I honestly can’t think of a time when we had worse political leadership across all parties as we have at the moment. And the next generation don’t look a lot better (though they could hardly be worse). Utterly depressing.
Are there any glimmers of hope?
Aaron Bastani’s magnum opus “Fully Automated Luxury Communism” is published soon. It’s bound to contain all the answers. Hopefully one day the Magic Grandpa will get to put these exciting new ideas into practice. Vive la revolution!
Leadership in the NI parties is ghastly too – either salary-taking incompetents doing nothing to get regional govt back or belligerent grand-standers in SF & DUP not cooperating with anyone and sulking (on pay). They’re all crap.
I do particularly despise the NI politicians for their lack of willing to just move a bit and search for a mutually assured destruction of the EU.
I know I’m on the side of the organisers but the #ledbydonkeys campaign has uncovered (it was only in a shallow grave anyway) the evidence to back it up.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/feb/07/billboard-campaigners-brexit-led-by-donkeys
Sorry to be so gloomy but I don’t think there is a lot of hope. All of May’s positioning on Brexit has been to try and shore up her own bitterly divided party whereas Labour have proved just how incompetent an opposition they are throughout the whole process. Corbyn’s letter to May last night just lets down all those who approved the Labour position before as well as all those new young voters who so promisingly voted for him in the 2017 election.
We clearly need a fundamental shift in the way we are represented. For example, I find it deeply insulting when someone who has never worked in the public sector slags it off for being wasteful and inefficient. As MPs are making so many decisions on the spending of public money, maybe we should have rules that in order to be an MP you must have worked in the public sector first? It would rule out a lot of the career politician, public school, entitled, never done a real day’s work in their life types anyway!
Watch me now get labelled hopelessly naive…
Here’s your hopelessly naive label, wear it proudly.
There has never in my 93 years been such a deeply depressing time in UK politics. I can accept that many think the EU is a bad thing and I can (just about) accept many wish to leave. But Jesus fucking Jesus could our political leaders do any worse, can they lead us through what are bound to be difficult years ahead? Answers on a postcard to the “They Are All Wankers” competition…
It is indeed a depressing time. A glimmer of hope is that there is some talent in Labour. Unfortunately, it’s mainly on the backbenches. The problem is that Labour members have seen fit to elect as leader someone who is an unappetising mix of Wolfie Smith and Chance the gardener.
This complete fuckwit has functioned as a giant bam magnet, attracting similarly-inclined idiots from the various sects they were happily ensconced in, making reversal to sanity more difficult.
I probably sound angry. That’s because I am. I’ve been a Labour member for decades and this astonishing act of self-harm betrays those we seek to serve. I find it hard to forgive those who voted for Corbyn.
Trotskyist/Gramsci playbook from here, Lando. I doubt you’ll see your version of the Labour party again any time soon. Power all with the members now – and we all know what that delivers.
if the power really was with the members, Labour would be anti-Brexit! In traditional Leninist form, power is with those who know what the members really want…
yes Lando has said what I was going to – there are some genuinely good and mostly young Labour MPs currently on the backbenches who could come through. And of the older generation Yvette Cooper is showing almost daily that had she become leader way back when Ed Milliband got the job things might (but only might) have turned out differently.
And whilst there aren’t many reasons to see that Things Can Only Get Better, I am not wholly gloomy about the prospects of Labour moving more towards the centre in the next decade or so. I think some disenchantment is setting in about Corbyn, and although McDonnell is still around there aren’t actually that many really top quality MPs on the left of the party to inspire future voters and lead the parliamentary party. Which I am sure is one reasons so many are sticking around rather than bailing out.
I don’t understand why all those who aren’t with the Corbyn people don’t man-up and start their own centre-left party. It seems to me, as an outsider with no option to vote for the parties everyone else in the UK can vote for, that far too many people in the Labour Party are wedded to this great myth of ‘the Labour Party’. It’s just a name, get over it – start something else.
Who’d pay for it? Labour is funded by unions, the Tories by business. Election campaigns cost millions, and FPTP means second place is nowhere.
Where there’s a will there’s a way.
