Does anyone take George Monbiot seriously these days?
I read his piece on school strikes and apart from being a giddy attempt to get down with the kids it made absolutely no sense at all.
Who do you reckon is worth sticking a few quid on then?
Ken Clarke. Just for teh lolz
Has Tony Blair joined them yet?
I guess it depends on whether you’re open to new ideas or stuck in the past and it’s deadend politics which have given us things like climate change, billionaire oligarchs, Donald Trump and brexit.
Hahahaha. It's not one or the other, Trump or Monbiot, y'know.
Anyone interested in a deconstruction of this new ‘movement’ look no further… (read the whole thread btw)
No one seems to be interested in anything other than Brexit and keeping antisemitism rolling in the headlines at the behest of everything else.
We will need a plan after Brexit! No one dare talk about that.
It’s not one or the other, Trump or Monbiot, y’know.
As if Monbiot is the only one pointing out the obvious. I'd like to hear though why you think the current system is doing such a marvellous job, seeing as you appear to know it all.
No, I don't think the present system is doing well at all. You've extrapolated wildly from what I wrote.
However, Monbiot believes that technology does not have a place in combating climate change, probably because it would hand even more power to "corporations". The (technological) solution to climate change is more likely to come from Amazon or Google than from either government or grass roots movements as 1) they have plenty of cash to burn, 2) they are not short-termist or beholden to their electorate, like governments, 3) they want to keep selling stuff forever.
This BBC article has the breakdown of the party numbers in a handy graph
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47313366
there are 7 independent MPs in addition to the new IndyGroup of 11 so as HtS pointed out earlier with Ivan Lewis as a recent splitter, these should be the first priority for hoovering into the group but the big question is whether they are remainers.
I agree with ChrisL and perchy, Ken Clarke would be a great scalp to have - but would he risk the party he's been wedded to all his political life? his exit could be the start of the end...
There’s nothing here that anyone from any party wouldn’t or couldn’t support.
Sounds like a very effective 'manifesto' then, does it not? Why would you advertise policies that you think everyone would hate?
The name being used over on the Guardian comments is (drumroll)
The Blair Rich Project with a tag line Things Can Only get Bitter.
1) they have plenty of cash to burn, 2) they are not short-termist or beholden to their electorate, like governments, 3) they want to keep selling stuff forever.
A superb contradiction of your own argument there. Even if that wasn't the case, what evidence is there that either google or amazon, or any other big corporation for that matter are interested in solving climate change? I hate to break it to you, but the likes of Google and Amazon are the problem, not the solution.
Sounds like a very effective ‘manifesto’ then, does it not?
Depends how you measure 'effective'. If it's pulling the wool over people's eyes then yes, I suspect it will do the job. If it's solving the intractable and self-inflicted problems that we face as a civilisation, then I suspect it'll be as effective as those that came before it.
The (technological) solution to climate change is more likely to come from Amazon or Google than from either government or grass roots movements as 1) they have plenty of cash to burn, 2) they are not short-termist or beholden to their electorate, like governments, 3) they want to keep selling stuff forever.
A 19th century economist called William Jevons observed that as the efficiency with which a resource is used rises, paradoxically, the consumption of that resource rises because of rising demand.
For a more modern version, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazzoom%E2%80%93Brookes_postulate
The name being used over on the Guardian comments is (drumroll)
The Blair Rich Project with a tag line Things Can Only get Bitter.
So the smear campaign propaganda has already started then? That's a good sign that someone somewhere is worried.
Depends how you measure ‘effective’. If it’s pulling the wool over people’s eyes then yes, I suspect it will do the job. If it’s solving the intractable and self-inflicted problems that we face as a civilisation, then I suspect it’ll be as effective as those that came before it.
Maybe "attractive" would be a better word? I'm not quite sure why you immediately conclude that they're trying to deceive anyone, neither why you expect that an opening statement has to be about the end game.
Anyone interested in a deconstruction of this new ‘movement’ look no further… (read the whole thread btw)
GeorgeMonbiot
@GeorgeMonbiot
Against the renationalisation of public utilities
Against a 50p top rate of income tax
Against abolishing tuition fees
The #IndependentGroup looks like Conservatism minus Brexit https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2019/02/chris-leslie-interview-labour-have-massively-underestimated-new-centrist-party …
It's an interesting article and gives an incite into the mind of an idealist and a centrist.
How many questions and answers were exchanged, who really knows? But George Eaton is trying to discover the reasons why they left and how Chris Leslies' ideas differ from Labour under Corbyn, after all, that's kind of the whole point.
