I totally agree. I feel like I am banging my head against a brick wall trying to educate people that we have two parties that are inherently the same and that we need to find someone else to support. Unfortunately, the way our voting system works favours the two main parties so unless we do something drastic, I don't see a way to rid ourselves of these disgusting parasites or change the direction of the country. We are never going to get PR with the Tories and Labour around. It's time the majority of the voting public actually voted for other parties just to show them that we don't like their policies and are happy to give others a try. If everyone did that we might just have a chance for change.
And what will "showing them" achieve? The Populous did that with Brexit (whether you agreed with the policy or not)... "They" know, and don't care... The magic money tree thrives in their gardens, and your blood sweat tears (mortgages and energy bills) feeds the ever hunger roots.
It's just how "They" want it to be...
You wanna' get wealthy? Join the big con, become a blue labour hack and slap a few backs, sell your soul for the good life...
AAV what is your opinion on the new Transform party just launched? You always seem to ignore things like that. If Labour is beyond hope then what are we supposed to do?
If it's just another sky blue and pink centre right party like other labour spin offs during the corbyneester years... It will fail... If it's another "angry lurching right party' like Brexit, then it will have some temporary popularity.
I agree with all that you say apart from one thing I take issue with. Austerity isn’t “economically illiterate”. They know very well what they’re doing and what the consequences will be. Austerity is deliberate economic oppression.
Apart from that little quibble you’re bang on the nail about Starmer and co. The thing is, it’s not even working for them. In the 15 by-elections Labour has contested since the last GE, only one candidate has managed to attract more votes than their counterpart in 2019 (in Selby) In every other constituency voter numbers for Labour have been way down on what they were in the “unelectable” Jeremy Corbyn’s supposed “electoral disaster”. I can foresee Starmer doing for the Labour Party next year what Nick Clegg did for the LibDems in 2015. Yes we’re probably going to end up with another Tory government, but we might finally be able to dispel the nonsense that Labour can only win with right wing policies and take our party back.
Sadly that’s true, but I won’t be voting for either, and I predict another Tory government. If you like Tory policies you’ll vote Tory, and not for some half-arsed tribute act. And if you don’t like Tory policies, like probably everyone on this thread, you won’t vote for either.
I don’t understand Starmer’s thinking. Many of the pledges he’s now reneged on were hugely popular across the political spectrum. The idea of renationalising the railways consistently polled more than 80% approval ratings.
I agree... And I would never vote blue labour... But why Starma? I think he believes he's a shoe-in for the job. And as I said, he doesn't give a gnats pi*s for the working class... He wants the US corporate lecture circuit... The "deals" on offer to those "in the know" about how the system truly works.
He's a lawyer, with expert knowledge of "winging the legislation" and a good team of spads (remember his latest recruit) to spin the policies, and no doubt a whole lifetime's worth of ambitious ideas to offer the corporates...
I suspect he never truly believed in them to begin with. If his career aim, is to follow Blair et al. into the US conference circuit and pile in the
cash for retirement... Then it makes sense to dump all the socialist policies and start cozying up to the corporate agenda.
Why not, he's slathering at the bit over the prospect of a landslide.
People don't vote new governments in, they vote tired governments out... When they're so sick of them, even a copycat party wearing a different coloured jacket, is the only way to express dissatisfaction.
That doesn't mean we can't birth another. The generation coming up is on our side; and they've come to it without being "led". Why else do you think so much of the establishment is in such terror and dread of them? Republicans are frantically trying to borrow time by trying to raise the voting age from 18 to 25. It won't work, but it shows their fear very clearly. They and the center-right Democrats know that they can't win these kids over, or deject them away from politics forever. We'd be absolute idiots not to hear the young out, and back them when their wave begins to roll.
If it's another centrist "no trust" corporate sponsored party like "Change" it will die quickly with barely a squeak, like a liberal democrat in a Tory coalition head lock.
Gen-Z don't listen to anybody except gen-z, why should they, the can make a million with a mobile phone and so can the new follow-up gen-z+.
Gen-Z+ do politics their own way... Without politicians and without voting... At least not through ballot boxes. They have the corporates drooling because the corporates have not thought their way out of "cool and down with the kids, we're hip" mentality.
