# Are you going to vote Labour in 2015?



## butchersapron (Nov 18, 2013)

Are you? Were you previously a lib-dem? A never vote labour after iraq type? If so, why are you now voting labour? Any other motivations please post them. (I won't attack you)

No poll.


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## Frances Lengel (Nov 18, 2013)

I'm going to vote labour. Coz I'm a _drone._

In all seriousness, I am going to vote labour though. As a least worst thing - yeah they are doing the neoliberal gig, but they aren't doing it as fast or as enthusiastically as the bullingdon lads. We wouldn't have the bedroom tax had labour won the last election, I'm confident of that. And look at all the surestart  places and homeless gaffes that're being shut down - Them places made a difference. If it's bread and circuses or  a punch in the tits, I'll take the former. Doesn't mean I like labour though.


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## Puddy_Tat (Nov 18, 2013)

Dunno.  Depends to some extent where I'm living in 2015.

If I'm still here, I'm in a constituency where the incumbent tory twunt invariably gets over 50% of the vote.  If local council elections since 2010 are anything to go by, the lib dem vote will shrink but not evaporate completely, the labour vote will go up a bit, and the tories will get a bigger majority in terms of numbers if not share.

I have in the more distant past (i.e. before Clegg) voted Lib-Dem here on the basis that it's the best anti tory vote (when the tories were at their lowest ebb we got as far as a no overall control council which the lib dems ran) also on a personal level the lib-dem PPC here is a good local councillor.  I didn't in 2010 as I thought that Clegg was getting too cosy with the tories (I got a lot of abuse on a few web forums before the 2010 election for saying so)

If I'm somewhere marginal, then dunno really.  The outcome of the next general election will either be a tory government, a tory led coalition, a labour led coalition, or a labour government.  Despite all the faults of not-so-new labour, I still think a labour government would be marginally less shit than a tory government.

It is however hard to summon up much enthusiasm for a 'vote labour - marginally less shit than the tories' platform.

Realistically, there are less than half a dozen seats in England where any other party (and the greens and respect both also have their faults) stand the slightest chance of getting elected.

There doesn't seem to be a branch of proletarian democracy here.

I feel uncomfortable with the abstention / draw a cock on the paper* option

I'm not convinced that the blue /red / yellow tories really care if less and less people bother to vote as they will still get in.

BLARGH

* - although i also worry if that would be counted as a vote for my local tory


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## DotCommunist (Nov 18, 2013)

No, not even for salt-of-the-earth sawford cos he failed to back mcdonnels prayer over IDS retroactively making his slavery programs legal. Thats the reason I won't vote for _him_ anyway.

as for the wider party machine I'd sooner cut my dick off with a rusty breadknife.


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## bi0boy (Nov 18, 2013)

No. I'm not convinced they are the "least worst" option. My opinion might change though but not while Ed Balls is shadow Chancellor. Also our local Labour PPC is apparently useless and our local incumbent LibDem is quite good.


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## redsquirrel (Nov 18, 2013)

Well if I'm still here in Australia I won't be able to vote but even if I did move back to the UK I wouldn't vote Labour (or Green).

A vote for Labour is a vote for "austerity", it's a vote for faith schools, for the continuing attack on what remains of the welfare state, for the privatisation of the NHS, for the attacks on the unemployed and those on benefits.


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## Tankus (Nov 18, 2013)

No


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## Wilf (Nov 18, 2013)

Nope, for some predictable anarcho-reasons.  Over the last few weeks I've involved in getting my Dad some long term NHS care, in the middle of our fucked up privatised NHS-Care interface, so I could _just_ see me making a futile gesture of voting for some 'save our nhs' type candidate if there was an election in the next week or so (whilst making the obvious point there was plenty wrong with the welfare state, even in its 'golden age').  Ultimately though, no, politicians are the enemy.


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Nov 18, 2013)

Doubt it. We're in a safe Labour seat anyway so it's probably another token green or something similar vote for me. Keep up my lifelong record of never voting for a winning candidate. I do hope they win though, however  shit they are.


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## Crispy (Nov 18, 2013)

Highly unlikely. The tories don't need stopping here and I don't want to encourage labour, just let them win with a tiny turnout. Lib Dems did pretty well last time, but I expect that to evaporate.

If I vote it'll be for whatever token lefties have managed to get on the ballot, or maybe Green. Dunno.


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## cesare (Nov 18, 2013)

No. They aren't going to reverse anything the coalition has done, Fitzpatrick didn't oppose IDS's retroactive legislation cuntery, there's no sign of this policy review EB said they were going to carry out etc etc etc. There's only a rizla between them and the coalition, anyway.


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## Spanky Longhorn (Nov 18, 2013)

Yes, the local MP is really good even if I don't always agree with the way she votes, she is good with the constituency as we'll and seems like a human being.

I always vote for someone and the last couple of times Labour have been the only option though I did vote CPB in 2010 in a safe Labour seat.

There will almost certainly be a TUSC candidate here but the only time you see them locally is screaming unintelligibly into microphones on a Saturday morning outside the shopping centre - they don't do any real work


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## belboid (Nov 18, 2013)

hmm, will I vote for David Blunkett?

Will I cut off my bollocks with an old C90?

The latter is more likely


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## redsquirrel (Nov 18, 2013)

Who's your local MP Spanky Longhorn (if you don't mind me asking)


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## ChrisFilter (Nov 18, 2013)

I doubt I'll vote. I've moved to one of the safest Tory seats in the country. What's the point.


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## Wilf (Nov 18, 2013)

,


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## comrade spurski (Nov 18, 2013)

I hate the idea of not voting but voting for the current Labour party is in a lot of ways a vote for more of the same.
But I remember how sick I felt whenever the Tories have won an election...but I want to vote FOR something rather than just against the Tories/Lib Dem Coalition. 
I guess I will see if a socialist or green candidate stands ... although I don't always agree 100% with those that do at least I can vote FOR chance rather than just against the same old same old.


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## chilango (Nov 18, 2013)

Yes.

For the first time ever.

"To get the Tories out".

That's it.

I know all the arguments against this. I've been making them myself for years and years.

I haven't voted in a GE since 1997. Then I spoilt with a lovely pink sticker.

Last time I voted for a Party was back in 92 as a first time voter.

But, now those bastards have forced my hand.

Labour in 2015.

Hopefully never again.


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## redsquirrel (Nov 18, 2013)

To follow up on chilago's comment how many people are going back to Labour in 2015 after not voting for them in 2010?


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## jakethesnake (Nov 18, 2013)

I'll vote Labour (again)... not happy about it but don't see any real alternative.


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## comrade spurski (Nov 18, 2013)

chilango said:


> Yes.
> 
> For the first time ever.
> 
> ...



I think that lots of people will do that...and in all honestly I can think of far worse things to do...so don't be too hard on yourself


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## Pickman's model (Nov 18, 2013)

cesare said:


> No. They aren't going to reverse anything the coalition has done, Fitzpatrick didn't oppose IDS's retroactive legislation cuntery, there's no sign of this policy review EB said they were going to carry out etc etc etc. There's only a rizla between them and the coalition, anyway.


not a rizla, a line of charlie. and we all know who's going to snort that.


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## D'wards (Nov 18, 2013)

I'm voting for labour in a least-worst option type of way.

I'd basically tactically vote to oust the Tories.

I wonder if we will end up with a coallition including UKIP in the next election *shudder*. In fact, if labour don't do very well, and the tories don't get a majority i could see a coallition between UKIP and Conservative, Gawd!


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## redsquirrel (Nov 18, 2013)

Unless something pretty spectacular happens in the next year it's going to be a Labour gov

(and this thread shows part of the reason why)


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## marty21 (Nov 18, 2013)

I'm in a ultra safe Labour seat , Abbott increased her majority in the last election, so I will see who else is standing from the left .


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## Pickman's model (Nov 18, 2013)

redsquirrel said:


> Unless something pretty spectacular happens in the next year it's going to be a Labour gov
> 
> (and this thread shows part of the reason why)


yeh and by the end of 2015 people will be regretting voting it in.


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## Pickman's model (Nov 18, 2013)

marty21 said:


> I'm in a ultra safe Labour seat , Abbott increased her majority in the last election, so I will see who is standing from the left .


corrected for you


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## purenarcotic (Nov 18, 2013)

No; I have never been under an illusion that things will be wonderful under Labour but in the past they did some good stuff for young people which has been decimated now and I thought that might come back.

I think now though it's crystal clear that won't happen: I've not really seen anything from them at all that tells me they are serious about reversing the shower of shite we've been served and although it will be packaged up in a fluffier manner, it's not going to be any different to what we have.


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## mk12 (Nov 18, 2013)

chilango said:


> Yes.
> 
> For the first time ever.
> 
> ...


 
This (ish).


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## marty21 (Nov 18, 2013)

Pickman's model said:


> corrected for you


Fair point


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## chilango (Nov 18, 2013)

Pickman's model said:


> yeh and by the end of 2015 people will be regretting voting it in.



I'll be regretting it regardless of who gets in, and regardless of who I do or don't vote for.


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## Pickman's model (Nov 18, 2013)

marty21 said:


> Fair point


perhaps you could write a sonnet about your voting predicament.


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## Puddy_Tat (Nov 18, 2013)

D'wards said:


> i could see a coallition between UKIP and Conservative, Gawd!


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## Streathamite (Nov 18, 2013)

Yes, because my local MP is a Campaign group perma-rebel and also really good. That and wanting to get the Tories out are just about  good enough reasons.


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## The Pale King (Nov 18, 2013)

I don't think I could ever vote labour - Afghanistan, Iraq, tuition fees, privitization - you know the drill. I will evaluate the left options as we approach the election. I do live in probably one of the safest labour seats in the country so no danger of a Tory getting in, but even if there was I wouldn't vote labour. They were fucking awful in power and its mostly the same gang. I'd be open to some sort of co-ordinated ballet spoiling maybe.


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## belboid (Nov 18, 2013)

redsquirrel said:


> Unless something pretty spectacular happens in the next year it's going to be a Labour gov
> 
> (and this thread shows part of the reason why)


I wouldnt be entirely sure about that. Largest party, fer sure, but a majority....quite possibly not.


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## Onket (Nov 18, 2013)

ChrisFilter said:


> I doubt I'll vote. I've moved to one of the safest Tory seats in the country. What's the point.



This↑

Except I will vote. Last time it was Labour, sadly.


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## Bahnhof Strasse (Nov 18, 2013)

Solid tory constituency, doubt libdems will even be on the ballot paper. Will not vote, fuck giving any of them a mandate.


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## King Biscuit Time (Nov 18, 2013)

I'm in Nick Clegg's seat. I'll vote for any non-Tory* with a realistic chance of unseating him.

* or UKIP, Fash , etc etc etc


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## Spanky Longhorn (Nov 18, 2013)

D'wards said:


> I'm voting for labour in a least-worst option type of way.
> 
> I'd basically tactically vote to oust the Tories.
> 
> I wonder if we will end up with a coallition including UKIP in the next election *shudder*. In fact, if labour don't do very well, and the tories don't get a majority i could see a coallition between UKIP and Conservative, Gawd!


UKiP will almost certainly not win a seat' so are unlikely to play any role in government


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## Puddy_Tat (Nov 18, 2013)

King Biscuit Time said:


> I'm in Nick Clegg's seat. I'll vote for any non-Tory* with a realistic chance of unseating him.
> 
> * or UKIP, Fash , etc etc etc



I think this was discussed on another thread some while back, aren't the tories second in that constituency?

If I was in Nick Clegg's seat, I'd almost be tempted to vote tory just to unseat the cunt. 

I'd rather have a tory who's honest about being a tory.


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## Dogsauce (Nov 18, 2013)

I've got Reeves in my seat, which is very safe Labour, so have the luxury of choosing a minor candidate if one stands (usually get a green here, one of the local councillors who is pretty sound, though I have some issues with the greens nationally, rarely get a socialist).  Didn't vote for Reeves last time after she was parachuted in, but voted for her predecessor without much guilt - John Battle who was quite old-school Labour, voted against Iraq, was involved of some of the anti-militarisation campaigns and did a good job fighting to get compensation for victims of asbestos exposure in a local factory after the multinational responsible tried to walk away.  If something weird happens like a UKIP surge amongst trad labour voters and threatens to get a tory in locally then I would hold my nose, but that's a very unlikely scenario.  I just couldn't counter how far beyond punchable Cameron's face would be if he secured a majority.


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## chilango (Nov 18, 2013)

King Biscuit Time said:


> I'm in Nick Clegg's seat. I'll vote for any non-Tory* with a realistic chance of unseating him.
> 
> * or UKIP, Fash , etc etc etc



Hmm...wwid?

http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/would-you-vote-tory-to-finish-the-lib-dems.302795/


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## redsquirrel (Nov 18, 2013)

Puddy_Tat said:


> I think this was discussed on another thread some while back, aren't the tories second in that constituency?
> 
> If I was in Nick Clegg's seat, I'd almost be tempted to vote tory just to unseat the cunt.


If that was your main aim why wouldn't you vote Labour?

IIRC they took a whole load of the council wards in Cleggs seat off the LDs two years ago.


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## girasol (Nov 18, 2013)

yep, need to get the Tories out. voted Labour last time too...


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## Spanky Longhorn (Nov 18, 2013)

http://www.stokesocialistparty.org....blow-to-labour-another-step-forward-for-tusc/

TUSC doing well anyway...


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## DotCommunist (Nov 18, 2013)

cesare said:


> No. They aren't going to reverse anything the coalition has done, Fitzpatrick didn't oppose IDS's retroactive legislation cuntery, there's no sign of this policy review EB said they were going to carry out etc etc etc. There's only a rizla between them and the coalition, anyway.




something thinner than a rizla. A gnats chuff hair. A sheet of monofilament


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## DotCommunist (Nov 18, 2013)

girasol said:


> yep, need to get the Tories out. voted Labour last time too...




you don't need to get them out. They'll be hoofed out regardless.


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## Dogsauce (Nov 18, 2013)

Puddy_Tat said:


> If I was in Nick Clegg's seat, I'd almost be tempted to vote tory just to unseat the cunt.
> 
> I'd rather have a tory who's honest about being a tory.


 
I could be tempted to shift my residence temporarily to Leeds north-west, a three way marginal held by a lib dem with a dodgy voting record on abortion (one of the closet Christian types - I think the LDs have a few of these).  I think he'll struggle with the student vote despite voting the right way on a couple of things for them (tactically rather than idealistically I imagine - lib dems don't have ideals), though then again the students will probably be too busy taking instagrams of each other to actually vote and the monied classes out in the suburbs will put a tory back in.


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## redsquirrel (Nov 18, 2013)

Dogsauce said:


> I could be tempted to shift my residence temporarily to Leeds north-west, a three way marginal held by a lib dem with a dodgy voting record on abortion (one of the closet Christian types - I think the LDs have a few of these).  I think he'll struggle with the student vote despite voting the right way on a couple of things for them (tactically rather than idealistically I imagine - lib dems don't have ideals), though then again the students will probably be too busy taking instagrams of each other to actually vote and the monied classes out in the suburbs will put a tory back in.


It's not that marginal, the LDs hold it by 20+%. Even so I think there's a good shot that they will lose it. I also think Labour must be eyeing Pudsey, weren't far off holding it last time (I think they would have if Truswell hadn't stood down).


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## xenon (Nov 18, 2013)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Doubt it. We're in a safe Labour seat anyway so it's probably another token green or something similar vote for me. Keep up my lifelong record of never voting for a winning candidate. I do hope they win though, however  shit they are.


^ Similar here. I'll vote for Labour if there's any danger of Libdem, Tories or Greens getting in. (Not likely as it stands.) Otherwise, I'll properly look at any minor candidates this time, or abstain.

I voted Labour 97, 2001, didn't bother 2005 and Libdem in 2010. I've already explained / fest up to why I made that most recent mistake.


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## Dogsauce (Nov 18, 2013)

redsquirrel said:


> It's not that marginal, the LDs hold it by 20+%. Even so I think there's a good shot that they will lose it. I also think Labour must be eyeing Pudsey, weren't far off holding it last time (I think they would have if Truswell hadn't stood down).


 
Leeds NW has been tory and labour since I lived in Leeds, and the student vote was very motivated last time - can't see that happening this time. He's the sort of guy who'll never miss a local paper photoshoot for some issue or another, annoying self-promoting type, but that works for some people.

Pudsey ought to come back to Labour.  Locally, Shipley might be an interesting one because they've got that libertarian prick there (Philip 'lower minimum wage for the disabled' Davies), but he's quite popular sadly so may hang on.


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## Balbi (Nov 18, 2013)

DotCommunist said:


> something thinner than a rizla. A gnats chuff hair. A sheet of monofilament



A lib dem manifesto.


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## RedDragon (Nov 18, 2013)

Where I am they weigh the Labour vote rather than count it and we have one of the few decent MP's, but I'd really like a way of showing my dissatisfaction with central command.


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## ddraig (Nov 18, 2013)

No


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## editor (Nov 18, 2013)

I'd vote Plaid Cymru if I could.


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## bendeus (Nov 18, 2013)

editor said:


> I'd vote Plaid Cymru if I could.


I'm a member of Plaid. However, I may hold my nose and vote Labour in the next election because where I live (Vale of Glamorgan) is always tight as fuck (often decided by a mere handful of votes) and I just cannot stomach the possibility of enabling the cunts to retain the seat if it's close again.

Promised myself I'd never vote Labour again after '97 and hate to do so now. 'Democracy', eh?


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## StoneRoad (Nov 18, 2013)

I'm in a very safe Tory seat, unfortunately the next most popular candidate is always a lib-dem.
- This leaves me with a quandary of epic proportions. 
I will vote, just not for either of those two parties.


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## Puddy_Tat (Nov 18, 2013)

editor said:


> I'd vote Plaid Cymru if I could.



would they let you stand as a candidate in Brixton?


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## DotCommunist (Nov 18, 2013)

there is literally no point voting labour whatsoever. None. Even decent candidates in your area with a good constituency workers rep. They are hamstrung by the party machine. There are not enough of them to ever change things within the party. They may well be decent fellows but they are wasting their energy in a party that won't move back to even reformist soft left soc/dec policies. A party so terrified of the right wing press it can barely squaek about reigning in energy theives before being cowed by cries of 'marxism' from the r/w press. A party that refuses to defend any strike, a party so utterly taken over by the careerists and fabians it ceased to be relevant to working class interests since before I was old enough to have a shit without being led to the toilet. The vote for labour is a vote for some lube on your bumming- and even thats a lie- it'll be dry as the tories do it.


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## editor (Nov 18, 2013)

Puddy_Tat said:


> would they let you stand as a candidate in Brixton?


I'm about 130 miles too far east.


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## Delroy Booth (Nov 18, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> Are you? Were you previously a lib-dem? A never vote labour after iraq type? If so, why are you now voting labour? Any other motivations please post them. (I won't attack you)
> 
> No poll.



Quite possibly. I'm in a swing seat for the first time in my life so it actually matters.


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## brogdale (Nov 18, 2013)

editor said:


> I'm about 130 miles too far east.


 Ostend?


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## brogdale (Nov 18, 2013)

No.

Spolit* paper for me.
The constituency is a fairly 'safe' LD seat, (29th), so likely that Brake (locally quite 'popular'), will hold off the tories. In 2010 the NL share of the vote fell 8% to 8%.

* e2a : last time i did engage the polling station staff about how they might respond if a voter accepted _*their*_ ballot paper and then just left with it. I'm tempted to try that one, as a variant to simply spoiling.


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## Mation (Nov 18, 2013)

I always voted Labour until the last election, when I didn't vote at all due to reasons not terribly political. But I wouldn't have voted Labour then and I still couldn't bring myself to now. In the past it was that I could never vote Tory and voting otherwise would have been a waste or just preposterous. Now it's because Labour is _so _fucking offensive. And there's no one else. Well - there is Class War


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## spanglechick (Nov 18, 2013)

probably.  no point voting for anyone else...  safe labour seat anyway, but safe labour seats only stay as such because people like me decide to vote for the safe candidate regardless.

labour are cunts, but a little less so than the tories and ultimately, that's important.  it does matter.  it's one thing that they won't overturn the damage, but another tory government would do the most terrifying harm.  for Gove to have any more time at education, or for him to end up fucking over anything else makes me feel ill.  the man is dangerous.  for him alone, i must do whatever futile thing i can.

it's a trite little cliche but it's true:  the thing about the lesser of two evils is, you get less evil.


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## brogdale (Nov 18, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> Are you? Were you previously a lib-dem? A never vote labour after iraq type? If so, why are you now voting labour? Any other motivations please post them. (I won't attack you)
> 
> No poll.



How 'bout yerself?


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## _angel_ (Nov 18, 2013)

Dogsauce said:


> I've got Reeves in my seat, which is very safe Labour,



hello neighbour!

RR stands out a mile in Bramley it's true. 

I won't be voting for her, no.


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## Puddy_Tat (Nov 18, 2013)

editor said:


> I'm about 130 miles too far east.





plaid llambeth?


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## Delroy Booth (Nov 18, 2013)

brogdale said:


> How 'bout yerself?



Surely the whole point of this thread is to identify the Labour voters now so he can batter you round the head with it once Miliband gets in and starts passing the same cuts as the Tories?


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## Plumdaff (Nov 18, 2013)

No. I'll probably vote Plaid but with no illusions about how genuinely radical they are.


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## Mation (Nov 18, 2013)

spanglechick said:


> probably.  no point voting for anyone else...  safe labour seat anyway, but safe labour seats only stay as such because people like me decide to vote for the safe candidate regardless.
> 
> labour are cunts, but a little less so than the tories and ultimately, that's important.  it does matter.  it's one thing that they won't overturn the damage, but another tory government would do the most terrifying harm.  for Gove to have any more time at education, or for him to end up fucking over anything else makes me feel ill.  the man is dangerous.  for him alone, i must do whatever futile thing i can.
> 
> it's a trite little cliche but it's true:  the thing about the lesser of two evils is, *you get less evil*.


I don't think that's true anymore (the bit I emboldened), of this particular situation. What would they rescind? What would they introduce that helped people? I don't know of anything.


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## quimcunx (Nov 18, 2013)

Crispy said:


> Highly unlikely. The tories don't need stopping here and I don't want to encourage labour, just let them win with a tiny turnout. Lib Dems did pretty well last time, but I expect that to evaporate.
> 
> If I vote it'll be for whatever token lefties have managed to get on the ballot, or maybe Green. Dunno.



This.  Possibly even at the same voting station.  

Historically I've lived in Labour strongholds and voted green or some lefty party.


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## brogdale (Nov 18, 2013)

Delroy Booth said:


> Surely the whole point of this thread is to identify the Labour voters now so he can batter you round the head with it once Miliband gets in and starts passing the same cuts as the Tories?


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## J Ed (Nov 18, 2013)

Depend on where I am living in 2015, if it's Sheffield Hallam then yes but in most circumstances no


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## danny la rouge (Nov 18, 2013)

Many, many, years ago, before the year of the short corn (when the corn was so short that the sparrows had to kneel to peck it) I was a member. I then used to say I could never vote for Tories. My political journey has been long and convoluted, but that maxim remains true: I could still never vote for Tories, which is why I can't vote for my old party.


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## spanglechick (Nov 18, 2013)

Mation said:


> I don't think that's true anymore, of this particular situation. What would they rescind? What would they introduce that helped people? I don't know of anything.


i do believe that labour's version of austerity wouldn't have been so punitive.  I beieve they wouldn't have fucked over the NHS as the tories have done.  I believe that anyone they had in education would have done less damage than Gove.

And another tory government would be another five years of the tories doing worse than labour would.  Labour's new policies would be slightly less cruel. Less nakedly self-interested.  Less shamelessly 'rah-rah-rah, we're off to smash the oiks'.  It's only a small difference but it is an important one.  This has been the tories under a coalition.  Imagine how more draconian they would be if they actually had a proper mandate.


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## J Ed (Nov 18, 2013)

spanglechick said:


> i do believe that labour's version of austerity wouldn't have been so punitive.  I beieve they wouldn't have fucked over the NHS as the tories have done.  I believe that anyone they had in education would have done less damage than Gove.



I agree on the Gove bit (although Labour were the ones to set up faith schools, academies, non-qualified teachers and Teach First) but I don't know why you think the rest of it.


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## Mation (Nov 18, 2013)

spanglechick said:


> i do believe that labour's version of austerity wouldn't have been so punitive.  I beieve they wouldn't have fucked over the NHS as the tories have done.  I believe that anyone they had in education would have done less damage than Gove.
> 
> And another tory government would be another five years of the tories doing worse than labour would.  Labour's new policies would be slightly less cruel. Less nakedly self-interested.  Less shamelessly 'rah-rah-rah, we're off to smash the oiks'.  It's only a small difference but it is an important one.  This has been the tories under a coalition.  Imagine how more draconian they would be if they actually had a proper mandate.