JML, crowd-funding – money not really the issue, more 1) SDP memories and 2) Labour types never ever forget. You’d be branded a traitor for life. Especially if/when the left vote is split and the Magic Grandpa doesn’t get to build his nirvana.
Indeed. The shadow of the SDP (or the ILP, come to that) looms large.
And there you’ve just identified the problem – FPTP. This does not, and cannot lead to a representative democracy. The big questions just can’t be answered by trying to fit them into a left vs right pidgeonhole, Brexit of course being the ultimate example of this.
I understand that there are rumours this may indeed happen. Trouble is, all it would do would split the left wing vote and voila…Tories in for generations to come.
That is exactly what they should do. They know that they have no grassroots support, very little in the way of principles and most of them would never get a job that paid as much as an MP’s salary plus expenses.
I sometimes wonder if backbench Remain MPs could form a temporary single-issue political party, gain a House majority, vote to withdraw Article 50, and then disband the political party the next day. This “Mayfly” organisation would not push for Government, it would be done simply to stop Brexit.
It’s no more cynical than registering one’s fund management company in the Cayman Islands.
I’m not sure anyone could lead either of the main parties right now. They’re both fatally fractured but have to cling on in the hope the other one will break first.
It’s quite incredible that we’re looking at Labour’s latest proposal – to plunge the people they’re supposed to represent into years of misery, rather than starving them to death – and thinking it’s the best option we have.
I remember the excitement and hope when Blair came to power. Snuffed out over a war in the Desert and a desertion of his own ideals. I doubt we will experience those heady days again for some time.
We have some talented politicians but seemingly none in the top jobs which are taken by chancers,
backstabbers and selfish bastards.
if I think about it for too long it starts to rile me so will focus instead on music and life.
Maybe the Leave campaign should have focused more on the sheer difficulty of leaving the E.U., the fantastic increase in bureaucracy in doing so that makes a mockery of those who used to complain about too much democracy within it, and, though it may have reflected negatively on their own profession, posted pictures of the likes of Boris Johnson on billboards with the by-line “Do you really think this guy has the patience, let alone the intellect or tact, to carry a leave vote through? You do? Really?”
All – well, most – of the above, and you know what? British industrial leadership is EXACTLY THE SAME; a bunch of know-nothing opinionising wankers who just spin round the revolving doors between executives, trouser a mint at each stop-off, fuck it all up and move on to the next gravy train.
What we need isn’t a new centre-left or centre-right or left of right of middle party, it’s a bloody full scale revolution – or something. Get rid of all the dead weight at the top. Personally, I’m starting to stock-pile tinned vegetables, lentils and rice, and I’ve never been more glad that I have a wood-burner in the living room and a shotgun in the gun safe.
Have you seen the end of ‘The Wild Bunch’, Vulpmeister? Have you thought of checking eBay for Gatling guns?
If they move, kill them.
I dunno Vulpes I reckon when the mob come for your tins you’re only going to get two, maybe three tops with the shotgun. Claymores in the treelike would be more like it, or drone-mounted miniguns controlled from your panic room.
Thanks for the prompt.
I need to get a new door for my panic room i.e. the under stairs cupboard
*submits HUGE order via paranoidpreppers.com*
I’m not usually a conspiracy theory type person but I have to wonder how on earth this is happening. Virtually all reasonable, informed and intelligent voices with no agenda other than wanting what’s best for UK concede that this is not a good way to exit; that the lack of preparation will harm the country’s economy, hitting the poor the hardest. So why and how is it happening? Is it just as appears on face value, a PM obsessed with clinging on to power and getting her deal, justifying her refusal to reassess the will of the people as it now stands on the grounds of “respecting democracy”? Or are darker forces really behind it all, orchestrating everything well and potentially winning in some evil plan to fuck up the UK economy and disrupt Europe in order to change the world order and amass wealth and power?
We could always ask David Icke…
RICH PEOPLE! Rich people want to kill you and eat your children!
Sorry, had a bit of a flashback there
It suits Rees-Mogg, Boris Johnson, David Cameron etc. for the poor to be poorer.
