Westminster Politics

Silva said:
And the best way to win during partisan times is to appeal to neither side. Genius.
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What the hell are you talking about?

You seem to have a massive problem with engaging like an adult and just make up something and then think you're being smart by sarcastically disagreeing with it. I'm not even sure what point it is your making, other than being sure it's so weak you have to literally invent your own argument to counter all the time.

Really the context is quite something. The previous posts seem to be looking at the statistical results of the recent local council elections and pointing out that because I dislike the Tory government it doesn't mean I think all Tory voters are evil.

From that you get:

"And the best way to win during partisan times is to appeal to neither side. Genius"

Seriously, what the feck are you talking about?
 
Ah, so use a fork to eat soup. Brilliant.



...see I can do it too.
 
Silva said:
moderates being shit
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But you're not even doing that. You've identified in your head something you want to say and said it without any regard to the fact it had absolutely nothing to do with anything that was being said.
 
Again the context to the comment was either:


Looking at how many councillors Labour won vs opposition parties since 1995

or

A debate over whether you can be morally opposed to something without questioning the morality of those who support it.

"And the best way to win during partisan times is to appeal to neither side. Genius"

Forgive me but it seems like you saw a Tweet with words along those lines, liked it and just copied and pasted it thinking it made sense because, presumably, it's a bit politicksy.
 
So which post was it that you thought someone was making the argument that you should appeal to nobody in order to win an election?
 
Okay so:

"Everything has to be black and white. Pick a team and cheer for it regardless or we'll get confused'"

Get's the response of:

"And the best way to win during partisan times is to appeal to neither side. Genius"



...it can't just be me, can it?
 
Oscie said:
But which one. Really find one that such a response would have made sense.
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You were opining about the sorry state of British politics because it was so partisan people are incapable of compromise. In other posts you've advocated for a centrist position that prescribes just that. Silva's intention is plainly attempting to cast doubt on the feasibility of your centrist position given the partisan battlefield you just outlined.
 
Ekkie Thump said:
You were opining about the sorry state of British politics because it was so partisan people are incapable of compromise. In other posts you've advocated for a centrist position that proscribes just that. Silva's intention is plainly attempting to cast doubt on the feasibility of your centrist position given the partisan battlefield you just outlined.
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I don't see being a centrist as being counter to compromise. I'd argue the opposite. I wish consensus, centrist politics played a bigger role in political discourse as at the moment many people seem to be either retreating to extremes out of choice or out of necessity on the basis that there is no mainstream centrist voice any more. I believe a lot of people currently feel politically homeless and that isn't surprising when on the number one issue the choice is between a party that says: 'We must punch ourselves in the face', and an opposition whose position is 'we completely agree'
 
Oscie said:
I don't see being a centrist as being counter to compromise. I'd argue the opposite. I wish consensus, centrist politics played a bigger role in political discourse as at the moment many people seem to be either retreating to extremes out of choice or out of necessity on the basis that there is no mainstream centrist voice any more.
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I spelt 'prescribes' wrongly.
 
Oscie said:
I don't see being a centrist as being counter to compromise. I'd argue the opposite. I wish consensus, centrist politics played a bigger role in political discourse as at the moment many people seem to be either retreating to extremes out of choice or out of necessity on the basis that there is no mainstream centrist voice any more. I believe a lot of people currently feel politically homeless and that isn't surprising when on the number one issue the choice is between a party that says: 'We must punch ourselves in the face', and an opposition whose position is 'we completely agree'
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The state the country is in right now, a centrist party will fix absolutely nothing.
 
