Ridiculous caller but I also think Marina’s response is one of the main problems with some in the Left right now, they call people stupid (admittedly Kath is) and expect them to agree with them.
Westminster Politics
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Ridiculous caller but I also think Marina’s response is one of the main problems with some in the Left right now, they call people stupid (admittedly Kath is) and expect them to agree with them.
This is such a tired argument. The left constantly has to be on its best behaviour and can’t call out the right’s risible nonsense.
That woman deserves all the ridicule she gets and the reason we have people like her is not because she’s ridiculed by the left it’s because she’s dumb as bricks and radicalised by the right.
Treating her with kiddy gloves and respect would achieve nothing. It’s best to highlight how moronic their views are.
Starmer better fecking work out what his policies are given the economic (and social) mess he's going to inherit. I don't think he'll be forgiven for just being a better manager of the decline than the Conserva Nostra. We could have a labradoodle in every ministerial post and they'd still do a better job than the current ones but it needs actual statesmen after the chaos Murdoch, Putin and their wrecking crew are leaving behind.
Is it? Two things keep Labour down. The 'what if' of the Jeremy Corbyn ultra left element, and the actual what really happened of the Blair years. If a Labour government gets in and decides against starting a war or taking everybody's money off them, I don't see any reason why they can't get beyond their first term.
Starmer is bland but maybe that's what's needed after the wannabe celebrities on both sides of the fence over the last few years.
No, but you have to show people how they’re wrong, rather than just going ‘you’re an idiot no vote for me!’.
Don’t get me wrong my first response was to cheer and say ‘way to go Marina’ but all this will do is give Kath a bad experience in the pro-Labour group and further entrench herself in the Tory camp.
You HAVE to be able to bring people with you, and you don’t do that with aggression.
Kath’s too far gone. You can’t reason with morons like that. Might as well call her out for being fecking stupid.
At this point, what would bring someone who still votes Tory to the other side?
That's worked well so far.
You show what's them wrong with their thinking. Saying we're going to carry on doing the same but we can do it better is never going to work.
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What Labour haven't understood since Blair stepped down is that you need people from both sides to vote for you.
That clip is great for memes but it shows Marina hasn't figured it out yet either. It doesn't really matter who the caller is, thousands of people watching that will feel it's them she is talking down to.
Great post, although I can't agree with it 100%, in the same way I can't totally agree with @Sweet Square (I'm sure there are others, but he's the first that comes to mind) when he advocates for the opposite approach. It does bother me though when he or you, or anybody else for that matter, seem so sure about what the right thing to do is in this, sometimes to the point of sickening condescension or even outright insults. It's quite more nuanced than that and both sides of the argument have some merit. I consider myself to be a quite radical leftist, but I understand why for some literally anything would be better than this Tory party and thus think voting for this Labour Party is necessary at the moment, even if a bit of nose-holding is required. I also understand the other side in that, if Labour doesn't actually need to put out genuine left-wing policies that will effectively help those who need it most at the expense of the most well-off then what's the point, and what incentive will they have in the future to be anything else than a Tory-lite party.
I don't have the answer, and neither do any of you, no matter how fiercely you pretend you do.
Having said that, in this particular case, it's hard to forget how painfully dishonest Starmer has proven to be in relation to his pledges when he was trying to get elected as Labour leader. I understand the anger. And I also think that we are better than them. We need to be and it needs to show. Is it enough that Starmer and his potential Labour government are just slightly less bad than the tories? It shouldn't be, but at the same time millions of families would immediately live a bit better with a watered-down Labour government than with the tories, and waiting five more years for a more left-wing may be too late for them, perhaps literally.
I haven't really said anything new, I know, and I would make more interesting (hopefully) and elaborate points if I were having this discussion in my first language, but I just wanted to say that.
TL;DR: Some posters could do with some humility and with some high horse dismounting. Their answer is not the ultimate answer they think it is.
So they are never going to be accountable for willingly believing all the blatant lies they are systematically being fed? It's all well and good whinging when the lefties ridicule you, but the truth is that here we are, 2023, and you are not making the tiniest bit of effort to be a better informed voter. You are willingly neglecting possibly your two most important civic duties: holding politicians accountable and knowing what you're voting for. I for one I'm tired of having to try not to offend them.
What's the point in HS2 if it's not even going to stop in central London? Why are we wasting billions on a train line no one in the North wants or needs.
This is what we are talking about. Held accountable? What for? They are voters with as much a say as you or I. You are not The Oracle. You don't know what is right or wrong any more than anybody else. Insinuating your opinion is correct and others should be punished for disagreeing is exactly why so many voters will still vote for the Tories after all they have done these last few years.
Labour's job is to convince people their plan for the future is better than the Tory plan. You do that by appealing to what people want, you don't it by telling people what they want is wrong. That attitude killed them at the last election with people like Diane Abbott talking down to everybody.