Yes, I do get where you're coming from. I'm just sad that I don't believe it anymore. Let's hope you're right.


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## butchersapron (Nov 18, 2013)

brogdale said:


> How 'bout yerself?


God no, not voting full stop.


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## seventh bullet (Nov 18, 2013)

DotCommunist said:


> there is literally no point voting labour whatsoever. None. Even decent candidates in your area with a good constituency workers rep. They are hamstrung by the party machine. There are not enough of them to ever change things within the party. They may well be decent fellows but they are wasting their energy in a party that won't move back to even reformist soft left soc/dec policies. A party so terrified of the right wing press it can barely squaek about reigning in energy theives before being cowed by cries of 'marxism' from the r/w press. A party that refuses to defend any strike, a party so utterly taken over by the careerists and fabians it ceased to be relevant to working class interests since before I was old enough to have a shit without being led to the toilet. The vote for labour is a vote for some lube on your bumming- and even thats a lie- it'll be dry as the tories do it.



Things can only get similar.


----------



## stethoscope (Nov 18, 2013)

No. Doubt I'll vote.


----------



## J Ed (Nov 18, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> God no, not voting full stop.



Are there circumstances in which you would? If so, what?


----------



## FabricLiveBaby! (Nov 18, 2013)

Seeing as I'm living in Poland I'll probably vote Tory.

Just to piss you all off.


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 18, 2013)

J Ed said:


> Are there circumstances in which you would? If so, what?


None.


----------



## FabricLiveBaby! (Nov 18, 2013)

Srsly tho.  I won't votes.

They're all cunts.

The end.


----------



## seventh bullet (Nov 18, 2013)

FabricLiveBaby! said:


> Srsly tho.  I won't votes.
> 
> They're all cunts.
> 
> The end.



Didn't you vote Lib Dem when you were last here?


----------



## snadge (Nov 18, 2013)

I am of the 'non of the above' option, until I have that option I will not vote, I never have voted in my life.


Yes I do know what my forbears went through but that does not change my opinion.


----------



## J Ed (Nov 18, 2013)

Laurie Penny says we should vote

The voice of my generation speaks and I obey


----------



## emanymton (Nov 18, 2013)

Nope, probably wont vote at all or spoilt ballet.

But I live in a safe labour seat, which makes it a bit simpler.


----------



## Agent Sparrow (Nov 18, 2013)

spanglechick said:


> i do believe that labour's version of austerity wouldn't have been so punitive.  I beieve they wouldn't have fucked over the NHS as the tories have done.  I believe that anyone they had in education would have done less damage than Gove.
> 
> And another tory government would be another five years of the tories doing worse than labour would.  Labour's new policies would be slightly less cruel. Less nakedly self-interested.  Less shamelessly 'rah-rah-rah, we're off to smash the oiks'.  It's only a small difference but it is an important one.  This has been the tories under a coalition.  Imagine how more draconian they would be if they actually had a proper mandate.


This is kinda where I stand, although tbf I do know that the Labour party were doing a lot of back door NHS privatisation that very few people seemed to know about, so on one hand at least the Tories were a bit more honest about it. Still, it may be an untrue assumption, but I don't think Labour would have been quite so destructive of the whole fucking system


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 18, 2013)

Delroy Booth said:


> Surely the whole point of this thread is to identify the Labour voters now so he can batter you round the head with it once Miliband gets in and starts passing the same cuts as the Tories?


That's a yes then.


----------



## FabricLiveBaby! (Nov 18, 2013)

seventh bullet said:


> Didn't you vote Lib Dem when you were last here?




Yup.  I believe in giving people chances.  Labour had pissed me off by being cunts.  No way in hell I was going to vote Tory. Didn't like the idea of not voting and I thought Lib Dems were an alternative option.  Like a lot of other people.  Fool me once - shame on you etc.


----------



## Dexter Deadwood (Nov 18, 2013)




----------



## brogdale (Nov 18, 2013)

emanymton said:


> Nope, probably wont vote at all or _*spoilt ballet*_.
> 
> But I live in a safe labour seat, which makes it a bit simpler.



A bourgeois problem?


----------



## Delroy Booth (Nov 18, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> That's a yes then.



I just wanna wipe the smirk off Simon Revells face to be honest. I have no expectations about a Labour government in 2015 other than it might be marginally more humane than the Tories.


----------



## editor (Nov 18, 2013)

Plumdaff said:


> No. I'll probably vote Plaid but with no illusions about how genuinely radical they are.


Compared the other main parties at least they've got _something_ to say and have a leader that describes herself as a 'Welsh socialist and republican'. That's got to be a start.


----------



## eatmorecheese (Nov 18, 2013)

I have finally reached the stage where I just can't vote for them anymore. I doubt I'll vote at all. I generally feel duped by Labour, and I'm ashamed of that, ashamed that I voted for them in years gone by, even ashamed that I campaigned for them in 1997.

Now I'm just angry.

I wish I could go back in time, find the earnest well-meaning young twat I was and give him a therapeutic slap.


----------



## Red Cat (Nov 18, 2013)

spanglechick said:


> i do believe that labour's version of austerity wouldn't have been so punitive.



For me, this is a difference worth noting. I think the tories are sadistic, they take pleasure in the punishment they inflict. 

Do Labour enact their (same) policies as a punishment?


----------



## stethoscope (Nov 18, 2013)

brogdale said:


> A bourgeois problem?



NUT cracker.


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Nov 18, 2013)

Puddy_Tat said:


> would they let you stand as a candidate in Brixton?


Also known as Bryxddyn?


----------



## emanymton (Nov 18, 2013)

brogdale said:


> A bourgeois problem?


Took me about 2 minutes to figure out what you where on about as the bold is not showing up too well in my screen.


----------



## editor (Nov 18, 2013)

Spanky Longhorn said:


> Also known as Bryxddyn?


In Llambeth, Llundain.


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Nov 18, 2013)

DotCommunist said:


> there is literally no point voting labour whatsoever. None. Even decent candidates in your area with a good constituency workers rep. They are hamstrung by the party machine. There are not enough of them to ever change things within the party. They may well be decent fellows but they are wasting their energy in a party that won't move back to even reformist soft left soc/dec policies. A party so terrified of the right wing press it can barely squaek about reigning in energy theives before being cowed by cries of 'marxism' from the r/w press. A party that refuses to defend any strike, a party so utterly taken over by the careerists and fabians it ceased to be relevant to working class interests since before I was old enough to have a shit without being led to the toilet. The vote for labour is a vote for some lube on your bumming- and even thats a lie- it'll be dry as the tories do it.



So what? I'm not going to vote for some imaginary social democratic utopia. Even less for Marxist revolution. I'm going to vote for someone who will do some decent casework for some of the most needy constituents and who has and will vote for stuff cracking down on payday loans and supporting alternatives. You know what? It's unlikely I will be disappointed because I don't expect anything else. 

I'll presumably be less disappointed than the 400 or so people who will vote TUSC and a lot less than the 20 or so people who go out campaigning for them.


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 18, 2013)

be sure to update me with the inroads made by your candidate into these matters.


----------



## Hocus Eye. (Nov 18, 2013)

J Ed said:


> Laurie Penny says we should vote
> 
> The voice of my generation speaks and I obey


That was in 2010 I don't know if she still thinks the same. She has a good job now. I won't be checking her blog to find out what she currently thinks though.

I will make a protest vote if I make it to the polling station. I hope there is a Raving Loony candidate. They used to have a good manifesto when their main man was alive.


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Nov 18, 2013)

Hocus Eye. said:


> I will make a protest vote if I make it to the polling station. I hope there is a Raving Loony candidate. They used to have a good manifesto when their main man was alive.



UKiP with more jokes.


----------



## stethoscope (Nov 18, 2013)

J Ed said:


> Laurie Penny says we should vote
> 
> The voice of my generation speaks and I obey






			
				LauriePenny said:
			
		

> I'm with the Guardian and with Sunny: if we want anything other than five years of Torygeddon, burning jobcentres and bankers' red-cheeked sons deciding policy in private lunches with their friends from university and the nice men from Fox, then we have to vote first for the party most likely to beat the Conservatives in our particular areas. After that, or if there's no clear and present danger of blue peril, grab a shiny off-yellow biro and vote Lib Dem.



That went well, Penny.


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 18, 2013)

stealthily being undermined by the various Elvis parties


----------



## Plumdaff (Nov 18, 2013)

editor said:


> Compared the other main parties at least they've got _something_ to say and have a leader that describes herself as a 'Welsh socialist and republican'. That's got to be a start.



Leanne Wood I like. But she's not representative of her wider party. Plaid are as happy to enter coalitions and vote for cuts as the rest tbh. It's very depressing to be reduced to best of a terrible bunch. 

I'm talking myself out of voting at all!


----------



## JimW (Nov 18, 2013)

I look likely to be back in UK for the next general election and living in Stroud, so not having voted Labour since christ knows when I may turn out to vote for Dave Drew, the former Labour MP here and current PPC - he's of course shit on a whole range of issues but not the worst of labour and worth it to see the utter Tory arse get booted out I think. Greens do well here but think will get squeezed at a general, so I could probably keep my own hands clean secure in getting my preferred result but ought to do the shameful deed if I want the outcome is my current stance.


----------



## Hocus Eye. (Nov 18, 2013)

Spanky Longhorn said:


> UKiP with more jokes.


It doesn't really matter, but if you think the Monster Raving Loony Party has anything in common with UKIP then you need to do some homework.


----------



## weepiper (Nov 18, 2013)

I'd like to think we will have voted Yes to Scottish Independence the year before, but if we haven't I probably will vote Labour through gritted teeth because my current MP is Labour and actually seems a reasonably decent MP, it was a 3-way marginal seat and there's a very strong chance the Tories might get in again (don't think the Libs have a chance now but you never know I suppose)


----------



## fishfinger (Nov 18, 2013)

I'd vote NOTA if it were an option. As it isn't, I won't vote.


----------



## Fez909 (Nov 18, 2013)

Safe Labour seat for me (Reeves), but I won't be voting for her. I'll vote AGS if they stand (they might only do Leeds NW?) otherwise Greens.
Voted Green last time in a safe Lib Dem seat, didn't vote the one before that, and voted Lib Dem before that in a safe Labour seat.


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Nov 18, 2013)

Fez909 said:


> Safe Labour seat for me (Reeves), but I won't be voting for her. I'll vote AGS if they stand (they might only do Leeds NW?) otherwise Greens.
> Voted Green last time in a safe Lib Dem seat, didn't vote the one before that, and voted Lib Dem before that in a safe Labour seat.



This is to all Green voters not just you, I'm curious do you think Green cuts are better than Labour ones?


----------



## girasol (Nov 18, 2013)

DotCommunist said:


> you don't need to get them out. They'll be hoofed out regardless.



Wouldn't count on it.  Lots of people didn't vote (Labour, or at all) last election and look what happened


----------



## Fez909 (Nov 18, 2013)

Spanky Longhorn said:


> This is to all Green voters not just you, I'm curious do you think Green cuts are better than Labour ones?



I'm conflicted. The Green councillors should have resigned rather than implement the cuts, but to call them "Green cuts" isn't something I think is fair. In a GE this would not be an issue anyway, so for me, a vote for Greens is a vote against cuts.


----------



## Fedayn (Nov 18, 2013)

No


----------



## Favelado (Nov 18, 2013)

I'm not sure which constuituency I'll be able to vote in due to moving in and out of UK since last election and some admin anomalies. I'll vote to the left of Labour if there's a suitable candidate, unless it's very close between Tory and Labour, in which case I will vote for them.


----------



## Frances Lengel (Nov 18, 2013)

cesare said:


> No. They aren't going to reverse anything the coalition has done, Fitzpatrick didn't oppose IDS's retroactive legislation cuntery, there's no sign of this policy review EB said they were going to carry out etc etc etc. There's only a rizla between them and the coalition, anyway.



I've been told labour will repeal the bedroom tax. That is massive. Certainly wider than a paper.


----------



## cesare (Nov 18, 2013)

Frances Lengel said:


> I've been told labour will repeal the bedroom tax. That is massive. Certainly wider than a paper.


Who told you that?


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Nov 18, 2013)

Fez909 said:


> I'm conflicted. The Green councillors should have resigned rather than implement the cuts, but to call them "Green cuts" isn't something I think is fair. In a GE this would not be an issue anyway, so for me, a vote for Greens is a vote against cuts.


Is it fair to talk about Labour cuts though? Why isn't it fair to talk about Green cuts?


----------



## Fez909 (Nov 18, 2013)

Spanky Longhorn said:


> Is it fair to talk about Labour cuts though? Why isn't it fair to talk about Green cuts?



I've never mentioned Labour cuts, but Labour did cut when they were in power.


----------



## Frances Lengel (Nov 18, 2013)

cesare said:


> Who told you that?



I read it somewhere. If i'm wrong, I'll admit it.


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Nov 18, 2013)

Fez909 said:


> I've never mentioned Labour cuts, but Labour did cut when's err they  they were in power.


And what have the Greens done where they have had control


----------



## peterkro (Nov 18, 2013)

Never voted Labour in my life (usually SPGP in Lambeth) but having moved to Southwark may tactically support Labour in the hope of unseating the prick Hughes. either that or Class War.


----------



## cesare (Nov 18, 2013)

Frances Lengel said:


> I read it somewhere. If i'm wrong, I'll admit it.


EM probably did say it. But I don't trust him. This is interesting: http://thebackbencher.co.uk/bedroom-tax-every-inch-a-labour-policy/

Edit: typo, M not B


----------



## Fez909 (Nov 18, 2013)

Spanky Longhorn said:


> And what have the Greens done where they have had control



They didn't cut the budget; they implemented it. They've never been in charge of the budget.


----------



## 8ball (Nov 18, 2013)

Tricky one because our old MP will be standing and he was an excellent guy - felt bad last time saying I would have voted for him if it wasn't for the scumbag party leadership.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Nov 18, 2013)

cesare said:


> Who told you that?



"Labour will repeal the bedroom tax, confirms Liam Byrne MP" - here


----------



## Frances Lengel (Nov 18, 2013)

cesare said:


> EB probably did say it. But I don't trust him. This is interesting: http://thebackbencher.co.uk/bedroom-tax-every-inch-a-labour-policy/



You've latered me. I thought labour were against the BT - You've proved other wise. Fuck. WRT the OP, fuck knows now, the BT was my dance I could dance where I could always say nah but labour.


----------



## cesare (Nov 18, 2013)

Puddy_Tat said:


> "Labour will repeal the bedroom tax, confirms Liam Byrne MP" - here


Oh aye, subject to them closing the tax loopholes and paying for it that way. This conditional pledge will go the same way as the LibDems pledge on student fees. And, while I'm on my soapbox, that Liam Byrne said it is a poxy death knell.


----------



## Humberto (Nov 18, 2013)

I think the best thing is to not vote. If nobody voted these cunts would die or at least have to be more honest that they are rich wankers who fuck the majority over.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Nov 18, 2013)

Humberto said:


> I think the best thing is to not vote. If nobody voted these cunts would die or at least have to be more honest that they are rich wankers who fuck the majority over.



somehow I doubt it.

The police commissioners were elected on (from memory) something like 15% turnout, and that isn't stopping them.


----------



## oryx (Nov 18, 2013)

Although I had lots of issues to pick with the last Labour government I will vote for them again. Same reasons as spanglechick really.

The thought of the Tories/the coalition being in power for another five years really is horrifying. I wonder if they would do things like repeal the minimum wage.


----------



## Humberto (Nov 18, 2013)

Puddy_Tat said:


> somehow I doubt it.
> 
> The police commissioners were elected on (from memory) something like 15% turnout, and that isn't stopping them.



It might take a while but if there were similar results in a GE then surely people would say fuck all of them. A revolution in fact.


----------



## youngian (Nov 18, 2013)

oryx said:


> Although I had lots of issues to pick with the last Labour government I will vote for them again. Same reasons as spanglechick really.
> 
> The thought of the Tories/the coalition being in power for another five years really is horrifying. I wonder if they would do things like repeal the minimum wage.



The intake of Tories becomes ever more wierd with every election and we risk becoming a strange hardline neo-liberal isolationist country without even bare minimum of labour rights and a massive roll back in public spending.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Nov 18, 2013)

Humberto said:


> It might take a while but if there were similar results in a GE then surely people would say fuck all of them. A revolution in fact.



Dunno.

I can't help thinking the vast majority of people would just say 'meh' and carry on...


----------



## white rabbit (Nov 19, 2013)

I used to think it was important, and when the Tories were a lot more (socially) right wing than they are now maybe it was. But they all look the same to me now. I may vote Green.


----------



## white rabbit (Nov 19, 2013)

Humberto said:


> It might take a while but if there were similar results in a GE then surely people would say fuck all of them. A revolution in fact.


I'm about as afraid of a revolution as a continuation of rule by elites and institutions. The left isn't organised enough. It's a bloody shambles, in fact.


----------



## Humberto (Nov 19, 2013)

Puddy_Tat said:


> Dunno.
> 
> I can't help thinking the vast majority of people would just say 'meh' and carry on...



Don't vote. If nobody voted they would be surely finished sooner or later


----------



## Humberto (Nov 19, 2013)

white rabbit said:


> I'm about as afraid of a revolution as a continuation of rule by elites and institutions. The left isn't organised enough. It's a bloody shambles, in fact.



I think it would be arrogant to assume the left would win. But it is only going one way. I'd welcome anything bar posh public school twats grinning at the rest of us.


----------



## xenon (Nov 19, 2013)

quimcunx said:


> This.  Possibly even at the same voting station.
> 
> Historically I've lived in Labour strongholds and voted green or some lefty party.



I'd have considered Greens but having seen what they're like, see Brighton. They can fuck off too.


----------



## xenon (Nov 19, 2013)

white rabbit said:


> I used to think it was important, and when the Tories were a lot more (socially) right wing than they are now maybe it was. But they all look the same to me now. I may vote Green.



They're cunts. Shiny save the whale do your recycling prolls, fuck your workers rights, cunts.


----------



## 8ball (Nov 19, 2013)

xenon said:


> They're cunts. Shiny save the whale do your recycling prolls, fuck your workers rights, cunts.


 
I think they've shifted a bit leftward since the Porritt days.


----------



## white rabbit (Nov 19, 2013)

xenon said:


> They're cunts. Shiny save the whale do your recycling prolls, fuck your workers rights, cunts.


Dunno about that. I quite like the Citizens Income, "an unconditional, non-means-tested, weekly payment made to every citizen whether they are working or not".


----------



## Nylock (Nov 19, 2013)

Since i live in one of the safest tory seats outside surrey, i'll be voting Class War if they have anyone standing around here, or i'll be spoiling another ballot...


----------



## fishfinger (Nov 19, 2013)

Nylock said:


> Since i live in one of the safest tory seats outside surrey, i'll be voting Class War if they have anyone standing around here, or i'll be spoiling another ballot...


Pointless spoiling the ballot. They don't count them any more*.

Edit: *Can't find a citation for this, so may be incorrect. In which case spoil away!


----------



## taffboy gwyrdd (Nov 19, 2013)

Outside of marginals it just doesn't matter. As an activist for another party it's highly unlikely I would even in that circ, though I might understand someone doing it depending on the candidate and other dynamics.


----------



## Serotonin (Nov 19, 2013)

Not going to vote. I've got that fuckwit Lib Dem Steve Webb as MP, one of the authors of the bedroom tax. It's unfortunately a pretty safe seat for him. Labour have no chance here, Tories are the only party who have a chance. Not that I would vote Labour even if they had a chance of unseating Webb. Fucker blocked me on Facebook for telling him to shove his Orange Book up his arse.


----------



## SaskiaJayne (Nov 19, 2013)

I suppose I shall have to, who else is there? Although if theres some loony far left nutjob standing I might vote for them. Tokenism whatever in a strongly Tory constituency. I suppose standing there pencil poised, it will be Labour that gets the X. I actually enjoy voting so I always do, not voting is never an option for me.


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 19, 2013)

how can you enjoy voting? it's not a day out to the funfair.


----------



## Voley (Nov 19, 2013)

I'm inclined not to vote at all this time round. Trouble is, the once-very-safe Lib Dem constituency I live in had a 10%+ swing to the Tories last time. Unlikely that this would happen this time round but I'd be pissed off if they got in here without me registering any vote against.


----------



## William of Walworth (Nov 19, 2013)

Yes because I quite rate Sian James (Lab, Swansea East) -- she has a sound TU background and has quite a good name constituency work wise. Also turned up at the anti bedroom tax and anti  fascist demos in the city here (OK tokenism, but at least she showed up and spoke up).

It can be a little bit easier for me to persuade myself to vote Labour in Wales anyway, than it would have been if Harriet Harman were still my MP!


----------



## chilango (Nov 19, 2013)

DotCommunist said:


> how can you enjoy voting? it's not a day out to the funfair.



I find elections more enjoyable than funfairs.


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 19, 2013)

Funfairs don't have Jeremy Vine dressed as a cowboy striding across a CGI landscape of britain, true.

BUT funfairs are more regular, whereas for our electoral entertainment we will have to wait till may when the euros are on. I'll be voting for the leftiest party on the sheet in order to help far right parties get denied seats and the funding streams that come with it.

Isn't it time yet for a trot-union lash up to hastily declare it'll be standing like what NO2EU did? I spent near an hour of closely argued debate with my mother and brother over that party and won them round to the idea. And when they got in the booth they both went christian democrat. *shakes fist*


----------



## newbie (Nov 19, 2013)

I've always worked on the principle that the only sane strategy is to vote to keep the tory out.  Nothing else matters.  

This has been a safe labour seat since Sheldon died but Hill wasn't worthy of any personal respect whatsoever and Umunna is just laughable. So actually voting labour is a bit of a non-starter.  But I would if I felt there was any chance at all of a (genuine, blue) tory getting in.


----------



## Geri (Nov 19, 2013)

Yes I am.


----------



## Andrew Hertford (Nov 19, 2013)

I live in a safe tory constituency so as usual I'll vote for whoever is likely to come second in the forlorn hope that one day the complacent (local tory) bastards will get the kick up the arse they deserve. In 2015 it'll almost certainly be Labour, but if it looked like being the Lib Dems again (like 2010) I don't know what I'd do. But I'll always vote... no question.

At least if we'd got AV, voting in a constituency like mine would have been more worthwhile.


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 19, 2013)

how so?


----------



## mrsfran (Nov 19, 2013)

I don't know. I don't want to vote Labour but feel like I might have to. Having been a Labour supporter all my life, I'm sad to feel so disillusioned with them now and feel like there is no decent alternative.


----------



## Sprocket. (Nov 19, 2013)

Will I vote for Ed Miliband?
At least he always remembers my name, probably for the wrong reasons.
Virtually the whole area is solid Labour so not a great deal of difference would my one vote make.
But there is a strong undercurrent of right wing feeling still growing.
I think it shows how uninformed some voters are, when one election they may vote Labour and next time vote for UKIP/BNP.


----------



## ChrisD (Nov 19, 2013)

I think I've been to the ballot box in every election since 1974.  I can't think of anytime that I've voted for the "winning" candidate.  I shall probably stroll down to the polling station again in 2015 - but the essay I write on the ballot paper is between me and those counting the "wasted votes".


----------



## manny-p (Nov 19, 2013)

Hell yeah! Miliband for the win!


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 19, 2013)

this happens every damn time. EVERY time. 'I must vote labour to keep out the evil tories'

They've been practically the same party for nearly 30 years now. The last gasp of soc/dec labour was strangled to death by Niel 'falling endlessly into the sea' Kinnock when he hoofed Militant Tendency out. Look at the fucking falkirk debacle, Ed was falling over himself to Union bash and now even though OB see nothing untoward the tories are still using it as a stick to bash Labour . And what does ed do? say 'fuck of brer the sheet was declared clean'

oh no. Not in the least.

there is no quorum for a general election. They aren't that thick. But if enough people stopped voting the sham would be highlighted, and it is a sham. I'm no better than anyone else, I've held my nose and voted labour before. But we have to stop doing it, it encourages them. We have to deny them legitimacy or else they'll just carry on me-tooing to tory policy forever.


----------



## manny-p (Nov 19, 2013)

GO MILI!


----------



## redsquirrel (Nov 19, 2013)

FabricLiveBaby! said:


> Yup.  I believe in giving people chances.  Labour had pissed me off by being cunts.  No way in hell I was going to vote Tory. Didn't like the idea of not voting and I thought Lib Dems were an alternative option.  Like a lot of other people.  Fool me once - shame on you etc.


I don't want to be a dick but this defence which I've heard from a few people is a bit rubbish. They didn't fool you anymore than Blair "fooled" anyone in '97. In both cases it was quite obvious what the parties stood for, they were remarkably honest for politicians. The LDs were quite clear about their preference for the Tories.


----------



## nino_savatte (Nov 19, 2013)

I live in a marginal and it's a close fight between the Vapours and the Toxics. This is a hold-your-nose-and-vote-for-Labour constituency.