Leslie is fairly balanced, the sorts of things he talks about, Omnipresent Government controlling everything, spending balanced against taxation - okay it's way more New Labour than Momentum Labour, but wouldn't have seemed out of place under Blair, Brown or Miliband. Equally he's damming of the Tories Polices around Walfare and Housing.
Monibot either ignores most of it, or just can't see past his own ideology and spews out - Anti-Taxation, Anti-No Tuition Fees and Anti-Nationalisation. He's the no better than Fox News, he's just on the other side of the fence.
The worst part is what whilst it might galvanise Momentum and like-minded people, it just makes him look like a Marxist loon to everyone else, pushing the message further Left.
2) they are not short-termist or beholden to their electorate, like governments
They are, in many cases, beholden to the stock market. Which makes the electorate look like long term planners.
So the smear campaign propaganda has already started then?
Yup. It started when they held their press conference and went all out. Not sure why others shouldnt return the favour?
I’m not quite sure why you immediately conclude that they’re trying to deceive anyone,
Well a cursory look at their voting records would indicate their dedication to some of the causes is less than ideal. That they have got a manifesto which doesnt annoy anyone to some degree is a tad odd.
The name being used over on the Guardian comments is (drumroll)
The Blair Rich Project with a tag line Things Can Only get Bitter.
I preferred Chuka Vision.
To me...to EU
So the smear campaign propaganda has already started then? That’s a good sign that someone somewhere is worried.
Probably in the new party once the ICO starts digging https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/02/21/data_breach_labour_locks_down_member_databases/ . Someone's been a very naughty boy/girl and it's going to get expensive for them.
Has someone made off with the cassettes from Jezza's ZX81?!!!
I had him down as a Commadore 64 type of chap!
I preferred Chuka Vision.
To me…to EU
Brilliant.
Brilliant.
Not mine. Some wag on Twitter.
Probably in the new party once the ICO starts digging https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/02/21/data_breach_labour_locks_down_member_databases/ . Someone’s been a very naughty boy/girl and it’s going to get expensive for them.
seems fair enough, the leave campaign got labours members database, this just evens it up.
Leslie is fairly balanced, the sorts of things he talks about, Omnipresent Government controlling everything
Balanced? In what world is jumping from renationalising certain industries to his "how many tractors are sold, or what trains should leave Euston at what particular time of day" balanced?
Why on earth is he going on about tractors? Shows a certain ideological purity that he immediately leaps to that conclusion.
Also as for trains at a certain time of day. He might want to catch up with Grayling about the government interaction on that.
Same with his comment about tuition fees. An interesting response would have been to comment on how much is already effectively spent by the government but just punted a few years down the line.
Probably in the new party once the ICO starts digging https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/02/21/data_breach_labour_locks_down_member_databases/ . Someone’s been a very naughty boy/girl and it’s going to get expensive for them.
Nah,
If there's been a data breach it will be Labour who get fined by the ICO, not whoever was able to access it - it's the data controllers responsibility to secure data.
Although, on the balance of probability I suspect Labour knew the 7 would resign, or if they didn't if someone on their IT wasn't cutting their access as they were at the podium, then they're mad. Anyway, I really doubt that if the MPs who resigned waited until after they resigned to study whatever data they wanted.
If they were granted access to the data whilst members of Labour, then they've done nothing wrong.
I would suspect Labour Leadership are in a bit of a mild panic situation, they know other MPs will possibly leave shortly and staff within the Party could be equally as displeased with them - after-all we're only 3 years into the current Leadership which was preceded by 20+ years of the Blair/Brown/Miliband era, how many salary staff within Labour are 'New Labour' types? Anyway - I would guess until the storm passes they will want to keep Membership data to trusted people within the inner circle, maybe because they fear the Indie will want to contact the older, less Momentum inclined members, or maybe just to avoid a bad headline around falling membership figures.
At some point they're going to have to find some things they're actually for, rather than just knowing what they're against. Some of them have pretty closely aligned beliefs but not all, even before it went cross-party. I suspect they lack the glue to actually work together. Heidi Allen and Anna Soubry have some pretty big disagreements never mind the cross party stuff
P-Jay
Major, Blair, Brown and Cameron are all centrists
Cameron did a pretty good job of pretending to be a centrist, but no he was not.
We will need a plan after Brexit! No one dare talk about that.
The problem with that is, you need to include the likely effects of Brexit when putting flesh on such a plan. And no one who wants us to Leave is going anywhere near that! Best to push blindly over the edge, and only then admit the ("unforeseeable") effects and plan around them.