Just look at how gen-z redefined the new pseudo-liberal fascistic agenda with snowflake no-platform ideology, a world view that society en mass have not had the privilege to vote for or against.
Gen-Z don't need politics, they don't need rules they haven't "virtually" collaborated with to enforce, and they don't need any of us either...
Except to wash their clothes, feed them and give a roof over their heads until they reach 50.
Interesting opinion, I like old tropes, old tropes are tried and tested... Like medieval marginalia was the blogosphere of it's day... But I don't quite understand your point.
Whom is strong/weak? Whom is the enemy? And, why is your statement an old trope?
It doesn't sound like any kind of trope to me. Rather, it is a complete misunderstanding of Sun Tzu.
If so, I would recommend going back to "The Art of War" and studying it further.
It's a description of the common tactic authoritarian right movements use to demonize and target anyone who they suspect is in their way on their path to power.
Your attempt at intricate semantic pettifoggery to obfuscate that is telling.
Don't count on Labour landslide yet. As usual the actual numbers are far more interesting than the percentages, especially as to guess what will happen in a an election that matters to voters, where they vote their interests rather than their peeves:
* Like in previous by-elections, Con voters protested by abstaining more than than usual for a by-election.
* Like in some by-elections New Labour voters protested by tactically voting for the LibDems or the Greens, and vice-versa in Somerton.
Particular notes:
* In Somerton the Con vote went from 36k to 10k and the combined NL+LD vote from 25k to 22k, almost all LD, looks good for LD, but not that good.
* In Selby the Con vote went from 23k to 12k and the combined NL+LD vote from 19k to 18k. Here New Labour did fairly well, because while the difference between 2019's 14k and 2023's 16k could be almost entirely from the fall in LD votes from 5k to 1k, we have to take into account lower turnout, so it looks like NL actually gained some voters.
* In Uxbridge given the substantial lack of significant third party ("protest vote") alternatives, both the Con and NL votes were affected by low turnout, from 25K to 14k for Con and 17k to 13k for NL and LD from 3k to near zero. Showing that even if some LD voters "protested" by voting NL, there is little enthusiam for NL among voters and likely no significant switch of "soft kipper" voters from Con to NL.
If inflation and nominal interest rates fall enough in late 2024 by the next election and property prices resume booming it will be very difficult for NL and Starmer to win a national election by default on a "we are like the Conservatives but not the Conservatives" appeal to the protest vote.
Actually inflation, in the proper sense of rise in the cost of living, is always and only a political phenomenon, to achieve some form of redistribution, and so it is nowadays in the UK:
* UK inflation (and that in some other countries) is much higher than in many other countries, and some don't have inflation. Curious!
* UK inflation is supposed by the Bank of England to fall under 2% by the beginning of 2025. It's a plan!
* The BoE is keeping real interest rates way negative, at around 5% for the base rate and 6% for mortgages, while the RPI is at 12-14% (and the cost of living for many is rising rather faster).
a very important goal, to help UK wage earners become "more competitive", which can be achieved in 3 ways:
#1 "external devaluation": a fall in the exchange rate and real wages become become "more competitive" in "strong currencies".
#2 "internal devaluation": a recession with much unemployment results in wage cuts, especially for those hired from unemployment, who are desperate to get a job, and wages become "more competitive" in the local currency.
#3 "internal inflation": most prices, except wages, increase, and wages become "more comepetive" in terms of purchasing power.
That real interest rates are way negative is the obvious sign that #3 is the policy choice of government and BoE.
Thorough... 👌... And I'm sure by the info you know elections are won and lost by capturing floating ballots. The way to make it work the way you hope, is to unify those ballots behind you... ie move to the centre and offer them something... It's what has been happening... And for many who have nothing to but there own shattered dreams... It doesn't work.
Actually Tom,I think you'll find we know all that already. Surely what is needed is less talk and more action, and yes I would do something of the sort myself were I not in my mid seventies and suffering from osteo arthritis.