> 2010 General Election: Hammersmith[7]
> PartyCandidateVotes%±%
> LabourAndy Slaughter*20,81043.9+1.5
> ConservativeShaun Bailey17,26136.4+2.4
> ...



What a shite choice.


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 19, 2013)

your labour man is called slaughter. This is darkly amusing to me


----------



## nino_savatte (Nov 19, 2013)

He's not too bad as it happens. He's pro-Palestine.


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 19, 2013)

DotCommunist said:


> this happens every damn time. EVERY time. 'I must vote labour to keep out the evil tories'
> 
> They've been practically the same party for nearly 30 years now. The last gasp of soc/dec labour was strangled to death by Niel 'falling endlessly into the sea' Kinnock when he hoofed Militant Tendency out. Look at the fucking falkirk debacle, Ed was falling over himself to Union bash and now even though OB see nothing untoward the tories are still using it as a stick to bash Labour . And what does ed do? say 'fuck of brer the sheet was declared clean'
> 
> ...


Correct. 

However, I have been saying this since the late 80s. And however much people nod, they go and vote Labour anyway. 

My Dad fell out with Labour in the 80s, and even he has campaigned for Labour candidates since.


----------



## xenon (Nov 19, 2013)

If the Tories or Libdems stood a chance in your constituency, would you not hold your nose and vote Labour?

It's all very well saying if peple didn't vote, it would send a message etc. Turn out is already low and it gets put down to ignorance, apathy, something dull about where polling stations are situated.


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 19, 2013)

Serotonin said:


> Not going to vote. I've got that fuckwit Lib Dem Steve Webb as MP, one of the authors of the bedroom tax. It's unfortunately a pretty safe seat for him. Labour have no chance here, Tories are the only party who have a chance. Not that I would vote Labour even if they had a chance of unseating Webb. Fucker blocked me on Facebook for telling him to shove his Orange Book up his arse.


That's by no means a safe lib-dem seat - large part of that lib-dem vote is labour tactical voters. Labour unlikely to win but tories have a chance if the national polling is mirrored here.


----------



## andysays (Nov 19, 2013)

Not voting Labour (though I have in the past); not voting for anyone else (though I've done that in the past too)

Not that my participation or lack of it will make the slightest difference...


----------



## g force (Nov 19, 2013)

2015 is still a way off so I've not made any decision. That being said, I voted Labour last time (they were the only people to actually visit my flat to introduce the candidate etc.) and the Lib Dem chap seemed to run a very negative campaign. 

Only problem is that said MP who was elected was a certain Mr Umunna, known to this parish. Can't really see myself voting for him.


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 19, 2013)

xenon said:


> If the Tories or Libdems stood a chance in your constituency, would you not hold your nose and vote Labour?


No.  Why would I?


----------



## articul8 (Nov 19, 2013)

yes, without enthusiasm.


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 19, 2013)

articul8 said:


> yes, without enthusiasm.




you've got the glue pot and the miliposters on standby already


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 19, 2013)

xenon said:


> If the Tories or Libdems stood a chance in your constituency, would you not hold your nose and vote Labour?
> 
> It's all very well saying if peple didn't vote, it would send a message etc. Turn out is already low and it gets put down to ignorance, apathy, something dull about where polling stations are situated.




yes turnout is low. Let it go lower. Parliamentary democracy is a massive con job. They target a minority of swing voters (dickheads) in key marginals. The rest of us can go fuck ourselves. Whats the point? Why legitamise this bollocks? I have in the past but no more.


----------



## mwgdrwg (Nov 19, 2013)

Our local MP is a Labour MP and I might vote Plaid to get him out.


----------



## chilango (Nov 19, 2013)

DotCommunist

I think you overestimated the value of not voting.

It really doesn't make a blind bit of difference either way.

There is, of course, the danger of voting Labour to kick out the Tories developing into some kind of illusion in them.

But I hope I'm immune to that by thus point!

I certainly won't be arguing that anyone else should follow my lead, or that its politically valid or owt.

It's just my personal response to the GE . No more.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 19, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> Are you? Were you previously a lib-dem? A never vote labour after iraq type? If so, why are you now voting labour? Any other motivations please post them. (I won't attack you)
> 
> No poll.



Nope. Not in the GE, nor in the locals due that year.


----------



## SikhWarrioR (Nov 19, 2013)

Nu-labour or Torlibdems are diferent sides of the same coin does anyone that after May 2015 a milipede led labour government will make any real difference to the coalition is deluded


----------



## chilango (Nov 19, 2013)

i do also think there is a danger in confusing "they're all as bad as each other" view with "there's no difference between them".

On an individual level policies on things like childcare or tax or whatever can be quite significant.

At least significant enough to warrant a vote one way or another for some people.

At the same time in the grander scheme of things we may see widening dufferences as capital itself takes differing positions on where to go from here...

none of this translates into any sort of "left turn " by labour but shouldnt be ignored either.


----------



## souljacker (Nov 19, 2013)

Unless Labour do some sort of massive swing to the left, denounce everything that new Labour stood for, return to supporting the unions, pledge to remove all private interests from government (including the creeping privatisation of the NHS, which they started), pledge to renationalise at the very least the energy industry and the railways and admit that the war against drugs and terror are a mistake, then no, I won't be voting for them.

I've no idea who I would vote for though. Our local Green is decent but the stuff in Brighton worries me. It sounds like they could well be a bunch of cunts too. If there is some sort of weird socialist alternative up then they might get my vote, otherwise I'm going to draw a cock and balls on the paper.


----------



## Stigmata (Nov 19, 2013)

I live in a Tory/Lib Dem swing seat. Even if I was inclined to vote Labour it'd be a wasted vote. Maybe if the Monster Raving Loonies field a good candidate again they'll get my vote


----------



## Citizen66 (Nov 19, 2013)

Nope. I'm not voting for a nicer kind of capitalism. Maybe it'd be different if I lived in Torysville but there's not much chance of that ever being the case.


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 19, 2013)

chilango said:


> DotCommunist
> 
> I think you overestimated the value of not voting.
> 
> ...



rejection en masse would certainly have some effect*. Theres that thing with dissatisfied with current leadership tribal votes who won't do a protest vote or swing. They just won't vote. 

*Realistically, thats not going to happen. But oh the glory if it did. Imagine if you held a party and nobody came?


----------



## Fez909 (Nov 19, 2013)

DotCommunist said:


> rejection en masse would certainly have some effect*. Theres that thing with dissatisfied with current leadership tribal votes who won't do a protest vote or swing. They just won't vote.
> 
> *Realistically, thats not going to happen. But oh the glory if it did. Imagine if you held a party and nobody came?



Voting en masse would also have an effect. The same arguments you're using to persuade people not to vote can be used to persuade people to vote for minority parties, say.

Can you imagine if TUSC won every seat they stood in? etc etc.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 19, 2013)

Dexter Deadwood said:


> View attachment 43620



If there were some way for people around the country to mount a concerted publicity campaign about 6 months short of the GE, talking about how people weren't going to vote for anyone on the ballot, but write in a "none of the above" option instead, and that idea could be pushed into the public consciousness, then I'd submit my ballot paper, but only to write in a "none of the above" option.
I'd love for a couple of million members of the electorate to do this.  It wouldn't keep anyone out, but it *would* send a message to power that a significant number of people aren't interested in their neoliberal bollocks.


----------



## chilango (Nov 19, 2013)

Rejection en masse is already happening. And has done for some time.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for abstention and spoiling (was involved in the 97 Anti Election Alliance campaign myself) but lets not have any illusions in it.


----------



## el-ahrairah (Nov 19, 2013)

Crispy said:


> Highly unlikely. The tories don't need stopping here and I don't want to encourage labour, just let them win with a tiny turnout. Lib Dems did pretty well last time, but I expect that to evaporate.
> 
> If I vote it'll be for whatever token lefties have managed to get on the ballot, or maybe Green. Dunno.




this, except for the bit about the Greens.


----------



## Wilf (Nov 19, 2013)

Vaguely remember the Bone/Class War 'vote nobody' campaign, maybe 10 years ago - an organised ballot spoiling campaign iirc.  Not dissing it, but I don't remember it having much success, at least as measured by numbers spoiling the ballot.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 19, 2013)

fishfinger said:


> I'd vote NOTA if it were an option. As it isn't, I won't vote.



So write it in on your ballot paper, instead!


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 19, 2013)

DotCommunist said:


> you've got the glue pot and the miliposters on standby already



And a series of Mili-boosting articles lined up for _Red Pepper_.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Nov 19, 2013)

chilango said:


> Rejection en masse is already happening. And has done for some time.



Trouble is that without the sort of campaign that ViolentPanda is talking about, then the political classes and their friends who run the media just dismiss it as apathy / laziness on the part of "the lower orders" and carry on pretending they have the support of the public.

It's akin to the difference between being mildly peeved with something and going on a demonstration about it.


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 19, 2013)

Wilf said:


> Vaguely remember the Bone/Class War 'vote nobody' campaign, maybe 10 years ago - an organised ballot spoiling campaign iirc.  Not dissing it, but I don't remember it having much success, at least as measured by numbers spoiling the ballot.


That was in this ward in bristol  and wasn't really a spoilt ballot thing, _but a separate election altogether _- a separate polling station was set up and 150 people actually used it. We then immediately declared independence.


----------



## sim667 (Nov 19, 2013)

I normally vote green or lib dem.

Unfortunately I live in a tory safe seat, but the greens gave them a run for their money in neighbouring constituencies.


----------



## caleb (Nov 19, 2013)

Chilango, you're a good sort. There's no chance you're gonna be convinced not to soil your reputation by having a Labour vote against your name?


----------



## skyscraper101 (Nov 19, 2013)

The only party guaranteed my vote would be if Chris Peat from Altern8 reformed the 'Hardcore U Know The Score Party' in my area.

Sadly their previous efforts saw them beaten by the tories in 1992


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Nov 19, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> That was in this ward in bristol - a separate polling station was set up and 150 people actually used it. We then immediately declared independence.





will you be open to immigration from England if the tories get in again?


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 19, 2013)

Puddy_Tat said:


> will you be open to immigration from England if the tories get in again?


I think we will be happy to respect the traditional right of political asylum yes.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 19, 2013)

chilango said:


> Rejection en masse is already happening. And has done for some time.
> 
> Don't get me wrong, I'm all for abstention and spoiling (was involved in the 97 Anti Election Alliance campaign myself) but lets not have any illusions in it.



IMHO the problem is that when spoiling campaigns have previously been run, they've always been identifiably "of the left", which may have harmed such campaigns in terms of the media being able to eschew them simply by telling themselves "it's just a bunch of pinkos".
Kick-start something over conventional and social media, something that isn't rooted in a particular ideology, and can therefore appeal *across* the political spectrum, to ANYONE fed-up with the neoliberal merry-go-round, and there might be more of an impact, and less likelihood of the protest being shrugged off.


----------



## rutabowa (Nov 19, 2013)

I always vote labour... it's just what i do. general principal.


----------



## Wilf (Nov 19, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> That was in this ward in bristol  and wasn't really a spoilt ballot thing, _but a separate election altogether _- a separate polling station was set up and 150 people actually used it. We then immediately declared independence.


 Ah, cheers butchers.  I came to some broad anti-capitalist day event in Bristol around 2001/2 where it was mentioned.


----------



## chilango (Nov 19, 2013)

caleb said:


> Chilango, you're a good sort. There's no chance you're gonna be convinced not to soil your reputation by having a Labour vote against your name?



heh. i may well find that i won't be able to bring myself to do it!


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 19, 2013)

I think the key with these initiatives around elections is to_ make use of the election _in some way without being part of the election and worrying about the result. That was one of the things that came up when we were discussing what to do around the mayoral election here last year - we had a willing candidate but people were split between those who wanted to run the campaign almost on a professional basis to maximise voter turnout and so on and those who thought it should be run on a political basis with the result irrelevant. Which sort of explains why it never came about in the end.


----------



## Zapp Brannigan (Nov 19, 2013)

ViolentPanda said:


> IMHO the problem is that when spoiling campaigns have previously been run, they've always been identifiably "of the left", which may have harmed such campaigns in terms of the media being able to eschew them simply by telling themselves "it's just a bunch of pinkos".
> Kick-start something over conventional and social media, something that isn't rooted in a particular ideology, and can therefore appeal *across* the political spectrum, to ANYONE fed-up with the neoliberal merry-go-round, and there might be more of an impact, and less likelihood of the protest being shrugged off.



That's why I suggested a NOTA the other night.  

Turn the General Election into a 1 question referendum - "Do you feel represented in any way by national politics, yes/no".  I'd bet my bollocks to a barndance that would be a no.


----------



## likesfish (Nov 19, 2013)

Its brighton so probably green not that I like the greens that much.
 But caroline lucas annoys lots of people and doesnt get any real power so pretty safe*

* the green council is apprantly hidously destructative and chaotic and will doom us all unlike the  responsible highly efficent councils we had of old that had turned Brighton into a paradise on earth I must have missed those paragons of civic goverment


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 19, 2013)

Wilf said:


> Ah, cheers butchers.  I came to some broad anti-capitalist day event in Bristol around 2001/2 where it was mentioned.


Going back to the 90s there was the  Anti-Election Alliance as well.


----------



## andysays (Nov 19, 2013)

Zapp Brannigan said:


> That's why I suggested a NOTA the other night.
> 
> Turn the General Election into a 1 question referendum - "Do you feel represented in any way by national politics, yes/no".  I'd bet my bollocks to a barndance that would be a no.



Unfortunately, writing NOTA or anything else on a ballot paper is irrelevant.

It doesn't matter if you draw a cock and balls, or write the definitive critique of the system of parliamentary democracy, it still counts as a spoilt ballot, no more, no less.

Do it if you want, but don't attempt to argue that it means anything in the overall scheme of things.

The only thing which might be of any significance at all is what butchersapron has mentioned



butchersapron said:


> I think the key with these initiatives around elections is *to make use of the election in some way without being part of the election and worrying about the result*...



I'm guessing that's what Class War are considering doing - anyone heard anything lately?


----------



## souljacker (Nov 19, 2013)

andysays said:


> It doesn't matter if you draw a cock and balls,



Even if you include a few straggly pubes and a couple of drops of spunk coming out the top?


----------



## andysays (Nov 19, 2013)

souljacker said:


> Even if you include a few straggly pubes and a couple of drops of spunk coming out the top?



I'm afraid so. I did this in every election for years, and the "cock and balls with a few straggly pubes and a couple of drops of spunk coming out the top" party never got mentioned once


----------



## chilango (Nov 19, 2013)

andysays said:


> I'm afraid so. I did this in every election for years, and the "cock and balls with a few straggly pubes and a couple of drops of spunk coming out the top" party never got mentioned once



You're wrong.

They won.

Least, that's what I see every time they show the PM on TV....


----------



## chilango (Nov 19, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> Going back to the 90s there was the  Anti-Election Alliance as well.



Yup. bright pink stickers all over the place. I did some posters for 'em too. Good geographical coverage cos most of the @ groups got behind this.


----------



## andysays (Nov 19, 2013)

chilango said:


> You're wrong.
> 
> They won.
> 
> Least, that's what I see every time they show the PM on TV....



So, let that be a warning to anyone tempted to "comically" spoil their ballot at the next election


----------



## el-ahrairah (Nov 19, 2013)

andysays said:


> I'm guessing that's what Class War are considering doing - anyone heard anything lately?



if ian's blog is anything to go by, they've got a few candidates and target areas but there's not much more information.


----------



## brogdale (Nov 19, 2013)

andysays said:


> I'm guessing that's what Class War are considering doing - anyone heard anything lately?



Thus far, all the updates are on his blog, but he has put out an appeal for someone to design/run a CW Election campaign website.

Today's update included the cheering news that CW will be fielding a candidate in the Witney constituency.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Nov 19, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> Are you? Were you previously a lib-dem? A never vote labour after iraq type?



No, no & no.


----------



## andysays (Nov 19, 2013)

brogdale said:


> Thus far, all the updates are on his blog, but he has put out an appeal for someone to design/run a CW Election campaign website.
> 
> Today's update included the cheering news that CW will be fielding a candidate in the Whitney constituency.



Yeah, I had a look at that after posing the question.

For those (like me) who were previously unaware, the current member for the constituency of Whitney is a Mr D Cameron...


----------



## white rabbit (Nov 19, 2013)

'Are you going to vote Labour?' and 'are Labour Tory-lite?' are different questions to which you can answer yes to both without contradiction. No political party will offer everything you want and the way things are any mainstream party is likely to offer a very diluted version of a left wing position. So once you've established that voting in a general election isn't a viable method of delivering such an outcome, you can focus on the limited set of options available and pick the least worst one. Or none at all if you feel it is sufficiently irrelevant.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Nov 19, 2013)

I'm in rachel reeves constituency so I'd ideally vote for a left alternative if one is available. Frustratingly, Im right on the boundary with the leeds north west seat held by a lib dem.

Elections are reserve beauty contests - you vote for the least politically ugly party - and that, for most of the country, is labour. Whilst our electoral system can do little to promote any meaningful progressive change, it provides a limit to how cuntish our governments can be. i.e. - full scale privatisation/dismantling  of the NHS.

A labour victory should be celebrated in that it represents a rejection by the people of the tory neo-liberal agenda - even if labour will not significantly deviate from it.  A tory victory would allow them to be even more cuntish than they have been already.


----------



## SaskiaJayne (Nov 19, 2013)

DotCommunist said:


> how can you enjoy voting? it's not a day out to the funfair.


It's better than a day out at the funfair for me, & cheaper, I love the lo-tech of it all & that the lo-tech system we continue to retain is less liable to fraud than an electronic system. In the global village that our instant communication/gratification world has become I find putting an X on a bit of paper with a pencil in a wooden booth delightfully parochial.


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 19, 2013)

SaskiaJayne said:


> It's better than a day out at the funfair for me, & cheaper, I love the lo-tech of it all & that the lo-tech system we continue to retain is less liable to fraud than an electronic system. In the global village that our instant communication/gratification world has become I find putting an X on a bit of paper with a pencil in a wooden booth delightfully parochial.




there is perhaps a satisfying olde worlde feeling to it. Same bald headed raptor of an old man at my wards voting booths, always. I last saw him for the PCC farcical elections and when I asked about turnout he just shook his head wordlessley. I wonder if he gets paid...


----------



## xenon (Nov 19, 2013)

chilango said:


> Rejection en masse is already happening. And has done for some time.
> 
> Don't get me wrong, I'm all for abstention and spoiling (was involved in the 97 Anti Election Alliance campaign myself) but lets not have any illusions in it.



Just catching up and I think my position is pretty much the same as you. Although spoiling is a waste of time IMO. They won't give us a none of the above, / add your comments here option. 

For me, voting the slightly less bad option of Labour. (There'd have been no minimum wage or tax credits under a Tory govt. Sticking plasters though they may be, they have made some practicle difference.) Is akin to knowing it's a game you can't win, barely count but you might as well press the red button in passing, if you perceive it will either do nothing or make things slightly less bad. I'd feel different perhaps if I thought a very low turn out would be interpreted in anything other than something the commenteriate and liberal politicians pontificate about but do fuck all to effect.


----------



## xenon (Nov 19, 2013)

Sticking plaster, after they've been instrumental in letting their friends cut you, to be precise I suppose.

<abandon shit annaligy now>


----------



## Zapp Brannigan (Nov 19, 2013)

We won't be given a none of the above, but we could make one.

As VP has already said, there's no hope in putting up protest candidates.  They're always seen as ultra left even when they're not, and even if they stood on an absolute platform of Not What The Other Guy Would Do there's always the suspicion of what they do stand for.

Low turnout can always be put down to apathy and can be painted to further the agenda;  look, the poor are so feckless they can't tear themselves away from Jeremy Kyle even to vote.  We must tell them what's best for them, they don't know.

High turnout and few votes cast is protest.  A targeted campaign not run by the recognised left; discontent is not the sole preserve of the left.  Give out stickers to put on ballot papers, organised protest spoiling. They're counted; low turnout lets us shout about no mandate, spoilt papers quantify it.


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 19, 2013)

Spoilt papers mean nothing - and if they did mean something they would mean whatever the status quo wants it to mean. They effectively say to those people and the system that you rightfully hate, _here we are on our knees to you please do something nice, something better. _It's handing your/our power over to them.


----------



## Buckaroo (Nov 19, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> Spoilt papers mean nothing - and if they did mean something they would mean whatever the status quo wants it to mean. They effectively say to those people and the system that you rightfully hate, _here we are on our knees to you please do something nice, something better. _It's handing your/our power over to them.


 
Exactly. Nice one. Well put.


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 19, 2013)

iirc spoileds aren't even counted, so there is no way to measure 'this percentage of people told us to fuck off and keep fucking off'

in a similar vein there is often talk of _voter apathy_ 

which is clearly bullshit. Apathy is when I don't change the TV channel cos I have lost my remote control and can't be arsed to get up. The sort of non-turnouts we see in most elections are a reaction of people who find the political system irrelevant in relation to their power to do shit. To nick a line from someone clever than me 'politics is now what is done to us, not what we do'


----------



## xenon (Nov 19, 2013)

Well TBF I only said I'd vote labour if it meant keeping the tories out.

I know it's not exactly storming parlament. But what about mass emailing emailing off journos MPs, tweeting, flooding any channels you can with a concise and coordinated message as to why we've not voted. (assuming I don't vote for some miner party.)


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 19, 2013)

xenon said:


> Well TBF I only said I'd vote labour if it meant keeping the tories out.
> 
> I know it's not exactly storming parlament. But what about mass emailing emailing off journos MPs, tweeting, flooding any channels you can with a concise and coordinated message as to why we've not voted. (assuming I don't vote for some miner party.)


Frankly, the only part of why you've not voted for them they care about is the bit concerned with what they would need to say in order to get you to vote for them. Which puts us right back at square one, because they're not there to do the things that we want but to maintain or extend the current system.


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 19, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> Spoilt papers mean nothing - and if they did mean something they would mean whatever the status quo wants it to mean. They effectively say to those people and the system that you rightfully hate, _here we are on our knees to you please do something nice, something better. _It's handing your/our power over to them.


More importantly, they say "my abstention is *principled*, unlike these apathetic non attenders". 

That's why I don't spoil my ballot. (Although I have done, before I realised the above).


----------



## xenon (Nov 19, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> Frankly, the only part of why you've not voted for them they care about is the bit concerned with what they would need to say in order to get you to vote for them. Which puts us right back at square one, because they're not there to do the things that we want but to maintain or extend the current system.



I was thinking more of as a message that due to it's ubicquity, had to be reported. OR at least, pointedly ignored or misreported. Rather than low turn out, apathy, need to reach out etc. As opposed to a plaintif thing. If you see what I mean.

I'm not talking a Facebook / petition why won't you listen wah, wah. sorta thing.


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 19, 2013)

xenon said:


> I was thinking more of as a message that due to it's ubicquity, had to be reported. OR at least, pointedly ignored or misreported. Rather than low turn out, apathy, need to reach out etc. As opposed to a plaintif thing. If you see what I mean.
> 
> I'm not talking a Facebook / petition why won't you listen wah, wah. sorta thing.


I suspect the range of reasons offered may undermine the solid collective nature of such a thing. A nationally organised or severely localised thing around a limited number of issues or themes would be the way to go on that - but it still leaves open the question of what you want to happen, what you want doing, and this approach necessarily being based on achieving this through the actions of MPs.


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 19, 2013)

In the 1979 Scottish devolution referendum, a Labour MP, George Cunningham, MP for Islington South and Finsbury, managed to get an amendment added to the Bill, known as the Cunningham Amendment.  It meant that in order for Yes to win, it had to poll 40% or more of the registered electorate.  Not of those who turn out, but of the registered electorate.

Imagine if that was applied to general elections.  A party has to poll 40% or more of the registered electorate in order to form a government.  No party would ever manage that threshold.


----------



## Buckaroo (Nov 19, 2013)

Vote for them. Let's make it worse. As bad as it can get. That idea, fringe benefits, compromise and lesser of evils, fuck that. Better on our own. Fuck them.


----------



## andysays (Nov 19, 2013)

danny la rouge said:


> In the 1979 Scottish devolution referendum, a Labour MP, George Cunningham, MP for Islington South and Finsbury, managed to get an amendment added to the Bill, known as the Cunningham Amendment.  It meant that in order for Yes to win, it had to poll 40% or more of the registered electorate.  Not of those who turn out, but of the registered electorate.
> 
> Imagine if that was applied to general elections.  A party has to poll 40% or more of the registered electorate in order to form a government.  No party would ever manage that threshold.



And that, as I'm sure you know Danny, is why such a threshold never will be applied to general elections


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 19, 2013)

andysays said:


> And that, as I'm sure you know Danny, is why such a threshold never will be applied to general elections


Indeed.


