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Fans
Jun 27, 2013

A reptile dysfunction

Pissflaps posted:

Your position is not hard to understand, but you didn't write ddraig's post.

Ddraig's position wasn't hard to understand and yet you still seem confused.

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Kegluneq
Feb 18, 2011

Mr President, the physical reality of Prime Minister Corbyn is beyond your range of apprehension. If you'll just put on these PINKOVISION glasses...

Pissflaps posted:

I asked ddraig if, by the logic he put forward in his post, Corbyn himself should have been deselected years ago.

ddraig posted:

In an ideal world Corbyn would be doing everything to get rid of the shits who completely undermine the party and routinely don't actually bother to listen to the people they claim to represent, but his hand is forced because by doing so he's playing into the persecution fantasies of people who think that he's just as bad as they are.
So, no.

Pissflaps
Oct 20, 2002

by VideoGames

How about the bit before the and you chose not to bold?

Lord of the Llamas
Jul 9, 2002

EULER'VE TO SEE IT VENN SOMEONE CALLS IT THE WRONG THING AND PROVOKES MY WRATH

Pissflaps posted:

Your position is not hard to understand, but you didn't write ddraig's post.

Ddraig's post was pretty easy to understand. Ddraig said that deselections have always been a part of the political process but that they only became "dirty and underhanded" because Blairites wanted to purge the Labour party of left wing influence despite the wishes of the actual party members. Now some people are eager for Corbyn to encourage deselections because it can be spun as him trying to purge the party of Blairites. However in reality the CLPs are only going to be encouraged to take control of their own affairs. This is in stark contrast to what happened under Blair. So in conclusion ddraig said that Corbyn can't be seen to advocate local democracy in the Labour party because it will be spun as attempted purges.

Edit: Of course, the Blairite strategy was not so much "deselection" as "non-selection".

Jose
Jul 24, 2007

Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster and writer
how about some actual news I don't think was posted http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jan/01/labour-could-stop-cooperating-tories-protest-party-funding-cuts

all the other parties are kicking off quite rightly at having their funding slashed while the tories spend more than ever. they're doing some truly horrible poo poo to gently caress over the other parties in general and push their stuff through and I can't believe its not really making more noise.

Kegluneq
Feb 18, 2011

Mr President, the physical reality of Prime Minister Corbyn is beyond your range of apprehension. If you'll just put on these PINKOVISION glasses...

Pissflaps posted:

How about the bit before the and you chose not to bold?

It doesn't really matter since it's after the 'and' that's important. An MP who opposes party leadership against the wishes of their CLP should be deselected. Presumably, that hasn't been the case with Corbyn.

(Could an MP deselected by leader's diktat, but who has the support of his CLP not simply be reselected anyway?)

Pissflaps
Oct 20, 2002

by VideoGames
Ddraig also said that in an ideal world Corbyn would be doing all he can to remove certain people I.e. not leaving it purely to the CLPs, which prompted my question.

Lord of the Llamas
Jul 9, 2002

EULER'VE TO SEE IT VENN SOMEONE CALLS IT THE WRONG THING AND PROVOKES MY WRATH

Pissflaps posted:

Ddraig also said that in an ideal world Corbyn would be doing all he can to remove certain people I.e. not leaving it purely to the CLPs, which prompted my question.

Maybe ddraig is advocating Corbyn breaking into their bedrooms at night and cutting their throats but I prefer to interpret most statements in context and as they were probably meant to be interpreted.

TheHoodedClaw
Jul 26, 2008

Lord of the Llamas posted:

Let us not forget that former Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont said that they tried to run Scotland like a "branch office of London" upon her resignation.

Scottish Labour has long been an arms-length thing for the wider UK party. It has its own heartbeat, and its own massive problems, including a whole load of corruption and sectarianism back in the day. It was however a good incubator of competent/ruthless/clever people. Whatever you think them, the likes of Cook, Smith, Dewar and Brown went to a hard school,. There's few like them in politics these days, of any party, and there's no-one in Scottish politics, other than maybe Salmond.

Pissflaps
Oct 20, 2002

by VideoGames

Lord of the Llamas posted:

Maybe ddraig is advocating Corbyn breaking into their bedrooms at night and cutting their throats but I prefer to interpret most statements in context and as they were probably meant to be interpreted.