Oscie said:
I believe a lot of people currently feel politically homeless and that isn't surprising when on the number one issue the choice is between a party that says: 'We must punch ourselves in the face', and an opposition whose position is 'we completely agree'
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the number of votes third parties got at the GE only confirms your suspicion
 
Pexbo said:
The state the country is in right now, a centrist party will fix absolutely nothing.
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Maybe. I think that if the opposition position on Brexit had been a bit more 'moderate' (or 'existent' for that matter) then at the very least the government wouldn't have been able to get away with what they have on that for so long. We have a divided government effectively propped up by a confidence and supply deal/bribe by the DUP. Fantastic opportunity for the party of opposition to at the very, very least soften the blow of Brexit. I don't think it's unrealistic to think that had the Labour party made the consensus argument and not the 'Brexit means Brexit' case that the Tories and UKIP also make that we mightn't be facing down the barrel as much as we are.
 
Oscie said:
I believe a lot of people currently feel politically homeless and that isn't surprising when on the number one issue the choice is between a party that says: 'We must punch ourselves in the face', and an opposition whose position is 'we completely agree'
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The problem is that there were plenty of people made to feel politically homeless once Labour shifted to the right. Many communities across the country feel ignored and without an effective voice. I guess that had plenty to do with the Brexit vote too.
 
Oscie said:
Maybe. I think that if the opposition position on Brexit had been a bit more 'moderate' (or 'existent' for that matter) then at the very least the government wouldn't have been able to get away with what they have on that for so long. We have a divided government effectively propped up by a confidence and supply deal/bribe by the DUP. Fantastic opportunity for the party of opposition to at the very, very least soften the blow of Brexit. I don't think it's unrealistic to think that had the Labour party made the consensus argument and not the 'Brexit means Brexit' case that the Tories and UKIP also make that we mightn't be facing down the barrel as much as we are.
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We’d be in a worse position. The Tories would have a very large majority because they’re have taken every one of UKIP’s rabid brexiteers back and they wouldn’t be relying on the DUP.
 
Ekkie Thump said:
The problem is that there were plenty of people made to feel politically homeless once Labour shifted to the right. Many communities across the country feel ignored and without an effective voice. I guess that had plenty to do with the Brexit vote too.
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I'm sure it did and you may have a point about whether Labour did enough in the 90s/2000s to build a consensus within the party as they seemed to within the country. Very possibly they didn't.
 
Oscie said:
Do you genuinely struggle with the difference between: 'I think the party is useless and doing harm to our country' and 'People who vote Tory are evil' ?
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I mean they are evidently different statements, but it’s very easy to construct an argument that takes you from the first statement to the second.

1. The Conservative party is useless and doing harm to our country
2. Voting for a party that is useless and does harm to our country is evil
3. People who vote for the Conservative party are evil

But this is really just such a pointless disagreement. Because as I’ve said political disagreements are by definition moral, so those that you disagree with you will undoubtedly consider immoral. You want people to disagree with someone’s politics without impugning their morality, but that is like thinking you can critices someone’s sense of fashion without commenting on the clothes they are wearing.
 
Pexbo said:
We’d be in a worse position. The Tories would have a very large majority because they’re have taken every one of UKIP’s rabid brexiteers back and they wouldn’t be relying on the DUP.
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But how could we be in a worst position. Brexit is happening and it appears to be a hard Brexit. Whether it's a Con minority government or a Con majority government shooting the country in the head it doesn't really make a difference. An opposition not able to oppose and an opposition not willing to is pretty much the same thing, or at least arrives us at the same destination.

Labour's job after the referendum, given how the majority of it's support backed Remain should have been to call for a national debate as to what kind of Brexit we were going to have and challenged assumptions that the result was a de facto endorsement of completely withdrawing form the Single Market and Customs Union.

Instead what Labour did was call for Article 50 to be triggered immediately and conceded entirely and completely unnecessarily on the position on the SM and CU.
 
I dunno it just seems like we're finding ourselves shoved into a barrel and being rolled over a cliff and anyone pointing out how unnecessary it all is is being told that trying to do something about it probably wouldn't have worked there was no point trying.
 
Blair's electoral record is incredible.
A pity he decided to embark on an illegal war.
 
Not everything can be explain by a Simpsons reference but this one can.

