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Thread: Quo Vadis Labour?

  1. #91
    BrownWings: AirViceMarshall Senior Member Furunculus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Quo Vadis Labour?

    Quote Originally Posted by Montmorency View Post
    To get some feedback on a less butthurting subject: Would the Liberal Democrats have any reason, based on internal politics, not to form another coalition with Cons in 2024 if asked?
    Not sure whose butthurt here, but: If they perceive that they can advance their agenda as part of a putative future coalition then no indeed, they [sh]ould seriously consider a coalition.
    Last edited by Furunculus; 12-08-2021 at 15:23.
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  2. #92
    Headless Senior Member Pannonian's Avatar
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    Default Re: Quo Vadis Labour?

    The Allegra Stratton affair sums up the Tories. The recruitment officer rejects her candidacy for press officer because she's substandard in every way. Johnson overrules the professional decision and hires her anyway because of personal links, putting her on the public payroll. She turns out to be incompetent at this role, and is moved to another, remaining on the public payroll. Rumours of parties last Christmas, at a time when lockdown rules (followed by the rest of the country) forbade them. Johnson assures us no such thing happened. Footage is released showing exactly this thing that the PM says didn't happen.

    This government has no raison d'etre except corruption and funding friends and family with public money. But they have an indisputable democratic mandate, backed by voters who believe the PM's every word, no matter how it contradicts concrete evidence. If Boris Johnson says it is so, it must be so.

    Oh, and Stratton has resigned and apologised for this party that Johnson assured us never happened.

  3. #93
    BrownWings: AirViceMarshall Senior Member Furunculus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Quo Vadis Labour?

    live by the sword, die by the sword.

    more than anything else: i'm entertained by the sheer amount of political capital boris burned on behalf of carrie in getting allegra stratton hired as chief of staff in place of cummings preferred choice!
    Last edited by Furunculus; 12-09-2021 at 09:02.
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  4. #94

    Default Re: Quo Vadis Labour?

    Quote Originally Posted by Furunculus View Post
    Not sure whose butthurt here, but: If they perceive that they can advance their agenda as part of a putative future coalition then no indeed, they [sh]ould seriously consider a coalition.
    I have no idea how this is being covered in UK media or analysis, but it deserves more. With the presumptive loss of Scotland to either major party, even the Conservatives suffer a reduction to their maximum hold (though not as much as Labour). This allows the LibDems, unfortunately, to reinforce their role as a gatekeeper party going forward; certainly, Labour seems likely to need LibDem cooperation to form its next government, yet alas:

    "So bye, bye to the great Lib-Lab lie
    That it’s made in heaven
    ‘cos that’s pie in the sky
    Us Lib Dems will take courage and cry
    “Tony Blair can f*ck off and die”"


    I mean, if they don't want Tony Blair...


    EDIT: Might see a pause in those BN(O) visa applications lmao.
    Last edited by Montmorency; 12-09-2021 at 06:09.
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  5. #95
    BrownWings: AirViceMarshall Senior Member Furunculus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Quo Vadis Labour?

    not sure I understand the "lmao"...?

    forcing a retreat on the extradition bill is a valuable victory for hong-kong chinese citizens, but i'm not sure that alone can be said to reverse the collapse in 'two-systems' hong-kong representative democracy.
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  6. #96
    Headless Senior Member Pannonian's Avatar
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    Default Re: Quo Vadis Labour?

    Johnson might not have been at the party that Stratton resigned for, but pictorial evidence has now been posted of him at another party at No.10 a few days earlier. Still within the lockdown period.

    Rules for thee, but not for me.

  7. #97
    BrownWings: AirViceMarshall Senior Member Furunculus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Quo Vadis Labour?

    is that the pic where he's at the other end of remote zoom quiz - usually accompanied by distraught and tearful #FBPE types saying how they "shocked!" that he was partying while "their relatives died alone in hospital!" **tears well up in thine eyes**?
    Furunculus Maneuver: Adopt a highly logical position on a controversial subject where you cannot disagree with the merits of the proposal, only disagree with an opinion based on fundamental values. - Beskar

  8. #98
    Headless Senior Member Pannonian's Avatar
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    Default Re: Quo Vadis Labour?

    Daniel Kawczynski’s repeated pleas for lucrative employment – revealed in a series of WhatsApp messages seen by the Guardian – show him citing his pro-Saudi stance in parliament as part of an attempt to get paid work from a businessman.

    The Tory MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham asked a fixer to find him work with a Saudi employer, describing himself as the most “pro-Saudi” member of parliament and boasting that the Saudi leader, Mohammed bin Salman, “has stated that Saudi has no better friend in UK than me”.

