I can't really put in to words how devastating this is. I didn't expect Labour to win, but I didn't expect this either. Not even the worst polls predicted this. Exit polls are just polls too but...
I can't really put in to words how devastating this is. I didn't expect Labour to win, but I didn't expect this either. Not even the worst polls predicted this. Exit polls are just polls too but still. We are so, so fucked.
It's not just brexit, it's not just the NHS, it's not just the environment - it is almost everything the Tories stand for. By the time the next election rolls around the country will be unrecognisable. If we thought they were brutal and cruel in the last three parliaments things are going to be so much worse without the EU preventing the very worst of them. Bye bye human rights act, bye bye any sort of worker's protections, bye bye school funding, social services, libraries, food standards, healthcare and more.
If I could leave the country I would leave the country. I haven't felt at home here since 2010, really - 2016 more so and this really just cements that feeling. While many individuals are very lovely, overall these are just not my people. This is not my place. But there are months when it's all I can do to put food on the table, let alone gather the resources to move. So here I am. I hate it.
Good luck leaving, people in western societies everywhere are constantly voting in conservatives and have for years. It's a sad state of affairs that I hope one day changes.
Good luck leaving, people in western societies everywhere are constantly voting in conservatives and have for years. It's a sad state of affairs that I hope one day changes.
It's not just Western societies. India is tilting reactionary, China has fully transformed into an irredentist, fascist state. We've allowed finance capitalism and slick marketing to monetize and...
It's not just Western societies. India is tilting reactionary, China has fully transformed into an irredentist, fascist state.
We've allowed finance capitalism and slick marketing to monetize and devour the "social infrastructure" of liberal democracy. It was a matter of time before the structure on top of it started to founder.
Ireland is looking pretty good these days. While they were starting from a very conservative/religious place relatively recently, they've been getting pretty rapidly progressive this century....
Ireland is looking pretty good these days. While they were starting from a very conservative/religious place relatively recently, they've been getting pretty rapidly progressive this century. Their government is reasonably sane. Plus they speak English, they're part of the EU, they're convenient to get to, the people are friendly, the beer is good. Post-brexit, UK citizens will still have freedom of work/movement into Ireland. The only place we will. It's a bit rainy but that's OK.
Also there is a chance you have Irish heratiage. You'd probably have found out by now if you're considering leaving England but it's a good back up plan for those who can.
Also there is a chance you have Irish heratiage. You'd probably have found out by now if you're considering leaving England but it's a good back up plan for those who can.
A few years ago I would have answered "Canada" to that question... but Doug Ford's Conservatives winning the provincial elections in Ontario last year pretty much proves even us Canadians are not...
A few years ago I would have answered "Canada" to that question... but Doug Ford's Conservatives winning the provincial elections in Ontario last year pretty much proves even us Canadians are not immune to right-wing populist rhetoric these days either. :(
I don't think the last election resulted in a Conservative win so much as a Liberal loss. Ontarian elections have always been rather temperamental and, for some reason, everyone was convinced that...
I don't think the last election resulted in a Conservative win so much as a Liberal loss. Ontarian elections have always been rather temperamental and, for some reason, everyone was convinced that the Liberals should not have any power any more last time. That sentiment has quickly reversed, and the province sobered up real quick thanks to Ford's whirlwind disaster of a first year.
Alberta and Quebec though... that's a bit more of a Conservative win.
Taken alone, rather than as part of the UK, Scotland is looking pretty solid - their results in this election are an absolutely resounding mandate for the SNP in seats and the left overall in...
Taken alone, rather than as part of the UK, Scotland is looking pretty solid - their results in this election are an absolutely resounding mandate for the SNP in seats and the left overall in popular vote terms. It's muddied slightly by single-issue Scottish independence voters, but the party as a whole generally advocates for Scandinavian-style social democracy.
The question now is if, when, and how they'll manage independence.
[Edit] I misread a graph and thought that the SNP had over half the Scottish popular vote. They don't, but SNP/Labour combined comfortably do. I reworded slightly to reflect this.
Don't Spain and Portugal have socialist governments? I could easily check this... Yes it does seem those countries have quite left-wing or outright Socialist governments. Lovely places, too.
Don't Spain and Portugal have socialist governments? I could easily check this...
Yes it does seem those countries have quite left-wing or outright Socialist governments. Lovely places, too.
I'm quite depressed about it. The Tories have enough of a majority to do everything their evil hearts desire. My constituency (Aberconwy, Wales) was quite vocal about how much they hated our...
I can't really put in to words how devastating this is.
I'm quite depressed about it. The Tories have enough of a majority to do everything their evil hearts desire. My constituency (Aberconwy, Wales) was quite vocal about how much they hated our previous MP (Tory, Guto Bebb). But, they've voted in another Tory (Bebb decided not to stand again). Wales benefits hugely from EU funding, which is going to disappear when we leave the EU. And I doubt Westminster will fill that funding gap.
Seriously. This is baffling as an American. I mean, I know my country fucked up bad, but I would have expected other countries to learn from our mistake.
Seriously. This is baffling as an American. I mean, I know my country fucked up bad, but I would have expected other countries to learn from our mistake.
What happened was, while the electorate mostly didn't learn anything from the US (most people in the UK have little clue about US politics or even day to day life, also we have our own share of...
What happened was, while the electorate mostly didn't learn anything from the US (most people in the UK have little clue about US politics or even day to day life, also we have our own share of Trump fans too) - the people running the Conservative campaign learned from America that it's OK to lie; lie some more; buy huge amounts of targetted, misleading advertising on the internet; lie some more; openly engage in blatant misinformation campaigns; repeat meaningless slogans with little or no policy or track record to back them up - and if you do all that, you can win despite most of your voters needing to vote against their own interests for you to do so.
That's what people learned from America. The wrong people learned the wrong thing.
Murdoch is Australian, and you're forgetting Australia, who also just voted in a right-wing government, defeating a centrist party that were apparently locked-in for victory. Rupert Murdoch is in...
Murdoch is Australian, and you're forgetting Australia, who also just voted in a right-wing government, defeating a centrist party that were apparently locked-in for victory.
Rupert Murdoch is in the top 5 of the most toxic and horrible people on the planet. When this cunt dies we won't even be free of him, as his awful son is being embraced by the US, USA, and UK elite.
Oddly, New Zealand seems to have escaped Rupert Murdoch's influence. While the conservative party got the most votes, they did not have the required majority, and Jacinda Arden somehow aligned...
Oddly, New Zealand seems to have escaped Rupert Murdoch's influence. While the conservative party got the most votes, they did not have the required majority, and Jacinda Arden somehow aligned herself with NZ First's Winston Peters. Strange times.
Well, I thought we made it pretty clear how much our health care system sucks. I don't know why anyone would risk copying it, but it looks like they want to.
Well, I thought we made it pretty clear how much our health care system sucks. I don't know why anyone would risk copying it, but it looks like they want to.
It's because the Right controls the media and has been smearing Labour for years. Class consciousness is non-existence and the manufacturing of consent in the UK is probably the highest in any...
It's because the Right controls the media and has been smearing Labour for years. Class consciousness is non-existence and the manufacturing of consent in the UK is probably the highest in any industrialized nation. Their media is bonkers.
The poll suggests the results and changes will be: Conservatives: 368 seats (+50) Labour: 191 (-71) Scottish National Party (SNP): 55 (+20) Liberal Democrats: 13 (+1) Brexit: 0
The poll suggests the results and changes will be:
This is a devastating result. The problem though, is that the only 'good' result was a hung parliament - this wasn't so much a popularity contest as much as it was an attempt to be the least...
This is a devastating result.
The problem though, is that the only 'good' result was a hung parliament - this wasn't so much a popularity contest as much as it was an attempt to be the least worst.
Sadly, Labour have been running a hard left vanity project for too long now, and it has been headed by a man who was (and has proven to be) fundamentally unelectable. This is one of the weakest Tory parties I can remember, and yet they've basically cleaned up. Labour need to eat some humble pie over this and understand that the reality of UK politics is broadly based in the centre, not the hard left or hard right.
See also: Brexit party - hard right and completely destroyed.
I genuinely don't know what happens next. It feels like Brexit is now certainly going to be disastrously implemented, Scotland was probably push for and obtain independence, and the austerity years we thought we were coming out of will probably serve as a 'starter for 10' for what's coming next. I also, genuinely, fear for the NHS. Not in a wholesale destruction sense - even the Tories know that would be political suicide - but in a continuous, creeping, softening of the edges and blurring of the lines about what privatisation really means.
This whole paragraph is almost exactly like what we heard in Australia, and it's just wrong. It wasn't vanity in the U.K and it wasn't vanity in Australia. The world needs the policies put forward...
Sadly, Labour have been running a hard left vanity project for too long now, ...
This whole paragraph is almost exactly like what we heard in Australia, and it's just wrong. It wasn't vanity in the U.K and it wasn't vanity in Australia. The world needs the policies put forward by these parties or we are in for disaster. If you take seriously the problems of climate change, ecological collapse, economic inequality, and declining education of the public, then we are in an emergency and we can't afford to half-arse it with centrism.
It feels like Brexit is now certainly going to be disastrously implemented,...
