Senate The UK Politics discussion

Oh a campaign promise. Love those. They are always so practical and never pandering.

 

Cameron believed in, what we call in England, a "state run by gentlemen"

 

Well that sounds good in theory.

 

its all fun and games until someone skull****s a pig

 

Did the other 70% have parents who didn't love them or something?

 

Hrm... well, I didn't expect that things were going to move that swiftly - Scotland's already playing the 'not leaving the EU' card. (I notice that NI's leadership, on the other hand, is firmly standing with the overall UK in a not-so-subtle rebuke of Ireland's call for a new look at reunification... while also naively thinking that somehow nothing is going to change about the border with Ireland when the leave)

 

Official word is that nothing will change with the Irish border, since that open border treaty was signed before the EU existed. Pro-EU Unionist politicians have been suggesting NI nationals apply for their Irish passports to bypass Brexit bureaucracy and uncertainty.

If any of your grandparents were born in Ireland then you can do the same (which applies to Ms. V-2, but not to me, sadly).

.....

Jesus it's hot tonight.

 

It is 97 where I live. Unseasonably humid too. Feels like Autumn.

That border issue I hadn't thought about. What a potential mess. One EU and the other….nope.

 

97?? That's only 3 degrees below boiling, where do you live, Venus?

 

It's close to that near Heathrow Airport - 90F/32C.

 

Ah ****. Sorry!

 

Hey! Crossover special - Farage spotted at the RNC.

 

Maybe he's looking for work now he's out of a job?

 

I'm sure May will offer him the new position of Minister of Health and European Economics.

 

UKIP councillor apologises for 'joking' Remain voters be killed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-36842940

"My comment was meant to be taken with a pinch of salt, I thought it was so extreme as to be obviously daft."

Replace 'comment' with 'party' and a greater truth is revealed.

 

If you thought it was so extreme as to be obviously daft, then why say it dummy? God. Is this America?

 

http://www.theguardian.com/politics...r-should-have-to-seek-nominations-court-hears

Somewhat esoteric challenge to Corbyn being mounted by a Labour donor via his barrister.

Realistically the Labour party as it exists today, in a post-New Labour world, can't continue this way can it? Surely it has to split between modern, urban, more liberal progressives who are not wedded to the trades union movement or socialistm; and the old guard socialists?

 

I'll be surprised if the legal challenge to Corbyn off the ballot goes anywhere. I think the PLP has just got to accept Corbyn is going to take them down to a catastrophic defeat at the next general election. At least once Corbyn is defeated they'll be able to begin the process of rebuilding.

They could split and create a new "center left" party but as we saw with the SDP in the 1980's creating a party is easier than making an electoral impact, especially under FPTP.

An ICM poll yesterday gave the Conservatives a 16% lead:

Con 43% (+3)

Lab 27% (-2)

Lib-Dem 8% (-1)

UKIP 13% (-1)

If those kind of numbers are sustained I suspect Theresa will think about having a snap election in the Autumn (though she's said she won't call a quick election) It's not like she doesn't have an excuse... She can manufacture a row with the EU during her first BREXIT negotiations and then put her negotiating stance before the electorate via a manifesto saying that having a mandate from the electorate will enhance her negotiating position.

Q2 GDP figures released this morning - Economy grew at 0.6% from April to June:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36903164

Will be interesting to see what the Q3 figure looks like in October.

Meanwhile Glaxo investing £275m in UK despite Brexit;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36901027

This following on from last weeks ARM deal suggests that now everyone is calming the hell down, Brexit might not mean the end of the world after all.

 

It's a funny one with Labour. Corbyn's popularity is, I think, less to do with his 1970s throwback politics and more to do with the fact that he comes across as honest and genuine in a climate where a large chunk of the electorate are sick of being lied to. None of the Blairites are sufficiently charismatic to wrest the membership vote from him so I guess a party split is pretty much inevitable. Time to buy a big bag of popcorn and watch the carnage.

 

There are problems with the plan to wait for a failed election campaign... Narrative problems for the rebels, mainly.

For one, Corbyn has not been promising to win elections. This upsets and baffles a lot of superficial people of all political persuasions, and it's something he's received loud criticism for. It's not like he's staking his career on becoming the next PM, and it will be a little bit transparent to try to remove him for failing to do something which he didn't promise, and which by the numbers seems impossible anyway.

Secondly, within the Labour Party proper, there is a lot of shame and anger regarding how the PLP rebels are behaving. It will be just as easy to blame the rebels for the problems in Labour as it will to blame Corbyn. That will be a battle of spin, which I concede will favour the Blairites, but nobody will benefit from extending this embarrassing feud.

Thirdly, Labour ranks are swelling. Corbyn is a popular politician. It's hard to paint a picture of a divisive man who lacks appeal and charm when he's attracted so many new voters and generated so much cash through new memberships and contributions.

Strategically speaking it's much better to be in opposition while austerity is in place, and Corbyn's goal of creating a grass roots social movement is a long term plan, something the Tristram Hunts and Allistair Campbells don't understand or respect. He has so far succeeded in pushing the party to the left; both his proposed replacements promised to be just as radical. This rather destroys previous rebel complaints that Corbyn's politics are too niche. Smith is trying to court the masses who support progressive change (while the PLP/NEC set up potentially illegal arbitrary blocks the new members voting).

