Election prediction time

[fox_up_north]

And some of us bounce around being ok with gay marriage, abortions, universal basic income alongside stricter immigration controls and  quantifiable forms of the death penalty.

 

 

[Daggers]

 

[Sampson]

14 minutes ago, fox_up_north said:

And some of us bounce around being ok with gay marriage, abortions, universal basic income alongside stricter immigration controls and  quantifiable forms of the death penalty.

 

 

I think these topics are interesting but of course I’d argue that Thatcher successfully pushed the centre in British politics so far to the right that we talk about an economic liberal party like the LibDems as being the country’s centrist party when they’d be considered a right wing moderate party in the vast majority of countries.

Edited 9 June by Sampson

[leicsmac]

9 minutes ago, Sampson said:

I think these topics are interesting but of course I’d argue that Thatcher successfully pushed the centre in British politics so far to the right that we talk about an economic liberal party like the LibDems as being the country’s centrist party when they’d be considered a right wing moderate party in the vast majority of countries.

The Overton Window and where exactly it is in various places makes for a fascinating study tbh.

[Daggers]

 

[Daggers]

[StanSP]

1 hour ago, Daggers said:

 

James Acaster makes that

 

[LiberalFox]

Most people on the left consider the motivation behind anti abortion laws to be the denial of female bodily autonomy and the promotion of a belief system that makes a woman's primary role in society one of having a man's children. People on the left tend to support an individual's right to bodily autonomy and to oppose enforced gender roles. 

 

Most people on the left oppose the death penalty. They do so for a number of reasons.

 

Some consider it simply less just and more barbaric to execute the worst criminals rather than forcing them to live out the rest of their lives in prison. 

 

Some consider that no justice system is perfect and having a death penalty will inevitably lead to innocent people being killed by the state. 

 

 

[cityfanlee23]

Prediction: 

British public: Lose 

[HighPeakFox]

For clarity - no, I don't think all right wingers are bad, or evil, or Nazis. 

 

What I DID say was that by spouting crap about the current government being 'Socialist' (and does anyone here really believe that description?), it allows anyone who seeks to justify their abhorrent outlook as 'moderate'. 

 

In other words, the awful lurch to the right is no good for any of us. And if we were similarly all lurching to the left, it would not be good either. Balance requires honesty, and Reform / Farage / Tice and their horrible backers are not honest. 

 

I hope that makes my position clearer @Paninistickers - I appreciate your sincerity here and I know you weren't picking a fight. 

Edited 9 June by HighPeakFox

[LiberalFox]

I would be interested to hear from someone who has studied the matter why we assign labels of left and right to particular ideologies. 

 

Why is Rory Stewart right wing and Tommy Robinson right wing when to me they are fundamentally different? Stewart isn't a more moderate version of Robinson. 

 

Why am I left wing and George Galloway is also left wing when we are fundamentally different? I'm not a more moderate version of Galloway. 

 

 

[Daggers]

2 hours ago, StanSP said:

James Acaster makes that

 

A Keh-rin lad, he’s done a video for our Rosie - telling people why they need to vote for her. 
 

Predictably, a gammon pile on called him variations of a woke champagne socialist. 😁 There’s no hope for them. 

[Daggers]

16 minutes ago, LiberalFox said:

I would be interested to hear from someone who has studied the matter why we assign labels of left and right to particular ideologies. 

 

Why is Rory Stewart right wing and Tommy Robinson right wing when to me they are fundamentally different? Stewart isn't a more moderate version of Robinson. 

 

Why am I left wing and George Galloway is also left wing when we are fundamentally different? I'm not a more moderate version of Galloway. 

 

 

Because you are looking to ascribe polar labels to a spectrum?  Go left and right, and you’ll find Farage and Galloway sitting next to each other. 

[Sampson]

1 hour ago, LiberalFox said:

I would be interested to hear from someone who has studied the matter why we assign labels of left and right to particular ideologies. 

 

Why is Rory Stewart right wing and Tommy Robinson right wing when to me they are fundamentally different? Stewart isn't a more moderate version of Robinson. 

 

Why am I left wing and George Galloway is also left wing when we are fundamentally different? I'm not a more moderate version of Galloway. 