Yes, you'll get all this, and it will all happen in a world where Climate Change is going to starting interfering with every aspect of human life, like for example 100s of millions of people becoming food insecure or boiled in 35 degree wet bulb heat and moving away from the equator into Europe.
I genuinely grapple with the problems of meeting a hungry, uneducated, stressed, propagandised, public where they're at, and not forwarding a strong left political platform and vision. I do. We've had terrible defeats in the UK and Australia now that put this front and centre. But don't call it "Vanity". The left know what's required of the world if we're going to have a better future, and I wouldn't condemn them for fighting for it. Centrist politics, what you might say is viable, electable politics, is just a slower death to some people.
Thanks for the reply - I think I address some of your points in my reply to VoidOutput above, so I won't copy+paste it. I don't disagree with the thrust of your argument about what the world needs...
Thanks for the reply - I think I address some of your points in my reply to VoidOutput above, so I won't copy+paste it.
I don't disagree with the thrust of your argument about what the world needs from the context of climate change, economic inequality, etc.
My frustration is that knowing the above Labour still fielded an unelectable candidate running a fanciful manifesto that - for all its 'correctness' - was simply never going to fly for the UK electorate.
Sadly, it's not a case of their politics and policies being "right" or not. It's about being electable. It's about playing the game. And whilst you can reject the game as unfair, based, stupid, rigged, pointless, whatever, you still need to play it irrespective of how right you are. And Labour didn't play it. That's why I refer this this as a vanity project.
For the record, I voted against the Tories in this election - I voted tactically, as it was the only real hope of anything good coming of the election, and my constituency stayed Labour by a small margin.
Fair enough, I guess. I'm very left, and pretty angry about what's going in the world, so find it hard to advocate "playing the game" when that always means compromising on what's right. I am...
Fair enough, I guess. I'm very left, and pretty angry about what's going in the world, so find it hard to advocate "playing the game" when that always means compromising on what's right.
I am skeptical of "electability" and "playing the game" though. I'm not overly familiar with 2000s UK politics, but in the USA that strategy seems not to be working. The opposition is bad-faith, money is on it's side, and they've been slowly dismantling the public's strength for decades. They're also concepts almost entirely formed by the media and incumbent power.
You may be right though the what's needed is a two-faced left party. One that plays the friendly centrist until they're in power. I can't imagine there's too many on the left capable of that though. I'd say the left are in an important way fundamentally incapable of insincerity and scheming. They're idealists, they're passionate, they're honest, and they can't really hide it. I'd say Bernie is like that, but thankfully things seem to be going Ok for him for now. Certainly wearing his heart on his sleeve and sticking to his principles for decades has won him a lot of credibility that the typical political animal couldn't construct with even billions in oligarchic media magic.
I've been saying this for years. And not just that, a party who is prepared to engage in the sort of underhand dirty tricks which is how the right keep winning. The psyops, the character...
what's needed is a two-faced left party. One that plays the friendly centrist until they're in power.
I've been saying this for years. And not just that, a party who is prepared to engage in the sort of underhand dirty tricks which is how the right keep winning. The psyops, the character assassination, the outright lies and so on. I'd say that's what 'electability' and 'playing the game' means in 21st century politics. It's sad, but that's how it is.
"They go low, we go high" will lose every time. "They go low, we're already down there waiting for them with rusty razor blades" is what we need.
fwiw, I'm a very far left, passionate idealist and I would absolutely do whatever it takes. I used to care about honesty and being the better person but the older I get the more results matter more than principles. If we have to trick and manipulate people into having a better society then so be it. I trick my kid into eating vegetables rather than stuffing his face with cake, this is no different.
Interesting. In using these tactics you would be in some way walking away from democracy and trying to deceive people, just like the Conservatives. Though in this case your behaviour isn’t wicked...
Interesting. In using these tactics you would be in some way walking away from democracy and trying to deceive people, just like the Conservatives. Though in this case your behaviour isn’t wicked but pro-social with anti-social tactics. There’s also a bit of paternalism.
I reckon you can’t do this stuff without the massive media system. If we used the right’s tactics but have 1/100th the resources don’t you just lose?
Eh, democracy is over-rated. It's clearly not working very well, at least in it's current implementation (there's a whole discussion here about how worthless the FPTP electoral system is). I'd...
Eh, democracy is over-rated. It's clearly not working very well, at least in it's current implementation (there's a whole discussion here about how worthless the FPTP electoral system is). I'd honestly take a benevolent dictator at this point - if such a thing were possible, but it probably isn't.
The problem is that people can't be trusted to do what is right for themselves, let alone others. Or to be a little more charitable, and I do tend towards this interpretation rather than the previous one, people are too easily deceived and the mechanisms for enacting that deception are terribly effective now. So much more so than in the past. I do think most people are basically nice and fairly decent. I don't think anyone voting Conservative actually wants more child poverty, more homelessness, more people using food banks, more inequality and so on - but they still voted for those things.
You might be right on that last point. Although not using their tactics certainly isn't working either. Enough media will do what it's told for enough money. A media game is winnable.
I think this is a dangerous part of history - where we forget why we wanted Democracy in the first place and start wishing for the safe clutches of a dictatorship.
I think this is a dangerous part of history - where we forget why we wanted Democracy in the first place and start wishing for the safe clutches of a dictatorship.
I eschew democracy, and wish for the safe clutches of an AI determining the root problem with the planet right now: Humans. Come on grey goo! You cannot get here quickly enough!
I eschew democracy, and wish for the safe clutches of an AI determining the root problem with the planet right now: Humans.
Come on grey goo! You cannot get here quickly enough!
This is exactly what we need. It's a war of propaganda, and pretending otherwise is in my opinion dangerously naïve. I care about results, and I would advocate using the exact same methods as the...
You may be right though the what's needed is a two-faced left party. One that plays the friendly centrist until they're in power.
This is exactly what we need. It's a war of propaganda, and pretending otherwise is in my opinion dangerously naïve. I care about results, and I would advocate using the exact same methods as the opposition to achieve them.
I'm not quite going to go as far as suggesting using more aggressive methods, because that way lies an arms race of misinformation, but right now the left are bringing a knife to a gun fight and it's demonstrably failing.
I wonder if there’s any films or literature that has explored the idea of a Machiavellian left. This kind of thing isn’t really part of the left imagination.
I wonder if there’s any films or literature that has explored the idea of a Machiavellian left. This kind of thing isn’t really part of the left imagination.
Haha, definitely not who I had in mind but I can see how they'd come up. They're a nice counterpoint to the idea too. If you attempt to control your people through deception you're in dangerous...
Haha, definitely not who I had in mind but I can see how they'd come up. They're a nice counterpoint to the idea too. If you attempt to control your people through deception you're in dangerous authoritarian territory.
Regarding the last part, I'll leave better minds debate over that. But as for the first, why is it that when the hard-right pushes they get the electorate yet when the left tries to push back in...
Sadly, Labour have been running a hard left vanity project for too long now, and it has been headed by a man who was (and has proven to be) fundamentally unelectable.
Regarding the last part, I'll leave better minds debate over that. But as for the first, why is it that when the hard-right pushes they get the electorate yet when the left tries to push back in the other direction, their efforts are branded as vanity projects?
See also: Brexit party - hard right and completely destroyed.
Who cares that they lost? What was seen as extreme right wing ideas a few years ago became the new "normal" in the conservative party.
The way politics tends to work in the UK is that fringe parties pop up from time to time, and fringe ideas take on the zeitgeist and then the 2 main parties panic a bit and then adopt versions of...
The way politics tends to work in the UK is that fringe parties pop up from time to time, and fringe ideas take on the zeitgeist and then the 2 main parties panic a bit and then adopt versions of those fringes into their own framework to secure their existing positions of power.
Over the past few years across Europe and other places there has been a resurgent hard right. This has become, sadly, pretty deeply ingrained in sections of the general population. What the Tories did here was take the thrust of the hard right ideas (Brexit - not in and of itself 'hard right', but certainly the icon for hard right views) and adopt it into their manifesto. Thereby undercutting and destroying what was, at one point, a potentially real challenge from Farage et al.
Now that's not to decry the loss of the Brexit party at all. Good riddance. They're about as politically far away from my interests as anyone could be. But my point in observing it was that the UK is ultimately a stable centrist democracy, and fringe politics very rarely obtain a controlling stake. Brexit Party got consumed into the Tories, and the fringe element died.
For Labour though, they mainlined their fringe politics. Labour lurched so far to the left that even the people who would undoubtedly benefit from more or less everything they were proposing or standing for couldn't even palette it. And they were destroyed. Monumentally rejected in favour of what could only be described as an omnishambles of a Tory party.
And the reason is the same - we're a stable centrist democracy.
Now this isn't new or insightful information. This is widely acknowledged. And that is the reason I refer to Corbynism is a "vanity project". No one could seriously have expected this to work at scale - it was ultimately well-intentioned idealists producing well-intentioned policy, but it was always going go fail.
Until it doesn't. I take your point well, so I'd be interested in how you see his success in the previous election. Also, Brexit pulled the Conservatives right. Is there an opposing left-pull...
but it was always going go fail.
Until it doesn't.
