I suspect that with a moderate leader, labour would be a long way ahead in the polls. Against this government any credible opposition should be out of sight.Digby wrote:I didn't say David Milliband could manage the Labour party I said he'd struggle to hold power. Though in that instance you might mean get elected, in which case I happen to think he'd get elected very easily right nowStom wrote:
Why would David Milliband be a good thing for the Labour party? If his more socialist brother couldn't manage it, why could he?
To find a solution, you should not dilute the basic concept of the Labour party. Blair may have won elections, but he destroyed the party for whoever came after him.
The clue is in the phrase "for the people". Don't just try to get elected at any cost. Fight for something. A strong concept.
Which is one reason why, and someone said it earlier, Thatcher would be so good right now, even if she was a power crazed right wing loon. May has no concept except power. Thatcher had one.
Also why is it only those more toward the margins can be deemed to have 'strong concepts'? Even aside from the stupidity of such assertion the arrogance isn't exactly pleasant
Snap General Election called
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Re: Snap General Election called
- Stom
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Re: Snap General Election called
Again, define moderate?Sandydragon wrote:I suspect that with a moderate leader, labour would be a long way ahead in the polls. Against this government any credible opposition should be out of sight.Digby wrote:I didn't say David Milliband could manage the Labour party I said he'd struggle to hold power. Though in that instance you might mean get elected, in which case I happen to think he'd get elected very easily right nowStom wrote:
Why would David Milliband be a good thing for the Labour party? If his more socialist brother couldn't manage it, why could he?
To find a solution, you should not dilute the basic concept of the Labour party. Blair may have won elections, but he destroyed the party for whoever came after him.
The clue is in the phrase "for the people". Don't just try to get elected at any cost. Fight for something. A strong concept.
Which is one reason why, and someone said it earlier, Thatcher would be so good right now, even if she was a power crazed right wing loon. May has no concept except power. Thatcher had one.
Also why is it only those more toward the margins can be deemed to have 'strong concepts'? Even aside from the stupidity of such assertion the arrogance isn't exactly pleasant
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Re: Snap General Election called
Blair was a moderate that most British people would see as occupying the centre ground. To you he probably looked right wing.Stom wrote:Again, define moderate?Sandydragon wrote:I suspect that with a moderate leader, labour would be a long way ahead in the polls. Against this government any credible opposition should be out of sight.Digby wrote:
I didn't say David Milliband could manage the Labour party I said he'd struggle to hold power. Though in that instance you might mean get elected, in which case I happen to think he'd get elected very easily right now
Also why is it only those more toward the margins can be deemed to have 'strong concepts'? Even aside from the stupidity of such assertion the arrogance isn't exactly pleasant
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Re: Snap General Election called
He didn't look it (right wing) at the time. But that was because we'd had Thatcher framing the debate for as long as I'd lived. Which kind of moves the goalposts somewhatSandydragon wrote:Blair was a moderate that most British people would see as occupying the centre ground. To you he probably looked right wing.Stom wrote:Again, define moderate?Sandydragon wrote:
I suspect that with a moderate leader, labour would be a long way ahead in the polls. Against this government any credible opposition should be out of sight.

My opinion is that you cannot be truly considered moderate if you're economically neo-liberal. It's a rather important point. Economic neo-liberalism is about as right wing, economically, as you can get without getting into bloody libertarianism.
So without getting into social policy or defense or anything else, I wouldn't consider David Milliband as a moderate, simply because his economic policy is neo-liberal.
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Re: Snap General Election called
Without doubt I'd be a neo-liberal, believing as I do in regulated market economy. And really most people anywhere are in that camp with differences to be found in what level of taxation should result, what level of regulation is required, what % of an economy should be state Vs private and so on, but there's very little support anywhere for a state controlled central command economy, just as there's very little support anywhere for a wholly unregulated or free market economy.
