What is the point of labour ?

[Clown Job]

17 minutes ago, BFTD said:

We've reached the, "tell them anything you like, we're not getting elected anyway" phase.

You’re not wrong 

We are fucked

[BFTD]

No doubt someone, somewhere, is still claiming that Scotland needs to vote Labour to get rid of the Tories.

[williemillersmoustache]

1 hour ago, Clown Job said:

You’re not wrong 

We are fucked

England is bad enough and I know the population is concentrated in the south but that map of Wales makes me vomit blood.

[Anonapersona]

28 minutes ago, williemillersmoustache said:

England is bad enough and I know the population is concentrated in the south but that map of Wales makes me vomit blood.

Looking at the Scottish Borders is quite depressing for me.

[williemillersmoustache]

Just now, Anonapersona said:

Looking at the Scottish Borders is quite depressing for me.

Hopefully we just declare much of it a DMZ and fill it full of mines. 

[Anonapersona]

40 minutes ago, williemillersmoustache said:

Hopefully we just declare much of it a DMZ and fill it full of mines. 

That's a fair exchange.

[tamthebam]

Boundary changes.

Brought to you by election experts Gerry Mander and Alexander Lukashenko.

[scottsdad]

20 hours ago, BFTD said:

No doubt someone, somewhere, is still claiming that Scotland needs to vote Labour to get rid of the Tories.

[Gordon EF]

Queef Starmer

[NotThePars]

you think it doesn’t get worse then you read the final post

[Clown Job]

Scottish Labour should support calls for a second referendum on independence, regardless of its position on the constitution, former union boss Len McCluskey has said.

The party has always been steadfastly against another vote, despite dissent from some MSPs.

But Mr McCluskey, who was the general secretary of Unite for a decade and a major figure in the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, said the SNP “have stolen the radical clothes of Scottish Labour”.

“We’ve been telling Labour in Scotland since 2007 – when a certain Nicola Sturgeon won a seat in Glasgow – to wake up and smell the coffee,” he said on the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme.

“The reality is the SNP have stolen the radical clothes of Scottish Labour and Scottish Labour have lost the trust of ordinary working people.”

To win back that trust, the former union leader said: “They’re going to have to battle really strongly; in my opinion they should support a second referendum on independence, what they actually do when that referendum comes can still be debated.”

He added: “The truth of the matter is that, in the opinion polls, it doesn’t appear to matter who the leader of the Scottish party is, we’re not making any headway.

“Labour has to do something imaginative and radical, because it’s not like the SNP are being successful in public services or education or health and yet Labour can’t put a glove on them at the moment.”

Scottish Labour dropped two seats in this year’s election, down to 22, although polls had predicted they would fall further.

The showing comes despite positive polling numbers for leader Anas Sarwar, who had been in post for less than three months at the time of the vote.

Meanwhile, Mr McCluskey weighed in on the levels of industrial action being seen in Scotland, with trains set to be cancelled during the COP26 climate conference if a deal is not reached with the RMT union by 5pm on Wednesday.

“I’ve never met a worker who likes being out on strike – workers take strike action because of that frustration, because they feel there’s a sense of injustice,” he said.

“It’s easily resolved – around the table the appropriate individuals could come up with the type of offer where the workforce feels they are being respected.”

He added there is always a “dilemma” when public service workers take strike action, because “innocent members of the public suffer”.

“It’s why, in my experience, workers are always that much more careful about making that decision.”

[Dan Steele]

4 minutes ago, Clown Job said:

“The reality is the SNP have stolen the radical clothes of Scottish Labour

"stolen"

[sophia]

Jeremy Corbyn told me yesterday that his big idea for us is to have a federal system with more powerful regional parliaments based upon the German system and associated with that would be the abolishing of the House of Lords.

Here was me thinking that Holyrood was the most powerful devolved parliament in the world.

I'm not sure that anyone can be found that would think that the HoL will be gone in the next decade. In fact, I'd be hard pushed to think of any serious commentator that would predict that would be likely any time this century.

it really is hard to think of Corbyn with any seriousness. Thing is Gordon Brown is the very embodiment of serious (or at least that is the image) and his offer is exactly the same.

