propped up (and Labour support artificially reduced) in the 2019 election, because the number one imperative was to get rid of Jeremy Corbyn - even if that meant accepting Brexit on fairly poor terms as a fait accompli. but Boris Johnson wasn't actually very well liked by institutions (he gave up running for leader in 2016 for a reason…) and believed his own hype rather than understanding he was in power at the whim of the press and the powerful, (I forget the date, but there was one particular speech around 2021 that set out his agenda and made this very clear) so they made a big deal about him breaking covid rules and some other scandals which destabilized the Tory party until he was pushed out as leader. (the last time they recorded opinion poll leads was under Johnson…)
then the Tories picked Liz Truss, an idiot true-believer, who tried to set out a radical tax cutting budget which immediately panicked the markets, leading to her becoming the shortest serving PM in UK history. boom, third time's the charm, Rishi Sunak becomes PM, and safely pivots to fairly status quo economic management combined with desperate culture warring. no credit for steadying things though, the bridges were already burned…
meanwhile Labour under Starmer pivoted to the right faster and more aggressively than most expected, and due to all the shithousing of the Corbyn years the Labour right had great press contacts, making them a very risk free option: Starmer has repeatedly demonstrated that if the press or private sector ask him to jump, he'll do it. Forget any risk of ideological sympathy to the left, their interpersonal hate for the left knows no bounds. (We're now at the point where the press might actually have bullied him into
keeping a left wing candidate…) Labour's policy of actively clamping down on any serious hope for change, actively disillusioning their members makes for a less engaged, less-risky government than the current Tories, who've been pandering to their membership a bit too much… (Johnson / Truss)
then there's simple class interests: Brexit under Johnson cost a lot of businesses time and money - sure, they had to grin and accept it in 2019 to be rid of Corbyn, but after that there was no reason to keep the chequebook open. Pensioners, buy to let landlords, pension funds, and even regular old businesses didn't like Liz Truss' stunt, which cost them money both through instability, higher inflation, and higher interest rates. nobody was particularly impressed with Sunak cancelling a chunk of HS2 or backpedaling on Net Zero targets either, given it undermines national infrastructure and long-term planning for zero gain. (If you're a capitalist getting all invested in decarbonization, you don't want the government to come along and go "ah, no, don't bother with that woke nonsense…") austerity from 2010 onwards has basically destroyed British state capacity, for which the Conservatives are belatedly being punished (it's hard to pick the state clean when only bones remain) - a great irony of this election is surely that Labour refuse to spend any money to avoid spooking capital, but good chunks of capital would
very much like for Labour to spend money fixing things: businesses need functioning infrastructure too!
if the Conservatives had picked Sunak as leader immediately after Johnson he might've been given a fair chance at setting the agenda and rebuilding their chances, but after Truss, from the perspective of capital, the party has to be severely disciplined for drinking the kool aid. especially since doing so is totally risk free - let Labour, capital's B team, take over and try to fix things. in 5-10 years when they haven't done it, they too can be ripped to pieces.
>>597348>How come this thread isn't talking about that? We have been for 3 years you retart.
>>597349>Whats the point of a peerage anyway?free money, probably.
>>597354>it's a long story: first of all, Conservative support was artificially propped up (and Labour support artificially reduced) in the 2019 election, because the number one imperative was to get rid of Jeremy CorbynThat makes sense.
> even if that meant accepting Brexit on fairly poor terms as a fait accompli. but Boris Johnson wasn't actually very well liked by institutions (he gave up running for leader in 2016 for a reason…) and believed his own hype rather than understanding he was in power at the whim of the press and the powerful, (I forget the date, but there was one particular speech around 2021 that set out his agenda and made this very clear) so they made a big deal about him breaking covid rules and some other scandals which destabilized the Tory party until he was pushed out as leader. (the last time they recorded opinion poll leads was under Johnson…)Yes I followed all that. He was the fall guy for Brexit and then they got him with the covid party scandals. I read that was organized by the Brit lordship palace clique because they didn't like Brexit and didn't like him in general.
>then the Tories picked Liz Truss, an idiot true-believer, who tried to set out a radical tax cutting budget which immediately panicked the markets, leading to her becoming the shortest serving PM in UK history. boom, third time's the charm, Rishi Sunak becomes PM, and safely pivots to fairly status quo economic management combined with desperate culture warring. no credit for steadying things though, the bridges were already burned…Yeah I'm still feeling like Rishi and Tories being out in a month was less telegraphed than I would expect.
>if the Conservatives had picked Sunak as leader immediately after Johnson he might've been given a fair chance at setting the agenda and rebuilding their chances, but after Truss, from the perspective of capital, the party has to be severely disciplined for drinking the kool aid. especially since doing so is totally risk free - let Labour, capital's B team, take over and try to fix things. in 5-10 years when they haven't done it, they too can be ripped to pieces.Yeah all the news coverage I heard on the government radio was all things are "things are looking are looking up for Labour! But don't get your hopes up…" They were really emphasizing how quickly their popularity could collapse.
>>597350The most depressing part of it is the need to wait for another 10 years for this fucking house of cards to fall in its own shower of incompetence and hopelessness, only for it to be replaced with a tory house of cards all over again in turn.
I hate how cucked to the press this fucking country is, at this point unironically do booj newspaper burnings if you're a principled communist
>>597360>The most depressing part of it is the need to wait for another 10 years for this fucking house of cards to fall in its own shower of incompetence and hopelessness, only for it to be replaced with a tory house of cards all over again in turn.<he thinks it's going to take ten years<he thinks we're getting tories afterwardsI envy you, anon. Full on fascism in the homeland is where we're going and faster than a decade, i'm sure.
