UK Local Elections 2021

[Trunkage]

because it was a republican president starting the war.
Now Joe's happily bombing the middle east.

No. He used to be anti war. He was shamed into being pro war. Now he has to be talked down by Hillary (of all people) to get out Afghanistan.

I half blame him for this. The GOP, fellow Dems and the media also need blame. So, It wasn't just the GOP.

At least Liz Cheney is sticking to her guns after being cancelled. (Well so far).

Edit: What Biden did in Bosnia was pretty unforgivable, not just the Middle East. Bill failed to get a war from congress.... and then just continued bombing like he got approval. Biden was one of the ones selling this illegal bombing as good to the public... after years of being against such nonsense. He went all in on supporting the Bushes after he was dragged through the mud in 91

 

[Agema]

I would also expect a partial recovery after such a dip. Is Keir Starmer actually capable of getting out there and inspiring people, though?

We'll find out.

At face value, I don't think he's inspiring in any sort of passionate, crowd-pleasing way. I think his strength would be for being serious, smart and committed - he's got a lawyer's persona of sober, clinical courtroom precision. This is not ideal to win over the hearts of the public, but there's some mileage in being well respected.

He's also part of a team, though, and in truth it's a team job. Labour needs potent rhetoriticians to face the cameras often whip the troops up, get in front of the camera more often than usual, but they don't have to be the leader. They can all cover for each other's weaknesses: that's what teams are for. This is also stresses the importance of unity and cohesion: the team needs to both function and be seen to function, which is why the infighting, or at least the public nature of the infighting, makes me despair.

 

[Silvanus]

Which I already pointed out is pretty mitigated by the fact she can pretty badly screw up time and again and have people rush out to defend her on racial grounds when plenty of other people would be thrown to the wolves over it.

I mean, she fucks up no more than dozens of other figures. She fucks up a lot less than, say... Gavin Williamson, or Chris Grayling, both of whom are/were government ministers.

Labour wanted it in the compulsory part.

OK. Walk me through this.

Do you object to the idea that any subject should be a compulsory module? Or just this one?

Oh right because there is only a threat to it when people actually are there with ropes and or hacksaws right?

An imminent threat, necessitating a physical protective counter-protest, is only credible if there is actually anyone there to threaten it.

Don't even need ropes or hacksaws to be a credible threat. But we're talking about literally nobody being there.

Because the one not in response to a Labour party comment was a chairperson.

Right... and as has already been shown, the PM also promised it. And it wasn't in response to Labour saying anything about the proportion of female candidates.

Considering the claims you've made and bits of information you seem rather shockingly unaware of that add context to things I should be the one more rightfully asking that question of you.

I haven't said anything inaccurate. The PM did promise half of all Tory candidates would be women. He did not promise this in response to anything Labour said about proportions of female candidates.

You, on the other hand, made various assumptions about context and content which turned out to be absolute bunkum, because you didn't bother to research the most basic details of what you were talking about.

Give me a break, what a waste of time.

 

[Seanchaidh]

...you tell me; I was merely pointing out that you usually dismiss hypotheticals out-of-hand if they raise uncomfortable possibilities.

If you've come around to their value, that's great!

I've never said they can't be useful in some contexts. But it is useful to note when something is speculative. In this case, Labour is performing no better than it was at the height of the antisemitism scandal anyway.

I see. So, seeing as Hartlepool has nothing whatsoever to do with antisemitism, and Labour's antisemitism scandal hasn't been in the press for over a year, what lessons do you want to learn from going back to fight that battle again?

Well, it would have been nice if the Labour Party hadn't been cowed by Zionists into conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism-- a refrain which crossed the Atlantic back to here, thanks for that by the way. The carnage in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing of Sheikh Jarrah that we're seeing today would likely have happened anyway, but I'd bet there would be fewer treating this rather uncomplicated aggression by the Israelis as some kind of deep moral enigma rather than the mirror of Kristallnacht that it is.

Oh, comparing the Israeli state to Nazis, how could I? What would the EHRC say?

I don't know, what the fuck else comes to mind here than the Night of Broken Glass?


In this case it's a week, I guess. Kristallwoche. Something to unironically celebrate if you're a genocidal racist teen girl.