 

[sparky88]

On 21/10/2021 at 14:43, williemillersmoustache said:

If anything this is good news. Keith's long term strategy is to try and win back some of the ultra unionist 10-15% of the Scottish electorate they've lost to the Tories while completely ignoring the remainder. 

Bald men, battling over the same old broken comb. 

Ulsterisation of Scottish politics has already happened. People are too entrenched in their positions on Scottish independence- hence relatively small movements in independence polling since 2014.

[Antlion]

15 minutes ago, sparky88 said:

Ulsterisation of Scottish politics has already happened. People are too entrenched in their positions on Scottish independence- hence relatively small movements in independence polling since 2014.

It probably doesn’t help that ultra UK nationalists eagerly adopted the term “unionist” from across the Irish Sea, and at least one is constantly going on about “partitioning”. Then again, I suspect Ulsterisation suits those types down to the ground.

[williemillersmoustache]

32 minutes ago, sparky88 said:

Ulsterisation of Scottish politics has already happened. People are too entrenched in their positions on Scottish independence- hence relatively small movements in independence polling since 2014.

I don't like the term because it implicitly attempts to devalue the results of Scottish elections. I do agree there are certainly entrenched views on both sides but "too" entrenched? Not for me. If you believe that the Holyrood system produces at least a relatively proportional result, there is an undeniable majority for Yes in parliament now which would show that there is movement.

15 minutes ago, Antlion said:

It probably doesn’t help that ultra UK nationalists eagerly adopted the term “unionist” from across the Irish Sea, and at least one is constantly going on about “partitioning”. Then again, I suspect Ulsterisation suits those types down to the ground.

100% this. It suits a certain element of unionism to pick and choose themes and policies from NI to emphasise the existential threat they feel they are facing, undermine the Yes cause and portray us as extremists.  But curiously they're less keen on the Stormont definition of a generation or the right to hold a border poll should they elect a government to do so.

Edited October 29, 2021 by williemillersmoustache

[lichtgilphead]

**** *** *** **** 

Edit: This was in response to a certain bigot's attempt to slither back onto the forum. Good riddance.

Edited October 30, 2021 by lichtgilphead
Stormzy has been emptied again

[sophia]

36 minutes ago, lichtgilphead said:

**** *** *** **** 

Fun yet hopelessness continuing 

 

 

 

 

[williemillersmoustache]

1 hour ago, Keith Starmzy said:

After recently watching the Blair and Brown New Labour documentary on Iplayer I must say I think the idea that Labour can't win again is a bit silly and cynical... 

With some charismatic, persuasive and handsome leader I think we can do it. The cyclical nature of politics had Blair dragging Labour to the centre with great success and then a decade later Cameron winning by dragging the Tories to the centre with great success.

After a decade of Tory rule I think the public would be quite happy to elect a more centre left approach Labour government as long as they were able to revamp and move to the centre on the silly culture war issues like moving to a pro defending statues stance and appointing J.K Rowling as an ambassador for women's rights. 

The budget was evident that the Tories are willing to take Labour ground when it comes to economics as they're probably at least partly conscious that a decade of austerity wasn't exactly fun for the voting public... therefore a party that has similar economic views whilst simultaneously embracing the "pro Brexit patriotic" element of the electorate and also condemning the Tories for their unavoidable sleeze and corruption would do well...

...Then in true Trojan horse fashion the true progressive change we've all wanted to come to fruition may occur even if only on a moderate level. 

Scotland has a major part to play in this... if we all embrace the beautiful idea that there's more that brings us closer together than there are things that divide us then we can aspire to change things for everyone rather than running off on some ideologically led fantastical Indy Scotland vision. I hope you guys will join me in my ambition of supporting a progressive Labour government for the betterment of our lovely British populace. 

We just need a forensic approach. 

Disappointing lack of any reference to the fact that unionists and nationalists, who are in need of such interventions, are given the same type of blood products. 2/10

[NotThePars]

Sophia talking like he's Robert Peston with the big scoop from a man who's no longer even a Labour MP.