Apraxin posted:

yaffle posted:

Giant red Corbyn erupting from the earth under westminster to nationalise godzilla.

Chuka Umana posted:

Jose posted:

They're all centrists smh

https://twitter.com/TNiskakangas/status/1203729511658995713?s=19

quote:

This general election is unique in ways that transcend Brexit. Over the decades that I have been observing British politics, never before have I witnessed a consensus so widespread and powerful regarding the country’s urgent needs and priorities. And never before has the Labour Party presented a manifesto, buttressed by the leadership’s will to implement it, that promises real change in accordance with that consensus. And yet, despite this rare alignment, never before have the influencers that speak on behalf of Britain’s educated middle classes turned so viciously against a Labour Party that has done so much to address their own agenda.

Britain’s educated middle classes have, indeed, reached an impressive consensus. They worry about the climate emergency and accept the need for the state to act decisively in a world whose sustainability is jeopardised by Trump-like politicians and corporate-driven inertia. They concede that inequality has become obscene and is now hollowing out the social contract on which civilisation depends. They accept that the City of London remains a clear and present danger to the real economy, draining resources and perpetuating instability. They acknowledge that austerity is nothing more than a self-defeating fiscal policy masking a toxic class-war against the weaker citizens. They disdain Boris Johnson’s playful treatment of the facts and run scared of what a Tory Brexit will mean for their children’s access to European institutions, for the NHS, and for the UK’s capacity to resist the suffocating embrace of Trump’s US.

Meanwhile, the Labour manifesto will be remembered, irrespective of the electoral outcome, as a most worthy blueprint for tackling these concerns. From an economic perspective, it is a measured, bold, well-targeted and moderate financial response to the UK’s urgent needs and abundant capacities. For instance, the plan to establish a National Investment Bank, which can soak up excess liquidity from the financial system and create sustainable growth and high-quality, green jobs. Or the idea of ending the private oligopoly over broadband and transforming it into a public good that boosts the productivity of hitherto deprived citizens and small businesses. Or the proposal to finance the investment drive by asking those who benefited inordinately for decades to contribute more tax, effectively the social contract insurance premium they have been skimping on for so long.

From a social perspective, the Labour manifesto directly addresses that which the chattering classes have long demanded: providing better social care and more council houses, ending the heavy burden of debt for young people who dare enter university, and abolishing the zero-hour contracts that are a source of guilt even for the affluent.

From an environmental perspective, Labour’s manifesto includes the greenest, most radical plan offered by a major party anywhere in the world. Besides setting ambitious targets for reducing carbon emissions, it provides a means of financing the new institutions necessary for the green transition.

And then there is Brexit. What has been the chief demand of England’s political centre in recent years? To rule out a hard Brexit and to hold a second referendum that features Remain as an option. Once Johnson turned hard Brexit into an imminent reality – one still looming after the end of the mooted transition in December 2020 – Jeremy Corbyn did as he promised. He began campaigning for a second referendum that offers the good people of the UK two non-lethal options: a soft Brexit (with the UK remaining in the customs union and, mostly, the single market) or full EU membership.

And there’s the rub. While Labour’s manifesto is uniquely tailored to the concerns of Britain’s so-called middle ground, never before has that territory been more hostile to Labour. This is a phenomenon that will be remembered in decades to come as the great 2019 British paradox. Unpacking it holds the key to grasping Britain’s current predicament.

If you ask the commentariat for an explanation of this paradox, you will get an earful of chatter about Corbyn’s Marxism, alleged anti-Europeanism and lack of character. However, the truth is simpler and uglier than any of this. From day one, after he won Labour’s leadership in 2015, the game was afoot. Soon after Corbyn became leader, I warned that a huge campaign of character assassination was inevitable. It was not difficult to see it coming.

Social democratic parties, like Labour, were tolerated to the extent that they tinkered around the edges of a socio-economic order. But after the financial crash of 2008, Corbyn emerged and turned Labour into a threat to the privileged classes. While the liberal bourgeoisie are happy to romanticise the plight of the poor, and disparage social injustice, they are keener to write off as passé, or even dangerous, any sensible programme for ending inequality at an industrial scale.

In so doing, they erode liberalism’s claim, on which effective governance depends, to represent all citizens, as opposed to merely a few. But such is life in the conflicting mindset of a ruling class that has lost the capacity to reproduce sustainably its own regime.

What are we to make of a political class that proclaims its ethical commitments but that cannot bring itself to endorse the only concrete actions that would honour them? As John von Neumann, the great mathematician turned Cold War warrior, once said of J Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, “some people profess the guilt to claim credit for the sin”. It is the duty of progressives uninterested in the reproduction of the current reality to give Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party the electoral victory it richly deserves.

Pochoclo posted:

Do real people actually use those advent calendar things lol? Sounds so weird

Bobby Deluxe posted:

My gran-in-law bought us big barrett advent calendars, and it's like russian roulette waiting for the blackjack to come up.

Beefeater1980 posted:

Knew him as a kid. Age 13-18 he was a hyper precocious hard leftie who used to do trips to every country with an anti-western authoritarian leader and send back postcards wildly praising the place. He came to hard right conservatism after Cambridge via a philosophy he called communitarianism, which as far as I could tell was basically looking at the disaffected working class and saying “what if they’re right about the problem being all these outsiders coming in and diluting our culture?”

He was sweet as a kid. I think he got broken somewhere along the way but not sure how exactly

Bobby Deluxe posted:

My gran-in-law bought us big barrett advent calendars, and it's like russian roulette waiting for the blackjack to come up.

quote:

40 Wantage

Ed Vaizey, ex-minister and critic of Johnson, is standing down in a seat with a growing Lib Dem challenge

VOTE LIB DEM

mehall posted:

https://twitter.com/FrankSobotka14/status/1203948816153616384?s=19

Bobby Deluxe posted:

What makes me angry enough to be awake before 11am is that he's a very intelligent guy (probably moreso than me in most areas), and he's still been swayed by the Libs plastering dodgy bar charts everywhere. Christ knows what the rest of town is thinking. I'm not angry at him, I'm angry at the loving Libs.