>>597360>I hate how cucked to the press this fucking country is, at this point unironically do booj newspaper burnings if you're a principled communistI knew a guy who briked the big plate windows of the local press. The police hunted him for like over a decade. Even put a 10K bounty on him. It was part of larger anarchists repression attempts in the mid-late 00's but still, these fucks really care about even the slightest attacks on their media.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bristol-30299600https://en.squat.net/2015/03/05/bristol-operation-rhone-and-the-badger-hunt/https://www.channel4.com/news/informal-anarchist-federation-bristol-arson-attack-anarchistThey still never nicked him btw. big kek.
>>597350>3. hire like 6500 new teachers. (a drop in the bucket: 40,000 teachers quit in 2022-3 alone)Didn't realise it was that bad, but I'm not surprised. I've worked in education for just over a year now, and I already know one NQT who has quit teaching because of stress, one experienced teacher who has retired, another who is retiring this year, and another who will be retiring probably at the end of the next academic year. The teacher who is retiring this year has spent almost as much time out of work for health reasons than they've spent in the classroom, and I know at least two people who have or will be taking time off because of stress; I sincerely hope they'll decide to come back next year, but we can't be sure.
On top of that, we're already short of teaching staff so the cover supervisors are being asked to essentially act as teachers, which they're not happy about. We're taking on more classes next year and haven't yet found teachers for them either, so fuck knows what will come of that; I guess the TAs will have to step up, which they won't be happy about either. All around it's an absolute fuckfest, and if I didn't enjoy working with the children and my colleagues so much I'd already have left.
>>597367>Of course it was in Bristol lol. There's a good anarchist presence there, Not anymore, sadly. :(
>but it's a shame how gentrified it's becoming.This is part of the reason, coupled with the updated squat law, Bristol does not have a ton of big commercial empties like al of cities.
The gentrification is crazy in Bristol. Many I know who grew up in this city cannot afford to live here, are forced to move out to wales for example.
>>597369For the most part private essentially rents public space whilst paying the public doctor and adds it's private after-care.
>>597370Most I've ever made in a month is something like £1500 after tax, after a 60 hour week
Family member who has just moved to Bristol and is renting a flat comes in at £1700 (no utilities, tax, etc)
Land of opportunity.
>>597366Mate, honestly, I'd at least recommend talking to some current teachers about it. I'm not going to say
don't, but there's a very real reason all these teachers are quitting. I'm somewhat insulated because I'm only a TA, but because I've got a degree they assume I'm looking to climb the social ladder, and they've started giving me more work to do on top of my current duties. The workload is impossible within my contracted hours, and I already end up having to do work out of hours or in my lunch break. It's definitely put me off being a teacher, at least in the UK. This is all at an SEND school too, mind you. Our max class size is 14. At any mainstream school you'd have classes of 30, and fewer adults in the room with you.
>>1873940I've been trying to move there for a few years because all my mates are there and that's where the music scene is, but I've given up now. I know people who've moved to Newport or Cardiff because it's cheaper there, but I live about the same distance away anyway, so I might as well just stay where I am. Shit sucks, and I don't think it will get better anytime soon.
>Not anymore, sadly. :(Ah, that's a shame. I've definitely been to a few gigs set up in support of some anarchist collective there.
>>597373>Family member who has just moved to Bristol and is renting a flat comes in at £1700 (no utilities, tax, etc)Damn. Everyone I know who stayed in this city got on to social housing.
Another large Issue bristol faces is it has an extreme homeless issue, homeless tend to congregate here from the west country and the surrounding towns on top of the already large homeless population that has come native from the city.
Also, Bristol has the largest wealth divide in the country, as well as some other crazy things:
>For instance, men in Hartcliffe will die an average of 10 years earlier than men in Hotwells.<Teenage girls in South Bristol are six times more likely to fall pregnant in than those in Clifton and Redland.>And 15 to 19 year olds in Hartcliffe are 20 times less likely to go on to higher education compared to teenagers in Westbury-on-Trym.As well as a significantly higher suicide rate than most in not the rest of the country.
>>597374>Ah, that's a shame. I've definitely been to a few gigs set up in support of some anarchist collective there.We've perhaps met or at least have mutual friends in that case. :)
>>597376There is so clearly nowhere for the labour to go; it's like being squashed between two walls (rising rent and house prices, and a local job economy that is restructuring to their exclusion).
Add to that a crisis in government spending due to austerity and many of these people are simply being slowly crushed alive in a trash compactor.
>>597380Yep. This is why i see fascism in our near future. Some ultra-right 'rejuvenation government'.
Bad times ahead but for now at least i ended up in social housing and at least have a sofa to share with people when they inevitably become homeless in this city.
>>597385They're just gonna make children of men into a real thing but without the infertility (still low birth rates though because nobody sensible would want to bring kids into this world)
Me and my BF think about leaving sometimes but where would we go? The only viable option seems to be China but imagine the culture shock.
>>597384You know what… That is a shout… I have just messaged them, thank you?
>>597386Are you gay too? I am trying to get my bf into politics. I am new to leftist stuff.
>>597386>Me and my BF think about leaving sometimes but where would we go? The only viable option seems to be China but imagine the culture shock.I think about that a lot too. China is hard to live in, you will only ever get a work visa and never citizenship.
Probably for me if it gets real bad it'll either be South East Asia, anywhere that seems realistic and politically active at the time or i'll stay here and do individual terrorism on the fascists out of nihilist spite.
>>597389Sorry its a bad habbit, you're a good person!
>>597388I don't feel so alone that you said that, I am older then mine and he is the dumb one but I love him none the less
>>597392I mean I don't really care about marriage, my BF kinda likes the idea though. As for nativism, well, I don't wanna sound conceited but I think we'd probably get treated better than Africans. Probably still some social weirdness though for sure.
>>597391Aww thanks <3 My BF loves me too I hope.
>>597393>Aww thanks <3 My BF loves me too I hope.I'm sure he does, I love mine to bits, even if he is a gaming neet.
How old are all of you? Is that adage of the youth being commies true? I am 26
>John Swinney tells over 200 SNP activists and politicians in Glasgow that this general election will be “the biggest challenge for years”. He adds that “voters are right to take nothing for granted”.
