UK Local Elections 2021

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Baffle

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Thing is Labour's next leader hopeful is probably going to cause more scandals I mean it was a Labour guy in Manchester who was threatening to sue the government over them pushing lockdown and said he'd only allow lockdown to happen if the central government granted some insane figure of funding. When they refused he was refusing and saying he wouldn't comply nor have any lockdown enforced and they'd have to take him and his council to court to get them to comply.
Burnham I assume, who I think I could happily vote for, though he's made some bad calls in the past (e.g. Iraq).
 

Silvanus

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Diane Abbott was a front bencher and is or was a fairly big name. Also the identity politics perception is Starman jumping on a lot of bandwagons.
Diane Abbott was a frontbencher in the last shadow cabinet, yes. The press have some kind of obsession with her.


As for "haven't brought it up in the commons"

[...]

Here's a member of the conservatives refuting a point Labour member were pushing

[...]

Hell Labour have been pushing this shit for years as it was in the Blair or Brown government they were bragging about how X % of their front bench MPs were women. Women who later tended their resignations complaining they weren't being valued but were being used as basically set dressing for the party to look good and nothing more.
OK, so your idea of "identity politics" is... addressing structural racism. Okay. If you just want major parties to ignore social issues and racial inequality, then you're going a great deal further than wanting to shift away from "identity politics".

Priti Patel didn't "refute" anything. She just insinuated that her personal experience absolved the government of any lack of understanding, and then exhibited some faux outrage that the question had even been asked.

As for Labour "pushing this shit for years", every major party has made a point out of the number of women & ethnic minorities are in their cabinets. You listen to the Conservatives for long enough, and they'll make similar boasts about how it was the Conservatives who have had 2 female Prime Ministers. That's standard political one-upmanship, indulged by both parties and nothing unique to Labour.
 

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The antisemitism scandal had become a major national talking point, and from Labour's perspective it was absolutely essential to bring the reputational damage it was doing to an end.

That didn't necessarily mean suspending Corbyn. It wouldn't have happened... had he not picked the worst possible time to mouth off about it, immediately following the EHRC report. His response guaranteed headlines about how the party wasn't accepting the issue, how they were just looking out for themselves, etc. It was an incredible lack of awareness on his part.
I think Corbyn is absolutely entitled to defend himself and his record after all the character assassination and the smear tactics employed against him. I also suspect he was thinking of the future, is this was left unchallenged the left wing of the Labour party will always have the taint of antisemitism hanging over it. The Blairites will see to that.
 

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Oh sure it's totally not just finally left wing people are being hit by it and suddenly it's a huge travesty. Also in the UK cancel culture is limited due to political discrimination laws. The US doesn't have such laws.
It has been a huge travesty. For decades. Its great that conservatives finally get treated like everyone else
 

Dwarvenhobble

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Diane Abbott was a frontbencher in the last shadow cabinet, yes. The press have some kind of obsession with her.
Yes and she's considered a pretty long standing, long surviving member of the party.



OK, so your idea of "identity politics" is... addressing structural racism. Okay. If you just want major parties to ignore social issues and racial inequality, then you're going a great deal further than wanting to shift away from "identity politics".

Priti Patel didn't "refute" anything. She just insinuated that her personal experience absolved the government of any lack of understanding, and then exhibited some faux outrage that the question had even been asked.

As for Labour "pushing this shit for years", every major party has made a point out of the number of women & ethnic minorities are in their cabinets. You listen to the Conservatives for long enough, and they'll make similar boasts about how it was the Conservatives who have had 2 female Prime Ministers. That's standard political one-upmanship, indulged by both parties and nothing unique to Labour.
Ah yes the structural racism of the school curriculum not including any info about historical racism or Black history despite the fact it actually does and has done for years and this was just another attempt to push through their education plan using identity claims and a reason for it while either being ignorant (wilfully) about it or just pretending to be ignorant?

It's using identity and a bludgeon to try and get their own way. See also the Ghandi statue debates that happened (yes at one point a statue of Ghandi had to have people protecting it).

