U-turn... guess who?

equaliser said:
There is another FACT SuperStu - and one I would like you to own. It is that when you post this thread about Starmer doing a U-turn, you ARE being a Tory shill. You are spreading the discourse that the right-wing media will run with for as long as they think it has mileage. Maybe right up to the election if they think there is evidence it is having cut-through in the polls. Keep on spreading fella, keep on doing the Tories' work.
Click to expand...

Nope. Disagree. Go find a post where I have ever praised the tories or encouraged people to vote for them. You won't.

Here's a fact for you to face - if your political party makes it their MO to only target tory voters, then you're likely to lose some anti-tory voters along the way. It's no good blaming me for that. You don't get to take former voters for granted. I would have thought the party would have learnt that lesson from Scotland in the last few years but apparently not.

equaliser said:
Or wind you neck in
Click to expand...

:ROFLMAO: do you realise what you're demanding here? So anyone whos a socialist and doesn't buy into the red tory v blue tory v yellow tory election we've got coming up just has to never speak about politics? For how long? Cause you won't want the cult leader challenged in office either will you? 10 years? 15? You're only a few logical steps away from book burning.
 
SuperStu said:
Nope. Disagree. Go find a post where I have ever praised the tories or encouraged people to vote for them. You won't.

Here's a fact for you to face - if your political party makes it their MO to only target tory voters, then you're likely to lose some anti-tory voters along the way. It's no good blaming me for that. You don't get to take former voters for granted. I would have thought the party would have learnt that lesson from Scotland in the last few years but apparently not.



:ROFLMAO: do you realise what you're demanding here? So anyone whos a socialist and doesn't buy into the red tory v blue tory v yellow tory election we've got coming up just has to never speak about politics? For how long? Cause you won't want the cult leader challenged in office either will you? 10 years? 15? You're only a few logical steps away from book burning.
Click to expand...
You haven't dealt with my substantive point, that others have also made: debt interest is crippling this country and to increase it still further is irresponsible. Any government has to gan canny or the markets will sink it. To pretend otherwise is just pie in the sky.
 
<Sunak sets fire to the house>
Starmer: We can restore the hou-
<Sunak demolishes what's left>
Starmer: We can use this bit of money to rebuild the-
<Sunak uses the money to put a massive hole where the house used to be>
Starmer: We'll have to rethink

Super Stu- SEE? HE HAS NO PLAN!

With apologies to a lad off Twitter who’s also had enough of the idiot left
 
SuperStu said:
Sorry, can't agree that's what has happened here. Investing in our economy and environment would be a good thing. Certainly not something to cause huge damage to the public. Read BBGs posts #27 and #38.
Click to expand...

I'll be a honest I don't know much about this specifically. I just meant political parties attitudes towards "u-turns" in general.
 
SuperStu said:
Agree.



Disagree. She hated the working class and the unions and was willing to do whatever damage it took to put them in their place. I don't think she'd have changed up her politics or messaging to keep winning elections.



Agree.



You get what Scrote means though right? Not our principles and values, obviously, but she was definitely a politician with a set view of what she wanted Britain to be like and all her time in power was spent making that happen.

Whereas with Starmer, as much as most on here don't like to hear it, he did set out 10 policy pledges to become Labour leader and he has reversed on all of them. The only reasonable conclusion to draw is that he doesn't really care whether its this policy or that policy, so long as he gets to be PM at the top of it all.
Click to expand...
I fully understand what Scrote was saying I just disagree that Thatcher had a vision of what she wanted Britain to be like. I think she masqueraded as a woman with a purpose and a plan but the reality was that beyond fashionable at the time populist policies like tame the unions, sell the council houses and privatise our utilities and plenty of others there was nothing.

Forty years on and I’m still struggling to understand what Thatcher, beyond her own image making and career, was trying to achieve for the people of this country.
 
Scrote said:
It's more centrist incompetence. Based around the idea that you can stand in the middle and cherry-pick the best ideas.

Without an ideology a political party is rootless. There is nowhere to grow from.

