Own that shit instead of pretending to care about the raising sea levels. It's your life and choices man, maybe you are right and morons like us who always choose the lesser evil deserves a good tonking.
Keir Starmer Labour Leader
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I guess there's worse way to die then a severe case of brain freeze
Sorry, I really did try to come up with a better ice pun
I do care which why I would like a politics that addresses it. I've so far always voted for the "lesser evil" but it's important to know it's nowhere near enough and maybe holding us back at some points.
I really hate it when you're right because it's so fecking depressing.
And I really hate it that the Overton window is so skewed that , 'oh god maybe climate change is bad' is the most radical position that a mainstream party can take in our political climate without being seen as bat shit insane.
The infantilisation of left-wing politics has become increasingly prevalent, epitomised by the BBC’s “are you going to nationalise sausages?” and the performative nonsense when Labour made the tree-planting pledge, where journalist’s collectively seemed to pretend the policy meant Corbyn would personally plant a 1,000 trees a minute or something daft like that. Climate change is more difficult to scorn so instead they scrutinise the costs of any meaningful policy intensely, but huge tax breaks for corporations and the likes barely merit a mention. No one ever asks how we’re going to fund that.
Completely forgot about this.Get Marcus to oppose this grade downgrade madness... Thanks Keith ffs
People didn't believe labours shopping list of promises. This is still news? But blame blame blame the media.When people start ridiculing your policies you are stuffed.
‘Shopping list of promises’, that’s a great inane and economically illiterate right-wing talking point you’ve echoed there, thought you claimed to support the Labour party?
Funny how policies are ridiculed by the biased media, with vested interests, before "people" but according to you the media apparently hold no blame.
Imo at least some of the reason for this is to take on climate change in the immediate term will require such a huge level of both state investment and control that it's going to look like "communism" (In the sense of the old war communism of the soviet union), that it puts off anyone who remembers the crisis in the 1970's and the red baiting of the cold war.
I'm not sure how you get around this tbh.
Hopefully I'm massively wrong but things right now look very very bad.
The only thing we have on our side is the fact there's more working class people on the planet than at any other point in capitalist history and we are more interconnected than at any other point in human history.
<Sighs> Sadly that's the major problem with the UK voting system. Many either have to resort to voting 'against' something rather than 'for' or worse still failing to register a vote on the basis that it would be 'wasted'. I am aware that the UK voice on its own would be nowhere near enough but I am in no doubt that our voice would carry more conviction had we have adopted AV in 2011. It would not have been perfect yet anything would have been a vast improvement on FPTP. I can never understand the logic of the Labour Party adopting a 'no official position' stance. Worse still was the major unions mostly opposing the motion. Pathetic really. Talk about playing into Camerons hands. So we are left with "lesser evil" what a crying shame and an indictment on us all.
Shopping list of policies actually necessary to deal with climate change:
- Reforestation/land-use change (the mocked tree planting policy)
- Retrofitting all houses with insulation, eradicating fossil fuel usage for cooking and heating (electrification and ground source heat pumps)
- Only electric vehicles on sale by say 2023. Repurchase scheme so no petrol/diesel cars by late 2020s
- Expansion of railway freight network as battery density is not really there for freight/lorries yet
- To enable this enormous investment in electrical infrastructure required. Home charging point installations and street charging points for the may people who have to park away from their homes, and don't have garages / drives
- Substantial campaign to reduce beef and dairy consumption
This is not an 'extreme' list. This is just what actually needs to be done. If we leave this to the market/individual choice/individual ability to afford the transition, people will still be running gas boilers and petrol cars in 20 years.
the major reason why starmer and his shitlib team are so badly received by the left is that they've been a more frustrating hindrance to the changes we need than the right wing, "look we agree that climate change is bad and we need to do something about it, but won't" is much harder to take than "feck you". repeated on every single problem we face. it's significantly more demoralising than people who don't even pretend to care.
they're the 'good guys' of politics who expect you to suck their dick after fake pleasantries, it's very off putting and why civility politics doesn't work. the insincerity is very obvious, unattractive and worst of all means we lose times we really don't have. this was also a problem with JC, just have some fecking guts ffs.
they're the 'good guys' of politics who expect you to suck their dick after fake pleasantries, it's very off putting and why civility politics doesn't work. the insincerity is very obvious, unattractive and worst of all means we lose times we really don't have. this was also a problem with JC, just have some fecking guts ffs.
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I've not really an issue with Uni fees. The whole system needs rebranding though, it's essentially a graduate tax and shouldn't be labelled as a debt. I'd much rather the money (I think Labour costed it at around £11bn in the 2017 election) went into early years, primary and secondary education where it is needed much more.
I’m certainly in favour of scrapping them but yeah it’s not a huge issue right now and it’s not something I see come up as a sticking point on the left much tbh. The main thing is to make sure uni is accessible to all with no financial barrier whatsoever, and the trouble with the current support system is it just narrowly assesses household income with no regard for size of family, other debts etc. Some of the people I knew at uni who suffered the most financially were actually middle class and came from relatively well-off backgrounds.
Some things don't change, as that was the case 50 years ago. My parents were low-income so I got a full grant, which was more than adequate, those with wealthier parents had to survive off whatever they were given, which in many cases wasn't much.
I agree with @esmufc07 the term loan should be dropped and replaced with grant, or similar, alongside a graduate tax. I would go further though, that grant should be large enough to cover accommodation and living costs, only then would uni be accessible to all.
It's the same reason I actually think Obama is, for instance, worse on climate change than Trump. Obama knows its a real problem, can talk quite cogently and eloquently about how catastrophic it will be (his interview with DiCaprio in Before the Flood for instance), and yet would boast about increasing US oil and gas production in the same breath as talking of his pride in the Paris agreement.
