BS: Brexit & other UK political topics

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 May 21 - 02:45 AM

Thank you Nigel. That is what Polly Toynbee was saying!

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 May 21 - 07:57 AM

Prince Charles does he have an illegitimate son?
GOSH HOW UPSETTING FOR OUR NOW ABSENT ROYAL WORSHIPPER.he must be barking and frothing at the month ,well dorante day better mid himself or else he will have an accident like diana

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 05 May 21 - 08:08 AM

Wouldn’t a DNA-test determine the veracity of Simon Dorante-Day’s claim to be the spawn of Charles and Camilla, and put an end to the newspaper/FarceBook talk?

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 05 May 21 - 08:13 AM

Only partially absent, but twice as mean!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 05 May 21 - 09:11 AM

On another, far more important topic, it appears that a design has been put forward for a new, £200 million royal yacht....

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/01/exclusive-britannia-rule-waves-new-royal-yacht-named-prince/

Another enormous waste of taxpayers’ money, but at least it’ll give the royal-worshippers and flag-waggers the pleasure of a huge orgasm....

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 May 21 - 09:17 AM

i agree backwood

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 May 21 - 08:51 PM

As John Bercow said on QT tonight, if you believe that sending the gunboats to Jersey on Election Day is a coincidence, you'll believe anything. That's how Boris does it. You don't need morals.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 May 21 - 12:57 AM

Sadly, Steve, his blatant opportunism chimes with the feeble-minded and the brainwashed. Suckers will be suckers...

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 May 21 - 01:05 AM

first the people of hartlepool hung a monkey now they are electing one

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 May 21 - 02:43 AM

i even heard some reporter say this LATEST ELECTION defeat was Corbyns fault

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: DMcG
Date: 07 May 21 - 04:41 AM

On the gunboat issue: it is slightly more complicated than Boris sending them in on election day, because he could only send them in response to the French fishing fleet. And they were entirely free to choose what day the action took place. It could be the day after the voting equally easily as the day before. Had it been the day after, Johnson could have sent the patrol boats and it would have had no impact on the votes, because they would have been cast already.

I would say, though, that given the French had decided to turn up just before the vote, Johnson almost certainly reacted by sending in the patrol boats because it would 'sell well to the Brexit supporters' who were about to vote.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 May 21 - 04:58 AM

He didn't have to send them at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 May 21 - 05:47 AM

That’s exactly the point Steve. Sabre-rattling, designed to please the Union-Jack-Boxers Brigade, the flag-waggers, and the simple-minded ones who fall for the government’s Nationalistic, Right-Wing propaganda.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 May 21 - 06:13 AM

I see that monkey hangers are now monkey huggers...

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Rain Dog
Date: 07 May 21 - 06:15 AM

"feeble-minded and the brainwashed. Suckers will be suckers..."

"Union-Jack-Boxers Brigade, the flag-waggers, and the simple-minded ones"


Terrible things elections. The sheer effrontery of some people deciding to vote differently from oneself. Surely there must be a way of disenfranchising these automatons in any future elections.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 May 21 - 07:12 AM

No-one is suggesting that, but it's perfectly possible to bemoan the fact that there is a severe deficit in political education which leads people to choose to vote against their own interests. 'Twas ever thus: in the 70s, when we suggested properly structured political education in schools we were shot down as extreme commie reds under the beds. Nothing suits the Tories better than an ignorant electorate. It makes many people prone to being impressed more by a fat idiot driving a JCB through a wall of polystyrene blocks, or riding a bike lustily in a faked photograph, than any consideration of the important issues of the day. They are prone to not minding too much a serial liar or fornicator either. Send out the gunboats and grab some votes! Political ignorance has delivered the world Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Dubya, Donald Trump and our own resident clown. They are all far more of a threat to democracy than us lot here moaning about bad voter decision-making.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 May 21 - 07:15 AM

It speaks volumes that you don’t actually deny the truth of those epithets, RD, you simply put up a straw-man. Perhaps you’d care to provide proof of where I’m wrong?

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 May 21 - 07:26 AM

Good post Steve. Absolutely right on the button.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Rain Dog
Date: 07 May 21 - 08:03 AM

I am not a fan of people who choose to insult those who think or act differently.

I don't know why the people of Hartlepool voted the way that they did. I don't have that insight that some of you seem to possess. Of course the people who voted conservative did not necessarily all have the same reasons for doing so. But it was their right to vote as they wanted.