I take your point well, so I'd be interested in how you see his success in the previous election. Also, Brexit pulled the Conservatives right. Is there an opposing left-pull ever, that makes up the centrism?
2016 brought Donald Trump, so I'd imagine you'd think there's some stark difference between the makeup of the UK political landscape and the US one, to explain how that happened. Is it because the USA is a right-wing plutocracy, and not a "stable centrist democracy"?
Yeah, I get that, but I'd call it "moonshot politics". You might pull off your one-in-a-million moonshot and change the world - almost like a revolution - but you're unlikely to. Compared with...
Until it doesn't.
Yeah, I get that, but I'd call it "moonshot politics". You might pull off your one-in-a-million moonshot and change the world - almost like a revolution - but you're unlikely to. Compared with "playing the game" - in which you play the cards you know your electorate will respond well to, and you introduce iterative, evolutionary changes that tilt left towards what you ultimately want.
I see his success in the previous election as down to 3 things.
He was still relatively unknown, and was buoyed, in the public opinion, because he was seen as a potential for real change. What came to be seen as his lack of leadership skills hadn't taken hold at the time.
He was standing against an emboldened Tory party who'd gotten away with years of biting austerity, propped up for part of it by "the third party". People saw little other choice.
The manifesto wasn't as revolutionary as this one. They really doubled down this time and I don't think it helped.
The other elephant in the room is Brexit. That's more complicated though, and I think (but would be open to be corrected) that his ambiguity over it caused him a huge problem this time round. The reason I'm fence-sitting on this one for the time being is that Swinson was unambiguous and was badly burned. I need to think about this more.
All seems reasonable. You sound like Ezra Klein, who I admire for his insight but whose centrist instincts frustrate me to no end. That's true about Swinson. Corbyn's muddling about with Brexit...
All seems reasonable. You sound like Ezra Klein, who I admire for his insight but whose centrist instincts frustrate me to no end.
That's true about Swinson. Corbyn's muddling about with Brexit seemed like a fuckup, but Swinson was hard-Remain and got ousted.
Because they have an organizing base. They own media outlets, and they make inroads with non-political sources of community to get out the vote, such as churches. The Left doesn't do organizing....
But as for the first, why is it that when the hard-right pushes they get the electorate yet when the left tries to push back in the other direction, their efforts are branded as vanity projects?
Because they have an organizing base. They own media outlets, and they make inroads with non-political sources of community to get out the vote, such as churches. The Left doesn't do organizing. Unions are anemic and all forms of Leftist engagement are actively political rather than communitarian, which means you don't drive your messaging into the mainstream.
'Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile. This is a party of government. I will lead it as a party of government’ - Blair (longest continuously serving Labour...
But as for the first, why is it that when the hard-right pushes they get the electorate yet when the left tries to push back in the other direction, their efforts are branded as vanity projects?
'Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile. This is a party of government. I will lead it as a party of government’ - Blair (longest continuously serving Labour prime minister)
I think this is the point at which we need to introduce the vested interests and the media into the equation. No doubt that Corbyn was hugely unfairly maligned in the vast majority of the media,...
I think this is the point at which we need to introduce the vested interests and the media into the equation.
No doubt that Corbyn was hugely unfairly maligned in the vast majority of the media, because his manifesto directly attacked the interests of their paymasters.
Sadly, the same thing happened to Ed Milliband. Destroyed by the media - "LOL LOOK AT HOW HE EATS A SANDWICH!!111!!1!"
The only thing I'd temper this with marginally, is that the "right" and "left" in this context is more of an economic concern, and we risk confusing them with non-economic interests since those terms are also used to describe other things - most notably in this case, bad racists.
I don't for a minute think that everyone who has some money and therefore a vested interest in an economic framework that allows them to keep it is automatically a bad racist!
I think there's a mistaken assumption here that the Brexit Party's loss is a repudiation of the hard right or their stances. As one of the people who worked on the exit poll noted: Farage has...
See also: Brexit party - hard right and completely destroyed.
I think there's a mistaken assumption here that the Brexit Party's loss is a repudiation of the hard right or their stances. As one of the people who worked on the exit poll noted: Farage has pretty much brought the Conservatives into his rhetorical camp. There's no need to vote for the far right when the regular right plays the same tune.
There's a toxic wing to the Labour party, and that group is currently in charge of it and so Labour will remain unelectable. And they don't see Corbyn as the problem: it's everything else - it's...
There's a toxic wing to the Labour party, and that group is currently in charge of it and so Labour will remain unelectable. And they don't see Corbyn as the problem: it's everything else - it's the BBC, it's "lies" about racism, etc.
The incoherent labour campaign, coupled with an LD party that doesn't know what it's doing or what it stands for, and neither party wanting to work with each other, combined with a Conservative party that was happy to lie and push populist bollocks means the worst party won.
This sounds like annoying both-sideism. Who is this "they"? The labour party? If so, this is a bit wrong as people in the party have openly opposed him. Those people aren't the majority, so then...
This sounds like annoying both-sideism.
And they don't see Corbyn as the problem:
Who is this "they"? The labour party? If so, this is a bit wrong as people in the party have openly opposed him. Those people aren't the majority, so then maybe the others just disagree with you. Is it so implausible that the cards could be stacked against Labour?
I don't see the problem with pointing out the flaws in Labour now. They've already lost, we can accept that it didn't work out. We can attack other leftists because they don't tow the party line,...
This sounds like annoying both-sideism.
I don't see the problem with pointing out the flaws in Labour now. They've already lost, we can accept that it didn't work out.
We can attack other leftists because they don't tow the party line, aren't gung-ho enough about our specific leadership, and see similar results. Alternatively we can address those concerns and bring meaningful change.
The hard left has been out of power for so long that they don't actually know how to wield it or grow in influence anymore. The only ones left are the intransigents who are incapable of making...
Sadly, Labour have been running a hard left vanity project for too long now, and it has been headed by a man who was (and has proven to be) fundamentally unelectable.
The hard left has been out of power for so long that they don't actually know how to wield it or grow in influence anymore. The only ones left are the intransigents who are incapable of making friends or building alliances. But that's just a natural issue with the pipeline. If they were the types of people who were focused on actually accomplishing anything, they wouldn't have spent the past 3 decades being oppositional Leftists.
I'm extremely wary of anybody shouting 'this is a disaster', or 'this is amazing'. This election needs to be looked at in a variety of ways, taking into consideration: your Brexit position taking...
Exemplary
I'm extremely wary of anybody shouting 'this is a disaster', or 'this is amazing'. This election needs to be looked at in a variety of ways, taking into consideration:
your Brexit position
taking Brexit out of politics
the party's policies.
In the eyes of the public, the referendum dictated whether we'd leave or remain. It was an expensive campaign, and dominated the airwaves for months. The public, given the conditions of the referendum, voted for leave. The referndum, however, was extremely naive and failed to take into consideration the following steps, which imo, has lead to our current crisis in politics. It should have been a priority for everybody party to have policies in place which aim to heal the rift in our society and ensure that future referenda are held to higher standards, as opposed to beating the Brexit dead horse and creating further divisons. In this regard, any result in this election would have been a failure.
'Getting Brexit done', imo, had to have been the priority this election. I liked Rory Stewart's position in stating that if we had kicked the can any futher down the road, the UK would be left looking like a state in crisis, unpredictable, and politically ineffective; a laughing stock globally. Reverting the Brexit decision would have left 45%+ of the population feeling alienated with politics; allowing a far, far nastier breed of politics brewing. "None of them give a fuck about us, so fuck it, might as well vote for the British Union of Fascists to get our country back!". People may argue that currently 48% of the population feel alienated, but to counter that, not many people, or any political party representing said people, stood up pre-referendum and said "no, we need to rethink how we're running this". The public by and large agreed to hold a referendum, and were therefore included whatever the outcome. Given this, I am glad the Conservatives have a majority, so we can undo the utter failure of Theresa May's leadership which left us in limbo for 2 years.
I'm hoping that now, we can shift the battleground away from Brexit and into things which really matter, such as social policies, education, health, policing, etc. I truly hope this election and referendum has been a wake up call, which will invigorate the electorate into being more critical of our media, politicians, and political process. I think the time has come to move the public discourse away from Brexit and into building a stronger country for the future.
Any cries of "woe betide, our healthcare will become American!" is absolute nonsense fear-mongering; a result of a media which isn't held to any standards. If we are unable as a people to not argue in better faith, we will get the outcomes we deserve. It's up to us now to ensure public discourse remains civil, balanced and critical; putting our politicians to the test and creating a better playing field, as opposed to cementing up our goalposts.
Anyone who thinks the NHS is safe in Conservative hands hasn't been paying attention. This year is the first time that not a single hospital met the 4 hour A&E target. This is the worst ever performance, and this is before the winter pressures have actually started. We're going to have a bad flu season this year and it's going to get a whole lot worse. Some trusts were as low as 60%! https://twitter.com/LawrenceDunhill/status/1205439680671617025https://twitter.com/gooroohealth/status/1205422468254568448/photo/1
Healthcare is not a binary choice of either NHS or an American system, there's a whole myriad of options in between. From the article you posted, apparently this is what was said : The front-end...
Healthcare is not a binary choice of either NHS or an American system, there's a whole myriad of options in between.