Trump doesn't believe in it and so doesn't want to do anything about it. At least he has being incredibly dumb and ignorant as an excuse.
It's not a graduate tax. It is a personal debt tied to you as an individual. It might currently function like a graduate tax. But the Lib Dems or Martin Lewis proclaiming it as a graduate tax does not make it one.
Also why should post-18 education warrant an individualised tax but all education before that does not?
It feels like the 'well of course graduates need to pay for their own education' is a great example of how the Overton window has been moved on the issue. Why all education should be free until 18 and then suddenly it's either exorbitantly expensive, or adds a substantial tax premium, is slightly beyond me – especially if you want to have a highly skilled / adaptive workforce.
Well of course in an ideal world it would be free. It isn’t though and it’s incredibly expensive to make it so, and that money could be put to better use by better funding early years education and secondary education, which is in need of it more than Uni students are.
Labelling it a debt is disingenuous, and only serves to put those who could otherwise go to uni off from doing so. My current student debt stands around £60,000 with another £20,000 to go on top after this year. It doesn’t bother me though, I’ll pay 9% above the threshold and it will be wiped after 30 years.
Lewis articulates the issue much better here. Obviously you disagree.
Stats for Lefties seemingly at it again. From the very same poll, how 18-24s would describe themselves (and Starmer):
11% - Left (Starmer - 18%)
19% - Centre-left (28%)
34% - Centre (23%)
16% - Centre-right (10%)
8% - Right (10%)
Which is fairly essential context to how they view other people.
I think there are positives for FPTP(pushes people into political groups)but yeah the only person to mentioned a different voting system was Clive Lewis and his campaign was over before it started, sadly.
Young people just aren't going to vote in any large numbers tbh(There's a number of reasons as to why, low levels of unionization has to be one of the biggest).
You're missing the one with the biggest impact, investment in active travel. Two thirds of journeys are under 5 miles, pushing walking and cycling will have a much greater and wider benefit than electric cars.
Lewis doesn’t confront the fact that, unless a left wing government wipes the debt a right wing government will probably sell it off at some point, and don’t be surprised if the 30 year wipe disappears at that point.
It’s weird that he doesn’t engage with this given the history of SLC selling of loans at which point the terms and conditions were changed.
As I said it’s a graduate tax in how it functions currently. But it remains a personal debt tied to you as an individual. I don’t trust that. And I’d the argument in favour is “it functions like a graduate tax”- just cancel all the debt and bring in a graduate tax.
I am not denying that it, or something like it, or something equally ambitious needs to be done. But combined with all the other stuff labour was promising (as well as question marks about labour's competence) it was unbelievable. It is why labour MUST win back a rep for competence, above all else.
Mate, the list was rejected by the electorate because in aggregate, that is how it came across to normal people. You lost the argument, now work out why and move the feck on.
I'm saying always blaming the media is a convenient way to avoid asking yourselves more fundamental questions about why the policy didn't deliver votes. It's just a form of avoiding the issue and after the thrashing labour got, it needs to be called out as such.
But OK, I will be clear. I think you prefer to believe you were right all along and the electorate was deceived. Therefore you don't have to ask yourself difficult questions, and this self deception is lethal to the ability of labour to win.
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It is not convenient, it is the reality of modern British political life. The media influence in politics is strong.
I'm sure there are many pragmatic strategists working for Labour trying to calculate the best way to navigate this inherent right wing media bias.
So I would say the opposite of your post is true. To ignore the media and its biased coverage would be self deception and would inhibit Labours potential to win any future elections.
Whether I agree with political parties bending their policies to suit the media business owners preferences is another question!
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If the argument was lost someone better tell Keir, he stood for leader with many of the same pledges. Based on your logic every single Labour pledge in 2019 must be abolished by 2024? The electorate’s rejected it all, apparently.
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Not this.
Why not?
So, whether it is safe or not he demands all children back at school with no nuance. Written for and shared as a Daily Mail article.
This is our opposition?
As @africasays... why not
As a parent its pretty important for me to get schools back functioning
And as a business owner I've had a lot less time to have to take steps to make my business covid 19 safe without a 6 week shut down period to do so or the knowledge that the government won't let us go bankrupt
I fully expect them to be open and tp have taken adequate steps to put in place safe policies / practices... no equivocation
Of course the situation is to be reviewed regularly but why shouldn't they be ready to open and why shouldt the leader of the opposition hold and express this view?
Schools have been closed since March. Kids have received a subpar education since then. The level of subpar has differed hugely, with those kids from lower income brackets being hit hardest. They have again been hit hardest with the exams fiasco.
Similarly, for many working class parents, who don't have the luxury of working from home with their 3 screens on their dining tables while their kids sit in their rooms in front of their own computers and get help from mum and dad when needed. They're still having to go to work physically in many cases and some of these kids have no access to reliable internet/ multiple devices for multiple kids.
So yes, I think one of this country's top priorities (certainly top 3 for me) needs to be to make sure schools are open again for the next academic year. At the cost of shutting down almost everything else if necessary. I do consider it a moral duty because kids are being left behind and its not the kids going to Eton/Harrow or even grammar schools who are.
And what is wrong with writing in the daily mail, for a leader of a national party hoping to win an election? . Is it better to talk within our bubbles and pat ourselves on the back for ideological purity instead?
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Bloody hell, even this war criminal is starting to get impatient with Labour’s timidness under Starmer.
I agree with most of this. Education should be at the forefront of things that should not be sacrificed if things need to be shutdown again or at the very least if a wider shutdown needs to be put in place again in the future there should be much better emergency measures put in place to ensure that the accessibility to that education is possible.
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