I expect 'doing all he can' lies somewhere between nothing at all and murder.

Lord of the Llamas
Jul 9, 2002

EULER'VE TO SEE IT VENN SOMEONE CALLS IT THE WRONG THING AND PROVOKES MY WRATH

Pissflaps posted:

I expect 'doing all he can' lies somewhere between nothing at all and murder.

And if you had understood ddraig's post you would know that the interpretation was that even something as simple as advocating local democracy in the Labour party was seen as politically problematic for Corbyn given his current opposition within. Hardly the warning signs of a ruthless cull a la Stalin.

Pissflaps
Oct 20, 2002

by VideoGames

Lord of the Llamas posted:

And if you had understood ddraig's post you would know that the interpretation was that even something as simple as advocating local democracy in the Labour party was seen as politically problematic for Corbyn given his current opposition within. Hardly the warning signs of a ruthless cull a la Stalin.

Then it seems I have misunderstood ddraig's post in assuming Corbyn 'doing everything he can in an ideal world' to get rid of the shits was nothing more than suggesting CLPs deselect candidates if they want to.

Rush Limbo
Sep 5, 2005

its with a full house
Given Corbyn's unrelenting and infuriating reasonableness maybe "Everything within his power" is more along the lines of "speaking with the CLPs to encourage them to sort their houses out" rather than erecting a wall and placing people against it.

I guess he could bust out the purges and break into people's houses and make them disappear from existence but I'm guessing it's not that particular aspect that won him such a huge amount of support in his leadership position.

The real problem arises is that the genuinely useful tools of a healthy democracy have been abused to the point where any use of them is seen as inherently abusive.

Lord of the Llamas
Jul 9, 2002

EULER'VE TO SEE IT VENN SOMEONE CALLS IT THE WRONG THING AND PROVOKES MY WRATH

Pissflaps posted:

Then it seems I have misunderstood ddraig's post in assuming Corbyn 'doing everything he can in an ideal world' to get rid of the shits was nothing more than suggesting CLPs deselect candidates if they want to.

Deselecting a candidate they didn't want to would kind of contradict the central principle that was being discussed so I guess you were just being pretty selective in your understanding.

Pissflaps
Oct 20, 2002

by VideoGames

Lord of the Llamas posted:

Deselecting a candidate they didn't want to would kind of contradict the central principle that was being discussed so I guess you were just being pretty lazy in your understanding.

I've also made the mistake of imagining a world where Corbyn demonstrates some leadership qualities and influences the opinions of others instead of just letting everybody get on with it. A double serving of egg on my face.

Chocolate Teapot
May 8, 2009
He seems to have gotten many people to become members of the Labour Party, reversing the trend started by Blair. Influence.

Lord of the Llamas
Jul 9, 2002

EULER'VE TO SEE IT VENN SOMEONE CALLS IT THE WRONG THING AND PROVOKES MY WRATH

Pissflaps posted:

I've also made the mistake of imagining a world where Corbyn demonstrates some leadership qualities and influences the opinions of others instead of just letting everybody get on with it. A double serving of egg on my face.

Good leaders let people get on with things. I work in the research department of a FTSE 100 tech company and the phrase my bosses use is "herding cats". Micro-management a la the Blairites leads to disaster. Corbyn has articulated a vision. The membership voted for it. The current PLP are a legacy of Blairite middle-management and need to either adapt or leave.

Lord of the Llamas fucked around with this message at 02:47 on Jan 2, 2016

Pissflaps
Oct 20, 2002

by VideoGames
Three terms of labour government is a funny sort of disaster.

JFairfax
Oct 23, 2008

by FactsAreUseless
i don't understand how pissflaps found the time to make a baby

Pissflaps
Oct 20, 2002

by VideoGames
Shoot me a pm I'll give you some time management tips.

Lord of the Llamas
Jul 9, 2002

EULER'VE TO SEE IT VENN SOMEONE CALLS IT THE WRONG THING AND PROVOKES MY WRATH

Pissflaps posted:

Three terms of labour government is a funny sort of disaster.

