| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again 12:10 - Mar 17 with 4874 views | Darth_Koont |
Still at least they didn’t help usher in Boris, continued spaffing state funds into individuals’ pockets while kids go hungry, a hard Brexit and the hard-right loons ... oh.
As for the Labour Party, zero surprises here. Ditto that our media (a few journalists like Pogrund and independents aside) can’t even bring itself to cover one of the worst political scandals in memory.
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| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 12:59 - Mar 17 with 2727 views | Swansea_Blue |
We’ve all seen recently how the BBC can buckle under pressure, so maybe that might lead to people being a bit more open minded that it may have been less than fair towards Corbyn.
I’m no fan of some of the ways Corbyn behaves (his response to Ukraine is completely wrong imo, you’ll never appease someone like Putin).l, but also think he was badly treated in many ways by the media. The nonsense about his clothes, etc., shows they’d stop at nothing to paint him in a bad light.
That’s a compelling, if brief, piece. You’d probably be a fool to call Forde a liar - he seems very measured. |  |
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| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 13:05 - Mar 17 with 2717 views | bournemouthblue |
| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 12:59 - Mar 17 by Swansea_Blue |
We’ve all seen recently how the BBC can buckle under pressure, so maybe that might lead to people being a bit more open minded that it may have been less than fair towards Corbyn.
I’m no fan of some of the ways Corbyn behaves (his response to Ukraine is completely wrong imo, you’ll never appease someone like Putin).l, but also think he was badly treated in many ways by the media. The nonsense about his clothes, etc., shows they’d stop at nothing to paint him in a bad light.
That’s a compelling, if brief, piece. You’d probably be a fool to call Forde a liar - he seems very measured. |
Corbyn was always pretty soft on defence but was highlighting Russian influence within British politics and the city, a long time before people were fully aware of the threat |  |
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| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 13:13 - Mar 17 with 2694 views | Swansea_Blue |
| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 13:05 - Mar 17 by bournemouthblue |
Corbyn was always pretty soft on defence but was highlighting Russian influence within British politics and the city, a long time before people were fully aware of the threat |
Yes, his defence stance is rather idealistic isn’t it. Wanting everyone to be friends is a noble aim, but not much good when you’ve got a psychopathic mini dictator invading people.
Their 2017 and 2019 manifestos seem like a missed opportunities- so much in there that would fix problems people are now shouting about. But Corbyn. But the magic money tree. How damaging those attack lines have been. I very much doubt anything Labour would have done off their own bat would have cost the country as much as the Tories have (Brexit the only uncertainty - Corbyn would have had to have seen it through, meaning the ~£40bn/yr hit to the treasury would have stayed. But then maybe they’d have got a softer deal with the EU). [Post edited 17 Mar 2023 13:14]
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| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 13:17 - Mar 17 with 2674 views | Darth_Koont |
| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 12:59 - Mar 17 by Swansea_Blue |
We’ve all seen recently how the BBC can buckle under pressure, so maybe that might lead to people being a bit more open minded that it may have been less than fair towards Corbyn.
I’m no fan of some of the ways Corbyn behaves (his response to Ukraine is completely wrong imo, you’ll never appease someone like Putin).l, but also think he was badly treated in many ways by the media. The nonsense about his clothes, etc., shows they’d stop at nothing to paint him in a bad light.
That’s a compelling, if brief, piece. You’d probably be a fool to call Forde a liar - he seems very measured. |
You’re downplaying it or at least barely scratching the surface with your characterisation.
But like you say yourself, it’s a start and maybe people will start to be more open-minded especially with all the evidence that doesn’t support the factional and media narrative. That’s why there’s silence from them.
Luckily, as the Hillsborough justice campaign showed, in the fight against accepted narratives that are pushed by politicians and the press, the truth will out as the people most affected don’t go away and outlive the narrative. And I don’t think this will take 20-30 years given a whole country is feeling its effects. | |
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| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 13:31 - Mar 17 with 2614 views | Swansea_Blue |
| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 13:17 - Mar 17 by Darth_Koont |
You’re downplaying it or at least barely scratching the surface with your characterisation.
But like you say yourself, it’s a start and maybe people will start to be more open-minded especially with all the evidence that doesn’t support the factional and media narrative. That’s why there’s silence from them.