They can, they do and will continue to do... While there is no working class... We have "aspiring" middle classes, powerless subsistence wage slaves, and the dispossessed underclass... Unite them and you win... Good luck with that 🤣
The Westminster Regime's connection with the fossil fuel cartels isn't new. Theresa May, Liz Truss and it would not surprise me if many others, have strong links. What is surprising is how little focus there has been from the corporate media.
Would it take super prophetic powers to predict that such connections will not some day mature into lucrative pension schemes?
Why bother to spend millions lobbying government in the hope of getting the policies you want, if you can stand your lobbyist up for parliament?
Corporate cartels are not interested in the good of the nation and it's people, at least it isn't top on their agenda. Profit first, share holder dividends, executive bonuses… the good of the nation, if it is listed at all, appears way down on the manefesto.
Neither does party affiliation matter any more. Many Unions broke the link with Blair just as many corporates helped shape New Labour.
The stranglehold of corporate interests over global politics has been a long term investment, as such it has no allegiances to short term party politics. They have tentacles feeding from the whole pie.
Any who have followed the politics of the US in recent years should have their Worst conspiratorial nightmares realised. The Uniparty, media collusion with spin, a rigged agenda, corruption in Washington profiting from the industrial military complex and energy markets… and of course, the character assassinations of any who try to show how far down the rabbit hole goes.
Why should we believe that the UK is any different, when a new ambitious head of state meets with another steeped in bribery allegations. There was much emphasis in the British Media Conglomerate (and an uncritical consensus) that “only environmental issues were discussed”… why the emphasis? Are we truly to believe the Black Spider and the Devil from Delaware, had no “security matters” to sip tea over?
Wave goodbye to the NHS, food safety standards and any hope of the Ukraine War ending any time soon. No doubt many corporate bigwigs who do not currently possess the American Thrown, have secret offers on the palace table… 10% for the big guy, anybody?
It is evident to all paying energy bills, who must bleed dry of their savings and future securities and pay extortionate largesse to energy investors, that “it doesn't have to be this way” and equally evident that blue-tory-blue-labour can never be a system for change.
The only hunger I can see behind Starma's cold power-grubbimg eyes, is the glimmer of corporate gold. And a willingness to run after Blair, Brown, Mandelsson and the Millibands… like a puppy following doggie chocs.
We have all been no platformed, stitched up and sold down river, for a kipper..
Labour have become Tories we need a new party so those of us who left labour have somewhere to go
They're trying to do that right now, with the new Transform party
https://transformpolitics.uk/
I totally agree. I feel like I am banging my head against a brick wall trying to educate people that we have two parties that are inherently the same and that we need to find someone else to support. Unfortunately, the way our voting system works favours the two main parties so unless we do something drastic, I don't see a way to rid ourselves of these disgusting parasites or change the direction of the country. We are never going to get PR with the Tories and Labour around. It's time the majority of the voting public actually voted for other parties just to show them that we don't like their policies and are happy to give others a try. If everyone did that we might just have a chance for change.
Not two main parties... A Westminster Uniparty... The rest is just window dressing.
And what will "showing them" achieve? The Populous did that with Brexit (whether you agreed with the policy or not)... "They" know, and don't care... The magic money tree thrives in their gardens, and your blood sweat tears (mortgages and energy bills) feeds the ever hunger roots.
It's just how "They" want it to be...
You wanna' get wealthy? Join the big con, become a blue labour hack and slap a few backs, sell your soul for the good life...
Depressing isn't it?
🤣
AAV what is your opinion on the new Transform party just launched? You always seem to ignore things like that. If Labour is beyond hope then what are we supposed to do?
If it's just another sky blue and pink centre right party like other labour spin offs during the corbyneester years... It will fail... If it's another "angry lurching right party' like Brexit, then it will have some temporary popularity.
Spot on. A choice between Tories and a Tory tribute act isn’t a choice and the lesser of two evils is still evil.
Tories in Red Dresses... A cue for a song 🎤🤣
I agree with all that you say apart from one thing I take issue with. Austerity isn’t “economically illiterate”. They know very well what they’re doing and what the consequences will be. Austerity is deliberate economic oppression.