Political ignorance? How many times have you heard people say that they have always voted for a party because their parents and maybe their grandparents voted that way. Should we stop them from voting? Should you only be able to vote if you have achieved the pass mark in one
of Steve's exams? I can just imagine the arguments about the curriculum for that subject.

These are strange times that we are living in when so many of you have such low opinions of your fellow citizens.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 May 21 - 08:19 AM

Should you only be able to vote if you have achieved the pass mark in one of Steve's exams?

Of course not and, yet again, you are setting up another straw man.

I do believe however that those responsible for deciding the fate of others, ie the electorate, should have at least some understanding of what they are voting for and the what the consequences of their decisions are likely to be. The best way of doing this is to educate the electorate from an early age. It is too late for those, like us, already set in our ways but for those as yet to vote there is plenty of opportunity to do this in a completely non partisan manner.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Rain Dog
Date: 07 May 21 - 08:41 AM

"What do we think that a young adult should know after they have completed 13 years of compulsory education here in the UK?"

Well, as they have followed different paths through school, have different talents and abilities (or disabilities) and all progress at different rates, there's no answer to that, is there? I could say a basic level of numeracy and literacy, but one student's good is another student's bog-standard is another student's impossible. I could say they should have a well-rounded, intelligent and sociable outlook on life, but, grand though that sounds, it's just waffle. I could say sympathy and tolerance for all other humans, and a high level of environmental consciousness, but ditto. I could say that the generations above them have the responsibility to pass on all the best of what they themselves have learned, so that the young 'uns can stand on the shoulders of giants, but gosh, that's mired in all sorts of murk, innit...

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 May 21 - 08:51 AM

Neither I nor anyone else here has even remotely suggested that anyone should be denied the vote on the grounds of their education/ignorance/voting predilections, or should have to pass any test, and predicating your argument on that premise marks you as vexatious.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 May 21 - 09:04 AM

Of course we haven’t, Steve. Just more Straw-Men - no surprise there.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Rain Dog
Date: 07 May 21 - 10:38 AM

Vexatious?

What's next? Asking the mods to stop me from posting? That is the usual tactic here isn't it?

I don't like the way some of you denigrate and insult those people who dare to vote for parties or ideas that you don't like.

I am bemused that some of you seem to have the ability to get inside the minds of others and know the reasons why they voted the way they did.

I am bemused that those of you with mind reading abilities were surprised by the Hartlepool result. There was always the possibility of Tory win but I did not expect it to be so big.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 May 21 - 11:11 AM

"What's next? Asking the mods to stop me from posting? That is the usual tactic here isn't it?"

No it isn't. It happens rarely. I can think of two people in the sixteen or so years I've been here, and I'm not even sure that I asked the mods to stop them posting. Mists of time and all that. Dunno about anyone else here. By the way, those two were both far-right plants.

"I don't like the way some of you denigrate and insult those people who dare to vote for parties or ideas that you don't like."

We call it "democracy."

"I am bemused that those of you with mind reading abilities were surprised by the Hartlepool result."

"Those of us?" Pray tell, which one of us expressed the remotest bit of surprise at the result? Au contraire, I saw this coming weeks ago and you can bet your bottom dollar that so did the others posting to this thread. You make things up just to knock them down. Some call it straw man. Perhaps your favourite aunt is called Sally...

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 May 21 - 11:14 AM

Why the personal attack, Rain Dog? If you believe your previous posts were not vexacious, that last one was nothing but until the last paragraph. A good way to get a thread closed and little else.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 May 21 - 11:14 AM

So, RD, what you’re saying is that your opinion is that other people shouldn’t be allowed to express their opinion unless it’s an opinion you approve of?

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 May 21 - 11:28 AM

”I am bemused that some of you seem to have the ability to get inside the minds of others and know the reasons why they voted the way they did.”

No, RD, we don’t do that. But we do see and hear the mind-control techniques and diversionary tactics of Brexiteers and the Tories, some overt, some subtle, but all aimed at persuading **a certain kind** of voter to vote against their own best interests.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 May 21 - 01:15 PM

Btw, I fully acknowledge that I do not understand how people still stand behind this government but accept that is my problem, not theirs. I try to understand but to date no-one has explained how a lying, cheating philanderer like Boris can be so popular. Can you?

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 07 May 21 - 03:58 PM

Dave:
He gets the job done. His sexual morality (or lack thereof) has no real effect on the job he is doing.
What the payment arrangements were for his flat, and I still believe in innocent until proven guilty, again do not prevent him doing his job.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: mayomick
Date: 07 May 21 - 04:12 PM

Rain Dog

I often heard Labour voters in the UK say that they were voting Labour in the same way as their parents always did but I never heard anyone say it out of “political ignorance” . Rather it was because their parents and grandparents had gone through the "hungry thirties" and passed on their bitter experiences .