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 19, 2013)

danny la rouge said:


> In the 1979 Scottish devolution referendum, a Labour MP, George Cunningham, MP for Islington South and Finsbury, managed to get an amendment added to the Bill, known as the Cunningham Amendment.  It meant that in order for Yes to win, it had to poll 40% or more of the registered electorate.  Not of those who turn out, but of the registered electorate.
> 
> Imagine if that was applied to general elections.  A party has to poll 40% or more of the registered electorate in order to form a government.  No party would ever manage that threshold.




what, you mean apply an actual quorum? madness!


Except when its strike ballots. Thats when the principles of democracy are held in the strictest of responsibility.


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 19, 2013)

No quorum on union strike ballots.


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 19, 2013)

iirc its australia that has non voting as a thing you can be fined for. Which is fucking amazing chutzpah 'Participate in this farce to give us legitimacy- OR ELSE'


thats democracy right? you have to vote or else.


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 19, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> No quorum on union strike ballots.




bring back show of hands imo


----------



## yield (Nov 19, 2013)

danny la rouge said:


> Imagine if that was applied to general elections.  A party has to poll 40% or more of the registered electorate in order to form a government.  No party would ever manage that threshold.


Labour did in the 1951 general election. Still lost though.


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 19, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> No quorum on union strike ballots.




I think I may be confused with the rumblings earlier in the year about enforcing a 50% turnout.


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## xenon (Nov 19, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> I suspect the range of reasons offered may undermine the solid collective nature of such a thing. A nationally organised or severely localised thing around a limited number of issues or themes would be the way to go on that - but it still leaves open the question of what you want to happen, what you want doing, and this approach necessarily being based on achieving this through the actions of MPs.



Yep good points. The message would necessarily have to be fairly symbolic rather than a list of detailed grevances. But backed up with something positive on how to organise locally, strive to effect things on the ground. I mean, this wouldn't be new stuff to those already doing those things of course. It might act as a sign post, flag to those perhaps not politically engaged or feeling isolated thoug. It's a message from the public to the public.

I know. Bit airry fairy vague. I'm just thinking allowed really. I'll let this one stew.


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 19, 2013)

DotCommunist said:


> I think I may be confused with the rumblings earlier in the year about enforcing a 50% turnout.


They have been harumphing about introducing such a rule mind.


----------



## chilango (Nov 19, 2013)

Remember that whatever you do, or don't do, in relation to the GE, it's their game not ours.

We can't fully engage with it on our terms.

Whatever we do, or don't do, should not take up too much of our time and energy (abstaining, a disengaged labour vote or a crude CW "fuck you" candidate might all qualify as minimal effort responses) and should not distract from the struggle that lies elsewhere.


----------



## belboid (Nov 19, 2013)

DotCommunist said:


> iirc spoileds aren't even counted, so there is no way to measure 'this percentage of people told us to fuck off and keep fucking off'
> 
> in a similar vein there is often talk of _voter apathy_


They are. They're reported with every result. On the few occasions when there are a lot of spoilts there might be some discussion as to the reason. They had a good look at them after the first London mayorals, and said it was down to people getting confused by AV, and I have a feeling there was one by election in the last ten years when they did report that there was a significant number writing things like 'they're all the same'. But it is a rarely,normally you might just provide a wry smile for the counter


----------



## belboid (Nov 19, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> No quorum on union strike ballots.


If unions and parliament had to follow the same voting regulations, the elected libemleader would just have been released from jail and Clegg would be a European bureaucrat (having lost his seat in the by election following his fucked up 2010 vote)


----------



## fishfinger (Nov 19, 2013)

ViolentPanda said:


> So write it in on your ballot paper, instead!


It'll just be another spoilt ballot, so pointless.


----------



## Frances Lengel (Nov 19, 2013)

Buckaroo said:


> Vote for them. Let's make it worse. As bad as it can get. That idea, fringe benefits, compromise and *lesser of evils*, fuck that. Better on our own. Fuck them.


 Nah, I've said it before - A lesser of evils can make a massive difference. I don't like labour and I'm under no illusions about them but, objectively, an open-handed slap across the chops is better than a full-fisted punch to the belly.


----------



## white rabbit (Nov 19, 2013)

There are a tiny proportion of spoiled papers. Even where it's a legitimate option, it is in the single digit percent. Most don't give it much thought and for most of those who do that's the extent of their involvement (I include myself in that). Fatalistic apathy is a sensible response to a situation where all the choices look the same. But if a few fewer pensioners die of hypothermia, it might be as well to use it that way.


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 19, 2013)

Frances Lengel said:


> Nah, I've said it before - A lesser of evils can make a massive difference. I don't like labour and I'm under no illusions about them but, objectively, an open-handed slap across the chops is better than a full-fisted punch to the belly.




'red' Ed has promised he won't do a single solitary thing to reverse austerity though. You'd be voting for the same kick to the crotch.


----------



## belboid (Nov 19, 2013)

It was the PCC elections which led to some analysis of the high spoilt rate I now recall.


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## Frances Lengel (Nov 19, 2013)

DotCommunist said:


> 'red' Ed has promised he won't do a single solitary thing to reverse austerity though. You'd be voting for the same kick to the crotch.



Yeah, there is that. Yesterday cesare  convincingly disabusuded me of the notion that labour will repeal the bedroom tax. I still do think though, if labour had got in the last time we wouldn't have the bedroom tax and we wouldn't have this mental top speed austerity - We'd still have it, but it wouldn't be so fast or so blatant. I'm still going to vote labour though, just _because_.


----------



## krink (Nov 19, 2013)

media been predicting a massively low turnout so i think everyone should get out there and vote/spoil there ballot. i will be opening postal votes, paid by the hour, so if no fucker votes i'll get nowt.

*i only need people voting in sunderland so the rest of you, as you were


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## Buckaroo (Nov 19, 2013)

Frances Lengel said:


> Nah, I've said it before - A lesser of evils can make a massive difference. I don't like labour and I'm under no illusions about them but, objectively, an open-handed slap across the chops is better than a full-fisted punch to the belly.


 
Yeah you're right. I just had a bad day and I'm angry. Really fucking angry.


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## chilango (Nov 19, 2013)

Frances Lengel said:


> Yeah, there is that. Yesterday cesare  convincingly disabusuded me of the notion that labour will repeal the bedroom tax. I still do think though, if labour had got in the last time we wouldn't have the bedroom tax and we wouldn't have this mental top speed austerity - We'd still have it, but it wouldn't be so fast or so blatant. I'm still going to vote labour though, just _because_.



What we'll get is a more measured and sustainable application of austerity, at least in the short term.

The Tories expect to lose this election and are going batshit crazy in their rush to drive thru personal crusades and jostle for position to be the next (or next but one) party leader etc.

Labour aren't in that position. They will be keen to reassure their backers in capital (and those switching from the losing it Tories) that they will be a safe pair of hands. They will also have an inevitable post election honeymoon period.

In practice this means slower, softer but ultimately more effective austerity. Yet, this might, here and there, momentarily give some people a pause from the Tories' relentless assault. Equally they may chuck a few crumbs at a few people in the short term. If you're lucky enough to be one of those groups then that might make a real, albeit minor and fleeting, difference to day to day life.

In the medium to longer term it may be that some factions of capital see a move away from austerity and towards some more neoKeynesian Social Democracy lite as the safest bet for their continued enrichment. in which case Labour would be in pole position to be their vehicle of choice and we may see, perhaps as soon as 2020, more of a difference between the parties.

None of which is to say that anyone should see voting labour as any sort of answer, let alone go full articul8 about them.


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## Sprocket. (Nov 19, 2013)

When we all sat around reading Paul Foot's The vote, how it was won, how it was undermined. You would have thought that along with that book, all the other publications, all our experiences coupled with the combined intelligence of us all, that we the electorate would have realised we are a bit gullible?


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## DotCommunist (Nov 19, 2013)

the electorate aren't gullible they just see the system as somebody elses game. And they are right to do so.


----------



## Sue (Nov 19, 2013)

DotCommunist said:


> iirc *spoileds aren't even counted*, so there is no way to measure 'this percentage of people told us to fuck off and keep fucking off'
> 
> in a similar vein there is often talk of _voter apathy_
> 
> which is clearly bullshit. Apathy is when I don't change the TV channel cos I have lost my remote control and can't be arsed to get up. The sort of non-turnouts we see in most elections are a reaction of people who find the political system irrelevant in relation to their power to do shit. To nick a line from someone clever than me 'politics is now what is done to us, not what we do'


 
They are counted just no distinction is made between someone who's voted for two candidates (say) and someone who's written some political remark or other. They're shown to the election agents if there's any room for doubt/argument ie someone putting a tick against a candidate rather than a cross but in general they're not seen by anyone but the counters.


----------



## Frances Lengel (Nov 19, 2013)

chilango said:


> What we'll get is a more measured and sustainable application of austerity, at least in the short term.
> 
> The Tories expect to lose this election and are going batshit crazy in their rush to drive thru personal crusades and jostle for position to be the next (or next but one) party leader etc.
> 
> ...


The difference isn't fleeting. Other than that I can't find a thing else to argue with in the rest of your post. Starving and not starving, that's a fairly big difference I reckon.


----------



## geminisnake (Nov 19, 2013)

Even if hell freezes over I will not vote Labour in 2015.


----------



## belboid (Nov 19, 2013)

Sue said:


> They are counted just no distinction is made between someone who's voted for two candidates (say) and someone who's written some political remark or other. They're shown to the election agents if there's any room for doubt/argument ie someone putting a tick against a candidate rather than a cross but in general they're not seen by anyone but the counters.


They are actually! There are various categories of spoilt depending on the election, tho it is hard to tell much from them
https://blogs.reading.ac.uk/reading...he-pcc-elections-what-do-the-numbers-tell-us/


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## SpineyNorman (Nov 19, 2013)

andysays said:


> It doesn't matter if you draw a cock and balls...



What do you mean doesn't matter? You've got the chance to draw a picture of a cock and some balls - doesn't that still mean something maaaan? 

I've voted labour once in 1997 (Tony Benn) basically because I was born in '78 and so could only remember Tory governments. It's surprising how much more attractive a labour government is when you've never actually experienced one. But I've not voted for them since and have no intention of doing so again.

In every local and general election since then I've gone for some kind of variation on the cock theme. It's become a spiney tradition of sorts. Fortunately TUSC or the CP or whoever have never stood in any ward or constituency I've lived in so I've never had the have never stood in any ward or constituency I've lived in so I've never had the 'lefty no hoper or cock' dilemma (would never vote green because, as we've discussed on other threads, they want to gas the proles to save the Bolivian arse wasp).


----------



## SpineyNorman (Nov 19, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> Spoilt papers mean nothing - and if they did mean something they would mean whatever the status quo wants it to mean. They effectively say to those people and the system that you rightfully hate, _here we are on our knees to you please do something nice, something better. _It's handing your/our power over to them.



What about if you really like drawing cocks on ballot papers though?


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## butchersapron (Nov 19, 2013)

Why not go the whole hog and draw one _on the polling station itself?_


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## SpineyNorman (Nov 19, 2013)

My biro doesn't work on bricks


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## DotCommunist (Nov 19, 2013)

paint pen stiffened with some leather dye. Seriously that shit never comes off. Even steam cleaned you'll still have an etched patch.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Nov 19, 2013)

DotCommunist said:


> paint pen stiffened with some leather dye. Seriously that shit never comes off. Even steam cleaned you'll still have an etched patch.



How do you stiffen a paint pen with leather dye? Or is that a euphemism for something unspeakable?


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 19, 2013)

SpineyNorman said:


> How do you stiffen a paint pen with leather dye? Or is that a euphemism for something unspeakable?


you dismantle the paint pen then put leather dye into the barrell

how you disasemble said pen will vary brand to brand. IIRC the ones from crayola inc are not able to be so dismantled, sealed unit


----------



## SpineyNorman (Nov 19, 2013)

That sounds like a lot of trouble to go to. Couldn't I just smear it on the wall in shit or something?


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## chilango (Nov 19, 2013)

You two do realise your talking about drawing spunking cocks on buildings that are usually Primary Schools, right?


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## DotCommunist (Nov 19, 2013)

SpineyNorman said:


> That sounds like a lot of trouble to go to. Couldn't I just smear it on the wall in shit or something?




I was never a tagger but dirty protests have nuisance value


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 19, 2013)

yield said:


> Labour did in the 1951 general election. Still lost though.


Yes, 40.3%. Skin of the teeth stuff. Unlikely to be repeated in today's conditions, I suggest.


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## kenny g (Nov 19, 2013)

Heckling politicians throughout the election might be fun. I had the pleasure of heckling that BNP  fellow who was standing in B'arking' in 2010.


----------



## newbie (Nov 19, 2013)

DotCommunist said:


> this happens every damn time. EVERY time. 'I must vote labour to keep out the evil tories'
> 
> They've been practically the same party for nearly 30 years now. The last gasp of soc/dec labour was strangled to death by Niel 'falling endlessly into the sea' Kinnock when he hoofed Militant Tendency out. Look at the fucking falkirk debacle, Ed was falling over himself to Union bash and now even though OB see nothing untoward the tories are still using it as a stick to bash Labour . And what does ed do? say 'fuck of brer the sheet was declared clean'
> 
> ...


tell me something, what personal experience are you drawing on?  How many times have you personally watched the transition from labour government to tory? or vice versa?


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## Doctor Carrot (Nov 19, 2013)

No, I've thought about it but no. I don't think I'm going to vote at all. There is absolutely no one on the ballot paper who deserves it. If no one's there to speak for me and others in the same boat as me then why bother voting? I seem to be more left wing as I get older. I did vote Labour in 2001 (first time I was old enough to vote) didn't turn up in 2005 and stupidly voted lib dem in 2010 .  Even though I like a good rant about politics in my 20s I think I was on the whole quite naive (see lib dem voting), I was even vaguely a conspiraloon for a while.  I've since done a social policy degree, read books and listened to lectures by people like David Harvey and Chomsky and because of that I feel more to the left than I've ever done, although I'm less ranty now! So no, not gonna vote. I can no longer legitimise something I fundamentally disagree with.


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## redcogs (Nov 19, 2013)

i've stopped voting for free market organisations, and i'm now ashamed of having voted Labour in the past.  Worse is that as an swp type i used to try to persuade others to vote for em.  Having to remember that isn't pleasant.

i'd like to atone..


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## DotCommunist (Nov 20, 2013)

newbie said:


> tell me something, what personal experience are you drawing on?  How many times have you personally watched the transition from labour government to tory? or vice versa?



twice


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## Brechin Sprout (Nov 20, 2013)

It's only 16 years since the Tories were swept into oblivion by Tony Blair. A defeat, we were told, that would take them a generation to recover from. And here we are further back than we were then. Labour has been worse than useless. I can't decide more sorry for: those who really think a vote for Labour will further the cause of labour; or those who vote "without illusions" and require a labyrinthine logic to try and justify their decision. Don't vote. Organise.


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## Nigel Irritable (Nov 20, 2013)

Not in Britain any more so no by default. It would, of course,  be no anyway, the right wing pricks.


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## redsquirrel (Nov 20, 2013)

newbie said:


> tell me something, what personal experience are you drawing on?  How many times have you personally watched the transition from labour government to tory? or vice versa?


Does having "personally watched" such a transition give you some special insight or something?


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## chilango (Nov 20, 2013)

redsquirrel said:


> Does having "personally watched" such a transition give you some special insight or something?



Dotty's post doesn't even talk about this transition anyway.


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## DotCommunist (Nov 20, 2013)

I had maggie on the tele when I was too young to know why, I saw the berlin wall come down. I saw the grey major fall, I saw the smiler give way to the clunking fist and then his brief tenure replaced by a condem coalition. All these things will be lost, like tears in rain.


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## chilango (Nov 20, 2013)

If you don't remember the Winter of Discontent and How the Unions Brought the Nation to its Knees then frankly Dotty you haven't earnt the right to an opinion (never mind property ownership or a pension).


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## newbie (Nov 20, 2013)

what he said was


> this happens every damn time. EVERY time. 'I must vote labour to keep out the evil tories'
> 
> They've been practically the same party for nearly 30 years now.


I wondered just how much of that 30 year continuity was based on having lived through it and how much was simply repeating stuff picked up from the internet. If he'd said 15 years- "twice"- from anodyne Major to Blair, from Broon to the coalition- then fine, it's an interpretation of lived experience. 30 years isn't, the LP has changed massively in that time, and, perhaps more to the point, the sneer that they've been practically the same as the tories throughout that period misses how stark transitions from one to the other actually are.


----------



## chilango (Nov 20, 2013)

I think "nearly 30 years" is accurate enough a measure of when labour really gave up on all pretence of being a "workers' party". You don't need primary memories of that time to know this. It's fairly well documented, and not just by "the Internet".

That said, as I posted further up the thread I do agree there's a very real danger of slipping from a "they're all as bad as each other" to a "they're all the same" stance. Right now (and, yes, for the last 25 -30 years) there is little difference in appearance, but that hasn't always been the case, and may not always be the case in the future. We need to acknowledge this to avoid being suckered by any apparent "leftward shift" that Labour may take in the coming years if that's what capital requires (or that we force them into).


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## redsquirrel (Nov 20, 2013)

What relevance does having lived through a transition in government have with that point of DCs?



newbie said:


> If he'd said 15 years- "twice"- from anodyne Major to Blair, from Broon to the coalition- then fine, it's an interpretation of lived experience. 30 years isn't, the LP has changed massively in that time


This doesn't even make sense, there have been as many Lab-Tory/Tory-Lab transitions in the last 15 years as there has in the last 30?



newbie said:


> , and, perhaps more to the point, the sneer that they've been practically the same as the tories throughout that period misses how stark transitions from one to the other actually are.


The transitions from Labour to Tory gov (and vice versa) or the transition within the Labour party?


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 20, 2013)

newbie said:


> what he said was
> 
> I wondered just how much of that 30 year continuity was based on having lived through it and how much was simply repeating stuff picked up from the internet. If he'd said 15 years- "twice"- from anodyne Major to Blair, from Broon to the coalition- then fine, it's an interpretation of lived experience. 30 years isn't, the LP has changed massively in that time, and, perhaps more to the point, the sneer that they've been practically the same as the tories throughout that period misses how stark transitions from one to the other actually are.



I'll be 31 in february and I was born in 1983. I have seen the change, I grew up with the change. As soon as the first major political betrayal of my formative years (Iraq war) came about I did my reading and have since. The foundations of the labour party had the seeds of this within it and its been a long fight but the bastards finally won. Thats why I say Kinnock drove the final stake in, with THAT speech and THAT expulsion of militant.


----------



## newbie (Nov 20, 2013)

those left of labour were telling anyone who'd listen that labour was no longer the party of the workers way back in the 70s.  They still are, obv, but it's only really since well into the Blair administration that that view has become widespread and uncontested.  

They were saying then, and are saying still, that the two parties are near as dammit the same, and voting labour to keep the conservatives out is futile.  That's a view that I think is wrong and belied by history.  The view isn't going to go away, but neither should it be unchallenged, particularly when it's said with great certainty by someone who is simply repeating what they've read.


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 20, 2013)

I read that that Julius Ceaser spearheaded the invasion of britain by the romans. I read that the St Bartholomew's day massacre caused the Huguenot diaspora from France. I even read that when spain was re-taken by the Catholic Majesties it resulted in a mass expulsion of the sephardic jewish population. Which of these things are untrue and should I have been around to see them before I can speak on these matters?


----------



## newbie (Nov 20, 2013)

the difference, perhaps, is that opinions on the Huguenot diaspora make little or no odds to anyone in practical, real life terms. The outcome of elections do.  And forgive me for seeking to establish the basis for your certainty, but I sometimes want to know whether what I'm being told is simply a repetition of the sort of playing to the gallery that the internet encourages or has some solid basis.


----------



## chilango (Nov 20, 2013)

newbie said:


> the difference, perhaps, is that opinions on the Huguenot diaspora make little or no odds to anyone in practical, real life terms.* The outcome of elections do*.



That is precisely what is being disputed here.


----------



## newbie (Nov 20, 2013)

I know, that was the point of my initial post.  dc was so definitive that they don't.  I'm equally certain they do, and that it matters because it affects real people and real lives.


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 20, 2013)

newbie said:


> the difference, perhaps, is that opinions on the Huguenot diaspora make little or no odds to anyone in practical, real life terms. The outcome of elections do.  And forgive me for seeking to establish the basis for your certainty, but I sometimes want to know whether what I'm being told is simply a repetition of the sort of playing to the gallery that the internet encourages or has some solid basis.




consider yourself forgiven. Go forth and sin no more. But my issues with parliamentary democracy are based in both book learned and direct observation. The old joke is 'don't vote, the government will get in' 

and like all good jokes it has the pathos of being depressing and true


----------



## chilango (Nov 20, 2013)

newbie said:


> I know, that was the point of my initial post.  dc was so definitive that they don't.  I'm equally certain they do, and that it matters because it affects real people and real lives.



I know.

But the argument that dotty is wrong cos he hasn't lived thru enough elections is a pretty shit one. There are better arguments in support of your position, use them.


----------



## newbie (Nov 20, 2013)

you're a much better writer than I'll ever be, but that doesn't make your beliefs stand up.  We used to scrawl that on walls, once upon a time, along with 'don't vote it only encourages them'.  But that's the thing, my opinions have changed as I've seen and felt what has actually happened and understood just how much of a gulf there is between my own youthful idealism and the sheer extra misery a tory government ensures.


----------



## redsquirrel (Nov 20, 2013)

chilango said:


> I know.
> 
> But the argument that dotty is wrong cos he hasn't lived thru enough elections is a pretty shit one. There are better arguments in support of your position, use them.


Precisely, if you think he's wrong supply some reasons.


----------



## chilango (Nov 20, 2013)

newbie said:


> you're a much better writer than I'll ever be, but that doesn't make your beliefs stand up.  We used to scrawl that on walls, once upon a time, along with 'don't vote it only encourages them'.  But that's the thing, my opinions have changed as I've seen and felt what has actually happened and understood just how much of a gulf there is between my own youthful idealism and the sheer extra misery a tory government ensures.



Y'see? Patronising guff.

C'mon. What differences? For who? Why? 

Put some meat on your point.


----------



## newbie (Nov 20, 2013)

redsquirrel said:


> Precisely, if you think he's wrong supply some reasons.


I do think he's wrong, the reasons have already been put by others- slap in the face/punch in the stomach... Surestart/50p tax reduction and so on.

anyway I've got stuff to do so I'll leave it there, come back to it later if there's anything that needs to be said.


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## chilango (Nov 20, 2013)

there. Was easy, no?


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 20, 2013)

newbie said:


> you're a much better writer than I'll ever be, but that doesn't make your beliefs stand up.  We used to scrawl that on walls, once upon a time, along with 'don't vote it only encourages them'.  But that's the thing, my opinions have changed as I've seen and felt what has actually happened and understood just how much of a gulf there is between my own youthful idealism and the sheer extra misery a tory government ensures.




well you asked me for some age range- can I ask the same from you? Because if you have been in living memory of a pre-kinnock labour party you'll probably sttill hold out some hope. I see it as a failed experiment, yes post war soc/dec stuff did great guns but thats been a long time dead. Convince me.


----------



## brogdale (Nov 20, 2013)

newbie said:


> you're a much better writer than I'll ever be, but that doesn't make your beliefs stand up.  We used to scrawl that on walls, once upon a time, along with 'don't vote it only encourages them'.  But that's the thing, my opinions have changed as I've seen and felt what has actually happened and understood just how much of a gulf there is between my own youthful idealism and the sheer _*extra*_ misery a tory government ensures.



It's obviously fruitless to speculate how the policies of a N.Lab govt. (or Lab dominated coalition), would have differed from what we have seen since May 2010, but what evidence is there that a N.Labour administration in 2015 would offer any less misery than what we have now?


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 20, 2013)

newbie said:


> it matters because it affects real people and real lives.


What matters, though?  You're right to say that governments affect real people's real lives.  But it does not follow from that assertion that _elections_ matter. Nor that voting is a useful way to show you care about real people's real lives. The parties of power all represent the same interests; are all signed up to the same project, neoliberalism.  Whoever wins, that doesn't change.

Yes, there are differences of opinion between the parties about how best to serve those interests and that project.  (In fact, there are often greater differences within the parties than between them).   

There were posters here in Scotland a few years back saying "do you care about...?", then listing a range of issues - education, health, transport etc. - and suggesting that if you do, then you must vote.  I compared the manifestos on those issues, and there were no disagreements between them.  So, in others words, I had to show I care about education by voting for the same policies of PFI building projects and promises about class sizes.  I had to lodge my vote for identical choice a, b, c or d, and that was my duty discharged; that proved I cared.  It was like something out of George Orwell.  You don't like the one choice on offer?  That proves you don't care.

