|
Why are people putting value in pledges made by someone who breaks every single one of them? Let me remind everyone of the platform he was elected on:  He still has those broken pledges on his site.
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 11:29
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 27, 2024 06:58 |
|
|
The thing is Pro Starmer and Anti Starmer camps are reading what they want to read into the situation, with one seeing something to potentially be excited about and the other feeling nothing but creeping dread. And that's not a criticism: we get here by him basically saying nothing of substance about topics where the devil is in the details. If you're coming in here expecting enthusiasm... you'll see it when something that doesn't require the most charitable possible read on Labour messaging materialises. Or possibly not, because we still live in a massively unequal country and until that changes it feels lovely celebrating small wins when there's so much more to fix.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 11:32
|
|
|
Starmer will say literally anything to get elected and he's well on his way to having said literally everything
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 11:32
|
|
|
Jedit posted:So bluntly, gently caress off with your talk of "perfect is the enemy of good". It's like telling a rape victim to look on the bright side, at least they weren't murdered. yes this an equivalent thing and not the rantings of a madman
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 11:34
|
|
|
Jedit posted:
It really isn't.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 11:35
|
|
|
I'm resigned to a Labour victory, and I'm resigned to a power-crazy fascist oval office pushing us even further to the right. I can see him ripping us out of the ECHR and as far as crips like me are concerned, he'll adopt a 'work will set you free' policy. Labour were the ones who introduced the work capability assessments and who hired ATOS in the first place. I was an early claimant who went through the process. When I finally had my ATOS assessment, I genuinely thought I was seeing an NHS specialist. I was declared fit for work despite being very unfit for anything, and I nearly lost everything in the process including my life. And the WCA worked exactly to plan. I've lost so many friends since 2006 who didn't survive the process. Labour also drew up the blueprints for what eventually became Universal Credit. So my trepidation about having a Labour victory is very real and genuine, as I know he's going to come after unproductive people like myself and find as many ways as possible to reduce the balance sheet. And he's already proven he's pro genocide
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 11:37
|
|
|
Gasmask posted:If they don’t appeal to you, fine. But I ask again, what are you hoping for instead and how do we make that happen? sebzilla posted:The best* outcome at the next election is probably a Labour minority that relies on other parties and gives the SCG some influence, leading to PR being brought in and the ultimate fragmentation of Labour and the Tories into smaller parties for the next time out. Also at least one more Green seat would be nice.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 11:38
|
|
|
Dabir posted:Starmer will say literally anything to get elected and he's well on his way to having said literally everything
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 11:40
|
|
|
Labour/the Tories/the press are an amorphous ruling class blob that infights over personal advantage and pet bigotries. Until that uniform ideology of state collapses every election is going to at best have a mild slowing effect on the country-wide decline in services and quality of life.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 11:43
|
|
|
Genuinely, what would Labour have to do for people to NOT vote for them? Because they've walked back every potentially good proposal they've ever made (which they clearly never intended to pass and only made because they thought they could lie to people to get them on side) and have happily confirmed that they will uphold the same gross bigotry and evil that the Tories currently do, so what exactly are you expecting them to do differently to the Tories? Especially given that Brexit, the stalled Rwanda plans and Truss have all shown that there are limits where reality eventually (or in Truss' case immediately) catches up with policy.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 11:47
|
|
|
Britain ruled the waves, and soon we will sink beneath them in our managed decline.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 11:48
|
|
|
Mega Comrade posted:
And I don't like making it. But Starmer is a loving revolting person. He's a fascist authoritarian in every respect except where it comes to protecting the establishment, when he falls conspicuously silent. He's come out in favour of endangering children, promoting racism, punishing the poor and now literally supports a genocide. This is hell, nor are we out of it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 11:48
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/bareleft/status/1715305998930391299?s=46 https://twitter.com/heirfryer/status/1715318781973569912
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 11:49
|
|
|
Judging from my own interactions with them, most Starmer supporters would describe him as a lesser evil. Even the most optimistic predictions about his future government are "all of this bad stuff hes proposing is actually just him lying so he can get elected".
