Re: Brexit Anyone? (part 4) : Tue Oct 29, 2019 7:41 am  

IR80 wrote:

[youtube][/youtube]The public do love the NHS, but not the bloated beast it has become, few people think the rail network should be nationalised, utterly simplisric is your description of your "up the conservatives" mantra.

Do you have any references to back up your claims?

[Mild Rover]

Re: Brexit Anyone? (part 4) : Tue Oct 29, 2019 8:11 am  

IR80 wrote: Ah yes, YouGov from 2017, CEO a German, that's credibility for you. What relevance does the CEO being German have to the credibility of the data from YouGov? Given that the guy left Germany when he was 5 years old and has lived in the UK and US ever since, it seems like a somewhat misleading point as well. I’d have gone with him being a member Social Workers Student Society while he was at Oxford, if trying to imply a left-wing bias. Although that might be undermined by his having been a Conservative candidate in the 1997 General Election. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephan_Shakespeare Also, May 2017 - are you suggesting a massive sea-change in public opinion in the last 29 months?

IR80 wrote: Ah yes, YouGov from 2017, CEO a German, that's credibility for you. What relevance does the CEO being German have to the credibility of the data from YouGov? Given that the guy left Germany when he was 5 years old and has lived in the UK and US ever since, it seems like a somewhat misleading point as well. I’d have gone with him being a member Social Workers Student Society while he was at Oxford, if trying to imply a left-wing bias. Although that might be undermined by his having been a Conservative candidate in the 1997 General Election. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephan_Shakespeare Also, May 2017 - are you suggesting a massive sea-change in public opinion in the last 29 months?

Re: Brexit Anyone? (part 4) : Tue Oct 29, 2019 8:49 am  

The last few posts encapsulate the frustration of the committed Labour supporter; what JC proposes is far from radical, by any measure - it's mostly democratic socialism of the Scandinavian model, and is centred mostly on reversing austerity, and renationalising utilities and services that are essential to the public. All policies that have been very successful in any number of countries. The problem here of course is that so many establishment figures get fat off the profits of providing the basics of life to the general public, many of them Tory MP's and even more of them Tory donors, that it serves them well to whip up a frenzy about JC as being a Marxist Trot, who will take away all privately owned assets and give them to homeless people.

In truth, most people are socialists - in that we believe in free education, free healthcare and people not starving to death or living in a cardboard box; the problem is that the 1% of people in this country who are insulated from the stresses and strains of daily life, by virtue of inherited wealth and privilege, control the narrative and somehow, manage to convince great swathes of the population to vote against their own interests - aided and abetted by a clique of multi-millionaire non-dom media barons, and a public service broadcaster filled with client journalists and courtiers.

Re: Brexit Anyone? (part 4) : Tue Oct 29, 2019 12:31 pm  

Great post.

Re: Brexit Anyone? (part 4) : Tue Oct 29, 2019 5:02 pm  

bren2k wrote:

The last few posts encapsulate the frustration of the committed Labour supporter; what JC proposes is far from radical, by any measure - it's mostly democratic socialism of the Scandinavian model, and is centred mostly on reversing austerity, and renationalising utilities and services that are essential to the public. All policies that have been very successful in any number of countries. The problem here of course is that so many establishment figures get fat off the profits of providing the basics of life to the general public, many of them Tory MP's and even more of them Tory donors, that it serves them well to whip up a frenzy about JC as being a Marxist Trot, who will take away all privately owned assets and give them to homeless people.

In truth, most people are socialists - in that we believe in free education, free healthcare and people not starving to death or living in a cardboard box; the problem is that the 1% of people in this country who are insulated from the stresses and strains of daily life, by virtue of inherited wealth and privilege, control the narrative and somehow, manage to convince great swathes of the population to vote against their own interests - aided and abetted by a clique of multi-millionaire non-dom media barons, and a public service broadcaster filled with client journalists and courtiers.

Spot on
Similar situation the US
Trump will win in 2020 based on nothing more than whipping a frenzy over whichever Democrat candidate wins simply by labelling them a "Socialist".
Millions of people will listen to soundbites of this and think the same thing over there that the Tories have whipped up about Corbyn (I'm not a massive fan but hes been labelled as some kind of Demon over here) and theyll vote for anyone But

Re: Brexit Anyone? (part 4) : Tue Oct 29, 2019 8:52 pm  

We will decide on Decemberv12th, and cringebin can go to the Job Centre+

Re: Brexit Anyone? (part 4) : Tue Oct 29, 2019 10:26 pm  

bren2k wrote:

The last few posts encapsulate the frustration of the committed Labour supporter; what JC proposes is far from radical, by any measure - it's mostly democratic socialism of the Scandinavian model, and is centred mostly on reversing austerity, and renationalising utilities and services that are essential to the public. All policies that have been very successful in any number of countries. The problem here of course is that so many establishment figures get fat off the profits of providing the basics of life to the general public, many of them Tory MP's and even more of them Tory donors, that it serves them well to whip up a frenzy about JC as being a Marxist Trot, who will take away all privately owned assets and give them to homeless people.

