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Poll: Who Should Be Leader of HM Most Loyal Opposition? This poll is closed. |
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| Jeremy Corbyn |
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95 | 18.63% |
| Dennis Skinner |
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53 | 10.39% |
| Angus Robertson |
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20 | 3.92% |
| Tim Farron |
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9 | 1.76% |
| Paul Ukips |
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7 | 1.37% |
| Robot Lenin |
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105 | 20.59% |
| Tony Blair |
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28 | 5.49% |
| Pissflaps |
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193 | 37.84% |
| Total: | 510 votes | ||
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TomViolence posted:Behind every human face is a grinning skull. Maybe... maybe we're all already monsters on the inside. Pretty sure most of us are monsters on the outside too
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Mar 30, 2017 00:06
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jabby posted:Go for it. I don't have any I can ask at the moment, but from my previous placement I definitely got the vibe of 'this might be a real thing, or it might be just a fancy way to say that people make bad decisions and get emotional under stress'. I almost always make bad decisions. I might have this.
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Mar 30, 2017 00:08
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Kurtofan posted:jerry's going to pay or it's war TWO WORLD WARS AND ONE WORLD CUP OI OI OI (Which is incidentally the worst chant in the entire world of sports)
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Mar 30, 2017 09:37
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Noxville posted:Especially since Germany have won four World Cups. I think one World War must be worth at least 3 World Cups?
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Mar 30, 2017 10:50
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Zalakwe posted:And who can forget that Scottish classic The Billy Boys. I've only.ever seen racism at games in England though. Contrastingly Arbroath is the politest ground I have ever been to, fans swapped ends round the terraces at half time and many shook hands. Was pre-season though. Experienced that as an away fan at an Alloa game too. Lower league football is the best. Comrade Cheggorsky posted:Jeremy Corbyn is a secret brexiteer who wants a full English brexit Interesting definition of secret. TinTower posted:It is possible, and under a different Whitehall administration, likely, that the UK-EU deal can involve the UK joining EFTA alongside leaving the EU, without interrupting EEA membership. LOL at this being the least awful result possible. Being forced to follow all the rules, while having no say in them going forward and losing all of the neat benefits we had will be so hard to sell without people first seeing how rotten Brexit will actually be.
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Mar 30, 2017 15:45
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haakman posted:Thought you lot might like an effort post I made on grammar schools to distract you from Pissflaps. Sorry it's a bit out of the blue. That is a very interesting post, as someone who lives in a country without grammar schools.
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Mar 30, 2017 15:47
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kingturnip posted:I note with a lack of any real interest that the voting for Unite leader (?General Secretary) is between Len McLuskey - who's thrown his weight behind Corbyn - and some other bloke who seems a bit more in line with Yvette Cooper et al., if you catch my drift. I got a promoted tweet from the guy who is trying to replace McClusky. Was odd, I'm not a member of Unite. It's kind of sad how far Len and Tom Watson have fallen apart. Watson used to be more or less the MP for Unite.
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Mar 31, 2017 00:03
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Pissflaps posted:Even more surprising. I thought social media was how Corbyn was going to get non voters to vote labour? Are we calling a website social media now?
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Mar 31, 2017 10:25
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Paxman posted:I disagree, the Corbyn leadership campaign was actually really well organised and good at getting a message out. Whether that had anything to do with Momentum I dunno, but it was a slick operation. I dunno how this is a controversial statement now. I was all for giving Corbyn time, and while it's been clear that plenty of people in the PLP didn't agree with that, you can only play with the hand you've been dealt & Corbyn & his team have done a loving rubbish job. Labour are at their lowest point since 1983 now. Yes, there's mitigating circumstances, the press is garbage, but at the end of the day if you can't do better than Ed Miliband did with a barely less hostile press then what the gently caress is the point? And no, Diane Abbott would be a terrible leader for exactly the same reasons that Corbyn has been. Probably even more divisive than Jeremy inside the party, a gaff machine on a par with Ken Livingstone, and she'd almost certainly end up using the same media team that Corbyn has used, who have been mostly garbage since the campaign ended. it's a honking bad idea even as a joke. I still think we need someone with genuine socialist principles leading the Labour Party but right now, if it has to be a Keir Starmer type to stop then gently caress, at least it's not Tom Watson or Hilary Benn I guess. The 2020 general election should be winnable because of the mess the Tories are in, but it looks like a pure fantasy. All that said, don't see most members sharing my views, suspect they will stick with Corbyn at least until Labour get absolutely smashed in a general election. And even a lot of them will continue to find excuses for him doing badly. At some point you have to ask yourself whether you support accelerationism or not. And generally, accelerationism is a bad thing for poor people forkboy84 fucked around with this message at 12:20 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Mar 31, 2017 12:17
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Guavanaut posted:They're pegged to the pound. I don't want to find this funny  Oh dear me posted:What mess? Theresa May's reign has been gently caress up after gently caress up, unpopular policy after unpopular policy. The only thing she's doing that people like is Hard Brexit. From Grammar Schools to the NI raise for the self-employed, toadying up to Donald Trump, the relatively common U-turns after less than a year in office. With a better opposition that wasn't more interested in its own in-fighting, she's right there for the taking. jBrereton posted:I would assume they think it's harm reduction to effectively dock the food/clothing/accommodation before they can spend it on booze/drugs which is what led them to be wards of the third sector rather than give people 12 grand a year after taxes and act surprised when they get hosed up and don't pay their bills, because does a housing charity really want to set the bailiffs on vulnerable people who can't pay? No. Not all homeless people are addicts, stop that. And a homeless "charity" more interested in taking folks benefits of them than actually helping probably needs to be fired into the sun because that's just helping no one but themselves. Dehumanising the homeless does gently caress all good, except help make self-righteous cunts (& boring trolls like Breath Ray) feel better about themselves.
