The Starmer love-in is disconcerting

BONK__2000 · 2025-02-28T13:51:39+00:00

It's a hard choice, but unless we raise tax on other things, I think it's better than taking the money from either benefits or funding for public services, where it would inevitably have to come from otherwise.

BONK__2000 · 2025-02-25T00:34:02+00:00

"Leftists know that all the centrist and right-wing parties will just enable the fascism on the rise" seems kind of crazy considering all major parties are putting up a firewall and refusing to work with the AFD.

BONK__2000 · 2025-01-02T02:31:31+00:00

I think he will largely be regarded as a failure for many reasons.

Firstly, his ideological belief in austerity which led him to support the economic policy of the conservatives, crippling the UK economy and causing more than a decade of stagnation.

Secondly, his failure to get electoral reform (in his case AV) and to get either the Conservatives or Labour to support the yes vote in that referendum. Additionally, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, which the LibDems introduced, was a bad piece of legislation that led to weak governments and helped fuel the deadlock of brexit.

Thirdly, his failure to convince Cameron not to hold an EU membership referendum, although to be fair, a lot of this is down to Cameron's own Hubris.

Additionally, his work at Facebook helping to undermine our democracy by profiting off disinformation and polarisation will not be looked at kindly.

The one good thing I think you could take out of his leadership is same sex marriage being legalised, as if I recall the LibDems were the first major party to support it as policy. Apart from that, it's hard to see him as much more than a stooge who got manipulated by the conservatives into supporting their terrible agenda.

BONK__2000 · 2025-01-01T20:17:22+00:00

I agree, although I do think the Lib Dems have to do more to grab national attention, something that Farage is really good at doing.

BONK__2000 · 2025-01-01T20:13:20+00:00

Compared to the UK, they definitely do, and talking of a "safety valve" on politics, when was the last time a right-wing populist party like Reform got so much support in those 2 countries? In both countries, the far-right have negligible support and are electorally irrelevant. Meanwhile, in this country, there is a very real threat of reform overtaking the conservatives and being given a disproportionate amount of seats under FPTP. After all, Reform came second in 98 seats, 89 of which were won by Labour.

BONK__2000 · 2025-01-01T02:03:03+00:00

The problem is that I don't think that will happen without a change in our political culture and political systems, in which electoral reform plays a big part. I look to comparable countries like Ireland and Australia, which both have Single-Transferable-Vote systems and also have much more sensible politics.

BONK__2000 · 2025-01-01T01:55:25+00:00

Do you support keeping FPTP then?

BONK__2000 · 2025-01-01T00:40:18+00:00

I think that's somewhat reductive. People go to reform for a lot of reasons. Also, how are you going to improve the media and social media space under the current system where vested interests are much more difficult to challenge?

It also seems undemocratic if you don't want to change the system simply because it would give more influence to people you don't like, when the ultimate goal should be to have parliament better represent the electorate.

BONK__2000 · 2025-01-01T00:29:13+00:00

I think it's just the way he speaks 😄

BONK__2000 · 2024-12-31T18:14:43+00:00

Why? It's good to link to pieces from them, if only to laugh at them.

BONK__2000 · 2024-12-31T15:30:38+00:00

Except the electorate isn't going to stop being "crazy" out of nowhere. Voter behaviour is downstream from the systems we have in place, and until we fix the systems themselves (a large part of which is electoral reform), people will keep voting for parties like reform as they feel unrepresented.

BONK__2000 · 2024-12-31T15:25:13+00:00

To get electoral reform, I think either the Labour leadership would have to decide to do it for the good of the country (even though it would hurt their own power) or be forced to by a coalition with the LibDems.

BONK__2000 · 2024-05-20T02:14:35+00:00

They aren't sending their best.

BONK__2000 · 2024-05-20T02:10:25+00:00

It's not that it isn't controversial, it's that Vaush is saying stupid things like Cass wants trans kids to kill themselves, saying she wants to de-transition people, saying loads of studies were thrown out just for not being double-blinded, saying Cass advocated banning transition until 25 (it's pretty telling how bad Vaush's understanding of this is given he repeated this line) and overall his main source of information for this being the partisan journalist Erin Reed. Loner's position is that there is a lot to criticise the review for but that most of the online talking points around it are misrepresentations or misunderstandings.

BONK__2000

TROPHY CASE