People who support a settler colonial regime which is built on ethnic cleansing didn't feel welcome in the Labour Party and that was a very profound tragedy. Now, if you give a shit about Palestinians, why would you support a party that went out of its way torturing the truth and abusing antiracist language to make a home for such fascists? If you care about Black people, why would you support a party that did that while in the meantime more or less ignoring the abuse heaped on Diane Abbott? And perpetuating the fantasy that the royal family isn't racist? When you erode the moral foundation of a political party in such a way, the only people that will be left to enthuse about it are amoral cretins for whom the success of the party could mean personal advancement. While people like that might fare better in the mainstream press (why is war criminal Tony Blair appearing on Good Morning Britain?), their lack of principle makes their victories pointless and their defeats more damning.

The UK fucked up royally by not making Corbyn PM. But when you look at Keir Starmer, why even bother?

 

[Agema]

I don't know, what the fuck else comes to mind here than the Night of Broken Glass?

I'm not especially bothered about this, in the sense that genocidal racist teens smashing up shops are a feature of any society, and it's sometimes going to happen. What will bother me is if the state declines to vigorously investigate and prosecute such criminality where it can.

I have very little time for right-wing Israeli hand-wringing about how smashing up innocent Israeli Arabs and their property isn't proper and it isn't representative of their beliefs. It is them and their beliefs: feed hate and division, get violence.

 

[Seanchaidh]

I'm not especially bothered about this, in the sense that genocidal racist teens smashing up shops are a feature of any society, and it's sometimes going to happen.

I'm not sure this is a feature of every society. Not like this.


And I know this isn't:

 

[Silvanus]

Well, it would have been nice if the Labour Party hadn't been cowed by Zionists into conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism-- a refrain which crossed the Atlantic back to here, thanks for that by the way. The carnage in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing of Sheikh Jarrah that we're seeing today would likely have happened anyway, but I'd bet there would be fewer treating this rather uncomplicated aggression by the Israelis as some kind of deep moral enigma rather than the mirror of Kristallnacht that it is.

Oh, comparing the Israeli state to Nazis, how could I? What would the EHRC say?

I don't know, what the fuck else comes to mind here than the Night of Broken Glass?


In this case it's a week, I guess. Kristallwoche. Something to unironically celebrate if you're a genocidal racist teen girl.

People who support a settler colonial regime which is built on ethnic cleansing didn't feel welcome in the Labour Party and that was a very profound tragedy. Now, if you give a shit about Palestinians, why would you support a party that went out of its way torturing the truth and abusing antiracist language to make a home for such fascists? If you care about Black people, why would you support a party that did that while in the meantime more or less ignoring the abuse heaped on Diane Abbott? And perpetuating the fantasy that the royal family isn't racist? When you erode the moral foundation of a political party in such a way, the only people that will be left to enthuse about it are amoral cretins for whom the success of the party could mean personal advancement. While people like that might fare better in the mainstream press (why is war criminal Tony Blair appearing on Good Morning Britain?), their lack of principle makes their victories pointless and their defeats more damning.

The UK fucked up royally by not making Corbyn PM. But when you look at Keir Starmer, why even bother?

If you think Hartlepool was lost because of Labour's position on Israel, or because it didn't decry the Royal Family as racist, or any of this stuff you've described above, then you haven't the faintest, foggiest idea what went wrong in that campaign.

 

[Seanchaidh]

If you think Hartlepool was lost because of Labour's position on Israel, or because it didn't decry the Royal Family as racist, or any of this stuff you've described above, then you haven't the faintest, foggiest idea what went wrong in that campaign.

I don't, but you're not inspiring people to give a shit by being moral cowards (or by junking Corbyn's socialism-inspired policy agenda.)

 

[Agema]

I don't, but you're not inspiring people to give a shit by being moral cowards (or by junking Corbyn's socialism-inspired policy agenda.)

A huge unknown is quite how popular Corbyn's policy agenda was. They definitely made a hash of selling it in 2019.

The problem with 2017 is that it is very hard to separate from the Brexit referendum, which was undoubtedly a major influence on voting intentions.

We know lots of Corbynite policies were individually popular. The problem is, we have a long history of policies that poll well but don't win elections. Analysis of the 2015 election suggests that Labour's policy platform under Milliband was significantly more popular than the Tories'. But Labour lost, and not just by a bit, but by ~37-31. I don't have a lot of objections to Corbyn's policies: I just think the man himself was unfit to run the party. I think Labour mostly lucked to a close margin in 2017 from cirucmstance, and that disguised the dysfunctional leadership that led to the 2019 car crash. I don't think the British are necessarily that right wing, but I think a lot of the English middle are scared rigid by anything that looks extreme. You can pass all sorts of "normal, safe" socialistic polices by them (higher taxes, improved social services, nationalised railways, better welfare and healthcare, etc.) but if they get the whiff of perceived extremism, they will pull down the safety shutters and hit the alarm button. Bluntly, Corbyn triggered them.