Apart from that little quibble you’re bang on the nail about Starmer and co. The thing is, it’s not even working for them. In the 15 by-elections Labour has contested since the last GE, only one candidate has managed to attract more votes than their counterpart in 2019 (in Selby) In every other constituency voter numbers for Labour have been way down on what they were in the “unelectable” Jeremy Corbyn’s supposed “electoral disaster”. I can foresee Starmer doing for the Labour Party next year what Nick Clegg did for the LibDems in 2015. Yes we’re probably going to end up with another Tory government, but we might finally be able to dispel the nonsense that Labour can only win with right wing policies and take our party back.
You will get neither, you will get a "corporate lead" government, whichever way you vote.
Sadly that’s true, but I won’t be voting for either, and I predict another Tory government. If you like Tory policies you’ll vote Tory, and not for some half-arsed tribute act. And if you don’t like Tory policies, like probably everyone on this thread, you won’t vote for either.
I don’t understand Starmer’s thinking. Many of the pledges he’s now reneged on were hugely popular across the political spectrum. The idea of renationalising the railways consistently polled more than 80% approval ratings.
What is it I’m not understanding here?
I agree... And I would never vote blue labour... But why Starma? I think he believes he's a shoe-in for the job. And as I said, he doesn't give a gnats pi*s for the working class... He wants the US corporate lecture circuit... The "deals" on offer to those "in the know" about how the system truly works.
He's a lawyer, with expert knowledge of "winging the legislation" and a good team of spads (remember his latest recruit) to spin the policies, and no doubt a whole lifetime's worth of ambitious ideas to offer the corporates...
Just more of the same global governance.
That's my take on it!
I suspect he never truly believed in them to begin with. If his career aim, is to follow Blair et al. into the US conference circuit and pile in the
cash for retirement... Then it makes sense to dump all the socialist policies and start cozying up to the corporate agenda.
Why not, he's slathering at the bit over the prospect of a landslide.
People don't vote new governments in, they vote tired governments out... When they're so sick of them, even a copycat party wearing a different coloured jacket, is the only way to express dissatisfaction.
The same old, same old.
More tofu burgers, anyone?
😁
But I agree with your premises, the system is basically rigged in favour of "families" not social prosperity.
Absolutely agree with you. That’s why I left the ‘Tory-lite’ party… no socialism left in their party.
Haven't you heard? Blair/Cameron rebranded socialism... Into "caring" capitalism 😆
Sounds just like America. Maybe the left on both sides of the Atlantic should collaborate on forming left parties in both countries.
The only left party in US died along with the hopes of Bernie Saunders... The mobsters own America.
That doesn't mean we can't birth another. The generation coming up is on our side; and they've come to it without being "led". Why else do you think so much of the establishment is in such terror and dread of them? Republicans are frantically trying to borrow time by trying to raise the voting age from 18 to 25. It won't work, but it shows their fear very clearly. They and the center-right Democrats know that they can't win these kids over, or deject them away from politics forever. We'd be absolute idiots not to hear the young out, and back them when their wave begins to roll.
If it's another centrist "no trust" corporate sponsored party like "Change" it will die quickly with barely a squeak, like a liberal democrat in a Tory coalition head lock.
Gen-Z don't listen to anybody except gen-z, why should they, the can make a million with a mobile phone and so can the new follow-up gen-z+.
Gen-Z+ do politics their own way... Without politicians and without voting... At least not through ballot boxes. They have the corporates drooling because the corporates have not thought their way out of "cool and down with the kids, we're hip" mentality.
Just look at how gen-z redefined the new pseudo-liberal fascistic agenda with snowflake no-platform ideology, a world view that society en mass have not had the privilege to vote for or against.
Gen-Z don't need politics, they don't need rules they haven't "virtually" collaborated with to enforce, and they don't need any of us either...
Except to wash their clothes, feed them and give a roof over their heads until they reach 50.
Ah yes, the old trope of "the enemy is terribly weak; but also somehow very strong".
Wonder where you got that old chestnut from...
Interesting opinion, I like old tropes, old tropes are tried and tested... Like medieval marginalia was the blogosphere of it's day... But I don't quite understand your point.
Whom is strong/weak? Whom is the enemy? And, why is your statement an old trope?
It doesn't sound like any kind of trope to me. Rather, it is a complete misunderstanding of Sun Tzu.