    In one message, Kawczynski said: “I am looking for a position with a company as non exec director or adviser/consultant. Obviously my passion for Anglo Arab relations [is] something which could help a company with relations in the UK or Middle East. Not sure what remuneration I am looking for but you are such a good negotiator!!! Best wishes Daniel.”
    https://www.theguardian.com/politics...ts-school-fees

    Does his democratically elected status excuse this kind of direct grift? NB. this is the bloke who appealed to the Polish government to veto any extension of Britain's EU membership ahead of Parliament's vote on the matter.

  9. #99
    BrownWings: AirViceMarshall Senior Member Furunculus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Quo Vadis Labour?

    looks like a wrong-un to me.

    may all the legal and reputational forces of calamity fall upon him that be deserving of his egregious sin.

    do we need a "quo vadis tories" thread?
    Last edited by Furunculus; 12-16-2021 at 01:01.
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  10. #100

    Default Re: Quo Vadis Labour?

    Quote Originally Posted by Furunculus View Post

    do we need a "quo vadis tories" thread?
    https://twitter.com/richarddawkins/s...29504290635776
    Dennis Skinner MP: "Half the Tory members opposite are crooks."
    Mr Speaker told him to withdraw.
    "OK, half the Tory members aren't crooks."
    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
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  11. #101
    BrownWings: AirViceMarshall Senior Member Furunculus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Quo Vadis Labour?

    haha, not the first time that 'correction' has been used in the Commons to escape censure from the Speaker.
    a classic of the genre.
    Furunculus Maneuver: Adopt a highly logical position on a controversial subject where you cannot disagree with the merits of the proposal, only disagree with an opinion based on fundamental values. - Beskar

  12. #102
    Headless Senior Member Pannonian's Avatar
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    Default Re: Quo Vadis Labour?

    Shropshire North falls to the Lib Dems in the second biggest swing post-war, after the previous Tory MP resigned due to corruption. This was the bloke who was suspended by the Commons committee investigating him, only to have his mate the PM pass a Law retrospectively exonerating him (that said corrupt MP voted for).

    Now will Daniel Kawczynski face the same for using his Parliamentary status to try and get Saudi money?

  13. #103
    BrownWings: AirViceMarshall Senior Member Furunculus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Quo Vadis Labour?

    A good result. Happy to see the Lib-Dems do well and dodgy MP's get punished, and complacent Governing parties put on notice.

    do we need a "quo vadis tories" thread?
    Last edited by Furunculus; 12-17-2021 at 11:37.
    Furunculus Maneuver: Adopt a highly logical position on a controversial subject where you cannot disagree with the merits of the proposal, only disagree with an opinion based on fundamental values. - Beskar

  14. #104
    Darkside Medic Senior Member rory_20_uk's Avatar
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    Default Re: Quo Vadis Labour?

    I realise that it seems to be the only recourse is to vote against the party rather than anything happens to the individual who was culpable - the politician resigned before the vote and the new person that lost (seemingly) has nothing against them.

    It would be great to see recall votes against others that have also shown themselves to be corrupt - hell, even perhaps that some mechanism exists inside Westminster. Politicians of all parties react extremely negatively against actions that might shorten their tenure in what many see as jobs for life rather than representing their constituents.

    An enemy that wishes to die for their country is the best sort to face - you both have the same aim in mind.
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  15. #105
    Headless Senior Member Pannonian's Avatar
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    Default Re: Quo Vadis Labour?

    The cabinet secretary who'd been appointed to investigate the truth behind allegations that parties had been held at Downing Street during lockdown has resigned. Because it's come out that he'd held parties during lockdown himself.

  16. #106
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    Default Re: Quo Vadis Labour?

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/d...c2140704b066a5

    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    Once again, the British left is at war with itself. The cause of this most recent conflict: the war in Ukraine. The territorial dispute to be settled: who are the real bad guys here? Putin’s Russia, or the US and its Nato allies? Or is it perhaps both? Friendly fire is flying in all directions, injuring the reputations of all who come into contact with it.

    In an interview with the Double Down News website last month, Jeremy Corbyn defended the controversial campaign group Stop the War, which is no fan of Nato. The former Labour leader’s comments served to “defend a bunch of genocide deniers and Putin proxies”, wrote the activist and journalist Paul Mason, previously a Corbyn supporter. “You sound like an unhinged McCarthyite,” responded a fellow leftist, the Guardian columnist Owen Jones, at the end of a lengthy Twitter exchange.

