Local Elections

IdleRich

IdleRich
Anyone voted yet? What's going to happen? Does it matter?
For what it's worth I reckon that Labour are going to get an absolute kicking; regardless of what you think about Clark, Prescott etc the publicity has all been bad and the timing terrible/wonderful and it's really going to hurt.
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
Suspicions: Labour will do badly but not abysmally- Blair will stay, and seeing as he's run out of other experienced Blairites to occupy the positions of Clarke et al, they will all keep their jobs (as if he lets people like Alistair Darling and David Miliband in these jobs, he basically begins the transfer of power to Brown). Tories will perform OK, but not as well as they ought to be given Blair's recent agonies. Lib Dems will make some gains.
 

corneilius

Well-known member
guaranteed result

Guarantee - we, the people, will do badly out of whatever result!

See my thread on restoring democracy and the Power Inquiry report, and read the info, and then note the absence of any reportage of it...... in fact a number of MPs on all sides, and various pundits, suggested in the last few days that voting should be complusory, that voting is the democratic act. It was suggested that fines be levied on all those who do not vote.... just another tax, innit? More cash for haircuts, office sex and nuclear weapons!

The real and only truelly democratic act is to get involved, on a regular basis, with local and national government....... voting once every two or four years is not getting involved, it's a media/entertainment illusion of involvement .....

I will be attending the Power Inquiry Conference this weekend, will feed back anything I learn there.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"Labour will do badly but not abysmally- Blair will stay"
Sure, but it's another chip away from his authority. I will be keen to see what happens in the re-shuffle.
I thought that Miliband is a Blairite, or at least not a Brownite?

"I will be attending the Power Inquiry Conference this weekend, will feed back anything I learn there."
I read the thing you linked to and it was well worth looking at. I would be interested to hear about the conference.
 

bassnation

the abyss
corneilius said:
The real and only truelly democratic act is to get involved, on a regular basis, with local and national government....... voting once every two or four years is not getting involved, it's a media/entertainment illusion of involvement .....

people who get involved with government become comprimised with the reality of politics. everyone knows this.

i hate to be so cynical but i've been on so many protests now which have achieved nothing - yeah they brought people together and it was the right thing to do - but ulitmately those in power ignore them.

the best you can hope for with the current system is to give them a boot up the arse and eject them. i don't buy into this whole "well, we are better than the others" line - its not good enough by half. i want them to define themselves by what they are and have some guts and integrity. if it means something worse for a while then so be it - we'll kick those bastards out too when they lose the plot.

not many solutions in all of that, but i don't feel terribly postive about the state of politics in this country any more.
 
D

droid

Guest
bassnation said:
people who get involved with government become comprimised with the reality of politics. everyone knows this.

i hate to be so cynical but i've been on so many protests now which have achieved nothing - yeah they brought people together and it was the right thing to do - but ulitmately those in power ignore them.

the best you can hope for with the current system is to give them a boot up the arse and eject them. i don't buy into this whole "well, we are better than the others" line - its not good enough by half. i want them to define themselves by what they are and have some guts and integrity. if it means something worse for a while then so be it - we'll kick those bastards out too when they lose the plot.

not many solutions in all of that, but i don't feel terribly postive about the state of politics in this country any more.

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Is it possible this result could slow Labour's slide into neo-liberal ammorality? I hear the Independents made some big gains as well.

Grassroots Labour members must be seriously pissed off right now...
 

Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
There aren't many grass roots labour members left. Labour has lost 50% of its membership since 1997.

The tories getting 40% of the vote is astounding - just as it was last time they got that level of support, right before losing the election.

I still think Cameron is going to take it next time. Sadly the odds aren't strong enough for a bet.
 

bassnation

the abyss
2stepfan said:
There aren't many grass roots labour members left. Labour has lost 50% of its membership since 1997.

The tories getting 40% of the vote is astounding - just as it was last time they got that level of support, right before losing the election.