The Reason Why A New Centrist Party Would Fail

 
So Labour monster Towel Helmets, the last seat of the night, gaining 20 seats and overall control.

Final totals:

Lab
+0 councils, +77 councillors (74, 2350)

Lib
+4 councils, +75 councillors (9, 536)

Con
-2 councils, - 33 councillors (46, 1332)

Ukip
-0 councils, -123 councillors (0, 3)

Green
+0 councils, +8 councillors (0, 38)

Still a disappointing evening for Labour, but not a complete failure. Ukip went back home and shored up the Tory vote.
 
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Again the problem with a centrist party and expecting it to win is that it basically ignores the current political climate and pretends we're still living in 2003.

A big part of Blair's success came from being able to win Murdoch over. A centrist party against Brexit will be savaged by Murdoch. Brexit in general would feck a centrist party because a solid portion of Labour voters supported Brexit, and someone saying everything they believe is wrong probably won't make them want to vote for them.

There are criticisms to be made of Corbyn. When he's not in campaigning mode he tends not to excel at the day-to-day politicking and I'd imagine some of his past remarks and the remarks of those close to him discourage people from voting Labour. But he's doing about as well as Labour can do now. And I don't mean that as a slight on centrism - there is a place for a centrist party in a hypothetical multi-party system, even as a coalition partner, but if we're going to advocate it currently can we stop pretending the political climate we live in hasn't changed?
 
Cheesy said:
Again the problem with a centrist party and expecting it to win is that it basically ignores the current political climate and pretends we're still living in 2003.

A big part of Blair's success came from being able to win Murdoch over. A centrist party against Brexit will be savaged by Murdoch. Brexit in general would feck a centrist party because a solid portion of Labour voters supported Brexit, and someone saying everything they believe is wrong probably won't make them want to vote for them.

There are criticisms to be made of Corbyn. When he's not in campaigning mode he tends not to excel at the day-to-day politicking and I'd imagine some of his past remarks and the remarks of those close to him discourage people from voting Labour. But he's doing about as well as Labour can do now. And I don't mean that as a slight on centrism - there is a place for a centrist party in a hypothetical multi-party system, even as a coalition partner, but if we're going to advocate it currently can we stop pretending the political climate we live in hasn't changed?
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The political climate changes all the time, thinking it won't change in the future is just as short-sighted as thinking it hasn't changed from the past.
 
712 said:
The political climate changes all the time, thinking it won't change in the future is just as short-sighted as thinking it hasn't changed from the past.
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Oh it'll continue to change, but in the current climate I'm struggling to see where centrism really fits in or who it appeals to.
 
Cheesy said:
Again the problem with a centrist party and expecting it to win is that it basically ignores the current political climate and pretends we're still living in 2003.

A big part of Blair's success came from being able to win Murdoch over. A centrist party against Brexit will be savaged by Murdoch. Brexit in general would feck a centrist party because a solid portion of Labour voters supported Brexit, and someone saying everything they believe is wrong probably won't make them want to vote for them.

There are criticisms to be made of Corbyn. When he's not in campaigning mode he tends not to excel at the day-to-day politicking and I'd imagine some of his past remarks and the remarks of those close to him discourage people from voting Labour. But he's doing about as well as Labour can do now. And I don't mean that as a slight on centrism - there is a place for a centrist party in a hypothetical multi-party system, even as a coalition partner, but if we're going to advocate it currently can we stop pretending the political climate we live in hasn't changed?
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We will see. I think this depends on how long labour wants to keep losing. The major part of Blair’s success wasn’t murdoch - it was the rekindled desire of the Labour Party to win, and accept the compromises that came with that in order to build a winning coalition. I think labour will go on a similar journey. The momentum kids will get older, they will get sick of the current stasis and being unable to actually accomplish anything and they will try to broaden their appeal outside of their tribe. That’s how it works in our system... that’s how it has to work in our system. Blair was right about this.
 