 

 

Well it’s changed a lot over the years and I think a lot of the confusion is that a lot of policies are not inherently right or left wing and indeed I’ve seen many policies actually change sides over the years but with different underlying arguments, it’s just that they generally get supported by one side or the other depending on the arguments of the time and so you get different generations of people considering themselves left or right wing despite believing different things . I have seen support to join and then leave the eec or eu shift from being a right wing to a left wing back to a right wing issue for example.
 

The terms comes from the French revolutionary days where the left wing of the parliament were anti monarchists and the right wing were monarchists. And issues switch from being right wing to left wing and vice versa but it’s often for different underlying arguments. For example, George Galloway and Nigel Farage both opposed EU membership and immigration, but Galloway will argue it’s to keep the integrity of state led economy and Farage will argue it’s to keep crime down and to keep the integrity of the private economy.  Galloway promotes a very old school vision of “socialism in one nation” that was more popular in the 1970s and is opposed to globalism. Farage presents a modern form of right wing capitalism in one nation that embraces globalism and free trade, as long as it’s for traditional style British people. Both politicians put forward ideas of nationalism (as nationalism is not inherently right or left wing) but for different economic reasons. 
 

Generally you hear the idea the being right wing is about tradition and believing things are generally the way they are because the good ideas have risen to the top and the idea of being left wing is about change and believing things are the way they are because the certain forces have made them so and not always for the better. But I don’t think that’s the case.

 

I think the issue is atm - we’re between “ages” and the changeover from the goods based industrialised economy to the service and data based post-industrialised economy. But in the same way that the advent of the printing press caused massive, unimaginable upheaval in the Middle Ages, the same is true of the internet. It’s what’s caused globalisation and globalism way more than anything else and that muddies the water a lot as people often use 20tb century labels to describe 21st century political ideals. 
 

For most of the 20th century in industrialised societies we measured left and right economically - the left believed in socialism (which in practice meant state intervention in the economy and public ownership of utilities, factories, economies, mines, resources, public transport etc.) and the right believed in free market capitalism (which in practice meant limited state intervention in the economy, private ownership of utilities, mines; factories, healthcare, public transport etc.). 

 

But now we live in post-industrial economies in the west where factories and mines aren’t really a major thing and the majority of jobs are service based - and well, you can’t really decide who owns a service. So it’s moved onto things like workers rights 

 

Global policy is different and immigration and EU membership for example have been 2 major issues in the uk over the years and if you were thinking about 20th century economic ideals you’d probably expect to the Tories to be very pro-eu and pro- immigration and in fact a lot of the old school Tories who got culled after the referendum like Ken Clarke for example were from that school, many argue that this is actually where New Labour sit too and why many considered Tony Blair right wing despite him enacting many progressive policies. But it seems now many on the right instead have shifted against this.

 

So probably a long winded post saying it’s because policy tends to be not inherently left or right wing but is generally supported by one side for different reasons. This changes over time but as society changes we kind of mix up these labels from believe systems amongst different generations and because of the monumental shifts of globalisation, the internet and the shift from a goods based industrial economy to a service and data based post-industrial economy in just a few decades the shift in between these generations has been so huge.

 

Galloway is a great example of a person who is considered left wing because he follows quite an old school version of what being left wing meant 50 years ago but I can understand why younger people listen to him who consider themselves left wing find it strange to be labelled the same way as him. Would be the same as the way Farage and Rory Stewart are often both considered right wing despite having fundamentally different underlying beliefs and that Stewart would probably consider himself politically much closer to Kier Starmer or Tony Blair than Kier Starmer or Tony Blair would to George Galloway:

Edited 9 June by Sampson

[Sampson]

And now for a more pithy post, 31st May 2024, let us never forget:

 

 

[Raj]

Amazing interview with Richard holden on sky news where he made himself a right t1t🤣🤣🤣

The big lad interviewer on sky asks him how hes sitting in a seat for Basildon( massive Tory lead) when his constituency is in the North!

 

He answers with something about Emily Thornbury...blah blah

Interviewer asks again...

Holden " Emily Thornbury....

Interviewer 3rd time...

Holden " Emily...

Interviewer cuts him off in his prime and just says this is stupid and Holdens PR mate gets involved 🤣🤣

 

 

[l444ry]

[bovril]

6 hours ago, Daggers said:

 

I think Britain has one of if not the the worst housing crisis in the developed world and infrastructure and public services are struggling so I suppose calling the country "overcrowded" is not that inaccurate. Of course you could argue the solution is to increase house building rather than limit immigration which would admittedly not make such good twitter content.

