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UK Politics: Spaffed up the wall while chuntering from a sedentary position


Chaircat Meow

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34 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

People hate Corbyn more than any politician in my lifetime. The stubborn fucker needs to fall on his sword for the good of the country. 

Too late for that I'm afraid. At least for this election. Even the NZ Labour party had more time to get the country all excited about Jacinda in 2017, and still failed to be the biggest party in parliament, with MMP.

My other speculative musing is that with nationalistic attitudes rising, this is also pushing people's voting choices to the right because left-leaning parties are tending towards having a favourable attitude to international institutions and agreements while still being skeptical of globalisation. But like with almost all political discourse, it's proving impossible to seperate "internationalism" from globalisation in the minds of voters. So in a nationalistic mood swing conservatives seem to be winning on the rhetoric.

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32 minutes ago, Werthead said:

This isn't, though. There's been very long-running political-economic arguments in the UK over things like health and the economy which Brexit has thrown into sharper relief, but most of the American culture war issues (gay rights, abortion, guns, climate change scepticism) are totally non-existent as issues here, outside of very small lunatic fringes.

It's not a culture war along guns and abortion lines, but it is still a culture war along the lines of social values, where Leave and Remain are basically stand-ins for other things (immigration, crime, environment, internationalism, etc). Economics is now less important - in 2017, Corbyn (unintentionally, and probably against his will) achieved a much more middle-class Labour vote than Tony Blair ever did.

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11 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

It's not a culture war along guns and abortion lines, but it is still a culture war along the lines of social values, where Leave and Remain are basically stand-ins for other things (immigration, crime, environment, internationalism, etc). Economics is now less important - in 2017, Corbyn (unintentionally, and probably against his will) achieved a much more middle-class Labour vote than Tony Blair ever did.

A lot of people see Brexit as a conflict between good and evil.

But, you're right - up to a certain point.  There are Remain Conservatives who fear Corbyn so much they will stick with the Tories.  And Leave Labour who are simply never going to vote Conservatives.

My guess is that if the Conservatives poll 40 per cent plus, then a lead of 4% or so will deliver a tiny Conservative lead.

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59 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

People hate Corbyn more than any politician in my lifetime. The stubborn fucker needs to fall on his sword for the good of the country. 

From his POV, there is no need to do so. He's won every personal election he stood in by substantial and increased majorities (which makes a mockery of the "he can't win elections" spiel). Him standing down to appease the Daily Mail and its readers who believe any old horseshit as long as you repeat it enough times would be anathema to his principles.

That said, I'm reasonably certain if he fails to win this time, he will stand down on the grounds of simple age. Seeing how the internal realignment of the Labour Party works at that point will be interesting. The problem is that if the infighting is bitter and goes on for long enough, it may cause problems for them in the 2024 election (sponsored by Gazprom, the new owners of the NHS) even after whatever Tory fuckwittery unfolds over the next four years.

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Amusing scenes from Channel 4 tonight where Michael Gove turned up at the leader's climate change debate and insisted he be allowed to take part. When he was refused, he walked off saying the other leaders were "too scared to debate a Conservative" on climate change. Some people gently letting Michael know that it was more down to him not being and never having been leader of the Conservative Party, a fact he really should be acutely aware of.

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56 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

My other speculative musing is that with nationalistic attitudes rising, this is also pushing people's voting choices to the right because left-leaning parties are tending towards having a favourable attitude to international institutions and agreements while still being skeptical of globalisation. But like with almost all political discourse, it's proving impossible to seperate "internationalism" from globalisation in the minds of voters. So in a nationalistic mood swing conservatives seem to be winning on the rhetoric.

I think you also need to take the capitulation of much of the media to right wing pressure as having more of an impact. When the national broadcaster spends this long telling people that the opposition leader is unpalatable it has an impact over time. And this isn't a problem specific to the UK, formerly trustworthy media (public or otherwise) has been decidedly skewed for the last few years and the perceptions of a lot of people, particularly older people still entirely reliant on these institutions for the truth, have not caught up with that change yet.

And when that older demographic does start to look online for news they go to Facebook and things are even worse there.

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2 minutes ago, karaddin said:

I think you also need to take the capitulation of much of the media to right wing pressure as having more of an impact. When the national broadcaster spends this long telling people that the opposition leader is unpalatable it has an impact over time.

As much as I'm sympathetic to Corbyn, the media were hostile to Foot, Kinnock, Brown, and Milliband too. Barring Tony Blair, pretty much every British Labour leader for four decades has faced a press that was out to get them - it's part of the job description. We all know Blair's solution, and I'm not suggesting the re-adoption of that, but at least planning on how to deal with the problem would not have gone amiss.

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9 hours ago, Werthead said:

Few people are as great an example as Raab - except maybe Grayling - at how you can fail upwards, be completely useless at every job you were ever given, be terrible in public speaking, and still end up getting promoted.

Speaking of Raab there's been some new constituency polling of some of the more rabidly pro-Brexit Tories which shows his lead has been cut to under 5%, IDS's lead is also under 5%. I don't think that would be reason for them to panic yet but it suggests those seats are competitive if their opponents can make further inroads. Sadly less competitive are Boris and John Redwood who have 15% leads. Some good news is that Zac Goldsmith seems doomed since he is over 20% behind his opponent.

