bojo is king, brexit is on, stuff is fvcked, tomorrow starts here -- new govt new thread new battle

He might as well put up a sign: Melt Brigade

Starmer ready to go back to 2010-15

'radical' is fine for public dissemination, 'comrade' is strictly for private camaraderie between comrades imo

― imago, Friday, 10 January 2020 bookmarkflaglink

You know big words? Thought

...ah yes I forget you've written a book. Sorry will defer to you and your knowledge of words

'Citizen' was good enough for Robespierre and Saint Just, it's good enough for me.

Leave it Alph it's nearly the weekend

I'm leaving it, just remembering that some ppl know words and the weight they carry. Or whether they are 'cringe' or not.

I'm really hoping the membership come to their senses over Starmer. he's an absolute danger on two fronts: as in pliable and leaning well to the right of the PLP and he's a prize turkey who will become an easy fool for the right-wing press to lampoon.

Use of words like 'radical' and 'comrade' SHOULD be discouraged, I'm glad this is belatedly being accepted. But its not far enough, we need to be discouraging all forms of speech, as they are merely exercises in obfuscation and prevarication. We need to stop with all this endless talking, and start getting into peoples gardens, doing the rendering and firing air rifles at the greenhouse opposite

We have to face facts. People are tired of all these words, sentences and paragraphs, from balloons who think hands are for holding pens not punching burglars and carrying sacks of potatoes. We need to start lifting weights

an important part of being a centrist is imagining that you personally are the target audience, the swing voter, therefore for example what you find to be "cringe" is of vital importance, and if you are told to "fuck off and join the tories" then that's nothing less than an admission of defeat.

Attended my first Lab branch meeting last night. Mainly a discussion on the defeat. Got 2/3 mins to have our say.

No surprises when I say there was a ton of pushback from mostly manager sorts of a certain age (around mid 40s, mostly men but some women too) on the overstuffed manifesto and on Corbyn's leadership. A lot of talk around competence -- management talk, basically -- while I reminded them the world is about to burn and that the manifesto was minimum, that Brexit really was the main cause for the defeat and that Boris isn't that trustworthy either. All of the usual hits I play on this thread!!

It was productive, some valid points made on how to communicate policies in terms of connecting the dots (secure housing as something that's important for mental health too). One of the younger activists really put across the hurt he felt when the Northern constituency he grew up in turned Tory (blames it squarely on Brexit)

A lot of younger members turned out. Some older too. Many on their first meeting.

I'd say that, in terms of who will win...that's gonna depend largely on younger members holding their nerve on RLB. Had a drink after and a couple of the younger ones are broken up...had to go but I felt I could really turn one of those around over another drink. Young people are melting ffs!

Middle managers will vote Starmer. He is favourite but debates and more knowledge on what he is up to (the tweet above) will hopefully turn this around.

We need to start lifting weights

WE ARE THE SWOLETARIAT

Starmer also has Simon Fletcher in his campaign, so what is the reckoning that he’s trying to get people from all sides of the party involved so no factions are outside his tent, pissing in?

like getting one former Corbyn aide in is anything but cosmetic. I want to see that tent burnt down with all the melts in it.

i know he'll be locked for some but @simonk_133 has made good points today on another reason for the fall of the red wall = the abolition by the coalition (in the name of austerity) of the regional development agencies:

https://twitter.com/simonk_133/status/1215546506499018753

Well, if he’s around in the next weeks I’ll be sure to ask him.

The original Corbyn victory - and to an extent even his second - was about uniting a coalition of members that went beyond just the left, it was a mix of young left people and soft social democrats who were appalled by austerity.

So far RLB has held onto the first group fairly well. What she isn't doing so far is answering the question of how she will prevent the party from walking straight into the same cannons over again and it's essential that she finds a way of doing so or she won't be able to get the broader base she needs to win. There are probably a lot of undecideds out there who like her and her approach but don't want to take the risk. The planet will continue burning if Labour doesn't win etc.

an important part of being a centrist is imagining that you personally are the target audience, the swing voter, therefore for example what you find to be "cringe" is of vital importance, and if you are told to "fuck off and join the tories" then that's nothing less than an admission of defeat.

also all language policing on ilx belongs on the worst still-active thread on ilx = Words, usages, and phrases that annoy the shit out of you...

Think the above is just on the continuum of centrist cunts (tbf “cunts” is redundant at this stage) demanding that the left bow down and give up everything they don’t like and never talk back or mock them again. As ever, fishhook is real.

fizzles did a very good long post about starmer and his triangulating ways and how no good will come from them. I'll just content myself calling him an abysmal crypto-tory melt who has no place in Labour party that is supposed to be a party of opposition - not a shadow compromise version of the tories.