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Mar 31, 2017 13:31
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jBrereton posted:Absolutely, but many are, as the writer of the article said. Many people are homeless because of untreated/self-medicated mental health problems. I'm not being a oval office by saying that, it is genuinely true, and dealing with homelessness in a long term way requires dealing with every aspect of that, from dealing with the causes of the original trauma to better mental health access and a better housing situation for everyone. I agree with all of that, but I don't see how dehumanisation actually helps, which is what taking away all of someone's money from them in exchange for letting them live in a workhouse is. Clearly there is no one simple answer to homelessness or it would no longer be a problem, but it's undeniable that actually improving the availability and quality of mental health issues to an even level with physical health issues would be a good starting point, and for a myriad of other problems too. Frankly it is far too easy to slip through the cracks, GPs are quite happy to renew your prescription by email for years without actually seeing you, meaning it's incredibly easy to fall through the gaps. Meanwhile, if you've got a physical ailment, or are showing the warning signs of one you get a letter sent out every 6 months practically pleading with you to come in for a check up. Of course all of this is going to involve a huge investment in the health service which simply won't happen under a Tory government.
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Mar 31, 2017 13:48
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Oh dear me posted:That's wishful thinking. Thatcher's government also enacted unpopular policy after unpopular policy, with plenty of U-turns despite the rhetoric, and they were there for 18 years. They eventually fell only because sleaze scandals - not policies - undermined them, the press abandoned them, and the LibDems were popular. At some point people have to face the fact that we have FPTP and Labour cannot win seats in large areas of the country. Couldn't under Blair, couldn't under Jesus. Nah, this is some heavy defeatist bollocks. Theresa May is not Margaret Thatcher. She is no undefeatable behemoth. Especially now the honeymoon is over and Article 50 has been triggered. Of course, some seats aren't winnable for Labour. Some aren't winnable for the Tories either. So? Hardly seems like a good excuse for just giving up. Better to fight for 280-300 winnable seats than just giving in & giving the Tories some massive loving majority to really gently caress the poor over. FYI, if not for some unpopular dickheads in Argentina deciding on an invasion of the Falklands & South Georgia combined by the idiot Labour right splitting off to perform electoral suicide as the Lib-SDP alliance, Thatcher's government was there for the taking in '83.