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3 hours ago, karaddin said:

I think you also need to take the capitulation of much of the media to right wing pressure as having more of an impact. When the national broadcaster spends this long telling people that the opposition leader is unpalatable it has an impact over time. And this isn't a problem specific to the UK, formerly trustworthy media (public or otherwise) has been decidedly skewed for the last few years and the perceptions of a lot of people, particularly older people still entirely reliant on these institutions for the truth, have not caught up with that change yet.

And when that older demographic does start to look online for news they go to Facebook and things are even worse there.

I think it's been a concerted tactic by the right. They really do seem to have been much more strategic about lining things up in their favour, I guess because they know that if the plebs knew exactly what their motives were and who their policies are intended to benefit they'd never get votes from anyone earning less than $200,000 a year. The right jumps on any media criticism as left-wing media bias. So it keeps dragging the media to the right, or shuts them down from critical investigation. The left doesn't play that game, mostly relying on their policy appeal, which only works some of the time and a lot less than half of the time.

And it comes back to the money. The real left (not the centre as represented by the likes of Bloomberg (in the USA)) doesn't have a wealthy media magnate who can create an entire propaganda network pretending to be a news channel. I do assume that like a lot of profession who deal with or observe the casualties of inequality and prejudice on a daily basis, there is an overall left-ish lean among journalists. So the right isn't completely wrong to say that the MSM is not particularly sympathetic. But it's no where near as rampant as the right likes to make out.

The upshot is that the right has been managing the media for decades, while the left has not.

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7 hours ago, karaddin said:

I think you also need to take the capitulation of much of the media to right wing pressure as having more of an impact. When the national broadcaster spends this long telling people that the opposition leader is unpalatable it has an impact over time. And this isn't a problem specific to the UK, formerly trustworthy media (public or otherwise) has been decidedly skewed for the last few years and the perceptions of a lot of people, particularly older people still entirely reliant on these institutions for the truth, have not caught up with that change yet.

And when that older demographic does start to look online for news they go to Facebook and things are even worse there.

"The Conservative Party is threatening to review Channel 4’s public service broadcasting obligations after the broadcaster replaced Boris Johnson with an ice sculpture at Thursday night’s election debate.

In a dramatic escalation of the war of words between the Tories and Channel 4 that will likely provoke outcry, a Conservative source told BuzzFeed News that if they win the coming election they will reassess the channel’s public service broadcasting licence."

https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexwickham/boris-johnson-is-threatening-to-review-channel-4s

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Not a surprise. 

Is there anything more emblematic of the modern Conservative party than them turning up at the last minute, demanding the rules be changed to accommodate them and throwing a hissy fit, making threats and complaining of bias and persecution when people tell them 'no'? 

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Here's Johnson on the Andrew Neil interview:

Apparently it's not his responsibility to decide which interviews he does. Nothing to do with him. He's just a lowly functionary with no influence over these decisions. 

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10 hours ago, karaddin said:

I think you also need to take the capitulation of much of the media to right wing pressure as having more of an impact. When the national broadcaster spends this long telling people that the opposition leader is unpalatable it has an impact over time. And this isn't a problem specific to the UK, formerly trustworthy media (public or otherwise) has been decidedly skewed for the last few years and the perceptions of a lot of people, particularly older people still entirely reliant on these institutions for the truth, have not caught up with that change yet.

This, so much.

There are actually studies on how the media has shaped public perception of guys like Corbyn or Sanders.
It's not that they're ideal politicians in the first place, it's just that they don't get away with much compared to their conservative opponents.
One need only look at how Corbyn was slammed for things he supposedly tolerated versus things Johnson actually said.

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1 hour ago, Which Tyler said:

And yet, it's the one area of policy where they actually have a reasonable record to defend.

Like everyone else around the globe, their environmental record is appalling.  Not only that, their manifesto for this election was written by a freaking fracking lobbyist. No wonder Johnson was too scared to take part.

 

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Theresa May unveils a statue of Nancy Astor, who was happy to consider Hitler a potential solution to the "world problem of Jews." Presumably the BBC will soon be putting intense, ongoing pressure on Johnson to apologise for anti-semitism in the Conservative party.

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4 hours ago, Rippounet said:

This, so much.

There are actually studies on how the media has shaped public perception of guys like Corbyn or Sanders.
It's not that they're ideal politicians in the first place, it's just that they don't get away with much compared to their conservative opponents.
One need only look at how Corbyn was slammed for things he supposedly tolerated versus things Johnson actually said.

But Johnson comes out the front of his house offering journalists tea and pretending to be apologetic while playing the laughing buffoon and drags the journalists into laughing with him. Somehow his scandals can wind up benefiting him, he does have that in common with Trump.

Whatever issues people have with Corbyn shouldn't remotely compare to those with Johnson for anyone even close to the centre, but somehow Jezza is so terrifying that we just have to play it safe and stick with BoJo??

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