Also, I'm not sure many Americans get how slippery the Tories are. The Republicans are in a sense straightforward. You know they hate taxes, regulations, green policy, minimum wage, non-whites voting, etc. and they're very open about it. The Tories, however, are often much less clear. The Tories are quite happy to occupy Labour's territory, usually rhetorically. They constantly bang on about environmentalism, and of course do virtually nothing about it, but the mere talk gives them an angle to play with. They talk up the NHS: they effectively defund it and privatise it, but they constantly visit hospitals and say how wonderful it is.

Let's take an example. Labour started talking up the "living wage" back in ~2012. It was getting public traction. So what the Tories did was create a new minimum wage value for over-22s higher than the National Minimum Wage and called it the "National Living Wage". It is of course well short of a real living wage as progressives understand it. But it was a successful spoiler to deny Labour political territory: the Tories take credit for creating a "living wage" (that's actually not) and at the same time deny the term effective use for Labour by muddying the waters what one is. It's sort of brilliant, cynical, and morally despicable. And they do this sort of trolling and griefing all the time. Steal a popular Labour policy, debase it and enact an ineffectual variant, move on to the next. Even now, you can hear Boris talking about "levelling up" the north and green investment jobs and all that shit, and everyone with better than middling awareness of politics knows these promises are almost certainly as hollow as they come, but it's enough to sway the attention of enough people to win votes.

How, though? The final aspect is that the Tories are perceived as the natural party of government in a way the Republicans in the USA aren't. You have two parties equally (dis)trusted to run the place. But here in Blighty, you can't really quite question why people believe the Tories should run the country, somehow. That's just what people think. It's a sort of perpetual benefit of the doubt. The Tories fuck up important things, maybe it's just events conspired against them, or it "needed" to be done because reasons, or they're really long-sighted and it will pay off 30 years down the line (i.e. when everyone's forgotten). Don't really know whether the Tories screwed up? Ah, they probably didn't or Labour would have done worse. Don't really know whether Tories or Labour are better? Well, vote Tory: that's the safe, normal, choice; the devil you know.

 

[meiam]

It wasn't that long ago that the UK was forced to borrow from the IMF (under labor) and had to be "rescued" by Thatcher Tories. That narrative (true or wrong) is still somewhat fresh in plenty of people mind and they don't want to go trough that again. So its no surprise that when someone show up and essentially say they should all go back to the pre Thatcher days people get scared, the Tories don't have to work very hard to appear as the sensible option.

 

[Silvanus]

I don't, but you're not inspiring people to give a shit by being moral cowards (or by junking Corbyn's socialism-inspired policy agenda.)

There's no bravery in endlessly fighting a lost battle, which accomplishes nothing but endlessly damaging one's own party. It doesn't help anyone in Palestine. It doesn't help anyone in the UK. It's supreme navel-gazing, and this issue had zero to do with Labour's current travails.

But Starmer would be a fool to abandon the planks of Labour's policy platform that poll so well: railway nationalisation, a progressive tax system, an end to arms sales, etc. Aside from anything else, this was the platform he ran on to take the leadership. To abandon it would be deceptive. Rachel Reeve's appointment does not inspire hope in me.

 

[Seanchaidh]

There's no bravery in endlessly fighting a lost battle, which accomplishes nothing but endlessly damaging one's own party. It doesn't help anyone in Palestine.

Not if you make Corbyn's mistake of giving it legitimacy. Going on the attack against "Labour Friends of Israel" might have, though, especially in the long term.

It doesn't help anyone in the UK. It's supreme navel-gazing, and this issue had zero to do with Labour's current travails.

People who are concerned about justice are less inclined to trust a party which so easily caves to pressure from genocidal colonialists. That means probably an insignificant number of votes directly, but an unknown number from a relative lack of enthusiastic volunteers.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

No. He used to be anti war. He was shamed into being pro war. Now he has to be talked down by Hillary (of all people) to get out Afghanistan.

I half blame him for this. The GOP, fellow Dems and the media also need blame. So, It wasn't just the GOP.

At least Liz Cheney is sticking to her guns after being cancelled. (Well so far).

Edit: What Biden did in Bosnia was pretty unforgivable, not just the Middle East. Bill failed to get a war from congress.... and then just continued bombing like he got approval. Biden was one of the ones selling this illegal bombing as good to the public... after years of being against such nonsense. He went all in on supporting the Bushes after he was dragged through the mud in 91

Was this before or after Democrats got power lol.