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 11:52
|
|
|
gently caress off, clean shirt https://youtu.be/sZtLDufsjLU?si=bIcJOBlOk4BzFMkh
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 11:53
|
|
|
Sir Klean Shirter
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 11:57
|
|
|
Gasmask posted:Here are some of the policies that Labour have publicly committed to: Increasing income tax on the top 5% of earners. Abolishing Universal Credit and reforming the welfare system. Common ownership of public services. OK, let's just for this exercise ignore that Kieth's Labour Party have frequently made pledges only to break them as soon as it was convenient to run further to the right (sorry, "to the centre ground", as the centre is drifting further right) & thus anything to come out of the mouths of Starmer, Reeves & the rest is to be taken as seriously as my pledge to fly to the moon tomorrow but I'll be back in time for dinner. A) Abolishing Universal Credit means nothing because it will just be replaced by another system that only makes the experience of being unemployed (or underemployed) more dehumanising & shameful, like when New Labour replaced the old Job Centres with Job Centre Plus rebranding, along the way creating new layers of bureaucracy, more hoops for the unemployed to jump through (New Labour loving moved those stupid restart courses that League of Gentlemen brutally, albeit surreally, parodied with the Pauline character. Having been on them, gently caress me they are just soul crushing wastes of time. Ah cool, you'll teach me to create a CV, just like the last loving course? And the one before that. Maybe the CV isn't the problem you cretinous system). Yeah, it'd be nice to get UC in the bin & replaced with something better like a generous universal basic income, but "reforming the welfare system" is an utterly meaningless pledge. HOW? How will you make it better? When was the last time a reform of the welfare system didn't make it more draconian? Has not happened in my lifetime. B) Common ownership of public services? Again, details. What public services? What services? Trains? Mail? The communications infrastructure? Energy? How far will they go? The answer as far as I can see is zip. Nthing. C) Well, I heard a member of the shadow cabinet at conference a fortnight ago declare “We’d like to lower taxes.” And then here's an article on the Shadow Chancellor's refusal to countenance taxes on obscene wealth: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/oct/12/pressure-on-reeves-to-drop-labour-opposition-to-higher-wealth-taxes The bottom line is that I don't trust anyone in charge of the current Labour Party. I think it's New Labour reheated, stale old ideas that do nothing to address the huge changes needed to fix 40+ years of disastrous neoliberal economic policy where everything is underfunded. So what am I hoping for? In the short term, I keep hoping for the Labour Party to split & finally be consigned to the dustbin of history where it belongs, an absolutely useless vehicle that is completely co-opted by capital & the sort of career politicians who run to be head of Oxford Uni's Labour & then go into a spell as a SpAd for some sort of freak like Liz Kendall or Liam Byrne before then running to be MP in a safe Labour seat & getting a job for life without having spent a second actually engaging with what is reality for the majority of people in the country. It's utterly moribund & only serves the purpose of sucking up the energy of what even passes for the left in this country. Look, I tried hope in politics, it was nice but ultimately ended in massive disappointment & a whole hell of a lot of resentment at the kind of people who are Labour left lifers, who surrounded Jeremy Corbyn & did nothing to address the rot at the core of the Labour Party apparatus. The entire loving project should have been about democratising the Labour Party but instead at the first sign of difficulty they just gave up & handed the reigns to a oval office who resigned in the chicken coup, & always came off as about as trustworthy as your average lawyer. But gently caress, I'm a libertarian socialist, my politics are grounded in hope & optimism that is frankly absurd based on lived experience. Give me something to hope for again & I'll ride that bandwagon because it's not like I enjoy our loving relentlessly bleak politics. Starmer ain't it though. He's not anything, just hot air & empty promises. Triangulation given human form. forkboy84 fucked around with this message at 12:01 on Oct 20, 2023 |
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 11:58
|
|
|
I think all the arguments about a minority Labour government that allows for pressure from smaller parties toward reform is a reasonable thing to wish for, but - given our political system - it's a dangerous thing to play for because it really doesn't take much to tip over into yet another Tory government. I think relying on another party emerging (or being entried) to become the great new hope is also wishful/longtermist thinking that doesn't do enough to help people/services who need it now. I also think a Labour government is always preferable to the Tories - and when you judge past Labour governments on their records the facts speak for themselves.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 12:01