From the article you posted, apparently this is what was said :
“We should fund patients, either through the tax system or by way of universal insurance, to purchase health care from the provider of their choice,” the book says on page 74.
The front-end in the UK is always going to be universal coverage; free at the point of use for most services. Have you ever seen a UK politician arguing otherwise?
It's just the back-end which is open for debate here; how can we improve our healthcare system to improve outcomes?
It is absolutely idiocy to shoot down any healthcare debate by saying "lol NHS good, anything else bad". We should be looking at our our system and keeping what works best about it, and looking at systems from elsewhere in the world and taking what's best about them.
The NHS was created in the 40s. Things have changed, and if we're to remain a nation on top of its game, we can't be clinging to the past (like convervatives), but should be innovating and leading the way forward for the rest.
I personally believe a healthcare charter needs to be drawn up ASAP, which established the principles which the UK public expect governments to follow, and then let both the market and ruling parties decide how to go about achieving said targets. The charter would need to include:
free at point of use
maximum waiting times
what is considered "abuse of the system"
,etc, etc
I think that if this were said in a vacuum I'd broadly agree, but the reality of the situation has to be taken in the context of the last decade of Conservative government and of Johnson in...
I think that if this were said in a vacuum I'd broadly agree, but the reality of the situation has to be taken in the context of the last decade of Conservative government and of Johnson in particular.
They have doubled down on projects like Universal Credit which cause enormous, demonstrable harm to the most vulnerable in our society. They have managed the NHS in a way that has been fiercely opposed by doctors and, as @DanBC mentioned, has led to visibly declining outcomes. Johnson has been complicit in a Brexit campaign that outright lied about increasing NHS funding, broke campaign finance law, and subsequently opened the conversation on extending drug patents as part of US trade negotiations. He and his party have refused to release a report on Russian interference in our democratic process.
I have no reason to believe that he or his party are acting in good faith, and significant reason to think the opposite.
Yes, the book says this. And then they went and did it: that's what the Lansley Reforms are. Current English law means commissioners are not allowed to prefer one type of provider over another --...
“We should fund patients, either through the tax system or by way of universal insurance, to purchase health care from the provider of their choice,” the book says on page 74.
Yes, the book says this. And then they went and did it: that's what the Lansley Reforms are. Current English law means commissioners are not allowed to prefer one type of provider over another -- they're forbidden by law from saying "we'd rather use NHS providers, not private providers". That's why we have Virgin Healthcare or LiveWell SouthWest or Priory Group or Cygnet providing NHS treatment. One of these is good (Livewell southwest) but the rest are pretty terrible. https://www.hsj.co.uk/mental-health/private-provider-sees-eighth-site-rated-inadequate/7026367.article
No-one, not even the Conservatives, think the Lansley Reforms have worked and the current government is working out how to fix the damage caused to the NHS without breaking it even further.
It hasn't reduced waiting lists, has it? We've had choose and book for years, we've had private providers of NHS services for years, but waiting lists are increasing not decreasing.
The front-end in the UK is always going to be universal coverage; free at the point of use for most services.
The Conservative government have already ended universal coverage. That's what the Overseas visitor charging regulations are. Don't forget that these regs have killed people.
Have you ever seen a UK politician arguing otherwise?
YES! This is entirely the point. Several politicians call for insurance-style systems. Johnson did it in 2004. See this idea from Howard, which was an attempt to introduce a blended model.
Patients who opt for more expensive private treatment will receive half the NHS tariff for the operation to use against their bill, leaving them to pay the remainder their own pockets or through private health insurance. The Conservatives claimed that would amount to £1.2bn to cover everyone who currently opts for private healthcare treatment.
Not really! I know a lot about suicide prevention and patient safety in England which means I interact with the bureaucratic side of the English NHS a lot. So I try to understand it because I need...
Not really! I know a lot about suicide prevention and patient safety in England which means I interact with the bureaucratic side of the English NHS a lot. So I try to understand it because I need to know what levers I can pull to try to get big complex interacting systems to understand that they need to change behaviours.
Except... The UK is already there. For voting brexit to begin with. Yes, this is from an outside-person: The UK is a laughing stock nation right now. Same with the US (Although, I'm from the US)....
I liked Rory Stewart's position in stating that if we had kicked the can any futher down the road, the UK would be left looking like a state in crisis, unpredictable, and politically ineffective; a laughing stock globally.
Except...
The UK is already there. For voting brexit to begin with. Yes, this is from an outside-person: The UK is a laughing stock nation right now.
Same with the US (Although, I'm from the US).
We both elected the same type of executive leader: A fucking loony tunes radical, who is unpredictable, and irrational, and to cap it off: Xenophobic.
Yep. Join the club. Our two nations have been laughed off the world stage. We are no longer world leaders, and probably for the best, to be honest. The US and the UK combined have fucked over more of this planet than any other nation.
If you're looking at Boris Johnson in such a way, you've fallen victim to whatever media you've been consuming, in my opinion. I think a good starting point would be here to develop a more nuanced...
If you're looking at Boris Johnson in such a way, you've fallen victim to whatever media you've been consuming, in my opinion.
Johnson gained a reputation as "a liberal, centre-ground politician".[483] Johnson's biographer and friend Andrew Gimson said that while "in economic and social matters, [Johnson] is a genuine liberal", he retains a "Tory element" to his personality through his "love of existing institutions, and a recognition of the inevitability of hierarchy"
Imo, not an extreme character in the slightest; more the opposite. And now he's effectively put Farage/the Brexit Party/UKIP to bed, we'll see a shift in his policies from the right back towards the centre.
As for the final paragraph, I don't share your negativity I'm afraid. It's quite impossible to say anybody has 'fucked over the planet' without setting any parameters. Are we defining this in terms of living standards? eradication of cultures? slavery? amount of people killed by said institutions?
Yes, let's add nuance: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/29/rightwing-thinktank-conservative-boris-johnson-brexit-atlas-network While he may have held centrist positions in the past,...
If you're looking at Boris Johnson in such a way, you've fallen victim to whatever media you've been consuming, in my opinion.
While he may have held centrist positions in the past, he most surely doesn't at this time.
Interesting, from your link, you glossed over this entire section:
Ideologically, Johnson has described himself as a "One-Nation Tory".[477][478] In 2012 the political scientist Tony Travers described Johnson as "a fairly classic—that is, small-state—mildly eurosceptic Conservative" who like his contemporaries Cameron and George Osborne also embraced "modern social liberalism".[479] The Guardian stated that while mayor, Johnson blended economic and social liberalism,[480] with The Economist claiming that in doing so Johnson "transcends his Tory identity" and adopts a more libertarian perspective.[481] Stuart Reid, Johnson's colleague at The Spectator, described the latter's views as being those of a "liberal libertarian".[482] Business Insider noted that as London Mayor, Johnson gained a reputation as "a liberal, centre-ground politician".[483] Johnson's biographer and friend Andrew Gimson said that while "in economic and social matters, [Johnson] is a genuine liberal", he retains a "Tory element" to his personality through his "love of existing institutions, and a recognition of the inevitability of hierarchy".[484] His liberal stance on matters such as social policy, immigration and free trade have also been noted in 2019.[485][486] In 2019, Al Jazeera editor James Brownswell noted that although Johnson had "leaned to the right" since the Brexit campaign, he remained "slightly more socially liberal" than much of his party.[487] In 2019 former Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party Michael Heseltine said Johnson "has no right to call himself a one-nation Conservative" and wrote: "I fear that any traces of liberal conservatism that still exist within the prime minister have long since been captured by the rightwing, foreigner-bashing, inward-looking view of the world that has come to characterise his fellow Brexiters".[488]
Are we defining this in terms of living standards? eradication of cultures? slavery? amount of people killed by said institutions?
If we go by any of the above, the US and the UK have fucked over this planet far more than any one else has.
Gotta love disinformation, populism and lies winning everywhere around the world, when the clocks ticking on climate change. Why does the average person love a random asshole rich person so much?...
Gotta love disinformation, populism and lies winning everywhere around the world, when the clocks ticking on climate change. Why does the average person love a random asshole rich person so much? I don't get it. In my country a corrupt, former communist billionaire is the PM too. I honestly think we are just fucked. I am not from the US or the UK but this makes me really anxious about the future.
Well, maybe Trump doesn't win the next US election? Maybe? I don't have much hope left to be honest. But here's hoping.
Here's hoping with you too. May Bernie/Warren/Yang save us from this and bring the progressivist utopia of Europe (Germany ,France or the Nordic nations) unto the new world. (Also it will make...
Here's hoping with you too. May Bernie/Warren/Yang save us from this and bring the progressivist utopia of Europe (Germany ,France or the Nordic nations) unto the new world. (Also it will make every other right-wing regime lose their legitimacy)
sigh I should have stayed in that German course... Seriously, I'm beginning to get the impression that if I went to your country (or anywhere in the developed world) right now, I would think India...
sigh I should have stayed in that German course...
Seriously, I'm beginning to get the impression that if I went to your country (or anywhere in the developed world) right now, I would think India or my country, Brazil was doing better. I'm like 14 though, and by the time I began paying even a little attention to politics, trump was already 1 and a half years into office, and so I don't really remember a reality before this so as far as I remember, this may as well have started with the red scare some 50 years ago.