>200
oh they are so, so, so fucked.
no money, no activists, no debate invites, no institutional support, no opinion poll lead. they are fucked the absolute best-case scenario is 20-ish seats with less than Labour. if they're back down to mid-2000s numbers (4-6) i would be surprised but not shocked.
and in a sense after everything sturgeon did they deserve to be fucked, but they're going to be wiped out by the only people who deserve to be fucked more: scottish fucking labour, a party that hasn't learned anything from losing power in 2007 or 2015, which is running a bunch of the has-beens that were wiped out back then, and which will coast to victory by default. how fucking bleak. the only hope in scotland is that turnout will drop below 50% so it's clear everyone would rather rope than deal with this farce.
>>597397Reminder that sturgeon fucked herself over …a caravan.
I hate the Labour Aristocrats so badly.
>>597398>>597399sturgeon hollowed out the SNP for years and the terrible curse of scottish politics is that she'll go down as having destroyed them by being too left wing and too socially liberal (and maybe even too focused on independence - ha!), rather than by being a centralising blairite who let KPMG draft all her policy, who signed a devolution deal that punishes scotland for having lower growth than the rest of the UK (which it always does, not being propped up by london) by cutting its budget, who rushed the ferry contract (giving CMAL, malicious privatisers, room to fuck it up), and who introduced the scottish child payment on the eve of her retirement as a legacy thing with no notion of how to pay for it in the long run (someone else's problem), all because she wanted good PR and a nice photo op. i cannot emphasize strongly enough that her liberalism was LARP, that her record on say - section 28 - is comical triangulation, that on matters like the GRA she blundered badly by deferring and delaying in an attempt to mollify people like Rowling who hated her, hated her nominal cause, and hated the people the bill was for, ultimately meaning it took years and passed under a Tory government desperately reaching for culture war issues - who veto'd - rather than one distracted by Brexit. - who would've ignored it.
in some ways the collapse of the independence movement is more tragic than that of corbynism - obviously it had a weaker (if still very much present) left wing grounding, but it had a much broader social base, and a good chunk of that base has turned in a conservative or reactionary direction because that was the most obvious way to go when sturgeon was LARPing as a liberal. moreover, Corbynism was destroyed from the outside while sturgeon destroyed the independence movement from the inside mostly through neglect - they weren't part of the inner circle and decisions can never be taken outside the circle - crowds are good for a photo op, but nothing else. real decisions should be taken behind closed doors with your most trusted colleagues and private sector advisors.
it would take a heart of stone to not laugh that all this image management was for nothing - that ultimately she left office at a low point (which i regarded as another blunder at the time, but with hindsight… probably beats footage of you explaining to parliament why you were interviewed under caution…), with foreknowledge the police were about to come knocking and bring the whole house down, and with formerly sycophantic journalists now turning on you as the winds change.
>>597401Honestly, while sturgeon deserves the criticism, the shitshow that the SNP was/is was bigger than just her. That's why her leaving won't fix anything, now they'll just be even more rudderless. Brace for a rant.
Big part of the reason why the party was mired in paralysis is because of the comical insistence that independence can be delivered as a both bourgeois and worker friendly project, so at the height of the movement they release shambolic white papers that amount to saying "nothing will fundamentally change", which makes the workers wonder why bother and the bourgeois just sit back and wait. These things mainly came from sturgeon's inner circle, a big section of which are literal neolib ghouls genuinely trying to sell the "western singapore" nonsense to their elite pals. Pick a fucking lane at the very least maybe? If you can't say to the workers that independence will improve Scotland economically, then don't fucking wonder why they won't take you over the magic 51%. You had these arguments in the fucking 80s, the "no left right divide" conservatives fucking lost and then lost again, tell them to finally fuck off maybe! Do something, anything, to be different from the neolib ghouls, instead of having them write your white papers and then wonder why people hated them. And don't think the booj and media will be your allies if you just keep shtum either, you had 10 years to see that that's not how it fucking works.
So if the economics are locked down to not rock the boat, then what now? Oh lets try some social changes – oh wait, they either don't have the powers for it, or they play right into the already existing hysteria in the media and end up taking the centre stage to the exclusion of all other discussion. Now you have a party split down the middle because you don't have the balls to kick out your terfs who are all hated by the population anyway, with the only thing keeping them afloat in some circles being whatever shreds of independence campaign clout they may have had.
And what about independence? This is the one place where sturgeon gets the entire blame: she could've led the party towards building dual power, and she even tried to at the start. The problem is that the SNP's definition of "dual power" just means setting up good international relations with other countries to become recognised by the international booj as "a real government", and sitting on your hands and whinging about "no powers" in every other situation. She had the right moment when supporters were throwing cash at her in huge quantities, and wasted it all. Why not use your networks to set up infrastructure companies staffed by the party elites to boost growth right now, and turn them into state owned enterprises in waiting? You can put just about anything in the company bylaws, you can literally make it stick legally if you wanted to.
And why didn't she keep building the independence movement on the ground, instead of wasting time waiting for the courts? You're not going to get independence through a legal tussle you dumb shit, you have to force the issue! It's such obvious fucking things to do. Instead she fell into the same old bullshit labour trap of "just govern with competence" which to her credit the SNP did far better than scottish labour ever did, but it's not fucking enough and never will be enough if you have both hands tied behind your back and refuse to even struggle!
I hate labour shits and tory scum but they don't frustrate me, I expect them to be dogshit and pathetic. SNP is the only party in this country that just makes me fucking frustrated.