|
|
|
Honestly New Labour circa 1997 would be brilliant. Instead we have David Cameron circa 2016.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 12:02
|
|
|
I do sometimes try to gee myself up about the near-certain prospect of the Conservatives absolutely eating poo poo on a national basis come a GE. And I also try and find an ember of enthusiasm for New New Labour, since I can remember the Blair/Brown years and the country, its places and its services did genuinely seem to be better-funded and more functional than they are now. New Labour did also introduce some genuinely good policies. But...then I can't escape the fact that, by all the evidence, New Labour (especially 1997-2001 New Labour) would be too progressive for Starmer. He genuinely seems to be pitching for a return to the Cameron/Coalition government in terms of policy, and angling for the bit of the electorate who think that this was 'peak Britain' and the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony was real. And even if we did get New Labour 2...New Labour did an awful lot of bad poo poo and also did an awful lot of nothing at all when it came to addressing big systemic issues. We know what happens with a centrist/Third Way Labour government that tries to use capitalism to do progressive things and triangulate its policy to please the media - because that's the timeline we are in. The rightwards ratcheting of the Overton Window and national discourse, the (all but irretrievable) hiving off of public assets to private ownership, the disenchantment and disaffection of large parts of the electorate, the lovely views about young people, poor people and disabled people - we've all seen it before and it leads to austerity, Brexit, nationalism and brutality. And even the good stuff that New Labour did turned out to be fairly weak sticking plasters. How quickly did things go to poo poo under the Coalition? How many of the New Labour programmes like SureStart survived to 2015? How quickly did all the social metrics that improved between 1997 and 2010 reverse and how quickly did the ones that hadn't improved get worse? And - and I keep bringing myself back to this - Starmer shows every sign of not wanting to be even as progressive as New Labour. Actual policy is almost impossible to know at this point because pledges are broken, announcements are retracted, goals are 'clarified' and resolutions are dismissed on an almost hourly basis. And he has the gall to be proud of doing so. But there are a few ideological and policy dots that hold firm that you can join to get a vague but consistent image. And it’s basically Cameron with extra authoritarianism.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 12:03
|
|
|
Doctor_Fruitbat posted:Genuinely, what would Labour have to do for people to NOT vote for them? Because they've walked back every potentially good proposal they've ever made (which they clearly never intended to pass and only made because they thought they could lie to people to get them on side) and have happily confirmed that they will uphold the same gross bigotry and evil that the Tories currently do, so what exactly are you expecting them to do differently to the Tories? Gasmask posted:Here are some of the policies that Labour have publicly committed to: Increasing income tax on the top 5% of earners. Abolishing Universal Credit and reforming the welfare system. Common ownership of public services.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 12:04
|
|
|
The political situation here is hosed and all I have to look forward to is a good poo poo after my morning coffee.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 12:05
|
|
|
Gasmask posted:I also think a Labour government is always preferable to the Tories E: Like, I agree with you that this should be true. It feels like Labour has to be better than Tories, surely? But I'm really at a loss to articulate a clear reason why this would actually be the case with Starmer's Labour.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 12:06
|
|
|
I don't see a single tangible loving difference between red or blue flavour tories but an unexpected benefit is then failing to be able to give a gently caress who wins this system, this construct, this society is dying and it deserves nothing more than a pillow smashed over its face and ever more pressure applied ...I too, also, enjoy a morning poo poo tho
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 12:09
|
|
|
Gasmask posted:I think all the arguments about a minority Labour government that allows for pressure from smaller parties toward reform is a reasonable thing to wish for, but - given our political system - it's a dangerous thing to play for because it really doesn't take much to tip over into yet another Tory government. I think relying on another party emerging (or being entried) to become the great new hope is also wishful/longtermist thinking that doesn't do enough to help people/services who need it now. I think engaging in extremely short-termist "lesser of two evils" thinking is deeply dangerous because it does nothing to address the almost 45 year rightward drift in this country. It's gotten us nowhere. As a dirt poor person who doesn't own a home, works precarious low-pay jobs, and has given up ever actually getting any better solution to my mental health problems