Well, I do care.  And voting is not the way to show it; it's the way to sap the energy out of our caring.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 20, 2013)

I will probably vote Labour in the next election, assuming that I don't move constituencies (which is possible). The local (Labour) MP hates the (flagship Tory) council and opposes all of their dodgy redevelopment schemes, cuts and closures, providing useful support to local and sometimes national campaigns and disrupting the council's efforts. The council also hates him back. It might well be that if it was a Labour council doing this he wouldn't oppose them, but it's not and it seems likely that it will stay Tory.

Given these circumstances, I can't see a situation involving me deliberately not voting Labour that would provide greater benefit. Obviously my individual vote is a fairly irrelevant part of the process, but it's not like it's the slightest bit of effort or takes my attention away from any more meaningful political action I might be involved in.

(eta: to be fair though, if the Tories field as shit a candidate against him as they did last time I might well not vote Labour)


----------



## treelover (Nov 20, 2013)

With what people like Rachel Reeves is coming out with, I find it baffling that urbanites can consider voting Labour.

its like the SWP, "vote labour without illusions" or Polly's "vote labour with a nose peg"...


----------



## chilango (Nov 20, 2013)

treelover said:


> With what people like Rachel Reeves is coming out with, I find it baffling that urbanites can consider voting Labour.
> 
> its like the SWP, "vote labour without illusions" or Polly's "vote labour with a nose peg"...



It's not. 

As far as i can see most of us who admit to considering voting Labour are making no calls on others to do so.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 20, 2013)

I have considered writing to said MP saying "While I respect your own position and appreciate your actions opposing Tory cuts and the actions of the council, I am very concerned about the direction that the parliamentary Labour party is taking and may not be able to vote Labour in all conscience at the next election etc etc". But that would be political action separate from actually voting.


----------



## Maurice Picarda (Nov 20, 2013)

treelover said:


> I find it baffling that urbanites can consider voting Labour.



Because "urbanites" are a cohesive group with common interests and values?


----------



## nino_savatte (Nov 20, 2013)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I will probably vote Labour in the next election, assuming that I don't move constituencies (which is possible). The local (Labour) MP hates the (flagship Tory) council and opposes all of their dodgy redevelopment schemes, cuts and closures, providing useful support to local and sometimes national campaigns and disrupting the council's efforts. The council also hates him back. It might well be that if it was a Labour council doing this he wouldn't oppose them, but it's not and it seems likely that it will stay Tory.
> 
> Given these circumstances, I can't see a situation involving me deliberately not voting Labour that would provide greater benefit. Obviously my individual vote is a fairly irrelevant part of the process, but it's not like it's the slightest bit of effort or takes my attention away from any more meaningful political action I might be involved in.


You're in the same constituency as me. No?


----------



## nino_savatte (Nov 20, 2013)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I have considered writing to said MP saying "While I respect your own position and appreciate your actions opposing Tory cuts and the actions of the council, I am very concerned about the direction that the parliamentary Labour party is taking and may not be able to vote Labour in all conscience at the next election etc etc". But that would be political action separate from actually voting.



When Lisa Nandy was standing as Labour candidate in H&F (as it was then), she asked me if I'd support Labour, I told her I was a socialist and off she went.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 20, 2013)

nino_savatte said:


> You're in the same constituency as me. No?


Yes, I think so, Hammersmith.


----------



## xenon (Nov 20, 2013)

treelover said:


> With what people like Rachel Reeves is coming out with, I find it baffling that urbanites can consider voting Labour.
> 
> its like the SWP, "vote labour without illusions" or Polly's "vote labour with a nose peg"...



Try reading the thread then.


----------



## nino_savatte (Nov 20, 2013)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Yes, I think so, Hammersmith.


Not many Urbs in Hammersmith.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 20, 2013)

nino_savatte said:


> Not many Urbs in Hammersmith.


Not surprised at these prices. Luckily my rent hasn't gone up for years.


----------



## nino_savatte (Nov 20, 2013)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Not surprised at these prices. Luckily my rent hasn't gone up for years.


Indeed. As a Peabody tenant, my rent has increased by over 120% since I moved here nearly 14 years ago.


----------



## Brechin Sprout (Nov 20, 2013)

Perhaps things have got worse cos too many people put their faith in Labour to defend them against the Tory onslaught. A Labour Party that has given up on opposition and merely seeks to make austerity just a little more palatable. There once was rent strikes, successful ones, where many Labour members were involved. Now the boat rockers have been forced out and the remaining crew are sitting at the captains table.


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 20, 2013)

nino_savatte said:


> Indeed. As a Peabody tenant, my rent has increased by over 120% since I moved here nearly 14 years ago.





> As a Peabody representative put it, in 1881: ‘we house the deserving class… there are some people that are so low, that they could not live with our people’. Gareth Stedman Jones, Outcast London (Pantheon 1984), 185.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 20, 2013)

fishfinger said:


> It'll just be another spoilt ballot, so pointless.



So if, for example, there was a publicised nationwide campaign to get people who are disenchanted with the political process to write in "none of the above", you still wouldn't do it, even though the media would be likely to lap up any significant protest?

Apathy rules, eh?


----------



## nino_savatte (Nov 20, 2013)

d/p


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 20, 2013)

kenny g said:


> Heckling politicians throughout the election might be fun. I had the pleasure of heckling that BNP  fellow who was standing in B'arking' in 2010.



Adopt the same refrain for every politician:

"You're shit, and you know you are...."


----------



## nino_savatte (Nov 20, 2013)

> As a Peabody representative put it, in 1881: ‘we house the deserving class… there are some people that are so low, that they could not live with our people’. Gareth Stedman Jones, Outcast London (Pantheon 1984), 185.



Doffs cap and tugs forelock in the direction of Stephen Howlett, the £190, 000 a year CEO of Peabody.

Howlett, the 'tractor boy'.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 20, 2013)

chilango said:


> If you don't remember the Winter of Discontent and How the Unions Brought the Nation to its Knees then frankly Dotty you haven't earnt the right to an opinion (never mind property ownership or a pension).



Those of us who do remember them invariably spend a lot of time telling people who didn't that "it's not quite the same as the media make it out to be.  They like their narratives *VERY* simplistic!".


----------



## el-ahrairah (Nov 20, 2013)

for a few months i worked alongside Steve Howlett.  working his laptop for him, and sorting out their complaints system which were a fucking shambles.  nice bloke, his financial contacts and nous basically saved peabody from tanking after some disasterous investments in the nineties.  dedicated bloke, for a liberal.

not sure that justifies the salary though.  and if i were a tenant i'd not be happy with the regular expensive rebrandings either.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 20, 2013)

newbie said:


> what he said was
> 
> I wondered just how much of that 30 year continuity was based on having lived through it and how much was simply repeating stuff picked up from the internet. If he'd said 15 years- "twice"- from anodyne Major to Blair, from Broon to the coalition- then fine, it's an interpretation of lived experience. 30 years isn't, the LP has changed massively in that time, and, perhaps more to the point, the sneer that they've been practically the same as the tories throughout that period misses how stark transitions from one to the other actually are.



if you want to be picky, he should have said "28 years".
Why 28?  because in 1985 Kinnock gave every Labour supporter a clear view of what lay ahead, when he made his vituperative anti-Militant speech at conference, and had the organisation expelled from the party, and it became very clear where he envisioned that the party should go, and that he had the backing of a substantial number of party "movers and shakers" to take it there.  
Track the party membership figures. A substantial loss between '85 and Kinnock's departure; a resurgence with Smith and then Blair, and then from '99-'00, an ever-steepening decline so that now "the peoples' party" has around a quarter of a million members, when 30 years ago it had 7-8 times that number.

So yeah, transitions *were* stark, but the overall time period is fairly accurate.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 20, 2013)

el-ahrairah said:


> for a few months i worked alongside Steve Howlett.  working his laptop for him, and sorting out their complaints system which were a fucking shambles.  nice bloke, his financial contacts and nous basically saved peabody from tanking after some disasterous investments in the nineties.  dedicated bloke, for a liberal.
> 
> not sure that justifies the salary though.  and if i were a tenant i'd not be happy with the regular expensive rebrandings either.



I've had little time for Peabody for the last decade, and I've had *no* time for Peabody since they started their Clapham Junction nonsense.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 20, 2013)

DotCommunist said:


> well you asked me for some age range- can I ask the same from you? Because if you have been in living memory of a pre-kinnock labour party you'll probably sttill hold out some hope. I see it as a failed experiment, yes post war soc/dec stuff did great guns but thats been a long time dead. Convince me.



I remember Wilson's Labour and Callaghan's Labour.  I really don't hold out any hope of a Labour-led resurgence of socialist principles, though, because there's so little left of the party structure and internal democracy that there are almost no mechanisms left by which the Parliamentary Labour Party can be bent to the will of the CLPs or of the national membership and national executive.  Kinnock, Smith, Blair and Brown all moved changes to party democracy and party rules that have made MPs virtually unassailable, even if they're caught metaphorically sodomising their constituents.
So what we're left with is that last thing in Pandora's box - hope.  We have to *hope* that Labour will be slightly more ameliorative than the coalition; we have to *hope* that Miliband will be more of a _mensch_ than Cameron; we have to *hope* that a Labour Party in power will blunt the knife at the throats of the poor.  Me, I'm not going to bother with the hoping, just with trying, probably in a futile manner (but fuck it, eh?  ) to chuck my clog into the workings of these false politics.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 20, 2013)

Silas Loom said:


> Because "urbanites" are a cohesive group with common interests and values?



You yourself being proof that this isn't, in fact, the case.


----------



## Maurice Picarda (Nov 20, 2013)

ViolentPanda said:


> You yourself being proof that this isn't, in fact, the case.



I thought I'd just leave that as 18 point underlined subtext, but yes, that was the suggestion.


----------



## el-ahrairah (Nov 20, 2013)

ViolentPanda said:


> I've had little time for Peabody for the last decade, and I've had *no* time for Peabody since they started their Clapham Junction nonsense.


 
i don't know about that but i dare say i'll agree with you when i learn about it   i worked for them for a short while in about 2006.  there were lots of arseholes there.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 20, 2013)

el-ahrairah said:


> i don't know about that but i dare say i'll agree with you when i learn about it   i worked for them for a short while in about 2006.  there were lots of arseholes there.



They're decanting residents from the Clapham Junction estate (about 30% of them IIRC) in order to build (sorry, "develop") housing units for private sale.  They're also hoping to build high, despite the struggles for at least the last decade by locals to stop 18-storey+ blocks being built in that area.


----------



## el-ahrairah (Nov 20, 2013)

i was right, i do agree with you.  i have nothing against HAs making money to fund their primary service by utilising the private sector - well, i do actually, perhaps i should say that i understand the restrictions that are on them under the present system.... but the way tenants are treated makes me fucking sick.  what i think peabody in particular would like to do is to get rid of all the tenants altogether and just be a great big housing developer!  and all the while howlett will be patting himself on the back at how clean and shiny his new estates are with all their good quality private sector tenants and _didn't-we-do-well _without ever realising his own role in this.  like i said, nice enough bloke, but he has no understanding.


----------



## SikhWarrioR (Nov 20, 2013)

ViolentPanda said:


> I remember Wilson's Labour and Callaghan's Labour.  I really don't hold out any hope of a Labour-led resurgence of socialist principles, though, because there's so little left of the party structure and internal democracy that there are almost no mechanisms left by which the Parliamentary Labour Party can be bent to the will of the CLPs or of the national membership and national executive.  Kinnock, Smith, Blair and Brown all moved changes to party democracy and party rules that have made MPs virtually unassailable, even if they're caught metaphorically sodomising their constituents.
> So what we're left with is that last thing in Pandora's box - hope.  We have to *hope* that Labour will be slightly more ameliorative than the coalition; we have to *hope* that Miliband will be more of a _mensch_ than Cameron; we have to *hope* that a Labour Party in power will blunt the knife at the throats of the poor.  Me, I'm not going to bother with the hoping, just with trying, probably in a futile manner (but fuck it, eh?  ) to chuck my clog into the workings of these false politics.


And we will hope that the RMS Carpathia will arrive at the sinking RMS Titanic in time!!  I feel that if we get a milipede nu-labour government after May 2015 i fear all we will get a bit of minor fiddling if the banks and the corporations let them rather than the real changes that so many of us desperately need


----------



## nino_savatte (Nov 20, 2013)

el-ahrairah said:


> for a few months i worked alongside Steve Howlett.  working his laptop for him, and sorting out their complaints system which were a fucking shambles.  nice bloke, his financial contacts and nous basically saved peabody from tanking after some disasterous investments in the nineties.  dedicated bloke, for a liberal.
> 
> not sure that justifies the salary though.  and if i were a tenant i'd not be happy with the regular expensive rebrandings either.


This tenant certainly isn't happy, that's for sure.


----------



## nino_savatte (Nov 20, 2013)

el-ahrairah said:


> i was right, i do agree with you.  i have nothing against HAs making money to fund their primary service by utilising the private sector - well, i do actually, perhaps i should say that i understand the restrictions that are on them under the present system.... but the way tenants are treated makes me fucking sick.  what i think peabody in particular would like to do is to get rid of all the tenants altogether and just be a great big housing developer!  and all the while howlett will be patting himself on the back at how clean and shiny his new estates are with all their good quality private sector tenants and _didn't-we-do-well _without ever realising his own role in this.  like i said, nice enough bloke, but he has no understanding.


Peabody will offload its social tenants or force them into shared ownership. It's been heading down the development route for the better part of 15 years anyway.


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## el-ahrairah (Nov 20, 2013)

nino_savatte said:


> Peabody will offload its social tenants or force them into shared ownership. It's been heading down the development route for the better part of 15 years anyway.


 
i wouldn't be surprised at all - and they won't be alone in that.


----------



## Yata (Nov 20, 2013)

only time ive ever voted was 2005 for the liberal democrats
only reason i ticked the liberal box was cause their party name has "democrats" in it which is the name of a party in america and that was enough for me at that time (was 19, never watched TV or kept up with anything that wasnt World of Warcraft)

not voting in 2015 either, i live in sheffield and almost 100% labour here and dont think that will change at all. hopefully Clegg will be out of Sheffield Hallam (what with it being a student area and all) but with the amount of posh dickheads around there i dont know that his successor would be any better (maybe even a tory in sheffield in 2015)


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## Doctor Carrot (Nov 20, 2013)

I think if I was in Sheffield Hallam I would vote Labour just to unseat that snivelling little cunt.


----------



## Bernie Gunther (Nov 20, 2013)

My MP is 'Mad Frankie' Field ...


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## Maurice Picarda (Nov 20, 2013)

Bernie Gunther said:


> My MP is 'Mad Frankie' Field ...



Is there any interest in deselecting him?


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## DotCommunist (Nov 20, 2013)

Bernie Gunther said:


> My MP is 'Mad Frankie' Field ...




see having a virulent right wing twat in the party who hasn't yet been dissapeared or bullwhipped naked around the outskirts of whichever conference hall the party is rentin this year has just shows how bankrupt they are. I know fptp makes for strange bedfellows but come the fuck on. The man couldn't even pass a voight-kampf


----------



## fishfinger (Nov 20, 2013)

ViolentPanda said:


> So if, for example, there was a publicised nationwide campaign to get people who are disenchanted with the political process to write in "none of the above", you still wouldn't do it, even though the media would be likely to lap up any significant protest?
> 
> Apathy rules, eh?



Putting words into my mouth now. In the past I have voted at every election, no matter how futile. If, as in your example of a national campaign to write NOTA, I _might_ do so. However, I believe this sort of campaign is unlikely to gain any significant exposure in the mainstream media (I'd be extremely happy to be proved wrong). In the meantime, any deliberately spoilt ballots will simply be discarded, along with the ones incorrectly filled in (and probably spun as some sort of "OMG! these people are too stupid to even fill-in a ballot).


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## Jon-of-arc (Nov 20, 2013)

I might vote labour if its looking like a close contest with the Tories in whatever seat I'm living in.  Possibly Green, if I'm in the seat where my mate is, cos he'll need every vote he can get to keep his deposit. I'll probably abstain, though.


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## Buckaroo (Nov 20, 2013)

Jon-of-arc said:


> I might vote labour if its looking like a close contest with the Tories in whatever seat I'm living in.  Possibly Green, if I'm in the seat where my mate is, cos he'll need every vote he can get to keep his deposit. I'll probably abstain, though.


 
Don't vote, it just encourages them. It's nonsense.


----------



## newbie (Nov 20, 2013)

DotCommunist said:


> well you asked me for some age range- can I ask the same from you? Because if you have been in living memory of a pre-kinnock labour party you'll probably sttill hold out some hope. I see it as a failed experiment, yes post war soc/dec stuff did great guns but thats been a long time dead. Convince me.


the first transition I took any real notice of was when Wilson took over from Heath, but I didn't get seriously politically active until Callaghan.  I had no hope for Labour then, just as I have no hope for them now.  Most of the golden era of social democracy was stifling, moribund, corrupt and worthy of fighting against.	I couldn't possibly convince you that there's anything in the labour party to fight for, nor would I try.

However there is a huge amount in the conservative party to fight against.  Anything that protects ordinary people from them is worth doing.  And that includes the little act of voting against them, at any and all opportunities.  It's that simple.

Of course you'll get neoliberalism with labour, we all know that.  but you won't get naked, vicious, nasty class warfare of the sort the conservatives dish out every time they get the opportunity.


----------



## Lo Siento. (Nov 20, 2013)

No. But they'll win my constituency anyway


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 20, 2013)

newbie said:


> the first transition I took any real notice of was when Wilson took over from Heath, but I didn't get seriously politically active until Callaghan.  I had no hope for Labour then, just as I have no hope for them now.  Most of the golden era of social democracy was stifling, moribund, corrupt and worthy of fighting against.	I couldn't possibly convince you that there's anything in the labour party to fight for, nor would I try.
> 
> However there is a huge amount in the conservative party to fight against.  Anything that protects ordinary people from them is worth doing.  And that includes the little act of voting against them, at any and all opportunities.  It's that simple.
> 
> Of course you'll get neoliberalism with labour, we all know that.  but you won't get naked, vicious, nasty class warfare of the sort the conservatives dish out every time they get the opportunity.




You'll get madlesons, you'll get cambells, you'll get focused grouped and micromanaged steady-as-she-goes neoliberalism. They won't call us cunts _to our faces
_
you and I clearly won't agree so we will have to agree to differ.


----------



## teqniq (Nov 20, 2013)

No, I'm not - it will make little difference here, safe Labour seat.


----------



## newbie (Nov 20, 2013)

DotCommunist said:


> You'll get madlesons, you'll get cambells, you'll get focused grouped and micromanaged steady-as-she-goes neoliberalism. They won't call us cunts _to our faces
> _
> you and I clearly won't agree so we will have to agree to differ.


well, yeah, maybe.  I have to say my preferred strategy- voting to keep the conservatives out- has delivered at least some of the time, whereas yours- not voting in order to keep all neoliberals out- reliably fails every single time.


----------



## Buckaroo (Nov 20, 2013)

DotCommunist said:


> They won't call us cunts _to our faces_[/quot





newbie said:


> well, yeah, maybe.  I have to say my preferred strategy- voting to keep the conservatives out- has delivered at least some of the time, whereas yours- not voting in order to keep all neoliberals out- reliably fails every single time.


 
And your strategy has delivered what exactly? keeping what out?


----------



## newbie (Nov 20, 2013)

well if nothing else Michael Howard never became prime minister.


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 20, 2013)

Buckaroo said:


> And your strategy has delivered what exactly? keeping what out?


common sense and decency


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 20, 2013)

newbie said:


> well if nothing else Michael Howard never became prime minister.


but heath, thatcher, major and cameron did.


----------



## Sue (Nov 20, 2013)

chilango said:


> If you don't remember the Winter of Discontent and How the Unions Brought the Nation to its Knees then frankly Dotty you haven't earnt the right to an opinion (never mind property ownership or a pension).


 
What about holding the country to ransom and bodies lying unburied in the street, eh? FFS, get it right.


----------



## xenon (Nov 20, 2013)

DotCommunist said:


> You'll get madlesons, you'll get cambells, you'll get focused grouped and micromanaged steady-as-she-goes neoliberalism. They won't call us cunts _to our faces
> _
> you and I clearly won't agree so we will have to agree to differ.



Gennuine question and a purely hypothetical one of course, given as you say, the reliance on swing voters. But if there were a realistic of Labour winning over the Tories and that being the only likely probability of removing a Tory, would you still not vote Labour?

I've got no beef with your position per say, just curious. And apols you might have already answered this.


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## DotCommunist (Nov 21, 2013)

I'm not voting anymore xenon


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 21, 2013)

newbie said:


> yours- not voting in order to keep all neoliberals out- reliably fails every single time.


Not voting isn't a "strategy" to keep neoliberals out.  It's a refusal to give legitimacy to the farce; a refusal to acquiesce in the perversion of democracy; a refusal to participate in a mandate for the surrender of our power.  Voting in "representative democracy" is debased and devalued; redesigned as the main or only way the masses are supposed to participate, but since it is a placebo, rather than real participation, we reject it.


----------



## Delroy Booth (Nov 21, 2013)

danny la rouge said:


> Not voting isn't a "strategy" to keep neoliberals out.  It's a refusal to give legitimacy to the farce



If only legitimacy was that simple though, the state's not just going to disappear if the turnout becomes 2% at general election. Legitimacy is maintained by more than just getting people to vote, and could be maintained without it (as it was for centuries). 

There's a lot better arguments for not voting on this thread than this.


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 21, 2013)

Delroy Booth said:


> If only legitimacy was that simple though, the state's not just going to disappear if the turnout becomes 2% at general election.


That isn't what I said or implied.


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 21, 2013)

danny la rouge said:


> Not voting isn't a "strategy" to keep neoliberals out.


See the start of the post.


----------



## redsquirrel (Nov 21, 2013)

newbie said:


> Of course you'll get neoliberalism with labour, we all know that.  but you won't get naked, vicious, nasty class warfare of the sort the conservatives dish out every time they get the opportunity.


Then why was the rise in inequality under Blair/Brown approximately equal to that under Major? If the Tories are so much worse than Labour then surely this wouldn't be the case.


----------



## JimW (Nov 21, 2013)

I left one bit out of my earlier post as it's flimsy and half-baked to say the least, but have this notion that since in Stroud you have this thing of it being seen as maybe a Tory shire or maybe a yoga-and-yoghurt Steiner paradise with all the jitters, a Labour MP does in some small way say no, it's a mostly working class slice of town and country, even though as amply set out above Labour's not been the party of the class since forever, let alone recent decades - perhaps just that thing that it has been the party the class has voted for with varying degrees of resignation, cynicism and the rest.


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 21, 2013)

Delroy Booth said:


> If only legitimacy was that simple though, the state's not just going to disappear if the turnout becomes 2% at general election. Legitimacy is maintained by more than just getting people to vote, and could be maintained without it (as it was for centuries).
> 
> There's a lot better arguments for not voting on this thread than this.


I think you've misread my post, since you've interpreted it in almost exactly the opposite way to my meaning.  So, I'll try again, and take a little more time, if that's OK.

The degree of democracy involved in the parliamentary process in Britain is exaggerated at best, and the tradition goes back less than a century anyway, since universal suffrage wasn’t granted until 1928. It’s neither venerable nor useful.

The main parties of power are so similar when in power that you could play back recordings of government spokespeople of the last Labour government on the Today programme tomorrow, and all that would give away the fact that it wasn’t a current government minister would be the names, or references to events past.

Let us give credit to a well-meaning Labour rank-and-file. But the record of the Blair/Brown government is dismal evidence that even with good intensions of the membership, the institutions of political power do not allow economic or social reform; do not allow real democratic responsiveness; do not allow interests other than those of capital to be served. Parliament is not a servant of the people; it is a tool of those who wield determinant economic power.

Direct control of government by these forces is not necessary. The debate – for the last several decades shaped and defined by the neoliberal project – needs only to be shaped into what is “realistic” and what is not.  By definition, dissension is “unrealistic” or “old fashioned”.

A “democratic” state being cheaper and more effective than a despotism, the pretence is preferable to coercion, but that could be resorted to if the pretence should fall away like Oz’s curtain.

Saying that voting is a placebo does not mean that stopping voting is a strategy to topple the state.  If you stop taking a placebo, you do not cure the disease. All you do is recognise that the correct remedy is not being applied.


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 21, 2013)

JimW said:


> I left one bit out of my earlier post as it's flimsy and half-baked to say the least, but have this notion that since in Stroud you have this thing of it being seen as maybe a Tory shire or maybe a yoga-and-yoghurt Steiner paradise with all the jitters, a Labour MP does in some small way say no, it's a mostly working class slice of town and country, even though as amply set out above Labour's not been the party of the class since forever, let alone recent decades - perhaps just that thing that it has been the party the class has voted for with varying degrees of resignation, cynicism and the rest.


I agree that you're onto something there.  