>>597402i basically agree - although i'd quibble pedantically and say that, theoretically, they
could've made a middle-lane or even right-wing independence prospectus and kept a majority of scottish seats at this election if their internal party management wasn't so bad. you can survive an aggressive policy pivot to the right that nobody wants (as we'll find when scottish labour get back in and undo everything the SNP set up…), you can survive destroying a social movement of people who'd back you no matter what (as uk labour currently shows), you can even shamble on for a while having destroyed your own base, coasting on residual loyalty (scottish labour <2015), but you simply can't survive hollowing out and destroying your internal party organisation: while not as incompetent as scottish labour were for the whole time they've been in office, they're basically in the same place now: every disaster and fiasco can be explained the same way - a narrow circle of incompetent people thinking in the shortest possible term are responsible for the big decisions. (mostly unelected advisors, picked by - guess who.) it's why we're still talking about Michael Matheson over a fairly trivial mistake. firing the budget people from the NEC because your husband has done something that doesn't stack up is fine for keeping your grip on power in the short run, but in the long run - especially when you're a big open target like the SNP - you'll find that just because you're first minister doesn't mean you can fire
the police.
i blame sturgeon the most for two reasons: the first is command responsibility, the second is that she was the brand. one day I'd like to make a collage or something showing each "era" of Sturgeonism: 2015's social democrat with Leanne Wood and Natalie Bennett, 2016's stop-brexit Clintonite anti-populist, 2017's Ardern-inspired girl power, that one interlude where they stole a Thatcher poster and put her face on it, Full blown #FBPE selfies with Alistair Campbell, 2020's Covid hero, 2021's "women hold up half the sky" book of speeches, and of course 2023's resignation, which like many other things, was plagiarized from Ardern so blatantly that she really ought to sue.
and Jacinda Ardern, I think, would be the one to compare her to: both were skilled at presentation but lead essentially do-nothing neoliberal governments. The difference is that Ardern never hollowed out NZ Labour's internal organization - they lost the last election by being cowardly centrists, sure, but they're climbing in the polls now because they've got the basic wherewithal to pick a line and stick to it, and because they're not bankrupt. the SNP, on the other hand, face an existential threat: crisis after crisis is going to come home to roost and they are going to blunder every single one of them. there's going to be brutal competition for holyrood seats from unemployed Westminster MPs, and even then a chunk won't get in because - unless Starmer well and truly fucks it in the first year in a liz truss tier disaster in Scotland - the SNP are going to lose about half their seats… and plenty of councils (not the least Edinburgh!) attest to the fact that a Labour-Liberal-Tory clown car coalition is no longer out of the question.
basically: it's hard to read these things as the mistakes of people acting in good faith or pulled along purely by institutional inertia. i don't necessarily think they're evil, but i think they are/were both vain and very, very stupid. (i might come back to the rest about what an actual independence prospectus could've looked like - there's sort of two levels here where the tragedy is that so much was blundered even from a "centrist" perspective. like, if your only aim was to keep these people in their jobs, to have yellow team win the game, etc,
they have blundered even by this low standard - let alone before you consider what could've been if people who knew what they were doing had been in charge, if things had been left to a broader movement and well set up institutions…)
>>597404You should vote for whichever communist/socialist party is standing in your constituency. WPB/CPB/SPGB/RCP/TUSC/left independents, whoever isn't Labour.
If there's no one like that standing it depends, if your labour mp is a Labour 'left' type might be worth voting for them anyway, if not maybe vote green depending on the candidate, hell if I was in a Labour rightist's constituency I might even vote tory/libdem, or whoever stood the best chance to displace them.
>>597403Honestly if someone asked me at this point to explain what neoliberalism is, I'd just say "it's when your brain gives up and stops operating" and then point to the entire UK as an example. It is completely wild how devoid of talent all of the major political parties are now, like on a statistical basis alone it shouldn't make sense. All of them are making fucking cameron look competent at this point lmao
The comparison to late 1980s socialist parties when they had no clue what to do and were just reacting badly to whatever shitshow was currently hitting them is really apt, it's like everyone in power suddenly logged off and became an npc and is now on autopilot mode. It would give me hope if only we had an actually competent socialist movement going, but alas
>>597407 (me)
>>597403And just to be clear, yea I completely agree with the entire post, as depressing as it is. A long book could probably be written about all the ways in which the SNP fucked up at this point. And it really does come from both vanity and short term nominally self preservational actions, but also a series of other monumental fuckups that were more fundamental than that that led to this entire situation in the first place.
>>597409nah there's absolutely a talent factor - a robbery is a good metaphor: some people break into the bank, blow the doors off the vault, make off with the money and aren't caught - talented. some do the same, but they're caught - okay, not so talented - and others blow up all the money in the vault, then get caught - incompetent. ultimately, the SNP (and bits of the Conservatives) have fallen into that last category.
(it's really more of an organization factor than individual talent, though. all of the people may be equally competent, but badly organized, that just makes them a liability…)
like a lot of the time the government's policy simply is not the best way to dole out bribes to the bouj, let alone fix anything - that's why there's no credit for having scratched any backs, because while doing so they broke the skin.
>>597409Think about the last 10 years tho, it's just a shambles on top of a shambles constantly. Tory brexit: a fail that solved nothing and pissed off sections of the booj. HS2: 10 years of monumental failure and mismanagement, was put out of its misery unceremoniously. 3 tory pms in 1 year: speaks for itself. The labour left not doing a purge of the labour right when they were in power in the party: lol. The labour right being completely unprepared for power: what else is new. The SNP first minister resigning because of a rumour about the Greens wanting to screw him: no fucking comment.
I am confident that there's not two braincells left to rub together in westminster or in holyrood. When even the booj is pissed and flailing around, and the papers are giving labshits an entire series of completely free passes out of desperation, it couldn't be more obvious
>>597417He actually reminds me of my dad for that reason.
>>597418Based hopefully he assrapes the tories and cucks keith out of a few red wall seats.
>>597422The Brar's/CPGB-ML were involved in founding WPB yeah. They provided some of the early manpower and activists for it, but they didn't stick together long.
They basically precisely mirrored the trajectory of Respect which was also also founded effectively as an electoral front for the SWP, only for Galloway after his election to fall out with them and see them off as wreckers as he made the party his personal vehicle. CPGB-ML suffered the exact same fate, being quickly forced out and disaffiliating.