Are we really looking to group pretty much everyone as being immoderate on such basis, and only those on the margins of the left as being moderates? As claims go it sounds more than a little intemperate
Are we really looking to group pretty much everyone as being immoderate on such basis, and only those on the margins of the left as being moderates? As claims go it sounds more than a little intemperate
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Re: Snap General Election called
What on earth are you guys even talking about? Politics is about mocking politicians’ personal appearance and funny stuff that happens on twitter.
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Re: Snap General Election called
Ed BallsMikey Brown wrote:What on earth are you guys even talking about? Politics is about mocking politicians’ personal appearance and funny stuff that happens on twitter.
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Re: Snap General Election called
It's nothing to do with that, it's about trying to move the goalposts and frame the language so that those on the margins of the left can describe themselves in terms that are moderate, centrist, whatever, and everyone else is extreme right. It's nothing more than a political tactic.Digby wrote:Without doubt I'd be a neo-liberal, believing as I do in regulated market economy. And really most people anywhere are in that camp with differences to be found in what level of taxation should result, what level of regulation is required, what % of an economy should be state Vs private and so on, but there's very little support anywhere for a state controlled central command economy, just as there's very little support anywhere for a wholly unregulated or free market economy.
Are we really looking to group pretty much everyone as being immoderate on such basis, and only those on the margins of the left as being moderates? As claims go it sounds more than a little intemperate
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Re: Snap General Election called
It's not a great tactic. Not unless most of my lifetime people have been voting Tory, Labour and Lib Dem when all along they meant to be voting SocialistStones of granite wrote:It's nothing to do with that, it's about trying to move the goalposts and frame the language so that those on the margins of the left can describe themselves in terms that are moderate, centrist, whatever, and everyone else is extreme right. It's nothing more than a political tactic.Digby wrote:Without doubt I'd be a neo-liberal, believing as I do in regulated market economy. And really most people anywhere are in that camp with differences to be found in what level of taxation should result, what level of regulation is required, what % of an economy should be state Vs private and so on, but there's very little support anywhere for a state controlled central command economy, just as there's very little support anywhere for a wholly unregulated or free market economy.
Are we really looking to group pretty much everyone as being immoderate on such basis, and only those on the margins of the left as being moderates? As claims go it sounds more than a little intemperate
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Re: Snap General Election called
Obviously the language was wrong, that's why they want to change it. Eric Blair knew what he was writing about.Digby wrote:It's not a great tactic. Not unless most of my lifetime people have been voting Tory, Labour and Lib Dem when all along they meant to be voting SocialistStones of granite wrote:It's nothing to do with that, it's about trying to move the goalposts and frame the language so that those on the margins of the left can describe themselves in terms that are moderate, centrist, whatever, and everyone else is extreme right. It's nothing more than a political tactic.Digby wrote:Without doubt I'd be a neo-liberal, believing as I do in regulated market economy. And really most people anywhere are in that camp with differences to be found in what level of taxation should result, what level of regulation is required, what % of an economy should be state Vs private and so on, but there's very little support anywhere for a state controlled central command economy, just as there's very little support anywhere for a wholly unregulated or free market economy.
Are we really looking to group pretty much everyone as being immoderate on such basis, and only those on the margins of the left as being moderates? As claims go it sounds more than a little intemperate
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Re: Snap General Election called
Stom wrote:He didn't look it (right wing) at the time. But that was because we'd had Thatcher framing the debate for as long as I'd lived. Which kind of moves the goalposts somewhatSandydragon wrote:Blair was a moderate that most British people would see as occupying the centre ground. To you he probably looked right wing.Stom wrote:
Again, define moderate?
My opinion is that you cannot be truly considered moderate if you're economically neo-liberal. It's a rather important point. Economic neo-liberalism is about as right wing, economically, as you can get without getting into bloody libertarianism.
So without getting into social policy or defense or anything else, I wouldn't consider David Milliband as a moderate, simply because his economic policy is neo-liberal.
Considerations of whether someone is right, left or centre are based on more than just economics.
