There's a fair few that are plain crooks in it to make money, supported by those that love the sound of their own voice, are easily flattered, totally immune to boredom and too dim to realise who the crooks are or what they're up to. And from personal experience there are as many Labour crooks as Tory, although not Liberal, I suppose they don't provide an obvious route to opportunity.
Jeremy Corbyn - Not Not Labour Party(?), not a Communist (BBC)
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There's a fair few that are plain crooks in it to make money, supported by those that love the sound of their own voice, are easily flattered, totally immune to boredom and too dim to realise who the crooks are or what they're up to. And from personal experience there are as many Labour crooks as Tory, although not Liberal, I suppose they don't provide an obvious route to opportunity.
Not to excuse it or anything, because it's obviously incredibly poor for the party to have missed it, but I do think it's the case that people slip through the net in all political parties. Ruth Davidson's been held up by her party and the media as a bastion of political competency but there were a few incredibly nasty Tory councillors who managed to get elected last year. While I'm struggling to think of any equivalent cases off the top of my head for the SNP/Labour up here, some of their councillors are worryingly stupid/lacking in political knowledge to the point where it astounds me they hold elected offices.
corruption is easier when you have a whiff of power, hence the libs shitting the bed in the coalition
Wouldn't surprise me. But it's more expected to be racist and a Tory. It's more shocking to see racism on the left because, at least as far as I was growing up, that's what the left has always been against; racism, division, etc.
The standard of local politics is shocking when you really look into it. No one particularly cares, often focusing on larger narratives, and so councillors of all parties and political persuasions get away with a ridiculous amount because they're well-known in the local community. I actually do think a lot of them are genuinely in it because they want to be involved in politics, considering the money isn't exactly that great and there's a fair bit of work and stick involved, but some of them are ridiculously shite when it comes to doing political work.
Corruption is really only possible with power. Compromise, if we're being nice. I don't think the Corbyn left has ever really had to comes to terms with that as anyone from the left, however loosely you define that, who's ever come to power has never really had the support of that fringe of the party. Not Wilson, not Callaghan, definitely not Blair, not Brown. If Corbyn ever did get into No 10 it'd be interesting if the same factions did what they've always done whenever Labour leader wins an election and sees themselves as the opposition from within.
In modern politics (post 45) it's hard to think of a Labour leader who's won an election that the left actually liked. Maybe it's fear of ideological compromise which is inevitable with power.
The left have always complained about Labour leaders (and would likely hate Attlee's preference for compromise if he were around now) but the actual politics of Wilson/Callaghan, in regards to tax etc, were far more similar to Corbyn's politics now than those of Blair or Brown. As is evidenced by the fact that figures like Tony Benn were given key governmental positions when they were largely seen as fringe far-left nutters during the pre-Corbyn years. Thatcher changed the game in that regard. Blair didn't try to shift the paradigm back, Brown probably wanted to in his early years but was too jaded by the time he became PM to believe in leftism in the wake of a financial crisis, and so Corbyn's the first figure in a good while to advocate a proper shift back to the old left. There's a genuine critique to given to some Labour left figures who'll always be unhappy no matter what and who don't recognise compromise is sometimes needed to achieve power, but for the most part Wilson/Callaghan would be much more closely aligned with Corbyn than they would've been Blair.
The politics of everyone from the left in the 70s/80s was much more aligned with Corbyn today vs his recent predecessors. That's kind of a 'water is wet' point.
Yeah, I'm being unfair on those with genuine political motivation, of which I've known a few. You're wrong about the money not being great though, I'm not talking about allowances and stuff, I'm talking about out and out corruption in land deals and contracts. I've seen councillors in two cities imprisoned who I knew were bent years before from their lifestyle and spending. And know others now that may never be caught.
Well yes. But your argument was that a lot of the left didn't like Callaghan/Wilson, as if this is somehow similar to the left not liking Blair/Brown, when the circumstances were clearly very different. The argument of the left is that austerity/right-wing politics has caused economic inequality to skyrocket since the Thatcher era, and that significant redistributions are needed in order to change things for the better. That's an argument Wilson/Callaghan would likely agree with, even if they'd be more prone to compromise than some elements of the Labour left would like.