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Mar 31, 2017 14:58
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Benjamin Arthur posted:Have some of us decided who we'd rather see as Labour leader yet? Some of us have decided that Keir Starmer, Lisa Nandy or Clive Lewis would be better leaders. Can't speak for Flaps though. Bench isn't deep and that remains a problem, and yet we can still have a slightly left leaning Labour leader who can't do any worse than Corbyn. Hell, I'd welcome Ed Miliband back with open arms at this point. Pissflaps posted:I'm not sure about anyone else but if you're asking me then it's simple: I want Corbyn to remain leader until the general election. Why? If the answer is anything other than "so I can say I told you so" I'd really like to understand the logic
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Mar 31, 2017 15:27
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Benjamin Arthur posted:Whats the point in a "slightly left leaning" Labour leader on a political spectrum where neoliberlism dominates the centre? Theres not really much opposition in advocating policies that essentially entrench the status quo. Like, if we're going that way then what's the point of participating in parliamentary politics? Because you're not going to have wide scale left wing candidates winning until you have removed the poison from the well as far as "being socialist" goes. I'd hoped a Corbyn leadership would have achieved this and dragged politics a bit to the left and was even willing to sacrifice the 2020 election for that on the basis that there didn't really look like much in the way of hope of winning in 2020. Corbyn as leader was absolutely the right thing to do at the time, but it's not worked. Clinging on to him on the basis that the other potential replacements aren't left wing enough when the alternative is another 5 years of Tory government seems like missing the forest for the trees. Personally, I have serious concerns about 5 more years of Tory government gutting the NHS I rely upon, the benefit system I have often relied upon, and myriad of other public services that I and other poor folk have had to use and without which we'd be up poo poo creek. Ultimately, all I've come away from the Corbyn experiment with is a sense that neoliberalism isn't going to be beaten through the ballot box without things getting a whole heap worse, and I simply can't see myself surviving through that particular bout of accelerationism. Sorry if that seems selfish. Also, we're talking about social democrats rather than actual neoliberals here, but sure, overreact and obsess about ideological purity, that's definitely proven to be a winning strategy many times in the past 150+ years of left wing history. Oh dear me posted:When did I suggest giving up? You're the one who's apparently willing to accept Keir loving Starmer as Labour leader. How is keeping Corbyn as leader not giving up on the 2020 election? With all the best will in the world, he's as unpopular as gently caress and has proven to have the media savviness of a dead moose. Like I said above, I just can't afford 5 more years of Tory government, sorry. Wish I could. Hell, maybe I'd even be willing to suffer through 5 more years if there was a prospect of light at the end of the tunnel, but where the gently caress is that meant to come from, do tell. Jose posted:so would pissflaps and Miliband got us a tory majority Yeah, I'm under no illusions that Miliband would be a shoo-in to win in 2020, but he'd still do better than Corbyn. With the reduction of 50 MPs next year, we're already looking at a massive uphill struggle as it is. "So would Pissflaps" is a terrible argument for remaining hitched to the sinking ship of Corbyn's leadership btw. Pissflaps can remain annoying (& he wants Labour to lose the election purely for the sake of schadenfreude so yeah, gently caress Pissflaps, that's even worse than accelerationism) and yet not be wrong about Corbyn being bad for Labour's electoral chances. I don't get how "Corbyn is electoral poison" is somehow a contentious statement but there we go. Guess it's similar to the liberals in America looking for a million excuses for why their "bae" Hilary lost, rather than just confronting that she was a poo poo candidate with poo poo policies, who ran a poo poo campaign that seemed to ignore how the President is elected. forkboy84 fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Mar 31, 2017 16:44
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Gort posted:I think you're kidding yourself if you think replacing the leader will win the next election for Labour. In order to do that you'd have to get the media on side, and in order to do that you have to sell out to the owners of the media, which means going Tory. How is Jeremy Corbyn leading Labour to having an even smaller number of MPs helping the NHS though? Because that's the end result here; an even smaller Labour Party, gains for the Liberals and Tories, none of which actually helps reverse the rightward slant of the country or protects public services. Even if I pretend to agree that in all circumstances the 2020 election is unwinnable for Labour, I'd rather have more Labour MPs than less, whether that's enough to reach a majority or not. If we were talking about the prospect of a strong, left-wing opposition, I could stomach that, but that's not what we've got, is it? I dunno, at what point are you willing to accept that Corbyn is a write-off, that the idea was good, the intentions were noble, but that at the end of the day, we need an end to Tory government really loving soon?
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Mar 31, 2017 17:48
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Benjamin Arthur posted:Literally nobody in the Labour party is likely to deliver this. Judging by the success of Theresa May so far, I have no idea how you can come to that conclusion, but again, even if you accept the most pessimistic view, why is it better to keep Corbyn and have a smaller Parliamentary Labour Party than it is to have a different leader who is still on the left but is not as completely loving divisive internally and have a a bigger, stronger Labour opposition? Oberleutnant posted:Maybe if you want a genuinely fair and compassionate society our parliamentary democracy just isn't the answer. Entirely agree. Nothing genuinely transformative or revolutionary is going to come from Westminster. But while it exists, I'd rather it work to reduce how terrible poo poo is even a little, because I can't really afford anything else. Extreme0 posted:I'm with Pissflaps in that we need to keep the Tory Government in so that the British people know that they shat the bed, that they must lie in it no matter how long it takes. I certainly envy anyone well enough where the destruction of what's left of the welfare is acceptable so long as they get some schadenfreude at people with false consciousness. Does seem rather dickish though.
