"we'll change the things that need changing and that's all we'll change": the paSUKification of post-brexit politics 2021

imo the biggest issue for the left atm is the existence of both the Greens and Lib Dems fuzzying popular perceptions of the left voteshare; impetus to start a new party to pressure Labour just as UKIP/BXP did the Tories is frazzled and diffused

if there's no future in electoral politics, though, what's to be done? surely some sort of politics will have to hold sway

We don’t need to do this again or indeed ever

weird, without reading this thread for the last hour or so i was just thinking how much fun a General Election would be this year

Kieth's ready! (after they have tippexed out all the brexit stuff from May's 2017 manifesto)

i don't see why we have to wait another 2+ years for a dismal Labour performance and a further lurch to the right while the Lib Dems prop up a Tory government tbf

But the current Labour party seems to me much, much worse than Blair's, which never contemplated expelling JC, Dennis Skinner et al.

Yeah, I was thinking how the actual situation is even worse than before Corbyn, when left MPs were at least allowed to do good on a local level.

From a wide-ranging report by the Centre for American Progress - a think tank close to the Biden administration - on what to do if Putin invades Ukraine. This passage says U.K. govt so compromised by Russian money, the US may have to intervene. https://t.co/tSZngDCM4V pic.twitter.com/nkNwjW9OLt

— Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) January 26, 2022

Yeah, I was thinking how the actual situation is even worse than before Corbyn, when left MPs were at least allowed to do good on a local level.

― Daniel_Rf, Wednesday, 26 January 2022 bookmarkflaglink

When Blair got in the left hadn't been in the leadership for quite a while. It was easy to keep Corbyn and their like as examples to say to everyone "that's where they are, they will never get in power".

imo the biggest issue for the left atm is the existence of both the Greens and Lib Dems fuzzying popular perceptions of the left voteshare; impetus to start a new party to pressure Labour just as UKIP/BXP did the Tories is frazzled and diffused

if there's no future in electoral politics, though, what's to be done? surely some sort of politics will have to hold sway

― imago, Wednesday, 26 January 2022 bookmarkflaglink

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bleu_de_Gex.jpg

Things are so bad I can't even link a pic of blue cheese properly :-(

Didn't expect you to judge the post as mature and delicious

Gray wants it out in full, No 10 has previously said it will be out in full, so if PM decides not to, expect political onslaught from opposition to force it out

— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) January 26, 2022

KS couldn't slaught his way out of a wet paper bag

Dawn Foster had the last word on Wes Streeting pic.twitter.com/UXAoAleEz4

— Fergie (@monkey_crusader) January 26, 2022

that's all you need to know about Streeting rather than bothering with that vacuous NS profile on him.

speaks volumes about how empty and unserious the PLP under Starmer has become, Streeting isn't even a Tory just a managerialist vacuum. these people claim to be chasing the electorate but in fact they just create the parameters they can envision - bourgie, complacent, patronising and oblivious to anybody outside their own class.

In 2010 The Trussell Trust ran 56 food banks.

In 2022 this now stands at 1300 with another 900 who act independently.

Twelve years of Tory misrule.

— Jon Jones (@JonJonesSnr) January 26, 2022

it's a good job Labour have got a plan to radically reform UC by giving it a new name.

When Blair got in the left hadn't been in the leadership for quite a while. It was easy to keep Corbyn and their like as examples to say to everyone "that's where they are, they will never get in power".

Yes agreed, not suggesting Blair was doing this out of ideological integrity. Nevertheless, that situation seems preferable to the current one.

Labour's long term electoral strategy seems to be both reliant on older voters not dying and the younger generations who are hungry for something transformative and whom they've clearly told are not wanted anywhere near the party, that they will just forget about it and keep dutifully voting for them when they've grown up!

julio no you don't understand, that just shows what a generous and loving society britain is. twelve years of tories creating the big society!

As one ILXor recently commented on the homeless, they seem to have enough money for tobacco, booze and drugs though *folds arms*

Boris Johnson has recruited Tony Blair's former homelessness czar Dame Louise Casey to lead a review into the causes of rough sleeping.

this was in the first months of 2020 before the first lockdown. *spoilers* - They didn't get it sorted.

will we ever get to the bottom of this mystery??

