Matthew, who of course lives in Manchester, has gone very quiet today. Knowing his Leftist bent, I suspected it was because of the results of last night’s election in the UK. This morning I asked him how he felt about it, and got no reply.
That was a bad sign. A short time ago I asked again via email, and this time did get a reply, which I’m allowed to quote. Our exchange is indented:
Jerry: Are you extra depressed today?
Matthew: More than extra depressed
This is a generational decision that will have terrible effects throughout my lifetime. Trump is only for at most 8 years. This is Brexit, breakup of UK (Scottish independence, Irish reunification), 5 more years of Tory cuts, the further destruction of the deprived North that so foolishly voted Leave, growth in racism and nationalism, the reward for lies and the Bannonification of the Tory party (the old moderates have all been kicked out, leaving a gang of mediocre loons, led by the liar in chief) which can now do as it wants for 5 years. Plus the weather is foul. And yes you can quote me on this.
I did quote him, and, though I know readers weighed in with comments on this morning’s Hili post, here’s your chance to do so if you haven’t already, or to continue your fulminations (or, if you’re a Tory, jubilation).
And if the exchange above isn’t enough, Matthew emitted this tweet about 25 minutes ago:
On a crappy crappy day, an excellent opportunity to take the piss out of the cowardly, privileged mediocre weakling who got us into this mess: https://t.co/QMG2gtfk4P
— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb) December 13, 2019
I really do not know how bad it might get over there but it will get bad. Possibly they will start filling in the Chunnel?
So far we only will have 4 years of Trump and that will take many years to overcome and repair. 8 years will be the end for this country I am sure. Probably for the planet.
Just joined anti tory meme group on Facebook ,might help if i vent my spleen on there ,but until i am accepted on there i will vent here .
Dr Cobb is right to be depressed ,a lot of foolish ,not to say downright moronic people have sold the GB down the river.
A large majority means bojo can do what he likes .The NHS is up for sale ,more cuts ,workers right ,such as they are given the elbow .
It was in the news that there are now more food banks in the UK than MacDonalds . In the Guardian it was reported that a person who used a food bank was planning to vote tory .
I think the Uk public ,well some of them have been acting like those insects that get parasited and climb to the top of plant stems and wave their antennae around to attract birds .
Vent over .
Just joined anti tory meme group on Facebook ,might help if i vent my spleen on there ,but until i am accepted on there i will vent here .
Dr Cobb is right to be depressed ,a lot of foolish ,not to say downright moronic people have sold the GB down the river.
A large majority means bojo can do what he likes .The NHS is up for sale ,more cuts ,workers right ,such as they are given the elbow .
It was in the news that there are now more food banks in the UK than MacDonalds . In the Guardian it was reported that a person who used a food bank was planning to vote tory .
I think the Uk public ,well some of them have been acting like those insects that get parasited and climb to the top of plant stems and wave their antennae around to attract birds .
Vent over .
What is the matter with this site ,sometimes posts don’t appear ,other times they come up twice ,sorry overflowing with bile this evening .
As they used to say in Norn Irn. “Vote early, vote often.”
Which side of Mayor Daley’s Chicago was Norn Irn in? 🙂
The Irish diaspora is hugely overstated: there are in fact 14 people of Irish descent living outside Ireland. They are just a huge voting bloc.
I don’t know what others said in the Hili Dialogue post, but from a LP point of view it was absolutely vital that it have a historic defeat. I have never proposed that sort of idea in politics before – that it has to get worse before it gets better.
But the anti-Semitism was so pervasive & the public conversation so juvenile from Corbynite outlets like Novara, The Canary etc. that the disappearance of their impact can only be sped up by the size of the LP’s defeat – I hope.
UK Jewish twitter yesterday was heart-breaking & Corbyn is responsible. It is very difficult to get polling figures on how important Corbyn’s anti-Semtism was in turning off LP voters. I suspect they are very small. But it does seem that his character – of which AS, with its concurrent defense of the terrorist tactic, is such a core part – was a major turn-off for LP voters.
Good riddance to a terrible man.
Yup.
His supporter keep saying he “only wanted to talk to both sides” which is why he was always hanging around with Hamas operatives, but he never spoke to any Israelis in the same manner. (Same with the IRA too, of course.) Hamas was recently found to have been running a troll factory on twitter to support him since 2017.
He would have been a massive threat to the UK’s national security, not to mention what he would have done to Israel & the middle east.