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 May 21 - 04:52 PM

i was a labour voter wheni lived in the uk, i have voted the same way as my parents did .my father did 30 days hard labour in prison for exercising his right to free speech criticising the royal family in the 1930s , there was no political ignorance in my family. ok rain canine

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 May 21 - 06:14 PM

Well my dad was a Labour councillor in Radcliffe in the sixties. My mum and dad worked for the Labour Party in elections, as indeed did I, in my case from the age of twelve, collecting numbers for Labour at our local polling station. My grandad was a lifelong Tory, who worked all his life in Salford docks. He was also a cradle Catholic, and the priests from the pulpits in Prestwich and Whitefield told him and his ilk to vote Tory. Tory, Queen, God and country. His son, my uncle, wore the bearskin at Buckingham Palace and changed the guards many times and all that. That's how it was. I've voted in every single election that I've been qualified to vote in, ever since I was eighteen. I'm very interested in politics, I come from a piss-poor working class background, and I know only too well how Tories, over many decades, have enabled the repression of the working classes whilst simultaneously enriching themselves. If we can't stand up to this (and just think how we got all those zero-hours contracts, shite pay, job insecurity, inhuman benefits system...) the working classes are doomed. But I have faith.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 08 May 21 - 12:18 AM

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000vw3q/dateline-london-08052021

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 May 21 - 02:40 AM

is anyone asking why did the liberals do so badly in hartlepool?349 votes

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 May 21 - 04:21 AM

Adolph Hitler got they job done as well, Nigel. I'm not saying Boris is like him. Simply that getting the job done is not a good reason to support him.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Allan Conn
Date: 08 May 21 - 05:10 AM

The Lib Dems did really badly in Hartlepool. Likewise in my consituency they do really poorly now. This used to be, until less than a decade ago, a strong Lib Dem seat and had been since the early 1960s. The SNP took the Westminster seat from them and now it is Tory. They only got 6% of the vote in our constituency vote on Thursday's Scottish elections! They have managed so far to keep all their Scottish constituency seats from 2016 but I think it is mainly down to local loyalty. So very localised. They were though almost pipped to it by the SNP in Shetland which would have been unthinkable in times past.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 08 May 21 - 05:21 AM

getting the job done is not a good reason to support him.
Nor is focussing on his human failings a reason to vote for an opposition which does not appear to have clear policies, would not tell us whether or not they favoured Brexit, and is so divided that it is uncertain whether they would have been able to come to any decisions on how to deal with Covid.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 May 21 - 05:29 AM

Whilst I think that he's bad enough to justify a vote for almost anyone else, you are right about Labour, Nigel. I tried to tell folks a year ago that this guy is a reactor, not a doer, and a charisma-free born loser. There's been no talk of dumping him, and I suppose we're going to have to get trashed in another election before we can ditch him.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 08 May 21 - 06:13 AM

The problem is not so much Starmer, Steve, as Corbyn-Fanbois busting a gut to undermine him and inflame division in the party.

The one thing the Tories get right, perhaps the only thing IMO, is that they demonstrate unity in public, even when there are rifts in private. Pursuing an internal war in public in order to de-stabilise the democratically-elected leader is a sure way to guarantee electoral failure. And pursuing a war, in full public view, to push for the reinstatement to the leadership of someone whose ineptitude brought the party to its worst GE defeat in 85 years must qualify as the stupidest kind of stupid.

I’ve said before that I have no great regard for Starmer and I won’t shed any tears if he goes. Replace him if you must, but with the right person - any sensible suggestions?

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: mayomick
Date: 08 May 21 - 06:52 AM

A valid point from Nigel Parsons that Labour “would not tell us whether or not they favoured Brexit” . It makes the Labour Party seem more dishonest than the Tories - “Boris Johnson is an honest liar and at least you get a laugh out of him ”!
I detect the voice of Boris in some of the anti-EU propaganda recently archived by the EU
"The EU has archived all of the “Euromyths” printed in UK media – and it makes for some disturbing reading":
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/the-eu-have-archived-all-of-the-euromyths-printed-in-uk-media-and-it-makes-for-some-disturbing-reading-108942/
(the blue clicky thing doesn't seem to work)

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 08 May 21 - 07:23 AM

Yes, MM, Nigel is spot-on about the divisions in the Labour Party wrecking its election-potential, something I’ve been trying to tell the Corbynista-Fanbois for a long time, and for which I’ve been harangued mercilessly, both here and elsewhere. It’s high time they stopped fighting each other, and united to do what the Labour Party exists for - to fight the worst Tory government in living memory.