Funnily enough Brar denounced Respect and Galloway at the time as an 'imperialist labourist social-democrat', only to try to opportunistically ally with him ten years later and now after their acrimonious divorce have to denounce him again as a 'social democrat bourgeois anti-communist' >>597429Got some kind of disease that makes him look retarded. If you make enough jokes about him having a tomato head or sending him to the bloaty head clinic enough times someone will likely scold you and tell you the actual disease
Other diseased members of Labour include Wes Streeting, who tragically beat cancer recently
>>597429>Why does he look like that?The NHS only started doing scotch-eggoplasties in the late 80's shortly before he was done, the medical science simply was not there.
>>597430>Got some kind of disease that makes him look retarded. If you make enough jokes about him having a tomato head or sending him to the bloaty head clinic enough times someone will likely scold you and tell you the actual diseasekek what? does he have picrel unironically?
>>597434If there is one thing that is a defining characteristic of all british left mini cults, it's that they never learn from theirs or anyone elses mistakes, neither theoretically nor practically. Galloway has been pulling this shit across the entire socialist left for decades at this point lmao, with the trots and the putin lovers and anyone else who has a few dozen motivated enough activists to give Galloway some canvassing manpower when he needs it
This is why nobody serious wants to work with him, he always always always tries to pull this and detonates whatever partnerships he may have built in the process.
>>597442Novara are covering it.
At least they may make a funny or two.
>>597445I was going to make a point about her being restricted from certain careers but with this information
>>597446 coming to light I don't think that is a concern for her…
>>597449I hate them both so much. They should have included the other party leaders (including GalloGod ofc).
>>597450>I was going to make a point about her being restricted from certain careers but with this information >>597446 coming to light I don't think that is a concern for her…That's not a concern for the vast majority of people anon, for the class that it is, fuck 'em.
>>597451>host: "what will you do about the hamas terrorist atrocities of oct 7th, and what came after?"This made me rage. I had to turn it off.
>>597460>She'll be charged with assault and there's no chance of working with vulnerable people if you have any history of violenceThose things really are situational.
This probably would not bar her from such work.
>>597461>Also, have we not considered that this was just a publicity stunt for her onlyfans, or is that giving her too much credit?probably not, it's al onh tradition.
>>597461Doubt it; apparently she's made posts in support of Corbyn in the past.
A generous interpretation would be that she's clocked the circumstances of her life (she still lives with her mother, in apparently Dagenham?*) and has gone off to do something, however symbolically, about it.
All her friends now think she's a legend because some pig has gotten it, and the most they'll give her is a community order.
*
https://trustforlondon.org.uk/data/boroughs/barking-and-dagenham-poverty-and-inequality-indicators/?tab=work>>597462>This probably would not bar her from such work.Any employee running a DBS check will now return a history on her. There exists work schemes to prevent recidivism, as the focus is on keeping as many people out of the system as possible, so her life will go back to normal but for the next few years she'll have a huge shadow having over her.
>>597466>Another thread with Glownonymous and their horrible takes.<t. AnonymousNo. All you people do is post meme OPs and argue about deaf Soviets or whatever is popular on twitter any given day.
Anonymous are literally the worst posters on this board by a huge margin.
Fuck off faggots.
>>597468point me where i'm wrong.
whining faggots.
>>597472>And how exactly is Nigel Farage responsible for her being a prostitute?There are allegations she is a prostitute now?
From where?
>>597479>>597481You will now strawman the idea that this person is a product of capitalist society with the "it's societies fault!" argument.
Go ahead, I have time.
>>597478 (me)
Oh. This retard things prostitution and doing only fans is the same thing.
Legitimately a retard but unironically the same position as the 'sex work is work' libs, so i guess horse shoe theory is real.
I couldn't find an image of (horse)shoe on head, so you will have to imagine it i'm afraid.
>>597478https://x.com/EssexBunniehttps://leakedzone.com/victb/video>>597480Other than Brexit, what has he done?
>>597481>>597482>you are posting behind what is effectively a ban-proof VPNProblem?
>this person is a product of capitalist societyI actually completely agree with this sentiment.
>>597484>I actually completely agree with this sentiment.Do you? Because you just said
>And how exactly is Nigel Farage responsible for her being a prostitute?Clearly the two must be related; she did not conjure that milk shake from nowhere. If my suspicions are correct, she paid for it!
>>597484>Other than Brexit, what has he done? he is currently being used to dial down Conservative support in our managed democracy. it may well be that he is used to destroy the conservative party entirely. now, i am no supporter of the conservatives, but there is clearly an elite agenda at play here - this is no Corbyn-becomes-leader tier blunder on their part, it is a plan.
this is all transparently obvious, but you do not want such a structural analysis of why he is worthy of contempt. you want a nice little individualist sense of guilt instead of recognizing his obvious structural role in what's going on. (but this, too, outs you as
suspect: he is a rich southern cunt, no further reason for contempt is needed.)
>>597487if you can call up the BBC and be on telly within a day's notice, you've got power.
nobody is "encouraging" anyone to do anything. nothing we say here will filter back to her, she does not post here, you are posturing while saying nothing meaningful. (unless you think she posts her? maybe she's socdem flag, too busy with her OF to pop in and say hi to us?)
>>597497Yes I'm sure somebody who is definitely not poor takes to OnlyFans because of an abundant amount of jobs and career opportunities available, whilst living with their mother.
But I'm also sure that image is an incredibly accurate and valid depiction of how much she earns.