than 100mg sertraline a day because waiting lists are so long, the health service is massively under-funded & the mental health part of the NHS may as well just not exist, despite the fact that our glorious neoliberal hellscape has lead to a massive mental health crisis, I will never vote for the lesser evil again. It doesn't work for me & people like me. It has allowed Labour to take the working class for granted while chasing the votes of landlords & small business psychos. Well, enough is enough, if someone wants my vote they have to offer me some sort of loving vision of making things better, & in a more significant way than fannying around in the margins. drat right I'm engaging in longtermism, because that's the only place hope can be grabbed in our politics. Because right now I'm being offered a choice between making things worse, or making things worse but slightly slower so it takes longer to get to the bottom. But we'll still get there eventually. It's not good enough. I think Labour winning the next election on this "platform" (and that's being generous, it's not a platform, it's nothing) is going to be disastrous, just like Tony Blair doing so was.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 12:11
|
|
|
TACD posted:Why? If there's not a material reason to favour them you're literally just picking Red Team over Blue Team. Because historically Labour governments have enacted more policies I agree with and invested more in services that matter. People said the same things about New Labour ('Red Tories' etc) and then when they got in they did a lot more good for the country than we had for years under Thatcher, Major etc. Starmer seems to be a sort of foil that people want to project everything onto - he's simultaneously a fascist and at the same time has no policies/values etc - but I would still rather have someone like him who at least flirts with the right sort of policies sometimes (if you take the worst possible reading of him) rather than the actual known evil that is the Tory party.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 12:16
|
|
|
Gasmask posted:I also think a Labour government is always preferable to the Tories - and when you judge past Labour governments on their records the facts speak for themselves. Blair successfully had us participate in the in murder of thousands of Iraqis while Cameron ate poo poo trying to do the same to Syria so I guess it depends on your POV. Gasmask posted:Starmer seems to be a sort of foil that people want to project everything onto - he's simultaneously a fascist and at the same time has no policies/values etc - but I would still rather have someone like him who at least flirts with the right sort of policies sometimes (if you take the worst possible reading of him) rather than the actual known evil that is the Tory party. Incredible thing to say in the month he voluntarily endorsed war crimes.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 12:17
|
|
|
Talking about that endorsement of war crimes https://twitter.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1715309817110110433 He's now claiming he didn't say or mean what he said, despite there being receipts in the form of video of him saying those things. But I'm sure he's going to keep any promises he's made about, er.... other stuff.... He's a man of his word
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 12:28
|
|
|
Fuctifino has already mentioned that new labour brought in the stuff that has led to the deaths of a lot of people with disabiltiies and long term health problems, so I think saying "new labour did a lot of good" is rather selective thinking. They were instrumental in utterly abhorrent policies which hit some of the worst off in society. I think it is eminently reasonable to have a personal dislike of them. To say nothing of the obvious problem with "well yes they went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan and are directly responsible for all the subsequent misery that has ensued but that didn't happen to me so that's fine" I also think it's very silly to look at what came after new labour as being entirely unrelated to new labour? Like why did they lose? Why did we get 13 years of tories wrecking the country afterwards? Why did the labour vote completely crater under them? Why did nothing they supposedly did to help people actually last? These are surely the fault of new labour? Is it worth a few years of starmer if it leads to another decade and a half of an even more right wing tory party? OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 12:32 on Oct 20, 2023 |
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 12:29
|
|
|
josh04 posted:Blair successfully had us participate in the in murder of thousands of Iraqis while Cameron ate poo poo trying to do the same to Syria so I guess it depends on your POV. Not just war crimes - crimes against humanity.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 12:30
|
|
|
Jedit posted:Not just war crimes - crimes against humanity. Britain's biggest export
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 12:34
|
|
|
I expect a Labour government to manage the concentration camps in a sensible and ethical manner, not like the Tories who would just push those contracts off on their mates and try and siphon off a profit.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 12:35
