It has been a little while since we’ve talked Labour despite there being plenty to talk about.
The leadership contest moves from strength to strength in terms of how farcical it has becoming. After all the attempts at shrinking the selectorate by last minute rule changes and purging, the latest strategy from the Labour Party seems to be administrative incompetence.
After checking my email every day, I eventually phoned them up to determine what was going on. I am apparently enfranchised. My ballot will be “re-issued” within seven days. I have no confidence that this will happen.
Meanwhile, there were hints of lycanthropy as JK Rowling went batshit on Twitter for a bit, going on a “THIS IS NOT A JOKE” don’t elect Corbyn rant.
Frankie Boyle summed her up best before she even made the comments.
I read that Owen Smith’s “you can have a second Brexit referendum” backfired spectacularly as a good deal of the northern labour membership voted for Brexit and don’t want it.
I read that Owen Smith’s “you can have a second Brexit referendum” backfired spectacularly as a good deal of the northern labour membership voted for Brexit and don’t want it.
In many respects, he’s the personification of many of the worst aspects of New Labour.
“We know what’s best for you. We are right”
It is what has been losing the Party voters since 2005, and they still haven’t fucking learned.
I received mine at the beginning of last week. Had a text from both sides and a call from Corbyn’s team(better service for the £25 lot). Money talks, although it feels like i’m dealing with tories(it’s a very dirty feeling).
They’ve probably looked at your twatter account Pap. That’ll be you banned if they have.
The problem for Labour is that there has, for a long time now, been a direct conflict between the high-handed identity politics and globalism of the generally young and well-paid London elite, and the nitty-gritty concerns of its core support in the North.
Its interesting because with the advances in globalism and technology, inequality can only really increase - meaning that the economic capability of either tradespeople or the generally unskilled can only really decrease as much as their jobs being made more-or-less redundant (or being made much cheaper) boosts the conveniences of the well-off.
Deliveroo and Uber are two of the classic examples - but I can only see the situation getting more and more extreme as technology marches forward and the world becomes more globally connected. You can’t uninvent these things, so you basically have two options - push for a generous welfare state where people will be relatively comfortable even if they aren’t able to compete particularly succesfully in the modern job market, or push for greater protectionism to artificially increase the price of labour (and yes, even things like minimum wage laws, banning zero hours contracts and laws designed to protect unions fall into the latter category).
I’ve got a friend of mine who’s breathtakingly intelligent and very good company but slightly autistic. He’s a good guy but immeasurably frustrating to talk to as he just gives no thought nor care to the well-being *of* those people who make up the supply of cheap labour. He studied economics at university and is constantly insists that cheap labour is good because its competitive and makes for a stronger economy. He is of course, completely right, but gives nothing more than a shrug of the shoulders when I try and ask him how he would feel if he were a low-skilled worker (or rather, if his well-off parents didn’t support him - he’s probably had about 6 months of proper work since uni and quit his last job for no real reason).
He’s basically the personification of neoliberalism. There isn’t a trace of malice in what he’s saying, just comlete and total indifference beyond the tenets and doctrines of economics.
So what ought we to do? Its a bit of a Hobsons choice.
I received mine at the beginning of last week. Had a text from both sides and a call from Corbyn’s team(better service for the £25 lot). Money talks, although it feels like i’m dealing with tories(it’s a very dirty feeling).
They’ve probably looked at your twatter account Pap. That’ll be you banned if they have.
I’ve mixed confrontation with careful on Twitter. More than anything else, there’s the issue of working with people after the current storm has passed, if that’s even possible.
I even wrote an article, linked to my Twitter, which said that I might end up being a victim of the purge.
However, I’ve also defended Tom Watson and had a go at his attackers when they knocked the man for his weight. Needless. There’s plenty he’s done you can be critical of.
I have to be quite sensible on Twitter, but it still doesn’t prevent me from being followed by some right fucking loons.
This week I’ve been followed by a couple of random marketing companies from Malaysia, a woman with few clothes, an odd name and three followers - and some barber-dodging weirdo who loves Boris.
I think people have finally got it into their heads that when you Tweet, you’re having a conversation with the entire world. My personal feed has evolved massively since 2009. Back then, pretty much all my followers were people I’d worked with, or the sort of people deep into Twitter culture. The Follow Friday crowd. Zero in common with most of them, apart from the fact we tweeted.
I split off my technical and professional rantings, and for a time, did political stuff on a separate account too. Before Sotonians started, it was the outlet for all my images. Afterward, all the footy related stuff went out on Sotonians, while political memes stayed with my main.