So it begs many questions: how did 'we' (whatever 'we' has become) get here? How long has this really been going on for? Are we really sure 'we' is a sensible term to use anymore? Who are these people voting for conservatives anyway? Has anyone here spoken to a conservative and if so, what were they like? Are we sure they are "stupid" themselves, or did conservative news channels and Facebook make them "stupid"? (Is "stupid" even really the right word to be using?)
I remember being 14, and having no knowledge of history (because how could I have?). I recommend reading - Wikipedia is a great start, books are great too when you want to go more in depth. It'll...
I remember being 14, and having no knowledge of history (because how could I have?). I recommend reading - Wikipedia is a great start, books are great too when you want to go more in depth. It'll take time, but I found it really enjoyable so it wasn't too hard. I'm sure you will too, or if you don't it might be worth just learning something else.
Ultimately, over time, you'll develop a strong understanding of why the world is how it is, which I find is a very fulfilling outcome.
If I understand correctly, you're a 14-year-old Brazilian. Is that so? For now, I'll assume that is true. I'm also Brazillian. I wouldn't say the right is necessarily harmful, nor that the left is...
If I understand correctly, you're a 14-year-old Brazilian. Is that so? For now, I'll assume that is true.
I'm also Brazillian.
I wouldn't say the right is necessarily harmful, nor that the left is necessarily good. These things change a lot historically. Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a neoliberal, was fundamental to modernize the Brazillian economy. Luís Inácio Lula da Silva, a left-wing populist, gained several awards for basically eradicating widespread famine in the same country. Winston Churchill was a brilliant conservative president. Hugo Chávez was a hateful Marxist dictator that ruined Venezuela. Abraham Lincoln, a Republican president, fought to end slavery in America.
With that in mind, try to have an unemotional, consequentalist view of the situation. Look at what politicians do and say, and use history and logic to create a personal (and informal) probability framework. What will be the consequence of their rise to power? Good or bad? Will more people become or stay poor? Will the economy, healthcare, security and education improve? In sum: will this set of politicians increase the welfare of the majority of the population, while enforcing both our legal and universal human rights?
Once these questions are answered, you can easily eliminate from your sympathies a whole bunch of politicians that are clearly contrary to the good of the collective.
Now you must evaluate the practical ability of the remaining coalitions to actually implement their well-meaning platforms, as well as the sincerity of their public statements. To do that, you must research their previous history and compare their discourse with their actions, and their actions with their outcomes.
It's not simple, and that's why this is a seemingly endless discussion.
Thanks for the thorough reply. Just for the record, I used 'stupid' because I wasn't really sure or serious when it came to those questions and the thread was (is) absurdly pessimistic so I wasn't...
Thanks for the thorough reply. Just for the record, I used 'stupid' because I wasn't really sure or serious when it came to those questions and the thread was (is) absurdly pessimistic so I wasn't really feeling pressed to do so (And I am pessimistic as fuck too) I would probably describe most current conservative voters ( atleast in the US and most of the West) as something more like short-sighted, easily swayed or unwilling to look for information and fact-checking it,potentially overly focused on one issue (I heard many Republicans solely vote conservative because of guns, abortion, religion, immigration or the 'free market' and just go with everything else because 'at least my problem with society is being solved'.) or not realizing they're missing an important detail (like in lowering corporate tax rate because they still believe in trickle-down despite the fact that stock buybacks are rampant in the US because they don't know stock buybacks or the stock market even exist)
I wouldn't say the right is necessarily harmful, nor that the left is necessarily good. These things change a lot historically. Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a neoliberal, was fundamental to modernize the Brazillian economy. Luís Inácio Lula da Silva, a left-wing populist, gained several awards for basically eradicating widespread famine in the same country. Winston Churchill was a brilliant conservative president. Hugo Chávez was a hateful Marxist dictator that ruined Venezuela. Abraham Lincoln, a Republican president, fought to end slavery in America.
Yeah I know that, really, politics is far more than 'the left' or 'the right' and I would probably divide politicians into something more similar to what 8values measures and that 'liberal' and 'conservative' change over time, women's suffrage and feminism in all the forms shown now were once actually associated with Marxist-leninism along with the 8-hour workday but now it's just normal and if I had to guess the age to watch porn is gonna go down to 12 and prostitution will become dignified within the next 50 years and the Democrats were the pro-slavery, as you said and the number of communist dictators that ultimately barely helped 'the people' is staggering.
Divisions such as 8values create a useful vocabulary, but in any case, even if you have access to a bunch of data, to approach politics one must make a good amount of contextual judgments that...
Divisions such as 8values create a useful vocabulary, but in any case, even if you have access to a bunch of data, to approach politics one must make a good amount of contextual judgments that have, by necessity, a great degree of uncertainty and subjectivity.
For those who espouse democratic beliefs, understanding the paradox of tolerance is a good start for separating the wheat from the chaff.
I can't really put in to words how devastating this is. I didn't expect Labour to win, but I didn't expect this either. Not even the worst polls predicted this. Exit polls are just polls too but still. We are so, so fucked.
It's not just brexit, it's not just the NHS, it's not just the environment - it is almost everything the Tories stand for. By the time the next election rolls around the country will be unrecognisable. If we thought they were brutal and cruel in the last three parliaments things are going to be so much worse without the EU preventing the very worst of them. Bye bye human rights act, bye bye any sort of worker's protections, bye bye school funding, social services, libraries, food standards, healthcare and more.
If I could leave the country I would leave the country. I haven't felt at home here since 2010, really - 2016 more so and this really just cements that feeling. While many individuals are very lovely, overall these are just not my people. This is not my place. But there are months when it's all I can do to put food on the table, let alone gather the resources to move. So here I am. I hate it.
Good luck leaving, people in western societies everywhere are constantly voting in conservatives and have for years. It's a sad state of affairs that I hope one day changes.
It's not just Western societies. India is tilting reactionary, China has fully transformed into an irredentist, fascist state.
We've allowed finance capitalism and slick marketing to monetize and devour the "social infrastructure" of liberal democracy. It was a matter of time before the structure on top of it started to founder.
cool word. TIL.
It really makes me feel defeated, are there any places where right wing populism is not overtaking?
Ireland is looking pretty good these days. While they were starting from a very conservative/religious place relatively recently, they've been getting pretty rapidly progressive this century. Their government is reasonably sane. Plus they speak English, they're part of the EU, they're convenient to get to, the people are friendly, the beer is good. Post-brexit, UK citizens will still have freedom of work/movement into Ireland. The only place we will. It's a bit rainy but that's OK.
Also there is a chance you have Irish heratiage. You'd probably have found out by now if you're considering leaving England but it's a good back up plan for those who can.
A few years ago I would have answered "Canada" to that question... but Doug Ford's Conservatives winning the provincial elections in Ontario last year pretty much proves even us Canadians are not immune to right-wing populist rhetoric these days either. :(
I don't think the last election resulted in a Conservative win so much as a Liberal loss. Ontarian elections have always been rather temperamental and, for some reason, everyone was convinced that the Liberals should not have any power any more last time. That sentiment has quickly reversed, and the province sobered up real quick thanks to Ford's whirlwind disaster of a first year.
Alberta and Quebec though... that's a bit more of a Conservative win.
Taken alone, rather than as part of the UK, Scotland is looking pretty solid - their results in this election are an absolutely resounding mandate for the SNP in seats and the left overall in popular vote terms. It's muddied slightly by single-issue Scottish independence voters, but the party as a whole generally advocates for Scandinavian-style social democracy.
The question now is if, when, and how they'll manage independence.
[Edit] I misread a graph and thought that the SNP had over half the Scottish popular vote. They don't, but SNP/Labour combined comfortably do. I reworded slightly to reflect this.
Don't Spain and Portugal have socialist governments? I could easily check this...
Yes it does seem those countries have quite left-wing or outright Socialist governments. Lovely places, too.
I'm quite depressed about it. The Tories have enough of a majority to do everything their evil hearts desire. My constituency (Aberconwy, Wales) was quite vocal about how much they hated our previous MP (Tory, Guto Bebb). But, they've voted in another Tory (Bebb decided not to stand again). Wales benefits hugely from EU funding, which is going to disappear when we leave the EU. And I doubt Westminster will fill that funding gap.
The only winner in this election was xenophobia.
I can't imagine a European country looking at the US and saying 'thats what I want' - but there you have it
Seriously. This is baffling as an American. I mean, I know my country fucked up bad, but I would have expected other countries to learn from our mistake.
What happened was, while the electorate mostly didn't learn anything from the US (most people in the UK have little clue about US politics or even day to day life, also we have our own share of Trump fans too) - the people running the Conservative campaign learned from America that it's OK to lie; lie some more; buy huge amounts of targetted, misleading advertising on the internet; lie some more; openly engage in blatant misinformation campaigns; repeat meaningless slogans with little or no policy or track record to back them up - and if you do all that, you can win despite most of your voters needing to vote against their own interests for you to do so.
That's what people learned from America. The wrong people learned the wrong thing.
The world looks to the US for leadership, and this is the immeasurable damage we've inflicted under a Trump presidency.