If so, I would recommend going back to "The Art of War" and studying it further.
Bzzzt. Wrong.
It ain't Sun Tzu.
It's a description of the common tactic authoritarian right movements use to demonize and target anyone who they suspect is in their way on their path to power.
Your attempt at intricate semantic pettifoggery to obfuscate that is telling.
Without being led? Come on, really?
🤣
Don't count on Labour landslide yet. As usual the actual numbers are far more interesting than the percentages, especially as to guess what will happen in a an election that matters to voters, where they vote their interests rather than their peeves:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerton_and_Frome_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
2001: 52,684/69.3%: Con 22,315, NLab 6,113, LD 22,983, UKI 919
2005: 54,102/70.7%: Con 22,947, NLab 5,865, LD 23,759, UKI 1,047
2010: 60,612/74.3%: Con 26,976, NLab 2,675, LD 28,793, UKI 1,932
2015: 60,309/72.2%: Con 31,960, NLab 4,419, LD 11,692, UKI 6,439
2017: 63,892/75.8%: Con 36,231, Lab 10,998, LD 13,325
2019: 64,896/75.6%: Con 36,230, Lab 8,354, LD 17,017, RUK 0, GRN 3,295
2023: 38,788/44.2%: Con 10,179, NLab 1,009, LD 21,187, RUK 1,303, GRN 3,944
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selby_and_Ainsty_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
2010: 51,728/71.1%: Con 25,562, NLab 13,297, LD 9,180, UKI 1,635, BNP 1,377
2015: 52,804/69.4%: Con 27,725, NLab 14,168, LD 1,920, UKI 7,389, GRN 1,465
2017: 56,222/74.1%: Con 32,921, Lab 19,149, LD 2,293, UKI 1,713
2019: 56,418/71,7%: Con 22,995, Lab 13,858, LD 4,842, RUK 0, GRN 1,823
2023: 35,886/44.8%: Con 12,295, NLab 16,456, LD 1,188, RUK 1,332, GRN 1,838
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uxbridge_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
2010: 45,076/63.3%: Con 21,748, NLab 10,542, LD 8,995, UKI 1,234, BNP 1,396
2015: 44,811/63.4%: Con 22,511, NLab 11,816, LD 2,215, UKI 6,346, GRN 1,414
2017: 46,694/66.8%: Con 23,176, Lab 18,862, LD 1,835, UKI 1,577, GRN 884
2019: 48,187/68.5%: Con 25,531, Lab 18,141, LD 3,026, UKI 283, GRN 1,090
2023: 31,000/46.23: Con 13,965, NLab 13,470, LD 526, REC 714, GRN 893
A protest vote in all three:
* Like in previous by-elections, Con voters protested by abstaining more than than usual for a by-election.
* Like in some by-elections New Labour voters protested by tactically voting for the LibDems or the Greens, and vice-versa in Somerton.
Particular notes:
* In Somerton the Con vote went from 36k to 10k and the combined NL+LD vote from 25k to 22k, almost all LD, looks good for LD, but not that good.
* In Selby the Con vote went from 23k to 12k and the combined NL+LD vote from 19k to 18k. Here New Labour did fairly well, because while the difference between 2019's 14k and 2023's 16k could be almost entirely from the fall in LD votes from 5k to 1k, we have to take into account lower turnout, so it looks like NL actually gained some voters.
* In Uxbridge given the substantial lack of significant third party ("protest vote") alternatives, both the Con and NL votes were affected by low turnout, from 25K to 14k for Con and 17k to 13k for NL and LD from 3k to near zero. Showing that even if some LD voters "protested" by voting NL, there is little enthusiam for NL among voters and likely no significant switch of "soft kipper" voters from Con to NL.
If inflation and nominal interest rates fall enough in late 2024 by the next election and property prices resume booming it will be very difficult for NL and Starmer to win a national election by default on a "we are like the Conservatives but not the Conservatives" appeal to the protest vote.
Actually inflation, in the proper sense of rise in the cost of living, is always and only a political phenomenon, to achieve some form of redistribution, and so it is nowadays in the UK:
* UK inflation (and that in some other countries) is much higher than in many other countries, and some don't have inflation. Curious!