Shirkers one and all

Yes agreed, not suggesting Blair was doing this out of ideological integrity. Nevertheless, that situation seems preferable to the current one.

― Daniel_Rf, Thursday, 27 January 2022 bookmarkflaglink

Not really. The last five years has been an education for a lot of young people. Not many are fucking around with Starmer, they either dropped out to do other things or just dropped out of frustration. Either way it's the kind of engagement we are going to need as electoral politics goes further down the drain.

Yeah but as far as I can tell this "education" has mostly ended in despair and apathy, not sure there's more ppl invested in non-electoral activism than there was before really.

I guess it's hard to compare to the Blair years. It was a different world altogether.

one would hope that the aspiration and the frustration has to go somewhere, for some people, and that this unmasking of just how counter-revolutionary the Labour Party is will at least prevent it draining some of those energies quite as effectively as it has done in the past

New Lab could really pretend in a way that Starmer post-Corbyn cannot.

if somebody has any yearning to change the socioeconomic environment for the better and the last 5 years hasn't convinced them that the existing political institutions aren't gonna do that then i wouldn't know what to tell them and i don't think i'd bother debating it

I mean, New Labour removed the old Clause IV first thing

So this one is interesting.

Smaller Lab lead probably because Kantar do not offer a "don't know" option.

A big part of the reason for the larger leads elsewhere is Tory voters moving to don't know. If you don't give them the option, most say they would still vote tory. https://t.co/iay3CbGja5

— Chris Curtis (@chriscurtis94) January 27, 2022

You'd think that would be obvious but...

yes, the previously Tory voting Don't Knows will calm down and vote Tory again, same as it ever was. They need to put in a "decidedly not voting for either of those cunts" option.

Thanks to @clemwear for my amazing new T-shirt inspired by my friend @lloyd_rm #LawyerNotALiar pic.twitter.com/gjSufjKx9W

— Emma Hardy MP (@EmmaHardyMP) January 27, 2022

the final nail in LRM's coffin! so embarrassing.

dear god we've got bad MPs

what happened to the itv BREAKING NEWS JOHNSON DRINKING WITH BERKELEY HUNT DURING LOCKDOWN i saw on twitter last night? (with accompanying rhyming slang gag so don't bother)

oh they've really got him this time

The hypocrisy of anyone simping for that lying piece of shit with a Boris Liar t-shirt is off the scale. It's not Boris who ran a duplicitous trojan horse campaign and then ripped up all his pledges as soon as elected and said fuck the membership. If anything he's a more legitimate party leader than Kieth from a party democracy perspective!

what happened to the itv BREAKING NEWS JOHNSON DRINKING WITH BERKELEY HUNT DURING LOCKDOWN i saw on twitter last night?

damnit it was a fake sky news account

lawyers being famously associated in the public mind with honesty and integrity

it's part of that Labour Right malady where they keep doing the Tory attack lines on themselves as an open conversation or in this case an embarrassingly bad meme. I'm pretty sure lawyers are synonymous with being weaselly dishonest shits with most of the public!

Lawyer vs. Journalist. Some choice.

society's natural leaders

New T-shirt slogan

UNLIKE SOME OF THE MPS OPPOSITE (IN THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY), I, A LABOUR MP, WOULD CERTAINLY PREFER TO BE LED BY A *LAWYER* (IN THIS CASE, SIR KEIR STARMER QC) THAN A *LIAR* (MEANING, THE CURRENT UK PM !!!) !!!

May need a small font.

My mom used to have this T-shirt:

"First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

-- Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2"

ok those would be two good T-shirts

Shakespeare still delivering the coolest of quotes. I think they used that as the opening statement at the Nuremburg Trials as well!

That's funny, Tracer -- I love that scene in that play and wrote about it extensively as an undergraduate.

Very specific citation. Probably could use a line number and indeed clarification of which edition was being cited, Folio vs Quarto, variants, etc, as well. Maybe those could go on the back, where tour dates often go.

An exclusive survey has been carried out by @MuslimCensus on the Muslim vote, and the findings are bleak for the Labour Party:

- Labour are at risk of losing over half (55%) of their Muslim vote.

- 1 in 4 Muslims aged 18-24 would not vote if there was an election tomorrow

— Hamza (@Hamza_a96) January 28, 2022