In truth, most people are socialists - in that we believe in free education, free healthcare and people not starving to death or living in a cardboard box; the problem is that the 1% of people in this country who are insulated from the stresses and strains of daily life, by virtue of inherited wealth and privilege, control the narrative and somehow, manage to convince great swathes of the population to vote against their own interests - aided and abetted by a clique of multi-millionaire non-dom media barons, and a public service broadcaster filled with client journalists and courtiers.

I agree with you in some ways. I'm not entirely opposed to public ownership of certain services as long as they are run effectively, and certainly nothing like they were prior to privatisation - some people' memories are easily clouded. But let's not forget the absolutely massive cost of privatisation and serious concerns over the willingness of public services to invest versus the need of private companies to invest.

Don't forget Corbyn himself has been pretty insulated from the stresses and strains of daily life. He had a slight sniff of a 'real' job in his youth and has enjoyed the Westminster bubble for decades.

Even if I agreed with *some* of his ideas, there are plenty of other reasons to dislike and distrust Jeremy Corbyn. Firstly (and of course you lot will wrap this up as right-wing hysteria), I abhor his past associations, which tell us more about his true loyalties than the current politician meticulously steered and distilled (and dressed) by his advisors. The outspoken, controversial and (in his favour) genuine politician has been watered down to hopefully maximise his appeal.

This is a man who invited Gerry Adams and two convicted IRA members to Westminster two weeks after the Brighton bombing, who lied about ever meeting members of the IRA, who was arrested for obstruction while protesting against the trial of the (guilty) Brighton bomber Patrick Magee, a man who attended over 70 Republican events while the IRA were active, a man who often expressed sympathy for dead terrorists over British soldiers.

A man who has barely disguised his antisemitic views by his hollow words and inaction over the rife and vicious antisemitism in the Labour party and amongst Labour members. I have no particular love for the policies of Israel and plenty of sympathy with Palestinians, but not to that degree. In that vein, this is a man who campaigned to overturn the convictions of the (guilty) Palestinian bombers of the Israeli Embassy and United Jewish Israel Appeal in 1994 for no real reason other than...well, I think it's probably obvious.

A man who calls Hamas and Hezbollah his friends. A man who will by nature condemn pretty much every single action of the British and Western military yet support violent groups. He called the death of Bin Laden a 'tragedy'. He called the Falklands War a 'Tory plot' and wanted to negotiated a 'joined administration' with Argentina. His views on ISIS were as evasive as ever, as was his response to the Russia novichok poisonings.

BTW I absolutely realise some of those quotes should be taken in context. But in politics words are everything. Either that he is not fit to lead, or he is happy to let his true views leak.

Some of his other policies - abolition of private schools, taking possession of vacant private property, inheritance tax proposals, Trident, etc are highly controversial and I could never vote for them.

He has shown himself as anti-UK, anti-West, anti-Capitalist, pro-Russian and when I put all of this together I find the prospect of Corbyn (and the extremist McDonnell) in power a worrying thing. Not to mention the calibre of those in his shadow cabinet such as Rayner and Long-Bailey and the racists such as Abbott and Lammy.

Oh, and for purely selfish and personal reasons I want to avoid a party of high taxation.

BTW, we already get free education and the NHS isn't free.

[Mild Rover]

Re: Brexit Anyone? (part 4) : Tue Oct 29, 2019 10:57 pm  

Gonna vote for Boris’s Tories then?

I’m voting Green, if they stand a candidate around here, I think.

Re: Brexit Anyone? (part 4) : Tue Oct 29, 2019 11:01 pm  

Cronus wrote:

He has shown himself as anti-UK

This is where any arguments, no matter how reasonable-sounding, fall down. I got past the bit where you called him antisemitic but questioning people's loyalty to country, US Republican style, exposes your real, unpleasant, agenda.

Re: Brexit Anyone? (part 4) : Tue Oct 29, 2019 11:06 pm  

Mild Rover wrote:

Gonna vote for Boris’s Tories then?

I’m voting Green, if they stand a candidate around here, I think.

Probably. I want to see Brexit done. Labour are out for my given reasons. Lib Dems nope for their Brexit policy. Greens likewise. Brexit Party and UKIP are a wasted vote. Not much else to vote for.

If Boris can deliver half the stuff he's been promising he'll do fine. He needs to stay focused and not revert to 'classic Boris'. If they manage their campaign well he will win with a majority. If something seriously 'inconvenient' crops up (as I'm sure Labour and the lefty media will ensure happens) we're heading for a hung Parliament again.