Also no generally the conservatives don't boast about their numbers they let them speak for themselves lol. Hell the two women PMs comment is normally deployed o mock labour who are so focused on it but he conservatives did it without specifically aiming for that.
 

Dwarvenhobble

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It has been a huge travesty. For decades. Its great that conservatives finally get treated like everyone else
Not what happens though is it normally?

It's not treating people like everyone else when people are advocating for caving peoples heads in and the response is "Oh you're just being too sensitive, wanting to cave your head in is them criticising you but you calling them arseholes is silencing and oppressing them"
 

Silvanus

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Ah yes the structural racism of the school curriculum not including any info about historical racism or Black history despite the fact it actually does and has done for years and this was just another attempt to push through their education plan using identity claims and a reason for it while either being ignorant (wilfully) about it or just pretending to be ignorant?
Florence Eshalomi was talking much more broadly about structural racism than that; you've boiled it down to a single issue you believe you can take the piss out of.

I remember the curriculum. I went to school here. It scarcely addressed the race history of the UK at all. It scarcely mentioned Empire or colonialism at all, even though those were defining features of the last 2 centuries of global history.

It's using identity and a bludgeon to try and get their own way. See also the Ghandi statue debates that happened (yes at one point a statue of Ghandi had to have people protecting it).
No, that's bollocks. A bunch of people turned out to "symbolically protect" the statue.... against nobody. There wasn't anybody attacking it.

That's actually a perfect illustration of how the anti-"woke" crowd will bang on and on about these issues, fighting against threats that don't exist.

Also no generally the conservatives don't boast about their numbers they let them speak for themselves lol. Hell the two women PMs comment is normally deployed o mock labour who are so focused on it but he conservatives did it without specifically aiming for that.
Let's see... here's the Conservatives boasting of a "record" number of female candidates. And no, it's not in response to Labour, it's apropos-of-nothing. And of course, this being the Conservatives, most were put up in seats they couldn't win, so it's all for show.

Here we have Boris Johnson promising that half of all candidates should be women.

On a side-note, how is it for "identity politics" for the PM to describe children of single parents as "ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate"? How is it for "identity politics" for the PM to refer to gay men as "tank-topped bum boys"? How is it for the PM to refer to women wearing hijabs as "burglars" and "letterboxes"?

This is all identity politics. Aggressive, dehumanising, insulting identity politics. But those who moan about identity politics don't give a shit when it's the Tories doing it, which is precisely why they do it.
 

Seanchaidh

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The antisemitism scandal had become a major national talking point, and from Labour's perspective it was absolutely essential to bring the reputational damage it was doing to an end.
By falsely asserting it was a good point and letting the people within the party who used it for sabotage get away with it.
 

Silvanus

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By falsely asserting it was a good point and letting the people within the party who used it for sabotage get away with it.
From a purely strategic point of view, it doesn't matter whether or not you personally credit the EHCR report or not. When it came out, the party had two choices: 1) accept it and draw a line under it; 2) endlessly contest it, ensuring months upon months of severely damaging press.

You could have done #1 and kept Corbyn in the party. If he had an ounce of media awareness or a sense of timing.
 

Dwarvenhobble

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Florence Eshalomi was talking much more broadly about structural racism than that; you've boiled it down to a single issue you believe you can take the piss out of.

I remember the curriculum. I went to school here. It scarcely addressed the race history of the UK at all. It scarcely mentioned Empire or colonialism at all, even though those were defining features of the last 2 centuries of global history.
We literally did an entire module like 1/3rd of a year on the slave trade in school. We also did the History of medicine which touched on stuff and the History of the West where a about 1/2 of that module was just about the Native Americans and this is just what I remember of the stuff we studied

Also again it does come down to identity politics because it's some argument that the system is keeping people down and no-one on the Labour side seems to see any Irony in that claim being delivered by a Black woman MP in a party where Dianne Abbot exists where if she was a male politician and had screwed up as much as she has PR wise she'd be getting pilloried.



No, that's bollocks. A bunch of people turned out to "symbolically protect" the statue.... against nobody. There wasn't anybody attacking it.