I'm currently battling for his soul on WhatsApp. Gibbo where are you when I need you most

ThomasPaine posted:

That survation poll has really thrown me lads and I'm dangerously close to despair. Someone please provide a reassuring counterpoint...

Sanford posted:

Sorry to distract from election chat, need some advice. We’ve had a request from the local college for a guy with autism and severe anxiety to visit us, mainly because our office is within spitting distance of the campus building he attends. I’ve volunteered to take care of things because I happened to see the ‘agenda’ and the only thing on it was “walk round and meet everyone” so I thought I better step in, but it’s really not an area I have any expertise in. I know there’s lots of people in here with experience with this kind of thing so just looking for any general advice. He’s expressed an interest in learning how software is made, seeing how computers work and can be repaired, and learning how people work together in a team. On my agenda I’ve got:

• Meet the scrum master and talk through the different stages of development from “I’ve got a great idea” to “this is now available to the user” with the different team functions laid out.
• Meet our head of infrastructure, get the side off a couple of PCs, point out the main bits and have a go at replacing some pieces. I’ve got a unit that needs the motherboard swapping so he can do that, and take the unit from not working to working by himself.
• Meet the head of our support team to talk about the problems his team has to fix, and how different people in the team complete different roles.

I’m briefed to run through these things personally if he doesn’t want to meet any more new people, and I spent yesterday typing up as much as I could with diagrams etc so if he wants to do the whole thing without talking to anyone at all that is also on the cards. My biggest concern is that apparently when he’s stressed he goes totally non-verbal and I don’t know how to deal with that. I’ve already asked that if people see us walking round the office, please don’t come and introduce yourselves.

Does anyone have any advice or feedback?

ThomasPaine posted:

That survation poll has really thrown me lads and I'm dangerously close to despair. Someone please provide a reassuring counterpoint...

Sanford posted:

Sorry to distract from election chat, need some advice. We’ve had a request from the local college for a guy with autism and severe anxiety to visit us, mainly because our office is within spitting distance of the campus building he attends. I’ve volunteered to take care of things because I happened to see the ‘agenda’ and the only thing on it was “walk round and meet everyone” so I thought I better step in, but it’s really not an area I have any expertise in. I know there’s lots of people in here with experience with this kind of thing so just looking for any general advice. He’s expressed an interest in learning how software is made, seeing how computers work and can be repaired, and learning how people work together in a team. On my agenda I’ve got:

• Meet the scrum master and talk through the different stages of development from “I’ve got a great idea” to “this is now available to the user” with the different team functions laid out.
• Meet our head of infrastructure, get the side off a couple of PCs, point out the main bits and have a go at replacing some pieces. I’ve got a unit that needs the motherboard swapping so he can do that, and take the unit from not working to working by himself.
• Meet the head of our support team to talk about the problems his team has to fix, and how different people in the team complete different roles.

I’m briefed to run through these things personally if he doesn’t want to meet any more new people, and I spent yesterday typing up as much as I could with diagrams etc so if he wants to do the whole thing without talking to anyone at all that is also on the cards. My biggest concern is that apparently when he’s stressed he goes totally non-verbal and I don’t know how to deal with that. I’ve already asked that if people see us walking round the office, please don’t come and introduce yourselves.

Does anyone have any advice or feedback?

Pesmerga posted:

Hi me three weeks ago. We’ve been absolutely hosed by the media. A nice counterpoint may be that continuing to build local links, seek change beyond the ballot box, have a new Labour leader without some of the baggage (although lol at the media not finding something) and a bunch of olds dying off may mean actually having a chance in a few years. Brexit has become the culture war of the U.K. and my time canvassing has been depressing as hell, with exactly the results I was worrying about at the beginning of this year. I’ve given up for now and am investing my time with raising money and doing rounds of collections for local food banks instead.

ThomasPaine posted:

That survation poll has really thrown me lads and I'm dangerously close to despair. Someone please provide a reassuring counterpoint...

Necrothatcher posted:

I think that's the exact opposite of what ThomasPaine wanted.

Necrothatcher posted:

I think that's the exact opposite of what ThomasPaine wanted.

Necrothatcher posted:

I think that's the exact opposite of what he wanted.

Bobby Deluxe posted:

One thing that can remove a lot of anxiety is to make a cooldown space available. This is somewhere he can go, be alone, put headphones on and let the stress seep out if it gets too much.


On the news of centrist friend, he is very much in the 'Tories are absolute hell and I want to vote left' camp, but thinks the Libs are the best tactical option. I hope I've left him with enough ammo to sway it - that the Libs risk a tory coalition, the polls are against them here, Labour's nuanced brexit position, copy/pasting from the manifesto etc.

Unfortunately I think he's too far gone into centrist melt territory where regardless of the right or wrong of it, he sees that corbyn seems unpopular and the Libs seem to be the best tactical option. He's also claiming that Lab are stepping aside here for the Libs, which is probably untrue but in effect feels about right.

I'm pretty sure this constituency is going to go from a potential con/labour marginal to a con / lib dem marginal.

ThomasPaine posted:

That survation poll has really thrown me lads and I'm dangerously close to despair. Someone please provide a reassuring counterpoint...

ThomasPaine posted:

That survation poll has really thrown me lads and I'm dangerously close to despair. Someone please provide a reassuring counterpoint...

Jose posted:

https://twitter.com/Tom_Gann/status/1203823761721565184?s=19