There’s some evidence to support your theory. A number of fund managers have trousered significant amounts by shorting UK companies, gov’t bonds and sterling (i.e betting that they will lose value) whilst at the same time making sizable donations to pro Brexit organisations. Crispin Odey gave UKIP nearly £900k, dwarfed by the £220m he made back when the referendum result was declared, allegedly helped by his good mate Farage talking down the leave result the day before.
Jeremy Hosking co founder of a hedge fund called Marathon gave £1.5m to Vote Leave and offered hundreds of thousands more to unseat pro Brexit MPs. Peter Hargreaves, retired founder of mega stockbroker Hargreaves Lansdown,gave £3.2m to the Leave.EU . He’s is now a backer of Blue Whale Capital, a fund currently doing very nicely investing in the US rather than the UK, whilst he continues to talk up a no-deal Brexit.
Peter Cruddas is a full on Brexiteer whith his spreadbetting company CMC Markets well positioned to make moeny from the uncertainty. And just Google Carole Cadwalldr at The Guardian for the whole Aaron Banks cesspool.
No evidence that it’s co-ordinated or that there is collusion but as a general rule, if you follow the money you can see what’s really behind this.
It seems, according to some observers, that the ERG’s new chosen tactic is to push for May’s deal in order to get out as merely an initial stepping stone to further detachment.
Yes, it seems so. Losing the battle in order to win the war.
The ERG is a fine example of the duplicity of the Brexiteers. Ranting about democracy and taking back control, the ERG is a group that has no constitution, publishes no membership list and has no declared leadesrhip. But via it’s membership can still generate funding from tax payers (a recent estimate placed this at £100k) to issue briefing notes and seems to operate a whipping system to organise votes.
Tell the people who were sold a le in the original vote to reassess it and vote again.
I wonder if something radical needs to happen, e.g. splits of Lab and Tory result in a sizable rump in the middle who unite as the change party, win an election and bring in PR then hold another election resulting in a number of smaller but more representative groups. I suspect the result would be the extreme left and right wild find themselves out in the cold and a coalition of left and right centrists would provide much more representative governance than the shit storm we have now. I love the idea of the Tories getting wiped out in an election, but a Corbyn government would be so much worse it’s the devil and the deep blue sea. I pray for a hung parliament next time.
A columnist in today’s Times predicted pretty much that – certainly, that sooner rather than later, following the EU exit, both parties are very likely to split. His central point was that British politics are no longer class based, they are (individual) identity based – hence, the square pegs of two parties that have traditionally been class based.
Deal or No, the UK’s leadership is going to be negotiating with the US. That’ll be interesting, given the last two years.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/us-lobbyists-brexit_uk_5c5b26c6e4b00187b5579f64
Let’s say you hated Britain and you wanted to damage it (her?).
You would create widespread conflict among the people, causing political chaos. Then you’d seek opportunities to make a killing from its most lucrative asset – the financial markets – by creating turmoil and profiting from it. Investments in Gold do well in such times. Many Tories and Kippers worked this out years ago. This is the opportunity that drives them – there’s a lot of money in it.
The financial shenanigans that we breezily dismiss as financial shenanigans (because we don’t understand markets) is what will bring down the UK. We will then be told that the “Brexit Crash” was inevitable, somehow our fault, and we all need to pull together to recover. A small pocket of people will do very well from it.
All the while, the narrative is around protecting the flag – Land of Hope and Glory and the Dambusters. Yet their very actions are destroying the union. Scotland’s wish to Remain is overruled by the English votes to Leave. The Backstop throws the reunification of Ireland hat back in the ring too, when it hasn’t really been an issue for about 20 years.
It’s the Remainers that should be waving around the Union Jack/flag.
If you want to destroy Britain this is what you do. And they’re doing it.
The likes of Johnson, Rees-Mogg, Farage, Liam Fox etc want us to crash out so they can trash workers rights, environmental standards and consumer rights. They will benefit massively from it and sure as hell their families won’t be eating bleach washed chicken or beef pumped full of hormones. You never know they might get away with blaming all the problems on immigrants, the unemployed or government spending. It has worked before.
Your argument is frighteningly convincing, Alias.
When things go pear shaped it will not be the fault of the noble Brexiteers.
Donald Tusks comment about a special place in hell hit the nail on the head for me.