Luckily, as the Hillsborough justice campaign showed, in the fight against accepted narratives that are pushed by politicians and the press, the truth will out as the people most affected don’t go away and outlive the narrative. And I don’t think this will take 20-30 years given a whole country is feeling its effects. |
I’m not down playing deliberately. Just choosing my words carefully as I don’t understand enough. In terms of actions my conscience is clear as we returned a Labour MP in 2017 and 2019, so I know I didn’t facilitate this Tory sh*tshow :) | |
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| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 13:48 - Mar 17 with 2597 views | Darth_Koont |
| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 13:31 - Mar 17 by Swansea_Blue |
I’m not down playing deliberately. Just choosing my words carefully as I don’t understand enough. In terms of actions my conscience is clear as we returned a Labour MP in 2017 and 2019, so I know I didn’t facilitate this Tory sh*tshow :) |
Fair enough re: not knowing enough. It certainly hasn’t been covered in the main news with any degree of detail, let alone accuracy.
But if we hold onto narratives and don’t see the world as it is then we get the politics and policies we deserve. Whether those are Brexit or immigration narratives or status quo-propping, social democracy-smearing ones. | |
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| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 18:16 - Mar 17 with 2460 views | DJR |
Anyone who believes in democracy should have grave misgivings about what happened to Corbyn, and I say this as someone who didn't vote for him in either Labour leadership election.
Despite being elected by Labour members with a large majority, almost the entirety of the Labour Parliamentary party did all they could to attack and undermine him.
The same was true of the establishment, and of the entire media (with the odd journalist the exception) who repeated smears and half-truths so often that people believed them.
One such smear was that MPs on the right would be purged (which never happened} when the opposite has turned out to be the case, with Starmer's Labour now preventing those on the left from sitting as MPs.
And one such half-truth was that the Labour performance in 2019 was its worst since the 1920s (in order to put the boot in on Corbyn), when that was only true in terms of seats (which could in part be explained the the loss of seats in Scotland). In fact, Labour in 2019 got a higher share of the vote than Brown, Miliband and Blair in 2005.
And to take an example of media bias, every presenter on LBC (a station meant to be politically balanced by having a variety of presenters) was hostile to Corbyn
That same media is now failing to report matters discovered by things like the Forde Report and Al Jazeera's Labour Files which are both indications that things were not what they were made out to be.
I might add that I am not alone in my views about what happened to Corbyn, because Peter Oborne (a right wing journalist and no particular fan of Corbyn) also shares them, but (surprise, surprise) he has been banished from the MSM and is now very much a voice in the wilderness. [Post edited 17 Mar 2023 20:56]
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| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 19:02 - Mar 17 with 2420 views | Darth_Koont |
| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 18:16 - Mar 17 by DJR |
Anyone who believes in democracy should have grave misgivings about what happened to Corbyn, and I say this as someone who didn't vote for him in either Labour leadership election.
Despite being elected by Labour members with a large majority, almost the entirety of the Labour Parliamentary party did all they could to attack and undermine him.
The same was true of the establishment, and of the entire media (with the odd journalist the exception) who repeated smears and half-truths so often that people believed them.
One such smear was that MPs on the right would be purged (which never happened} when the opposite has turned out to be the case, with Starmer's Labour now preventing those on the left from sitting as MPs.
And one such half-truth was that the Labour performance in 2019 was its worst since the 1920s (in order to put the boot in on Corbyn), when that was only true in terms of seats (which could in part be explained the the loss of seats in Scotland). In fact, Labour in 2019 got a higher share of the vote than Brown, Miliband and Blair in 2005.
And to take an example of media bias, every presenter on LBC (a station meant to be politically balanced by having a variety of presenters) was hostile to Corbyn
That same media is now failing to report matters discovered by things like the Forde Report and Al Jazeera's Labour Files which are both indications that things were not what they were made out to be.
I might add that I am not alone in my views about what happened to Corbyn, because Peter Oborne (a right wing journalist and no particular fan of Corbyn) also shares them, but (surprise, surprise) he has been banished from the MSM and is now very much a voice in the wilderness. [Post edited 17 Mar 2023 20:56]
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Well said. And no evidence points to the contrary.
You'll now get accused of howling at the moon  | |
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| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 19:17 - Mar 17 with 2378 views | Darth_Koont |
| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 18:16 - Mar 17 by DJR |
Anyone who believes in democracy should have grave misgivings about what happened to Corbyn, and I say this as someone who didn't vote for him in either Labour leadership election.