The one thing the UK & US have in common, is Rupert Murdoch's news empire.
Murdoch is Australian, and you're forgetting Australia, who also just voted in a right-wing government, defeating a centrist party that were apparently locked-in for victory.
Rupert Murdoch is in the top 5 of the most toxic and horrible people on the planet. When this cunt dies we won't even be free of him, as his awful son is being embraced by the US, USA, and UK elite.
Oddly, New Zealand seems to have escaped Rupert Murdoch's influence. While the conservative party got the most votes, they did not have the required majority, and Jacinda Arden somehow aligned herself with NZ First's Winston Peters. Strange times.
My condolences for all our UK users, I hope my country's healthcare system isn't inflicted upon you.
Well, I thought we made it pretty clear how much our health care system sucks. I don't know why anyone would risk copying it, but it looks like they want to.
It's because the Right controls the media and has been smearing Labour for years. Class consciousness is non-existence and the manufacturing of consent in the UK is probably the highest in any industrialized nation. Their media is bonkers.
Now they too will get to experience the joy of relatives dying because they can't afford access to healthcare. Freedom™
The poll suggests the results and changes will be:
This is a devastating result.
The problem though, is that the only 'good' result was a hung parliament - this wasn't so much a popularity contest as much as it was an attempt to be the least worst.
Sadly, Labour have been running a hard left vanity project for too long now, and it has been headed by a man who was (and has proven to be) fundamentally unelectable. This is one of the weakest Tory parties I can remember, and yet they've basically cleaned up. Labour need to eat some humble pie over this and understand that the reality of UK politics is broadly based in the centre, not the hard left or hard right.
See also: Brexit party - hard right and completely destroyed.
I genuinely don't know what happens next. It feels like Brexit is now certainly going to be disastrously implemented, Scotland was probably push for and obtain independence, and the austerity years we thought we were coming out of will probably serve as a 'starter for 10' for what's coming next. I also, genuinely, fear for the NHS. Not in a wholesale destruction sense - even the Tories know that would be political suicide - but in a continuous, creeping, softening of the edges and blurring of the lines about what privatisation really means.
This whole paragraph is almost exactly like what we heard in Australia, and it's just wrong. It wasn't vanity in the U.K and it wasn't vanity in Australia. The world needs the policies put forward by these parties or we are in for disaster. If you take seriously the problems of climate change, ecological collapse, economic inequality, and declining education of the public, then we are in an emergency and we can't afford to half-arse it with centrism.
Yes, you'll get all this, and it will all happen in a world where Climate Change is going to starting interfering with every aspect of human life, like for example 100s of millions of people becoming food insecure or boiled in 35 degree wet bulb heat and moving away from the equator into Europe.
I genuinely grapple with the problems of meeting a hungry, uneducated, stressed, propagandised, public where they're at, and not forwarding a strong left political platform and vision. I do. We've had terrible defeats in the UK and Australia now that put this front and centre. But don't call it "Vanity". The left know what's required of the world if we're going to have a better future, and I wouldn't condemn them for fighting for it. Centrist politics, what you might say is viable, electable politics, is just a slower death to some people.
Thanks for the reply - I think I address some of your points in my reply to VoidOutput above, so I won't copy+paste it.
I don't disagree with the thrust of your argument about what the world needs from the context of climate change, economic inequality, etc.
My frustration is that knowing the above Labour still fielded an unelectable candidate running a fanciful manifesto that - for all its 'correctness' - was simply never going to fly for the UK electorate.
Sadly, it's not a case of their politics and policies being "right" or not. It's about being electable. It's about playing the game. And whilst you can reject the game as unfair, based, stupid, rigged, pointless, whatever, you still need to play it irrespective of how right you are. And Labour didn't play it. That's why I refer this this as a vanity project.
For the record, I voted against the Tories in this election - I voted tactically, as it was the only real hope of anything good coming of the election, and my constituency stayed Labour by a small margin.
Fair enough, I guess. I'm very left, and pretty angry about what's going in the world, so find it hard to advocate "playing the game" when that always means compromising on what's right.
I am skeptical of "electability" and "playing the game" though. I'm not overly familiar with 2000s UK politics, but in the USA that strategy seems not to be working. The opposition is bad-faith, money is on it's side, and they've been slowly dismantling the public's strength for decades. They're also concepts almost entirely formed by the media and incumbent power.
You may be right though the what's needed is a two-faced left party. One that plays the friendly centrist until they're in power. I can't imagine there's too many on the left capable of that though. I'd say the left are in an important way fundamentally incapable of insincerity and scheming. They're idealists, they're passionate, they're honest, and they can't really hide it. I'd say Bernie is like that, but thankfully things seem to be going Ok for him for now. Certainly wearing his heart on his sleeve and sticking to his principles for decades has won him a lot of credibility that the typical political animal couldn't construct with even billions in oligarchic media magic.
I've been saying this for years. And not just that, a party who is prepared to engage in the sort of underhand dirty tricks which is how the right keep winning. The psyops, the character assassination, the outright lies and so on. I'd say that's what 'electability' and 'playing the game' means in 21st century politics. It's sad, but that's how it is.
"They go low, we go high" will lose every time. "They go low, we're already down there waiting for them with rusty razor blades" is what we need.
fwiw, I'm a very far left, passionate idealist and I would absolutely do whatever it takes. I used to care about honesty and being the better person but the older I get the more results matter more than principles. If we have to trick and manipulate people into having a better society then so be it. I trick my kid into eating vegetables rather than stuffing his face with cake, this is no different.
Interesting. In using these tactics you would be in some way walking away from democracy and trying to deceive people, just like the Conservatives. Though in this case your behaviour isn’t wicked but pro-social with anti-social tactics. There’s also a bit of paternalism.
I reckon you can’t do this stuff without the massive media system. If we used the right’s tactics but have 1/100th the resources don’t you just lose?
Eh, democracy is over-rated. It's clearly not working very well, at least in it's current implementation (there's a whole discussion here about how worthless the FPTP electoral system is). I'd honestly take a benevolent dictator at this point - if such a thing were possible, but it probably isn't.
The problem is that people can't be trusted to do what is right for themselves, let alone others. Or to be a little more charitable, and I do tend towards this interpretation rather than the previous one, people are too easily deceived and the mechanisms for enacting that deception are terribly effective now. So much more so than in the past. I do think most people are basically nice and fairly decent. I don't think anyone voting Conservative actually wants more child poverty, more homelessness, more people using food banks, more inequality and so on - but they still voted for those things.
You might be right on that last point. Although not using their tactics certainly isn't working either. Enough media will do what it's told for enough money. A media game is winnable.
I think this is a dangerous part of history - where we forget why we wanted Democracy in the first place and start wishing for the safe clutches of a dictatorship.
I eschew democracy, and wish for the safe clutches of an AI determining the root problem with the planet right now: Humans.
Come on grey goo! You cannot get here quickly enough!
This is exactly what we need. It's a war of propaganda, and pretending otherwise is in my opinion dangerously naïve. I care about results, and I would advocate using the exact same methods as the opposition to achieve them.
I'm not quite going to go as far as suggesting using more aggressive methods, because that way lies an arms race of misinformation, but right now the left are bringing a knife to a gun fight and it's demonstrably failing.
I wonder if there’s any films or literature that has explored the idea of a Machiavellian left. This kind of thing isn’t really part of the left imagination.
I mean.... Stalin? Mao?
Haha, definitely not who I had in mind but I can see how they'd come up. They're a nice counterpoint to the idea too. If you attempt to control your people through deception you're in dangerous authoritarian territory.
Regarding the last part, I'll leave better minds debate over that. But as for the first, why is it that when the hard-right pushes they get the electorate yet when the left tries to push back in the other direction, their efforts are branded as vanity projects?
Who cares that they lost? What was seen as extreme right wing ideas a few years ago became the new "normal" in the conservative party.
The way politics tends to work in the UK is that fringe parties pop up from time to time, and fringe ideas take on the zeitgeist and then the 2 main parties panic a bit and then adopt versions of those fringes into their own framework to secure their existing positions of power.
Over the past few years across Europe and other places there has been a resurgent hard right. This has become, sadly, pretty deeply ingrained in sections of the general population. What the Tories did here was take the thrust of the hard right ideas (Brexit - not in and of itself 'hard right', but certainly the icon for hard right views) and adopt it into their manifesto. Thereby undercutting and destroying what was, at one point, a potentially real challenge from Farage et al.
Now that's not to decry the loss of the Brexit party at all. Good riddance. They're about as politically far away from my interests as anyone could be. But my point in observing it was that the UK is ultimately a stable centrist democracy, and fringe politics very rarely obtain a controlling stake. Brexit Party got consumed into the Tories, and the fringe element died.
For Labour though, they mainlined their fringe politics. Labour lurched so far to the left that even the people who would undoubtedly benefit from more or less everything they were proposing or standing for couldn't even palette it. And they were destroyed. Monumentally rejected in favour of what could only be described as an omnishambles of a Tory party.
And the reason is the same - we're a stable centrist democracy.
Now this isn't new or insightful information. This is widely acknowledged. And that is the reason I refer to Corbynism is a "vanity project". No one could seriously have expected this to work at scale - it was ultimately well-intentioned idealists producing well-intentioned policy, but it was always going go fail.