Ah yes, fair enough. Often a lot of nepotism involved, jobs for people to close to them, preference given to institutions they like etc. In general not enough attention is given to local politics. Some of the issues you see raised are concerning the point where they're comical.
The argument that he can't gain large scale support outside of the far left fell apart when he got the biggest swing in almost a century.
At the time Wilson and Callaghan weren't from the left of the party and to contemporaries would have been seen as of the centre, maybe even the right, of the party.
You can't really transpose between eras as Corbyn today wouldn't have seemed anywhere near as radical and left wing in the 70s. He still belongs to that lineage though. What the left and right of the party represents evolves. In 20 years time Blair might well look like a centrist compared to what the party looks like then. Wouldn't change the fact he was to the hard right of the party at the time and those who are to the hard right of the party in 20 years time have followed in his footsteps, even if what it means to be hard-right has changed.
You can't really transpose between eras as Corbyn today wouldn't have seemed anywhere near as radical and left wing in the 70s. He still belongs to that lineage though. What the left and right of the party represents evolves. In 20 years time Blair might well look like a centrist compared to what the party looks like then. Wouldn't change the fact he was to the hard right of the party at the time and those who are to the hard right of the party in 20 years time have followed in his footsteps, even if what it means to be hard-right has changed.
Exactly. Hence the paradigm has shifted dramatically to the right since then. Something Corbyn and those with left-wing views are trying to reverse.
But my point was that the left has never really had a representative in Number 10. They've never really had their champion in a position to make decisions and having to compromise. They've seen others from other wings of the party do it and seen supporters who identify with other wings of the party having to explain/excuse and rationalise the compromises that have been made, the left of the party never has. It's always been easy for them to oppose whoever is in power because it's either a Tory they're ingrained to hate, or it's someone from the wing of the party who they don't identify with.
Unless Corbyn wins a general election, it's a perpetual state of opposition in many ways. Easy as piss to hold true to principles when they've never been in a position to need to compromise them. If Corbyn does win, will the left revert to the same? Second he compromises on anything, as any PM has to,: "Traitor!". I think there's a chance.
EDIT: Elements of the left see themselves as the opposition, and I don't think they'll let a little thing like Corbyn being the PM get in the way of that.
You're using the 'left' in very general terms. Plenty on the left did like Attlee and Wilson and Callaghan, and by any standards all three of them were much closer to Corbyn economically than the centre of the party. That's the key point here.
I think it's an over-simplistic analysis. The idea that Corbyn's support are a bunch of trolls who have come out from beneath rocks since his leadership challenge is a fantasy, plenty of them are the sorts of people who would have been happy backing the rhetoric behind Blair's domestic policy (but perhaps not the policies as they emerged) had they been born 20 years earlier. Corbyn's leadership has seen the reversal of Labour's loss of membership because he represents Labour's core values whilst being detached from their biggest recent failings, not because his views are something completely new for the party or the country.
Similarly, what we would now term the UKIP crowd have been influential in policy-making under every government for the last 30-40 years, the highest selling newspapers in the country have been parroting and encouraging their views constantly for decades. Even Blair's government which was often attacked for being soft-touch and overly PC saw horrific stuff going on (for example in prisons and detention centres) in the name of appeasing them, the very people you claim no-one ever listened to.
The big difference isn't that people with fringe views have become emboldened because of the rise of UKIP or Corbyn, it's that in 2018 you can boot up a computer, type a word into twitter's search bar and instantly find dozens of incredibly stupid people of any political persuasion whereas before their ability to disseminate their views was limited to how loud it was in their local pub.
Corbyn supporters are the latest group to have their rocks lifted up and a light shone on them. Because they're the latest, it's currently the most interesting/topical. I'm not saying other groups don't have their own rocks but it's always the last one we get to look under that generates conversation. It'll move on and we'll start to look under someone else's rock and what's considered under the Corbyn supporter's rock suddenly won't seem as interesting.
It's a testament to how defensive people are on that subject where even that gets people pissy.
It's a testament to how defensive people are on that subject where even that gets people pissy.