That's actually a perfect illustration of how the anti-"woke" crowd will bang on and on about these issues, fighting against threats that don't exist.
Actually it was listed on a database of alleged racist statues in the UK that was being circulated at the time and action was being taken by people to pull down statues. As also pointed out in the article there were 6,000 people petitioning for removal and concerns over people choosing to forgo procedure and pull it down. Which had happened in other areas.



Let's see... here's the Conservatives boasting of a "record" number of female candidates. And no, it's not in response to Labour, it's apropos-of-nothing. And of course, this being the Conservatives, most were put up in seats they couldn't win, so it's all for show.

Here we have Boris Johnson promising that half of all candidates should be women.

On a side-note, how is it for "identity politics" for the PM to describe children of single parents as "ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate"? How is it for "identity politics" for the PM to refer to gay men as "tank-topped bum boys"? How is it for the PM to refer to women wearing hijabs as "burglars" and "letterboxes"?

This is all identity politics. Aggressive, dehumanising, insulting identity politics. But those who moan about identity politics don't give a shit when it's the Tories doing it, which is precisely why they do it.
By a party chair whose comments were only written about by left wing publications. Also the 2nd one was literally in response to accusations by Labour.

As for the comments weren't they from 2015 or before? Also none of them calling for special treatment as such based on identity. Being an ass to people over it sure but not special treatment.

If you want to play at mud slinging I could probably dig up some stupid comments from a lot of Labour lol.

You know lets see

Kier Starmer claiming he's working class was one

Hell remember the Labour MP busted for lying to the police over a speeding ticket who refused to resign when facing jail time and tried to claim it was because she was Black people were upset?
 

Seanchaidh

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You could have done #1 and kept Corbyn in the party. If he had an ounce of media awareness or a sense of timing.
As if the refrain wouldn't have been "why is Corbyn silent? [insert incredibly stupid argument here]"
 

Silvanus

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We literally did an entire module like 1/3rd of a year on the slave trade in school. We also did the History of medicine which touched on stuff and the History of the West where a about 1/2 of that module was just about the Native Americans and this is just what I remember of the stuff we studied

Also again it does come down to identity politics because it's some argument that the system is keeping people down and no-one on the Labour side seems to see any Irony in that claim being delivered by a Black woman MP in a party where Dianne Abbot exists where if she was a male politician and had screwed up as much as she has PR wise she'd be getting pilloried.
Do you have any idea the amount of racial abuse Diane Abbott suffers? It far outstrips any white male MP. For you to claim she's had an easy ride as an MP is utterly ridiculous.

And if that was your school experience, cool, fine. It's not the norm, or mandated by the curriculum. 1/3 of a year on the slave trade is perfectly reasonable; I wish that was more widespread. The slave trade was a global phenomenon of enormous significance. Of much more modern-day relevance than, say, the family trees of the Tudors, which most kids learned for multiple years.


Actually it was listed on a database of alleged racist statues in the UK that was being circulated at the time and action was being taken by people to pull down statues. As also pointed out in the article there were 6,000 people petitioning for removal and concerns over people choosing to forgo procedure and pull it down. Which had happened in other areas.
So... a petition with a tiny number of signatories, and a mention of it was on a site somewhere.

That's fucking nothing. A petition doesn't represent "foregoing procedures to pull it down"; it's literally just asking the government to do something. It has no power. Go onto the official petitions website, and you'll find dozens of petitions with tens of thousands of signatures for every inane thing under the sun.

There weren't people actually going to the statue to damage it. And yet we had people turning out in droves to "defend" it, against zero credible threat. This is the epitome of weaponising the culture war from the right-wing perspective.


By a party chair whose comments were only written about by left wing publications. Also the 2nd one was literally in response to accusations by Labour.
I can hear the goalposts shifting.

As for the comments weren't they from 2015 or before? Also none of them calling for special treatment as such based on identity. Being an ass to people over it sure but not special treatment.

If you want to play at mud slinging I could probably dig up some stupid comments from a lot of Labour lol.