* UK inflation is supposed by the Bank of England to fall under 2% by the beginning of 2025. It's a plan!
* The BoE is keeping real interest rates way negative, at around 5% for the base rate and 6% for mortgages, while the RPI is at 12-14% (and the cost of living for many is rising rather faster).
a very important goal, to help UK wage earners become "more competitive", which can be achieved in 3 ways:
#1 "external devaluation": a fall in the exchange rate and real wages become become "more competitive" in "strong currencies".
#2 "internal devaluation": a recession with much unemployment results in wage cuts, especially for those hired from unemployment, who are desperate to get a job, and wages become "more competitive" in the local currency.
#3 "internal inflation": most prices, except wages, increase, and wages become "more comepetive" in terms of purchasing power.
That real interest rates are way negative is the obvious sign that #3 is the policy choice of government and BoE.
Thorough... 👌... And I'm sure by the info you know elections are won and lost by capturing floating ballots. The way to make it work the way you hope, is to unify those ballots behind you... ie move to the centre and offer them something... It's what has been happening... And for many who have nothing to but there own shattered dreams... It doesn't work.
And if you think that's bad just take a look at how well Welsh Labour are quietly going about destroying the very fabric of Society in Wales!
And the corporates, investors, money lenders, how well are they doing? Oh the smoke and mirrors... I've never seen a penniless MP.
yes, they think they can win votes without the working class
Actually Tom,I think you'll find we know all that already. Surely what is needed is less talk and more action, and yes I would do something of the sort myself were I not in my mid seventies and suffering from osteo arthritis.
You are doing something, the most important thing of all... Speaking Out... Bless You 🤗♥️
They can, they do and will continue to do... While there is no working class... We have "aspiring" middle classes, powerless subsistence wage slaves, and the dispossessed underclass... Unite them and you win... Good luck with that 🤣
The Westminster Regime's connection with the fossil fuel cartels isn't new. Theresa May, Liz Truss and it would not surprise me if many others, have strong links. What is surprising is how little focus there has been from the corporate media.
Would it take super prophetic powers to predict that such connections will not some day mature into lucrative pension schemes?
Why bother to spend millions lobbying government in the hope of getting the policies you want, if you can stand your lobbyist up for parliament?
Corporate cartels are not interested in the good of the nation and it's people, at least it isn't top on their agenda. Profit first, share holder dividends, executive bonuses… the good of the nation, if it is listed at all, appears way down on the manefesto.
Neither does party affiliation matter any more. Many Unions broke the link with Blair just as many corporates helped shape New Labour.
The stranglehold of corporate interests over global politics has been a long term investment, as such it has no allegiances to short term party politics. They have tentacles feeding from the whole pie.
Any who have followed the politics of the US in recent years should have their Worst conspiratorial nightmares realised. The Uniparty, media collusion with spin, a rigged agenda, corruption in Washington profiting from the industrial military complex and energy markets… and of course, the character assassinations of any who try to show how far down the rabbit hole goes.
Why should we believe that the UK is any different, when a new ambitious head of state meets with another steeped in bribery allegations. There was much emphasis in the British Media Conglomerate (and an uncritical consensus) that “only environmental issues were discussed”… why the emphasis? Are we truly to believe the Black Spider and the Devil from Delaware, had no “security matters” to sip tea over?
Wave goodbye to the NHS, food safety standards and any hope of the Ukraine War ending any time soon. No doubt many corporate bigwigs who do not currently possess the American Thrown, have secret offers on the palace table… 10% for the big guy, anybody?
It is evident to all paying energy bills, who must bleed dry of their savings and future securities and pay extortionate largesse to energy investors, that “it doesn't have to be this way” and equally evident that blue-tory-blue-labour can never be a system for change.
The only hunger I can see behind Starma's cold power-grubbimg eyes, is the glimmer of corporate gold. And a willingness to run after Blair, Brown, Mandelsson and the Millibands… like a puppy following doggie chocs.
We have all been no platformed, stitched up and sold down river, for a kipper..
Welcome to The New World.
PS, I'm not always so pessimistic 🤣