Yeah I'd agree. It seems the centre ground died when the credibility of the Lib Dems did in the UK. It seems now you have to be one extreme or the other or else you get lambasted for having another view.
Westminster Politics
- Thread starter altodevil
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Yeah I'd agree. It seems the centre ground died when the credibility of the Lib Dems did in the UK. It seems now you have to be one extreme or the other or else you get lambasted for having another view.
Quality control
I think the shutting down of discussion and ganging up on others is a trait of those specific left wing posters you speak of. I know exactly who you refer to and they get away with bullying others out of threads quite regularly.
The CE forum needs more attentive moderating at the moment in my opinion.
I think there is certainly truth to this and the drivers of that are interesting. I, however, find myself utterly aliented by the majority of the press and the general voting patterns of the UK which has shifted heavily to the right in my lifetime.
Not by standards I recognise and not even the current standards of my city. Of the UK as a whole, yes it probably is.
At current run rate, in 20 years anything left of the Dakeks will be seen as left wing.
In regards to second homes there might be a particular generational discord given the oft-cited troubled relationship millennials have with the housing market. It has been predicted in the past that up to a third of millennials in the UK will never own their own home, which is the sort of long-term outlook that likely impacts their perspective on how "special" or not it is to have two homes and to what degree it is a symbol of privilege.
Maybe I'm wrong but it wouldn't surprise me if issues in that area would provoke more "extreme" opinions from that cohort than one would see in other age groups with similar political outlooks.
This is true and there is also an undeniably ghoulish element under the current situation from financially benefitting from the financial troubles of others.
When in online debates you encounter others who have different experiences and perspectives and it's easy to provoke anger through seemingly innocent comments.
next time can you just post you’re a relatively wealthy white man who inherited a fewproperties and we’d have a better understanding
I havent inherited them yet.
oh dear. Maybe he was just testing his eyesight?
Worsening*
because it makes me think he knocked one out before going to bed.Two of my Business Partners are quite wealthy no matter which way you would measure it.
And they're not white !
I think the opposite. I think we are overly lenient on many things. It even takes many repeats of dangerous conspiracy theory whackjobbery to even get a thread ban here. You even have to be overtly racist and often it often takes doubling down to get points and to be fairly despicable to get a ban.
And people don't get bullied for their views. They get called out on them no matter what their political persuasion. The ones who claim they are bullied are usually the ones who can't reasonably justify their own views or assertions.
Getting a bit close to "I have a black friend so ..." type comment there.
That anyone can think the Caf is very left wing should be a reminder of how far right the UK has lurched.
I'm a centre-left social democrat and I find this place to the right of me on average. On the other hand people seem to assume that being left socially implies that you are far left economically. Which misses the point of what social democracy is about. Conversely, the right of politics is right or far right on all matters in general even if they have adapted to more modern views on some social issues compared to earlier eras. The right is far less nuanced so no wonder they try to paint anything slightly left of centre through to Marxist with the same brush.
I'm a centre-left social democrat and I find this place to the right of me on average. On the other hand people seem to assume that being left socially implies that you are far left economically. Which misses the point of what social democracy is about. Conversely, the right of politics is right or far right on all matters in general even if they have adapted to more modern views on some social issues compared to earlier eras. The right is far less nuanced so no wonder they try to paint anything slightly left of centre through to Marxist with the same brush.
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I'd agree with all of this.
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Loads of these All over Twitter #songsfordominic
Thanks for the reply and sharing your opinion. Makes more sense to do that than warn me about the post with no explanation (as Grinner did). Don't get me wrong I think theres a tough job to be done in the CE forum but I do think it's a particular unwelcoming place for some posters who aren't in the 'clique' who live in there 24/7. Infact I pretty much know this to be the case from discussions with a number of other posters.
As I'm sure you're aware I was called an idiot by one poster for expressing an opinion that US culture is the biggest problem when it comes to racism, shootings and the like. It's not, in my opinion, as simple as just reforming the police as they represent the society and society is the problem. I was then ganged up on by a number of other posters and given abuse. When I responded back and called someone a 'feckwit' I was given two warning points and a thread ban. If that's how we operate in the CE forum is it any wonder some won't bother contributing? And before anyone looks the posts have now been moderated and deleted although you can see afterwards other posters point out how it's wrong that any other discussion or opinion gets shut down/abused by certain groups.
A typically ignorant comment then.
Having more than one house has little to do with privilege, especially if these are mortgaged.
Bricks and mortar has always been a good investment class.
Ive actually seen it quite a bit lately, the bullying and targeting i mean. Im actually not sure thats what id call it, baiting maybe?
One poster was called part of the problem when he didnt agree with the posters soultion to the cop problem in America.
When you see posts like that you just dont bother posting a times.
I deleted a my reply to this post just yesterday, a tweet saying
"In 2006 Amy Klobuchar, then a district attorney, declined to bring charges against a cop who had shot and killed a Native American man.
Two days ago that cop, Derek Chauvin, murdered George Floyd.
Amy Klobuchar needs to resign."
My reply was along the lines of "lets not condemn this woman before the facts of that case come out. Just because this one is so clear cut doesnt mean that one was the same."
As it turns out she wasnt in that job at the time charges were brought against the cop and her name was thrown in the mud.
The reason i deleted the post was because the day previous when a poster accused cops of starting the fires in the riots, i said you cant make accusations like that without evidence and of course i was vilified for that comment.