    This is not a new battle. Mason, a former Trotskyite, says he has been fighting within the Labour Party for years. “Internally, we fought and decisively won a battle to keep Labour pro-Trident and pro-Nato,” he wrote on Twitter.

    Inevitably, lurking on the fringes, are the conspiracy theorists. The comedian and actor Russell Brand is perhaps the left’s most high-profile proponent of pro-Russia conspiracies. “You’ve Been LIED To About Why Ukraine War Began”, screams one video that has garnered 2.7 million views on his YouTube channel.

    James Ball, a former WikiLeaks and Guardian journalist who co-hosts the podcast The New Conspiracist, notes that such thinking stems from the far left’s scepticism of mainstream media. “If you don’t believe anything the western media says, you often end up inevitably pushed towards taking a pro-Russia line,” he says.

    Lunatic fringe aside, where does this instinct come from, which opposes Nato and, its critics say, gives succour to Putin? “For older socialists, there is often a sense that they are fighting the last war,” says Ball. In their eyes, Russia still means the Soviet Union, and the urge towards a viable alternative to capitalism moves them towards support for the only alternative that has been tried.

    For younger people on the left, who grew up in the shadow of the Iraq War, the case is simpler. In their eyes, the US is the world’s imperial power and, since imperialism is bad, US-backed Nato must be bad too. Seen through this lens, the fact that eastern European countries wish to join Nato is seen not as a voluntary embrace of western values but as an expansion of the US empire.

    David Lammy, Labour’s shadow foreign secretary, highlighted this false dichotomy in a speech to an American audience. “For too long, parts of the left, even some members of our own party, falsely divided the world into two camps: America and the West on one side, and their victims on the other. This has never been right, but this view has now been exposed for all to see as a farce.”

    This is fighting talk from Lammy, turning his sights on his own side. Yet his boss, Sir Keir Starmer, has made it clear his team is up for waging this battle to the bitter end. When a group of MPs on the party’s left, including the former shadow home secretary Diane Abbott and the former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, signed a letter from Stop the War criticising Nato, Starmer threatened to withdraw the whip from them. The MPs duly removed their names, their brief stand crumbling against cold reality. Corbyn, already freed from the Labour whip, kept his name on the letter.

    “Let me be clear,” Starmer told a meeting of the parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) at the end of February, “there will be no place in this party for false equivalence between the actions of Russia and the actions of Nato.” Since his intervention, the PLP seems to have fallen into line. “The Labour Party has changed profoundly in the last two years. Our support for Nato is unshakeable,” he told Radio 4’s World at One.

    When it comes to Ukraine, Starmer is taking a position largely indistinguishable from that of the Conservatives. He welcomed the prime minister’s package of sanctions against Russia, but called on the government to go harder and faster. On refugees, he called its efforts “too slow, too narrow, too mean”. Do what you are doing, seems to be his message to the Tories, but do more of it. Allies of Starmer say he is following his natural instincts. His position will also probably prove to be an electoral asset.

    On his own side, however, he is engaged in a game of political Whac- A-Mole. The National Education Union (NEU) gave the party leadership a further headache last week after delegates rejected a motion calling for a “negotiated settlement in Ukraine” and voted against adding a clause to the motion that declared that the people of Ukraine “have a right to defend themselves against this invasion”. While the NEU is not officially affiliated with Labour, its position does give a sense that there are still those on the left who are not toeing the party line.

    In his quest to change his party, Starmer has won some significant early victories. But every time it looks as if peace might break out, a new skirmish begins. The conflict is in its early days, though, and as every good general knows, what matters is not who wins the battle, but who wins the war.
    Furunculus Maneuver: Adopt a highly logical position on a controversial subject where you cannot disagree with the merits of the proposal, only disagree with an opinion based on fundamental values. - Beskar

  17. #107
    BrownWings: AirViceMarshall Senior Member Furunculus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Quo Vadis Labour?

    i'm not sure i entirely understand this, but it looks like the left is eating itself:

    the left, is using shady intelligence tactics to deplatform... the left.

    there are of course shades of leftism at work here: the "hard-left", the "melts", the "trotskyist backstabbers", the "blairite warmongers", but at this stage it remains unclear as to whom can be deemed pure enough in the leftism to fit into their chosen leftish category, vs having other lefty people categorise them as the wrong sort of leftishness.

    https://thegrayzone.com/2022/06/07/p...ence-grayzone/
    Last edited by Furunculus; 06-09-2022 at 07:21.
    Furunculus Maneuver: Adopt a highly logical position on a controversial subject where you cannot disagree with the merits of the proposal, only disagree with an opinion based on fundamental values. - Beskar

  18. #108
    Headless Senior Member Pannonian's Avatar
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    Default Re: Quo Vadis Labour?

