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One member one vote. Specifically, the Honourable Member for Holborn and St Pancras
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Sep 21, 2021 12:56
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Even the centrist dads of the Guardian comments are taken aback at this one. I think it's a really, really awful miscalculation for Starmer and it shows up the lack of political experience that we keep talking about. He should never have announced something like this without at least getting the tacit agreement of all the major unions; instead, he's clearly sprung it on them and they're reacting angrily. Just awful politics even in the most functional sense.
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Sep 21, 2021 13:18
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Remember when everyone was saying that Starmers strategy was "don't interrupt your opponent when they are making a mistake"? His strategy now seems to be actively generate terrible headlines about your party to interrupt the government deliberately causing food and fuel shortages.
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Sep 21, 2021 13:28
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It feels like the leader's office has been playing chicken with the more openly left unions for a while now. RLB's sacking was immediately following her backing teaching unions, there was something not long ago about disafiliating from the bakers union I think? And then they very obviously threw their lot in with the right wing Unite dickhead who got owned in the leadership election
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Sep 21, 2021 13:31
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Don't worry, Starmer is so politically irrelevant the BBC isn't even reporting on this, so no bad headlines! And yea there isn't some vast conspiracy to sink the labour party here - that requires a coordination and competence that Starmer doesn't have. It's just centrelist brainworms and ideological incompetence.
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Sep 21, 2021 13:33
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Yeah if you spend any time in the party you soon come to realise that internal politics is the highest calling of the labour right, anything else is entirely secondary.
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Sep 21, 2021 13:46
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OwlFancier posted:
Agreed; that’s literally just restating what I said in different words. [/quote] quote:
Agreed, that is the optimal selfish strategy under current arrangements. According to this thread, the number of Labour MPs not following that strategy is perhaps 40. quote:Being in the government is literally incompatible with being working class, being an MP is by definition not working class, they stop being that the minute they take the job and their interests change accordingly. Politicians gain and hold their position by exploiting other people, and there's a word for people who do that. Being an MP is a pretty unusual job that shares some but not all characteristics of other jobs the middle and upper classes might choose. This is a source of disproportionate problems in government, especially when compared to the small amount of money involved. Having it be a fully working class job seems challenging. So maybe making it a true middle class profession would help with the issue. Or maybe it wouldn’t. But in any case, what I can’t work out is why you so vigorously disagree with everything I say, and then go on to repeat it.
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Sep 21, 2021 13:47
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The party members famously non-voters themselves.
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Sep 21, 2021 13:49
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Bobby Deluxe posted:The party members famously non-voters themselves. She hears your concerns and the response apparently is "lol, to the contrary" https://twitter.com/soniasodha/status/1440282808837021707?s=19 Also just lol at her profiler pic, looks like her one braincell fired for the first time in years and it shocked her to her core
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Sep 21, 2021 13:56
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Pistol_Pete posted:Even the centrist dads of the Guardian comments are taken aback at this one. I think it's a really, really awful miscalculation for Starmer and it shows up the lack of political experience that we keep talking about. He should never have announced something like this without at least getting the tacit agreement of all the major unions; instead, he's clearly sprung it on them and they're reacting angrily. Just awful politics even in the most functional sense. Nothing Starmer has done makes sense if his goal is to win elections. Everything Starmer has done makes sense if his goal is to ensure that only right-wing politicians can win elections.
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Sep 21, 2021 13:57
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Lmao I assume she means because they go out campaigning or whatever but does she think they do that by themselves? Walk the entire constituency talking to voters and delivering leaflets?
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Sep 21, 2021 13:58
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It's literally just that they're our betters.
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Sep 21, 2021 13:59
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Bobby Deluxe posted:The party members famously non-voters themselves. A statement that gets truer by the day.
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Sep 21, 2021 13:59
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Bobby Deluxe posted:The party members famously non-voters themselves. It's a continuation of the view that was spun up when Corbyn was leader that the Labour membership aren't 'normal' or 'real' people. The fact that they literally are part of the voting electorate (and, in that period especially, a statistically significant chunk of it) doesn't seem to count. The PLP listen to the real electorate (i.e. the non-left wing bit) so they have got their finger on the pulse. Ipso facto. Just like how anyone talking about minority rights, environmentalism, foreign policy, humanitarian crises, land reform etc. is immediately a member of the 'metropolitan elite', while if you have Genuine Concerns about immigration, don't care about 'the genders' and just want your taxes to be as low possible, you're speaking for the real hard-working backbone of the Great British Public and your voice and views must be heard. The post-2016 populism where anyone with an accent centred north of the M4 who says anything vaguely reactionary or regressive is immediately treated as a sage prophet dispensing folksy truth ('common sense'/'real issues') is one of the most infuriating facets of modern politics. Failed Imagineer posted:Can't wait for Ken Loach to make a devastating social realist drama about Tory MPs struggling to refinance their third home I saw someone griping about the Beeb on facebook once, which went along the lines of: "They're always pushing a left-wing message. Every time I tune into Radio 4's Afternoon Play it's about some poor family on a council estate who get their benefits cut. When are they going to tell a story about a middle class family whose living standards are being squeezed by the high tax burden?" Can you imagine it? A gritty [stoneware farmhouse] kitchen sink drama about how Dad's corporate gains tax has gone up again so they'll have to give up Ocado deliveries and are forced to choose between going to Val d'Isere in the spring and Polzeath in the autumn...