Something tells me the media's predilection for taking an especially long and careful look under Corbyn supporter's rocks might be based in something other than the interests of sub-rock exploratory science
It's how it works. Newest gets spoke about. When UKIP emerged and all the horrible racists came out it was interesting not because horrible racists hadn't existed before that but because it was a new set of horrible racists. Whenever any group not used to exposure are exposed the undesirable elements within that group get exposed to. In UKIP's case that's all of them, but maybe a better example would be the SNP. Until relatively recently a large party but largely confined to those north of the boarder with little or no interest from the London press. Referendum was called and suddenly the media was full of stories of some of the extreme elements of SNP support. Those people didn't suddenly exist, we'd just suddenly had them brought to our attention.
It's just what happens.
Orwell was a true sage.
Orwell was a true sage.
Username's bang on though.
Wilson and Benn were not fans of each other, to say the least.
Not unsurprising upvote/downvote ratio.
I agree that generally speaking novelty is a decent strategy for selling papers, but it's clearly not the driving factor behind the recent anti-Corbyn coverage. The 'Corbyn-supporters are X, Y, Z' thing has been rumbling on since 2015. The 'some Corbyn supporters are antisemitic' angle isn't novel either, Ken Livingstone's Hitler comments and suspension pre-date the Brexit vote which seems like a lifetime ago now.
Obviously the fact that there are still racists in the Labour Party 3 years after Corbyn took power is a story in itself, but I don't see the right-leaning papers going all in with an exposé the openly racist grannies who have dodged expulsion from their local Conservative branches. Similarly, they're not devoting a lot of column inches to newer developments such as donations to the Tories from people with ties to repression and ethnic cleansing, the rise in all forms of hate crime since Brexit or the hundreds of thousands of sexists, racists and homophobes who came into the Tory fold from UKIP in the latest general election.
It's the crux of what many people on the left care about. Maybe for some it's the only thing people care about.
Bad post. Needs more rock talk.
Yes, tell us about Ugly Rumours.
Fair, but I'd still say it's true that Wilson would be much closer to Corbyn (generally speaking) than he would be to Blair. Although could be said that if he'd grown up in a different era with different political norms he'd have ended up in the centre-ground of the party.
I'm just saying that there exists an element of those on the left who'd be happy if you just shut them in a room all day and let them tell you how awful Blair was. Anything contemporary like the homelessness crisis this government has facilitated, isn't really of interest
Pro or anti Blair, the only winners of Labour supporters being so introspective on the issue are the Tories. As awful as Iraq was, "But Iraq..." has let them off the hook with so much post 2010.
Pro or anti Blair, the only winners of Labour supporters being so introspective on the issue are the Tories. As awful as Iraq was, "But Iraq..." has let them off the hook with so much post 2010.
I mean it only takes a quick google to find
Corbyn: Labour would buy 8,000 properties for homeless people
https://www.theguardian.com/society...ur-would-buy-8000-properties-for-the-homeless
False equivilence. UKIP genuinely had racism throughout it's party. Point to Labour MPs who are anti-semitic and let me save you some time, you won't be able to find any. The nearest being Naz Shah, who's anti Israeli comments came during Israel carrying out a genocide.
Actually analyse any anti-semetism within the Labour movement and at most you'll find anti-Israeli war crime sentiment, some over the top but much of it very much reasonable.
And even then, why is OTT criticism of genocide worse than genocide itself?
I think you're talking about a really small bunch of people. Such a small group it really doesn't bear considering.
I'm all for a genuine discussion of New Labour's record in government because I think there were plenty of genuinely impressive social achievements during their tenure and the GFA is probably Blair's crowning success, but you can't fundamentally ignore Iraq because it doesn't suit your narrative when it was one of the defining political events of the new millenniums first decade. Any discussion of New Labour which omits Iraq is being a bit dishonest, I reckon.
Can someone tell the entire British press and the Labour right please?
And it (again) applies to all political parties, because all parties have elements of their support who're incredibly rabid in their views and who refuse to accept opposing ones...hence why they're so heavily committed to an individual political party. From a Scottish POV a lot of the Labour contingent up here have spent the past decade being every bit as irrational and delusional as the worst of Corbyn's lot are accused of being.
To be fair, criticism of Iraq is fairly rife these days, to the point where condoning the war is generally the controversial, edgy opinion. And most people I know more towards the centre of the party - and prominent figures within the party - generally agree that it's fair game to point out how flawed the whole process was.
But Libya shows that they've not change at all.