Cheesy said:
Oh it'll continue to change, but in the current climate I'm struggling to see where centrism really fits in or who it appeals to.
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You will come the next general election, because any party that wants an overall majority needs to win the centre ground, almost by definition. Both sides will put forward policies aiming for centrist support, I guarantee it. If I'm wrong and one doesn't do that, or does but isn't believed, then you'll be looking at the loser.
 
I read someone earlier in here describe politics as a moral issue. I’m not sure this has to be true, I suspect for many voters politics is mostly a pragmatic or utilitarian enterprise.
 
Oscie said:
The opposition party performance at council elections since 1995, in terms of councillors. Leaving out years when a general election has been held at the same time

1995 + 1807 (Blair)
1996 + 468 (Blair)
1998 + 256 (Hague)
1999 + 1344 (Hague)
2000 + 256 (Hague)
2002 + 238 (IDS)
2003 + 566 (IDS)
2004 + 288 (Howard)
2006 + 316 (Howard)
2007 + 932 (Cameron)
2008 + 256 (Cameron)
2009 + 244 (Cameron)
2011 + 857 (Miliband)
2012 + 823 (Miliband)
2013 + 291 (Miliband)
2014 + 324 (Miliband)
2016 - 18 (Corbyn)
2018 + 59 (Corbyn)

There really isn't a debate that Corbyn did very badly last night. The fact there is shows you just how far down the rabbit whole we all are.
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I agree it was underwhelming but I reckon you're overstating the failure. This time out Labour had to defend a far higher proportion of councillors than normal while the total number of seats up for grabs was about 2/3 the average. Statistically speaking Labour had about half the opportunities to expand compared to a typical opposition. In an average year Corbyn might have got around 155-160 councillors or so. It's still worse than any other oppo party going back to 1995 but proportionally pretty similar to Cameron's 2008 showing (the next worse). In mitigation I guess when you start high it becomes increasingly difficult to climb higher.

After the dust settles Labour still manages to come away from this with it's highest proportion of councillors after an election since 1996 (54% of those contested as opposed to 58% back then) and apparently has the highest share of councillors it's had in London since 1971.

It's not absolutely terrible, just not as good as it probably should have been given the state of the opposition.

Edit: Thank feck it was better than 2016
 
People are more pragmatic about politics than those who think politics is like football - where you pick a team and stick to it - than some would like to think. There are those who genuinely decide which policies they support based on who says them but most people aren't like that.
 


This is a problem where the party 'machine' is outsourced to factions. Campaigning on any kind of scale should focused and targeted. Not random get-togethers for a group selfie for Owen Jones' Twitter page. Having the members and the campaigners at your disposal isn't going to do you any good if they're not used in the right way. Self-organisation is great to an extent but when you're fighting an election you need to analysts at HQ to tell you which street to go down and on which doors to knock. Labour's activism just seems like it could be scattergun and ultimately redundant, presumably walking around aimlessly impressed by how many of them there are.
 
The reason Labour sent people to those wards is because last year the campaign spent too much of it's resources in safe seats and narrowly lost seats they could have won.
 
Silva said:
The reason Labour sent people to those wards is because last year the campaign spent too much of it's resources in safe seats and narrowly lost seats they could have won.
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Which wards are you talking about?

The Tweet didn't mention seats. It just spoke about activists being wasted in areas where there was no need for them to be. You seem to be so desperate to defend Labour/Corbyn that you're not even sure what it is you're defending the from.

Someone within the party identified poor use of activists. Without even knowing beyond that you immediately claim to know the wards he was referring to and know the reason why the activists were sent to those wards, despite the fact the Tweet doesn't mention activists being sent by the party to any wards in particular.
 
Oscie said:
Which wards are you talking about?

The Tweet didn't mention seats. It just spoke about activists being wasted in areas where there was no need for them to be. You seem to be so desperate to defend Labour/Corbyn that you're not even sure what it is you're defending the from.
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That tweet is clearly in reference to the criticism Owen Jones and Sadiq Khan received over the local election campaign which saw them target places like Westminster.
 
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