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Sep 21, 2021 14:23
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The Labour membership aren't real people. Real people believe what the Sun newspaper tells them to believe, so that's who I, a Labour MP, choose to represent.
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Sep 21, 2021 14:25
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Centrists want to be paid to larp the West Wing, not to hold ideals and fight for them. Of course they hate the party members and consider them an aberration.
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Sep 21, 2021 14:28
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Honestly people whining that they "can't go abroad this year" especially piss me off. I haven't been out of the country in ten years, and that was only because my wife's brexity dad insisted on paying for the honeymoon. Too busy trying to pay for everyday stuff. It's especially depressing when you find out they paid more than you earn in a month to stay entirely within the resort and complain every time they encounter any food / language / tv /thing that isn't English.
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Sep 21, 2021 14:44
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I've postponed my wedding twice, 2 years in total. People ask "oh that's tough isn't it?" and I'm like "no, it's just delaying a big party because lots of people are dying at the moment, it's fine actually"
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Sep 21, 2021 14:47
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https://twitter.com/socialist_app/status/1440308880089645065?s=19 This sounds pretty bad. What do we know about it?
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Sep 21, 2021 14:50
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This kinda rule change was inevitable from Starmer but I'm surprised it came so quickly.
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Sep 21, 2021 14:58
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The speed yes, but the timing no. Akehurst et al have been reaching an absolute frenzy on twitter about the need to purge the left and they're terrified of soclab making a last ditch attempt at conference. In their tiny panicked minds this is urrgent.
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Sep 21, 2021 15:05
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After a savage summer lost to crippling video game addiction I've decided to come back to the thread. Hi thread.
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Sep 21, 2021 15:09
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OwlFancier posted:Yes but as tony blair famously said, he would rather lose on a right wing platform than win on a left wing one. Yes a left wing political effort with institutional support could storm the country, but the entire point is that the institutions do not support it. I thought so too, but I looked up the quote and he apparently said ‘do the right thing’ not ‘do the right wing thing’. I don’t want to get into the habit of defending the old war criminal, so can everyone please stop criticizing him in incorrect ways? Thanks in advance. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/tony_blair_466625
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Sep 21, 2021 15:35
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UhBig Tone posted:Let me make my position clear: I wouldn’t want to win on an old-fashioned leftist platform. Even if I thought it was the route to victory, I wouldn’t take it. From 2015: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tony-blair-says-he-wouldn-t-want-left-wing-labour-party-win-election-10406928.html?amp
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Sep 21, 2021 15:39
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radmonger posted:I thought so too, but I looked up the quote and he apparently said ‘do the right thing’ not ‘do the right wing thing’. You're mixing up Tony Blair and Spike Lee, happens all the time
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Sep 21, 2021 15:45
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Apparently the CO2-pocalypse has been averted. I wonder how much public money Boris threw at that company to make that happen?
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Sep 21, 2021 15:50
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So "they" are going to fast-track non-members of the Labour Party to stand as MPs presumably against the wishes of local CLPs, then if and when these persons are elected as MPs, having sweet fk all history of supporting socialism get elected, they will have more say in who the leader should be over people who may have spent 50 years campaigning, foot-slogging, stall-staffing, leafleting, canvassing, debating motions and so on. Looks like a corporate 'graduate trainee' career programme not a political party.
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Sep 21, 2021 15:50
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josh04 posted:Uh context: https://institute.global/policy/not-choice-between-power-and-principle quote:21 years ago yesterday I became leader of the Labour Party. A lot has happened since then. We discovered winning successively. And now we have re-discovered losing successively. Personally I prefer winning. corbynism of course did not disagree in its political strategy - 99%, for the many not the few - translating concretely to mcdonnell insisting on no new taxes on "ordinary" workers, endorsing most of the austerity cuts, and being harsher on the budget than the labour left would traditionally have liked - but where corbynism succeeded as a genuine revolution was doing all that and maintaining a consciously "left" branding.
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Sep 21, 2021 15:56
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therattle posted:I’m not sure I buy into the “centrist MPs are only in it for themselves” argument. I think in most cases they genuinely believe that they’re right, they’re sensible, leftwing policies will scare away voters, etc. Similarly I don’t think Starmer’s mission is to entrench the Tories. I think he really wants a Labour government He wants an I Can't Believe It's Not Tories! government with Labour's name on.
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Sep 21, 2021 16:02
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Jaeluni Asjil posted:Looks like a corporate 'graduate trainee' career programme not a political party.