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Mar 31, 2017 18:04
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Benjamin Arthur posted:Many of the Blairites are not on the left and have open disdain for the left. No potential leader has the ability not to be divisive because the Labour party is pretty split between a mostly leftist membership and a mostly neoliberal PLP. I'm sorry for your predicament genuinely, but personally I don't think there's any real chance of things improving soon, but there remains a change in the long-term as long as Labour remains a genuine ideological alternative. No Blairite will win a leadership contest right now. I mean if we're going to dwell in fantasy politics, I'd rather put my hopes in a revolution from below happening than in any wing of the Labour Party winning an election. But we don't live in that, we live in the real world, with consequences. Oh dear me posted:Pretty sure we'd[*] all be happy with this. It's not on offer. The people who want to ditch Corbyn want to make sure it is never on offer. Well, it depends what who you define as "left enough", isn't it? Is Lisa Nandy not left enough purely because she supported the coup on Corbyn last summer? Because that's the extent of the case against her. If "has the same policies as Corbyn" then no, obviously it's not on offer. But after the Corbyn year I suspect you'll find the Labour right more willing to compromise with a left of centre candidate. No, John McDonnell won't be the next Labour leader, nor will Dennis Skinner. But a left of centre Labour government is better than a democratic Labour who aren't even organised enough to be a proper opposition. Also, I've not ever said I'm the only poor person, only that accelerationism is a terrible idea that hurts the poorest far more than anyone else, in the vague hope that the far right won't be better at capitalising on whatever disaster we end up in than the far left. And it has a direct impact on me, as it does on others.
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Mar 31, 2017 18:19
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Comrade Cheggorsky posted:Jeremy Corbyn owns because all the green party etc voters who paid £3 to vote for him now have to defend his atrocious record and come to terms with the fact they have given the tories at least another decade in power Mmmmm, another dickhead more worried with schadenfreude than anything else. Great stuff.
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Mar 31, 2017 19:05
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OwlFancier posted:It would be nice if he was a bit more angry about socialism sometimes but I'd much rather have him in charge of the country than any other politician I can think of. Me too. But he's not going to be in charge of the country, and I'd rather almost any Labour MP in charge of the country before Theresa May. Benjamin Arthur posted:Which ardent Corbyn supporters in this thread won't be voting Labour next election? What he's doing is referencing that a number of thread regulars voted for the Lib Dems in 2010. Which somehow translates into never voting Labour & not voting Labour in 2020. It's Pissflaps. Even when he's right (about Corbyn having as much chance of becoming PM as me) he's disingenuous, smug, full of poo poo or some combination of the above. forkboy84 fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Mar 31, 2017 19:47
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OwlFancier posted:Hmm, I'd not want one that isn't committed to actually reversing their social policies, because I think without that we'll end up in this same position again a little further down the road. Yeah, I'd like that too. Well, what I'd actually like is someone who is influenced by people like Kropotkin, Rocker, Malatesta, Goldman, council communism & other varieties of left communism. But this is the world we live in. Either we accept parliamentary democracy is worthless for enacting genuine social reform because the vested interests will stop it, or we accept that by its very nature, incrementalism is...well, incremental. I lean towards the former but that view is kinda futile until more people accept the futility of the parliamentary "path" to socialism. Baron Corbyn posted:the Liberal Democrats' entire political legacy is to collaborate with the Tories to dismantle the state. There's some diamonds in the New Labour poo poo. The biggest success Lib Dems can kinda sorta claim from their time in government is gay marriage and that would have passed with the Cameron wing of the Tories + Labour and the rest of the opposition who voted for that and even that is worthless now they've put a guy who didn't vote for it and thinks the government is turning frogs gay in charge. It's also the 51st anniversary of Harold Wilson leading Labour to another electoral victory, increasing his majority in the process. Where they reformed divorce law, liberalised abortion law, decriminalised homosexuality, spent more money on education than defence for the first time in British history, dramatically increased the public housing stock, outlawed the eviction of tenants without a court order, and a whole bunch of generally good things while not actually aiming for Full Communism Now. forkboy84 fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Mar 31, 2017 20:02
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Cerv posted:he's boasted of signing up as a £3 supporter to vote for him. then gone on to vote SNP rather than Corbyn's Labour in the 2016 election Generous description of "ardent Corbynista".
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Mar 31, 2017 20:09
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OwlFancier posted:I don't think you can actually quit the party, you just stop paying and they'll wipe you off the books eventually. You definitely can. I did.