Despite being elected by Labour members with a large majority, almost the entirety of the Labour Parliamentary party did all they could to attack and undermine him.
The same was true of the establishment, and of the entire media (with the odd journalist the exception) who repeated smears and half-truths so often that people believed them.
One such smear was that MPs on the right would be purged (which never happened} when the opposite has turned out to be the case, with Starmer's Labour now preventing those on the left from sitting as MPs.
And one such half-truth was that the Labour performance in 2019 was its worst since the 1920s (in order to put the boot in on Corbyn), when that was only true in terms of seats (which could in part be explained the the loss of seats in Scotland). In fact, Labour in 2019 got a higher share of the vote than Brown, Miliband and Blair in 2005.
And to take an example of media bias, every presenter on LBC (a station meant to be politically balanced by having a variety of presenters) was hostile to Corbyn
That same media is now failing to report matters discovered by things like the Forde Report and Al Jazeera's Labour Files which are both indications that things were not what they were made out to be.
I might add that I am not alone in my views about what happened to Corbyn, because Peter Oborne (a right wing journalist and no particular fan of Corbyn) also shares them, but (surprise, surprise) he has been banished from the MSM and is now very much a voice in the wilderness. [Post edited 17 Mar 2023 20:56]
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By the way, the Corbyn years in government wouldn't have been as good for the political/lobbying/media industry, non-dom press barons, donors and those doing the grift, armed forces, military contractors, oil and gas, financial sector etc etc. That's just on a personal level.
There is zero incentive for them in the country swinging back to social democracy even for one term just to fix some stuff.
But I'm sure they weren't thinking about themselves at all when they told everyone that Corbyn would be the worst thing to happen to the UK. Considering how things have worked out for the UK since 2015, it looks increasingly that their interests and incentives are part of the real problem – and have been all along. | |
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| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 19:29 - Mar 17 with 2343 views | HARRY10 |
"The Conservative party put pressure on the BBC not to describe a claim by Boris Johnson that Keir Starmer failed to prosecute Jimmy Savile as “false”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/mar/17/tories-pressured-bbc-over-johns
And therein lies, literally, the problem with Parliament. Not the idiocy of PR/Coalition, but the clear lack of accountability. The gutbucket was able to lie consistently at the dispatch box with the speaker, bowing and scrapping to the Tory benches.
And if the numpties still want a reason why PR s such a disaster then look cross the Channel. Macron was able to use the 'deciding vote' to push through pension reform to block the logjam. This will always exist.
Given NO Parliament in the past century or so has seen one party with an overall vote count majority PR would merely deliver up a coalition. One where the minority party does not get to stop anything, but is given a policy or two of their own. And you need look no further than Scotland to see what can happen.
Instead of holding another election the SNP got into bed with the Greens to prop them up. Part of the deal was the trans stuff. Legislation, rightly or wrongly, that was not voted for by SNP members. Something that is now tearing the party asunder.
Had the UK had PR in 2019 in would not have made a jot of difference, as the idea that a right wing/ and left wing LibDem and Labour would have formed a coalition does not equate to the realities.
yes, you can claim that the House better reflects the vote, BUT and it is a big BUT, unless that can be transformed into power it is not so much impotent as dangerous - when voters discover they've been had
oir all the squeaks about the number of seats the Tories got, it needed only the one seat more to have the casting vote. PR simply means squalid, back stairs, horse trading (SNP/Greens).
Until the real reforms are brought in, making Parliament less accountable to voters will not improve things.
A transparent system of checking and correcting intentional lies. Remove second jobs. disbar cnts like Hancock who now seems to be solely trying to promote himself as a 'celebrity'. Likewise the bloater, whose appearances at parliament are as infrequent his bouts of honesty.
Parliament should be about what a person can do to help others, not what it can do for someone to help themselves. |  | | |
| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 20:20 - Mar 17 with 2293 views | DJR |
| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 19:17 - Mar 17 by Darth_Koont |
By the way, the Corbyn years in government wouldn't have been as good for the political/lobbying/media industry, non-dom press barons, donors and those doing the grift, armed forces, military contractors, oil and gas, financial sector etc etc. That's just on a personal level.
There is zero incentive for them in the country swinging back to social democracy even for one term just to fix some stuff.