You know lets see

Kier Starmer claiming he's working class was one
OK, so now we've got an equivalence drawn between "saying you're working class" and "calling others bum boys", because both of those are weaponising identity politics in exaaaactly the same way.

And Starmer's the son of a nurse & a toolmaker. So, yeah, much more humble beginnings than... pretty much any member of the Tory cabinet.


As if the refrain wouldn't have been "why is Corbyn silent? [insert incredibly stupid argument here]"
I believe you used to refer to these presumptive hypotheticals as "counter-factual".

But anyway: so what? They say he's silent... that's one story, without anything to actually write about. That's page-20 stuff. On the other hand, you write a big ol' response about how it's all a to-do about nothing, and that immediately places the leadership in a position where if he makes no disciplinary move, then the entire "zero tolerance" rebrand is immediately shot. Guaranteeing headlines for months and months.

Put simply: you cannot win every fight. Even if you think this is all unfair etc etc, this fight was lost months before. Endless fighting over it accomplishes absolutely nothing: it doesn't convince voters that he's been unfairly targeted; it only drags it out, mires the party ever further by guaranteeing its domination of the news cycle.
 
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Seanchaidh

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I believe you used to refer to these presumptive hypotheticals as "counter-factual".
ok..? Labour's not exactly doing well in this timeline, so who should care?

They say he's silent... that's one story, without anything to actually write about. That's page-20 stuff.
It's page 1 stuff. Because you can put it on page 1. And you will if your objective is to murder someone in the press.
 
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Dwarvenhobble

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Do you have any idea the amount of racial abuse Diane Abbott suffers? It far outstrips any white male MP. For you to claim she's had an easy ride as an MP is utterly ridiculous.

And if that was your school experience, cool, fine. It's not the norm, or mandated by the curriculum. 1/3 of a year on the slave trade is perfectly reasonable; I wish that was more widespread. The slave trade was a global phenomenon of enormous significance. Of much more modern-day relevance than, say, the family trees of the Tudors, which most kids learned for multiple years.
1) Male MPs have been physically assaulted rather regularly.
2) A female MP was stabbed to death and killed
3) Dianne Abbot get an extraordinary amount of people also defending her which comes off as racist lowered expectations because really the moment she says something dumb and is called out it's blamed on racism not treating her like anyone else would be by some people.

Having tried my hand at teaching trust me you don't want everyone learning about the slave trade and stuff round it. A best you'll get a shit ton of the very low ability sets learning offensive words and using them, at worst you'll have class brawls starting due to it. There's a level of seriousness or responsibility needed for a class to be ok to learn about it before GCSE. It's not mandatory but it's one of the modular options in the school syllabus which teachers often choose to pick or avoid and that discretion is important because well it's a good way to make things worse if you're not careful. Kids in school often barely care about race. I taught at a school with 1 black student and as one teacher commented I don't think any of the students even realise she's black she's just one of them. I then was asked if I'd noticed anything of concern teacher her to which I had to ask who they meant cause honestly I'd not picked up on her being black either she was just another pupil lol


So... a petition with a tiny number of signatories, and a mention of it was on a site somewhere.

That's fucking nothing. A petition doesn't represent "foregoing procedures to pull it down"; it's literally just asking the government to do something. It has no power. Go onto the official petitions website, and you'll find dozens of petitions with tens of thousands of signatures for every inane thing under the sun.

There weren't people actually going to the statue to damage it. And yet we had people turning out in droves to "defend" it, against zero credible threat. This is the epitome of weaponising the culture war from the right-wing perspective.
60,000 people had signed.
A website that had been used to identify and target statue to pull down.
In a time when people were taking action to just remove statues rather wait. A time when certain other statues in the UK had to be covered up and hidden because of calls to pull them down or get rid of them.
How do you know people wouldn't damage it? War Memorials and another statue had been already vandalised.
It was a time when public sentiment among some was literally to just go after statues and do it now and push hard to topple the statues etc now.
You can say there was no clear evidence but at that time there was very much precedent for some-one to try and take action and feel justified to.