I still think Cameron is going to take it next time. Sadly the odds aren't strong enough for a bet.

do you think brown won't a chance to show what hes made of, or has he already amply demonstrated that as chancellor?
 

corneilius

Well-known member
bassnation said:
people who get involved with government become comprimised with the reality of politics. everyone knows this.

i hate to be so cynical but i've been on so many protests now which have achieved nothing - yeah they brought people together and it was the right thing to do - but ulitmately those in power ignore them.

the best you can hope for with the current system is to give them a boot up the arse and eject them. i don't buy into this whole "well, we are better than the others" line - its not good enough by half. i want them to define themselves by what they are and have some guts and integrity. if it means something worse for a while then so be it - we'll kick those bastards out too when they lose the plot.

not many solutions in all of that, but i don't feel terribly postive about the state of politics in this country any more.
I am am nearly 50 years old, and I have NEVER felt positive about politics in the UK or in Ireland, where I come from. ...

The political parties are and have always been corrupt - that's the bargain the elites make with those who join the game ..... however as our role in the game is 'voting', and not actual physical engagement on a daily basis, is it not time now to redefine what we as people want, what we do as citizens, not from the current political set-up, but from local and national civic governance and to redefine our roles and responsibilities within that..... to stop leaving it to others to do, mummy, daddy???

Chavez's movement in Venuzeula, Morales in Bolivia started local, and built up over a decade and more into what they are now. That is what it will take here. There are no quick fixes. It requires a life-long committment, a sense of ones life the the stream of generations, a willingness to gift to the future in every way.

Its easy to blame the politicos .... not so easy to get down to the nitty gritty of building what we want .... and the politicos know this, they rely upon this cynicism and the media tend to encourage it too.....

yet as the Power Inquiry has pointed out, millions upon millions of real people WANT to have the involvement ... millions of people are concerned about environment, pollution, war-mongering, racism, profiteering and so on, and realise that the politico's are NOT dealing with these issues.

As regards UK protests, in general most people want to go home for tea, it's only a few hard-core who will stay the course and that needs to change.

For example, when the March against the war with 2 million happened, and yet Blair moved his agenda ahead, we could see the preparations, he got the permissions from parliament and there were no follow-up by the great british public - we could have returned to the streets, we could have stayed on the streets for days, even weeks untill they backed down ...there was nothing to stop us from doing that .. yet we chose not to (everyone had their own reasons) and now 200,000 civilians in Iraq are dead, 5 times that amount are injured, 10 times that amount are truamatised for life and Iraq is forever polluted with DU ... that's the result of our choice not to engage, not to stay on the streets, and we all need to see that.

Lets encourage all to make that change. Put your cycnicism to one side. It serves only the political elites.
 
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Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
bassnation said:
do you think brown won't a chance to show what hes made of, or has he already amply demonstrated that as chancellor?
I could be completely wrong but I think it will take a serious Thatcher-style rebellion to get Tony out, I don't think he really intends to go of his own volition. But I don't think the polling clearly shows that the Labour has a better chance with Brown.

Personally I like Brown even less than I like Blair. If he came out as anti-war and environmentally friendly he could probably beat Cameron but that would mean utterly changing his position.

They're yesterday's men and there's the beginning of a similar "Mood for change" to that which took the tories out.

I wonder what the odds on a hung parliament are...
 

Rambler

Awanturnik
Personally, I reckon Brown would be a nightmare, not just for the country but for the Labour party in general - there's a real chance of him becoming Labour's John Major. He might just squeeze through in 2008, just as his high-borrowing economics catch up on him, and drag us into an economic mess. The Tories waltz into the 2012 election with an unprecedented landslide, strong enough to kill off Labour for the next three or four terms, we get into the same cycle again. Three or four term governments just aren't good, no matter who they are, and I fear that Brown in power could be so disastrous that that's what he'll put in place when he loses.