There is so much strawmanning from melts re: cranky hard left/‘your a tory’ even from extremely online people who should know better. The long ‘90s is one helluva drug. It’s usually people who are like ‘INCENDIARY column Suzanne/Caitlin/Marina!’ and anything that disrupts their busy day of logrolling is infra dig.

xp fair enough, but do we have to hear it dozens of times a day for the next three months? willing to do a trade for this

i know he'll be locked for some but @simonk_133 has made good points today on another reason for the fall of the red wall = the abolition by the coalition (in the name of austerity) of the regional development agencies:
https://twitter.com/simonk_133/status/1215546506499018753

I can't see this - too bad, I used to like simonk's posts, shame he's gone locked - so this may well either refer to this or cover the same points, but I thought this post from a week ago was interesting (whole thread both up and down, but particularly this tweet from the middle which I hope I'm about to embed):

And at the start of the 2010s, what happened to nearly half a £billion of lottery funding intended for charities like my home village's regeneration?

It was diverted to the Olympic village in London, because the government underspent on ithttps://t.co/nCu3teitKb

/10

— Dean Burnett (@garwboy) January 2, 2020

use your FP privileges if you don't like my opinions or repetition of post gyac. I'm in campaigning mode, deal with it - I honestly cgaf!

But I don’t want to fp you ffs

dean burnett, now there's an ilx zing target of yore

oh dear

I don't remember that at all (I don't follow that account, it got retweeted somewhere, and I haven't clicked outside that thread), but now I'll go and do my research

apologies for retweeting someone not ILX-approved but hopefully we can get on board with the "fuck your revisionist 2012 Olympics nostalgia bullshit" vibe, even if I have chosen a poor ambassador for it

nice to see charities have got a mouth when it comes to money owed to them by the government, that's probably not covered by the gagging orders most of them have signed.

well, a nakhchivan zing target anyway. I'm not discouraging, just reminiscing! he's probably got a good point there tbh

don't quite follow how finding use of a word slightly embarrassing makes me a centrist who believes Labour should capitulate to racists?

All those extreme media melts seem to be into Jess Phillips for some reason!

big question for 2020: was nakhchivan a melt wrapped in an enigma?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/10/opinion/brexit-scotland-northern-ireland.html

testify Mr Edgerton let's get Balkan in this joint

Freed from the grip of the decayed British nation and British state, England could finally be done with its delusions of grandeur. Fanciful beliefs about British importance in the world would crumble.

this seems a very generous view of much of england's boundless capacity for self-deception

A 'handful of hardcore Unionists' in NI seems to be downplaying things somewhat, there's more than a handful in Scotland, for a start.

i'm not sure why we should stick at England either, the home counties or the northern gammon belt could secede, maybe a resurgent Kernow, greater metropolitan boroughs could become latte-sipping croissant-munching city states

build a wall around sheffield - no-one gets in, no-one gets out, pure survival of the fittest

I agree with D Edgerton, but there will always be too many nutters in england (and scotland/wales tbf) saying we are finally capitulating to the German Empire after beating them in two wars blah blah...

airlift the entirety of coventry and rebuild it on a giant platform in the north sea

ooh like what Clive's been up to

interesting that clive lewis, a misogynist who resents feminists and the metoo movement for limiting his behaviours, should all of a sudden be a radical feminist when asked a question on trans rights https://t.co/75Fk5fy2tX

— chip spice (@internetratbag) January 10, 2020

Nutters in Scotland never do that two wars thing ime, they're more fixated on 1690. They tend to hate Catholics much more than foreigners.

same thing iirc

lol at 'from what i can see there isn't a problem in norwich' from alan partridge clive there

The thing about the Empire helps explain how it was possible to be a Unionist in Scotland and NI and still hate the English.

Legit felt a small proud of being Irish (an increasingly rare sensation) cos of the RIC backlash this week. Just for the plain fact of people not standing for FG’s revisionism, which ofc is why they have taken it off the compulsory secondary school curriculum. Just genuinely shocked at how little history even politically savvy people I know over here know, like all the time. That’s what’s behind all this ofc.

and now a word from Keir's campaign team

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EN7nXSnW4AASMYl?format=jpg&name=900x900

we may need "take off and nuke the party from orbit" as a second preference

matt pound, fucking hell - how are you supposed to take Starmer in good faith as a centre-left candidate ... oh no don't worry they've got a former Corbyn guy in as well.

xps to NV

Come out ye black and tans number 1in the British charts you say?

It's started... The beacons are lit. pic.twitter.com/iPF15nlQ6O

— LIVERPOOL, CHAMPION OF THE WORLD! (@rorysalad) January 9, 2020