And of course such rabid antisemites as him don’t care in the least about the rights of Palestinians. Not a word about summary executions, torture, no elections, endemic corruption, misattribution of aid money to fund terrorism & terrorists, the plight of Palestinian refugees in neighbouring countries. Not a word from that Jew baiting racist.
I have found the first post-vote poll to specifically address the influence of Labour anti-Semitism on voting patterns, here: static1.squarespace.com/static/5db0ca668552dd5ab1168a91/t/5df3b40104b7db043c8a0317/1576252417760/UnHerdJLPartnersResults.pdf
Quote: “Amongst direct switchers from Labour to Conservatives – a crucial
group in marginal seats – 17% cite antisemitism as one of the (top 3 – DO’S) reasons for their choice…”
Source is JL Partners. A leading person in it says he ran polling for Theresa May. That is all I know about them.
Still, if correct, 1 in 5 ex-LP citing AS as a top issue is gratifying.
I think in political theory (particularly the Marxist-Leninist dialectic) this is referred to as “accelerating the contradictions.”.
Leftist groupuscules used to raise this loads of times in the 80s; never bought it myself. Not until this week: & only for the AS question. Imagine the UK shame if Corbyn were now P.M.
An absolutely dreadful result.
In short, without writing a dissertation of the election manifestos, I’d argue that it came down to Brexit. Okay, NHS was probably up there but, ultimately, I think it was about Brexit.
The Conservatives had a clear message of ‘get Brexit done’. Doesn’t matter that it isn’t true, in the sense that it’s really ‘get Brexit started, but the message was clear and could easily be sold to voters. Contrast with Labour. Jeremy Corbyn was promising lots of ambitious policies (almost exotic in some cases) but on Brexit he fudged. No message that voters could latch onto. He simply said that if Labour won then they’d negotiate their own leave deal, ignoring the fact that this had been happening for nearly four years with stalemate at every attempt to get a deal through Parliament. The Lib Dems were pathetically naive. Their policy of revoking Article 50 was viewed as being undemocratic in overturning the referendum. It actually wasn’t, because of course it would have been a change voted for in a general election, but that point was missed by voters.
So it was a choice between Conservative ‘get Brexit done’, Labour ‘years of the same’, and Lib Dem ‘we’re not being undemocratic, here let me explain….’. And we saw which went down best!
Agreed. My heart sank when I heard the Lib Dem proposal of overturning the referendum. Game over.
It’s like when they wait til Friday to fire you
Hang in there and remember friends are there to help.
I think I’d be inclined to move to Scotland.
Trump may be gone in eight years but his appointments and policies will have a negative effect for at least a generation after he leaves office even if he only serves four years. He has already shifted the judiciary to conservatives from the Supreme Court all the way down through Federal appeals courts and beyond. He has excluded scientists from decision making processes, disbanded science advisory committees, politicized the scientific grant-review process, and weakened enforcement of science-based public health and environmental laws. That damage will not be quickly repaired. It’s too depressing to think about the long term effects of his other social policies.
Yes, but at least he hasn’t given the Confederacy and Alaska leave to secede from the Union.
The chances that Scotland and Northern Ireland remain in the “United Kingdom” is low. . . and England is dreaming.
Donald Trump has given lifetime appointments to 170 new right-wing judges, including, most recently, the grossly unqualified anti-abortion and anti-contraception ideologue, Sarah Pitlyk.
This legacy alone will far outlive his disastrous presidency.
This is How a Society Dies “America and Britain are textbook examples of a new, gruesome phenomeon: rich nations self-destructing into poor failed states.”
Yes, this happens if you have a two-party system. Finland has about 40 political parties, with about a dozen in the government. And in Belgium we are used to live without a government. In some ways it’s better so.
I don’t buy that the USA is dying. If the electoral college overrides the will of the American people again in 2020 (very possible), then we’ll be in big trouble. But we came back from some dire straits in 2008, we can do it again.
I don’t think the two situations are comparable.The people who confronted the economic collapse of 2008 were realists. We now in a country where the irrational has become respectable, not only throughout society, but in the highest levels of government. The outcome will not be good.
On the one hand irrationality has become more accepted – that is Trump’s legacy. On the other hand, Trumpian post-truth irrationality is still the minority viewpoint. I’m not sure that viewpoint has grown (Trump is much less popular now than he was on election day 2016), it’s just been in power for 3 years, and its proponents have been emboldened and more active.
It remains to be seen whether the irrational minority will retain power, and if not whether this 4 year backslide will have long term damage.
