Matt Bruenig and Doug Henwood have been saying for a while that MMT gets a lot of financial backing because it leads to takes like this.
Keir Starmer Labour Leader
- Thread starter Damien
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Nah, you've got to take into account how wonderful Rishi is. No one can stand against him apparently, even hardened lefties are singing his praises and stand ready to vote Tory now.
Corbyn had periods where he regularly polled above the Tories, with a gap as high as 8% at times. What does it matter? Your obsession with polls four years out of an election is sad, it literally means nothing right now. It will be a vastly different landscape come the next election.
Sharing polls does not equal using them as virtually the only barometer by which to judge someone.
Awkward..
Few posters turning this thread into a waste of time and would do better to put their views in private threads or the main Labour thread.
We get it, you believe that Labour would do better with someone from the ‘proper’ left of the party.
You’re also not going to get that anytime soon. Start a thread for your chosen darling and look ahead to the 2030’s if you must.
I’d love to see a Labour Party that was electable while running on a heavily left manifesto. But I also live in reality. That is not happening. It’s not even in the realms of possibility. We’re not going to see a swing that big in 4 years.
This country is in an absolute mess and it’s going to get worse in the next three years. Stomping your feet shouting “Sir Keith won’t do what I want him to do” only makes this all worse.
Live in the real world and Become part of the solution instead.
We get it, you believe that Labour would do better with someone from the ‘proper’ left of the party.
You’re also not going to get that anytime soon. Start a thread for your chosen darling and look ahead to the 2030’s if you must.
I’d love to see a Labour Party that was electable while running on a heavily left manifesto. But I also live in reality. That is not happening. It’s not even in the realms of possibility. We’re not going to see a swing that big in 4 years.
This country is in an absolute mess and it’s going to get worse in the next three years. Stomping your feet shouting “Sir Keith won’t do what I want him to do” only makes this all worse.
Live in the real world and Become part of the solution instead.
Hear hear!
It’s not divisiveness that’s needed, it’s unity. The choice is simple, either Labour moves back to the middle and becomes electable or Labour stays to the left and stays unelectable. So ask yourself what you want, a centrist Labour government in power or a right wing conservative government in power?
I saw what you did
Sorry but I cringe at outflanking takes.
Maybe it's because I've seen lefties in US politics parse every little thing a Democratic candidate says and proposes, but give Trump good faith when he says something vague and generic like "i want everyone to have healthcare" while in the middle of trying to take away existing healthcare as a sign of him outflanking Biden.
The tories will run on the message of getting government out of the way as usual, with any economic expansion in one area being at the sacrifice of another.
So the calls for a "broad church" when Corbyn was leader was just politicking?
The solution being backing all government policies but criticising only the implementation of them?
That’s not about giving Trump good faith, it’s about the embarrassment that an irredeemable criminal like him can give better soundbites (however hollow it is) than the Democrat leader on such central issues as healthcare.
Likewise, the substance of what Sunak is actually doing there matters less than the fact the Tories have been able to get a headline about taxing the rich, meanwhile Labour are refusing to commit to anything of the sort - even though Starmer made it his #1 pledge. That simply should not be happening.
Not that polls really matter but I see Opinium are collecting a nice fee every week for telling The Observer what they want to hear
No that's not the case at all. Every politician is going to make vague soundbites. If Biden says as he always does he intends to build on Obamacare and give more people healthcare by x, y and z he'll have lefties complain about how it does not go far enough. Trump actively trying to kill Obamacare in the midst of a pandemic is under covered and yet some dumb lefties do give him the benefit of the doubt to his vague soundbites.
Your obsession with polls four years out of an election is sad, but my obsession with polls four and a bit years out of an election is perfectly fine.
Reagan proposed more ambitious healthcare coverage than Obama, did he not? Of course ‘lefties’ are going to complain it doesn’t go far enough. As for ‘lefties’ treating Trump’s views on healthcare with any credibility, I find that hard to believe.
I really don’t care if Neil Coyle gets to sit on the opposition benches or the government benches and I’m not going to be made to feel bad for saying it. I was out canvassing and leafleting in December. I won’t be doing it again.Tweet
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Indeed.
The very simple fact is that the UK does not want to elect a left wing party, Labour or otherwise. And I can not see that changing in my lifetime.
As a direct result of this Tory government policies, the UK is significantly more divided than I can remember. And as we can easily see, the UK is falling apart.
We desparately need a government that can re-unite and end division. And that requires a party that has the greatest appeal and not an outlier left wing party with minority appeal.