>>597494it's possible (one must keep an open mind), but very unlikely. it's hard to square such a plot with nearly everything
since Corbyn becoming leader being aimed at undoing Corbyn. Johnson was only accepted as leader to get rid of Corbyn, once Corbyn was gone he became the next problem to remove. it's also hard to square with the general operating mode of elite politics, which is anti-participation - why would they generate a surge in Labour membership when the preference is, generally, for small, disengaged memberships and campaigns funded by big donors? (indeed, part of the reason the Tories are being punished is because their members, too, got uppity…) moreover, it's hard to square with the general purging of the labour left: if Corbyn was some strategically deployed tool designed to achieve a certain outcome, why discard the chance of doing it again if everything went as planned?
i would say the current balance of evidence makes it more likely that Corbyn was a blunder: they drank their own kool aid and thought that only centrists would pay to vote in the leadership election, and they underestimated disillusion with labour's mediocre 2015 campaign. the plan was for labour to pick a kinnock type loser who'd repeat the 2015 election result in 2019 or 2020. corbyn put a dent in this, but not a massive one - he'll lose a bit worse, so what. the high ranking labour people were annoyed that they were stuck with him, but the rest of the elite could rest easy: labour will get trashed at the election and he'll fuck off. no biggie. this was so self-evident that they could stick to fairly standard attack lines and dismissals… until it turned out that actually, he was reasonably popular.
then all hell breaks loose as it becomes clear there's an actual problem here and it affects more than the career prospects of blairite hanger-ons.
>>597501God help you if you ever become an alcoholic, a drug addict, or suffer a manic episode.
Perhaps you will meet kinder and more understanding people when you do.
>>597503i think the elite were-and-are split on Brexit (which is why Farage was propped up in the first place, to dial up-and-down Cameron's support in the same fashion), so the result was a mixture of unexpected and expected, unwanted and wanted. but you can see how quickly Johnson's leadership bid fizzles - they don't want him in 2016 - and May comes in. the early election plan was seen positively enough, i think because it would've ensured some kind of compromise-exit if she'd won big, until with hindsight it became clear it was a blunder.
but by 2019 it was obvious that lib "stop brexit!!" types were more anti-corbyn than anti brexit, always attacking him while overlooking that he'd been pushed into supporting a second referendum. (more curiously: remember when Change UK actively stopped all the soft Brexit options from passing in parliament? stupidity, scheme, or plan..?)
keep in mind that i speak of a plan for simplicity's sake: in a lot of the details, it's more like an implicit vibe, or a collection of self-interests: a journalist doesn't have to be told that it's not in the plan for him to report any starmer gaffes, he understands implicitly that it's a bad career move to annoy the future PM. people can and do blunder here, from saying the quiet part out loud to calling snap elections that their party infrastructure can't support. our elite blunder regularly, they're just powerful enough to bounce back.
>>597487>Throwing a milkshake at a meme politician who has never had any real power <no real powerlol he probably has more power in many ways than a lot of MP's.
>>597497Bro this shit has emoji's on it why would you possibly think this was a good source for somebodies earnings?
I don't care a bit how much she earns but this is dumb as fuck. WTF level of autism is going on in this thread?
>>597507Even if the image is real, it isn't a reflection of how much she was earnig; it has been taken directly after she's gained popularity.
Somebody who earns at a minimum 3k a month doing OnlyFans does not live with their single mother in Dagenham with their much younger brother.
>>597508I imagine there are a whole bunch of sun reader types signing up right now for a hate-wank
and a charge-back.
>>597510>and a charge-backSun readers are upright honest citizens and true believers in the capitalist enterprise and the sanctity of the exchange relationship, they would never be so duplicitous.
Fake news!
>>597516i am not being facetious or hysterical when i tell you that this is a managed democracy. what is going on over here is what goes on in Singapore or in Russia, as adapted to British conditions.
the ruling class have entirely fallen behind labour, save for rump factions of the press and others which could not do so plausibly and so instead back the reform party - with the effect that the conservative vote is further split and their defeat is worsened. (contrast to our 1997 electionn, where
most of the ruling class backed labour, but some institutions were still Tory aligned…) the longer term plan is almost certainly to destroy the conservatives or to restructure them even further to the right. once Labour actually take power it is quite likely they will fall to pieces in short order - just as the Conservatives have done since 2019 - leaving it quite possible they lose power by 2030.
>>597520I love how this works.
The worst enemy of these parties is their own success, because once assuming power they must realise their policy initiatives; but they must do so under the historical conditions that are wholly not of their own making. It becomes an evident farce in which the role of government has moved from state-led industry investment into civil society, into one which is crisis management. There is no real control these parties can have on issues such as immigration because what exists is a democratic centralism of the bourgeoisie.
>>597522well, the press are talking about it - it's always been reform's plan, and farage is a creature of the press, so it's perfectly possible if these polls hold out.
(one funny possibility is that it happens, but labour take less % of the vote than they did in 2017 under Corbyn…)
>>597523it is going to be very funny to watch them discover in real time that their massive win was not, in fact, because they were political geniuses and that they will, in fact, fold like an accordion when battered by crises outside their control.
>>597527capital's B team
>>597520Britain, for all of its flaws, is not really a managed democracy like Singapore. But we have inherit all the worst aspects of your governance and social norms. You are a typical bourgeois democracy. Deal with it.
t.Singaporean
>>597532i can accept that Britain was a typical-ish bourgeois democracy until ~2019, but everything since there has been too overtly coordinated to pretend it has occurred "naturally". Boris Johnson was rightly regarded as an opportunistic clown in 2016, then suddenly regarded as a great leader in 2019. Okay, sure, it happened to Churchill, the moment makes the man - but for the press to suddenly
remember in 2022 that he's a corrupt clown, to speak openly of corruption they'd known about for years? for the bond markets to destroy his successor in 40 days, and her successor to totally fail to improve on her position? for a man as utterly devoid of charm as Keir Starmer to be heading for the biggest win in postwar history on a platform of
nothing, never facing any kind of tough questioning at the hands of our "free" press despite a history of lying and a slate of corrupt freaks installed as candidates mainly through undemocratic stitch-ups? For the supposed horrors of Labour's antisemitism "crisis" to vanish overnight? Indeed, for the press to openly speak amongst themselves about the fact all of the candidates are lying because the country is in a worse state than they let on - but for neither to draw the public's attention to that fact? No sir, I can't buy that these selective omissions are the same as the Tory bias of 1992, 2015, or 2017, or the Labour-ish bias of 1997, 2001 and 2005. Unless all the shit in the water is giving our journalists some kind of brain damage that comes and goes, it's less risky to go with the line that this is Yeltsin '96 in a country wealthy enough to forgo murder and kidnap.