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Re: Snap General Election called
Of course it is. Its been used on here for years.Stones of granite wrote:It's nothing to do with that, it's about trying to move the goalposts and frame the language so that those on the margins of the left can describe themselves in terms that are moderate, centrist, whatever, and everyone else is extreme right. It's nothing more than a political tactic.Digby wrote:Without doubt I'd be a neo-liberal, believing as I do in regulated market economy. And really most people anywhere are in that camp with differences to be found in what level of taxation should result, what level of regulation is required, what % of an economy should be state Vs private and so on, but there's very little support anywhere for a state controlled central command economy, just as there's very little support anywhere for a wholly unregulated or free market economy.
Are we really looking to group pretty much everyone as being immoderate on such basis, and only those on the margins of the left as being moderates? As claims go it sounds more than a little intemperate
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Re: Snap General Election called
Thats all the fault of the propaganda pushed out by MSM. That and the inability of the masses to understand the truth.Digby wrote:It's not a great tactic. Not unless most of my lifetime people have been voting Tory, Labour and Lib Dem when all along they meant to be voting SocialistStones of granite wrote:It's nothing to do with that, it's about trying to move the goalposts and frame the language so that those on the margins of the left can describe themselves in terms that are moderate, centrist, whatever, and everyone else is extreme right. It's nothing more than a political tactic.Digby wrote:Without doubt I'd be a neo-liberal, believing as I do in regulated market economy. And really most people anywhere are in that camp with differences to be found in what level of taxation should result, what level of regulation is required, what % of an economy should be state Vs private and so on, but there's very little support anywhere for a state controlled central command economy, just as there's very little support anywhere for a wholly unregulated or free market economy.
Are we really looking to group pretty much everyone as being immoderate on such basis, and only those on the margins of the left as being moderates? As claims go it sounds more than a little intemperate
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Re: Snap General Election called
May replaces Patel with Mordor, something about darkness and binding, might have been Mordaunt
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Re: Snap General Election called
Left, right, centre, moderate, radical, all a bit pointless. Better to talk about policy instead of plastering people with insufficient labels.Sandydragon wrote:Stom wrote:He didn't look it (right wing) at the time. But that was because we'd had Thatcher framing the debate for as long as I'd lived. Which kind of moves the goalposts somewhatSandydragon wrote: Blair was a moderate that most British people would see as occupying the centre ground. To you he probably looked right wing.
My opinion is that you cannot be truly considered moderate if you're economically neo-liberal. It's a rather important point. Economic neo-liberalism is about as right wing, economically, as you can get without getting into bloody libertarianism.
So without getting into social policy or defense or anything else, I wouldn't consider David Milliband as a moderate, simply because his economic policy is neo-liberal.
Considerations of whether someone is right, left or centre are based on more than just economics.
There are clearly dipoles of political opinion though...
Nationalist vs internationalist
Authoritarian vs libertarian
Individualist vs collectivist
Anarchist vs statist
Economic liberalism vs socialism
Protectionism vs Free trade
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Re: Snap General Election called
Difficult to talk policy when neither major party can build a consensus behind a manifesto within their own parliamentary party. Though outside Brexit we get some assistance from Brexit as they'll have very little time to look at anything but Brexit, and so naturally they'd gravitate toward doing very little, and doing very little makes sense when you've sparse political support (and actually it'd often be a better policy even when you do have support)
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Re: Snap General Election called
Who would represent some of those positions?Zhivago wrote:
There are clearly dipoles of political opinion though...
Nationalist vs internationalist
Authoritarian vs libertarian
Individualist vs collectivist
Anarchist vs statist
Economic liberalism vs socialism
Protectionism vs Free trade
For instance I've no idea who in the political arena is advocating anarchy, or for another query a lot of people who warble on about free trade are in many ways staunch protectionists so is the thinking there many individuals withing whatever party are divided by their own opinions?
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Re: Snap General Election called
In my opinion, those "dipoles of political opinion" are at least as pointless as the other labels you describe as pointless.Zhivago wrote:Left, right, centre, moderate, radical, all a bit pointless. Better to talk about policy instead of plastering people with insufficient labels.Sandydragon wrote:Stom wrote:
He didn't look it (right wing) at the time. But that was because we'd had Thatcher framing the debate for as long as I'd lived. Which kind of moves the goalposts somewhat
My opinion is that you cannot be truly considered moderate if you're economically neo-liberal. It's a rather important point. Economic neo-liberalism is about as right wing, economically, as you can get without getting into bloody libertarianism.