Mass deselection of rebel MPs is a much better strategy for election success, IMO. It would sort out the problem of party unity, and remove some of the impetus to punish Westminster elite Labour. It would, unfortunately, play into the hands of those painting the picture of Momentum and Corbyn being like the KGB and Stalin, so maybe a better strategy would be to let the public vote out these turncoats and have the newly galvanised local party groups select some honest decent people instead.

 

V2, can I get your thoughts on this?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/25/jeremy-corbyn-populist-democracy-mps

 

Thoughts:
What a condescending ****.

I like that Syriza guy, I watched him and Chomsky doing a sit down interview on YT the other night. He's a bit harsh on the EU, understandably, and he's a bit single minded (cough-cough), but he appears to know his stuff.

"First, it has a disdain for elites and experts of all kinds, especially political ones."
That doesn't describe Syriza or Corbyn's MO. Listen to either talk and they will cite experts and scholars and philosophers and all sorts, and that cerebral, intellectually honest style is a large part of what makes them attractive.

"Second, it supposes that the purpose of politics is simply to put into action the will of the people, who are seen as homogenous and united in their goals."
I think Corbyn has recognised that the people are divided on numerous occasions (and with a referendum result of 48/52 you'd be crazy not to). When he talks of seeding a new movement it's to counter the acknowledged popular trend towards right wing selfishness and social divisiveness.

"Third, it proposes straightforward, simple solutions to what are in fact complex problems."
All politicians do this absolutely all of the time. E.g. remove Corbyn = win election.

"It is based on the absoluteness of the “democratic mandate” given by Labour members and supporters, which renders null and void any dissent from Labour’s “elites” in Westminster or Brussels."
True enough, but I'd remove the quotes around "democratic mandate". It puts the willies up the Westminster elites, which also exist.

"This is populism in its purest form, with the people as the final and best judges."
This is also an argument against holding elections at all.

"The party members and supporters are always right, so any of its MPs who disagree must be wrong."
The party members elect people to represent their views and to act on their behalf, not to subvert or outright contradict their wishes, or worse, their votes. Corbyn is not morally equivalent to capital punishment, or even nuclear weapons.

"Our tradition of representative democracy rests on a rejection of all three pillars of populism."
Bollocks does it.

"Making the case for representative democracy therefore means telling the electorate it doesn’t always know best, a truism that populism has turned into an elitist heresy."
I have yet to see a political party that publicly speaks that way take office, at least not through democratic means.

"Not even the EU referendum was as populist as Corbyn’s new politics."
What a silly thing to say, especially as the author goes on to cite Corbyn's political rivals and none of Corbyn's policies....

"Corbynite populism is destroying the Labour party by pitting the membership against the PLP and making effective opposition, let alone government, impossible. This is no way to defeat Corbyn’s “five ills” – inequality, neglect, prejudice, insecurity and discrimination."
The anti-Corbynites need to get their stories straight. Corbyn hasn't pit the membership against the PLP, the PLP pit themselves against the members while shamelessly pandering to them - even while blocking them from voting. It's a shambles of a coup, more incoherent than this article.

 

Yeah, see I think Corbyn is a populist and I think populism is a necessarily bad thing (the people don't always know best); but it felt pretty heavily subjective.

 

I don't think he's a populist in the demagogic sense which that article implies. The right of the people to have power and control over their government is absolutely essential to the principle (and, where applicable, the illusion) of democracy. Even if the fickle and ignorant masses make some terrible decisions from time to time, the alternative isn't acceptable. Benign dictatorships do not exist, and electoral colleges are a terrible solution to the problem of proles voting against the intentions of their masters.

Corbyn is no Farrage or BJ or Trump, he seems almost pathologically reasonable and measured, and he's not exactly saying a lot of stuff to dishonestly court the masses as Blair or Kinnock did. It's easily argued that Corbyn's supporters are reclaiming Labour from the populists who poisoned its principles in the first place.

 

I'm not sure you're using populism correctly there. Watering down a party's stance, which Blair did by removing Article (I want to say 4?) from the Labour constitution to make it a more middle-class/aspirational friendly party might be popular and a naked attention/vote grab, but that is not the same as populism.

Wikipedia gives a pretty good definition of it, in that any polisci dictionary would give much the same high level summation:

"Populism is a political ideology which holds that the virtuous citizens are being mistreated by a small circle of elites, who can be overthrown if the people recognize the danger and work together. The elites are depicted as trampling in illegitimate fashion upon the rights, values, and voice of the legitimate people.["

Now, you might argue and I'm not going to necessarily call you wrong, merely disagree, that there is a legitimate cabal of elites trampling the rights of 'virtuous citizens'; the assumption you might make is that objectively, populism is a bad thing. I would argue 100% it is, but that's entirely my liberalism speaking. Populism was the defining narrative of the French revolution and one would be hard pressed to say the aristocrats didn't oppress the people gleefully. I mean, Mare Antoinette is remembered for qu'ils mangent de la brioche, despite not being in Paris at the time Rousseau said she was - their image was so bad it stuck.

So I may find it odious and "bad" the same way I find communism bad; I recognise this isn't an objective statement though.

Objectively? Corbyn's a populist, as is Bernie Sanders.