And on the flip side it doesn't take very much pressure to force a U-turn (or whatever we want to call it) because they're always targeting populism over policy.

Without having the ideology underpinning the policy no-one knows why they're actually pushing any particular thing and so it becomes difficult to argue for it when questioned. No matter how lazy the questioning.

If an idea is good then fight for it.
Click to expand...
I take your point - I dont agree with all of it, but ok...

The 'incompetence' charge is one that sticks, its just been bungled. It could have been quietly buried but instead we had David Lammy last week saying it was staying, a week or so earlier Starmer said it was staying and then suddenly its dropped - Rachel Reeves gets her way.
 
Decent_Left said:
<Sunak sets fire to the house>
Starmer: We can restore the hou-
<Sunak demolishes what's left>
Starmer: We can use this bit of money to rebuild the-
<Sunak uses the money to put a massive hole where the house used to be>
Starmer: We'll have to rethink

Super Stu- SEE? HE HAS NO PLAN!

With apologies to a lad off Twitter who’s also had enough of the idiot left
Click to expand...

It does get very selective.
I‘m hacked off with Starmers handling of his leadership and, frankly, think he does deserve some of the criticism from all quarters.

The problem with some is they focus on the ‘now’.

Even Corbyn worked out you have to say goodbye to your ideology. A member of CND for almost 50 years, Once Vice President …. and he sacked that off to lead the Labour Party In support of Trident.
Personally, I think that was massive.

Principals do matter but, let’s remember, compromise has a place for even those on the left.
 
1finny said:
Principals do matter but, let’s remember, compromise has a place for even those on the left.
Click to expand...

Jeez Louise, what political faction have been more willing to compromise than the left?

If Starmers leadership want a compromise with the left, they need to offer one. There needs to be some policy on offer to bring people like myself in. The party moving further and further to the right and expecting to retain the votes from people on the left isn't compromising, it's demanding a capitulation.
 
equaliser said:
debt interest is crippling this country and to increase it still further is irresponsible.
Click to expand...

National debt doesn't work the same way as household finances. Investing money reaps benefits here. Its not irresponsible, its necessary. And worse than that, if you want to have a country where the furthest left its acceptable for political thought to go is cutting spending to chase national debt reduction (austerity) then what the heck are we going to governed by when the pendulum swings back the other way?

As far as when the facts change I change goes, the fact thats changed this week is we've had a year of 1.5° temperature increases. Environmental policies are more urgent, not less. With the party sitting pretty in the polls there's really no need for them to still be like this.
 
If the labour party no longer represent people's socialist views, and I can see why some feel that way, do something about it. Contact Corbyn and financially back his move to start a new party that would, in all likelihood, give socialists a home.

For what it's worth, I think Starmer recognized the danger of another tory term and was pragmatic in refocusing the labour pretty too win an election.

Make no mistake another tory parliament and the 300k deaths caused by them would double, we would lose the NHS for ever and abject poverty would triple.

Principles are all well and good if you can feed your family.
 
HolgateCorner said:
I fully understand what Scrote was saying I just disagree that Thatcher had a vision of what she wanted Britain to be like. I think she masqueraded as a woman with a purpose and a plan but the reality was that beyond fashionable at the time populist policies like tame the unions, sell the council houses and privatise our utilities and plenty of others there was nothing.

Forty years on and I’m still struggling to understand what Thatcher, beyond her own image making and career, was trying to achieve for the people of this country.
Click to expand...
Thatcher absolutely had a vision and once she had it she never veered from it for anyone. That vision was - hand in hand with Reagan in the US - to accelerate the spread of neoliberalism and what you proclaim to be nothing, "tame the unions, sell the council houses and privatise our utilities and plenty of others" were all parts of the greater vision.

Look at the western world now. Do you see any rowing back from the Thatcher/Reagan years? No, because since those days Late Stage Capitalism has spread like wildfire. Millionaires and Billionaires are running the show; they get everything they want and where once, in the pre Thatcher years we would have empathy for the unemployed and those who are too ill to work, we ( and politicians of all shades) casually demonise even in-work benefit claimants and treat them - and not the rich who are having our eyes out - as the enemy of the state.