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Sep 21, 2021 16:02
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ronya posted:corbynism of course did not disagree in its political strategy - 99%, for the many not the few - translating concretely to mcdonnell insisting on no new taxes on "ordinary" workers, endorsing most of the austerity cuts, and being harsher on the budget than the labour left would traditionally have liked - but where corbynism succeeded as a genuine revolution was doing all that and maintaining a consciously "left" branding. I don't disagree, but then why did so many putative successors to Blair spend the years 2015-2019 boiling over with rage?
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Sep 21, 2021 16:08
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ronya posted:context: This is just embarrassing, Ronya.
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Sep 21, 2021 16:08
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josh04 posted:I don't disagree, but then why did so many putative successors to Blair spend the years 2015-2019 boiling over with rage? Because they weren't in the big boy chair
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Sep 21, 2021 16:21
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josh04 posted:Uh Ok, that is a another quote on the same topic. But that one is contrasting ‘modern progressive leftism’ with ‘old fashioned leftism’. Which really is different from ‘right wing good, left wing bad’. Notably, he did endorse voting for Corbyn as PM twice, so presumably Corbyn wasn’t old-fashioned enough to be an example of a thing he didn’t want to win.
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Sep 21, 2021 16:30
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josh04 posted:I don't disagree, but then why did so many putative successors to Blair spend the years 2015-2019 boiling over with rage? in the abstract, I would say it's the same reason the CLPD continued to lobby against OMOV well into 2018 (except of course one is an increasingly antiquated lobby group and the other are sitting MPs and much bigger think tanks and really should know better. Or at least have better advisors) that is: politicians of every stripe want to refight the previous war. for what it's worth, in like... 2017ish I was already remarking here that the Labour right had run dry of ideas and energy and probably would benefit from a spell in the desert. Those putative successors to Blair agreed, in any case; observe that the field of candidates by the 2020 leadership elections is much more left-wing than the 2015 field. It's not like those candidates have vanished from the face of the earth. Andy Burnham just finds the Mancunian air congenial, etc. (I would reiterate, in case it's not clear, that any mainstream assessment pins Starmer on the soft left of the party. Which was always pilloried for indecisiveness and kumbayah-circle credulity in the 1980s from the hard left and party right alike, and that's still the same now) in the concrete, it's that the Labour right's own reforms to the party favoured judicialization of party processes. if the summon-HR button is the only one to press, folks will press it (many older Labour left criticisms of judicialization did foresee this, hence arguing instead for expressly political discipline for a political party. Of course, like before, the party right assumed it would control discipline forever and the party left assumed it would control delegates forever; a certain amount of ideological convenience there). In such an environment, the only basis for initiating high-stakes adversarial processes is abuse: so everything alleged is abusive and adversarial, and the only acceptable judgments are the vilest guilt or the most unblemished innocence ronya fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Sep 21, 2021 |
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Sep 21, 2021 16:44
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radmonger posted:Ok, that is a another quote on the same topic. But that one is contrasting ‘modern progressive leftism’ with ‘old fashioned leftism’. Which really is different from ‘right wing good, left wing bad’. Careful, you're reaching so hard you're liable to tear a muscle
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Sep 21, 2021 17:00
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josh04 posted:I don't disagree, but then why did so many putative successors to Blair spend the years 2015-2019 boiling over with rage? When they acuse the left of being blindly dogmatic, not bending to the times, lacking media savvy, of refusing to compromise, of being permanently engaged in petty factional fights, of performing stalinist purges of perceived enemies, and being prepared to sink the party just to maintain power : they are entirely projecting. These are not rational political actors, despite all their claims to be the adults in the room. They are ideologically motivated, to the point that they are unable to even see that they are ideologically motivated. - this is the only lense through which their actions make internal sense. Cold intelligent realpolitik to gain power, is merely their branding, not what actually motivates them - hence viewed from the outside you're left with this seeming self-destructive institutional incompetency, that is hard to parse, but vicious to fight against as its stated goals and true goals are diametrically opposite. All as the media runs cover, helping maintain the pretence.
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Sep 21, 2021 17:07
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flip back to leftist publications during peak Ed Miliband Labour (both Labour-affiliated or not) and observe that nobody foresees anything like Corbynism as a possibility. Moderate lefties advocate local programmes and ad-hoc initiatives. Frothy lefties advocate Red Monday, same as always. Certainly nobody advocates positioning oneself as anticapitalist but only moderately so - to argue for a balanced budget as a point of discipline, to reject calls for council budget stunts - but still also embrace the hope of revolutionary change. Not immediately, but in the abstract future it was really a genuine branding change! I feel like this is underappreciated sometimes. (the ideological programme did coalesce subsequently - recall that Corbynism putzed about with the economy advisory committee etc first)
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Sep 21, 2021 17:16
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Ronya is posting about how Corbyn was Blair with left wing branding, the sky is blue, bears poo poo on the Pope, etc
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Sep 21, 2021 17:51
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Mega Comrade posted:Seatle computer products *cough* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS/360_and_successors 
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Sep 21, 2021 18:05
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