Sir Keir Starmer - Labour Party Leader

[DCI Harry Batt]

OK. So the Lib Dems sold out for a referendum about the thing they prioritised and then the thing they prioritised wasn't on the ballot. I mean, that's even more damning isn't it?

Yes, it is.

[Patrick Thistle]

It's even more "who gives a fuck?" imho. I'm interested in what the parties stand for, and are campaigning for (or, in Labour's case, staring at like a rabbit in headlights) today, not who fucked up how in a Coalition Agreement made 11 years ago under leaders who are long gone.

I mean, if past record is what we're going on, I could make a massive deal out of the Iraq War, a colossal crime which puts the sins of Clegg into perspective. But I won't, because it's history, and it's the shitness of Starmer and his party today, and the new lows of dishonesty, kleptocracy and evisceration of our democracy and rule of law being plumbed by Johnson's Tories right now. that matter to me, not the htstory of each party's fuck ups under past leaders.

2019 isn't that long ago. Arguably the "fuck ups under past leaders" left us with Boris Johnson in charge when a pandemic came along. That's working out great.

I get that it's your party now and you're in no way responsible for activity before you joined. But I don't see why anyone else should give the party a free pass for what happened. Is there any guarantee it won't happen again?

Being blunt, I don't trust them to deliver as a progressive left wing party. You might. That's your call.

[San Bernardhinault]

Being blunt, I don't trust them to deliver as a progressive left wing party. You might. That's your call.

To be fair, I don't trust anyone in England to do that given the parties' records while having any power. And the Lib Dems just had a fraction of a modicum of power unlike the previous Labour government which had stonking great massive majorities that actually gave them a carte blanche to make proper structural changes which they almost completely failed to do.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Don't look to the Liberal democrats if you're hoping to find a coherent social democratic platform. I mean you're not going to get one from the labour party at any point in 40 or 50 years. I can't help feeling that an actual coherent social democratic platform would be quite popular if someone were to offer one. Someone should try it.

[caja-dglh]

Sort of my point. They had their chance. They fucked it up. Whining that it's so unfair how haaaaard it is to be in the third party when a) they had a chance and b) they fucked it up is tiresome.

Should the SNP shut up as well? (honestly I am just checking here as in other circles I am in contact with an overwhelming balance of Scots)

[Patrick Thistle]

The SNP are a party of government. I'm not sure what your point is.

[Patrick Thistle]

To be fair, I don't trust anyone in England to do that given the parties' records while having any power. And the Lib Dems just had a fraction of a modicum of power unlike the previous Labour government which had stonking great massive majorities that actually gave them a carte blanche to make proper structural changes which they almost completely failed to do.

Sure but find a post on here that is promoting Labour as the left wing option.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Should the SNP shut up as well? (honestly I am just checking here as in other circles I am in contact with an overwhelming balance of Scots)

The two situations seem quite dramatically different, to me. But I guess even I don't think the Liberals have to shut up, much as I might wish they would disappear for ever.

The SNP managed to get a referendum on the thing they want, which is way beyond anything the Liberals achieved (positively, anyway).

[DCI Harry Batt]

Sure but find a post on here that is promoting Labour as the left wing option.

It's a fair challenge to people who are members or campaigners or otherwise supporters of Labour, though, isn't it?

[Patrick Thistle]

It's a fair challenge to people who are members or campaigners or otherwise supporters of Labour, though, isn't it?

Well sure. But it was in response to me so the whataboutery didn't apply.

I'm lucky I realise because I have a left wing main party option. Even if they have no hope of winning in my constituency against Labour.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Yeah fair dos.

[Snake Plissken]

It's not right to ignore the Coalition when the current LD leader was a Minister in that Coalition.

The issue I had with Clegg was that he got his wallet inspected every day by Osborne and Cameron for the full five years. He could, probably should have walked out of the whole thing and gone supply and confidence with the Tories happily wrecking the country. He actually had the power and then chose not to use it. (Then again, that is exactly what would happen in the event of a Labour government under the current lot.)

Then Swinson comes along and gets incredibly high on her own supply all the way to hilariously (in a laughing on the executioners block way) losing her own seat.

I guess what pisses me off is there is a real opportunity for the Lib Dems. There was a lot of policies Labour abandoned that were (or because they are) popular with a whole lot of disengaged people just waiting to be picked up. They won't for... reasons.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Mostly because they don't support them, no?

[Snake Plissken]

It does appear that they are against things like properly funded public services, yes. Odd, isn't it?

[Gas In Name Only]

Well they sold the Royal Mail off so I'm not sure they're even in favour of public services at all

[E10 Rifle]

As an aside, it's mad to think that - for all this despair - the Tories have had an absolute majority for only four years in the past quarter-century yet have succeeded more comprehensively than anyone else in moulding the country to fit their interests and worldview.

Which seems to say something about the decline of democracy and the influence of its institutions.

[ursus arctos]

One could write a very interesting book starting from that premise and working backwards to determine the relevant factors that brought it into being.

[E10 Rifle]

It certainly requires keeping Westminster's Overton window very narrow. Which was why they all went hysterical over Corbyn out of all proportion to what his actual policies were.

[ursus arctos]

Which in itself requires control of the media narrative, which is a necessary, but insufficient, condition to the project as a whole

[Sunderporinostesta]

Would people here be prepared to vote Lib Dem in a constituency where Labour didn't put up a candidate? And in the opposite case?

I’d like to think so. Those who wouldn’t deserve all the shit the Torys can muster.

I voted LibDem last time out of the traps as Labour didn’t have a cat in hells chance of unseating our then Brexit mad Tory loon sponger. As did enough in the constituency to make her lose her seat. Both Tory and Labour party members had vote LibDem posters in their windows around here. All three majors on the knock types seemed happy enough when informed of my intention on the doorstep.
In a very remain constituency a sitting MP banging on repeatedly about Brexit is as much a sanity issue X2 as a political one.

[Sunderporinostesta]

Oh they probably do. I meant on here when FPTP gets discussed.

Bottom line is all parties are out for their own interests.

But not all party campaigners.

[Jimski]

As an aside, it's mad to think that - for all this despair - the Tories have had an absolute majority for only four years in the past quarter-century yet have succeeded more comprehensively than anyone else in moulding the country to fit their interests and worldview.

Which seems to say something about the decline of democracy and the influence of its institutions.

I don't really see the UK as a proper democracy - sure the people have some say, but money has more say. Plutocracy more like.

[ursus arctos]

I see it more as the clientilstic capture of the entire state apparatus, as contrasted with the regulatory capture of an individual bureaucracy (which occurs in almost every "advanced democracy").

That isn't unique to the UK, but the UK does possess structural elements that make it both more likely to happen and more damaging when it does. These include FPTP, very strong party discipline, "parliamentary sovereignty", an unwritten constitution, the structure and control of the media, and the absence of any serious restraint from either above (post-Brexit) or below (other than as allowed to some extent post-devolution).

[DCI Harry Batt]

Yeah.

I think we might be fucked.

[Felicity, I guess so]

It's perhaps quite telling that Sir Kar Boardbox himself, of the thread title, hasn't been mentioned for a couple of pages...