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Mar 31, 2017 20:11
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jabby posted:lol if you actually think replacing Corbyn with a more right-wing leader is anything other than 'incrementalism' the wrong loving way. I think replacing Jeremy Corbyn with a leader who is less loathed by the electorate, the media, the PLP & almost everyone outside the Labour Party membership is the only way incrementalism works. Coz it works by being in power, and dragging the country left, kicking & screaming if need be. And only the most delusional loon thinks that Jeremy Corbyn will ever be Prime Minister of a country bigger than Islington. If you don't want Labour to be a party of government, then you have to ask yourself what you think the point of the Labour Party is. Is it just a protest vote party? Are you just giving up on winning general elections? What's the end goal of keeping Corbyn in place? Again, if those hundreds of thousands of Momentum members want to admit that parliamentary democracy is futile, cool. Lets get working on extra-parliamentary solutions. Otherwise, the Labour Party has to try and win general elections. If there's one thing that the Corbyn era has shown us, it's that the Labour Party cannot be changed from the top down. It will require a long-term project, working on taking control of local parties, winning over local voters, and it can all happen without Jeremy Corbyn as leader so long as people don't just give up.
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Mar 31, 2017 20:40
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OwlFancier posted:The issue is that dragging the country kicking and screaming to the left is a substantial part of why Corbyn is so disliked by much of the establishment. So someone who isn't disliked would be someone who isn' threatening to upset the status quo. If he was popular with normal people, this'd not be a problem. But he's not. So...
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Mar 31, 2017 20:58
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OwlFancier posted:I think that possibly might be influenced by the fact that every part of the establishment from before he even became leader has been spending a lot of time and effort to tell everybody that he's bad. So, again it kind of comes up against the problem of "has to be popular to move us left, can't be left if wants to be popular" He has a few of the annoying biases of his generation but otherwise, sure, nor do I. But then you & I aren't exactly average members of the public. But yes, you're getting there. Parliamentary democracy is trash, throw it away, build something better outside it because the change we want will not happen through it. Bernstein was wrong, past 100 years prove that, lets move on.
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Mar 31, 2017 21:08
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TomViolence posted:In the short term you don't need to overthrow poo poo, extraparliamentary politics is about building movements, networks and organisations parallel to the parliamentary system. You don't need to think in terms of parliamentary politics or violent revolution with no points in between, if people thought like that organised labour in this country wouldn't have existed in the first place for a political party to emerge from. Yes. This is it. You build up movements. Perhaps overthrowing things is an end goal but the short term goal? Building a community, helping people, and going from there. Which is what the labour movement started as, all those years ago. Which Momentum maybe could have been but instead it just seems to have turned into a Corbyn fan club. Which is a shame. It's not "grab your pitchforks and semtex & over throw the government right now", it's people coming together to help other people from suffering the worst effects of capitalism, while possibly also educating people, indirectly or otherwise, why that needs to be done & why capitalism is garbage. If you read about the early labour movement, the early socialist movement, in any country, education was a huge part of it which seems to have slipped by the wayside. And not "basic arithmetic & grammar" learning, but learning about our society, "the stuff they won't teach you in school", stuff like people's basic rights not to be evicted on the whim of their landlord and also things about Socialism 101. Foster an actual movement, based on outreach to people.
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Mar 31, 2017 21:44
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jabby posted:Part of incrementalism is enduring the difficulty involved in actually shifting public opinion, not giving up totally because your first attempt in decades isn't going very well. Except that reality proves that this is not the case. That Jeremy Corbyn as leader, despite his best intentions, is in fact dragging the country to the right. Who is this mythical left-winger to replace Corbyn but be better at everything Corbyn is poo poo at? And if they exist why the gently caress aren't we making them leader right now? Holding on to Jeremy as leader until the perfect replacement comes along is just going to drive Labour into irrelevancy. Which is quite bad for your incrementalist plan.
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Mar 31, 2017 21:49
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jBrereton posted:The only way we can help the poor is for green voting university students to engage in a spending war with them to see who truly supports Labour the most. Are dullards still claiming Corbyn's base is booj yoof? Fucksake
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Mar 31, 2017 21:56
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baka kaba posted:But doesn't this prove the need for Labour to reform itself? It's hard to take the fight to the Tories if your own party is sympathetic to them on a lot of issues. Corbyn's always said that one of his major goals is to change the party internally and open it up, to break the right's stranglehold on power and policy As cool as it would be if this was true, it's not. It's not just the Blairites that have been alienated by Corbyn. It's the soft left too. Which is a pretty big problem. Insurmountable without mass purging of MPs & frankly nothing Corbyn has shown me suggests he has the stomach for that. Anyway, here's a fun story that can be seen as an accompaniment to the earlier one on workhouses. https://twitter.com/jelle_simons/status/847782333726040064 forkboy84 fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Mar 31, 2017 21:59
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