I don’t generally hide online. I only VPN to pretend to be somewhere else, used TOR for about five minutes before realising that the endpoints were just as dangerous as the open net. My view is that if someone really wants to know who you are, and they’ve got admin rights, they’ll find you, even if it takes a court order.
Upsides and downsides. On the upside, people take you more seriously if you’re tweetring under your own name. On the downside, you’ve got to moderate yourself. You’re having a conversation with the entire world, even if it seems like a beef between two Tweeps.
Only mentioned it because there was talk of the party doing keyword searches(is that the correct term?) on members. They banned the head of the baker’s union, with no real explanation except that it had something to do with Twitter comments.
Oh, don’t get me wrong - I was half-expecting to lose my vote.
They purged someone for retweeting a Green Party tweet, yet you’ve got Owen Smith out there saying Labour needs to win two million voters from other parties.
They purged another for saying “she fucking loved the Foo Fighters”. Are they purging because she swore or because of some ideological incompatibility with Dave Grohl?
It looks utterly fucking ridiculous and you can be sure that the Tories will be firing this at them over the benches.
This is why I’ve got one eye on a potential split. If for argument’s sake, you take that as read, everything makes sense. They’re smashing the place on the way out.
It does look like that could be what’s happening, but i just don’t see who they would represent? No chance of taking the tory vote, very little of the Labour vote will follow them, so join up with the Libs or ukip, because alone they only represent a failed past.
They’ll stay and disrupt as much as possible, until they achieve their goals. Determined little fuckers, is the nicest thing i can say about them.
It does look like that could be what’s happening, but i just don’t see who they would represent? No chance of taking the tory vote, very little of the Labour vote will follow them, so join up with the Libs or ukip, because alone they only represent a failed past.
They’ll stay and disrupt as much as possible, until they achieve their goals. Determined little fuckers, is the nicest thing i can say about them.
Same people they used to before Blair and co got involved. Ed Miliband focused on the squeezed middle. Labour needs to focus on the squeezed multitude. The last six years haven’t been easy for most. Even those that do find themselves with a bit extra end up spending it on those who have lost out.
The country is running massive levels of personal debt. One of the biggest cheers that went up during Corbyn’s Liverpool rally was after he spoke about the debt that people were carrying.
Left and right are already close to meaningless for political geeks. Gaining power is about moving the disaffected to your cause. The Conservative program of cuts has touched almost everybody, and even if you happen to be a pensioner residing in a relatively ring fenced area of spending policy, you could still have grave concerns about how your descendants.
Labour wins by appealing to them, not chasing the ephemeral wishes of C2 voters.
EDIT : Just to add to the point, Ramsgate, Kent - nowish
This headline got me interested. Thought for a moment a real live, right wing Labour MP* was going to phone me.
Alas, it’s not to be. I’m not a member, just a 25 quidder. Do they honestly think, because i paid more i think like a tory, so they don’t need to bother?
Any members that haven’t voted, can i suggest you hold fire and see who phones you.
* Right wing Labour MP? How the fuck does that work? Surely a contradiction.
Interesting picture. That whole area, Margate/Ramsgate/Dover is pretty run down and large amounts immigrants. So does that mean Corbyn is attracting some of the people that would have normally been Labourer supporter but deserted the party, back from ukip or whatever they chose instead.
Personal debt is one of those things that is a hot topic. It all depends on how that personal debt is attained. Is it through genuine hardship, or through people deciding an iPhone, Sky TV and Air Max’s are worth building up a personal debt for. The reason I say is because in the mid 00’s that was a choice I made, and ended up with a large, high interest debt to maintain.
Personal debt is where I can drift off to the right a little - if you want a huge telly and a car even though you clearly can’t afford them, don’t come to me looking for sympathy when the credit card company asks for their money.
But if you have lost your job and your home and you can’t feed the kids, you are genuinely in need and the state has to help - and other people should care about your welfare.
It is sometimes difficult to see where the line is between those two cases, and that is presumably why the Conservative party doesn’t have a line.
Think it’s probably a bit of both Cherts. No one should have to go into debt because of constant bad political policy. Then you have the constant demands that consumerism places on people. Mental how as a nation we have been led to believe debt is good. Tory madness.
On a happier note, Harry Potter is backing Corbyn. He now has the world’s most famous wizard on side. Bet you’re considering voting for him now
If through genuine hardship then I am all for clearing personal debt, but as you say it’s where you draw the line. With the price of many consumables so low nowadays (just look at the price of clothing in Primani/H&M etc) then buying a lot of items nowadays is purely a vanity project.
A vanity project that people are pressured to be part of from the cradle. It is madness, but you can’t ignore the pressure people are put under. A lot of these people don’t even understand the risks involved in debt. Most people are either owned by their bank or credit card company. Modern capitalism is just willing slavery.