“we need to appeal to as many people as possible that’s why you people on the left need to support a party that doesn’t appeal to you”
Well I feel mightily intimidated just reading that vicious verbal assault.
Need a citation on Reagan who is the free market capitalist get the government out of the way deity. Obama supported government intervention and expansion. When Trump tried to get Obamacare struck out via a legislative vote there were huge protests and activity to stop a Republican majority from accomplishing it. Instead he resorted to executive power to rip it up and now wants to sue to remove what is left of it in a midst of a pandemic.
And there were and are people on the left, usually with red roses by their accounts, who will tell you Trump saying a giveaway line in 2016 of "I want everyone to have healthcare", when his only plan was to take away people's existing healthcare through Obamacare, was him running on the left of Hillary Clinton who supported a public option to build on it. The idea that Trump's vagueness in detail under the cover of "populism" meant he would push for Medicare For All. The same is happening now against Biden.
Now I don't think they are representative of the broader left. But the extremely online, concern trolling red rose brigade seem to me to be too eager to align with anything resembling populist bluster. The Jimmy Dore type crowd who loved to talk about drone strikes when Obama was in power, but apparently think Trump is anti-war despite drones exceeding in two years what they did under Obama ... with the actual figures distorted due to transparency rules being gutted by Trump.
To put it back in UK politics there are plenty of conservatives who will be appalled by the prospect or suggestion of increased taxes. There is in-fighting on the right too ... but I don't see those under the Tory umbrella split so much they tell each other "feck off and vote labour" the way people under the labour umbrella told each other "feck off and vote tory".
Cannot speak for random twitter people but the argument wasn't that he was going to do M4A or anything good even (even if he wanted to personally, which I don't think he cares about at all, he would then have to got through Mitch and Nancy who both oppose it), The argument was that his campaign could outflank Hillary from the left at random times on war, trade, and even things like health.
e- Jimmy Dore is a moron. Michael Brooks was roughly 1000 times better but died last month.
Someone with a red rose account gave me a wedgie and used my lunch money for the Trump campaign.
The far left must be stopped!
The far left must be stopped!
Fair enough. I'm not familiar with Michael Brooks but Jimmy Dore's videos are always popping up on my youtube recommendations and when he starts talking about how people like Mike Cernovich are more in like as a "lightning rod" I can't help but roll my eyes. He and his followers seem to crave populism of any sort so long as they can wave the "anti-establishment banner". Even though there's no clear explanation what right wing populism even is when the essence of being on the right wing is you want government out of the way.
As for the Hillary comparison ... I still don't accept that reasoning. Do you not think it's a lack of good faith to expect and parse every liberal's 12 point plans and six point programs to the nth degree as to decipher how progressive they are, but someone like Trump can use a vague sentiment without ever following through on it either by a plan or in action? Hillary Clinton could point out that in the 90s when she was leading her husband's push for expanded healthcare it was killed by the party Trump is representing as "socialism". If you watch 1990s Bill Clinton news packages the right wing response to his policies made him out to be a raving commie. She wasn't a johnny come lately on healthcare and if she got her way then who knows what the progress made would be now.
Even if the voting population was evenly distributed, which it is not, then the left would by definition be in the minority.
"The truth of the matter is that my policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies that I had back in the 1980s, I would be considered a moderate Republican” - straight from the horse’s mouth. Obama is not on the left, it’s only because politics has shifted so far right over the decades people think that’s an appropriate label for him. On healthcare, see https://freopp.org/why-ronald-reagan-embraced-universal-coverage-1a024e3e74b3. Frustratingly there was a good article on this I read recently but I can’t find it now.
I’d really question the legitimacy of twitter accounts posing as left-wing accounts who criticise Obama but give Trump a free pass...that’s not a left-wing position.
Indeed, to my knowledge those in the Tory party have never actively worked against its election like centrist factions in Labour over the past four years or so. Starmer should be investigating and taking firm action against those members.
Okay so you don't need my vote then
Why. Were you going to vote for me??
They're giving up the charade, sacrifice yourself to the economy you worthless workers.
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And what will your position be when you realise it is not as simple as that? What about the seats in Scotland? Do you think centrist Labour will win those back?
Divisiveness will be back in fashion long enough so that they can blame the left for not knocking on doors/voting for a party that offers them nothing.
Hardly a minority.
Over 10 million votes for Labour in 2019. 12.8 million in 2017.
Conservatives had 13.9 million in 2019. 13.6 million in 2017.
Wouldn't surprise me.
So naive to think that just moving to the centre will get Labour in power.
Yeah not nearly as good as the proper one.
I support their cause but Extinction Rebellion are becoming tedious wind up artists.