UKC

Leftie people: This hate and contempt thing: really, it's not a good look. Now it's official.

From Suzanne Moore of all people:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/14/working-class-tories-a...

"If anyone wants to listen to the so-called “shy Tories”, what you will often hear is not talk of aspiration but a desire to be left alone by the state – even a deep suspicion of it. This contradiction for anyone on the left has long been apparent. Imagining that all good reform comes from the state and everything bad from outside just does not correspond to people’s lived experience.

……. I am only a bit English, but again I think of my flag-waving mother, who nursed my “uncle” when he had Aids, who was half of a mixed-race couple when that was much frowned upon. She believed that the Tories would enable her to do things and that Labour would stop her doing them. I called her stupid many times when I was a teenager. I had to get over myself. Now we all have to get over ourselves."

In reply to Postmanpat:
I've had to put up with politicians drivel for weeks, and now I can't get away from lazy journalism.


'Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle with you.....'

In reply to Postmanpat:

Grauniad! who still refers to it as this? - FFS!

Boggy

In reply to Bogwalloper:


Private Eye and me I guess. Old habits….

In reply to Bogwalloper:


The same sort who rants about lefties. Often the same who confuse Labour with the left in general.
Its best to nod and pretend to agree.

In reply to dissonance:

I wish…...

You're not one of those who thinks Labour isn't left at all then?

In reply to Postmanpat:


nods and agrees.


I am sure a bright chap like you might be able to put together a venn diagram of the left and the labour party (or indeed sub components of the labour party and the left).

In reply to dissonance:



I am sure I could which is why yours was such an odd comment. Not, of course, that I don't enjoy a good rant

In reply to Postmanpat:


nods and agrees.

In reply to Postmanpat:
It isn't rocket science, the conservatives will do everything they are being accused of. Nigel Farage is a git, and so are his supporters. Labour will have to appeal to the wishy/washy middle ground Tory Light/LibDem voter in order to win an election! even I can figure this out, and I left school at 15 with no bloody qualifications!

Thank f*** for remote places!

In reply to Postmanpat:

I didn't have you down as a Suzanne Moore fan!

You have really put the hours in this week, fighting the good fight.

In reply to The New NickB:



I didn't put myself down as a Suzanne Moore fan! She genuinely surprised me.

Too much time at my desk

In reply to Postmanpat:

Even looks Batshit, but then they are still In mourning...

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/11/tweet-socialist-paradi...

In reply to Postmanpat:

Turn over a stone and what do you find? People who still think that 'left' and 'right' still mean something relevant, here in the 21st century. But then, for people who may themselves be stuck in the past, I suppose that they very well might.

In reply to Andy Morley:



So terms that classify political philosophies into those that support established hierarchies and traditional power centres (right) and those who support social equality and secular democratic political structures (left) are stuck in the past?

When we have just had an election won by a party that very clearly supports established hierarchies and traditional power centres and most of the opposition equally clearly support social equality and secular democratic political structures.?

In reply to Jim Fraser:


If you say so Jim. But actually, the term "established hierarchies and traditional power centres" would have applied rather more accurately to Communist-era Russia, which is usually classified as 'left wing' than it did to National Socialist Germany (aka 'the Nazis) which is usually classified as 'right wing'. I say that because the Communist hierarchy was the established order for considerably longer (decades rather than years) than the National Socialist hierarchy. Apart from that, from a 21st-century perspective the two régimes look rather similar.

In reply to Postmanpat:

I kind of amuses me that now that labour has failed everybody pretends to know why. My guess is that they didn't have a clue before and they still don't.

In reply to RomTheBear:


Well, it keeps the hacks in a job!

It amuses me that after election the losing party is going to be "out of power for a generation" and then, a couple of elections later, they're back, for "a generation"!

In reply to RomTheBear:

Without knowing who voted for who, it's all a wild stab in the dark, isn't it? Labour's vote went down and UKIP's went up doesn't necessarily equal former-Labour voters voting for UKIP. It well might, but similarly Labour voters may have just stayed at home and Kippers came out voting for the first time.

I think it's going to take a bit of time before anyone knows why things went how they did.

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:

Curiously enough Labour's share of the vote went up by 1.5%. It's the vagaries of our electoral system that caused the damage in terms of seats.

In reply to Bob Kemp:

I missed an "if" out.