No but the three worst turnouts since the war in the 1997, 2001, and 2005 elections along with the hollowing out of the base of the Labour vote being most clearly illustrated by the collapse of Scottish Labour is a loving disaster. Tony Blair won 3 elections despite New Labour not because of it. Anyone would've beat John Major in 1997 and it's a crying shame John Smith died and Gordon Brown pussied out and let Blair take the reigns.

Pissflaps
Oct 20, 2002

by VideoGames
I find the argument that Tony Blair just 'got lucky' in being leader during the three elections in the last forty years that the Tories could not win unconvincing.

'Anyone' was supposed to be able to beat Major in '92 and that didn't quite work out as planned.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

Lord of the Llamas
Jul 9, 2002

EULER'VE TO SEE IT VENN SOMEONE CALLS IT THE WRONG THING AND PROVOKES MY WRATH

Pissflaps posted:

I find the argument that Tony Blair just 'got lucky' in being leader during the three elections in the last forty years that the Tories could not win unconvincing.

'Anyone' was supposed to be able to beat Major in '92 and that didn't quite work out as planned.

He showed an incredible amount of political acumen in his path to becoming Labour leader but after that he showed a complete disdain for the Labour party base and membership. The voting figures speak for themselves. Blair quit for a reason. It was a fluke not a recipe for success.

Fans
Jun 27, 2013

A reptile dysfunction
Politics never changes, let's just fight every election like the worst global financial crash the world has ever seen never happened.

JFairfax
Oct 23, 2008

by FactsAreUseless

Lord of the Llamas posted:

He showed an incredible amount of political acumen in his path to becoming Labour leader but after that he showed a complete disdain for the Labour party base and membership. The voting figures speak for themselves. Blair quit for a reason. It was a fluke not a recipe for success.

blair cunningly distracted everyone from the fact that he was just another oxbridge tory and religious fundamentalist until it was too late.

he's a goddamn war criminal

V. Illych L.
Apr 11, 2008

ASK ME ABOUT LUMBER

tony blair was personally a very good politician, and found a strategy that worked quite well in a short-to-medium term situation

the problem is that, as you position yourself more closely to an established party you'll eventually get ousted because voters recognise and prefer the genuine article. differentiation is a big deal in corporate marketing for a reason - when the danish parties all rushed to recapture the racist vote with increasingly draconian measures adding up to outright robbing refugees that show up, the Danish People's Party's core support didn't appreciably fall

as labour moves increasingly to capture a petit-bourgeois vote segment (as they did under New Labour), they are forced to abandon their older, working-class vote segment. the fundamental problem of modern socialist politics is that the working class simply doesn't have the numbers and is too difficult to mobilise to defend their interests, and there are no other large groups of people easily susceptible to a left-wing message. thus, social democrats have been left with two main ways to go to avoid irrelevance: either become the party of the establishment, as they did in scandinavia, or ditch their roots and go petit-bourgeois (in itself a very dangerous choice, as that is a group not courted by almost everyone). it bears mentioning that even in scandinavia, the social democrats are fighting a rearguard action against a clear tendency of long-term decline.

in america, the center-left has been revitalised by the application of ruthless identity politics, i.e. appealing to "underprivileged" groups in the form of women, ethnic minorities and young people. miliband tried something like this in britain, but it was terribly half-hearted on a whole. the problem with this kind of politics is that it entirely lacks economic ideology beyond "economic redistribution" and will thus tend towards the path of least resistance in this area, as splendidly exemplified by Bill Clinton

V. Illych L.
Apr 11, 2008

ASK ME ABOUT LUMBER

people who talk about the time when the left dominated the labour party have a bizarre tendency to view Kinnock as a representative of the left of the party. for electoral purposes, Kinnock moved the party quite a ways towards the political 'centre' of his time, but failed to win. in my view, this is mainly because he just wasn't a very good politician

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal
That in itself is a sign of how far the window has moved, although if you go further back even Wilson was considered a moderate for his time.

ronya
Nov 8, 2010

I'm the normal one.

You hate ridden fucks will regret your words when you eventually grow up.

Peace.