But I'm getting way ahead of myself. Blair hasn't stepped down and I don't think Brown's necessarily a dead cert - there must surely be some Labour MPs who fancy a leadership challenge?
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"I could be completely wrong but I think it will take a serious Thatcher-style rebellion to get Tony out, I don't think he really intends to go of his own volition"
That's the first time I've heard that opinion. Interesting because everyone else seems to be assuming that it's a case of when not if. If he just hangs on though it would be a colossal and blatant lie, not the first obviously, but in some ways the clearest "fuck you" to the electorate. For that reason I reckon he will have to go and I think that Brown will replace him unless another candidate comes along pretty soon.
I don't know enough about economics to know whether or not Brown has been doing the right things and whether you're right that his "high borrowing will catch up with him" but I guess that most of the electorate don't either so it won't matter in terms of votes until it does. I'm not sure what to think about him in general, I get the impression that he has been fairly opposed to some of the things like the war but he knows on which side his bread is buttered and that it would be political suicide to show his hand too soon in open confrontation with Blair. That's not a particularly honourable position of course but I would be interested to see where "new labour" goes if he takes the helm.
 

matt b

Indexing all opinion
Rambler said:
But I'm getting way ahead of myself. Blair hasn't stepped down and I don't think Brown's necessarily a dead cert - there must surely be some Labour MPs who fancy a leadership challenge?

maybe alan milburn ?

but he said that he stepped down as health minister to spend more time with his family, so he can't possibly be interested.
 

matt b

Indexing all opinion
2stepfan said:
Personally I like Brown even less than I like Blair. If he came out as anti-war and environmentally friendly he could probably beat Cameron but that would mean utterly changing his position.

worse still, he's the most boring interviewee i've ever heard. by some way. and he does that weird 'mouth opening like a fish' thing, which gets my goat.
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
I think Brown is obviously flawed (see his inability to properly reform the tax system- council tax still a nightmare, the tax credits system being completely fucked up for a second year in a row, and his love of expensive and irrational PFI financing projects) but at the very least he will be a change of style, compared to Mr Blair. At this time it appears as if, at least for the next few years, there is a certain consensus between the main parties on most issues, so a change of management style is all we will get. Perhaps he will be less arrogant, and less eager to steal away what limited civil liberties we have for seemingly no benefit...? I hope so. But I do not trust him, and do not think he is any kind of silver bullet solution. All the same I am sick to the back teeth of Blair and moronic political allies, and just to see the backs of the lot of them would be something (although it will not stem the tide of the late capitalist laissez faire abomination developing all around us). I agree with Cornelius that one way you can perhaps effect change is to hold the bastards to account as much as possible in between elections. I don't think you necessarily have to become a professional politician to do this...
 
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Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
John Reid is being groomed as the Blairite "anyone but Brown" successor. Isn't it funny how it's always the ex-communists who wind up being the most authoritarian bastards?

Milburn is definitely still in play though.

I'm not sure Brown's economic policies are about to catch up with him. Business confidence is incredibly high and there's a lot of investment going on. Even the housing market has picked up so consumer confidence is high too. I think he'd still have fair economic weather.

Can't believe how Jack Straw got stabbed in the back after covering for him throughout Iraq.
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
Jack Straw (and Geoff Hoon I hear) were both shuffled to near the back of the cabinet deck cos they have been getting too cosy to Brown of late, and that made Blair uncomfortable.
 

bassnation

the abyss
gek-opel said:
Jack Straw (and Geoff Hoon I hear) were both shuffled to near the back of the cabinet deck cos they have been getting too cosy to Brown of late, and that made Blair uncomfortable.

this is a ludicrous situation for the labour party and for us.

its a bit much them expecting us to vote them even if they unseat blair - a lot of people will remember the supine rubber-stamping of blairs excesses, the belief in his lies when his duplicity was obvious to anyone with half a brain. cowards and sheep, the lot of them. they can go to hell.
 

matt b

Indexing all opinion
2stepfan said:
John Reid is being groomed as the Blairite "anyone but Brown" successor. Isn't it funny how it's always the ex-communists who wind up being the most authoritarian bastards?

he was mentioned as a potential sucessor number of times today on radio 4 today.

in regard to the ex-communist thing- does that mean that peter hain is a dark horse, or was he 'just' anti-apartheid?



2stepfan said:
JCan't believe how Jack Straw got stabbed in the back after covering for him throughout Iraq.

his less than hawk like stance over iran has been touched on
 
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