I can hear the goalposts shifting.
The 2nd is most definitely a shift one you made as you argued that the goal would be that it wasn't in response to a Labour comment when the 2nd one very much was in response to a labour comment.

As for the first well it's hardly a major frontbench person and you can see one side seemingly happily continuing it the other not so lol


OK, so now we've got an equivalence drawn between "saying you're working class" and "calling others bum boys", because both of those are weaponising identity politics in exaaaactly the same way.

And Starmer's the son of a nurse & a toolmaker. So, yeah, much more humble beginnings than... pretty much any member of the Tory cabinet.
I wouldn't consider him working class anymore lol. He's very much disconnected from the working class and has been for years class isn't a trait that never changes (unless you're born to a title) you don't suddenly get to be a multimillionaire and claim you're still working class from you yacht parked up by you're mansion lol.
 

Seanchaidh

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3) Dianne Abbot get an extraordinary amount of people also defending her which comes off as racist lowered expectations because really the moment she says something dumb and is called out it's blamed on racism not treating her like anyone else would be by some people.
what did she say that was "dumb" in your opinion?
 

Dwarvenhobble

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what did she say that was "dumb" in your opinion?
The time she claimed the same money would be used fully to cover the costs of a project, 3 times for 3 separate projects meaning they'd actually need 3 times that money to do what was being claimed.
 

Seanchaidh

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The time she claimed the same money would be used fully to cover the costs of a project, 3 times for 3 separate projects meaning they'd actually need 3 times that money to do what was being claimed.
and this was..?
 

Agema

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That's not exactly unique to labor. Tories have been divided since at least Cameron, that's why he started the whole brexit thing going while also campagning against it while half the party campaign for it.
The Tories are also a power-driven party almost entirely untroubled with ethics. They understand that the bottom line is winning an election, and they do what's necessary to win it. The number of Tory MPs who deeply believe in anything and will really stand up for it is usually so small that "division" rarely impacts where it counts. Two thirds to three quarters of Tory MPs were against Brexit. And the minute the referendum passed, they happily fell in behind May and went about implementing a hard Brexit, derailed only by a small minority who weren't satisfied with how hard it was. And then in the final analysis, how many really stood up and said no to Johnson in 2019? 20? And what did that purge cost Boris?

Johnson is a lazy, incompetent and probably corrupt buffoon, albeit sort of popular. The Tory MPs knew that. If they didn't know before May made him foreign minister, they knew after: he was well known in political circles to not have been up to the task. And yet when May fell, they took a look around with their only real consideration who would win the next election for them: Boris had the right kind of popularity. Because fuck the country, they want to win and if they hand it over to a fool, so be it. They want to win so much, the Conservative and Unionist Party (to give it its full name) would betray its own values by driving Scotland to independence, because it sure as hell shows no apparent awareness of the crisis its actions are causing to the union.

And then we get Labour. There were all sorts of dodgy shenanigans in the 2010 leadership election that saddled it with the lacklustre Ed Miliband. And then Corbyn wins the Labour election, and the Labour centre sets about sabotaging him. Then Starmer comes into office, and the Labour left sets about sabotaging him. Labour is full of complacent, myopic, impractical ideologues more interested in their own internal power plays and hunting down supposed heretics amongst their own than delivering a better country for the British people.
 

Baffle

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Do you have any idea the amount of racial abuse Diane Abbott suffers? It far outstrips any white male MP. For you to claim she's had an easy ride as an MP is utterly ridiculous.

And if that was your school experience, cool, fine. It's not the norm, or mandated by the curriculum. 1/3 of a year on the slave trade is perfectly reasonable; I wish that was more widespread. The slave trade was a global phenomenon of enormous significance. Of much more modern-day relevance than, say, the family trees of the Tudors, which most kids learned for multiple years.
I believe a study found that Diane Abbott receives approximately one-third of all the abuse directed at all MPs.

It's a long time since I was at school, but history was very much kings, queens and World Wars. Religious studies, since no one asked, was Christianity and the others.