V. Illych L. posted:

tony blair was personally a very good politician, and found a strategy that worked quite well in a short-to-medium term situation

the problem is that, as you position yourself more closely to an established party you'll eventually get ousted because voters recognise and prefer the genuine article. differentiation is a big deal in corporate marketing for a reason - when the danish parties all rushed to recapture the racist vote with increasingly draconian measures adding up to outright robbing refugees that show up, the Danish People's Party's core support didn't appreciably fall

as labour moves increasingly to capture a petit-bourgeois vote segment (as they did under New Labour), they are forced to abandon their older, working-class vote segment. the fundamental problem of modern socialist politics is that the working class simply doesn't have the numbers and is too difficult to mobilise to defend their interests, and there are no other large groups of people easily susceptible to a left-wing message. thus, social democrats have been left with two main ways to go to avoid irrelevance: either become the party of the establishment, as they did in scandinavia, or ditch their roots and go petit-bourgeois (in itself a very dangerous choice, as that is a group not courted by almost everyone). it bears mentioning that even in scandinavia, the social democrats are fighting a rearguard action against a clear tendency of long-term decline.

in america, the center-left has been revitalised by the application of ruthless identity politics, i.e. appealing to "underprivileged" groups in the form of women, ethnic minorities and young people. miliband tried something like this in britain, but it was terribly half-hearted on a whole. the problem with this kind of politics is that it entirely lacks economic ideology beyond "economic redistribution" and will thus tend towards the path of least resistance in this area, as splendidly exemplified by Bill Clinton

is the arc described here the late 60s New Left revolution as European socialist parties pretty much everywhere moved to abandon any vanguardist alignment, or the late 80s neoliberal revolution where labour market flexibility and state company privatization was being accepted as a fait accompli

a lot of labour parties did not survive to the postwar era with a revolutionary mandate to begin with - UK Labour is somewhat niche in that regard. e.g., representing the workers in a permanent arrangement with the establishment has been Norwegian Labour's deal since the 1930s, it did not wait until the 1990s to abandon revolutionism. the Dutch Labour party, founded postwar, has never had a revolutionary mandate. the French Socialist party, founded well into the post-Algeria post-Prague-Spring situation, embraced the market economy from its genesis

I mean, you're not wrong about the long-term secular decline, but that's tied to continental labour parties being affixed to assorted tripartite arrangements or coalitions that are shaky for long-term demographic/macroeconomic reasons, whereas the UK Labour Party relationship to tripartism is hostile at best

V. Illych L. posted:

people who talk about the time when the left dominated the labour party have a bizarre tendency to view Kinnock as a representative of the left of the party. for electoral purposes, Kinnock moved the party quite a ways towards the political 'centre' of his time, but failed to win. in my view, this is mainly because he just wasn't a very good politician

Kinnock's main arc as Leader of the Labour Party is his dramatic showdown with the hard left, culminating in the expulsion of militant members

did you mean the Wilson/Callaghan soft left period?

ronya fucked around with this message at 06:14 on Jan 2, 2016

V. Illych L.
Apr 11, 2008

ASK ME ABOUT LUMBER

ronya posted:

is the arc described here the late 60s New Left revolution as European socialist parties pretty much everywhere moved to abandon any vanguardist alignment, or the late 80s neoliberal revolution where labour market flexibility and state company privatization was being accepted as a fait accompli

a lot of labour parties did not survive to the postwar era with a revolutionary mandate to begin with - UK Labour is somewhat niche in that regard. e.g., representing the workers in a permanent arrangement with the establishment has been Norwegian Labour's deal since the 1930s, it did not wait until the 1990s to abandon revolutionism. the Dutch Labour party, founded postwar, has never had a revolutionary mandate. the French Socialist party, founded well into the post-Algeria post-Prague-Spring situation, embraced the market economy from its genesis

I mean, you're not wrong about the long-term secular decline, but that's tied to continental labour parties being affixed to assorted tripartite arrangements or coalitions that are shaky for long-term demographic/macroeconomic reasons, whereas the UK Labour Party relationship to tripartism is hostile at best

i was not really discussing an explicitly revolutionary mandate, simply the erosion of the labour movement (revolutionary or reformist) as a sufficient base for winning elections

quote:

Kinnock's main arc as Leader of the Labour Party is his dramatic showdown with the hard left, culminating in the expulsion of militant members

did you mean the Wilson/Callaghan soft left period?

no i mean kinnock's period. the 1992 manifesto is quite a lot less radical than the 1987 one in important respects, and this was explicitly for electoral reasons, there are post-defeat interviews with left-wingers discussing precisely this phenomenon

ronya
Nov 8, 2010

I'm the normal one.