But I'm sure they weren't thinking about themselves at all when they told everyone that Corbyn would be the worst thing to happen to the UK. Considering how things have worked out for the UK since 2015, it looks increasingly that their interests and incentives are part of the real problem – and have been all along. |
Oh, to have even a fraction of the social democracy that forms the basis of my political philosophy! [Post edited 17 Mar 2023 20:31]
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| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 21:07 - Mar 17 with 2221 views | DJR |
| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 19:17 - Mar 17 by Darth_Koont |
By the way, the Corbyn years in government wouldn't have been as good for the political/lobbying/media industry, non-dom press barons, donors and those doing the grift, armed forces, military contractors, oil and gas, financial sector etc etc. That's just on a personal level.
There is zero incentive for them in the country swinging back to social democracy even for one term just to fix some stuff.
But I'm sure they weren't thinking about themselves at all when they told everyone that Corbyn would be the worst thing to happen to the UK. Considering how things have worked out for the UK since 2015, it looks increasingly that their interests and incentives are part of the real problem – and have been all along. |
It looks like it has turned out as they hoped with very little real choice on offer at the next election.
https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/politics/960083/is-britain-heading-for-a-period-o
On this theme, it is interesting to note that Rachel Reeves expressed support for plans in the Budget which according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies could result in up to 1 million people currently on incapacity benefits losing about £350 a month.
Unsurprisingly, no one has picked up on Labour support for this, presumably because everyone in the media and the main parties regards them all as scroungers. [Post edited 17 Mar 2023 21:12]
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| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 09:12 - Mar 18 with 2011 views | Darth_Koont |
| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 21:07 - Mar 17 by DJR |
It looks like it has turned out as they hoped with very little real choice on offer at the next election.
https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/politics/960083/is-britain-heading-for-a-period-o
On this theme, it is interesting to note that Rachel Reeves expressed support for plans in the Budget which according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies could result in up to 1 million people currently on incapacity benefits losing about £350 a month.
Unsurprisingly, no one has picked up on Labour support for this, presumably because everyone in the media and the main parties regards them all as scroungers. [Post edited 17 Mar 2023 21:12]
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Yes, Rachel Reeves is to the right of say, George Osborne on pretty much everything. You’d suspect her of being a right-wing plant if she weren’t entirely representative of the Labour right-wingers that now have total control of the party.
All a bit concerning that the only “alternatives” for the UK are both continuations of our slide right and in decline. The only difference is that the Tories want to get us there even quicker and more chaotically. Although I think the emptiness and lack of ideas from Labour and its major representatives will just screw the country over in a slightly different way.
As a public not at all served by our democracy we should be much more concerned by or at least questioning the prospect of a Labour opposition and future government that will effectively shore up the establishment interests these right-wingers have come to fetishise. And closing off any genuine alternative to the reality outside the establishment of decades of decline and a society/economy that’s coming apart at the seams.
Unfortunately, the journalists and pundits here pretty much nod along with that consensus/settlement too, whether it’s because their interests and incentives are largely the same. Or whether they’re as ideologically narrow and unquestioning as the Labour right and what passes for British “centrism”. Bit from Column A, bit from Column B, I suspect. | |
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| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 09:20 - Mar 18 with 1996 views | DJR |
| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 09:12 - Mar 18 by Darth_Koont |
Yes, Rachel Reeves is to the right of say, George Osborne on pretty much everything. You’d suspect her of being a right-wing plant if she weren’t entirely representative of the Labour right-wingers that now have total control of the party.
All a bit concerning that the only “alternatives” for the UK are both continuations of our slide right and in decline. The only difference is that the Tories want to get us there even quicker and more chaotically. Although I think the emptiness and lack of ideas from Labour and its major representatives will just screw the country over in a slightly different way.
As a public not at all served by our democracy we should be much more concerned by or at least questioning the prospect of a Labour opposition and future government that will effectively shore up the establishment interests these right-wingers have come to fetishise. And closing off any genuine alternative to the reality outside the establishment of decades of decline and a society/economy that’s coming apart at the seams.
Unfortunately, the journalists and pundits here pretty much nod along with that consensus/settlement too, whether it’s because their interests and incentives are largely the same. Or whether they’re as ideologically narrow and unquestioning as the Labour right and what passes for British “centrism”. Bit from Column A, bit from Column B, I suspect. |
Yes, Rachel Reeve has form on this.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/12/labour-benefits-tories-labour-r
Indeed, looking at the Budget, it is difficult to see any difference if a Labour Chancellor had brought it forward, with the possible exception of the lifetime allowance expansion being confined to the medical profession.