None are so blind as they who think they’re so clever they have nothing to learn.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: peteglasgow
Date: 08 May 21 - 08:07 AM

BWM - i don't know about the tories demonstrating unity in public. when johnson got the job the more sensible of the party's MPs were ruthlessly purged. almost at a stroke the tories became an english nationalist, brexit, johnson personality cult. and what happened to those principled voices like rory stewart, ken clarke, dominic grieve et al? theresa may? all the tory party members with a conscience (of sorts) who mistrust and dislike johnson and don't favour brexit? all these people seem to have disappeared - probably to their boardroom jobs or writing unreadable memoirs. my suspicion is that tories aren't really interested in politics per se - it's just a game that results in preserving their gains and protecting their perceived social status. on the left we are cursed with giving a shit about stuff and will fight about matters of principle- particularly about what is fair and humane. now , socialists are out of favour in the labour party and are being told to shut up and get in line by the very people who did no shutting up or getting in line - in fact doing all they could to do undermine idealistic progress in the party (see 2017 manifesto) i don't have any answers to this - i've left the party and while i always vote anti-tory it is very sad to see what labour has become - splitters! doomed to give a shit.....

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: DMcG
Date: 08 May 21 - 08:39 AM

In an Independant article today, John Rntoul write:

But overall, Labour has moved forwards and upwards from the pit of its worst postwar election result. Professor Sir John Curtice, the one-person national institution, has calculated that the English local elections would have translated into a Conservative lead in a vote across Great Britain of 6 to 7 percentage points. In other words, closing the 12-point lead at the general election by about half.

When the BBC put these numbers into its House of Commons model, it suggested that Johnson’s 80-seat majority would be all but wiped out. These figures are for illustrative purposes only, as they say on those pension-fund statements, and the new boundaries that will take effect in June 2023 will make the next election even harder for Labour to win, but it is not an impossible goal.


Rentoul was never a Corbyn supporter, and has generally backed Starmer, so I accept this is not an unbiased couple of sentences. But if John Curtice has been correctly quoted, progress in terms of electability has been made. Whether that has been at the cost of becoming Tory-lite is a matter of personal judgement.
   

Labour should in normal circumstances be doing much better, and to succeed in future it will have to do so. It will have to win in England, which it rarely does. So I would say that there is still a mountain to climb after the 2019 results. But Labour has made a little progress despite Hartlepool.

I think Kipling has it right about meeting "with Triumph and Disaster/And treating both imposters just the same."

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 08 May 21 - 09:04 AM

So labour is doomed to fulfilling the role of a barely effective opposition party;
going through the motions of holding the government to account..

A function some Britons still regard
as an essential component of British government..

But which corrupt Machiavellian goodtime geezer Boris haughtily dismisses as "playing politics"..

It's blatantly obvious his majority seat government has complete contempt for the existence of a properly functioning opposition party,

Perhaps, the concept of opposition is eventually becoming so marginalized and eroded, considered no more than a trifling petty irritant by the dominating tories,
that it will eventually be abolished altogether.

And if that did happen, probably most of the British public would not give a monkey's...

Perhaps old etonian toff history swots might consider some semblance of opposition worth preserving
as an institutional relic.
Part of the rich fabric of political museum traditions...???

How easy is it to slip into a one party state without the population caring...?????

.. and with too many of them probably even thinking it's a great idea...

Hail Boris..

.. until he is stabbed in the back and usurped by the next, perhaps much worse,
dastardly villainous tory leadership challenger.....

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 May 21 - 09:44 AM

You memory seems to be letting you down, John. Ever since Corbyn was elected leader, the senior right-wing members of the party - let's call them the Yvette Cooper faction - not only refused to work with him, turning down shadow cabinet posts, etc., but routinely briefed against him. A number of them gleefully jumped on the utterly bogus "Corbyn is antisemitic" bandwagon. They didn't give a sod about the fact that they were helping to wreck future election prospects. They were ideologues with one-track minds, with the aim of purging the party of lefties. Jeremy did much better than expected in 2017, lest you forget. But those right-wingers fought the war of attrition for the next two years, supported by the right-wing press, leading to the disaster of 2019. That is exactly what they wanted. So who really were the splitters? They did all that while half a million people, nearly all lefties, had joined the party. Wow. And in the first few weeks of leading the party, Starmer "purged" the party of Corbyn on spurious grounds and he sacked Becky Long-Bailey, ten times the person he is, also on spurious grounds. Two inconvenient lefties out of the way...

