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Good from Matt Zarb-Cousin.
Talking about a rigged system, or the richest 1 percent taking the country for a ride, is unacceptable rhetoric for centrists whose politics rests on a belief that politics is about mediation between irrational tribes rather than conflict between competing interests. This in turn is underpinned by a faith in the fundamentals of our democracy and economy, which prevents any real engagement with structural or systemic criticisms.
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Didn’t know where to put this, could equally have gone in the Brexit or the Corbyn thread.
It’s worth remembering how illiberal New Labour were.
https://twitter.com/danhancox/status/1066777265479000064?s=21
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I don't wish to insult Wingco's mates but, as they're currently indulging themselves in an industrial-scale whatabouttery exhibition about the political company of people they like and don't like, I feel compelled to make an observation. They - and yer modern centrist generally - don't really talk about politics very much. I know what they think about personalities – about Corbyn, Jess Phillips, Galloway, Seamus Milne, Chukka Umunna or whoever, and I know what they think about a couple of foreign-policy issues, chiefly on how they reflect on the aforementioned personalities (and that a couple of them I would safely describe as anti-Palestinian racists), but I've got no idea what they think about the sort of stuff that affects people. What do they reckon to the Trade Union Act? Universal credit or the Bedroom Tax? Appropriate levels of taxation? Fracking? Integrating care services? The future of local government? Knife crime even. Not a clue.
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I was actually going to address precisely this point when I got a moment on Facebook, E10. What do you actually believe in, folks? My suspicion is that they're still secretly hankering for some "third way", where we get past the old ideologies, etc, rather than commit to the perfectly reasonable policies advanced by Labour in the last election. Trouble is, they know that the moment they open their mouths, nothing but Chuka-style vacuity will come out. They want a third way to be the way but have no idea what shape or form it would take. So they stick to negativity and superior, nihlistic despair and a vague hankering for "grown-ups" to swoop in and take swift, decisive action.
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That's a kind of universal thing in UK politics though isn't it? It's all about personalities. It's what ye like to do. The coverage of politics and football are basically the same, and both of them are ultimately governed by the same story values that the bronze age myths were. It's all about great leaders and magical but flawed warriors, with exciting personal lives, engaging in acts of entertaining derring do, while the rest of humanity are helpless spectators. I mean sure more mainstream parties do have policies in theory, but those have very little to do with the politicians in those parties. I bet you Boris Johnson couldn't name you three conservative policies from their last manifesto. Most of the policies from a financial point of view differ very little in a variety of really important ways, but when it comes to meaningless signalling differences they can really go to town on each other. They are essentially gang colours.
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The Westminster Lobby certainly functions like a football ground press box, with people whispering along the line to corroborate scorer details, quotes, etc. And they similarly operate on a "perspective of the powerful" bias as a result, because of the access they have. The thing is though, I reckon political writing needs to undergo the sort of change that football fanzines forced on a lot (though not all) of football writing after the 80s, but political hacks are that much more pompous and self-regarding so they tend to regard 'outsider' writing as a threat.
This is probably one for a separate thread
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Originally posted by wingco View PostI was actually going to address precisely this point when I got a moment on Facebook, E10. What do you actually believe in, folks? My suspicion is that they're still secretly hankering for some "third way", where we get past the old ideologies, etc, rather than commit to the perfectly reasonable policies advanced by Labour in the last election. Trouble is, they know that the moment they open their mouths, nothing but Chuka-style vacuity will come out. They want a third way to be the way but have no idea what shape or form it would take. So they stick to negativity and superior, nihlistic despair and a vague hankering for "grown-ups" to swoop in and take swift, decisive action.
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Originally posted by E10 Rifle View PostThe Westminster Lobby certainly functions like a football ground press box, with people whispering along the line to corroborate scorer details, quotes, etc. And they similarly operate on a "perspective of the powerful" bias as a result, because of the access they have. The thing is though, I reckon political writing needs to undergo the sort of change that football fanzines forced on a lot (though not all) of football writing after the 80s, but political hacks are that much more pompous and self-regarding so they tend to regard 'outsider' writing as a threat.
This is probably one for a separate thread
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Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View Post
The problem with this thing is that it ultimately breaks the tradition of a whole sector of society being able to realistically engage in the political system and get some of what they want out of it. And it disconnects politics for many people, entirely from reality. The consequence of the end of the link between people and policies for the left isn't a new better way to govern, it's people thinking that their vote doesn't affect anything so they vote for brexit, or for economic platforms that are incoherent and possibly ruinous.
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British politics is s series of personality cults - Thatcher, Blair, Corbyn, Johnson, whatever. The only distinctive thing about TIG in this context is their cargo cult like attempt to replicate this around the unpreposesing figure of Chukka Umunna.
Apropos of E10’s earlier point, I can see people on the left talking politics, and seemingly a lot more people on the left trading in superficial “my leader, right or wrong” stuff though I’m sure some of that is the stupidity-encouraging effect of Twitter.
And there are centrists talking about politics, though I guess what they’re talking about can be dismissed as not “proper issues” depending on your agenda. Look at Stella Creasy on knife crime or Jess Philips on education funding, to pick two examples from the last week.Last edited by Lucy Waterman; 13-03-2019, 23:41.
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TAB’s comparison with football is excellent I think. It ought to be possible to be a political leader in this country without becoming a) the recipient of impossible hopes and b) the target of lifelong and posthumous hatred when you don’t deliver on them.
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Yes, probably needs the qualifier “relatively successful.” Ed Milivand would I guess be someone like Emlyn Hughes. There’s an obvious comparison no ones ever made.
Anyway, an exception to a rule that holds true for Kinnock, Major, Blair, Cameron, May in recent memory. Brown I guess was just pitied.Last edited by Lucy Waterman; 14-03-2019, 00:06.
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Reminds of the time I got slagged off by The Guardian in 2009 for daring to say that Twitter wasn't the second coming of Christ.
Come to think of it, Jemima Kiss took to Twitter to call me a wanker. And didn't realise that I could see it.Last edited by Snake Plissken; 19-03-2019, 20:00.
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