As we've seen before and it's been mentioned by senators before who weren't fully in with the parties it's just about partisanship and making the others the enemy not consistent standards.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

I mean, she fucks up no more than dozens of other figures. She fucks up a lot less than, say... Gavin Williamson, or Chris Grayling, both of whom are/were government ministers.

And that get railroaded for it constantly by the press and see almost 0 people rushing to their defence

OK. Walk me through this.

Do you object to the idea that any subject should be a compulsory module? Or just this one?

I object to it when it has a potential to blow up and go wrong so badly. As I said you make this core and you mean the lowest of the low sets have to study it. It won't go well. Those are sets where touching their table area is seen as grounds enough for them to try to blind a person with a setsquare (had it happen when I was in supporting a class)

An imminent threat, necessitating a physical protective counter-protest, is only credible if there is actually anyone there to threaten it.

So you don't bother locking your door?

Don't even need ropes or hacksaws to be a credible threat. But we're talking about literally nobody being there.

Possibly because it was circulated on social media that people had turned out to protect it already

Right... and as has already been shown, the PM also promised it. And it wasn't in response to Labour saying anything about the proportion of female candidates.

No the article points out it was a response to comments from Labour.

I haven't said anything inaccurate. The PM did promise half of all Tory candidates would be women. He did not promise this in response to anything Labour said about proportions of female candidates.

Which would be sophistry at the end of the day

You, on the other hand, made various assumptions about context and content which turned out to be absolute bunkum, because you didn't bother to research the most basic details of what you were talking about.

Only if you play at sophistry. In the world where words and saying have meanings and implications it's clear the context and implications behind comments and counter comments. Funny how you seem to understand that with Corbyn but not the rather deliberate set up attempts in this case against Boris

Give me a break, what a waste of time.

Why would I give you a break when you're very much seemingly against giving me even an inch lol

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

I've never said they can't be useful in some contexts. But it is useful to note when something is speculative. In this case, Labour is performing no better than it was at the height of the antisemitism scandal anyway.



Well, it would have been nice if the Labour Party hadn't been cowed by Zionists into conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism-- a refrain which crossed the Atlantic back to here, thanks for that by the way. The carnage in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing of Sheikh Jarrah that we're seeing today would likely have happened anyway, but I'd bet there would be fewer treating this rather uncomplicated aggression by the Israelis as some kind of deep moral enigma rather than the mirror of Kristallnacht that it is.

Oh, comparing the Israeli state to Nazis, how could I? What would the EHRC say?

I don't know, what the fuck else comes to mind here than the Night of Broken Glass?


In this case it's a week, I guess. Kristallwoche. Something to unironically celebrate if you're a genocidal racist teen girl.

People who support a settler colonial regime which is built on ethnic cleansing didn't feel welcome in the Labour Party and that was a very profound tragedy. Now, if you give a shit about Palestinians, why would you support a party that went out of its way torturing the truth and abusing antiracist language to make a home for such fascists? If you care about Black people, why would you support a party that did that while in the meantime more or less ignoring the abuse heaped on Diane Abbott? And perpetuating the fantasy that the royal family isn't racist? When you erode the moral foundation of a political party in such a way, the only people that will be left to enthuse about it are amoral cretins for whom the success of the party could mean personal advancement. While people like that might fare better in the mainstream press (why is war criminal Tony Blair appearing on Good Morning Britain?), their lack of principle makes their victories pointless and their defeats more damning.

The UK fucked up royally by not making Corbyn PM. But when you look at Keir Starmer, why even bother?

Just as a reminder part of the Anti-Semitism row was in part due to Corbyn defending a priest (before becoming leader) who among other claims said the Jews were behind 9/11.

Corbyn entirely failed to cover his arse and denounce the claims themselves even if his defence of the Priest was on free speech ground.

There's no bravery in endlessly fighting a lost battle, which accomplishes nothing but endlessly damaging one's own party. It doesn't help anyone in Palestine. It doesn't help anyone in the UK. It's supreme navel-gazing, and this issue had zero to do with Labour's current travails.

But Starmer would be a fool to abandon the planks of Labour's policy platform that poll so well: railway nationalisation, a progressive tax system, an end to arms sales, etc. Aside from anything else, this was the platform he ran on to take the leadership. To abandon it would be deceptive. Rachel Reeve's appointment does not inspire hope in me.