(although in the details you're right that it's not similar to Singapore at all - the comparison was purely to avoid having Russia be the only example, which would risk looking like an anti-Russia lib and distract from the wider point that the current election results aren't "organic".)
>>597533>>597537idk, from an outsider looking in. It is just look like every bourgeoisie was united against getting rid of Corbyn as soon as possible. Every narrative
including the insistent need to do Brexit hard and fast was devoted to spin against him.
Now that he is eliminated from Labour, they are happy to let the narrative and the tories they propped up unravel. Boris, Truss and Surnak are not going to lose to Corbyn, they are going to lose to a nobody like Stramer. Why would porkies care that much about spinning a narrative when there is no threat to their dominance?
>>597538When porky and zionists felt fear in the UK they mobilized a massive campaign to paint Corbyn as an anti semite. It's not happening now.
When porky and zionists felt fear in the US, NY billionaires spent hundreds of millions campaigning and joined the presidential race. It's not happening now.
>>597538That would explain their sudden noticing of Tory problems once Corbyn was gone, but not their silence about Labour's problems. In a typical situation (as say, 1997) they'd be much more open about Labour's flaws, and in 1997 Labour did a much better job of hiding them.
If Labour wins big it's a helpful rebuke to Corbyn (just run a centrist and you win big!), but also gives the government a lot of power to do unpopular things. Starmer knows, or ought to know, that he owes everything to the press and to the bourgeoisie and that if they ask him to do something, he better do it - even if 200 MPs rebel, he's got the majority to get it done. Otherwise he, too, will experience a great
remembering.
>>597540>If Labour wins big it's a helpful rebuke to Corbyn (just run a centrist and you win big!)I mean yea? That is precisely what must happen for porkies to rebuke Corbynism. They have to give Stramer a massive win in order to claim that Corbyn lost due to his sole unpopularity (that they manufactured). Whether or not Stramer does anything once in government isn't going to matter. They will swing against him or tear him up once he does anything out of lockstep. He has already done so many u-turns because of media backlash.
It is not enough for the bourgeoisie that Corbyn's Labour lose, but that anyone else's Labour win big.
>>5975441. once again following a tory lead
>The commitment to recognising a Palestinian state “as part of a peace process” echoes comments made in January by David Cameron, the foreign secretary.2. mostly old news, actually a walking back from a more pro-Palestine position under corbyn and miliband
https://www.thejc.com/news/politics/keir-starmer-officially-junks-labours-old-policy-on-palestinian-statehood-r8bs7afe>Labour leader tells the JC any recognition would not be unilateral but come as part of a peace processfunny to see them get desperate though.
>Labour is hoping the wording on Palestinian statehood will help recover some ground among Muslim and progressive voters, many of whom have become disillusioned with the party’s foreign policy in recent months. Party officials say they are worried they could lose two urban constituencies – Bristol Central and Sheffield Hallam – as a result. >>597551You expect such a discussion on the bbc? lmao
They talked about immigrants (of course), brexit (of course), sunak leaving the d-day ceremony early (lmao), and planned labour nhs cuts (labour shitters keep pretending its not true, but watch as its the first thing they do once in government)
>>597556That's not why they're leaving it out, they're leaving it out because the Greens, SNP and Plaid would tear the fuck out of Labour. A good chunk of Labour's vote base (young people and minority voters) care a great deal - that's why you have to try and cover up Labour's complicity.
Getting Tories to defect to reform so FPTP gives Labour a huge majority doesn't work if an equal number of Labour voters go Green…
It came up in the first leader's debate and the moderator twisted the words so that they could vaguely babble about "a more dangerous world, as the hamas terrorist attacks show… more defense spending!" rather than answer the actual question about Israel's actions. They're afraid of the issue even in a debate between the two pro-Genocide candidates, why would they throw open the doors to regional and minor parties with nothing to lose from calling it out?
>>597561other than those labour-right freaks and lobbyists who're excited to get their parliamentary salary, and a few extremely online blairites who want to experience 1997 again in the hopes it can reverse the ravages of age, i can't say i've encountered anyone who
is.
>>597564It was ogre for Corbynism in 2019, not because of the lost election, but because the absolute devastation that has been inflicted on this nation since 2019 hasn't sparked any new interest in Corbyn's policies, if anything the worse things get the more people seem to double down on media talking points about Corbyn, despite all the threats of a Corbyn government actually getting realised under BoJo, Truss and Sunak.
The only thing I can see that people might legitimately be relieved to not have a Corbyn government over is the fact that he is intrinsically pro-peace and anti-war which means he would likely be "weak" on Ukraine while the support for handing over billions of pounds worth of weapons to Ukraine and telling them to attack Russia directly with them and just fingers crossed that doesn't start WW3 is pretty universal in our politics. I think Corbyn's policies would be so unpopular in this regard and seen as such a threat to Britain's military standing against Russia by the ruling classes that it would unironically trigger a coup against him.
>>597560What kind of sicko P.M. skips the D-Day event
>>597542British journalists are so fucking shady, god
>>597571<Our nationalisation policy is based on a simple proposition that anything that is a monopoly or essential to the functioning of the country, especially those businesses strategically required in times of crisis, should be considered for re-nationalisation or nationalisation.
<We say ‘considered’ because full nationalisation may not be necessary in every case, such as national logistics, if the industry concerned is prepared to operate constructively in line with national planning guidelines and places the nation before investors. If we have to legislate to give the national interest priority over the market, we will not hesitate to do so.
<Our first task will be to end private-public partnership initiatives in the public sector and build the capacity for a national contracting agency integrated with the national economic plan. From there we will review all candidates for nationalisation with priority given to monopoly and public service entities such as Railtrack, the electricity grid and the water companies.