I know (or care about) what's true and what is a lie more than most tory voters though. Which is what I explicitly wrote in the post you quoted. Why quote a post if you're not replying to what the post actually says? If you were just going to go on whinging because AlL tHe OpInIoNs ArE wOrTh ThE sAmE you didn't need to quote me.
No you don't. Your posting style shows you're no more or less qualified than anybody else to form an opinion. The use of mixed capital letters suggests probably a bit less.
Like I said, Labour's job is to convince people their plan is better than the Tory plan. That's all. Having supporters who think the job is to correct people who don't like the plan just makes it that bit harder come election time. Doing it on national TV makes it a lot harder (although Marina's actual job is to promote herself, so for her the more confrontational the better).
win them over.Yeah no chance. They are the living embodiment of the Goofy meme..."I'll feckin do it again."
I'm done with boomers. Never has a generation been given so much and given back so little.
Winning a lot of these people is a lost cause. They are already entrenched. So many of them seem to see it as a weakness to ever admit they are wrong, so how do you work with that?
You're seriously struggling with this. I'll try to simplify it a bit: if someone claims BJ never once while in office lied about anything do I have to respect that "opinion"?
Not entirely sure my post deserved mockery in response, but oh well.
Out of interest, has writing off entire sections of society and not even making an attempt at 'winning them over' ever been a winning political strategy, when it comes to making political change? Whether incremental or drastic?
The other side of this is we'll be permanently fecked if we don't address the structural issue which causes millions of voters to base their entire ideology on the lies and bigotry of the fecking Daily Mail.
That isn't the other side, its literally the exact same side.
You don't address those structural issues by talking within an echo chamber about how shit everything is and how stupid most people are (ie increasingly the political discourse on here), you do so by bringing people on board so that you can actually make changes. That or you force change through a Bolshevik style revolution I guess if you're going to do something at odds with the majority of the population.
We're not talking here about trying to convince the landed gentry of your beliefs. They're essentially never going to come on board. That woman above though. Let's call a spade a spade, she's an idiot. Whether we like it or not though, she's an idiot who has the same weight of vote as a genius. So our options are we pat ourselves on the back about just how stupid she is and laugh at this video. We upend the entire system through violent revolution and enact policies to help 'stupid' people. We enact a system where weight of vote is based on intelligence. Or we try to, at times, actually have a conversation with such people to explain why their thinking may be misguided.
Most of the time, it probably won't work. What are the other (realistic) options though?
Do what Blair did. You find policies that appeal to all voters. He was a breath of fresh air in 97 and said what both sides wanted to hear.
I think modern day Britain is crying out for a party like that. Bring it back from the extremes of left and right. Some people will vote Tory/Labour until the day they die, but millions will vote on issues that mean something to them.
For example, the woman in the video. Forget that she is probably a lost cause, but what about a party that comes along and says we are not going to rejoin the EU (a free hit, since the EU wouldn't have us back) but we are also not going to forcibly deport kids to Rwanda? Maybe she would get on board with that.
The media decides the discourse, not the parties. The parties have to layout their position on whatever the current discourse is.
a) it is
b) you don't hear politicians saying this, as it's a dull argument, but the main point is to free up rail capacity.
Currently, you can’t have anywhere near as many local services as is possible, as higher speed trains can’t have slower metro services and freight trains getting in the way. When HS2 is built, nearly all fast London – Birmingham – Manchester services will use HS2, freeing up room for much more freight and stopping services around the latter two cities.
So when it is built, Manchester will have a higher frequency of local trains, a quicker way of travelling between major cities, and fewer cars and lorries on the motorways. There will likely be more tourists visiting from London for local businesses. And for fans who get the train to away matches, it will cut the travel times of around three-quarters of matches by 30-50%
The media does whatever they think gets them the most clicks. Britain's problem is our politicians have been dullards ever since Brown so the media is free to run with whatever they want. If a party ever gets a leader with genuine charisma (and is a half competent politician, Boris), watch the media fall in line.
No, it's not, it's absolutely the other side of the argument. If we antagonise them they'll get even more radicalised, okay, I get it, sounds fairly logical. The thing you're purposefully ignoring, I'm not entirely sure to what end, is legitimising them by engaging in good faith dialogue hasn't worked. You said "probably won't", when the fact is it demonstrably and blatantly hasn't. And by doing that you're also actually legitimising the systemic lies and manipulation. The system is not going to change by gently whispering that it's probably not entirely fair, but by attacking it with the fierceness it deserves. Not to mention that someone that is not particularly invested may be watching/listening/whatever and start thinking that the notion that BJ never lied while in office and the opposite one have equal merit and are just a matter of opinion.
