The Political Thread

[Funt Solo]

I did notice that the leader of the opposition - Ed Miliband - was doing a good job on various news outlets, of taking the Tories to task.

It's funny, but I'd had a dream that he was no longer the Labour leader, and instead it was a grumpy man on a bicycle who supported Brexit. Then he morphed into a tedious lawyer who always looks ashamed to be be speaking. Just a dream, though...

[Funt Solo]

This satire stuff just writes itself:

'Brexit going really well actually' insists government with no fuel, energy, food, workers, border control or trade deals

[sintec]

It's like they're determined to ensure the Tories stay in power https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/sep/27/unions-vote-down-local-labour-parties-call-to-axe-first-past-the-post

[IndigoPrime]

Yep. They're fucking idiots. They want all the power or none of it. They're going to get none of it. PR is going to be the key that unlocks cooperation from the Greens (who will again eat into Labour votes in key marginals) and Lib Dems (less of a problem, but there are still major clashes in the West Country, and Labour voters might stop Libs winning seats in the south).

It says everything that an op-ed in The Guardian yesterday argued proportional representation would give smaller parties disproportionate power. No, it would give them proportionate power. THAT'S THE FUCKING POINT.

[milstar]

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-58718085

I bloody hate coppers.

[Proudhuff]

Yep. They're fucking idiots. They want all the power or none of it. They're going to get none of it. PR is going to be the key that unlocks cooperation from the Greens (who will again eat into Labour votes in key marginals) and Lib Dems (less of a problem, but there are still major clashes in the West Country, and Labour voters might stop Libs winning seats in the south).

It says everything that an op-ed in The Guardian yesterday argued proportional representation would give smaller parties disproportionate power. No, it would give them proportionate power. THAT'S THE FUCKING POINT.

Even with gerry rigging, its worked well here in Scotland... at least in Hollyrood we get a representation of what we voted for, unlike Westminster

[Proudhuff]

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-58718085

I bloody hate coppers.

They really don't know their legends...

[milstar]

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/27/china-restricts-abortions-for-non-medical-purposes

[JayzusB.Christ]

Strange.  My (admittedly clueless outsider's) experience of Chinese culture was that abortion wasn't even remotely controversial there, and it was seen as a fairly routine operation with no moral judgement from others.  I wonder how this will go down with the people?  Not that we'll ever really know.

[Will Cooling]

It's like they're determined to ensure the Tories stay in power https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/sep/27/unions-vote-down-local-labour-parties-call-to-axe-first-past-the-post

I mean not to be pedantic but PR can't be the solution to getting the Tories out of power, but the Tories won't pass it themselves. You do need to win a FPTP election first

[Funt Solo]

It's like they're determined to ensure the Tories stay in power https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/sep/27/unions-vote-down-local-labour-parties-call-to-axe-first-past-the-post

I mean not to be pedantic but PR can't be the solution to getting the Tories out of power, but the Tories won't pass it themselves. You do need to win a FPTP election first

I suppose, like Brexit, it could be an election-deciding issue - but only if a political party (Labour, say) were to champion it.

---

On the point of Starmer trying to make everything all New Labour again by channeling Blair and taking his orders from Mandelson - they're perhaps missing the point that Blair's policies are effectively what drove Scotland to move almost lock stock behind the SNP.

Or - Labour need friends to win.

[IndigoPrime]

I mean not to be pedantic but PR can't be the solution to getting the Tories out of power, but the Tories won't pass it themselves. You do need to win a FPTP election first

You do, but how does Labour do that under current electoral maths? Scotland is lost to the SNP. Labour majorities always relied on seats there. That would mean Labour would have to flip a ton of English seats AND fend of the Greens AND fend off the Lib Dems — the latter in Con/LD marginals. It seems unlikely.

But if Labour promised PR in the event of a win, that would likely be enough for the Greens to stand down in many seats and possibly the Lib Dems too. A 1997-style agreement (at the very least) would then see Labour regain many seats it lost in recent years and probably a bunch of new LD seats around London and elsewhere in the south.

Also, the notion that 'equal votes' or 'fair votes' wouldn't appeal when the vast majority of Labour, Lib, Green, Plaid, SNP and BXP voters are in favour, and when a sizeable number of soft Con voters are too, seems unlikely. It needn't be the primary policy point, but it needs to be in there somewhere. Instead, we've discovered Starmer's Labour is no different from Corbyn's and Blair's—it wants reform only when it might benefit the Labour Party rather than when it would benefit UK democracy as a whole.

[Funt Solo]

[IndigoPrime]

I see the government is attempting to pivot from the shortages being nothing to do with Brexit to them being down to the "will of the people" in demanding a low-immigration/high-income economy. The audacity is quite something.

[Tjm86]

To be honest I'm inclined to agree with those who are pushing back against Brexit being behind the current shortages.  Brexit is just one in a long list of decisions by the Tories over the last decade that have led to a decade of stagnating wages, increased child poverty, crumbling health services, staggeringly high levels of excess death, decimation of trust in police and judiciary, levels of violence against women that are being described as 'epidemic', blatant cronyism and corruption, crises in social care, explosion of demand for food banks, ....

What is behind all this?  A party that is ruling this country into the ground.  It isn't Brexit that is to blame, it is the Tories.  Let's call it like it is.