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/EmmaBurnell_/status/1715188807048249489
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 12:38
|
|
|
The primary upside to Starmer being in power is watching the Great British oval office-Off in the tory party smouldering with recriminations.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 12:40
|
|
|
Just as a addendum I'd say that you don't need to get as far as Starmer's personal qualities or his record or his broken pledges or w/e to know that he doesn't want to fix anything. We just had four years of what it looks like when there is a candidate who wants to fix anything - the entire system moved heaven and earth to ensure that one of the most incompetent men in the country was seen as a safe pair of hands. This isn't doomerism, this isn't even saying that there's no democratic route to change though the game is certainly unfair. If we had a Corbyn chance again I think it'd be worth pursuing. But it's ludicrous to look at Kier Starmer, establishment man, and pretend that there's a meaningful democratic choice there to be had. We're being invited to participate in the appointment of a new boss. It may as well be the coronation again.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 12:40
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:Fuctifino has already mentioned that new labour brought in the stuff that has led to the deaths of a lot of people with disabiltiies and long term health problems, so I think saying "new labour did a lot of good" is rather selective thinking. They were instrumental in utterly abhorrent policies which hit some of the worst off in society. I think it is eminently reasonable to have a personal dislike of them. To say nothing of the obvious problem with "well yes they went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan and are directly responsible for all the subsequent misery that has ensued but that didn't happen to me so that's fine" It's not selective thinking - they definitely did a lot of good. They also did plenty of bad, but things in this country 100% got better under New Labour than they would have been in the alternative scenario. You're free to dislike them, but again - the choice available to British voters in 2001 was not between New Labour and the 'full socialism with no evil' party, it was between New Labour and the Tory Party. We would have had all of the bad things, if not more, and none of the good things that were actually delivered if the boot was on the other foot. Again - I have no issue with wanting things to be better or just less poo poo, but the reality is that for the time being at least one of those two parties is going to be running the country and I would sooner crawl across broken glass than let the Tories get back in on the basis of 'maybe if they really gently caress us over we'll finally have a revolution' or similar.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 13:00
|
|
|
Gasmask posted:Again - I have no issue with wanting things to be better or just less poo poo, but the reality is that for the time being at least one of those two parties is going to be running the country and I would sooner crawl across broken glass than let the Tories get back in on the basis of 'maybe if they really gently caress us over we'll finally have a revolution' or similar. Feels like doomer brain is the correct reaction to this situation, personally.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 13:07
|
|
|
I again think it is strange to just imagine that the things that happened after new labour are not related to them, do you think that the trajectory of british politics after new labour was not informed by them? Or that they themselves were not inheritors of what came before? I simply do not see them or any other party in the same tradition as being any sort of resistance against the trajectory of the world and country that I have lived in my entire life. They function only as a new coat of paint over the same fundamental thing. Labour get a couple of years, provide no meaningful resistance while quietly setting up for the tories to come back in and push further with the nasty poo poo that their predecessors pursued quietly. Vote or don't, I truly do not think it makes any difference with what you're voting for right now. If it makes you feel better to imagine you're doing something worthwhile then I wish you all the joy in the world, but it isn't a belief that I think has much basis in reality.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 13:08
|
|
|
Someone I knew got scammed once, I repeatedly told him it was a scam and not to give his details. He called me an idiot for my troubles. Later he was shocked to lose 500 quid and moaned to anyone who'd listen 'How could he have known' . It was very very hard not to throttle him. Anyway, whens the 2024 General election.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 13:09
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 27, 2024 06:58 |
|
|
"If only several thousand more people had warned me" says man scammed by cryptocurrency Or whatever that Onion headline was Anyway, the right-wing ratchet has been going clunk for too long. It's time it went click for a change.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2023 13:11
|
|