One poster was the aforementioned one that called another "part of the problem" as mentioned above.
Id wager im not the only one that deletes or refrains from commenting on certain posts due to, at times, tribal nature of some, not all posters.
It's quite alarming the amount of morons on social media that can't tell reality from fiction. It's why we have Trump, Boris, Brexit and why social media is such an important part of elections now. Doesn't matter if what is tweeted is true or not, it merely has to be seen to be effective.
No matter where people sit on the political spectrum thry will feel they get "lambasted" by the other- right, left or centre. It seems to me the entrenched postion of the so called centre often claims to be the "sensible" option. But criticises anyone who doesn't follow their position.
Well guess what, everyone thinks their position is the sensible one!
Of course most people will rent out their second home. Having grown up in Cornwall I can completely understand the anger around them though. Not only does it take all those houses off the market, forcing the prices up, but they’re empty outside of summer. Meaning the local economy is screwed and wages are dreadful.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52854699
Take this article for example. Of the two people they’ve spoken to, one is paying £2000 a month rent. It’s probably difficult for anyone outside of London to have sympathy for them.
The other person doesn’t want to take a mortgage holiday, as it might effect her ability to re mortgage her other properties. Again, hard to find any sympathy, that’s the risk you take if you’re buying multiple properties.
You would have been banned years ago if it weren't for me sticking up for you and that was when a lot more leeway was given to people like you who think they can insult other posters at will. Your warning clearly states that "These warnings are often the result of overly-negative, hysterical, provocative, childish, poorly formulated or just plain pointless posts.
Sometimes a particular post will be linked to this warning, giving you an example post and asking you to consider your posting style more carefully. If the staff feel it's part of a pattern of posting then it can lead to additional warning points, posting restrictions or even a ban."
Just follow the rules and you should be able to keep posting here. It's pretty simple really. Moaning about the moderation team won't get you much sympathy the next time you call somebody a feckwitt. But looking at your back catalogue of infractions I'd say it's only a matter of time really.
It’s funny because if you go back to the turn of the century then I’d say Labour held the centre ground with Lib Dems veering more towards the left. The Lib Dems were forced more to the centre in coalition with the Tories while the Labour party, unfortunately, took a hard left turn under Corbyn and the country is suffering the consequences of that now.
I agree with your point about polar extremes. That’s not just in politics though, but wider society. Everyone is too time poor for nuance, which is why they like ‘hot takes’ and these are invariably zero sum.
I know you won't openly say on here but you're old school and there's no way in hell you'd agree with giving infraction points out for calling someone (who had just insulted you) a feckwit. It's classic Caf and as mild as it comes. I guess for most people its about being as consistent as possible and that's usually where my gripe is. I appreciate it's difficult.
So that's the whole thing blown over now, right? feck sake.
I do have black friends - the 200+ who work for me in Nigeria and Angola I consider as friends, not employees.
Waiting for your next snide comment.....
That's another blow for Boris!
The country is suffering at the hands of ideologically driven right wing nut jobs. They are typically the ones ignoring nuance and playing to the ill-informed with the lowest type of politicking.
But sure, that's just another reason to blame the left.
I think that's the point. The Labour party under Corbyn had become the direct polar opposite to the hard right traditional Conservatives. So much so those who were based around the centre were sucked in by Boris and his campaign based around him promoting the new breed of Tory as near centre and more in touch with the average person. This was evident by the sheer amount of working class seats that turned blue and those marginals that the Labour party surrendered without fight.
It's arguable that has Labour remained closer to the centre as it has in the past we wouldn't have had the landslide victory the Tory party enjoyed recently.
It wasn't a snide comment. Just a comment.
You’re just as guilty of polarising politics with your post...
Second paragraph is spot on.
Tories won the last election by default, because vast swathes of voters didn’t consider Corbyn and Co. to be a viable alternative.
A more moderate, centrist Labour government with a sensible policy agenda can win the next election, especially when you look at how badly the Conservatives are botching things at the moment.
I know Starmer is catching a lot of heat for his perceived failure to twist the knife during Cumgate, but I think his approach has been spot on. I also like that naked partisanship doesn’t seem to be his default setting.
Time will tell, of course.
You're probably right there. But is this the fault of the left who, under Corbyn, finally offered a legitimate possibility of addressing the growing inequality and injustices in this country? Or is it the fault of the money men who actually own this country through media influence and bought politicians?
The game is rigged, but it's your fault that you lost.
Please, tell me which part of my post is inaccurate?
I didn’t say it was inaccurate.
I was just pointing out that you appeared to be taking a partisan stance.
The whole left-right narrative cheapens political discourse.
I have been pretty scathing about the Tory handling of the Covid-19 crisis, but not because I lean leftwards, simply because they have done a shit job.
I personally yearn for a bit more consensus politics, where every single debate doesn’t get synthesised down to a zero sum game of left versus right.
It's remarkable. Saying that, the self-important bores on there who feel it's their mission to spend hours telling people it's a parody account are worse.
I think at the moment society itself seems to want a mixture of extremes with anyone who doesn't want to play that game gets called for sitting on the fence. I guess it's in part due to the divide caused by Brexit and the narrative around if you want to remain you're a soft leftie and if you want to leave your a right wing extremist. It's as if it isn't possible to share a mixture of views and ideals; you have to be put in one box or the other. Similar is happening around the world to be honest and usually does when people yearn for a radical change.