Rayvin

That sandwich does indeed have a lot to answer for. I wonder how much of that loss was the sandwich, and how much was the Tories successfully attaching the SNP to Labour. It is a bit of a shame tbh, I think Miliband could have done ok.

Precisely. See, Gloom gets it. He knows there's no place for someone like me in the Labour Party, and he's not afraid to say it. I respect that. I came to the same conclusion my friend. And yes, we may have had two complete failures to win an election from the grown up centrist wing of Labour prior to the left having a shot, but that simply isn't worth noting.

Based on this morning, a free half devoured mouse to every householder.

My cat could win the election at this point if it happened to lead the Labour Party.

I don't know tbh. Maybe a bit but I pay so little attention now that I imagine it might just swapping a couple of texts with friends afterwards, not watching it as it happens. The Tories won, they pulled everything to the right, got everyone to accept Brexit, and have ruined the country. Now we're just rearranging deckchairs on the titanic. It's hard to celebrate it even if they do get wiped out.

I would argue though that since he broke all his pledges, I don't owe him anything. I voted for him to be leader in good faith based on those pledges. I know you are prepared to look past that, but I can't. He needs to earn back my trust and faith - and I'm open to him doing that tbh, but it's not just being handed over.

I am massively cynical of them now, yes. And Starmer broke pledges he made that I believed in at the time of voting for him, so naturally I am particularly cynical of him. Background be damned. I keep saying this next point but it doesn't seem to ever go in - if everyone to the left of you just went 'ah ok, yeah the Tories are better off out of power so let's just drop all our principles and settle for whatever Labour give us from a centrist standpoint', then there would never be ANY progress towards anything we want. Because there would be no votes to compete for on that side of the spectrum. The assumption would simply be that Labour had done it, re-formed the line, rebuilt the broad church, and that they could just stand still. Otherwise you tell me, is there any evidence in the entirety of human history for a political party being more radical than the entirety of the electorate that votes for it? If not, then why on earth should people to the left of Labour move in for them now if they ever want to see change? It makes absolutely no sense. An electoral landslide as we're about to see will make them very confident that they have the right of where they are, and they will be reluctant to deviate from what has delivered it - which at this point is doing absolutely nothing while the Tories hang themselves. I predict this next Labour government will be marked in particular for being timid, avoidant of rocking the boat. As for what motivates them, power. It can only be power because they're not about to achieve anything besides it based on what has been said so far. Again, maybe all of this changes in the manifesto - or when they're in power. We will see. But I will be watching closely, and believe me I'll be revisiting these themes as we go through that electoral cycle. Hopefully I'll be saying "Damn this is great to see, all this positive change that is really transformative of people's lives". I doubt it, but I do hope for it.

I don't really disagree honestly, I just don't think any of the options on the table are meaningful enough to warrant me endorsing them as opposed to indicating that they're all failures in my eyes. Manifestos may change that but I doubt it based on what has been said. It's not a big deal for me anymore tbh, I've just accepted that this is how it is. I won't cross my red lines but I also know that I'm completely irrelevant.

Biden looks like he might be at risk next time out though... becoming slightly concerned that the US might just be mental enough to bring Trump back.

Platform of "careful now"? Idk man, but whatever they're doing, I don't see why they'd be incentivised to change it. Maybe I'm wrong..!

Yeah and if that's how it goes, I promise all of you, I'll hold my hands up. I really hope that's what we see. But I just feel like there's too much chance that they immediately start thinking "well we won on this platform, we should stay here so that we can win next time too". And then everyone will be telling me that we have to keep the Tories out next time, the risk is too great, etc etc.

I think it's important not to confuse 'better than the Tories' with 'good'.

Fuck this season.

Yeah. And what he fails to really sell is the idea that there's any real alternative path to head down for people in his (or my) boat anyway. I keep coming back to just spoiling my ballot because I'm now so disengaged with it all, so devoid of hope, that I can't even get started trying to believe in any of it anyway. From any party or side. So what he's really saying is that people like us should head into political nihilism. Which is where I am, but I'm not sure I'd advocate it for anyone else.

I mean yeah, I do agree with that. Despite having alignment with him in many senses I've never had a lot of time for Jones. It does all just seem performative.

I read it - it's more or less the same reason I chucked in membership ages ago but I have to admit I'm not sure why it's taken him so long to get to that point. Writing has been on the wall for anyone who thinks like him for some time now, nothing is 'new' about where we are. So on that basis yes, I suspect it's been done to maximise attention whereas it could and should have been done as soon as Starmer started abandoning the pledges that had him elected to leadership.

Have to admit, I saw it and while I felt repulsed and ill, nothing about it made me think it should be removed What did we pull it down for? it cant be the nudity, ive seen worse on here. Is it that the picture would be potentially legally problematic?

I am genuinely curious why Sunak even got himself into all this. It feels at times like he was just propelled into it by Cummings and then given the keys to the entire fucking country by default. Why is he here, does he even care about any of this?

Presumably that bit is inarguable.

I am genuinely looking forward to their wipe out. Although you still have to wonder if that inevitable 25% will still find a way to justify voting for them anyway.

Seriously Going back to Alex' rule here. There is always one reactionary right wing nut job on this forum, at any given time. What I don't understand is how they coordinate it so well... it's like an almost perfect conveyor belt of batshit Q Anon styled misinformed nonsense and it always, always finds us. It either always is Quiff, or they have some sort of rotational system across multiple forums ffs.

Ah it's CT isn't it. I've been low activity on here so long I'm forgetting the memes. My bad, ignore me

Unsure if I am the resident Corbynite but as said earlier, I still think it's a huge missed opportunity

I continue to despair at Starmer. He is consistently inconsistent and IMO a complete waste of an opportunity. A boiled turnip could beat the Tories this time out and would probably be more effective.

Can't fault them for effort, is what it is.