This part is the most important:

perhaps just that thing that it has been the party the class has voted for with varying degrees of resignation, cynicism and the rest​I think that's right.  I think that impression is still there enough for a core of voters to turn out.  It _is_ the party that the class has voted for since Keir Hardy, with whatever degree of resignation etc.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Nov 21, 2013)

I want to vote Labour. I have only _ever _voted Labour. But Ed Miliband is the most uninspiring media trained PR robot I've ever seen and I don't really have any faith that he's going to do anything significant to upend the new systems the tories have rolled out.

This video says it all. He's like a Uni interview candidate who's been up all night rehearsing his answers without any actual engagement with the questions.
_"...strikes are wrong....put aside the rhetoric....get round the negotiating table...reckless and provocative manner...government to blame...reckless and provocative manner....etc etc,etc"_



I can't bring myself to vote for that. It's just more of the same.


----------



## Sprocket. (Nov 21, 2013)

I think that Caroline Flint's admission that her most memorable act as a student was ''Throwing eggs at Dennis Skinner'', says it all about the current Labour Party.


----------



## Awesome Wells (Nov 21, 2013)

I just don't get Labour. 

They have had open goal after open goal with this government, and still manage to fuck up. Now Cameron's scoring off them with all this coop bank stuff.

FFS. Yet what choice will there be in 2015? If we don't vote for this useless outfit the tories or at least the tory/lib coalition will bloody continue. Not voting will just mean that the tories will win.


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 21, 2013)

Awesome Wells said:


> I just don't get Labour.
> 
> They have had open goal after open goal with this government, and still manage to fuck up. Now Cameron's scoring off them with all this coop bank stuff.
> 
> FFS. Yet what choice will there be in 2015? If we don't vote for this useless outfit the tories or at least the tory/lib coalition will bloody continue. Not voting will just mean that the tories will win.


How have they fucked up? They have established a large led in the polls for 3 years and are on for a majority govt. By their lights they are doing amazingly well. Cameron is not scoring off them over the co-op - the labour lead in the polls extended after yesterdays attack.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 21, 2013)

fishfinger said:


> Putting words into my mouth now.



No, I asked a question and made a statement, I haven't put any words in your mouth.





> In the past I have voted at every election, no matter how futile. If, as in your example of a national campaign to write NOTA, I _might_ do so. However, I believe this sort of campaign is unlikely to gain any significant exposure in the mainstream media (I'd be extremely happy to be proved wrong).



Well, that's kind of the beauty of near-instantaneous, unmediated communication, and access to (bleurgh, I hate to say it) "social media sites" - the mainstream media can be, if not shut out, partially as a mediating factor.



> In the meantime, any deliberately spoilt ballots will simply be discarded, along with the ones incorrectly filled in (and probably spun as some sort of "OMG! these people are too stupid to even fill-in a ballot).



A campaign such as suggested could turn even non-deliberately spoiled ballots into an indication of disaffection - how can the media or the returning officer quantify which ballots have been "deliberately" or "non-deliberately" spoiled, after all?


----------



## nino_savatte (Nov 21, 2013)

ViolentPanda said:


> They're decanting residents from the Clapham Junction estate (about 30% of them IIRC) in order to build (sorry, "develop") housing units for private sale.  They're also hoping to build high, despite the struggles for at least the last decade by locals to stop 18-storey+ blocks being built in that area.


Here's their flashy page
http://www.peabody.org.uk/homes-in-development/st-johns-hill

Of course, there's little mention of them wanting to turf out most of the estate's social tenants.

It's explained through their numbers


> *Number of new homes: 527*
> 
> These will comprise:
> 
> ...


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 21, 2013)

Delroy Booth said:


> If only legitimacy was that simple though, the state's not just going to disappear if the turnout becomes 2% at general election. Legitimacy is maintained by more than just getting people to vote, and could be maintained without it (as it was for centuries).
> 
> There's a lot better arguments for not voting on this thread than this.



Imagine for a moment, though, the foundation on which "they" have built their oppression over the last 200 years, suddenly removed.  All pretence at being a democracy taken from them by the very people they've manipulated into legitimating their power.  Sure, they'd still rule, but we, they and the wider world would know that their power was illegitimate - that their claims to be a representative democracy were empty.
Given that the justification for the UK's democracy is built around ideas such as the social compact - ideas that stress a reciprocal arrangement between people and state - we can't know how many people would take the unmasking of the state in good part, and how many would want to take the power back, but it might be interesting to find out.


----------



## fishfinger (Nov 21, 2013)

ViolentPanda said:


> No, I asked a question and made a statement, I haven't put any words in your mouth.



OK then mr Pedantipants  You strawmanned me then 



ViolentPanda said:


> Well, that's kind of the beauty of near-instantaneous, unmediated communication, and access to (bleurgh, I hate to say it) "social media sites" - the mainstream media can be, if not shut out, partially as a mediating factor.
> 
> A campaign such as suggested could turn even non-deliberately spoiled ballots into an indication of disaffection - how can the media or the returning officer quantify which ballots have been "deliberately" or "non-deliberately" spoiled, after all?



Yes, this is all great in theory, but I won't hold my breath in anticipation of this campaign.


----------



## treelover (Nov 21, 2013)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I have considered writing to said MP saying "While I respect your own position and appreciate your actions opposing Tory cuts and the actions of the council, I am very concerned about the direction that the parliamentary Labour party is taking and may not be able to vote Labour in all conscience at the next election etc etc".[/B] But that would be political action separate from actually voting.




going to pinch that intro, thanks


----------



## treelover (Nov 21, 2013)

Bernie Gunther said:


> My MP is 'Mad Frankie' Field ...



Didn't know you were in Birkenhead.


----------



## treelover (Nov 21, 2013)

Sprocket. said:


> I think that Caroline Flint's admission that her most memorable act as a student was ''Throwing eggs at Dennis Skinner'', says it all about the current Labour Party.



what was that all about then?


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 21, 2013)

treelover said:


> going to pinch that intro, thanks


I can't, because I don't respect my (Labour) MP, and the Labour Party in the Council is in coalition with the Tories and is strenuously imposing cuts, including writing to employees implying they are sacked and will only be taken back on if they sign a document agreeing to worse terms & conditions. 

They deny this, but I have seen the letter. My youngest brother is a council employee (and Unite member) and showed me the one he received. Sent by a council run by a Labour-dominated coalition, to paraphrase the Welsh Waffler, a Labour-dominated coalition.


----------



## Sprocket. (Nov 21, 2013)

treelover said:


> what was that all about then?



It was something she was questioned about by some local members at her candidate selection meeting at the Don Valley Constituency process to replace the late Martin Redmond. It was thought at the time oops.
But she was successful.


----------



## newbie (Nov 21, 2013)

redsquirrel said:


> Then why was the rise in inequality under Blair/Brown approximately equal to that under Major? If the Tories are so much worse than Labour then surely this wouldn't be the case.


I described Major up there ^ as 'anodyne'.  He was the least objectionable of the tory pm's I've had the misfortune to put up with, just as Blair was the most objectionable of the Labour ones.  I wonder what Hague or Howard would have been like?  

Which isn't much of an answer, obviously, but the reality is that while I wouldn't personally choose any of them, one of them will become PM whether I like it or not, and whether I vote or not.


----------



## William of Walworth (Nov 21, 2013)

danny la rouge said:


> Not voting isn't a "strategy" to keep neoliberals out.  It's a refusal to give legitimacy to the farce; a refusal to acquiesce in the perversion of democracy; a refusal to participate in a mandate for the surrender of our power.  Voting in "representative democracy" is debased and devalued; redesigned as the main or only way the masses are supposed to participate, but since it is a placebo, rather than real participation, we reject it.


 

I don't disagree with any of that in principled terms.

But where does tactical voting stand in that?

As in : ejecting a _particularly_ obnoxious neo-liberal from a _particular_ seat?

An anti-personal vote if you like -- such a move wouldn't have to mean endorsement of the opposition candidate(s).

Or does endorsing the system by participating in it at all, overrule any such local/temporary considerations?

Just raising the questions ...

ETA and TBF : now seeing (  ) that you've added more posts danny, which in part answer the above. Will get back to this -- fascinating discussion.


----------



## newbie (Nov 21, 2013)

danny la rouge said:


> Not voting isn't a "strategy" to keep neoliberals out.  It's a refusal to give legitimacy to the farce; a refusal to acquiesce in the perversion of democracy; a refusal to participate in a mandate for the surrender of our power.  Voting in "representative democracy" is debased and devalued; redesigned as the main or only way the masses are supposed to participate, but since it is a placebo, rather than real participation, we reject it.


and who exactly is supposed to care about this refusal?


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 21, 2013)

newbie said:


> and who exactly is supposed to care about this refusal?


Laura Cattrell.


----------



## newbie (Nov 21, 2013)

who's she?


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 21, 2013)

newbie said:


> who's she?


A singer. Bugger, my phone misspelled her surname. No wonder you were nonplussed. Cantrell.


----------



## newbie (Nov 21, 2013)

I'm none the wiser.

It's a straightforward question.


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 21, 2013)

Spoiler: Laura Cantrell


----------



## newbie (Nov 21, 2013)

and the problem with a straightforward answer is?

who is supposed to care about this refusal?


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 21, 2013)

William of Walworth said:


> Or does endorsing the system by participating in it at all, overrule any such local/temporary considerations?


I _have_ voted in the past, or used elections for specific purposes. Used the arena to make specific points.

For example, in 2003, I was part of a group that publicised which candidates were, statistically, the best anti Iraq war vote in each Holyrood constituency. (This confused some traditional party-supporting commentators, who demanded to know which party we were from.  James Mitchell, for example, couldn't get his head round the idea that we weren't trying to promote any party to win overall.  Gerry Hassan emailed us, demanding to know who we were _from_).

That was a specific project, for a specific purpose, making a particular point.


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 21, 2013)

newbie said:


> and the problem with a straightforward answer is?
> 
> who is supposed to care about this refusal?


I've already told you, in the post you quoted, and in 366.


----------



## newbie (Nov 21, 2013)

no you haven't.  You've described "a refusal to give legitimacy to the farce", and expanded on that description, but you haven't given any indication of who might care about that refusal, or indeed why anyone might care.


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 21, 2013)

newbie said:


> you haven't given any indication of who might care about that refusal


Yes I have.  I've explained both why I do it, and that it isn't intended to bring down neoliberalism.  Or the state.

Let me be quite clear: I don't  participate _because I don't want to_. It isn't a tactic. It isn't a strategy. It's isn't a programme of refusal. It's a clear-headed personal decision. I don't do it for anyone else's benefit.

That's not to say that many of those with some kind of investment in the parliamentary system aren't unsettled by mass non-participation (and make no mistake, that's what we have. In Manchester Central in 2010, 55.7% stayed away.  The UK average was 34.9% staying away).  It causes them disquiet. All sorts of reasons and solutions are aired.  But ultimately, they would continue without any turnout if they had to.


----------



## newbie (Nov 21, 2013)

ok, it's all about you.  tvm


----------



## Humberto (Nov 21, 2013)

Its an ideal that clearly doesn't work. It DOESN'T represent the majority who lose out. The working class particularly are not represented at all. They have to humbly submit to a jolly good thrashing from the public school Oxbridge class who enjoy it immensely. There is only one party.

And people are actually scared to turn against them. There is a media industry with all sorts of tricks and skills who successfully keep us divided and offer themselves as the answer.


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 21, 2013)

newbie said:


> ok, it's all about you.  tvm



What's the thread title?


----------



## chilango (Nov 22, 2013)

newbie said:


> ok, it's all about you.  tvm



That's right.

For almost all of us, almost all of the time, that's all our engagement with elections can be.


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 22, 2013)

danny la rouge said:


> What's the thread title?




'My Chest Bursts With Pride Every Time I Do My Civic Duty'

oh wait, no it isn't


----------



## newbie (Nov 22, 2013)

"_I don't do it for anyone else's benefit._" is clear. 

But you see in an election where some 2/3 of the adult population participate I think old-fashioned notions like solidarity and communalism come into play- what they call tribalism in the context.  I think it should include the benefit of others, not all about me.  Not about my sensibilities, not about trying to keep my hands clean on some imagined highground, not about showing my mates (or the gallery on the interweb) how principled I am. I know what tribe I was born into and identify with and which tribe is the enemy, out to harm.  A single vote doesn't have much effect, why should it as one of 20 million, but it's the engagement available.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 22, 2013)

How do we get one of these petitions to be signed and delivered?

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/check_results?search=none+of+the+above


----------



## chilango (Nov 22, 2013)

newbie said:


> "_I don't do it for anyone else's benefit._" is clear.
> 
> But you see in an election where some 2/3 of the adult population participate I think old-fashioned notions like solidarity and communalism come into play- what they call tribalism in the context.  I think it should include the benefit of others, not all about me.  Not about my sensibilities, not about trying to keep my hands clean on some imagined highground, not about showing my mates (or the gallery on the interweb) how principled I am. I know what tribe I was born into and identify with and which tribe is the enemy, out to harm.  A single vote doesn't have much effect, why should it as one of 20 million, but it's the engagement available.



well isn't that the same as Danny?

a recognition that that what you do or don't do won't affect the outcome yet at the same time a desire to engage on terms you feel personally comfortable with?


----------



## newbie (Nov 22, 2013)

_doesn't have much effect_ is not at all the same as _cannot have an effect_


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 22, 2013)

newbie said:


> "_I don't do it for anyone else's benefit._" is clear.
> 
> But you see in an election where some 2/3 of the adult population participate *I* think old-fashioned notions like solidarity and communalism come into play- what they call tribalism in the context. * I* think it should include the benefit of others, not all about *me*.  Not about* my *sensibilities, not about trying to keep *my* hands clean on some imagined highground, not about showing* my* mates (or the gallery on the interweb) how principled I am*. I know what tribe I was born into and identify with* and which tribe is the enemy, out to harm.  A single vote doesn't have much effect, why should it as one of 20 million, but it's the engagement available.



lol


----------



## Dexter Deadwood (Nov 22, 2013)

Voting = Stockholm Syndrome.


----------



## andysays (Nov 22, 2013)

newbie said:


> ...I know what tribe I was born into and identify with and which tribe is the enemy, out to harm...



The argument which is being made here, and which you seem to be either missing or avoiding, is that the Labour party is just as much part of the ruling class as the Conservative party. They may have a slightly different approach to governing, but in the end they're still willing/eager to shit on the rest of us in order to benefit themselves and their backers.

If you see Labour and Conservative as being two different tribes with fundamentally opposing interests then you are totally misreading the situation and, unfortunately, identifying with the enemy (to use your analogy).


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 22, 2013)

newbie said:


> "_I don't do it for anyone else's benefit._" is clear.


If the thread was "Do you think your neighbour may vote Labour", I might feel suitably chastened.  But I answered as _you_ did, about whether I intend to vote Labour.

You're the one who asked "who cares" if I don't vote, not me.

And that's your problem.  You are approaching this from the assumption that attending the ballot box once every four years is political engagement.  In my view it isn't; it's a placebo.  I've explained that. I get my political engagement elsewhere, for the reasons I think I've adequately explained.  You even say "it's the engagement available".  It isn't engagement, though, in my opinion.  That's why I don't take part.  My non-participation is merely a recognition of that.  Non-voting isn't, as you paradoxically expected, any kind of engagement. 

It's a lack of participation in phoney engagement. That's what you are still struggling to grasp.

The engagement isn't at the ballot box at all.  Look elsewhere for it.

As to the rest of your assertions:


> But you see in an election where some 2/3 of the adult population participate I think old-fashioned notions like solidarity and communalism come into play- what they call tribalism in the context.


Is that a reason to take part in something I think is futile?  Many others do it?  You take part in things because lots of other do, do you?  Watching TV programmes you don't like, out of solidarity?  What about shopping Jew-lovers to the Gestapo?  It's no reason at all, and I think you know that.



> I think it should include the benefit of others


But I don't think voting benefits others.  You do, fair enough, do it.  But it isn't my view.



> Not about my sensibilities, not about trying to keep my hands clean on some imagined highground


First of all, yes you are.  It looks like moral high ground to me. Your moral high ground is solidarity with others who vote.  Doing your civic duty by exercising your franchise.  Fine, on you go.  I'm not saying I'm enlightened and you're not, I'm saying that _I_ don't vote for these reasons. I haven't mentioned whether others should or not.  I think it's up to each individual, as it happens.

What are you saying?  It looks to me like you're implying I should vote.



> not about showing my mates (or the gallery on the interweb) how principled I am.


Now you're just resorting to insults.  That's nowhere near what I was doing.  If you read my posts properly, you'll see all I was going was explaining why I thought voting was futile.  I don't withhold my vote to display high principles.  You're back to seeing the ballot box as political agency.  I don't see it that way. Don't project your world view onto me.  For me, and for many others, voting is a wasted effort.  So we don't do it.  Nothing to do with keeping our hands clean.

(Indeed, you'll see that I have explained that sometimes I have seen reason to participate in elections, albeit not in the expected way.  So you're wide of the mark on several counts).



> I know what tribe I was born into and identify with and which tribe is the enemy, out to harm.


I know what tribe is the enemy, too.  And Labour candidates are part of that tribe.  They are servants of the neoliberal project, my enemy.


----------



## andysays (Nov 22, 2013)

Maybe it's time to resurrect this


----------



## redcogs (Nov 22, 2013)

i believe it was dotcommie who explained above that he would rather remove his penis with a blunt instrument than vote Labour.  i'm bound to agree (although, in the real,world i'm somewhat attached to my dick, so i may not be quite as prepared to go as far as he..).

If there are any differences between the Tories and Labour they are only at the level of cosmetics and subjectivity.  On the essentialities they both fuck the working class for as much as they can get away with, or, more accurately, as much as our side allow them to get away with.

What surprises me is that this remains a contentious issue.  i must be badly out of touch.


----------



## articul8 (Nov 22, 2013)

You are.  Whilst there exists far too much common ground between main parties - there is a difference.  Wouldn't you scrap the bedroom tax?


----------



## J Ed (Nov 22, 2013)

Thought this might be of interest here http://www.leftfutures.org/2013/11/...-to-pretend-its-not-just-progress-youth-wing/


----------



## redsquirrel (Nov 22, 2013)

danny la rouge said:


> And that's your problem.  You are approaching this from the assumption that attending the ballot box once every four years is political engagement.


Precisely, vote if you want to (personally even if I was allowed to I doubt I could be bothered to waste the 15 minutes that voting takes)  but don't pretend that you are anymore politically engaged than those who are abstaining. Voting is utterly apolitical.


----------



## redcogs (Nov 22, 2013)

articul8 said:


> You are.  Whilst there exists far too much common ground between main parties - there is a difference.  Wouldn't you scrap the bedroom tax?



You might have missed the part in my contribution above that mentioned essential differences?

Of course there is cosmetic variation between the Parties, after all, the professional political bods need to have some means (other than the usual artifice) of being able to project an image of attachment to matters of high principle etc (ie - 'i support the poor' or 'i support freedom and markets'), But in the end i reckon that UK capitalism has developed the world it wants, assisted very ably by both main political parties.  Labour's failing has consistently been a refusal to confront the growing wealth inequality that blights us.  They promise (in order to gain office), then they capitulate to the powers of the rich.  They may promise that they will remove the bedroom tax, but their history has been one of leaving intact legislation that favours the interests of the 'elite'.  Labour cannot be trusted.  Why, for example, are the anti trade union laws still there?  Didn't i notice about 13 years of Labour government quite recently?  If Labour had been remotely interested in assisting workers and raising the living standards of the poorest they would have repealed all of the employment acts that bind our sides hands so firmly behind our backs - leaving millions at the mercy of greedy exploiters and market forces, with no proper means of protection.


----------



## Stay Beautiful (Nov 22, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> Are you? Were you previously a lib-dem? A never vote labour after iraq type? If so, why are you now voting labour? Any other motivations please post them. (I won't attack you)



Yes. Primarily for lesser evil reasons. In terms of voting, I have gone from anti-Labour, to critical supporter to auto-Labour over about 15 years, I would guess. That is, in terms of voting. Quite simply, if there is any point with bothering with the whole liberal democratic shtick (and I think there is) then Labour is currently the only game in town. Is there any serious groundswell for disaffiliation from Labour and starting out again with a new mass workers party? I don't think so. I concede, this is not to say that there is any great shift back towards Labour either. John McDonnell is right. Nothing much going on in parliament right now full stop but this is not to say it should be ignored. The big arenas of struggle will be extra-parliamentary and Labour people should get involved in such campaigns.


----------



## Stay Beautiful (Nov 22, 2013)

redcogs said:


> Why, for example, are the anti trade union laws still there?  Didn't i notice about 13 years of Labour government quite recently



They did however introduce the Employment Relations Act which included some pro-union provisions.


----------



## white rabbit (Nov 22, 2013)

If you're saving your vote until there's the prospect of a viable progressive administration, you're going to be waiting a long time. Until then the choice is going to be various shades of economic liberalism from the very nasty to the not quite as nasty. The Utilitarian idea of encouraging happiness and discouraging misery is a handy rule of thumb. To try and tip the balance toward not quite as nasty. It's not fulfilling or satisfying. I'm not being bought off by taking part. Just doing something that costs nothing and may influence a more positive outcome.

Ironically, the more marginalised or ill-served by the system you are, the more likely you are to feel alienated by the whole process and to become apathetic or hostile. Which means there's much less reason for politicians to concern themselves with those people. There are lots of other factors, but this helps. I don't think there's much to be done to break the link between marginalisation and disengagement, but it's unfortunate and it's regrettable imo that some choose to be complicit.


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 22, 2013)

articul8 said:


> You are.  Whilst there exists far too much common ground between main parties - there is a difference.  Wouldn't you scrap the bedroom tax?




anyone who doesn't have the heart of a shrivveled walnut would scrap that iniquitous thing.

But labour won't.It'll be the JSA farce all over again. We were promised that would be rescinded and yet, here we are.


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 22, 2013)

> Ironically, the more marginalised or ill-served by the system you are, the more likely you are to feel alienated by the whole process and to become apathetic or hostile.





> I don't think there's much to be done to break the link between marginalisation and disengagement, but it's unfortunate and it's regrettable imo that some choose to be complicit.



Lol.


----------



## rioted (Nov 22, 2013)

articul8 said:


> You are.  Whilst there exists far too much common ground between main parties - there is a difference.  Wouldn't you scrap the bedroom tax?


If this is such a difference, why are LABOUR councils up and down the land implementing such a thing?


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 22, 2013)

tbf if you table and implement illegal budget the central powers can hold you personally responsible, nick your personal goods and even chuck you in chokey. Which is all the more reason not to join in. What are you going to say? 'I was really upset but had to do it or else risk my liberty and my solvency'? fuck being in that position.


----------



## brogdale (Nov 22, 2013)

andysays said:


> Yeah, I had a look at that after posing the question.
> 
> For those (like me) who were previously unaware, the current member for the constituency of Whitney is a Mr D Cameron...



Bone's pal(s) at AMP have already produced some LD stylee election posters...


----------



## redcogs (Nov 22, 2013)

white rabbit said:


> Ironically, the more marginalised or ill-served by the system you are, the more likely you are to feel alienated by the whole process and to become apathetic or hostile. Which means there's much less reason for politicians to concern themselves with those people. There are lots of other factors, but this helps. I don't think there's much to be done to break the link between marginalisation and disengagement, but it's unfortunate and it's regrettable imo that some choose to be complicit.



Few organisations have been more "complicit" in the creation of an economic culture which creates marginalisation than Labour.  Their 'intensely relaxed' approach during the Blair/Brown years (to the incredible enrichment of the already very wealthy) automatically involved enormous divertion of wealth away from the already "marginalised" and accelerated the creation of what many have called the underclass. The unscrupulous tax evading strutters who salt billions away in havens and hedgefunds were exalted by Labour throughout that period.  Tax that should have been collected and redistributed in welfare provision and work creation was left in the hands of gangsters. Labour are the friends of the rich, just as surely as the other lot of posh fucks in suits.

Decent people recognised this long ago.


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 22, 2013)

Decent people. "what many have called the underclass"


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 22, 2013)

redcogs said:


> Few organisations have been more "complicit" in the creation of an economic culture which creates marginalisation than Labour.  Their 'intensely relaxed' approach during the Blair/Brown years (to the incredible enrichment of the already very wealthy) automatically involved enormous divertion of wealth away from the already "marginalised" and accelerated the creation of what many have called the underclass. The unscrupulous tax evading strutters who salt billions away in havens and hedgefunds were exalted by Labour throughout that period.  Tax that should have been collected and redistributed in welfare provision and work creation was left in the hands of gangsters. Labour are the friends of the rich, just as surely as the other lot of posh fucks in suits.
> 
> Decent people recognised this long ago.


i don't see how the creation of an underclass could have been accelerated by blair or brown when we were told by the media in 1990 that such a thing already existed.