Donald Trump received 46.1% of the popular vote in the last election (1.1% less than Mitt Romney received in losing in 2012). Trump’s approval rating has never been that high since. For essentially the last two years his approval rating has flat-lined at between 40-43%.
This is remarkably stable (and remarkably low) by historic standards. I attribute this stability, in large part, to the gutlessness of congressional Republicans and GOP establishment figures, and to the existence of an alternative-fact right-wing media that serves as Trump’s personal propaganda machine, for which no action is too disreputable, no lie too blatant, to defend.
The most interesting reversal with respect to the EU is that the initial block that supported it was the Thatcherites, and people like Tony Benn opposed it.
Now, the Tories are against it, and Labour wants to stay in the EU.
Yes, Labour should have said so, forcefully, and gotten rid of Corbyn!
On the break up of the UK, I live in Scotland and whilst there will be a great deal of noise and bluster from the Holyrood Parliament about Indyref2, I can’t see it happening in the next 5 years, simply because Boris Johnson won’t grant another referendum. Since in the UK the Westminster Parliament retains ultimate sovereignty, I don’t think there’s much the Scottish Nationalists will be able to do. Nicola Sturgeon could try an illegal Catalan style referendum but she will probably end up facing contempt of court charges if she does.
Although after the last 5 years, I might be rash in making predictions…
I don’t expect Nicola Sturgeon to hold an ‘indicative’ independence referendum until she is certain that Independence will win. Polls are against her at the moment. Unless she needs the distraction from issues internal to Scotland.
In the mean time ‘Independence’ will become more and more difficult as the UK leaves the EU shortly.
I hope you’re both right. At present the independence polls show “No”: 48%, “Yes” 45%, “Undecided” 5%. If, as I expect, leaving the EU turns out to be a mess, this could swing it in favour of independence.
Since it is the Westminster Parliament that decides when to have a referendum, why not ask the entire UK to vote, since it will affect the entire UK? I’d love to see a poll on that subject.
As an aside, regarding our ridiculous “First past the post” electoral system, it’s interesting to note the following:
Liberal Democrats share of vote: 11.4%, seats: 11
SNP share of vote: 3.9%, seats: 48
Disclosure: I voted LibDem in NE Fife, and we managed to overturn an SNP majority of 2 at the last election to win the seat from the SNP. Small consolation!
One thing I probably missed concerning the UK over the past 3 or more years of this. What exactly is the EU doing to the UK that has been so terrible they needed out? Was it economic or forcing immigrants in great numbers, what?
Depending on who you speak to the main factor (according to post-Referendum analysis) was ‘taking back control’.
The EU is working on ‘ever closer union’ where one size (currency, taxation, laws, defence) will fit all and National preferences are subordinated to the proto-EU Empire.
If you fancy being a province of a centalised Empire then the EU is for you. If you believe in subsidiarity or no taxation without representation then it isn’t.
Thanks to both of you for that. Sometimes we forget some of the basics that surrounds this event. The EU was becoming more like our Federal Government, however that is a different thing in a group of countries verses a pack of states. At least it is to me. The EU should have concentrated on free trade and access between countries and not so much on immigration of people and hundreds of petty things they should stay away from.
It is complicated and difficult to control. We had a pretty big war over here due to disagreements and this continues today. Many have said the regional differences here in the states across such a large area makes government impossible. I think they may be right.
I understand your point, AC, and agree that the EU was perhaps becoming too close a union, but “no taxation without representation” is hardly the case, and comparing it to the US revolution is simplistic.
I am a Remainer, mostly because I think the world has been a safer place as a result of the EU, with three quarters of a century without a European war. I am not a historian, but I think that may be an all-time record since the dark ages.
Well, given that the EU has existed only since 1 November 1993, when the Maastricht treaty came into effect, it is rather generous to give it much credit for seventy-five years of European peace.
Personally, I would give most of the credit to NATO as the North Atlantic treaty was signed on 4 April 1949.
Yes, I can’t disagree with your NATO comment, and should correct myself. I was referring to the EEC/EU. One reason for forming the EEC was to tie the previously warring countries together in trade, in the hope that closer ties would reduce the chances of future conflict.
As ever there are different opinions, but personally I think it was a mixture of anti-immigrant sentiment combined with a generalised resentment towards “the elite”. There was a feeling the EU was run by a technocratic elite that paid very little attention to ordinary people.