Having said that, if you can scientifically prove that you can change more bigoted minds by calmly talking to them than by making fun of them I'll gladly take back everything I said above. My anecdotal experience says they get even more triggered by calm and thoughtful arguments.
The Tories relying on 'British genius' to save the day
I've listened to most of Hunt's speech and I can say with absolute certainty it's one of the most bullshit-filled speeches I've ever heard live.
Agree with you and this is a large part of the reason we are where we are in the first place. Engaging in 'good faith dialogues' has to led us to imbeciles and grifters being given the same platform as experts to the extent where it feels like we're living in a very real 'Idiocracy'. The way this cabal in charge acts at the moment leads me to believe that they know that they can get away with pretty much anything now. Brexit is the emperors new clothes and until a Politician with a platform grows a pair and calls it out for what it is I don't see anything changing.
It isn't the other side at all. I'm not sure how you can claim it is. We're not talking about trying to discuss with Murdoch or Cameron or Corbyn, people who've spent their lives in particular political arenas. We're talking about getting voters to change their minds and vote for a different party,
Changing peoples' minds is literally the very foundation of a democracy. Its why there will be differing vote counts from one election to another.
Also, who is 'them'? These people are not a homogenous group of people. They include a wide swathe of different demographics. People who have been left behind, people who are gullible, people who feel they have been left behind (but actually haven't) and actual bigots.
Its very nice to say plaudits 'We're going to attack the system with the fierceness it deserves'! OK, so.....what exactly does that entail? Calling stupid, gullible people stupid? Telling them to their face they're ignorant? OK, so how does that change the compass within a democracy, if the people in power remain the same and those same stupid people are still believing their lies, partly because they're so powerful and partly because they're not going ti listen to you because you've called them dumb?
You're putting words in my mouth too and having the discussion you want to have. I didn't say they'll get more radicalised. I don't think she'll get more radicalised. I think she'll stay the same. I said that simply insulting them and calling them stupid is never going to get someone to come across to your way of thinking. Some of them are bigots and will never change their minds. Some of them are not. You need to try to capture some of those who are willing (either consciously or subcobsciously) to have their minds changed.
So the burden of proof is on me to provide scientific evidence whereas the burden on you is to provide anecdotal evidence? I'm asking for even one example where, in a democracy, or even normal conversation, calling someone stupid, has led to them changing their views. Its common sense.
For what its worth, I have been in situations (including very heated ones) where talking calmly and without condescension to people has resulted in them changing their outlook, or at the very least been open to doing so. I've also been in situations where they haven't.
I've been in literally zero situations where someone being insulted, however stupid their viewpoint was, changed their minds and where it did anything other than entrench their views and escalate the situation.
As I said above, if you're talking about non-democratic means of enacting such change, great. We don't need these people on board. If you want to remain within that remit though, there is unfortunately a necessity to drag some of these people (and this is a very broad term but in this context I'm talking about people who, for whatever reason are not natural left wing voters) along with you, in one way or another.
I've been in literally zero situations where someone being insulted, however stupid their viewpoint was, changed their minds and where it did anything other than entrench their views and escalate the situation.
As I said above, if you're talking about non-democratic means of enacting such change, great. We don't need these people on board. If you want to remain within that remit though, there is unfortunately a necessity to drag some of these people (and this is a very broad term but in this context I'm talking about people who, for whatever reason are not natural left wing voters) along with you, in one way or another.
Blair had Murdoch on his side. Which therefore made it much easier to get support for his policies.
On the highlighted line, is that not what the current Labour party are doing? Starmer has said he won't be taking the country back into the EU. She seemed far from on board with Labour.
Yes, the burden of proof for your claims is on you and the burden of proof for my claims is on me. I didn't mean to imply I was providing scientific proof, because I wasn't. And neither have you.
I have plenty of examples of face-to-face arguments about politics in which speaking gently and empathically only made the other side more enraged and entrenched, and plenty of examples in which embarrassing people for the absolutely embarrassing and demonstrably false claims they were making made them and others who were listening without taking part want to know better so as not to be made fools of again at the very least.
The woman in the video is not "dragable", he has swallowed the Daily Mail manipulation hook, line and sinker. Why would other potential listeners who are not as thick as her take the insult personally? They are not the ones that are being made fun of by Purkiss. If they consider themselves insulted by that, how were they winnable in the first place?
Purkiss obviously isn't a politician so can say whatever she wants. You can see the argument that laughing at the woman may reinforce in some wavering voters the cliche about the condescending left that's shovelled down everyone's throat by large sections of the media constantly. The fact the left and right are held to different standards is of course as ridiculous as it is frustrating, particularly given who's been in power for 12 years.
Everyone remembers Brown and the 'horrible bigoted woman' episode though. She most likely was but it was damaging and whether we like it or not, there are millions of people like this and everyone's vote counts the same.