----------



## redcogs (Nov 23, 2013)

Yes underclass is a contentious concept.  But if we accept the existence of very large numbers of exceptionally impoverished people with little hope or access to any means of lifting themselves out of such conditions, it may be convenient to regard them as an 'underclass' - at least as a shorthand description of a real enough phenomena?  Labour's 13 years did little to narrow the  wealth gap.


----------



## DotCommunist (Nov 23, 2013)

was it just 13? It felt longer. mind you this lots tenure has felt even more vast


----------



## redcogs (Nov 23, 2013)

It feels even longer when you are my age.  i can remember Wilson's first government.


----------



## redcogs (Nov 23, 2013)

Pickman's model said:


> i don't see how the creation of an underclass could have been accelerated by blair or brown when we were told by the media in 1990 that such a thing already existed.



 You forced me into a wiki on this Pickperson.  according to that the underclass concept has origins C early 20thC.

The press must have been slow to alert us to it.  i knew i should never have trusted Murdoch.


----------



## white rabbit (Nov 23, 2013)

redcogs said:


> Few organisations have been more "complicit" in the creation of an economic culture which creates marginalisation than Labour.  Their 'intensely relaxed' approach during the Blair/Brown years (to the incredible enrichment of the already very wealthy) automatically involved enormous divertion of wealth away from the already "marginalised" and accelerated the creation of what many have called the underclass. The unscrupulous tax evading strutters who salt billions away in havens and hedgefunds were exalted by Labour throughout that period.  Tax that should have been collected and redistributed in welfare provision and work creation was left in the hands of gangsters. Labour are the friends of the rich, just as surely as the other lot of posh fucks in suits.
> 
> Decent people recognised this long ago.


Yes. But given that we don't have the opportunity to choose wealth redistribution and proper welfare provision, what else do you want?


----------



## Hocus Eye. (Nov 23, 2013)

butchersapron said:


> Decent people. "what many have called the underclass"


You are obviously recalling the depiction of the "untermensch" How right you are in your reference.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Nov 23, 2013)

articul8 said:


> You are.  Whilst there exists far too much common ground between main parties - there is a difference.  Wouldn't you scrap the bedroom tax?



You mean scrap the bedroom tax, as Labour have made *no BINDING commitment* to do?


----------



## SikhWarrioR (Nov 23, 2013)

Does Labour have any commitment to be really different from the Torlibdem axis of evil the only commitment from Labour that I have seen is more of the same with possibly a few minor tweaks around the edges


----------



## treelover (Nov 23, 2013)

DotCommunist said:


> anyone who doesn't have the heart of a shrivveled walnut would scrap that iniquitous thing.
> 
> *But labour won't.It'll be the JSA farce all over again. We were promised that would be rescinded and yet, here we are*.




I didn't know that, was this party policy in the 97 election?


----------



## Tankus (Nov 24, 2013)

Story's hovering around Murdoch's alleged epiphany..that ,godfather to his kids  ,his uber mate , might have shafted him behind his back ,

or maybe not him directly 






 .…l am


----------



## treelover (Dec 7, 2013)

> *Secret memo shows key role for Blairites in Labour's election team*
> Alastair Campbell and Alan Milburn to advise Ed Miliband, according to leaked plan that will infuriate party left
> 
> http://www.theguardian.com/politics...on-alastair-campbell-alan-milburn-ed-miliband



How could anyone vote for this party? the Guardian journo Toby Helm is crowing as well.


----------



## jusali (Dec 7, 2013)

Raaaahhhhhh! They totally fucked us on the altar of hope! We's still floundering around wiv our pants down wondering who the fuck is the human face of politics? Who cares about the people? Labour fucked us royally without lube can they be forgiven? At least the conservatives don't deceive us in their intended rape of the nation............


----------



## Gosh (Dec 7, 2013)

No vote from me.  

There is nobody worth voting for.


----------



## white rabbit (Dec 7, 2013)

treelover said:


> How could anyone vote for this party? the Guardian journo Toby Helm is crowing as well.


That's right, I'm going to hold onto my vote until a true political alternative appears. Probably just about to happen.


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## sleaterkinney (Dec 7, 2013)

I live in a safe Labour seat now but when I didn't I voted Labour. I think they're better than the Tories.


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## fiannanahalba (Dec 8, 2013)

Would never vote for them  or their Tory/Liberal mates.


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## DrRingDing (Dec 8, 2013)

No. I'm voting Class War.


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## SikhWarrioR (Dec 8, 2013)

Voting labour or voting tory or lib-dem its like different cheeks of the same arse and all are full of the same shit!! Unless i get a decent left of center or green candidate its a spoilt paper for me


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## Mojofilter (Dec 8, 2013)

sleaterkinney said:


> I think they're better than the Tories.



This basically.

Although I have tended to tactically vote for the Lib Dems because locally they have had the best chance of unseating the Tories. Can't see that being the case this time around though so Labour is looking likely.

Will make fuck all difference mind, suppose boosting their share of the popular vote nationally could marginally boost their credibility in forming a coalition if it's a hung parliament again :/


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## Chz (Dec 8, 2013)

*sigh* Well I voted tactically last time but then the LDs were a bit of a disappointment, weren't they?

Labour's traditionally third around here, but the LD collapse might change that so... Yeah, Labour this time. Local issues or candidates matter more to me, so I've voted for all of them at one point or another. The local LD MP's a bit of a twerp anyhow. Sadly I predict Sutton and environs going back Tory again though.


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## Jon-of-arc (Dec 8, 2013)

So the "don't vote at all - they're all just as shit as each other" argument - I struggle with that. 

Throughout my adult life, weve had a labour government, until 2010. As I became more politically awake, in my mid 20s, I assumed it made no difference, that all the parties had an interest in protecting the status quo, and that none of them were interested in helping ordinary people.

And then we got the current shower of cunts. I know that whoever got into power would have had to make cuts, but these twats actively enjoy it, and do other things that I don't like.

To say "it makes no difference" just seems incorrect to me. Things can always be a little bit worse.

The "UK electoral system is designed to give an illusion of democracy, and casting your ballot is a tacit endorsement of a system which can never bring the chages you want" point resonates much more strongly with me.


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## youngian (Dec 8, 2013)

Jon-of-arc said:


> The "UK electoral system is designed to give an illusion of democracy, and casting your ballot is a tacit endorsement of a system which can never bring the chages you want" point resonates much more strongly with me.



Where do you want an executive and legislator's legitimacy to come from?


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## Jon-of-arc (Dec 8, 2013)

youngian said:


> Where do you want an executive and legislator's legitimacy to come from?



In my more idealist moments, I like to think that we can run things without having to elect people to do our legislating for us. Y'know, direct democracy, proper accountability for public servants, lots of meetings meetings, possibly following some sort of people-led overhaul of the current system.  

This is vague and wishy washy, I know.  I dont spend much time thinking about this stuff.  But surely there are other ways for a society to... ensure that democracy is more than just a tick in a box for the least shit option twice a decade?


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## youngian (Dec 8, 2013)

Jon-of-arc said:


> In my more idealist moments, I like to think that we can run things without having to elect people to do our legislating for us. Y'know, direct democracy, proper accountability for public servants, lots of meetings meetings, possibly following some sort of people-led overhaul of the current system.
> 
> This is vague and wishy washy, I know.  I dont spend much time thinking about this stuff.  But surely there are other ways for a society to... ensure that democracy is more than just a tick in a box for the least shit option twice a decade?



There's plenty of ways for us to get our hands dirty through voluntary elected committee participation but politics can be just as grubby down at your local PTA or amatuer football team. 
Direct democracy is still ultimately representative democracy as its dominated by the usual suspects. Most people more sensibly prefer to watch Eastenders on a rainy night after a shitty day at work. 
A good job to as I don't want a bunch of perochial amateurs delivering endless contradictory decisions on low turnout plebiscites everytime the weather changes.


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## Jon-of-arc (Dec 8, 2013)

youngian said:


> There's plenty of ways for us to get our hands dirty through voluntary elected committee participation but politics can be just as grubby down at your local PTA or amatuer football team.
> Direct democracy is still ultimately representative democracy as its dominated by the usual suspects. Most people more sensibly prefer to watch Eastenders on a rainy night after a shitty day at work.
> A good job to as I don't want a bunch of perochial amateurs delivering endless contradictory decisions on low turnout plebiscites everytime the weather changes.



Some valid points, some less valid ones.  Can't really be bothered to argue though.  Direct democracy is completely abstracted from anything that might actually happen any time soon.


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## goldenecitrone (Dec 8, 2013)

The sheer pleasure of seeing the current lot getting booted out will be enough for me at the next election. Safe Labour seat so doesn't really matter who I vote for here.


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## ViolentPanda (Dec 8, 2013)

DrRingDing said:


> No. I'm voting Class War.



Fucking hippy.

Don't vote Class War, *do* it.


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## ViolentPanda (Dec 8, 2013)

youngian said:


> There's plenty of ways for us to get our hands dirty through voluntary elected committee participation but politics can be just as grubby down at your local PTA or amatuer football team.
> Direct democracy is still ultimately representative democracy as its dominated by the usual suspects. Most people more sensibly prefer to watch Eastenders on a rainy night after a shitty day at work.



The difference with direct democracy being that it generally inheres a legislated ability on the part of the electorate to compel their representative to represent *their* views, rather than a party line, whether that's through a "recall" power, or other mechanisms.



> A good job to as I don't want a bunch of perochial amateurs delivering endless contradictory decisions on low turnout plebiscites everytime the weather changes.



Frankly, whenever I've observed "perochial amateurs" [sic] at work (mostly parish councillors), they've tended to impress me with their dedication to fairness, and making sure they get a good deal for those they represent *despite* their possible party affiliations and/or political preferences.  I'd much prefer to be represented by someone committed to such principles than the two-bob smarm merchant who represents my constituency, who is very obviously politically-ambitious, and will happily ride roughshod over the opinions and desires of his constituents to achieve his own ends.


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## emanymton (Dec 8, 2013)

ViolentPanda said:


> Fucking hippy.
> 
> Don't vote Class War, *do* it.


Can't embed 

http://radicalactivismvisualarchive.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/classwar.gif?w=300&h=201


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## youngian (Dec 8, 2013)

ViolentPanda said:


> The difference with direct democracy being that it generally inheres a legislated ability on the part of the electorate to compel their representative to represent *their* views, rather than a party line, whether that's through a "recall" power, or other mechanisms.
> 
> Frankly, whenever I've observed "perochial amateurs" [sic] at work (mostly parish councillors), they've tended to impress me with their dedication to fairness, and making sure they get a good deal for those they represent *despite* their possible party affiliations and/or political preferences.



I was thinking more of organisers of direct democracy plebiscites when mentioning perochial amateurs. Parish councillors are part of a representative political process who have to make considered long term evidence based decisions reached through civic compromise and weighing up different intertests. Direct democracy is based on endless referendums on low turnouts called to turn them into rubber stamping delegates. 

Yes of course common sense man-down-the-pub doesn't like these doesn't like these smarmy politicians, who are all in it for themselves, toeing the party line. 
The problem is that once a leader gives the troops permission to say and do what the hell they like comon snese man-down-the-pub concludes that if you can't control your own party you probably can't control much else and doesn't elect you. 
You can have the odd constituency rebellion but essentially agree a line and stick to it you'll just be a load of powerless windbags in opposition who like the sound of their own voices.


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## ViolentPanda (Dec 8, 2013)

youngian said:


> I was thinking more of organisers of direct democracy plebiscites when mentioning perochial amateurs. Parish councillors are part of a representative political process who have to make considered long term evidence based decisions reached through civic compromise and weighing up different intertests. Direct democracy is based on endless referendums on low turnouts called to turn them into rubber stamping delegates.



You're making assumptions about the form direct democracy would take, wouldn't you say? 



> Yes of course common sense man-down-the-pub doesn't like these doesn't like these smarmy politicians, who are all in it for themselves, toeing the party line. The problem is that once a leader gives the troops permission to say and do what the hell they like comon snese man-down-the-pub concludes that if you can't control your own party you probably can't control much else and doesn't elect you.


Which suggest another good reason why pub man should take and have some responsibility for his own destiny.

Anyway, _apropos_ leadership, a good leader (in conventional party-political terms) would never give his troops such licence in the first place, as we both know.  The idea is to further the party, not the individual.
Combine the ambition of the individual with the self-perpetuating aspect of party functioning, though, and you end up with what the people of the UK *have* ended up with: 630 or so thoroughly-ambitious self-serving hacks and backstabbers, all willing to use the mask of representing their constituency to serve their own interests, and a handful of non-hacks who believe in public service to their constituents.



> You can have the odd constituency rebellion but essentially agree a line and stick to it you'll just be a load of powerless windbags in opposition who like the sound of their own voices.



I'm not against agreeing a line.  I merely don't believe it needs to be entirely motivated by the interests and requirements of the party, rather than the people.  Why should I vote for someone whose interest in serving their constituents is tangential to serving personal and party interests, especially when no party represents "the masses" or even attempts to claim to.


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## youngian (Dec 8, 2013)

ViolentPanda said:


> Combine the ambition of the individual with the self-perpetuating aspect of party functioning, though, and you end up with what the people of the UK *have* ended up with: 630 or so thoroughly-ambitious self-serving hacks and backstabbers, all willing to use the mask of representing their constituency to serve their own interests, and a handful of non-hacks who believe in public service to their constituents.
> 
> I'm not against agreeing a line.  I merely don't believe it needs to be entirely motivated by the interests and requirements of the party, rather than the people.  Why should I vote for someone whose interest in serving their constituents is tangential to serving personal and party interests, especially when no party represents "the masses" or even attempts to claim to.



I don't believe MPs are the comic book Richard IIIs you describe neither are they the saccharine doo-gooders of West Wing. Just human beings like the rest of us that move around that spectrum. Politics can be a dirty business but people who are looking for saintly leaders who are above it all and are connected directly to the hearts of their people and nation should be careful what they wish for.

Its a standard A-level politics question; Who does an MP represent; his constituency, party, nation or conscience?

The problem with MPs who think they are elected because their constituents think they are wonderful is that they are often self regarding twats and really owe their position to their party and its manifesto.


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## redcogs (Dec 8, 2013)

ViolentPanda said:


> Fucking hippy.
> 
> Don't vote Class War, *do* it.



Will hippies be imprisoned  after the revolution 'Panda?


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## ViolentPanda (Dec 8, 2013)

redcogs said:


> Will hippies be imprisoned  after the revolution 'Panda?



Only if they try to get me to eat a lentil bake, or a tofu burger.


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## redcogs (Dec 8, 2013)

Ha, an issue neatly sidestepped.

So, hippies and vegheads are getting slammed up.  What about bike riders? and carrot tops?

Its a slippery slope you know.


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## stowpirate (Dec 8, 2013)

ViolentPanda said:


> Combine the ambition of the individual with the self-perpetuating aspect of party functioning, though, and you end up with what the people of the UK *have* ended up with: 630 or so thoroughly-ambitious self-serving hacks and backstabbers, all willing to use the mask of representing their constituency to serve their own interests, and a handful of non-hacks who believe in public service to their constituents.



Sort of thing the media should be saying at every opportunity. Whenever they talk about politics this should be the introduction. Any interview should start with those words and then ask the question


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## Spanky Longhorn (Dec 8, 2013)

stowpirate said:


> Sort of thing the media should be saying at every opportunity. Whenever they talk about politics this should be the introduction. Any interview should start with those words and then ask the question


Of course there are no self serving hacks and back stabbers in the media, and the media shares no common interests with anyone in parliament


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## white rabbit (Dec 8, 2013)

I was just reading an article in the Guardian about the fact that the first debate in the Commons about black deaths in custody was presented by a white Tory MP. One has to ask what Labour have been doing all this time. This is hardly news. As I say, it's an impoverished field. But this is pretty fucking pathetic.


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## danny la rouge (Feb 11, 2014)

http://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/labour-will-keep-austerity-says-miliband-1-3300839
Labour will keep austerity, says Miliband


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## Pickman's model (Feb 11, 2014)

danny la rouge said:


> http://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/labour-will-keep-austerity-says-miliband-1-3300839
> Labour will keep austerity, says Miliband


but at least it will be austerity with an honestly incompetent face.


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## Dexter Deadwood (Feb 11, 2014)

Responsible austerity.


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## goldenecitrone (Feb 11, 2014)

danny la rouge said:


> http://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/labour-will-keep-austerity-says-miliband-1-3300839
> Labour will keep austerity, says Miliband



and kill the first born male child of every family. A bold step.


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## Pickman's model (Feb 11, 2014)

goldenecitrone said:


> and kill the first born male child of every family. A bold step.


something ed miliband feels passionately about


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## danny la rouge (Feb 11, 2014)

Pickman's model said:


> but at least it will be austerity with an honestly incompetent face.


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## Pickman's model (Feb 11, 2014)

danny la rouge said:


>


that's one of those faces you want to kick and kick and kick until your boots fall apart and then put on some new boots and start again.


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## Pickman's model (Feb 11, 2014)

emanymton said:


> Can't embed
> 
> http://radicalactivismvisualarchive.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/classwar.gif?w=300&h=201


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## Dexter Deadwood (Feb 11, 2014)




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## rekil (Feb 11, 2014)

danny la rouge said:


>



!!!


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## Frances Lengel (Feb 11, 2014)

yeah, we're fucked anyway.


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## shagnasty (Feb 11, 2014)

With the tories only winning Hendon by 106 votes ,i will vote labour to hurt the tory,that's about all you can do in this rotten system


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## danny la rouge (Apr 23, 2014)

For those of you who have used up your Herald click quota:

*Fifty years on, Labour still promising 'better next time'*
Ian Bell

_Wednesday 23 April 2014_
By a neat coincidence, one of the year's less heralded anniversaries falls in October, just four weeks after Scotland's referendum.




Ian Bell
To the faint surprise of some of us, half a century will have elapsed since Labour won power and ended, in the catchphrase of the day, "13 years of Tory misrule".

In fact, it wasn't much of a victory. The Conservative Party and their new leader, Alex Douglas-Home, were in a familiar mess: exhausted, scandal-ridden, toff-afflicted and bereft of ideas. The Old Etonian in charge was easily and often satirised as out of touch, a figure better suited to grouse moors than to the new "meritocratic" Britain. Yet Labour barely scraped home.

Harold Wilson only got into Downing Street, in fact, because a large part of the Tory vote migrated to the Liberals. Despite their modern, media-adept leader and their national economic plan, Labour's support scarcely improved - by 0.3% - from the hiding it received in 1959. The party took office with a parliamentary majority of four.

In late 1964, Labour didn't have many laurels to boast of, but they did have a manifesto that still makes for fascinating reading. "The New Britain" assured its readers, for example, that "the ending of economic privilege, the abolition of poverty in the midst of plenty, and the creation of real equality of opportunity" had become "immediate targets of political action".

Steel needed to be nationalised. Tory plans for the "restoration of a 'free' market economy in Britain" needed to be undone. House prices were "soaring"; there was "growing stagnation, unemployment and under-employment in large parts of the North, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland", allied to "a drift of work and people to the overcrowded London and Midland regions". This wouldn't do.

Worse, there was in Britain "a pervasive atmosphere of irresponsibility … a selfish, get-rich-quick mood, in which the public interest is always subordinated to private advantage". Public money was being "lavished on wasteful military projects" while "austerity National Insurance benefits" imposed "poverty standards on the retired, the sick and the unemployed".

Labour - promising "fresh and virile leadership" - said benefits had "fallen below the minimum levels of human need". They abhorred the "burden of prescription charges on the Health Service" - abolished by Labour in 1965, restored by Labour in 1968 - but also worried over "the problems of leisure in the age of automation". Scotland got a mention. That's not a figure of speech.

Half a century is enough of a span to allow talk of history. The historical part relevant to Labour could be summed up in two words: next time. For five decades that species of hope has kept the party more or less alive. It has been 50 years of "next time". Once Labour defended their achievements, now they are complicit in their demolition. The refrain stays the same: next time.

Ed Miliband might get a majority, perhaps even a majority greater than four. Stranger things have happened. But here's 50 years witnessed since Harold Wilson first flickered across the screen of a Murphy telly to back a simple claim: with Labour, next time never comes. The contemporary party's embrace of austerity and all it entails guarantees that a half-century streak will not end in 2015.

For Better Together to prevail in Scotland's referendum, you would have to believe otherwise. You would have to believe in Labour's "progressive case" - while, confusingly, telling Scots that their progressive reputation is a myth - to justify a majority for No. For Labour voters, that key part of the electorate in this contest, the choice is plain enough: independence or "next time".

That being the case, reminders of last time are problematic. As opinion polls narrow, demands by fretful Unionists for more interventions by Labour's "big beasts" from yon time court a risk. The reappearance of some who are otherwise home free in the Lords might serve to remind voters what happened to "next time" last time. Faces from the reactionary past fronting a rejectionist campaign are not synonymous with progressive ideals.

Tories are obtuse about this. Some are sufficiently self-aware to realise that packing David Cameron or George Osborne off to Scotland is counter-productive. People who want you to believe that Scots are no different from folk elsewhere haven't forgotten election results. In solidarity with Stevenage (or whatever) Scots don't elect many Tories and barely notice Ukip. Conservatives therefore define Scotland as Labour's problem and grumble when the problem isn't solved.

The attacks on Alistair Darling arrive with each new set of polls. This week's anonymous Conservative genius observes of the former Chancellor: "He's a middlingly competent accountant with zero charisma. You never see him. Where is the big figure to lead the campaign and take the fight to Salmond? It's just dismal." Set aside the (ignorant) insult to an advocate. Such Tories are also arguing, it seems, for Mr Darling to be dumped in favour of Lord Reid, John Reid as was.

What this would achieve isn't clear, though the reactions from Lord Reid's Celtic Park constituency would be interesting. It doesn't resolve the Unionist problem. Setting aside the ineffable incompetence of the scarcely representative CBI Scotland, Better Together has plenty of those "big" figures available. What it lacks is a Labour politician who has not spent a career promising "next time" and falling - let's be polite - a little short.

Gordon Brown exemplifies the problem. In a speech in Glasgow yesterday he contrasted two possible futures for Scotland. In one glimpse into the crystal ball he saw an independent country struggling to support pension liabilities - nothing to do with actual costs - while deprived of what he effectively alleged to be a UK subsidy at a time when pensioner numbers are rising.

The remarks were disputable, to say the least, but that wasn't the real difficulty for Better Together and Labour. Gordon Brown on pension security? The man who, as Chancellor, had to invent the annual winter fuel allowance in 1999 when pensioners decided that a 75p increase was not the stuff of dreams? The man who removed the tax credits on company dividends for pension funds and, if you believe his critics, destroyed occupational schemes?

Labour have spent half a century promising "next time". Now it offers more of the same and a few words from a specialist in such promises. Better Together wants to attack Alex Salmond for proposing to cut corporation tax if he is elected after independence? You could make a good case. But you then have to pray that no-one remembers Mr Brown cutting the same tax by 3% in 1999.

In those days, he was one of the big figures in a New Labour government swept to power by the old, desperate belief that next time would be different. Just like the last time. Now Scots are asked to believe it once again because that, supposedly, is what true solidarity means. Instead, half a century of experience says it's what credulity means.

Harold Wilson was the first politician whose name ever stuck in my child's mind. At that age, you can be persuaded to believe just about anything. But that was long ago, in another country.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/comme...our-still-promising-better-next-time.24033699


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## butchersapron (Apr 23, 2014)

The thing is, people will vote labour now without even the expectation of buttered parsnips, with, in fact, the expectation of being lied to about the availability of said parsnips.


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## editor (Apr 23, 2014)

I'd vote Plaid Cymru if I could. Not perfect by any means, but even their modest proposals seem wildly radical compared to the middling corporate-friendly, hedge-betting, bland sludge occupying mainstream politics., 



> Plaid Cymru is committed to securing a healthier nation through a high-quality, publicly-funded NHS, free for all at the point of deliver
> 
> Plaid will press the UK government to honour the commitment to delivering 0.7% of GDP as international aid and we will continue to campaign for the cancellation of developing countries' unaffordable debts. We also reaffirm our support for the international Fair Trade movement.


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## SikhWarrioR (Apr 23, 2014)

No i am not voting for the Red  conservatives anymore than I am going to vote for the Blue/Yellow or Purple conservatives as there is nothing to choose between any of the branches of the conservatives so unless there are any genuine left of center independents in my part of London it will either be the Greens or a spoilt paper if the dog drags me past the local polling station in May 2015


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## Spanky Longhorn (Apr 23, 2014)

butchersapron said:


> The thing is, people will vote labour now without even the expectation of buttered parsnips, with, in fact, the expectation of being lied to about the availability of said parsnips.


They might get marge on their turnips though, and feel that it's better than having carrots shoved up their arses dry which is happening now


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## butchersapron (Apr 23, 2014)

Spanky Longhorn said:


> They might get marge on their turnips though, and feel that it's better than having carrots shoved up their arses dry which is happening now


They'll get what they're given. And no afters. And then a bath and bed.


