this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2023
25 points (96.3% liked)

UK Politics

3076 readers
128 users here now

General Discussion for politics in the UK.
Please don't post to both [email protected] and [email protected] .
Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.

Posts should be related to UK-centric politics, and should be either a link to a reputable news source for news, or a text post on this community.

Opinion pieces are also allowed, provided they are not misleading/misrepresented/drivel, and have proper sources.

If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread. (These things should be publicly discussed)

Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot. Link titles should not be editorialised.

Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.

[email protected] appears to have vanished! We can still see cached content from this link, but goodbye I guess! :'(

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Sadly, I do think the whole thing is an entertainment platform of distraction. Voting for any of these enabling parties only contributes.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Thank you Rupert Murdock for your contribution to democracy there, but I'll get rid of these tory nutters as fast as I possibly can.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I'll remember that when the second Sunak government forces me back into work-related activity. I'm sure it will be very comforting as I'm driven to a nervous breakdown.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Or a future Labour administration. Or Liberal and - though unlikely - Green.

But I'm sure you will enjoy Sir Kid Starver's soothing voice as he takes away what remaining benefits or entitlements you have so he can slip them to his billionaire pals and media moguls. Try to get his autograph as he does that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sure. Enjoy your moral purity as we head into the next Tory administration, and the next, and the next. Nothing to do with you, of course.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Makes no difference whether the PM is called Sunak or Starmer if they have the same neoliberal policies and prioritise profit and the economy over people.

We need proper political change and not the “football-ification” entertainment. I’m as pragmatic as the next, but I do think that issues like wiping out child poverty are fundamental. That’s not moral purity.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@tenebrisnox @vashti you should have listened to us. Leaders can’t change that much. A recognition that the machine is there and we can only steer is honest. Turn too quick and you’ll cause harm. Last Labour government improved all our lives quite quickly. Starmer’s government will too, guaranteed. But there won’t be a revolution, this is just normal stuff, not revolutionary forces.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Not sure how you justify last Labour govt “improving” our lives any differently than Tories (other than superficially). As I recall they conspired in the invasion of Iraq and helped wealth transfer upwards when they bailed out the banks. I come from a working class, council house background and my life hasn’t been improved by either Tories or Labour.

I used to work in secondary education. The period under Labour was horrendous: we had the various “National Strategies” which micromanaged how the curriculum was delivered. Cost billions and was a waste of time. They also introduced MATs and PFI which took schools further from democratic ownership and allowed a minority if schools to thrive at the expense of others. Worst of all, their right-wing approaches enabled Gove’s reforms a few years later that have turned schools into toxic hell-holes where everything is measured around exam passes.

My view of Labour (and I was a party member from the mid-1990s until very recently) is that it really is an enabler of neoliberal policies. Like the Democrats in US, they are simply the same party as the Tories and just wear different colours. Socialists stay in Labour because they live in hope things will be different.