The Political Thread

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

Personally, I don't believe the Right to be superior to the Left, or vice cersa. You need two wings to fly. The fostering of tribalism between the two is a bigger problem than any idealogical flaw from either side.

Right/Left
Liberal/Conservative
Protestant/Catholic
Republican/Monarcist
Republican(again)/Democrat
Republican(once more)/Loyalist
Socialism/Capitlism
Man/Woman
Black/White
Gay/Straight


Us/Them




Divide/Conquer





Drink/Drink again

[TordelBack]

Prog/prog
Slaine/Slaine

[JayzusB.Christ]

Is it really possible to be left and right wing at the same time?
I'm not counting the likes of China, which is Communist only through virtue of being a dictatorship (other than that, it's the most insanely capitalistic society I've ever visited).

[Professor Bear]

It's possible to be left and right - Blairites have managed it for years, apparantly.

[Goaty]

And America got North & South...

[Will Cooling]

What's more galling is that moderate socialist ideas are rapidly falling by the wayside, and even moderate centrist ideas are under threat. If this Conservative government continues the way it is, the NHS will at best become a service of last resort (i.e. a literal emergency service alone) in areas where no private companies want to work, or where they cannot profit enough. It will elsewhere be a shield brand. Naturally, these private companies will expect the 'actual' NHS to take over when they quit in a hissy fit, and will also be subsidised by taxation, much like the current train system.

What worries me at least equally is when you see Conservatives talking about offloading other services and infrastructure from government. There've already been rumblings about privatising not just new but also existing roads and motorways. Beyond that, lots of talk around education is pretty scary, putting the building blocks in place to free all schools from government, and enabling privatisation there. Conservative education policy is, at best, extremely troubling and hugely misunderstands the world we exist in, but the notion of offloading schools (under the guise of local control, but in reality corporate control) seems like something from a hideous dystopian novel rather than a reality that could conceivably happen.

And ultimately, it all comes down to money—what people believe we have, and what politicians can convince people we should do with it. The Greens are laughed at for their idea of a citizen's income. The idea there is to essentially eradicate the benefits system alongside radically overhauling taxation, and just pay everyone a 'living wage'. Those who earn would obviously enjoy a better quality of life, and once you're some way up the ladder, your living wage would be taxed back out of you.

This is the kind of thing that sends Daily Mail readers into apoplectic fury, because SCROUNGERS and WORKSHY LAYABOUTS. But it's just a simplification of what we have combined with a safety net, and with an eye on the future where it's pretty damn clear there will be far fewer jobs available. Most importantly, it's also a system that has been tried, albeit only on city scales. Under such circumstances, it was usually a success, but also bulldozed out of existence by people on the right. (See also: just building houses for the homeless rather than trying to deal with people without housing in other ways.)

I think my hope with Corbyn is that he makes more people think about the wider situations. He's clearly not nearly as radical as the Greens, but he has a sense of social justice, and his policies on the whole look to be beneficial for the country as a whole. If that means I take a personal hit myself, in order to assist a few people who have far less, so be it. I'd sooner that than end up with an extra few hundred quid at the end of the year, knowing that many millions of people are now worse off and facing even tougher struggles to survive.

I don't think its correct to say Corbyn is less radical than the Greens. He's just a different type of radical.

The difference between Bennites (which is what Corbyn and McDonnell really are deep down) and the Greens is that the former still believes in economic growth. In the best case scenario, they believe their policies will cause the economy to grow, and in the worst case scenario, they'll still ensure that working people get a fairer share.  The greens on the otherhand don't believe in economic growth, believing that mankind's obsession with getting more and more stuff has damaged the planet, and that if we don't learn to live within our means we'll eventually kill the planet.

This philosophical difference has interesting consequences for how they approach the unpopularity of their ideas. The Greens can argue that its people putting their selfish desires above the needs of the planet, but Bennites can't say that because they seek to meet the material needs of the working classes. So instead they fall back on 'false consciousness', the idea that people have been tricked to vote against their own interests.   