Freedom of movement (within the EU) was a fundamental principle of the organisation, and this led to large scale immigration into the UK from poorer countries in Eastern Europe. Personally I welcomed this -I have friends and neighbours from the East European countries, whose friendship I value, and the immigrants provide a big boost to the economy. It’s probably true though that in some areas the sheer number of immigrants placed a strain on services like health and education. Some people also found it difficult to adapt to the rapid social change that occurred.
I should say I was a remain voter so perhaps I’m not the best person to represent the views of Brexiteers. I’ve tried to be fair!
This is the analysis I mentioned:
https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2016/06/how-the-united-kingdom-voted-and-why/#more-14746
Hope that helps. Not surprisingly those who voted Leave and those who voted Remain had different priorities and different views of the ‘other sides’ virtues. You could argue that for the last 3 years or so Leavers and Remainers have been talking past each other.
That now appears to have reached a political resolution.
Thank you both. I largely agree with stentor61, and see from your link that I fit all the demographics for remain except the age one (72).
“found it difficult to adapt to the rapid social change”
And likely the direction that change is taking.
Nothing.
Ask a Brexiteer how the EU has made their life worse and they won’t have an answer.
Ask the people of Greenland why becoming the 51st American state would make their lives worse and they won’t have an answer.
I bet they would. For a start they currently have universal healthcare.
That might explain why the life expectancy in Greenland is about 7 years less than in the USA
Not really. The population of Greenland is only stadium-sized [60k?] of which 88% are Inuit. There are spates of young suicides with Greenland having the highest rate in the world – there’s a similar problem among Canadian Inuit. According to Wiki “researchers have blamed insomnia caused by incessant daylight” & there’s other likely factors as the culture changes faster than the people & society can handle.
In such a small population the slightest trend is amplified in the stats & it’s not reasonable to compare the huge multi-cultural pop of the USA, living in multiple climate zones to another where the pop is so small & fairly mono-cultural – where else can one obtain exact figures for nearly everything [eg three motorcycles in the country a few years back & other exactitudes] 🙂
I doubt it. The US has an appalling healthcare system.
“The average life expectancy of men in the Faroe Islands is 79 years, while that of Danish men is 79 years, and that of men in Greenland is 69 years.”
So I guess the average for ‘Greater’ Denmark is about 78.8 years, though the numbers used are obviously rounded. US is 76.3 and dropping.
If you separate the NWTerritories off from the rest of Canada, you could probably once again get a phoney comparison with US.
But is there any ‘medically socialized’ entire ‘western’ country even nearly as bad as US?
Don’t count Cuba, it’s 38th, just barely behind US at 37th.
For our readers who know both countries well, is this result as bad as it would be for the Republicans in the House take back the Majority, win a filibuster proof majority in the Senate AND have the orange haired Narcissist elected for a second term in 2020? That would be our proverbial “Hell”…
This could be very well the end of the UK, which is now probable.
The Scottish SNP won in Scotland. And the Tories won further south. Take both together, and the trajectories could not any stronger pull in opposite directions.
According to many surveys, younger Scots tend to favour independence. Unpopular Tories have in the past added a few percent to the independence side in surveys. The SNP is also a pro independence and pro EU party, and now will see their gains as a mandate to open an independence referendum. In the Brexit referendum, the Scot were Remainers. Adding to this, the Tories now stand for a Brexit in January. This polarisation might tear the UK apart.
For years, Brexiters have accused the EU (falsely) that it would control everything. Now this narrative will backfire, because the EU stands for continuity, whereas the Brexit course stands for chaos and insecurity. Going independent is no longer a jump into cold water for the Scots, but stable continuation.
True or not, independence for Scotland will be more difficult to achieve now that the UK as a whole is leaving the EU. Scotland would have to go through the EU Accession process to join the EU and there is no guarantee this this would be either quick or smooth or even possible.
I’m in favour of democracy so if Scotland decides to break the Union with the rest of the UK then I wish them well. But they will it difficult to make their own way in the world.
+1
As it stands, Scotland meets most criteria and is expected to jump the queue. Even if formal joining takes a few years, it’s possible to have an interim arrangement. It would not be automatic, but it would go relatively smoothly.
The EU has already stated that Scotland would have to go through the standard EU Accession process to join and that would likely take 5 years minimum. But before they’d even be considered they would have to make some serious changes to their spending habits. Normally, to be a member of the EU a country can have a budget deficit of no more than 3% of GDP. Scotland’s is more than 3 times that, and is higher than any other in the EU.