On the journalist/pundits front, I think the main factor is that they all come from a similar establishment background or are co-opted into it. As I have said before, a Guardian journalist without an Oxbridge education is a rarity, and if you consider the most recent edition of Newcast, where Rachel Reeves was interviewed by Chris Mason and Adam Fleming, you will realise that all three have degrees from Oxbridge. [Post edited 18 Mar 2023 9:28]
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| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 09:27 - Mar 18 with 1975 views | Darth_Koont |
| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 09:20 - Mar 18 by DJR |
Yes, Rachel Reeve has form on this.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/12/labour-benefits-tories-labour-r
Indeed, looking at the Budget, it is difficult to see any difference if a Labour Chancellor had brought it forward, with the possible exception of the lifetime allowance expansion being confined to the medical profession.
On the journalist/pundits front, I think the main factor is that they all come from a similar establishment background or are co-opted into it. As I have said before, a Guardian journalist without an Oxbridge education is a rarity, and if you consider the most recent edition of Newcast, where Rachel Reeves was interviewed by Chris Mason and Adam Fleming, you will realise that all three have degrees from Oxbridge. [Post edited 18 Mar 2023 9:28]
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And all dutifully transcribed by the Guardian’s chief political editor with zero pushback.
If people want to know why and how we ended up here as a democracy, society and economy then stuff like this is a good place to start. | |
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| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 09:35 - Mar 18 with 1967 views | DJR |
| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 09:27 - Mar 18 by Darth_Koont |
And all dutifully transcribed by the Guardian’s chief political editor with zero pushback.
If people want to know why and how we ended up here as a democracy, society and economy then stuff like this is a good place to start. |
Interestingly, the Guardian does report today what Martin Forde says in the recent Labour Files report about a hierarchy of racism in the Labour Party, but unsurprisingly doesn't mention his criticisms of the Panorama report. [Post edited 18 Mar 2023 9:48]
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| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 10:01 - Mar 18 with 1920 views | DJR |
| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 09:27 - Mar 18 by Darth_Koont |
And all dutifully transcribed by the Guardian’s chief political editor with zero pushback.
If people want to know why and how we ended up here as a democracy, society and economy then stuff like this is a good place to start. |
I am not sure whether you saw the following which I posted a few weeks ago.
"The admiration by the right of the Labour Party for aspects of Tory policy is also confirmed by what a friend of mine who worked for Labour in the early Blair years has told me. He has a friend who is and was pretty high up in Blairite/New Labour circles, and currently works as an adviser to Sadiq Khan. Apparently, he and people of his ilk were pretty supportive of Cameron and Johnson (when he was mayor) because they saw them as fellow liberals."
The Westminster leader of the SNP was on Question Time a couple of days ago and made (to the incredulity of the rest of the panel and the audience) the claim that Starmer was really Cameron in red clothing. But what I say above really does prove his point. [Post edited 18 Mar 2023 10:03]
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| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 10:50 - Mar 18 with 1871 views | Swansea_Blue |
| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 10:01 - Mar 18 by DJR |
I am not sure whether you saw the following which I posted a few weeks ago.
"The admiration by the right of the Labour Party for aspects of Tory policy is also confirmed by what a friend of mine who worked for Labour in the early Blair years has told me. He has a friend who is and was pretty high up in Blairite/New Labour circles, and currently works as an adviser to Sadiq Khan. Apparently, he and people of his ilk were pretty supportive of Cameron and Johnson (when he was mayor) because they saw them as fellow liberals."
The Westminster leader of the SNP was on Question Time a couple of days ago and made (to the incredulity of the rest of the panel and the audience) the claim that Starmer was really Cameron in red clothing. But what I say above really does prove his point. [Post edited 18 Mar 2023 10:03]
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I understand where you and Darth are coming from on this and I agree to an extent. But it’s back to the old chestnut of better to have someone like Blair than someone more radical who doesn’t get voted in. Things were FAR better under Blair/Brown. There no chance of genuinely progressive social democracy until the press is dealt with (and even then social media grifters will make that a much harder goal than it would have been).
