Rayvin

Bruce accidentally did a slightly better than entirely subpar job with ASM. That's about as much credit as I've got for him.

Why are they treating this internal leadership contest as a national event? Who honestly gives a fuck?

I don't disagree about a lost generation and the importance of getting the Tories out of power. I just cannot make myself believe that the only way Labour can proceed here is to become complicit in Brexit, which is exactly what they will become, and actively trying to enable the most dangerous and damaging political outcome in living memory. A Labour Brexit doesn't get better, it just gets worse slower. So either way, we're saying that whether it's the Tories or Labour, we're heading into a worse position. That we all have to accept this. To me, that is utterly crackers. The issue isn't even Brexit, it's that we have reached a stage as a society where it is impossible to have an honest conversation about the actual factors that determine how our country runs and what it is impacted by. If it isn't possible for us to do that, what is the fucking point in any of this? We're saying there are huge policy areas which cannot be talked about and just have to be accepted while we move deckchairs around elsewhere hoping for the best. You're talking about this lost generation as if it hasn't already happened. It has. Nothing Labour is going to do will change that. We will be unfucking this for the rest of our lives, and at some stage, there is going to have to be that honest conversation otherwise nothing ever gets learned. The truth is the only thing that can lead to the changes we need to prevent this shit happening again - we need media standards on misinformation. Standards of behaviour for politicians. Constitutional protections for institutions. Voting reform. Investment in civic education. Long term planning baked into political mindsets. Until we get these things, this fucking charade from the Tories and Labour's decision to play along with it is fundamentally damaging this country for the long term. We talk here as if it is simply an unavoidable fact that Brexit cannot be discussed in terms of its realities because of the political climate, but I put to you instead that the truth is more that Labour simply doesn't have the creativity, vision or balls to win while taking it head on. That's what I find so objectionable. This is not a strong Labour party, it's a weak one that we're trying to big up out of desperation.

Honestly I'd also prefer Truss. The more painful and terrifying a situation this country ends up in, the better for all of us in the long term. There's too much risk of things moving too slowly under Sunak to be noticeable.

The Daily Mail needs to be shut down. Amongst the many things any future Labour government needs to do, a key one is enforcing press standards. In fact, standards across the board wouldn't hurt. Politician openly lying? Sacked. Newspaper fabricating stories that are found to be baseless and misleading? Fined. The Mail would be fined out of circulation within a week.

The Tories are the economic armageddon they always tried to claim Labour were. The simple fucking truth in economics at the national level is that it isn't the fucking same as planning your household budget. You need to spend to stimulate economic growth - the "skill" is in investing in the right areas to drive growth that exceeds what you put in (and not necessarily financially). It's not even just that though, if you spend on the economy and living standards then people's happiness and welfare improves, making them more productive. I still can't get past the idea that Sunak fucked off the development of a generation of kids who lost out during lockdowns because he didn't want to spend £15bn now despite it being clearly demonstrated to save us ten times as much later. Even if the cost is the only important thing for you in that statement, and it shouldn't be because we're talking about human lives in that calculation as well - but even it is, you should consider that decision to be negligent, short termist, and just fucking stupid. They are a party of poorly informed, middle class house wives and pheasant botherers who think they know what's what on the basis of class and wealth.

Heaven help us, seriously. They could not give less of a fuck about anything north of Watford. It may as well all be Scotland.

The only caveat to otherwise full agreement with this that I would have is that it could simply be that in the eye of the storm, all you see is the storm. There is a (not very large) part of me that wonders if Putin might have inadvertently saved the world by forcing us off dependency on Russian gas. That Johnson and Brexit may have long term saved the country by demonstrating why it is so important that we are part of bigger unions of nations. That the cost of living crisis will reveal to us how good we've had it for so long under globalisation. Maybe these are the lessons we need to be learning, and that the collective bitter pill we all swallow isn't for us, but for those who keep being led down the garden path. And also, voters aside, for governments who keep avoiding tackling the big issues. Who focus on short termism, as you say. Maybe we might just learn from all of this that we don't have time to indulge witless fantasists like Johnson. The change will come one way or another, but the longer there is no representation politically for the truth, the more violent that change will become IMO. Although equally, the farther we have to fall to get to it.

It is this failure more than the original error, that is going to doom a generation or more of this country to falling living standards and the slow boil of shitness. All to pander to those who are emotionally still children and can't be told they're wrong for fear of tantrums.

I thought it was probably worth taking a bit of a break from political chat since at times I can't help myself. I watched the demise of Johnson with some satisfaction but ultimately its just a battle in a war that will run for the rest of our lives. I'm not feeling any more positive about where we are heading, as much as I have some slight optimism that we may now head there a little less rapidly. Then again, I feel like the Tories might revert to form here, bring back austerity, kill a few hundred thousand more people in the process... and bounce in the polls by pinning everything bad on Johnson.

Battle of the Cunts. It's like the tagline from Alien vs Predator. 'Whoever wins, we lose'.

This is just so depressing.

It's not a doom loop from my end, it's that I believe the sooner we take the bitter medicine on this, the sooner we can actually unfuck ourselves. I'm still not disagreeing that the strategy is a more successful short term approach by the way. My position on this has never been that I think talking about Brexit is a vote winner. So we all agree there - the leave voters will stick to their principles, we will compromise on ours. I know this.

That's not a new view, that's the exact position a number of you have had on here for ages. I'm aware that this is the view, but you cannot deny that the whole strategy there rests on taking for granted the votes of the people who they "still have". My issue isn't that I think Labour stand a better chance of winning by talking about Brexit, it's that not talking about it and not focusing on it mean that we're losing fucking decades over the long term while we piss about trying to softly softly the issue with fuckwits. These people will never be ready for that conversation if we don't actually start having it, and Labour are never going to want to have it. Largely because, I would argue, they know bleeding hearts like us will vote for them no matter what while the leave voters have made clear that they'll stick to their principles.

It has to be more than 10 ffs

What impresses me about that post is the calculation and strategy that went into it. He specifically needs to be in a group of 20 people to have any chance of successfully beating up a single individual. I mean the lad clearly knows his limitations and is prepared to own them. He's a soft shite but if you team him up with 19 other soft bellends, he might just have a chance at it. Got to respect the self awareness.

I said why You were after all quite right that I did make some comments that were contentious. This is why I should never go into politics btw.

I disagree with absolutely none of that.

Although if we were in her second term now I'd imagine we'd have boots on the ground in Ukraine, so there's that in her favour.

Well, Ukraine happened under Biden so I'm not sure exactly how you can be so sure. Crimea happened under Obama. Clinton was a bad choice, as that page reveals. For all Trump was worse, Clinton was not good.

I don't think you were but if its any consolation, you weren't alone. It's why I think this must have been early on.

To be fair mate, you do seem to be consistent. Others, not so much. The strength of feeling against Clinton on that page I quoted Gemmill on is considerable. Views change.

So... can we trust this? Is this happening? I'm really unsure when to get invested in this stuff now

I also think that section of the thread came at a time before we understood fully what Trump was.

Fair. It just amused me that I saw it, I'm not going to claim you meant anything with it