Yesterday Starmer reeled in his pledge to spend 28b a year on green energy etc and reduced it to a paltry 5b due to dishonest claims about borrowing costs, and today his shadow chancellor was on TV explaining that they no longer consider privatising the most dishonest and unscrupulous of industries, water. They will be free to continue their underinvestment in infrastructure whilst polluting our rivers and coastal waters with raw sewage whilst banking their enormous profits, courtesy of you and me, in tax free havens.

If she is judged on how much of her wishlist she actually achieved, Margaret Thatcher is our most successful PM in decades.
 
Decent_Left said:
<Sunak sets fire to the house>
Starmer: We can restore the hou-
<Sunak demolishes what's left>
Starmer: We can use this bit of money to rebuild the-
<Sunak uses the money to put a massive hole where the house used to be>
Starmer: We'll have to rethink

Super Stu- SEE? HE HAS NO PLAN!

With apologies to a lad off Twitter who’s also had enough of the idiot left
Click to expand...

<Starmer: if you elect me as leader we'll stop all the house burning and get some nice new houses built!
<Sunak, leader of the 'we set fire to houses party', sets fire to houses
<Starmer: people voted for the 'we set fire to houses party' so now we'll set fire to houses too. But more efficiently and competently and forensically.
<me: well this f*cking sucks.
<you lot: SETTING FIRE TO SOME HOUSES IS GOOD ACTUALLY WHY DONT U BLAME THE SET FIRE TO HOUSES PARTY IF YOU DONT LIKE IT THEYD SET MORE HOUSES ON FIRE CANT U JUST COMPROMISE WITH A SMALL FIRE...
 
SuperStu said:
Jeez Louise, what political faction have been more willing to compromise than the left?

If Starmers leadership want a compromise with the left, they need to offer one. There needs to be some policy on offer to bring people like myself in. The party moving further and further to the right and expecting to retain the votes from people on the left isn't compromising, it's demanding a capitulation.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I may have misled you.
The compromise I was talking about was - the personal compromise of ideology.

The ideological compromises both Corbyn and Starmer have made were/are to gain power.
 
BlindBoyGrunt said:
Thatcher absolutely had a vision and once she had it she never veered from it for anyone. That vision was - hand in hand with Reagan in the US - to accelerate the spread of neoliberalism and what you proclaim to be nothing, "tame the unions, sell the council houses and privatise our utilities and plenty of others" were all parts of the greater vision.

Look at the western world now. Do you see any rowing back from the Thatcher/Reagan years? No, because since those days Late Stage Capitalism has spread like wildfire. Millionaires and Billionaires are running the show; they get everything they want and where once, in the pre Thatcher years we would have empathy for the unemployed and those who are too ill to work, we ( and politicians of all shades) casually demonise even in-work benefit claimants and treat them - and not the rich who are having our eyes out - as the enemy of the state.

Yesterday Starmer reeled in his pledge to spend 28b a year on green energy etc and reduced it to a paltry 5b due to dishonest claims about borrowing costs, and today his shadow chancellor was on TV explaining that they no longer consider privatising the most dishonest and unscrupulous of industries, water. They will be free to continue their underinvestment in infrastructure whilst polluting our rivers and coastal waters with raw sewage whilst banking their enormous profits, courtesy of you and me, in tax free havens.

If she is judged on how much of her wishlist she actually achieved, Margaret Thatcher is our most successful PM in decades.
Click to expand...
Nah, neoliberalism is a philosophy not a vision or a plan. If she had used the promotion of the free market to achieve some target improvements for the country, then that would have been a proper vision and, if achieved, would have represented success.

She had no plan, she had no vision, look at the state of the place after she had been in.

Starmer has not been in power yet, he has no track record for you to comment upon.

The last Labour government was led by Blair and Brown and they did far better than the Tories working much better within the free market environment they inherited.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top