 

It is statistical fact that England has never experienced immigration on the current scale. That some prefer to pretend that's not the case rather than argue that it's beneficial suggests to me they're not that confident in their own arguments. 

Edited 9 June by bovril

[Foxdiamond]

18 minutes ago, bovril said:

I think Britain has one of if not the the worst housing crisis in the developed world and infrastructure and public services are struggling so I suppose calling the country "overcrowded" is not that inaccurate. Of course you could argue the solution is to increase house building rather than limit immigration which would admittedly not make such good twitter content.

 

It is statistical fact that England has never experienced immigration on the current scale. That some prefer to pretend that's not the case rather than argue that it's beneficial suggests to me they're not that confident in their own arguments. 

More council houses needed at truly affordable rents. We must remove the artificial stigma attached to council houses.

[leicsmac]

20 minutes ago, bovril said:

I think Britain has one of if not the the worst housing crisis in the developed world and infrastructure and public services are struggling so I suppose calling the country "overcrowded" is not that inaccurate. Of course you could argue the solution is to increase house building rather than limit immigration which would admittedly not make such good twitter content.

 

It is statistical fact that England has never experienced immigration on the current scale. That some prefer to pretend that's not the case rather than argue that it's beneficial suggests to me they're not that confident in their own arguments. 

Yeah, and those who want to put the harsher limits on migration oddly enough encourage worldwide situations where such migration is likely to occur and certainly lack the foresight to see the really massive migration crisis on the horizon wrt hundreds of millions of people lacking access to potable water and arable land.

 

It could be argued that immigration is beneficial from the point of view that if there isn't an efficient policy in place to facilitate it, lots of people will be in danger now and a truly gargantuan amount of people will be in mortal danger soon.

[Stadt]

28 minutes ago, bovril said:

I think Britain has one of if not the the worst housing crisis in the developed world and infrastructure and public services are struggling so I suppose calling the country "overcrowded" is not that inaccurate. Of course you could argue the solution is to increase house building rather than limit immigration which would admittedly not make such good twitter content.

 

It is statistical fact that England has never experienced immigration on the current scale. That some prefer to pretend that's not the case rather than argue that it's beneficial suggests to me they're not that confident in their own arguments. 

It’s impossible to build in line with the level of immigration we’ve witnessed after Covid. Even if planning laws were repealed.

[Daggers]

26 minutes ago, bovril said:

I think Britain has one of if not the the worst housing crisis in the developed world and infrastructure and public services are struggling so I suppose calling the country "overcrowded" is not that inaccurate. Of course you could argue the solution is to increase house building rather than limit immigration which would admittedly not make such good twitter content.

 

It is statistical fact that England has never experienced immigration on the current scale. That some prefer to pretend that's not the case rather than argue that it's beneficial suggests to me they're not that confident in their own arguments. 

Except immigration has piss all to do with the housing crisis - the lack of council stock and affordable new builds is the issue. The wholesale mismanagement of housing (something Gove absolutely definitely promised to fix) is one of Raynor’s two key ambitions for office. 
 

Immigration is essential for the funding of pension payments, growing the economy and staffing all of our social services. Nothing is more guaranteed to take me from feeling chipper to explosive ranting faster than someone whining about immigration - which is why I don’t canvass. 

[bovril]

6 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Yeah, and those who want to put the harsher limits on migration oddly enough encourage worldwide situations where such migration is likely to occur and certainly lack the foresight to see the really massive migration crisis on the horizon wrt hundreds of millions of people lacking access to potable water and arable land.

 

It could be argued that immigration is beneficial from the point of view that if there isn't an efficient policy in place to facilitate it, lots of people will be in danger now and a truly gargantuan amount of people will be in mortal danger soon.

I agree but you can't offer solutions if you don't even acknowledge that this will pose a huge challenge for developed countries. Until eventually people vote for the party that promises to shoot anyone trying to cross the border. It's ironic that the video was posted by arch-Europhile Galsworthy when the EU seems to be further along this path than Britain.

[Torquay Gunner]

Affordable housing in whatever form.  The rental housing market has long needed reform.  They have long term rents in many other countries, which gives some stability to renters.  Why not here?  This current mob could not even be bothered to ensure the renters reform bill went through parliament before the election.  Too many of them with their noses in the trough. 

[bovril]

British remainers are like the last Japanese guy fighting WW2 when it comes to immigration.