|
Jan 2020
9:10am, 2 Jan 2020
20,259 posts
|
TRO Saracen
I have become far too entangled with politics; it's profoundly negative and not good for mental health. The party I voted for most of my life has been on a suicide mission, and will probably remain something I cannot support. Everyone's angry all the time, things are bad but talked up as apocalyptic and going to get worse but we're now in a position where nothing can be done really. Most stuff is hysterical white noise and it's doing my nut in and has taken too much time and energy already.
I tended to get engaged around GE's only but this has been continuous since 2016.
So I'm actively disengaging - this thread and other sources of political info I use and relegating the whole area to background rather than front and centre.
See you in 2024...
|
|
Jan 2020
9:28am, 2 Jan 2020
161 posts
|
Stander
I completely get your view TRO - I have untangled myself from this thread a lot more recently as also fed up with all the negativity.
|
|
Jan 2020
9:35am, 2 Jan 2020
6,052 posts
|
jda
Much the same here. Added to the realisation that reason simply doesn't play a role for a large proportion of voters, ie you can't reason someone out of a decision they did not reason themselves into. Too many of the population simply have an unshakeable emotional investment in brexit, including the tory party, so even though they seem to be a clear minority across the country they hold absolute power under our electoral system and we will just have to see it play out.
(Incidentally, this doesn't mean I think that brexit voters are uniquely stupid and stubborn, there might well be a similar number on the other side, it just happens that they are making a better decision in this particular instance)
I am not going to hold back on the told-you-so opportunities, though.
|
|
Jan 2020
9:38am, 2 Jan 2020
3,041 posts
|
Bob!
simbil
I saw a YouGov Poll of party members showing that Sir Keir is likely to win the ballots to become next leader
|
|
Jan 2020
9:52am, 2 Jan 2020
8,334 posts
|
simbil
Interesting Bob, would be a step in the right direction for Labour.
|
|
Jan 2020
10:39am, 2 Jan 2020
1,982 posts
|
Canute
While I empathize with the frustration that liberal-minded people are currently experiencing, I do not think it is the right time to be stepping back from political engagement. It is more crucial than at any time since the end of the cold war for liberal voices to be heard, both in the country at large and within the labour party.
|
|
Jan 2020
10:46am, 2 Jan 2020
18,687 posts
|
ChrisHB
Thanks, Canute.
What I have found depressing this week was an unreadable article in the Guardian by Rebecca Long-Bailey about what Labour needs to do.
If I find it unreadable, how will she address the country?
|
|
Jan 2020
11:02am, 2 Jan 2020
15,655 posts
|
Chrisull
"Progressive patriotism" is a Milibandism if ever I saw one. But yes it's not a great opening pitch.
I think RLB has already burned her bridges. Rumours are she wants to sack Milne and Murphy (yay), which has led to Murphy and others now considering backing Ian Lavery as the Corbyn continuity candidate instead. These kind of divisions *should* stop the succession being sown up by the Corbynite left, as I have predicted before, because they cannot unite.
So it's Starmer's to lose, his first article was way better, and he's also a "clean skin" on Iraq (never got to vote on it but marched against it), and apparently some of the old Corbynites think he's the best option along with some of the Blairites (Adonis) so he could unite both wings to some extent. He speaks well, is sensible, has a good record on anti-semitism (he will not tolerate it), doesn't mean he'll get it but Labour doesn't always mess up on succession. Smith succeeded Kinnock in 92. Blair succeeded Smith in 94. Both were obvious choices. Brown succeeded Blair unopposed. Maybe the wrong Miliband got it in 2010, BUT Iraq was and is a festering wound, and Miliband D was too much of a continuation of what had happened in the past. The slow drift and disillusionment in the north started under Blair as the pollsters have shown, it's just no-one since has been able to arrest it.
Corbyn stood against a field of people like Burnham, Cooper and Kendal who were not offering anything new or anything remotely other than beige, bland Milibandism which had already failed once against Cameron and looked likely to do so again. I like Cooper, but she came up with some awful waffle on the information economy, and only since 2015 did she find her feet backing refugee entry in the UK. So I think Starmer should make it, Long Bailey will have to stand up and inspire if she wants it, it isn't just a case of "he's a knight" or "he's from London" that will win it for her. I think the Corbynites preferred Pidcock (who is undoubtedly the better speaker) and don't know what to do now she's lost her seat.
|
|
Jan 2020
11:06am, 2 Jan 2020
6,053 posts
|
jda
“Being heard” doesn’t count for much with a Tory majority of 80. But I’m not going to stop voting and I’m even giving a talk locally which may touch on political matters (though nominally about climate change, intergenerational inequity plays a big role there too).
|
|
Jan 2020
11:45am, 2 Jan 2020
2,418 posts
|
Fellrunning
I think what depresses me is the sheer level of general ignorance. The failure to grasp or understand quite basic stuff that most people my age ought to have learned aged 12.
An example: I was recently talking to an anti vaxxer about herd immunity. From the conversation it was clear that they didn't have the first idea about how basic probability works. That's not matter of opinion. It's not a matter of me just thinking I'm right.I AM fucking right. The mathematics simply doesn't lie. There is no "Alternative fact". There's the facts as discovered by the ancient Greeks and there's bullshit.
|
Fantasy General Election
Jul 2024