    Quote Originally Posted by Furunculus View Post
    i'm not sure i entirely understand this, but it looks like the left is eating itself:

    the left, is using shady intelligence tactics to deplatform... the left.

    there are of course shades of leftism at work here: the "hard-left", the "melts", the "trotskyist backstabbers", the "blairite warmongers", but at this stage it remains unclear as to whom can be deemed pure enough in the leftism to fit into their chosen leftish category, vs having other lefty people categorise them as the wrong sort of leftishness.

    https://thegrayzone.com/2022/06/07/p...ence-grayzone/
    Don't know what's new. The Corbynite left hate "centrists" above all else, and would rather attack them than the Tories. It's what's known as the "horseshoe effect".

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  19. #109
    Darkside Medic Senior Member rory_20_uk's Avatar
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    Default Re: Quo Vadis Labour?

    Quote Originally Posted by Pannonian View Post
    Don't know what's new. The Corbynite left hate "centrists" above all else, and would rather attack them than the Tories. It's what's known as the "horseshoe effect".
    It seems to be an ailment solely of the Left where ideological purity is better than power; the Right power first, ideals where possible.

    An enemy that wishes to die for their country is the best sort to face - you both have the same aim in mind.
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  20. #110
    Headless Senior Member Pannonian's Avatar
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    Default Re: Quo Vadis Labour?

    Quote Originally Posted by rory_20_uk View Post
    It seems to be an ailment solely of the Left where ideological purity is better than power; the Right power first, ideals where possible.

    It's been around a while. Why is Furunculus highlighting it now, just as the Tory party is tearing itself apart over Boris Johnson? Isn't there a more prominent example of a political party ripping itself apart in internal struggles than some non-entities on the left pining over someone who isn't even a Labour MP?

  21. #111
    Darkside Medic Senior Member rory_20_uk's Avatar
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    Default Re: Quo Vadis Labour?

    Quote Originally Posted by Pannonian View Post
    It's been around a while. Why is Furunculus highlighting it now, just as the Tory party is tearing itself apart over Boris Johnson? Isn't there a more prominent example of a political party ripping itself apart in internal struggles than some non-entities on the left pining over someone who isn't even a Labour MP?
    It's not tearing itself apart on ideology - it is tearing itself apart over differing views over who can win elections. There's no belief here - have you heard either side have a vision beyond the power itself? There are no contenders who are challenging. Boris stays if he wins by-elections or Council seats - he might have to go if he looses. So it will settle down as soon as they find someone who they think is a "winner" (or if they find they were wrong - as was the case with Hague or Howard they'll remove ASAP and start again after a quick Knighthood or Lordship). The Left it is continuous since winning isn't the point.

    Historically, PMs have given up either by this point or soon afterwards due to a combination of a decent grasp on reality or else do what is good for the whole and not just for them. Neither is likely in this case.

    Oh, I didn't realise that in the Confidence Vote there are something like 160 Conservative MPs who directly have a Government stipend for something that they are apparently doing - and if Boris were to loose they'd all have to resign (or highly likely to be replaced). I imagine that if these votes were removed - whichever way they voted - the vote would be either much closer or most likely a majority against.

    An enemy that wishes to die for their country is the best sort to face - you both have the same aim in mind.
    Science flies you to the moon, religion flies you into buildings.
    "If you can't trust the local kleptocrat whom you installed by force and prop up with billions of annual dollars, who can you trust?" Lemur
    If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain.
    The best argument against democracy is a five minute talk with the average voter. Winston Churchill

  22. #112
    BrownWings: AirViceMarshall Senior Member Furunculus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Quo Vadis Labour?

    Quote Originally Posted by rory_20_uk View Post

    Oh, I didn't realise that in the Confidence Vote there are something like 160 Conservative MPs who directly have a Government stipend for something that they are apparently doing - and if Boris were to loose they'd all have to resign (or highly likely to be replaced). I imagine that if these votes were removed - whichever way they voted - the vote would be either much closer or most likely a majority against.

    one of my least favourite elements of 21st government - the growth of the payroll vote. creating a client parliament and thus preventing its proper functioning.
    Furunculus Maneuver: Adopt a highly logical position on a controversial subject where you cannot disagree with the merits of the proposal, only disagree with an opinion based on fundamental values. - Beskar

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