And Ends to arms sales. That won't go down well with the Blairites lol. Not with old Tony flogging our weapons to the middle east these days.
As for a progressive tax system people remember the last labour government who collected £0 in tax from Amazon or Google and I'm sure other companies too.

 

[Silvanus]

And that get railroaded for it constantly by the press and see almost 0 people rushing to their defence

You have absolutely no idea, do you?

These are people in charge of government departments. And still, the press (which is overwhelmingly right-wing in the UK) treat people like Grayling and Williamson with kid gloves. The press are their defenders.

Remember when Grayling awarded a ferry contract to a company with no ferries, which then had to be cancelled, at a cost of 50 million to the taxpayer? Yeah, the tabloids scarcely covered it. No public abuse. But Abbott got some maths wrong, which cost the taxpayer nothing, and she wasn't even in government... cue the tabloids losing their minds and months of public harassment.

I object to it when it has a potential to blow up and go wrong so badly. As I said you make this core and you mean the lowest of the low sets have to study it. It won't go well. Those are sets where touching their table area is seen as grounds enough for them to try to blind a person with a setsquare (had it happen when I was in supporting a class)

OK. So, you just believe that sensitive subjects shouldn't be mandatory for classes with behavioural issues, then.

I've still not actually seen anything from Labour saying it should be mandatory across all key stages etc. Corbyn proposed it be part of the curriculum, which doesn't mean mandatory across all grades/ key stages as you appear to be assuming.

===

Can you sort out your quotes in that post please? In its current format I can't just quote and reply.

 

[Agema]

These are people in charge of government departments. And still, the press (which is overwhelmingly right-wing in the UK) treat people like Grayling and Williamson with kid gloves. The press are their defenders.

In saner times, it would have been incomprehensible for an education secretary to oversee the non-stop schools debacles (especially the A-levels) and keep their job. But here's our brand new world. It's not to say that the right-wing press haven't included criticism of him, but it's distinctly at a remove: more a sort of "These people say Williamson is rubbish" rather than themselves calling "Williamson should go". They have absolutely protected him.

But the point here is that the anti-social justice mob care nothing other than that social justice is bad and that gays, women and racial minorities have it easy. All their "arguments" are nothing but rationalisations of this central mania, and aggressviely attacking people like Dianne Abbott for any and all tiny slip-up is a sport.

 

[Silvanus]

And Ends to arms sales. That won't go down well with the Blairites lol. Not with old Tony flogging our weapons to the middle east these days.

Who gives a shit? More importantly, its popular with the public. Labour should stick with it.

As for a progressive tax system people remember the last labour government who collected £0 in tax from Amazon or Google and I'm sure other companies too.

Both Amazon and Google pay fuck-all in tax, but neither actually paid 0 in the UK to our knowledge. And their lowest proportionate taxes have been under the Tories.

Amazon did manage to pay zero corporation tax to the US for two years (under Trump), and zero corporation tax to Luxembourg, where most of its European business is declared.

 

[Silvanus]

Not if you make Corbyn's mistake of giving it legitimacy. Going on the attack against "Labour Friends of Israel" might have, though, especially in the long term.

Yes, if there's anything that would help Labour's electoral prospects, it's making this fierce infighting more long-term.

People who are concerned about justice are less inclined to trust a party which so easily caves to pressure from genocidal colonialists. That means probably an insignificant number of votes directly, but an unknown number from a relative lack of enthusiastic volunteers.

Novel idea: hold a principled stance on foreign policy issues without mouthing off about the EHRC and how racism doesn't exist in your party less than a day after a damning report of racism in your party.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Yes, if there's anything that would help Labour's electoral prospects, it's making this fierce infighting more long-term.

Yeah, a party that stands for clear moral principles would be rubbish, wouldn't it?

Novel idea: hold a principled stance on foreign policy issues without mouthing off about the EHRC and how racism doesn't exist in your party less than a day after a damning report of racism in your party.

That's not what he said; what he said was actually true. And that report really was not particularly damning. I read the parts about the specific claims of antisemitism, there were four people responsible for all of it, and some of those were posting something that could be considered a trope if Israel is equated with Judaism, or comparing Israel to Nazis (assuming I'm remembering correctly) which, given what's been going on since 1948 and what's going on in Sheikh Jarrah right now is not exactly inaccurate. Notably, the report seemed to target a Muslim with opinions about Israel/Palestine and those who would defend that Muslim's right to speak about Israel/Palestine without fatuous accusations of antisemitism from the increasingly pathetic supporters of Israeli aggression.