Until it doesn't.
I take your point well, so I'd be interested in how you see his success in the previous election. Also, Brexit pulled the Conservatives right. Is there an opposing left-pull ever, that makes up the centrism?
2016 brought Donald Trump, so I'd imagine you'd think there's some stark difference between the makeup of the UK political landscape and the US one, to explain how that happened. Is it because the USA is a right-wing plutocracy, and not a "stable centrist democracy"?
Yeah, I get that, but I'd call it "moonshot politics". You might pull off your one-in-a-million moonshot and change the world - almost like a revolution - but you're unlikely to. Compared with "playing the game" - in which you play the cards you know your electorate will respond well to, and you introduce iterative, evolutionary changes that tilt left towards what you ultimately want.
I see his success in the previous election as down to 3 things.
The other elephant in the room is Brexit. That's more complicated though, and I think (but would be open to be corrected) that his ambiguity over it caused him a huge problem this time round. The reason I'm fence-sitting on this one for the time being is that Swinson was unambiguous and was badly burned. I need to think about this more.
All seems reasonable. You sound like Ezra Klein, who I admire for his insight but whose centrist instincts frustrate me to no end.
That's true about Swinson. Corbyn's muddling about with Brexit seemed like a fuckup, but Swinson was hard-Remain and got ousted.
Because they have an organizing base. They own media outlets, and they make inroads with non-political sources of community to get out the vote, such as churches. The Left doesn't do organizing. Unions are anemic and all forms of Leftist engagement are actively political rather than communitarian, which means you don't drive your messaging into the mainstream.
'Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile. This is a party of government. I will lead it as a party of government’ - Blair (longest continuously serving Labour prime minister)
That doesn't answer the question.
I think this is the point at which we need to introduce the vested interests and the media into the equation.
No doubt that Corbyn was hugely unfairly maligned in the vast majority of the media, because his manifesto directly attacked the interests of their paymasters.
Sadly, the same thing happened to Ed Milliband. Destroyed by the media - "LOL LOOK AT HOW HE EATS A SANDWICH!!111!!1!"
The only thing I'd temper this with marginally, is that the "right" and "left" in this context is more of an economic concern, and we risk confusing them with non-economic interests since those terms are also used to describe other things - most notably in this case, bad racists.
I don't for a minute think that everyone who has some money and therefore a vested interest in an economic framework that allows them to keep it is automatically a bad racist!
Good point, actually. The wind was out of their sails because the conservatives just coopted their agenda.
I think there's a mistaken assumption here that the Brexit Party's loss is a repudiation of the hard right or their stances. As one of the people who worked on the exit poll noted: Farage has pretty much brought the Conservatives into his rhetorical camp. There's no need to vote for the far right when the regular right plays the same tune.
There's a toxic wing to the Labour party, and that group is currently in charge of it and so Labour will remain unelectable. And they don't see Corbyn as the problem: it's everything else - it's the BBC, it's "lies" about racism, etc.
The incoherent labour campaign, coupled with an LD party that doesn't know what it's doing or what it stands for, and neither party wanting to work with each other, combined with a Conservative party that was happy to lie and push populist bollocks means the worst party won.
The country is fucked.
This sounds like annoying both-sideism.
Who is this "they"? The labour party? If so, this is a bit wrong as people in the party have openly opposed him. Those people aren't the majority, so then maybe the others just disagree with you. Is it so implausible that the cards could be stacked against Labour?
The Labour membership is very pro-Corbyn. The PLP less so.
Yes, there have been challenges and murmurs of coups, but nothing substantial came of them.
"They" is the toxic wing of the Labour party currently in charge of it.
I don't see the problem with pointing out the flaws in Labour now. They've already lost, we can accept that it didn't work out.
We can attack other leftists because they don't tow the party line, aren't gung-ho enough about our specific leadership, and see similar results. Alternatively we can address those concerns and bring meaningful change.
The hard left has been out of power for so long that they don't actually know how to wield it or grow in influence anymore. The only ones left are the intransigents who are incapable of making friends or building alliances. But that's just a natural issue with the pipeline. If they were the types of people who were focused on actually accomplishing anything, they wouldn't have spent the past 3 decades being oppositional Leftists.
I'm extremely wary of anybody shouting 'this is a disaster', or 'this is amazing'. This election needs to be looked at in a variety of ways, taking into consideration:
In the eyes of the public, the referendum dictated whether we'd leave or remain. It was an expensive campaign, and dominated the airwaves for months. The public, given the conditions of the referendum, voted for leave. The referndum, however, was extremely naive and failed to take into consideration the following steps, which imo, has lead to our current crisis in politics. It should have been a priority for everybody party to have policies in place which aim to heal the rift in our society and ensure that future referenda are held to higher standards, as opposed to beating the Brexit dead horse and creating further divisons. In this regard, any result in this election would have been a failure.
'Getting Brexit done', imo, had to have been the priority this election. I liked Rory Stewart's position in stating that if we had kicked the can any futher down the road, the UK would be left looking like a state in crisis, unpredictable, and politically ineffective; a laughing stock globally. Reverting the Brexit decision would have left 45%+ of the population feeling alienated with politics; allowing a far, far nastier breed of politics brewing. "None of them give a fuck about us, so fuck it, might as well vote for the British Union of Fascists to get our country back!". People may argue that currently 48% of the population feel alienated, but to counter that, not many people, or any political party representing said people, stood up pre-referendum and said "no, we need to rethink how we're running this". The public by and large agreed to hold a referendum, and were therefore included whatever the outcome. Given this, I am glad the Conservatives have a majority, so we can undo the utter failure of Theresa May's leadership which left us in limbo for 2 years.
I'm hoping that now, we can shift the battleground away from Brexit and into things which really matter, such as social policies, education, health, policing, etc. I truly hope this election and referendum has been a wake up call, which will invigorate the electorate into being more critical of our media, politicians, and political process. I think the time has come to move the public discourse away from Brexit and into building a stronger country for the future.
Any cries of "woe betide, our healthcare will become American!" is absolute nonsense fear-mongering; a result of a media which isn't held to any standards. If we are unable as a people to not argue in better faith, we will get the outcomes we deserve. It's up to us now to ensure public discourse remains civil, balanced and critical; putting our politicians to the test and creating a better playing field, as opposed to cementing up our goalposts.
Several Conservative politicians have said publicly that our system should move to an insurance based system, including a previous SoSDHSC. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-hunt-privatise-nhs-tories-privatising-private-insurance-market-replacement-direct-democracy-a6865306.html
Anyone who thinks the NHS is safe in Conservative hands hasn't been paying attention. This year is the first time that not a single hospital met the 4 hour A&E target. This is the worst ever performance, and this is before the winter pressures have actually started. We're going to have a bad flu season this year and it's going to get a whole lot worse. Some trusts were as low as 60%! https://twitter.com/LawrenceDunhill/status/1205439680671617025 https://twitter.com/gooroohealth/status/1205422468254568448/photo/1
In other news women died because people misunderstood the overseas visitors charging regulation. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/nhs-report-delayed-until-after-election-reveals-pregnant-women-died-because-of-mistaken-fears-they-a9245966.html
Healthcare is not a binary choice of either NHS or an American system, there's a whole myriad of options in between.
From the article you posted, apparently this is what was said :
The front-end in the UK is always going to be universal coverage; free at the point of use for most services. Have you ever seen a UK politician arguing otherwise?
It's just the back-end which is open for debate here; how can we improve our healthcare system to improve outcomes?
It is absolutely idiocy to shoot down any healthcare debate by saying "lol NHS good, anything else bad". We should be looking at our our system and keeping what works best about it, and looking at systems from elsewhere in the world and taking what's best about them.
The NHS was created in the 40s. Things have changed, and if we're to remain a nation on top of its game, we can't be clinging to the past (like convervatives), but should be innovating and leading the way forward for the rest.
I personally believe a healthcare charter needs to be drawn up ASAP, which established the principles which the UK public expect governments to follow, and then let both the market and ruling parties decide how to go about achieving said targets. The charter would need to include:
,etc, etc
I think that if this were said in a vacuum I'd broadly agree, but the reality of the situation has to be taken in the context of the last decade of Conservative government and of Johnson in particular.
They have doubled down on projects like Universal Credit which cause enormous, demonstrable harm to the most vulnerable in our society. They have managed the NHS in a way that has been fiercely opposed by doctors and, as @DanBC mentioned, has led to visibly declining outcomes. Johnson has been complicit in a Brexit campaign that outright lied about increasing NHS funding, broke campaign finance law, and subsequently opened the conversation on extending drug patents as part of US trade negotiations. He and his party have refused to release a report on Russian interference in our democratic process.
I have no reason to believe that he or his party are acting in good faith, and significant reason to think the opposite.
Yes, the book says this. And then they went and did it: that's what the Lansley Reforms are. Current English law means commissioners are not allowed to prefer one type of provider over another -- they're forbidden by law from saying "we'd rather use NHS providers, not private providers". That's why we have Virgin Healthcare or LiveWell SouthWest or Priory Group or Cygnet providing NHS treatment. One of these is good (Livewell southwest) but the rest are pretty terrible. https://www.hsj.co.uk/mental-health/private-provider-sees-eighth-site-rated-inadequate/7026367.article
No-one, not even the Conservatives, think the Lansley Reforms have worked and the current government is working out how to fix the damage caused to the NHS without breaking it even further.