[IndigoPrime]

To clarify, I mean radicalism in the sense of policy that differs markedly from the status quo—or at least existing general policy. Corbyn wants to renationalise certain industries; Greens would prefer significantly more public ownership than that. Corbyn's keen on more equality regarding incomes; Greens want to entirely overhaul the benefits and income system, with a citizen's income as the base level. And so on. I'm not saying one is necessarily better than the other, but from a radical standpoint, the Green manifesto goes far further from what we currently have than what Corbyn proposes.

Still, on that basis I would also argue that the Greens are essentially unelectable en masse in the current political climate (as much as I'm fond of some of their policies), with Lucas being an outlier on the basis of simply being such a bloody great MP. (If there's a Labour surge or seat boundary changes come 2020, I hope she manages to hang on.) Corbyn, on the other hand, could do fine if his party stopped being such utter pricks. But then you have Mr Eyebrows banging the stupid drum, and that really doesn't help. If you don't know what Corbyn stands for, Darling, you have not been paying attention.

Still, Labour's not quite descended to the comedy show of the Lib Dems, with Farron planting his flag in his foot, trying to differentiate his party by saying they'll be moderate centrists, and that Labour MPs are sending him sadface texts. If he was smart, he'd be running on an anti-austerity and fairness ticket, trying to take back much of the south-west, and gearing up for coalition with Labour. Perhaps he should read his party's own manifesto from 2015 and seek to implement that. I fear instead he'll run on LABOUR ARE EVIL for four-and-a-bit more years, which will help precisely no-one. (I'm also hoping the SNP will calm down a bit as we approach the next election. Otherwise we're in for another depressing repeat as the non-Tories squabble among themselves, leading to another Conservative majority.)

[sheridan]

Prog/prog
Slaine/Slaine

Slaine/Sláine

[Professor Bear]

The LibDems have a terminal PR problem of perceived ineffectiveness when in power that will take literally years to go away - if it ever does - so Fallon has nothing to lose by aggressively pissing on Labour's chips any way he can in the hope of at least stopping them from making gains, but also because an advertisement for how ruthless the Tories can be helps him sell the notion that the LibDems were a counterbalance to Tory excesses.

[Will Cooling]

To clarify, I mean radicalism in the sense of policy that differs markedly from the status quo—or at least existing general policy. Corbyn wants to renationalise certain industries; Greens would prefer significantly more public ownership than that. Corbyn's keen on more equality regarding incomes; Greens want to entirely overhaul the benefits and income system, with a citizen's income as the base level. And so on. I'm not saying one is necessarily better than the other, but from a radical standpoint, the Green manifesto goes far further from what we currently have than what Corbyn proposes.

Still, on that basis I would also argue that the Greens are essentially unelectable en masse in the current political climate (as much as I'm fond of some of their policies), with Lucas being an outlier on the basis of simply being such a bloody great MP. (If there's a Labour surge or seat boundary changes come 2020, I hope she manages to hang on.) Corbyn, on the other hand, could do fine if his party stopped being such utter pricks. But then you have Mr Eyebrows banging the stupid drum, and that really doesn't help. If you don't know what Corbyn stands for, Darling, you have not been paying attention.

Still, Labour's not quite descended to the comedy show of the Lib Dems, with Farron planting his flag in his foot, trying to differentiate his party by saying they'll be moderate centrists, and that Labour MPs are sending him sadface texts. If he was smart, he'd be running on an anti-austerity and fairness ticket, trying to take back much of the south-west, and gearing up for coalition with Labour. Perhaps he should read his party's own manifesto from 2015 and seek to implement that. I fear instead he'll run on LABOUR ARE EVIL for four-and-a-bit more years, which will help precisely no-one. (I'm also hoping the SNP will calm down a bit as we approach the next election. Otherwise we're in for another depressing repeat as the non-Tories squabble among themselves, leading to another Conservative majority.)

Yeah I still think you're downplaying how much of the economy Corbyn would want to take back into state ownership - I mean he implied he'd want to renationalise BT! Indeed the whole subtext of the argument over EU membership is that 'People's QE' would almost certainly be illegal under EU laws.