In addition, Spain has hinted, or maybe they’ve explicitly stated, that they would veto Scotland’s application to join. Spain has more than their share of problems with regions wanting to secede and if Scotland was able to join the EU then regions such as Catalunya and the Basque country would be lining up to do the same.
None of these are completely insurmountable problems but it’s by no means a sure thing that Scotland could join the EU, at least in the short term, even if they held another referendum and voted to join.
I just don’t know enough about Brexit to have a useful opinion. I do think that Corbyn is odious, and it seems likely that many people would elect a dead cat before giving him their votes.
No, Corbyn isn’t odious, he just still lives in the 1960s.
For anyone baffled as to how the British Labour Party could wind up choosing virulent antisemite & open supporter of terrorism and even individual terrorists, here’s a short (20 minute) talk given by Dave Rich, author of a book on the origins of leftist antisemitism.
Otherwise, read Nick Cohen’s book What’s Left will also give a picture of where the trouble started.
And for anyone who got the understandable impression that Corbyn would have stopped Brexit, he was in fact pro-Brexit, sabotaged the campaign to remain in the EU & forced Labour MPs to back the legislation triggering the process of leaving. (He could have delayed the vote on this until a deal with the EU was settled, but was hoping to become PM with the Tories carrying the can for Brexit.)
Had the Labour Party chosen a half decent, half competent leader, Brexit would not have happened.
All Britain needs now is a Paula White type adviser to get the Lord on your side
And on the road to Christian prosperity. That and getting rid of your odious gun control laws and that dumb universal health care. Stiff upper lip, you can do it.
If Scotland holds another secession vote and then does leave the UK, won’t the result be
that it will become impossible to have any plumbing repaired in England? That will be because all the Polish plumbers will have moved to Scotland.
That said, Britain can still take comfort in two things. First, whatever deviousness
can be ascribed to BoJo, he is certainly not in the same category as the current chief executive of the USA. [For example compare
his activities as Mayor of London with the
doings of Trump University and the Trump Foundation.] Second, the demise of Jeremy
Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party will no doubt be honored in a solemn wreath-laying ceremony by Hamas, Hizballah, and other Corbyn friends. Mr. Corbyn himself might even attend.
Corbyn might be present at the wreath-laying, but he certainly wouldn’t be involved: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/aug/13/jeremy-corbyn-not-involved-munich-olympics-massacre-wreath-laying
Yes, Mr. Corbyn seems to specialize in
attendance without involvement. Like the
2016 Brexit referendum. Incidentally, I
was pleased to learn that Luciana Berger has
been returned to Parliament, now as Lib Dem.
No she hasn’t: she lost. Tories won that seat. Although she seems to have done by an order of magnitude better within the slew of MPs who left their parties a few months back.
Good to see Chris ‘and he was lucky to get nil’ Williamson, Corbyn’s demented attack dog, whom the Corbster was forced to expel, got 635 votes. It’s almost as if, without the civilizing patina of LP next to his name, voters think he is about 3 times more worth voting for than the Official Monster Raving Loony Party.
“This is a generational decision that will have terrible effects throughout my lifetime. Trump is only for at most 8 years. This is Brexit, breakup of UK (Scottish independence, Irish reunification), 5 more years of Tory cuts, the further destruction of the deprived North that so foolishly voted Leave, growth in racism and nationalism…”
Oh dear….the sky is falling.
Brexit? The country voted for it in one referendum and two subsequent General Elections. We’re leaving, live with it.
Scottish Independence? The SNP still only won 45% of the vote yesterday, the same percentage that voted Yes in the 2015 IndyRef. On that evidence, they’d lose IndyRef2 as well. And if they did vote to secede, well that’s democracy. I’d wish them goodbye and good luck.
Irish reunification? Fine by me. I’d be quite happy to be rid of Northern Ireland. It can be Dublin’s headache for the next 50 years.
Tory cuts? There haven’t been any. Public spending goes up year on year. For all the hysteria about “destroying the NHS”, we spend more on it than ever before.
Destruction of the deprived North? I predict there’ll be massive investment in infrastructure and business up there over the next 5 years. They’ll do better with Boris and a whole bunch of new northern Tory MPs than they ever would with Corbyn’s metropolitan champagne socialists.
Growth in racism? This would be inspired by the ruling party whose chairman is a black man, whose Home Secretary is a man of Pakistani background, and whose Home Secretary is a woman of Indian background?