So without getting into social policy or defense or anything else, I wouldn't consider David Milliband as a moderate, simply because his economic policy is neo-liberal.
Considerations of whether someone is right, left or centre are based on more than just economics.
There are clearly dipoles of political opinion though...
Nationalist vs internationalist
Authoritarian vs libertarian
Individualist vs collectivist
Anarchist vs statist
Economic liberalism vs socialism
Protectionism vs Free trade
- Stom
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Re: Snap General Election called
In what way?Stones of granite wrote:In my opinion, those "dipoles of political opinion" are at least as pointless as the other labels you describe as pointless.Zhivago wrote:Left, right, centre, moderate, radical, all a bit pointless. Better to talk about policy instead of plastering people with insufficient labels.Sandydragon wrote:
Considerations of whether someone is right, left or centre are based on more than just economics.
There are clearly dipoles of political opinion though...
Nationalist vs internationalist
Authoritarian vs libertarian
Individualist vs collectivist
Anarchist vs statist
Economic liberalism vs socialism
Protectionism vs Free trade
- Stones of granite
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Re: Snap General Election called
Well, for a start, none of them represent true dipoles. Take Authoritarian and Libertarian as examples. Simplified, there is a sliding scale between an extreme Authoritarian and an extreme Libertarian. In truth, I don't even believe it's that simple - most people will hold views which tend towards authoritarian in some aspects of life and those which tend towards libertarian in others.Stom wrote:In what way?Stones of granite wrote:In my opinion, those "dipoles of political opinion" are at least as pointless as the other labels you describe as pointless.Zhivago wrote:
Left, right, centre, moderate, radical, all a bit pointless. Better to talk about policy instead of plastering people with insufficient labels.
There are clearly dipoles of political opinion though...
Nationalist vs internationalist
Authoritarian vs libertarian
Individualist vs collectivist
Anarchist vs statist
Economic liberalism vs socialism
Protectionism vs Free trade
So, these labels are no more useful then left, right, centre etc.
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Re: Snap General Election called
These are dipoles of political thought, although for some of these the Overton window is clearly narrower than for others. In terms of an anarchist proponent, the most prominent person in this area is Noam Chomsky, whose views can be broadly described as anarcho-syndicalist. There are of course also sections of the American right that also tend to be quite anti-statist to de extent that they are close to advocating anarcho-capitalism...Digby wrote:Who would represent some of those positions?Zhivago wrote:
There are clearly dipoles of political opinion though...
Nationalist vs internationalist
Authoritarian vs libertarian
Individualist vs collectivist
Anarchist vs statist
Economic liberalism vs socialism
Protectionism vs Free trade
For instance I've no idea who in the political arena is advocating anarchy, or for another query a lot of people who warble on about free trade are in many ways staunch protectionists so is the thinking there many individuals withing whatever party are divided by their own opinions?
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Re: Snap General Election called
Chomsky is more than a little irrelevant, though I've never been of the impression he's an anarchist either for what it's worth. An anarchist in my estimation seeks the absence of authority be it governmental or whatever, whereas Chomsky for all he talks of anarchy is actually seeking the removal of what he sees as an unfair system and the establishment of what he considers a fair system, and then he's more than a little vague on what a fair system is. Point being he's not really an anarchist, he just doesn't like a lot of what's happening.Zhivago wrote:These are dipoles of political thought, although for some of these the Overton window is clearly narrower than for others. In terms of an anarchist proponent, the most prominent person in this area is Noam Chomsky, whose views can be broadly described as anarcho-syndicalist. There are of course also sections of the American right that also tend to be quite anti-statist to de extent that they are close to advocating anarcho-capitalism...Digby wrote:Who would represent some of those positions?Zhivago wrote:
There are clearly dipoles of political opinion though...