You hate ridden fucks will regret your words when you eventually grow up.

Peace.
I'm not disputing that Kinnock moved the party to the center - I'm confused as to why Kinnock would be held to be representative of the party left at the time, when his main career arc is of battling said left in order to move the party center

yes, by the time Blair wrangles his way to the top, Kinnock is to his left instead. But you'd have to have a pretty strange narrative of history for Kinnock to be not on the right circa Liverpool

ronya fucked around with this message at 08:51 on Jan 2, 2016

V. Illych L.
Apr 11, 2008

ASK ME ABOUT LUMBER

yes, i agree. nevertheless, this is a claim that is made, or at least implicit in the whole "rightward shift is what wins elections" rhetoric

EvilGenius
May 2, 2006
Death to the Black Eyed Peas

Jose posted:

how about some actual news I don't think was posted http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jan/01/labour-could-stop-cooperating-tories-protest-party-funding-cuts

all the other parties are kicking off quite rightly at having their funding slashed while the tories spend more than ever. they're doing some truly horrible poo poo to gently caress over the other parties in general and push their stuff through and I can't believe its not really making more noise.

(PRESS PLAY ON CONSERVATIVE TALK BOY)

quote:

A No 10 source said: “Cutting the huge deficit we inherited from Labour is crucial in building a strong and secure British economy. Government departments, local councils and other parts of the public sector have had to make savings to help reduce Britain’s deficit. We believe it is right to ask political parties to help tackle the deficit too by making savings in Short money.”

dispatch_async
Nov 28, 2014

Imagine having the time to have played through 20 generations of one family in The Sims 2. Imagine making the original two members of that family Neil Buchanan and Cat Deeley. Imagine complaining to Maxis there was no technological progression. You've successfully imagined my life
Has our economy had an upgrade from "strong" to "strong and secure"? Happy days.

Pistol_Pete
Sep 15, 2007

Oven Wrangler

JFairfax posted:

i don't understand how pissflaps found the time to make a baby

quote:

There have been 174280 posts made by Pissflaps, an average of 36.15 posts per day, since registering on Oct 20, 2002.

thespaceinvader
Mar 30, 2011

The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

EvilGenius posted:

(PRESS PLAY ON CONSERVATIVE TALK BOY)

Wow, this is crazy. But if it does what it says - e.g. prevents vote pairing and forces the Tories to actually do their loving jobs - then I struggle to see it as a totally bad thing right now. And presumably the Government also benefits from Short money which they would presumably also lose?

I guess not, though.

ContinuityNewTimes
Dec 30, 2010

Я выдуман напрочь
Even our fishmech is of notably lower quality

LemonDrizzle
Mar 28, 2012

neoliberal shithead

thespaceinvader posted:

Wow, this is crazy. But if it does what it says - e.g. prevents vote pairing and forces the Tories to actually do their loving jobs - then I struggle to see it as a totally bad thing right now. And presumably the Government also benefits from Short money which they would presumably also lose?

I guess not, though.
No, the government does not receive Short money. Short money exists because the government can draw on the resources of the civil service when doing research and policy work and so on whereas opposition parties cannot; its purpose is to give the opposition parties funding to compensate for this and help cover the costs of doing parliamentary business.

thespaceinvader
Mar 30, 2011

The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

LemonDrizzle posted:

No, the government does not receive Short money. Short money exists because the government can draw on the resources of the civil service when doing research and policy work and so on whereas opposition parties cannot; its purpose is to give the opposition parties funding to compensate for this and help cover the costs of doing parliamentary business.

Fair enough. Definitely worse than I thought then. The rapid descent towards outright fascism continues.

E: and really, really reinforces why the austerity narrative is the single most important thing for the opposition as a whole to challenge and break down. It's being used as an excuse for so many of the things the Government are doing to gently caress up the country right now.

thespaceinvader fucked around with this message at 10:22 on Jan 2, 2016

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Namtab
Feb 22, 2010

thespaceinvader posted:

Fair enough. Definitely worse than I thought then. The rapid descent towards outright fascism continues

Cool hyperbole

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