Growth in nationalism? Yes please! No more cringing. Britain is great and we should be proud of it.
Hope this helps Mr Cobb feel better.
“For all the hysteria about ‘destroying the NHS’…” – Hysteria? “Every major A&E misses wait target for first time”: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-50718869
Before anyone takes me up on it, and to correct my hasty typing:
IndyRef 1 was in 2014, not 2015
Sajid Javid (of Pakistani background) is/was Chancellor of the Exchequer, not Home Secretary.
And of course, it should be Dr Cobb – apologies!
What about the hasty assertion of unsourced and unfounded opinions?
Feel free to “source” and “found” me.
Otherwise I stand by them all.
So, the state of the NHS and the growth of racism for starters then? I’ll let someone else take you to task on the rest – I wouldn’t want to have all the fun, and don’t want to post so many responses that I break Da Roolz. https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/da-roolz/
I don’t want to dominate a thread either, so just a couple of brief comments:
Regarding the NHS, we pour more money into it every year, £139 billion currently I believe. How much more is enough? £150 billion? £200 billion? I support the NHS but I think solving its problems requires something other than just throwing more money at it.
For the most blatant and hateful outbreak of racism in the UK in recent years, I suggest the Labour Party’s attitude towards Jews takes some beating. Try and rid yourself of this idea that Conservative voters/supporters are all white-robed Klansmen just itching to hang the nearest person of colour. It isn’t true and never was.
Excuse me? Where exactly did I say that Conservatives are white-robed Klansmen? I simply pointed out that racist attacks have risen, in response to your “Growth in racism?” remark. Yes, anti-Semitism is atrocious and Corbyn has not done enough to root it out of the Labour Party – although sadly it isn’t a problem limited to the Corbynite left. While anti-Semitism has increased most sharply, the dominant form of racism in the report (accounting for 47% of reported cases) was Islamophobia – a level that has remained stubbornly high. I needn’t remind you that the Conservative peer Baroness Warsi has accused her own party for not addressing that issue within its own ranks with the required seriousness.
I also didn’t say that money should be “thrown at the NHS”, but I did note that official figures published shortly after the election results came out showed that ALL major NHS A&E units failed to meet their waiting-time targets for the first time ever, following nearly a decade of Conservative austerity.
“Growth in racism?” Yup, an 11% increase in the last year, and hate crimes have doubled in the past five years in England and Wales: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/oct/15/hate-crimes-double-england-wales
Britain will likely cease to exist some time during the next ten years.
Britain is not great, it’s a little island with too many small minded Little Englanders on it. Britain is destined for mediocrity and irrelevance. I’m ashamed of it.
I agree .
The British left have rightly called out missteps by Western governments (the Second Iraq War, amongst them). Unfortunately, the far left has sometimes gone too far, to the extent of mischaracterising humanitarian interventions by politicians or parties they disapproved of. (The Revolutionary Communist Party’s denial of the Bosnian Genocide is a case in point.)
Nonetheless, British leftists have too often turned a blind eye to the equivalent missteps by regimes and revolutionaries whose aims they do approve of (Palestine, Venezuela, Nicaragua’s Sandinistas, the list goes on).
Corbyn, and those around him, are amongst this latter faction and deliberately allowed leftist members of other groups to rejoin the Labour Party, undoing the efforts to expel entryists and extremists following the Party’s electoral disaster of 1983. The result? An even worse electoral disaster. Hardly surprising.
In the meantime, Corbyn’s supporters have gained control of Labour’s all-important National Executive Committee and the other positions and levers of power within the Party, and won’t be relinquishing them any time soon. If they have their way, Corbyn’s departure will be delayed until they can be sure of securing a successor with the same agenda.
Today, an electable Labour Party is looking a very long way from reaching office. By the time it does, the damage to the UK and its constituent parts will have already been done, unfortunately.
My sincere condolences, Dr. Cobb. ‘Forgive them, for they know not what they do!’
The LPs main problem is that it allowed people who believed that everything they say and do is so self-evidently correct that it needs no explanation into positions of power.
A key part of politics is being able to sell your ideas to the general public and SJWs cannot do that, they don’t know how.
🐾🐾
All the parties in the UK (or the US) want basically the same things – prosperity, freedom, good education, good health, etc. They are all filled with decent people who have different ideas of how to get there. Demonizing masses of people as stupid or evil is counterproductive. A successful country needs its citizen to be able to disagree better not less.