Nationalist vs internationalist
Authoritarian vs libertarian
Individualist vs collectivist
Anarchist vs statist
Economic liberalism vs socialism
Protectionism vs Free trade
For instance I've no idea who in the political arena is advocating anarchy, or for another query a lot of people who warble on about free trade are in many ways staunch protectionists so is the thinking there many individuals withing whatever party are divided by their own opinions?
And when you say there are many anti-statists in the USA does that simply mean those in favour of statehood and against the federal government? I can't say I make any attempt to search out anti-statists, but my impression is there can't be many of them, not even in groups who do little but bemoan the 'damn government'
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Re: Snap General Election called
Gotcha.Stones of granite wrote:Well, for a start, none of them represent true dipoles. Take Authoritarian and Libertarian as examples. Simplified, there is a sliding scale between an extreme Authoritarian and an extreme Libertarian. In truth, I don't even believe it's that simple - most people will hold views which tend towards authoritarian in some aspects of life and those which tend towards libertarian in others.Stom wrote:In what way?Stones of granite wrote:
In my opinion, those "dipoles of political opinion" are at least as pointless as the other labels you describe as pointless.
So, these labels are no more useful then left, right, centre etc.
Which is where labeling "Politics" as one thing or another doesn't work. So perhaps we should judge based upon policy...
The Conservatives are authoritarian on personal freedom, but libertarian on corporate freedom. They're Protectionist on military and police, but free on corporate freedom...
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Re: Snap General Election called
I tend to agree, but I think your straying into generalisations again. For example, which Government passed the Identity Cards Act (hint: 2006) and which Government repealed it?Stom wrote:Gotcha.Stones of granite wrote:Well, for a start, none of them represent true dipoles. Take Authoritarian and Libertarian as examples. Simplified, there is a sliding scale between an extreme Authoritarian and an extreme Libertarian. In truth, I don't even believe it's that simple - most people will hold views which tend towards authoritarian in some aspects of life and those which tend towards libertarian in others.Stom wrote:
In what way?
So, these labels are no more useful then left, right, centre etc.
Which is where labeling "Politics" as one thing or another doesn't work. So perhaps we should judge based upon policy...
The Conservatives are authoritarian on personal freedom, but libertarian on corporate freedom. They're Protectionist on military and police, but free on corporate freedom...
If you want to label according to policy, then do it by policy.
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Re: Snap General Election called
Um...it's my point about it being outside the Overton window. If we were to talk purely about the boundaries of the Overton window then it'd be big state vs small state. But we are taking about how to understand or classify someone by their political beliefs, in which case we should be able to classify everyone pretty much, not just those agreeing to the mainstream.Digby wrote:Chomsky is more than a little irrelevant, though I've never been of the impression he's an anarchist either for what it's worth. An anarchist in my estimation seeks the absence of authority be it governmental or whatever, whereas Chomsky for all he talks of anarchy is actually seeking the removal of what he sees as an unfair system and the establishment of what he considers a fair system, and then he's more than a little vague on what a fair system is. Point being he's not really an anarchist, he just doesn't like a lot of what's happening.Zhivago wrote:These are dipoles of political thought, although for some of these the Overton window is clearly narrower than for others. In terms of an anarchist proponent, the most prominent person in this area is Noam Chomsky, whose views can be broadly described as anarcho-syndicalist. There are of course also sections of the American right that also tend to be quite anti-statist to de extent that they are close to advocating anarcho-capitalism...Digby wrote:
Who would represent some of those positions?
For instance I've no idea who in the political arena is advocating anarchy, or for another query a lot of people who warble on about free trade are in many ways staunch protectionists so is the thinking there many individuals withing whatever party are divided by their own opinions?
And when you say there are many anti-statists in the USA does that simply mean those in favour of statehood and against the federal government? I can't say I make any attempt to search out anti-statists, but my impression is there can't be many of them, not even in groups who do little but bemoan the 'damn government'
I find it a bit odd that you say he's not really an anarchist... That's how he identified his own political belief... Perhaps you know better than he does? Hahaha
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