I've been a trade unionist for fifty years. Going right back to the early seventies, my union, The NUT, was riven by two factions, what you might now call the centre left and the hard left. The constant wail of the former was that the union "needed unity," which, to them, meant purging the party of lefties (I received two warning letters from the General Secretary, Fred Jarvis, myself). Those who regard themselves as mainstream in the party who "call for unity" always have that agenda. We're right, the lefties are wrong, let's fight the lefties whatever it takes. Tar and feather them, demonise them, undermine them at every turn, get the Mail on your side. I've seen it time and time again. 'Twas ever thus, and I hear an echo of that in your post.

One of the hardest of the hard lefties in east London was my friend Blair Peach. He was murdered by a policeman in 1979. He also was warned by the union establishment, many times. These days, the union gives an annual Blair Peach award to the teacher who has done the most to promote racial harmony. Funny, that.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 08 May 21 - 10:20 AM

Since you clearly don’t grasp a simple, but utterly undeniable fact, Steve, I’ll repeat it and keep repeating it until the stubborn, “I’m a teacher, nobody can tell me anything” part of you finally gets it - Party Members don’t elect governments, voters elect governments.

The voters rejected Corbyn’s version of Labour (for whatever reasons, and I believe there are many, including the public splits in the party), and they are currently rejecting, and will continue to reject for as long as the party displays the current level of disunity and disloyalty, Starmer’s version. And there isn’t a cat-in-hell’s chance that voters will elect a Labour government - the very thing the people of the U.K. desperately need to right the shameful wrongs of this past eleven years - unless Labour MPs, party workers, and party members stop publicly pissing, moaning, and working against their own party.

Members don’t ‘own’ the party, nor do party workers, ‘activists’, or even MPs. The party is owned by everyone who gives it their trust and votes Labour. And those who undermine the party because it’s not their personal ‘flavour’, or the ‘right kind’ of Labour, do it a grave disservice. More importantly, they do a grave disservice to those who need a Labour government the most.

So carry on, be my guest, but be prepared for Tory rule for a very long time to come.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 May 21 - 10:31 AM

sorry back woodsman , but i think the voters are rejecting keir starmer he lacks charisma and has not been effective as a leader of opposition. johnson appears to have something that appeals to voters,that is not corbyns fault, but when cummings leaks do not bring johnson down, then starmer certainly will not, corbyn did bring in younger members, starmers move to the middle ground has not worked, because people are voting not on policy but on charisma. johnson does nothing for me but he clearly turns some voters on

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: DMcG
Date: 08 May 21 - 12:32 PM

On the charisma front, I thought Andy Burnham's comments interesting. As he makes clear, this would be a long way off yet, but I suspect he could do it.


He was asked if he would still like to lead the party one day, and he said that he was not even an MP, and that his focus was on Greater Manchester. That is the standard response for someone in Burnham’s position to a question like this.

But then he went on:

In the distant future, if the party were ever to feel that it needed here, I’m here and they should get in touch.

When it was put to Burnham that that sounded as if he were still open to the idea of being Labour leader, he replied:

I have tried twice to be the leader and it’s never worked so I’m not under any illusions, if you like. It’s never worked for me in the past. I feel I’m in the best job in the world.

But I’m here to help the Labour party, if they need it.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 May 21 - 01:21 PM

(Ignoring the unnecessary nonsense in your first paragraph...)

600,000 people joined the party when Jeremy became leader. There is very little doubt that the overwhelming majority of those people were left-wing in sentiment. That should have at least given the party seniors the message that a change of direction was sorely needed. That a new enthusiasm was in the air. To them (including me), the old ways since the demise of Blair's New Labour were a failure. Corbyn represented something radically new. That message did not get across. Instead, and in spite of the hope provided by the 2017 result, the party bigwigs turned on him and killed off that message, a gift to the Tories and right-wing press. I'm sorry you can't see this. You appear to be saying that all principle should be ditched in order to ditch the Tories. We were saying that it was time for principle to regain its place. Maybe you've forgotten how principle, in tbe face of constant personal and sordid attackes, almost but not quite turned things round in 2017 in a very surprising way. Another message that didn't get across to the Yvette cabal. My view is that Jeremy, ultimately, might not have been the right person. But begod we've gone right back to New Labour-lite. And the long knives are still out for lefties in the party. And as you seem to be saying, there is no clear way out of this. It's a shambles, and the people in charge are people with the same sentiment as yours.