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## Sprocket. (Apr 23, 2014)

Pointless even voting here, the sitting MP is a certain Ed Miliband.
I did vote for Ed's predecessor, Kev Hughes who stood down through illness.
He had (some) principles.


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## Spanky Longhorn (Apr 23, 2014)

butchersapron said:


> They'll get what they're given. And no afters. And then a bath and bed.


A cold bath in a tin tub in front of a hearth full of ashes and then up to a soggy mattress shared with 4 siblings and a goat


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## DotCommunist (Apr 23, 2014)

sewn up in goose fat and sealskin for the winter (of discontent)


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## Kesher (Apr 25, 2014)

Moronic drug legislation of last Labour Gov   is only  one of the reasons  I will   not  be voting for them in 2015. For example,  making fresh magic mushrooms a class A drug alongside other Class A drugs such as Crystal Meth; Crack-Cocaine and Heroin.

*UNBELIEVABLE!*


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## Delroy Booth (Apr 26, 2014)

Labour are fucking shit


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## Dogsauce (May 2, 2014)

Have you seen the campaign slogan these fuckwits have managed to come up with after probably months of focus groups and think tankery?

_*"Hardworking Britain better off"*_

Not exactly the way to make yourself stand out from the opposition, is it?  Same shit, more-or-less same label.

Whoever came up with that wants drowning in a cattle trough, they have nothing of use to offer the world.


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## mwgdrwg (May 2, 2014)

hardworking...oh for fucks sake.


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## teqniq (May 15, 2014)

I like this article. 

Why are Labour going to lose the next election?



> It was not only predictable but predicted - by me, on all manner of social media - that this government would start to rebuild its base and Labour's fragile poll lead would collapse, in the year before the general election.  This is now happening.  Labour's support has fallen six percentage points, and the Tories have a lead for the first time in ages....


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## brogdale (May 15, 2014)

teqniq said:


> I like this article.
> 
> Why are Labour going to lose the next election?



There's much to like in there, but it is a bit light on psephological analysis. It's all very well predicting that Labour will 'lose' the GE, but I'm not getting much sense of what winning outcome he sees. Yesterday Smithson looked at 2010 Lab voters responses to the last six ICM polls and sees a significant and increasing drift away to "DK/R" (which is a long way away from Lab-Con swing), and Lab's leakage to UKIP, although rising, is small compared to Con. This trend toward indecision largely explains the poll convergence, despite essentially flat,(core), polling for the vermin.


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## Dogsauce (May 15, 2014)

I think 'personality' does come into it quite strongly - UKIP are able to flourish in the absence of policy, because their guy is seen as combative and in style at least appears oppositional - a kind of no-nonsense character as opposed to Labour's flanneling.  Half the time Farage has nothing to say or is unable to defend criticism, but just blusters through it convincingly, treating questions as though they are beneath him, which I guess might come across as having a strong character (even if it's frustrating to those of us wanting answers or detail).

The tory vote (as the article does note) hasn't really risen, so I'm not convinced they can bag it unless some of the kippers come back into the fold (how strong a story UKIP are able to build after the Euros remains to be seen, and whether they can sustain support and interest). Polling in itself can be an interesting influence - with it looking like the tories could outpoll labour this could draw some kippers back thinking a tory government would be better than Labour again - if it looks like they have no hope then they might as well vote UKIP.

Can Milliband really do worse than Brown, with UKIP eating substantially into tory support and a collapse of the lib dems though? It seems implausible.


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## Garek (May 15, 2014)

That Herald article makes for a good response to the believers of "without illusions". 

But then maybe with demographic changes the "anything better than Tories" will becomeless of a thing.


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## Hocus Eye. (May 15, 2014)

That was frighteningly sinister, the post where copliker juxtaposed the images of Milliband and Mussolini.  The similarities are shocking.


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## Pickman's model (May 15, 2014)

Hocus Eye. said:


> That was frighteningly sinister, the post where copliker juxtaposed the images of Milliband and Mussolini.  The similarities are shocking.


sadly not yet


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## butchersapron (May 15, 2014)

teqniq said:


> I like this article.
> 
> Why are Labour going to lose the next election?


Have to say that i don't think that's a very impressive piece at all. The political points whilst generally correct are the sort of banality that doesn't need to be couched in such schematic and really rather crude neo-gramscian jargon. They are, after all, basic common sense - labour not enthusing people, UKIP winning support across the classes (and this is where the failings of this approach are most evident when he wholesale imports Halls analysis of thatcherism - a project that did achieve electoral hegemony based around identification rather then temporary alignment based on by-election style protests of UKIP support - and simply changes UKIP for thatcherism), lib-dems hopeless etc.

But when he looks at the electoral stuff - oh dear. I think brogdale was rather generous in saying that it's "a bit light on psephological analysis.". For starters he misses the main thing which will determine who will form the govt (and he seems to think it's the party in the lead on popular vote) - which is that the tories need around 40% to win and at the same time have labour in the low 30s at worst/best - and by the same token of the way votes are concentrated and distributed, labour need only achieve 35% to win. That's the key thing to frame this debate - not who is in the lead. Indeed, the tories can win a plurality of votes and labour could still win an outright majority. So, bearing all that in mind, a two or three poll leveling, and one that doesn't reach the stage of meeting any of the conditions for outcome changeover seems, to me, to be a little premature  - if not downright panicky.

It's pretty clear to me that since Hall's death he has been reading up on the 79-87 period and trying to shove today into that past - hos 83 reference gives that away. What he doesn't mention is that the thatcher administration that was supposed to be floundering electorally before the falklands - and so, playing the role of the tories today - only hit the low points of their polling at the same time as labour, and that was when the newly formed alliance was on the rise and taking votes off both sides (polling 50% at one point). This was a period of around 8 months. After the alliance bubble burst it was straight back up to 40%+ and healthy leads of 15+ for the 18 months leading into the election. That simply does not map onto what we see today.

More to say on why the suggestion improving economy directly equates with growing support, why milibands personal lack of support doesn't really matter etc but not got time.


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## teqniq (May 15, 2014)

I am not a trainspotter, so it seemed ok to me.


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## Flanflinger (May 15, 2014)

mwgdrwg said:


> *hardworking*[/B]...oh for fucks sake.


 
Not a word often used on here.


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## DotCommunist (May 15, 2014)

or over on your crap forum with 4 members


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## Streathamite (May 15, 2014)

No, I would never vote Labour again. Pretty academic where I live - rock solid Labour (and one of the better ones, Campaign Group etc). I'll either abstain or vote TUSC


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## skyscraper101 (May 15, 2014)

Dogsauce said:


> I think 'personality' does come into it quite strongly - UKIP are able to flourish in the absence of policy, because their guy is seen as combative and in style at least appears oppositional - a kind of no-nonsense character as opposed to Labour's flanneling.  Half the time Farage has nothing to say or is unable to defend criticism, but just blusters through it convincingly, treating questions as though they are beneath him, which I guess might come across as having a strong character (even if it's frustrating to those of us wanting answers or detail).



Largely agree with this. Miliband has a major personality problem, akin to Brown and wil have to rely heavily on a Labour swing because I can't imagine for a moment he'll be capitalising on his personality to the same degree that Blair, Cameron, Clegg, Johnson etc do.

His problem is, he's unable to throw any hint of charisma or everyday speak into any pre-prepped interviews. His mannerisms and media trained hand gesturing are so completely fake it's unreal. He's basically the opposite of Farage who as you point out can bluster through anything and come out unscathed. Interestingly, look at how he does this exact thing with his arms and his scripted lines when on the same sofa as Farage on the Marr Show. Look how within the first 15 seconds he uses the same line 'get round the table' when asked about strikes, not even defending the unions or anything, look at how he's completely owned when challenged to TV debates with UKIP. He fumbles about his words and tries to stick some memorised soundbite about Cameron trying to 'wriggle out' of debates when he shoud've slapped down Farage in a heartbeat.



And when it comes to sticking to the script. Is there any more patently obvious an example of Milibot in action. Fuck voting for this.


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## butchersapron (May 15, 2014)

People don't vote for leaders on the whole - apart from in very unusual circumstances. This isn't one of them. They vote for parties.


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## belboid (May 15, 2014)

butchersapron said:


> People don't vote for leaders on the whole - apart from in very unusual circumstances. This isn't one of them. They vote for parties.


They don't vote for leaders, but leaders do set the tone for what people think of the party. There's no doubt that Miliband's crapness costs Labour a couple of points, but that's all it is.* Thatcher was even less popular before she was elected tho, and it didn't do her much harm.

*e2a: I think that's shown in the number of Labour voters who are now 'dont know/refused's in brogdales post above. They're the ones who Miliband - above all - has failed to convince that he is an alternative PM and Labour an alternative government.


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## butchersapron (May 15, 2014)

belboid said:


> They don't vote for leaders, but leaders do set the tone for what people think of the party. There's no doubt that Miliband's crapness costs Labour a couple of points, but that's all it is.* Thatcher was even less popular before she was elected tho, and it didn't do her much harm.
> 
> *e2a: I think that's shown in the number of Labour voters who are now 'dont know/refused's in brogdales post above. They're the ones who Miliband - above all - has failed to convince that he is an alternative PM and Labour an alternative government.


The DKs are tending to come from first time voters who may be getting ukiped - which would suggest it's a passing thing - poll wise at at least.


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## belboid (May 15, 2014)

butchersapron said:


> The DKs are tending to come from first time voters/QUOTE]
> the one quoted is of people who voted Labour in 2010, but are now DK's. There are undoubtedly a whole host of first-timers like that as well, but this lot are different.


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## butchersapron (May 15, 2014)

Losing 25% of 2010 support would put them on 21% That would mean they are currently having to make up 10% to reach ICMs last result of 31% from somewhere else - whilst all the other parties votes are simultaneously rising (by a combined 6%)I think this is just one of those things that sample based things will always throw up.


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## DownwardDog (May 16, 2014)

skyscraper101 said:


> Largely agree with this. Miliband has a major personality problem, akin to Brown and wil have to rely heavily on a Labour swing because I can't imagine for a moment he'll be capitalising on his personality to the same degree that Blair, Cameron, Clegg, Johnson etc do.



To your average shit muncher Cameron sort of looks and talks like how they'd expect the Prime Minister of the Rump United Kingdom of Greatish Britain and the Six Counties to look and talk. Milliband looks and talks like one of the losing candidates for the job of Manager of Phone Shop Sutton that Lance Crisp got. I don't think this has an overpowering effect at the ballot box but I don't think it has no effect either.


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## weltweit (May 16, 2014)

DownwardDog said:


> To your average shit muncher Cameron sort of looks and talks like how they'd expect the Prime Minister of the Rump United Kingdom of Greatish Britain and the Six Counties to look and talk. Milibands looks and talks like one of the losing candidates for the job of Manager of Phone Shop Sutton that Lance Crisp got. I don't think this has an overpowering effect at the ballot box but I don't think it has no effect either.


I think people need to be able to imagine a party leader as PM and if they can't then they may hesitate to vote for them. Obviously that does not include people who are tribally Labour, they will vote Labour come what may. But Ed Milliband is not a natural or charismatic media performer, certainly compared to Blair. Cameron seems to feel the need to comment on every snippet of news these days (why does he do that, it pisses me off no end?) he has the slight advantage of having actually been seen as the PM.


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## skyscraper101 (May 20, 2014)

Here's some classic Miliband. Managing to squeeze in his latest 'cost of living crisis' soundbite for this month while fumbling about not knowing who the local Labour council leader is on a local radio interview. Even _he_ must be sick of hearing himself say 'cost of living crisis' everywhere he goes. There's just no element of human in the guy. All I hear is the Labour spin department failing dismally.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27483541


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## brogdale (May 20, 2014)

skyscraper101 said:


> Here's some classic Miliband. Managing to squeeze in his latest 'cost of living crisis' soundbite for this month while fumbling about not knowing who the local Labour council leader is on a local radio interview. Even _he_ must be sick of hearing himself say 'cost of living crisis' everywhere he goes. There's just no element of human in the guy. All I hear is the Labour spin department failing dismally.
> 
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27483541



Transcript of that interview....



> _*Presenter:* What do you make of Jim Grant?_
> _*EM:* I beg your pardon?_
> _*Presenter:* Jim Grant, do you think he has done a good job?_
> _*EM:* I think that lots of Labour representatives are doing a good job right across the country and I…_
> ...



 kinnel


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## skyscraper101 (May 20, 2014)




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## SpookyFrank (May 20, 2014)

skyscraper101 said:


> Here's some classic Miliband. Managing to squeeze in his latest 'cost of living crisis' soundbite for this month while fumbling about not knowing who the local Labour council leader is on a local radio interview. Even _he_ must be sick of hearing himself say 'cost of living crisis' everywhere he goes. There's just no element of human in the guy. All I hear is the Labour spin department failing dismally.
> 
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27483541



He's the best man the tory party have got at the moment. And it's probably too late to get rid of him now.


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## FridgeMagnet (May 20, 2014)

He's now moved ahead of both Cameron and Farage on my "People I Never Want To Hear On The Radio Ever Again" list. Hasn't quite pipped Melanie Phillips though.


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## skyscraper101 (Jun 2, 2014)

no


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## DownwardDog (Jun 2, 2014)

His hair is enormous.


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## kebabking (Jun 2, 2014)

DownwardDog said:


> His hair is enormous.



perhaps he's been visiting John Kerry's 'barber'?


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## steeplejack (Jun 2, 2014)

I've never voted Labour in my life so I've no idea why I should start now.


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## Spanky Longhorn (Jun 2, 2014)

skyscraper101 said:


> no



Labour cum face thread?


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## Maurice Picarda (Jun 2, 2014)

I don't understand why the received wisdom is that Miliband looks weird. He doesn't, particularly. Certainly, he looks nothing like as odd as Nigel Farage, who wouldn't seem out of place clutching a fishing rod and installed by a garden pond. Sandwichgate was also strange; faces contort when anyone masticates, and there wasn't any evidence of inability to eat a bacon butty.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jun 2, 2014)

He doesn't look any weirder than any other politician, and less weird than many.

He _sounds_ like somebody on a Radio 4 comedy programme doing a bad Tony Blair impersonation.


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## Spanky Longhorn (Jun 2, 2014)

Maurice Picarda said:


> I don't understand why the received wisdom is that Miliband looks weird. He doesn't, particularly. Certainly, he looks nothing like as odd as Nigel Farage, who wouldn't seem out of place clutching a fishing rod and installed by a garden pond. Sandwichgate was also strange; faces contort when anyone masticates, and there wasn't any evidence of inability to eat a bacon butty.



He looks more normal and likable than Cameron with his strange smooth shiny face


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## DotCommunist (Jun 3, 2014)

camerons raging eton accent is also much more annoying than milibands adnoidal voice


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## Left (Jun 3, 2014)

Isn't it better to try to drag the Labour party left than to do nothing? It's the same situation with the Democrats in the US. Yes, they're terrible, but the alternatives are so much worse that the only responsible thing to do is to vote for them. What else can we do other than fume?


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## JTG (Jun 3, 2014)

Well that's that sorted then


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## The39thStep (Jun 3, 2014)

Cameron always sounds like he has a slight cold and tickly throat


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## butchersapron (Jun 3, 2014)

Left said:


> Isn't it better to try to drag the Labour party left than to do nothing? It's the same situation with the Democrats in the US. Yes, they're terrible, but the alternatives are so much worse that the only responsible thing to do is to vote for them. What else can we do other than fume?


When did you join then?


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## Idris2002 (Jun 3, 2014)

skyscraper101 said:


> no



"Greetings, laydeez".


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## The39thStep (Jun 3, 2014)

Left said:


> Isn't it better to try to drag the Labour party left than to do nothing? It's the same situation with the Democrats in the US. Yes, they're terrible, but the alternatives are so much worse that the only responsible thing to do is to vote for them. What else can we do other than fume?



What is the history of attempting to drag labour to the left?


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## kebabking (Jun 3, 2014)

Idris2002 said:


> "Greetings, laydeez".



just imagine him licking his lips as he says it.


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## Favelado (Jun 3, 2014)

DotCommunist said:


> camerons raging eton accent is also much more annoying than milibands adnoidal voice



That kind of received pronunciation is perhaps the worst, most unpleasant accent of all in the English language. I despise it.


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## TodayIsCaturday (Jun 3, 2014)

I won't vote Labour because they have the same problem they had under Brown. Basically they are not articulating their vision for the country and what direction they want it to go in, it's just a few random policies that they think ought to be popular with people who are unlikely to vote Tory anyway.


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## DotCommunist (Jun 3, 2014)

Favelado said:


> That kind of peceived pronunciation is perhaps the worst, most unpleasant accent of all in the English language. I despise it.



500 years of contempt and arrogance in every syllable.


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## ffsear (Jun 3, 2014)

no


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## Favelado (Jun 3, 2014)

received not peceived of course!


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## butchersapron (Jun 3, 2014)

TodayIsCaturday said:


> I won't vote Labour because they have the same problem they had under Brown. Basically they are not articulating their vision for the country and what direction they want it to go in, it's just a few random policies that they think ought to be popular with people who are unlikely to vote Tory anyway.


What sort of vision are you after? Do you think this sort of maneuvering is something limited to labour or is it a just a basic fact of how politics operates? Did pre-brown labour have this vision that you're after?


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## TodayIsCaturday (Jun 3, 2014)

butchersapron said:


> What sort of vision are you after? Do you think this sort of maneuvering is something limited to labour or is it a just a basic fact of how politics operates? Did pre-brown labour have this vision that you're after?



It sounds cheesey but something like what they want the country to be like in 5/10 years time? Blair and Cameron had that, at least at the start (not saying I agree with their visions at all) but what does Milliband envisage will being prosperity and happiness or whatever? Does he have a program for revitalising manufacturing or exports for example, or strengthening innovation through our universities and hi-tech firms? A temporary freeze on energy bills isn't going to cut it. What is he going to do differently from the last Labour administration?


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## butchersapron (Jun 3, 2014)

TodayIsCaturday said:


> It sounds cheesey but something like what they want the country to be like in 5/10 years time? Blair and Cameron had that, at least at the start (not saying I agree with their visions at all) but what does Milliband envisage will being prosperity and happiness or whatever? Does he have a program for revitalising manufacturing or exports for example, or strengthening innovation through our universities and hi-tech firms? A temporary freeze on energy bills isn't going to cut it. What is he going to do differently from the last Labour administration?


If that's what you mean by vision ( being more like Blair or Cameron) i think i'd rather steer clear of _politicians with vision. _


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## TodayIsCaturday (Jun 3, 2014)

butchersapron said:


> If that's what you mean by vision ( being more like Blair or Cameron) i think i'd rather steer clear of _politicians with vision. _



Choherent program then.


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## butchersapron (Jun 3, 2014)

TodayIsCaturday said:


> Choherent program then.


They all have essentially the same program and the same level of coherence - what may differ is mode of presentation (and by extension, presentation of counter-attack). Suggesting that one party substantively differs from or lacks some coherency that the others have is a reflection of that presentation - not of program.


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## ddraig (Jun 3, 2014)

had this row with a lib dem the other night
they kept defaulting to "labour this", "labour that", "well labour..."
had to forcefully say a few times that opposing the lib dems does not = support for labour and that the counter attack crap just puts people off
also that there is no choice and they have failed to represent people
their answer was if you don't vote you don't have a voice 
ended up with them storming off


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## TodayIsCaturday (Jun 3, 2014)

butchersapron said:


> They all have essentially the same program and the same level of coherence - what may differ is mode of presentation (and by extension, presentation of counter-attack). Suggesting that one party substantively differs from or lacks some coherency that the others have is a reflection of that presentation - not of program.



I suppose I agree, but if we are left with only presentation on which to judge the parties, then I have to think that if Labour cant even get that right what else are they going to fuck up when in power?


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## butchersapron (Jun 3, 2014)

TodayIsCaturday said:


> I suppose I agree, but if we are left with only presentation on which to judge the parties, then I have to think that if Labour cant even get that right what else are they going to fuck up when in power?


Well they have a healthy lead in the polls - last three have shown leads of 9, 5, 6  - all of which would easily return a majority govt - and they've just increased their votes and seats in the euro and local elections with under a year to go the general election. Most opposition parties would kill to be able to 'fuck up' things in such a manner.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 3, 2014)

Left said:


> Isn't it better to try to drag the Labour party left than to do nothing? It's the same situation with the Democrats in the US. Yes, they're terrible, but the alternatives are so much worse that the only responsible thing to do is to vote for them. What else can we do other than fume?



Party members have been attempting to drag the Party leftward for 80 years.  The last time that elements of the membership came close, they were kicked out.  The Labour Party, whether we like it or not, is now a neoliberal party, and the best that can be hoped for is for ameliorationist policies that'll offset a few of the worst effects of neoliberalism on the poor.  Putting faith in the Labour Party to actually move left an act even vaguely like socialists, is a waste of faith.  It'll never happen.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 3, 2014)

kebabking said:


> just imagine him licking his lips as he says it.



And winking.


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## DotCommunist (Jun 3, 2014)

rubbing his thighs


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 3, 2014)

TodayIsCaturday said:


> I won't vote Labour because they have the same problem they had under Brown. Basically they are not articulating their vision for the country and what direction they want it to go in, it's just a few random policies that they think ought to be popular with people who are unlikely to vote Tory anyway.



Which is exactly what the other neoliberal parties will do and have done for the last 20+ years.  We're long past the time when manifestos had any meaning - we already know that none of the parties regard manifesto pledges as binding - so what we have is parties who formulate targeted policies aimed mostly at the denizens of marginal constituencies, and the rest of the UK can get to fuck, they're there to be taken for granted.


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## ViolentPanda (Jun 3, 2014)

TodayIsCaturday said:


> It sounds cheesey but something like what they want the country to be like in 5/10 years time? Blair and Cameron had that, at least at the start (not saying I agree with their visions at all) but what does Milliband envisage will being prosperity and happiness or whatever? Does he have a program for revitalising manufacturing or exports for example, or strengthening innovation through our universities and hi-tech firms? A temporary freeze on energy bills isn't going to cut it. What is he going to do differently from the last Labour administration?



He'll couch his neoliberalism in different terms to those Blair and Brown used.  That's about all.  Same shit, different arsehole.


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## Favelado (Jun 3, 2014)

ViolentPanda said:


> Party members have been attempting to drag the Party leftward for 80 years.  The last time that elements of the membership came close, they were kicked out.  The Labour Party, whether we like it or not, is now a neoliberal party, and the best that can be hoped for is for ameliorationist policies that'll offset a few of the worst effects of neoliberalism on the poor.  Putting faith in the Labour Party to actually move left an act even vaguely like socialists, is a waste of faith.  It'll never happen.



The rhetoric towards immigrants and the poor is now almost as bad as the Tories. While Labour may have been increasingly right-wing economically from the late-80s onwards, I at least felt they stood for tolerance. The very last fig leaves of pretence in that regard have fallen away in recent years. I have sometimes voted Labour. I've often wanted to support them but just felt disappointed. Not anymore. They're a lost cause. I'd naturally be to the right of many of you economically, boring in my social democratic politics, maybe mirroring the policies of much of the left of the PLP circa Kinnock/Smith era. How many Labour MPs does that cover now? 5-10? There's not even space for a position as mild as mine in Labour.

They are a complete waste of time. Cowardly, supine politics that stand for nothing.


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## stowpirate (Jun 3, 2014)

I think this sort of shows how they all behave regardless of political party?



Possibly voters are just seen as a necessary evil to be ignored, "shat on" and if you are poor and on benefits criminalised? So no way will I vote for any of them except if it can cause chaos or panic in the establishment. Living in a safe conservative area I have no real options? Change the system and pick people at random as in jury service. Remove personality from the equation and we might have a system that sort of works?


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## Favelado (Jun 3, 2014)

stowpirate said:


> I think this sort of shows how they all behave regardless of political party?
> 
> 
> 
> Possibly voters are just seen as a necessary evil to be ignored, "shat on" and if you are poor and on benefits criminalised? So no way will I vote for any of them except if it can cause chaos or panic in the establishment. Living in a safe conservative area I have no real options? Change the system and pick people at random as in jury service. Remove personality from the equation and we might have a system that sort of works?




AQI yeah?


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## J Ed (Dec 6, 2014)

How about voting to proscribe Labour?


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## SikhWarrioR (Dec 6, 2014)

J Ed said:


> How about voting to proscribe Labour?



Ididnt know we still had a labour party, For the last 20 years I thought that the labour party of the grinning spinning blair, gordon "prudence" brown and ed milipede was just the Red branch of the rainbow red,blue,yellow,purple conservatives


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## butchersapron (Dec 6, 2014)

SikhWarrioR said:


> Ididnt know we still had a labour party, For the last 20 years I thought that the labour party of the grinning spinning blair, gordon "prudence" brown and ed milipede was just the Red branch of the rainbow red,blue,yellow,purple conservatives


Yeah, The labour party.


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