Successful politicians are a different beast. They are, more often than not, power hungry people who care more about themselves than anything else.
How could you arrive at that observation when Tories are famous for their austerity, dismantling of public institutions (so much for “conserve”)? When underfunded things fall apart, they’ll say private corporations would manage the assets better, sell it off cheaply, and make it seem as if they were good with finances. This is usually disastrous mid-term, and the unpopular measures required then are burdened on other parties. They can make themselves unpopular and once the Tories are in charge again, the cycle begins anew.
Politics — at least as it is usually practiced nowadays — is that area of life where the bad people, the downright evil people, generally win, even when they seem to lose.
Commiserations. We have The Smirker in Australia, you’re stuck with The Clown in Chief, and I very much fear the US will re-elect the The Hairpiece. If this is the will of the majority then democracy is not as great as I thought it was. :/
As an observer from afar (Australia), I noted in on-line forums that Jeremy Corbyn was a very polarising figure. Many of the People who supported him seemed to love him with a cult like adoration and that adoration seemed to blind them to the reservations others (a larger proportion of the community) had of Corbyn.
Even Labor in the UK admit that their election manifesto was too ambitious. Apparently Labor door knockers reported electors eyes glazing over before they got half way through listing policy changes.
I see a similar development in the United States Democratic Party where the following of rising stars like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reflect so much of the cult like following of Jeremy Corbyn.
I think the term you are looking for is ‘Social Media Messiah’, Australia had one of those, Kevin Rudd…
Yes that would be a good term. I was drawn into the Kevin Rudd aura for a while. I believed the story that he was not a politician but rather a technocrat.
I remember talking with a friend whose son was a senior public servant and being shocked by hearing how Kevin Rudd actually operated. The tantrums, calling staff in on weekends even though they were not needed. How someone treats their staff tells much about their character.
Soon the Rudd mask slipped in the broader community and it was shown he was just another politician, sigh.
I was surprised and disappointed by the dismal showing by the Lib-Dems. Even Jo Swinson could not hold onto her seat. Given the Lib-Dems clear pro-remain platform, I have to say Remain lost this election, no doubt about it.
I hate to say it, but Corbyn’s defeat actually makes me happy. If I lived in Britain, I would have had a hard time voting for the likes of Jeremy Corbyn, Brexit or no Brexit.
Overall, I think the election was decisive and left no doubt what the UK voters want, unlike Trump’s electoral college victory. If the opposition parties in the UK had had better leaders, perhaps the outcome would be different.
Interestingly the first post the post system in UK electorates can lead to perverse results.
Remain parties actually received a higher proportion of the vote than the Brexit parties. Also in Scotland the Scottish Nationalists won a swath of seats despite receiving less than 50% of the Scottish vote (I think this is correct I have not rechecked figures).
From what I can gather Corbyn was somewhat vague on Brexit not really nailing his position to the mask.
Having said this I agree with your second paragraph. I followed Rachel Riley and Nick Cohen on social media. They are both Jewish and they explained the pervasive anti antisemitism from the Corbyn acolytes.
Yes, I know how first past the post works, but this is not something new. When a party espousing Brexit wins the biggest majority in nearly forty years, I think that means something. Had Labor or the Liberal Democrats won a big majority under the same FPTP system, we would take that as a mandate. Should work the same for the Tories.
Agreed. But the statistics compiled by the Electoral Reform Society showing how many votes it took to elect an MP from each of the parties in this week’s UK general election are a shocking indictment of first past the post: https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/westminsters-voting-system-is-bankrupt-its-time-for-proportional-representation/
The Kens Livingstone and Loach, both with a rather rum history when it comes to Jews, have already suggested that it was the Jooz that kept Jezza from 10 Downing.
I’m also outside the UK, but also relieved that the British public rejected Corbyn so spectacularly. He should have been expelled from the party decades ago.
I do feel some sympathy though for those who pinned their hopes on a different outcome and stopping Brexit. Although with Corbyn anywhere near it, there was virtually no chance at all of that happening. I think many were in denial about that.
In any case, had Corbyn won, leftist & Islamist antisemitism in the UK would have swiftly become violent, and would have spread to Europe — where currently right wing antisemitism is the most common cause of violence. (Here in Germany the justice is also riddled with it.)
Some stats for this election cf 2017:
Conservatives, increase in popular vote: 329,881
Conservatives, increase in seats: 48
LibDems, increase in popular vote: 1,324,562
LibDems, increase in seats: -1
Greens, increase in popular vote: 340,032
Greens, increase in seats: 0
The Greens increased their popular vote by more than the Conservatives, but it resulted in no more seats.