<Other candidates for ‘consideration’ may include the military-industrial complex, national food logistics, ports and airports. The ‘de minimis’ requirement can be expected to be worker participation on Boards of Directors as well as worker-directors with specific veto and report-back powers.
<In particular, we will take a decisive role in the pharmaceuticals industry on which our NHS depends. An entirely private pharmaceuticals industry is problematic given the importance of healthcare to the nation. Without close monitoring and significant control, it offers a recipe for profiteering at best and dangerous malpractice at worst. >>597573something about the rhetoric of this is very reminiscient of harold wilson. not the slick white-heat wilson, the less thrilling manifesto-text bit.
>>597575there's a story that goes: on monday you'd be fresh out of church with sunday's sermon still ringing in your ears, which risked the clergy having too much influence, on friday everyone would be getting pissed so the brewers could manipulate you into voting for their guy (or you'd just not vote - who'd choose voting over another round?) and on Saturday you'll be nursing your hangover, so Thursday was the best day because it put the greatest practical distance between your sunday sermon and your vote.
whether it's true or not, i couldn't tell you.
>>597577>Is Starmer going to be the UK's Hollande? Elected on a new and sweeping majoroty, disappoint your traditional base, collapse utterly and allow for a shift in fractured party system that gives rise to far right.Not impossible.
People are going around acting like the established centrist parties cannot collapse even though it's been happening all around us for a few years at this point.
It's arrogance of the labour aristocracy sleepwalking us in to somewhere definitely bad. I will keep saying it
< Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; >>597581>>597581>The UK's electoral system is much more FPTP dominated than the typical Euro country though. To me this only means their collapse will be far more spectacular.
>Which encourages the main parties to last forever like the USA.Very little lasts forever. The USA's political parties don't exactly seem long for this world right now either.
>>597582USA will forever be in a different situation, because the campaign contribution laws (among other things) basically make it impossible for an upstart to occur without the bourgeoisie massively supporting it financially from the get go, and us porky is also caught up in culture war issues between itself that are already being used by the two parties as the only distinguishing factor.
USA literally is designed to be unable to be changed by vooting, its something the founding fathers werent exactly coy about admitting all the time
>>597584>first they came for the trans people>…etc
Hope you britbongs have guns to defend yourself.
>>597584Lol Reform has now put out a statement saying he's actually right
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/10/reform-uk-defends-candidate-over-hitler-neutrality-comments"Reform UK has defended one of its candidates who said Britain should have “taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality”, saying the comments were “probably true”.
The row prompted the Conservatives to directly criticise Ian Gribbin, the party’s candidate in Bexhill and Battle, who was reported to have written on a website’s comment section: “Britain’s warped mindset values weird notions of international morality rather than looking after its own people.”
The BBC said Gribbin had written that Britain needed to “exorcise the cult of Churchill and recognise that in both policy and military strategy, he was abysmal”. He is also reported to have said that women were the “sponging gender” and should be “deprived of health care”.
Reform’s spokesperson told the BBC the views on Hitler’s offer were not endorsements but were “shared by the vast majority of the British establishment including the BBC of its day, and is probably true”.
He said they were written with “an eye to inconvenient perspectives and truths. That doesn’t make them endorsements, just arguing points in long-distance debates.”
The spokesperson also told the Jewish Chronicle the party would not sack the candidate and he had “done nothing wrong.”
The BBC later said Gribbin had apologised for the “old comments and withdraw them unreservedly and the upset that they have caused”."
>>597600it would lol
if the Tories somehow got back in, Labour would be next in line. if Labour get back in, there's a good chance that Reform or an even-further-right Tory party would be next-in-line.
>>597605I don't agree.
The rise of Nigel Farage directly mirrors Plato's description in the Republic of how oligarchies fall into a state of tyranny.
>>597603you're not offering much grounds to justify that. a nominally left-wing government that comes in and does nothing (leaving them to get worse) is the worst possible thing when it comes to preventing a rightwards turn. if you want your model, look to 1974: the somewhat moderate Tory heath lost to Labour, Labour ultimately fucked it under Callaghan and implemented neoliberal fiscal and monetary policy, with the result that voters turned to the crazy right-wing lady offering change. well, they got
change all-right…
>>597607Tyrannies were originally just popular states however. But this is why plato hated them.
The thing with farage is that he does have people who like him (even if its for dumb reasons).
No one likes starmer or sunak on the other hand - they are perfect politicians.
The only "left" populists in britain by contrast are corbyn and galloway, but they wont join forces; strong personalities never usually do.
>>597607>The rise of Nigel Farage directly mirrors Plato's description in the Republic of how oligarchies fall into a state of tyranny.You're missing the part where, if farage was to become pm, he would immediately choke on implementing all this shit he is talking about, just like the tories yap about immigration for decades and yet can do absolutely nothing about it that isn't performative at best.
What they say about immigration is stinking, but why is it that there is no issues for them to implement tax cuts and privatisations, while every single one of them has no ability to deliver any of their shitty immigration pledges? There is only one answer: porky wants to keep undercutting wages by importing foreign talent and cheap slaves, so it doesn't get done.
>>597621>"Appeasement" is still the famous slur against those who didnt want to rush into a deadly dysgenic warThis is what I have never understood, Hitler's territorial conquests were justifiable right up until he annexed Bohemia. At which point we drew a line in the sand and went to war with him shortly after when he invaded Poland. If we had went to war with Germany earlier it would have been long, bloody and without much good reason because the people we would be "freeing" (in Austria and Sudetenland) actually wanted to be under Nazi rule (look at Czech election results in the 30s).
British foreign policy during "appeasement" wasn't cowardly for not being insanely hawkish and forgoing any and all diplomacy.
>Churchill also fucked up the indians by killing millions of them. He is one of the monsters of history that is strangely celebrated as a hero. He was a fat, drunk villain.The Churchill worship is one of the cringest things about this country tbh.
>>597626what if we used the party name? Reform-ism!..
…I'll get back to you.
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