I fear the problem with Corbyn is that he's such a nice man who naturally wants to reach a consensus that he'll compromise too much with those in the party that simply don't want him to succeed. The danger is that deflates those who voted for him so much that they man the barricades to protect him when the moderate putsch comes. Something very similar happened to Iain Duncan Smith.

The Lib Dems are so unbelievably fucked it doesn't really matter what Farron does. I have a nice metaphor that since Labour replaced them as the progressive party of government the Liberals have been like Zion in Matrix. They rise to a certain level but then become so big that they have to be destroyed back to their previously smaller level. Then the survivors spend 20 years rebuilding them back to a certain level only for them to be destroyed again.

[IndigoPrime]

but also because an advertisement for how ruthless the Tories can be helps him sell the notion that the LibDems were a counterbalance to Tory excesses.

His problem is that Labour is now positioning itself to be a severe counterbalance, whereas the LDs are "well, we'd only change the bad bits". That's more or less how they positioned themselves in government, and I hear plenty of LD activists banging on about how they as junior partners could "only be a brake" and tried their best.

Utter horseshit. I don't doubt the LDs did actually curb the worst excesses of a harsh Conservative intake, but by the same token, they were horribly naïve. They should have fought for one senior position (Clegg as foreign sec would have been smart, e.g.); they should have stuck to their guns re proportional representation, rather than caving and offering an option no-one ever wanted; and they should have held firm for at least one major battle. Had they derailed the health bill, rather than eventually nodding along, that would have been a tangible win. In the end, they just became a nothing party, and were bizarrely hostile as the election campaign went on. (Personally, I'd say it looked a lot like they assumed they'd lose half their seats but would still end up back in a ConDem coalition. That would explain the vehemently anti-SNP sentiments.)

Yeah I still think you're downplaying how much of the economy Corbyn would want to take back into state ownership - I mean he implied he'd want to renationalise BT!

True. And that would be idiotic, given that there is effective communication in the telecoms and broadband space. (Mobile's starting to become a concern, but that's more a job for the competition lot, rather than state ownership.) My thinking on these things is we should only be talking about state ownership for absolutely fundamental services (the bulk of the health service, for example) or where there is no effective competition (trains, water, possibly energy—but I'm not yet entirely convinced about that).

I think you're perhaps right regarding consensus, but I suppose it depends how much of a compromise is reached. Trains: there's really no argument there, because even 50% of Tory voters want them renationalised or in some kind of single-company trust. Defence, however, will be a much harder sell. (That said, it would be interesting if he shifts towards retaining funding, but being much more about peacekeeping, and twins that with binning Trident.)

[Dandontdare]

I have a nice metaphor that since Labour replaced them as the progressive party of government the Liberals have been like Zion in Matrix. They rise to a certain level but then become so big that they have to be destroyed back to their previously smaller level. Then the survivors spend 20 years rebuilding them back to a certain level only for them to be destroyed again.

That's the geekiest political metaphor I've ever seen - well done that man!

I've been musing on the Start Trek episode "The Corba(y)nite manoeuvre" which revolves around Kirk's use of bluff and lies to defeat an overwhelmingly powerful opponent - who then becomes a friend. Are there any lessons we can draw form this? (probably not, but it amused me  )

[Professor Bear]

I've been trying to figure out a metaphor using that same Trek episode, but possibly the time for using it was when Tony Blair was giving his dire warnings about electing Corbyn, as my reading of the episode is that his opponent is being led to believe that engaging Kirk will lead to total destruction - except it's all a bluff by a man who claims to represent the egalitarian ideals of utopia despite going around destabilising loads of ancient cultures that were doing just fine before a shipload of Americans came along and started blowing things up.

[Old Tankie]

Corbyn appoints convicted arsonist as education spokesman.  This is getting better and better.

[TordelBack]

I know, it's almost as if he doesn't care how things look in the scandal sheets. It's not terribly likely that Watson is going to go around burning down schools, is it? Maybe Corbyn selected him because he thought he'd do a good job, who knows - it's a novel idea, certainly.