The election has been decisive as far as Parliament is concerned, Johnson has a mandate and the UK will certainly leave the EU in January.
However the democratic deficit highlighted by the stats above may well cause the Tories problems in the country, if not Parliament. The majority of people want to remain in the EU, and, perhaps more importantly, any final destination is very unlikely to satisfy most Leavers either. Once Johnson makes Brexit concrete, either ultra Brexiteers like Nigel Farage and, eg, Rod Liddle, will be unhappy, or more moderate ‘one-nation’ Tories will be unhappy. Johnson will have to hold the line with maybe 75% of the population against his Brexit policy. Possible to do, with the media in his pocket, but I foresee mass demonstrations.
Furthermore, the Tories now have seats in the manufacturing areas of the north, so if the car plants start closing, which is more than likely, Johnson will soon hear about it!
What was it about the antisemitic Labour party that first attracted Matthew Cobb?
During the election campaign I could not get a single Labour supporter to agree that Hamas were antisemitic.
Corbyn has spoken nothing but praise for Hamas.
Thank God the British public rejected the antisemitism of Labour.
I’m not sure of Dr Cobb’s politics, but all I’ve noticed from his comments here is despair over Brexit and horror at what the Conservative Party will do to his country.
I’m sure that Brexit is more of an issue for Dr. Cobb than antisemitism with Labour members singing ‘From the River to the Sea’ as a response to Jews turning up for a meeting.
The Labour party is not anti-semitic. I have been a member for many years and have yet to see any anti-semitism at grass roots level. I agree that some of the social justice warriors in which I would include Corbyn and some of his circle have allowed their support for the Palestinians to spill over into overt anti-semitism. But this circle is not the whole Labour party. It’s interesting how the overt racism and islamophobia expressed by many Tories including Johnson gets a free pass. I have also heard anti-semitic remarks by a number of Tory supporters alongside their blatantly racist comments.
Reports say otherwise. Your personal failure to observe it is just an anecdote. See theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/05/seventy-labour-staffers-give-statements-to-antisemitism-inquiry (and the report)
Your whataboutism is irrelevant to this contention.
Outside a Labour rally on Wednesday night — on the street, not obstructing anyone — a small group of Jews unfurled a banner saying “Never Corbyn”. They were screamed at by Corbyn supporters chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.
One simple incident, and I could list many dozens more, including of coursed, from Corbyn himself.
I suspect that the reason so many Corbyn supporters don’t “see” any antisemitism is because they think such behaviour is completely normal.
British actress Tracy-Ann Oberman who is Jewish commented on Twitter after the election:
“Thank you Great Britain. I’m crying my eyes out. First time ever -I voted LibDem. I’m Remain . I want our @UKLabour back. We are on our way. Thank you so much x”
“For last 2 years @RachelRileyRR & I have faced abuse beyond imagining. Lies smears violence. We stood against it all because we truly believe Corbyn responsible for allowing the anti Jewish racism & misogyny to go unchecked. His online hate army thought no one cared. YOU DID x”
I have posted on here a number of times saying i supported Labour and Corbyn ,i thought the claims of him being antisemitic were made up .
For that i am sorry .
Still a Labour supporter .
Labour don’t regard Hamas or Hezbollah as antisemitic, so they certainly don’t regard their own party as antisemitic.
I’m a reader of this site who visits it 365 days a year without exception, but I don’t agree with leftist politics, and voted Conservative because they were the best option.
I don’t like Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party is antisemitic, and their policies were delusional hard-left rubbish which was stuck in a 1970s class-war timewarp. The Liberal “Democrats” stood on a frankly disgraceful cancel-Brexit-without-a-2nd-referendum platform which was in direct opposition to actual democracy.
Finally, both Labour and Liberal had total decarbonisation by 2030 policies which would have bankrupted the economy, have been impossible to achieve anyway, and which are completely unnecessary, in my opinion.
I don’t see how asking people to vote for a party on a declared policy is in “in direct opposition to actual democracy”.
+1
“Don’t mourn, organize!” – Joe Hill
Labour also wanted to decriminalise abortion. I guess that not prosecuting doctors who carry out abortions at 32 weeks was too radical for the British people to accept.
The election results are awful. Can’t blame you Brits a bit for feeling downhearted. Seems you could use some words of encouragement from Bluto Blutarsky: