Met caught out targetting Black drivers..?

[srb7677]

The hard left momemtum types will never win a uk  , or even an english general election.

I wish you'd take your fingers out of your ears. For the umpteenth time we are not hard left but actually moderate left with a moderate manifesto containing many SNP policies for the whole UK.

And many of us are not "momentum types" either.

You are indulging in false caricature of people you clearly don't know and don't understand.

We are far less left wing than Labour was in 83

[srb7677]

Re any indyref in Scotland.

My own position on it is quite clear and I doubt whether the Labour left would disagree very much. The Blairites? Who knows.

But for me it seems morally and democratically obvious that if an SNP majority is elected to Holyrood with a mandate for an independence referendum, then one should be held. The SNP and the other parties and other individuals in general should be free to argue their case for or against independence. But it is the Scottish people who should decide. Whatever they decide, the vote should be honoured. If the Scots choose independence we should help them to facilitate that with good grace and good will. If they don't then their remaining in the union is settled - until or unless another Holyrood majority with a mandate to hold another referendum is elected.

It has been mooted that Scots living elsewhere in the UK should be included, a transparently obvious attempt to shore up the unionist vote. But what about Scots living outside the UK? Should it be a vote of all Scots regardless of where they live? Or all who live in Scotland only, regardless of where they were born? In my own personal opinion the latter makes more sense since these are people living in Scotland, working in Scotland, paying taxes in Scotland, and using Scottish roads and services and obeying Scottish laws (or facing Scottish justice if they don't). And people who would be living in an independent Scotland if it voted that way.

But that's just my opinion. I think the Scots themselves should determine who is eligible to vote.

[Sheepy]

Well we are waiting for a real reply to Thomas, a bit less of the excuses and future promises, they aren't worth squat.

all we ever get are labour excuses , and how we have to fall into line behind their petty identity politics and the latest bandwagon crusade.

There will be the usual mumblings in Labour HQ somewhere or another, they are running out of excuses Thomas, time for real politics. I picked up on it, because I think the Scots deserve a real answer.

[Thomas]

Well we are waiting for a real reply to Thomas, a bit less of the excuses and future promises, they aren't worth squat.

all we ever get are labour excuses , and how we have to fall into line behind their petty identity politics and the latest bandwagon crusade.

[Sheepy]

Well we are waiting for a real reply to Thomas, a bit less of the excuses and future promises, they aren't worth squat.

[Thomas]

Anyway, Thomas made the bold statement that Scotland is a better place under the SNP, you Labour types never answered him, in fact avoided it, either it is or it isn't.

Its a fact sheep.

"I ken, when we had a king, and a chancellor and parliament men o' oor ain, we could aye peeble them wi' stanes when they were na gude bairns – but naebody's nails can reach the length o' Lunnon." (Sir Walter Scott)

That quote in a way sums up labour in scotland , creeping around asking for votes , then off to london never to be seen again for the rest of the parliamentary term.

Scotland was dragged through the shit under labour , and they did feck all to help us .

We have never ever had it so good under the snp , while all labour offer is the gutter.

They are despised in scotland.

[Thomas]

You insist upon dishonestly calling us the hard left -

Call yourself whatever you like  , we all know what you are.

You simply cant face fact that hard left labour have never won an election  , while blairite labour has .

You yourself constantly berate and scream bile at the blairites in your own party while being in denial about your own electibility.

The feckin facts are there , and clear to see , kinnock smith and blair made labour electable , momentum and corbyn have taken them backwards.

You keep screaming about 2017 , but conventiently forget 2019 , only last december , and when forced to confront the biggest drubbing in labour history , you bleat excuses about brexit starmer back stabbing s and all the rest while ignoring your own part in that election.

You bleat constantly about huggy feelgood popular policy , and i point out many a time how that alone isnt enough toi get you elected , you need a leader with backbone and charisma, an actual politician instead of some old seventies dinosaur in charge of the islington brothers and sisters , and you run away screaming.

You fail to connect to voters , refuse to take the blame for your failures , and cant in any way engage with the big issues of the day.

Yet you cant understand why you lost , and continue to lose ground on all the other parties across the uk.

Head in the sand and refusing to listen cause all you want to do is preach , but the congregation long ago left the room.

[Sheepy]

Anyway, Thomas made the bold statement that Scotland is a better place under the SNP, you Labour types never answered him, in fact avoided it, either it is or it isn't.

[Thomas]

Considering the Labour Party was twenty odd years in the wilderness , when Blair , won a landslide victory . It's highly debatable as to whether he lost anything other  than 5 mill of his own vote. The Old party had lost nothing much ,as they were rarely in contention. The Labour Party  hadn't  had an election winning vote for 20 odd years and still haven't.So this blame it all on Blair, is a limp excuse.. I did not say Blairites   are most of the public.  What many call Blairites are merely part of the middle ground. Many a potential Labour voter is in that ground.  Insult  those voters  in it with labels that insinuate they are not pure enough for the party, and you insult a large percentage of your potential vote.
Corbyn, did exceptionally well  in  2017 . For the very reasons Blair, was so successful , the Tories , were there for the taking . They were  stumbling about, generally people were pissed off with them . Yet he couldn't pull it off.  All he proved  was it was still possible with the right leadership, which he wasn't.

You know my view of blair and labour , but what i am trying to pick up is srb view that prior to blair , everything was some sort of hard left electoral nirvana.

..and blair responsible for all the bad things that came after wards.

I would hardly call the 1983 labour party under michael foot as anything other than hard left would you?

The SDP from memeory broke away from labour at the time because they themsleves claimed labour had went too far to the left .

...and what happened in this socialist nirvana pre tony blair election?

The hard left under foots labour went on the reocrd the lowest labour vote of any election from 1974 onwards , even gordon brown marginally beating this in 2010.

LABOUR VOTE IN UK GENERAL ELECTIONS

1974 (Harold Wilson): 11,457,079
1979 (Jim Callaghan): 11,532,218
1983 (Michael Foot): 8,456,934*
1987 (Neil Kinnock): 10,029,270
1992 (Neil Kinnock): 11,560,484
1997 (Tony Blair): 13,518,167
2001 (Tony Blair): 10,724,953
2005 (Tony Blair): 9,552,436
2010 (Gordon Brown): 8,606,517
2015 (Ed Miliband): 9,347,304
2017 (j. Corbyn) ; 12,878,464
2019 ( J. Corbyn) ; 10,269 051

The hard left momemtum types will never win a uk  , or even an english general election.

[srb7677]

Yet there is always some excuse or other from the hard left as to why they never get iinto power and always seem to be on the losing side.

You insist upon dishonestly calling us the hard left - even though the inaccuracy of such a statement has been repeatedly explained to you. Fingers in your ears time again is it?

Our 2017 manifesto was actually full of many moderate socialist and social democratic policies - many of them already implemented in Scotland by the SNP. Are your lot far left as well?

Our policy offerings were very modest when compared to previous decades. Even David Owen said it was less left wing than his SDP, .

You are very confused. You claim to hate the democratic left, whom you insist upon dishonestly labelling hard left. Yet you also hate New Labour as sell outs. Yet you are forced into defending them to attack me.

If you do any more twisting and turning, be careful you don't vanish up your own backside.

[Good old]

When can you win? Whos  support would you need?  I ask because in a number of posts you show a considerable disdain for what you broadly describe as Blairites.  Which encourages the  notion that the   left can Indeed piss off its potential
supporters .  If Labour are to succeed , they have to embrace anyone who isn't dyed in the wool Tory. Label them if you wish but don't denigrate them as not left enough. Realise that your true enemies will encourage division in your ranks at every opportunity , play their  tune and you will never win. A huge percentage of Labours potential vote could be described  as Blairite . Forget that and the Tories have you right where they need you to be.

We need to appeal to the millions who have given up on politics because we offered nothing better. And Blair lost 5 million votes and succeeded electorally only because the Tories were still hated and doing even worse whilst FPTP froze anyone else out. We need to broaden our appeal certainly, but not by pursuing Tory policies or watering down our offering to the struggling millions. And Blair is regarded in some disdain by both right and left. To state that most of the public are Blairites is rather laughable actually. If we lurch too far to the right we will lose many more votes than we gain. Corbyn in 2017 won more votes than almost any other Labour leader. We need to hold on to those people or win them back, as well as gain more. We won't do that by lurching away from all those pressing concerns our 2017 manifesto so effectively addressed. Had it not been for the issue of Brexit and the constant disunity and sabotage from Blairite bitterites, we'd have won in 2017.

Considering the Labour Party was twenty odd years in the wilderness , when Blair , won a landslide victory . It's highly debatable as to whether he lost anything other  than 5 mill of his own vote. The Old party had lost nothing much ,as they were rarely in contention. The Labour Party  hadn't  had an election winning vote for 20 odd years and still haven't.So this blame it all on Blair, is a limp excuse.. I did not say Blairites   are most of the public.  What many call Blairites are merely part of the middle ground. Many a potential Labour voter is in that ground.  Insult  those voters  in it with labels that insinuate they are not pure enough for the party, and you insult a large percentage of your potential vote.
Corbyn, did exceptionally well  in  2017 . For the very reasons Blair, was so successful , the Tories , were there for the taking . They were  stumbling about, generally people were pissed off with them . Yet he couldn't pull it off.  All he proved  was it was still possible with the right leadership, which he wasn't.

[Sheepy]

By the way, I never said there weren't Lesbians in the working classes. I take it that was some kind of defence mechanism.

[Thomas]

It was kinnock and smith who did all the donkey work in labour over many years , and struggled to rid the party of all you hard left nutjobs who were never going to appeal to the majority of the public.

Kinnock and Smith were opposed to the genuine far left that had infiltrated us, not the broad left you seem to enjoy conflating them with. Neither were Blairites. Both were truly of the left. Both had manifestoes at least as left wing as anything we came up with in 2017. I myself was a strong supporter of John Smith and regard it as a tragedy that he died when he did. Blair was an utter aberration, a soft Thatcherite cuckoo in the nest. He and Mandelsson were utterly riven with middle class triumphalism. This is where the psychological break with the working class really began.

Both Kinnock and Smith succeeded in retaining majority working class support, which Blair inherited for his landslide in 1997. But the scales soon began falling from their eyes. He lost millions of working class votes thereafter. Indeed when Labour were kicked out in 2010 it was largely the desertion of a large chunk of their former working class core vote, much more than any decline in middle class support, that did for them.

You are in total delusion srb.

Kinnock and smith were responsible for the blair years.

Kinnock is much maligned but he had a clear head to see the utter damage the looney left in the party were doing , exactly as the looney left are doing today in labour.

You keep going on about the millions of voters blair lost , i totally agree , but you cant face the fact the looney left did the same damage to labour electorally pre blair.

The public dont like extreme forms of government , and trying to sell momemtum hard left labour as some sort of moderate voice in light of the evidence is laughable.

You keep going though , while you are fighting like rats in a sack for the  hard left soul of labour the snp and tories will carry on in power.

[srb7677]

It was kinnock and smith who did all the donkey work in labour over many years , and struggled to rid the party of all you hard left nutjobs who were never going to appeal to the majority of the public.

Kinnock and Smith were opposed to the genuine far left that had infiltrated us, not the broad left you seem to enjoy conflating them with. Neither were Blairites. Both were truly of the left. Both had manifestoes at least as left wing as anything we came up with in 2017. I myself was a strong supporter of John Smith and regard it as a tragedy that he died when he did. Blair was an utter aberration, a soft Thatcherite cuckoo in the nest. He and Mandelsson were utterly riven with middle class triumphalism. This is where the psychological break with the working class really began.

Both Kinnock and Smith succeeded in retaining majority working class support, which Blair inherited for his landslide in 1997. But the scales soon began falling from their eyes. He lost millions of working class votes thereafter. Indeed when Labour were kicked out in 2010 it was largely the desertion of a large chunk of their former working class core vote, much more than any decline in middle class support, that did for them.

[Thomas]

We lost in 2019 largely because of the issue of Brexit and Corbyn being bamboozled into pursuing a Blairite line on it. And also because of the successful demonisation of Corbyn against which he was too weak and didn't fight back enough. Our own disunity harmed us too with Blairites engaged in open sabotage.

Brexit will lose it's traction as an issue unless it proves disastrous in which case support for it will decline. And Corbyn is history now. If and when we get a new leader from the left he or she needs to fight back against smears much more effectively - even using the courts - and take a zero tolerance approach to wrecking and sabotage in our own party. We will need to empower the membership against recalcitrant MPs by mandating automatic reselection elections. They serve under the party name and should be accountable to it.

It was Brexit, lies not fought back effectively against, and treachery from within that did for us. All lessons that need to be learned.

Yet there is always some excuse or other from the hard left as to why they never get iinto power and always seem to be on the losing side.

I believe as i have said many a time starmer was the one who was largely pulling the reigns in terms of brexit policy last december , but the fact remains corbyn and macdonnel were in charge of the party , thehard left momemtum were in the majority in terms of membership , the blairites that you keep screaming about were few in number , yet you couldnt win.

The corbyn hard left momemtum labour chose to pursue an illogical policy over brexit , and lost.

Brexit will lose it's traction as an issue unless it proves disastrous in which case support for it will decline. And Corbyn is history now. If and when we get a new leader from the left he or she needs to fight back against smears much more effectively - even using the courts - and take a zero tolerance approach to wrecking and sabotage in our own party. We will need to empower the membership against recalcitrant MPs by mandating automatic reselection elections. They serve under the party name and should be accountable to it.

It was Brexit, lies not fought back effectively against, and treachery from within that did for us. All lessons that need to be learned.

so you keep saying , brexit will lose its potency , scottish indy  , and everything else you find difficult to deal with.

The ordinary public do not want a hard left government in power , wether brexit or anything else is in the pipeline.

You are simply living in cloud cuckoo land is you believe otherwise.

Here is a link to neil kinnocks 1987 campaign , where he attempted to appeal to voters to come home to labour as the party was safe again having rid itself of the extreme left nutjobs that i was talking abpout earlier....




https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=yZ9vAAAAQBAJ&pg=RA1-PT56&dq=%22come+home+to+labour%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAGoVChMIy5Grk4idyAIVg8yACh27CwnN#v=onepage&q=%22come%20home%20to%20labour%22&f=false


You keep moaning about blair , but the fact of the matter was kinnock and smith along with many others saw the damage the hard left had done to labour and sought to get rid of them and make the party electable. Blair eventually reaped the reawrds for all their spadework.

The hard left is unelectable.