Bottom line, it’s a two horse race between Starmer and Sunak. I know which horse I’ll back even if I’d prefer a unicorn. | |
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| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 11:17 - Mar 18 with 1803 views | Clapham_Junction |
| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 19:29 - Mar 17 by HARRY10 |
"The Conservative party put pressure on the BBC not to describe a claim by Boris Johnson that Keir Starmer failed to prosecute Jimmy Savile as “false”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/mar/17/tories-pressured-bbc-over-johns
And therein lies, literally, the problem with Parliament. Not the idiocy of PR/Coalition, but the clear lack of accountability. The gutbucket was able to lie consistently at the dispatch box with the speaker, bowing and scrapping to the Tory benches.
And if the numpties still want a reason why PR s such a disaster then look cross the Channel. Macron was able to use the 'deciding vote' to push through pension reform to block the logjam. This will always exist.
Given NO Parliament in the past century or so has seen one party with an overall vote count majority PR would merely deliver up a coalition. One where the minority party does not get to stop anything, but is given a policy or two of their own. And you need look no further than Scotland to see what can happen.
Instead of holding another election the SNP got into bed with the Greens to prop them up. Part of the deal was the trans stuff. Legislation, rightly or wrongly, that was not voted for by SNP members. Something that is now tearing the party asunder.
Had the UK had PR in 2019 in would not have made a jot of difference, as the idea that a right wing/ and left wing LibDem and Labour would have formed a coalition does not equate to the realities.
yes, you can claim that the House better reflects the vote, BUT and it is a big BUT, unless that can be transformed into power it is not so much impotent as dangerous - when voters discover they've been had
oir all the squeaks about the number of seats the Tories got, it needed only the one seat more to have the casting vote. PR simply means squalid, back stairs, horse trading (SNP/Greens).
Until the real reforms are brought in, making Parliament less accountable to voters will not improve things.
A transparent system of checking and correcting intentional lies. Remove second jobs. disbar cnts like Hancock who now seems to be solely trying to promote himself as a 'celebrity'. Likewise the bloater, whose appearances at parliament are as infrequent his bouts of honesty.
Parliament should be about what a person can do to help others, not what it can do for someone to help themselves. |
France does not use PR and Macron was able to push the law through due a constitutional provision that we do not have, so your comparison is irrelevant.
Coalition government simply needs grown up politics that accepts compromises are a necessary part of life. However, what I do think should happen is that parties should be required to state in advance of an election which other parties they would be willing to form a coalition government with, and they are not subsequently allowed to form a government with other parties (and if no-one can form a coalition with a majority of seats, another election has to be held). [Post edited 18 Mar 2023 11:29]
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| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 13:41 - Mar 18 with 1679 views | bournemouthblue |
| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 13:13 - Mar 17 by Swansea_Blue |
Yes, his defence stance is rather idealistic isn’t it. Wanting everyone to be friends is a noble aim, but not much good when you’ve got a psychopathic mini dictator invading people.
Their 2017 and 2019 manifestos seem like a missed opportunities- so much in there that would fix problems people are now shouting about. But Corbyn. But the magic money tree. How damaging those attack lines have been. I very much doubt anything Labour would have done off their own bat would have cost the country as much as the Tories have (Brexit the only uncertainty - Corbyn would have had to have seen it through, meaning the ~£40bn/yr hit to the treasury would have stayed. But then maybe they’d have got a softer deal with the EU). [Post edited 17 Mar 2023 13:14]
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Can you imagine how the right wing media would have handled CoVid under Corbyn
They'd be losing their mind about the Furlough scheme | |
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| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 14:00 - Mar 18 with 1641 views | pointofblue |
| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 09:12 - Mar 18 by Darth_Koont |
Yes, Rachel Reeves is to the right of say, George Osborne on pretty much everything. You’d suspect her of being a right-wing plant if she weren’t entirely representative of the Labour right-wingers that now have total control of the party.
All a bit concerning that the only “alternatives” for the UK are both continuations of our slide right and in decline. The only difference is that the Tories want to get us there even quicker and more chaotically. Although I think the emptiness and lack of ideas from Labour and its major representatives will just screw the country over in a slightly different way.
As a public not at all served by our democracy we should be much more concerned by or at least questioning the prospect of a Labour opposition and future government that will effectively shore up the establishment interests these right-wingers have come to fetishise. And closing off any genuine alternative to the reality outside the establishment of decades of decline and a society/economy that’s coming apart at the seams.