And let's look at why they introduced choice: they thought it would end waiting lists. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/howard-promises-the-right-to-choose-will-end-waiting-lists-within-five-years-733329.html
It hasn't reduced waiting lists, has it? We've had choose and book for years, we've had private providers of NHS services for years, but waiting lists are increasing not decreasing.
The Conservative government have already ended universal coverage. That's what the Overseas visitor charging regulations are. Don't forget that these regs have killed people.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nhs-treatment-patients-payment-free-healthcare-report-overseas-health-tourism-bma-a8684096.html
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/nhs-report-delayed-until-after-election-reveals-pregnant-women-died-because-of-mistaken-fears-they-a9245966.html
YES! This is entirely the point. Several politicians call for insurance-style systems. Johnson did it in 2004. See this idea from Howard, which was an attempt to introduce a blended model.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/howard-promises-the-right-to-choose-will-end-waiting-lists-within-five-years-733329.html
Not really! I know a lot about suicide prevention and patient safety in England which means I interact with the bureaucratic side of the English NHS a lot. So I try to understand it because I need to know what levers I can pull to try to get big complex interacting systems to understand that they need to change behaviours.
Except...
The UK is already there. For voting brexit to begin with. Yes, this is from an outside-person: The UK is a laughing stock nation right now.
Same with the US (Although, I'm from the US).
We both elected the same type of executive leader: A fucking loony tunes radical, who is unpredictable, and irrational, and to cap it off: Xenophobic.
Yep. Join the club. Our two nations have been laughed off the world stage. We are no longer world leaders, and probably for the best, to be honest. The US and the UK combined have fucked over more of this planet than any other nation.
If you're looking at Boris Johnson in such a way, you've fallen victim to whatever media you've been consuming, in my opinion.
I think a good starting point would be here to develop a more nuanced view : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Johnson#Political_views_and_ideology
I think the following line gives a nice overview:
Imo, not an extreme character in the slightest; more the opposite. And now he's effectively put Farage/the Brexit Party/UKIP to bed, we'll see a shift in his policies from the right back towards the centre.
As for the final paragraph, I don't share your negativity I'm afraid. It's quite impossible to say anybody has 'fucked over the planet' without setting any parameters. Are we defining this in terms of living standards? eradication of cultures? slavery? amount of people killed by said institutions?
Yes, let's add nuance: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/29/rightwing-thinktank-conservative-boris-johnson-brexit-atlas-network
While he may have held centrist positions in the past, he most surely doesn't at this time.
Interesting, from your link, you glossed over this entire section:
Ideologically, Johnson has described himself as a "One-Nation Tory".[477][478] In 2012 the political scientist Tony Travers described Johnson as "a fairly classic—that is, small-state—mildly eurosceptic Conservative" who like his contemporaries Cameron and George Osborne also embraced "modern social liberalism".[479] The Guardian stated that while mayor, Johnson blended economic and social liberalism,[480] with The Economist claiming that in doing so Johnson "transcends his Tory identity" and adopts a more libertarian perspective.[481] Stuart Reid, Johnson's colleague at The Spectator, described the latter's views as being those of a "liberal libertarian".[482] Business Insider noted that as London Mayor, Johnson gained a reputation as "a liberal, centre-ground politician".[483] Johnson's biographer and friend Andrew Gimson said that while "in economic and social matters, [Johnson] is a genuine liberal", he retains a "Tory element" to his personality through his "love of existing institutions, and a recognition of the inevitability of hierarchy".[484] His liberal stance on matters such as social policy, immigration and free trade have also been noted in 2019.[485][486] In 2019, Al Jazeera editor James Brownswell noted that although Johnson had "leaned to the right" since the Brexit campaign, he remained "slightly more socially liberal" than much of his party.[487] In 2019 former Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party Michael Heseltine said Johnson "has no right to call himself a one-nation Conservative" and wrote: "I fear that any traces of liberal conservatism that still exist within the prime minister have long since been captured by the rightwing, foreigner-bashing, inward-looking view of the world that has come to characterise his fellow Brexiters".[488]
If we go by any of the above, the US and the UK have fucked over this planet far more than any one else has.
And somehow people is still voting against their interests.
Democracy doesn't seem to work.
This feels really frustrating :(
Gotta love disinformation, populism and lies winning everywhere around the world, when the clocks ticking on climate change. Why does the average person love a random asshole rich person so much? I don't get it. In my country a corrupt, former communist billionaire is the PM too. I honestly think we are just fucked. I am not from the US or the UK but this makes me really anxious about the future.
Well, maybe Trump doesn't win the next US election? Maybe? I don't have much hope left to be honest. But here's hoping.
Here's hoping with you too. May Bernie/Warren/Yang save us from this and bring the progressivist utopia of Europe (Germany ,France or the Nordic nations) unto the new world. (Also it will make every other right-wing regime lose their legitimacy)
sigh I should have stayed in that German course...
Seriously, I'm beginning to get the impression that if I went to your country (or anywhere in the developed world) right now, I would think India or my country, Brazil was doing better. I'm like 14 though, and by the time I began paying even a little attention to politics, trump was already 1 and a half years into office, and so I don't really remember a reality before this so as far as I remember, this may as well have started with the red scare some 50 years ago.
So it begs many questions: how did 'we' (whatever 'we' has become) get here? How long has this really been going on for? Are we really sure 'we' is a sensible term to use anymore? Who are these people voting for conservatives anyway? Has anyone here spoken to a conservative and if so, what were they like? Are we sure they are "stupid" themselves, or did conservative news channels and Facebook make them "stupid"? (Is "stupid" even really the right word to be using?)
I remember being 14, and having no knowledge of history (because how could I have?). I recommend reading - Wikipedia is a great start, books are great too when you want to go more in depth. It'll take time, but I found it really enjoyable so it wasn't too hard. I'm sure you will too, or if you don't it might be worth just learning something else.
Ultimately, over time, you'll develop a strong understanding of why the world is how it is, which I find is a very fulfilling outcome.
If I understand correctly, you're a 14-year-old Brazilian. Is that so? For now, I'll assume that is true.
I'm also Brazillian.
I wouldn't say the right is necessarily harmful, nor that the left is necessarily good. These things change a lot historically. Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a neoliberal, was fundamental to modernize the Brazillian economy. Luís Inácio Lula da Silva, a left-wing populist, gained several awards for basically eradicating widespread famine in the same country. Winston Churchill was a brilliant conservative president. Hugo Chávez was a hateful Marxist dictator that ruined Venezuela. Abraham Lincoln, a Republican president, fought to end slavery in America.
With that in mind, try to have an unemotional, consequentalist view of the situation. Look at what politicians do and say, and use history and logic to create a personal (and informal) probability framework. What will be the consequence of their rise to power? Good or bad? Will more people become or stay poor? Will the economy, healthcare, security and education improve? In sum: will this set of politicians increase the welfare of the majority of the population, while enforcing both our legal and universal human rights?
Once these questions are answered, you can easily eliminate from your sympathies a whole bunch of politicians that are clearly contrary to the good of the collective.
Now you must evaluate the practical ability of the remaining coalitions to actually implement their well-meaning platforms, as well as the sincerity of their public statements. To do that, you must research their previous history and compare their discourse with their actions, and their actions with their outcomes.
It's not simple, and that's why this is a seemingly endless discussion.
Thanks for the thorough reply. Just for the record, I used 'stupid' because I wasn't really sure or serious when it came to those questions and the thread was (is) absurdly pessimistic so I wasn't really feeling pressed to do so (And I am pessimistic as fuck too) I would probably describe most current conservative voters ( atleast in the US and most of the West) as something more like short-sighted, easily swayed or unwilling to look for information and fact-checking it,potentially overly focused on one issue (I heard many Republicans solely vote conservative because of guns, abortion, religion, immigration or the 'free market' and just go with everything else because 'at least my problem with society is being solved'.) or not realizing they're missing an important detail (like in lowering corporate tax rate because they still believe in trickle-down despite the fact that stock buybacks are rampant in the US because they don't know stock buybacks or the stock market even exist)
Yeah I know that, really, politics is far more than 'the left' or 'the right' and I would probably divide politicians into something more similar to what 8values measures and that 'liberal' and 'conservative' change over time, women's suffrage and feminism in all the forms shown now were once actually associated with Marxist-leninism along with the 8-hour workday but now it's just normal and if I had to guess the age to watch porn is gonna go down to 12 and prostitution will become dignified within the next 50 years and the Democrats were the pro-slavery, as you said and the number of communist dictators that ultimately barely helped 'the people' is staggering.
Divisions such as 8values create a useful vocabulary, but in any case, even if you have access to a bunch of data, to approach politics one must make a good amount of contextual judgments that have, by necessity, a great degree of uncertainty and subjectivity.
For those who espouse democratic beliefs, understanding the paradox of tolerance is a good start for separating the wheat from the chaff.
Edit: it looks like I'm a Libertarian Socialist.