Unfortunately, the journalists and pundits here pretty much nod along with that consensus/settlement too, whether it’s because their interests and incentives are largely the same. Or whether they’re as ideologically narrow and unquestioning as the Labour right and what passes for British “centrism”. Bit from Column A, bit from Column B, I suspect. |
It's got to the point where I'm even wondering if five more years of Conservative government is needed to shake the country of the funk of Tory or Tory Lite. Blair got a lot of understandable criticism from the left but I'd argue even his government wasn't as far to the right as Starmer's Labour.
Everything is collapsing. Is it better to let it fall apart completely and build from the rubble or allow someone to shore up the building using the same shoddy foundation? I honestly don't know. Safe to say, as it stands, I will not be voting for either the Conservatives or Labour at the next election. | |
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| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 21:04 - Mar 18 with 1522 views | DJR |
| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 10:50 - Mar 18 by Swansea_Blue |
I understand where you and Darth are coming from on this and I agree to an extent. But it’s back to the old chestnut of better to have someone like Blair than someone more radical who doesn’t get voted in. Things were FAR better under Blair/Brown. There no chance of genuinely progressive social democracy until the press is dealt with (and even then social media grifters will make that a much harder goal than it would have been).
Bottom line, it’s a two horse race between Starmer and Sunak. I know which horse I’ll back even if I’d prefer a unicorn. |
I entirely see where you are coming from too.
I suppose my issue (and with the fixing of selection panels this appears to be irreversible) is that Labour have thrown out the baby (some popular left wing policies) with the bath water (Corbyn).
So a better analogy than a unicorn is that they could be putting forward a work horse (in policy terms), which at least would represent a difference from the very similar pure bread stallions on offer.
At the end of the day, I still believe the next election is not in the bag for Labour, and the smaller the difference between the parties, the less inclined many (particularly the young) will be to vote for them, assuming they vote at all.
It mustn't be forgotten that Labour in 2017 (when Brexit wasn't the defining issue) were less than 3% behind the Tories, and received a share of the vote which they have only beaten twice since 1970.
So whatever Corbyn's failings, it seems to me that some of the things he advocated could have been built on. But instead, they appear to have been confined to history.
Having said all this, there's probably little point in discussing this further. I suppose it's just that every time Labour make a pronouncement, or do something that I am disappointed with, it hits me just that bit harder because I am a Labour member. [Post edited 19 Mar 2023 8:54]
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| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 09:38 - Mar 19 with 1357 views | Darth_Koont |
Never mind the BBC and John Ware still trying to pressure Forde and shamelessly push the idea that the now discredited Panorama doc wasn’t a shoddily awful piece of journalism in the first place.
Ultimately, this is the most worrying and damning part of Martin Forde’s testimony. Reinforced by the media omertà now even when it’s been in the public domain for days.
We have a media that is institutionally racist. And that’s before you even start to address the lack of journalistic integrity and amateurishness that has turned our democracy into a joke. | |
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| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 09:51 - Mar 19 with 1319 views | Darth_Koont |
| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 14:00 - Mar 18 by pointofblue |
It's got to the point where I'm even wondering if five more years of Conservative government is needed to shake the country of the funk of Tory or Tory Lite. Blair got a lot of understandable criticism from the left but I'd argue even his government wasn't as far to the right as Starmer's Labour.
Everything is collapsing. Is it better to let it fall apart completely and build from the rubble or allow someone to shore up the building using the same shoddy foundation? I honestly don't know. Safe to say, as it stands, I will not be voting for either the Conservatives or Labour at the next election. |
I know what you mean.
It’s wall-to-wall inadequacy in our main parties and media. The dearth of ideas and solutions isn’t even the main concern, it’s the almost complete lack of interest in the real, underlying problems. | |
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| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 09:56 - Mar 19 with 1307 views | BanksterDebtSlave |
| BBC impartiality and integrity at its best again on 14:00 - Mar 18 by pointofblue |
It's got to the point where I'm even wondering if five more years of Conservative government is needed to shake the country of the funk of Tory or Tory Lite. Blair got a lot of understandable criticism from the left but I'd argue even his government wasn't as far to the right as Starmer's Labour.
Everything is collapsing. Is it better to let it fall apart completely and build from the rubble or allow someone to shore up the building using the same shoddy foundation? I honestly don't know. Safe to say, as it stands, I will not be voting for either the Conservatives or Labour at the next election. |
Bring on the rubble! |  |
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