Does anyone take George Monbiot seriously these days?
No I like lamb too much.
Just watching the news and seeing the look on her face after her meeting with Theresa May I’d say Justine Greening is looking like a likely next recruit
Well Maybot did round up all her party remainer late this afternoon just so she could give them a “stiff talking too”
Lets hope they stuck two fingers up at her in return.
I'll be voting for them, it takes some balls to risk your career for what you percieve to be the greater good. Gives you an idea of just how much the ERG truly believe in a patriotic Brexit, they don't even have the balls to rebel like that - they're just in it to line their pockets.
I'm not surprised at the negativity as the main parties now see them as a threat.
that being said the tories at least were more gracious about it. The Labour lot deserve a massive kicking.
I like the poster above will def vote for them if I get the chance. Admittedly round here the could do what they have always done and put the pig back in his suit and he gets elected, but worse case I help them to get their deposit back it's worth it.
I voted Labour for the first time ever in the last election and I will not again until they actually mean something and not some idiotic vehicle for corbyn.
I’ll be voting for them
Unless you live in one of the constituencies of the current 11 you won't be able to.
Unless you live in one of the constituencies of the current 11 you won’t be able to
Did you miss the bit where they intend to form a party?
Have you considered how much money business will throw at them to campaign in every constituency?
I voted Labour for the first time ever in the last election and I will not again until they actually mean something and not some idiotic vehicle for corbyn.
Same here. My first Labour vote was at the last GE. Looks like my last for the time being, now that Corbyn is just pushing through his own (old) agenda, and not carrying out the true democratisation of the party, and the empowering of his members, as promised. The hatred directed at MPs and members that are not true believers in the personality cult looks very scary to an outsider like myself.
I’ll be voting for them
Like a lot of people, I now have no idea how I'll vote in the next GE. If they get the right candidate in my seat, then count me in. Whatever happens, I'll vote for the candidate I most want to support, rather than the candidate who's running second to a worse option, this time.
Get the feeling that the closer the end of March gets, the bigger the snowball will get.
Might be too little too late for the immediate situation, but might hopefully be a bit of a positive change in UK politics as we try to survive Brexigeddon.
This is really weird... But I feel like Soubry got pretty much outed tonight, on the Last Leg of all things, by a massive blindside combo from political heavyweights Adam Hills and Josh Brooker...
If you didn't see it- it doesn't seem to be uploaded yet- Adam Hills threw her a soft ball about PIP assessments etc, which she responded to by saying "I took it to the secretary of state and got a lot of waffle and stats, which really wasn't what I wanted and didn't answer the question.
Straight after, Brooker went rather shark eyed and asks "So, given your voting record, and the party you were a part of, you've contributed to some things that have made life massively worse for the disabled and other vulnerable groups. On a scale of one to ten, where one is parking in a disabled space, how guilty do you feel?". And the answer? Waffle and stats, waffle and stats and no meaningful understanding of the lives her party has ruined and in some cases ended.
And all the way through, the conservative party were "we" not "they". She started well but as soon as anything of any substance came up she instantly reverted. It's like that time the nice boy from Countryfile made David Cameron shit his pants and, well, if that's her answer on a comedy show, how strong will she stand on her convictions when something real happens? Just exactly as strong as when she didn't join the vote of no confidence in Theresa May, that's how strong.
TL;DR- if you think the Independent Group are something new, you're a mug. It's the same shit with a different hat on. Chukkas gonna Chukka and Soubrys gonna Soubry. I bet you 20 scottish pence, which by the time I finish typing this will be worth 19 scottish pence. There may be actual good intents and morals in there but the people taking the lead are going to be ****s.
More than ever I will be voting Labour.
All these noisy Tingers are interested in preserving the status quo, which has been a terrible state of affairs (looking back before Brexit). A new ideology that stops the lack of investment and creates redistribution of wealth (or a plan which shifts the wider fiscal picture to understand MMT as part of policy) is the only way out of the bigger picture.
Things like knife crime and homelessness etc are not a product of Brexit they are product of something much larger.
The tinge party is not going to deal with that. They are interested in not breaking the neoliberal bubble. That serves some of you well, I understand that. But it doesn't serve the majority.
My guess is Brexit won't be as devastating as a lot of you think, but is parceled up such a way that it will be difficult to extrapolate what caused what when you have a market driven government and economy ... when and how exactly the shit hits the fan that is.
More than ever I will be voting Labour.
So will I. Corbyn has had his time and should be replaced but Labour are still the only party I can vote for that come close to representing fairness and equality and would actually try and do something about it (actually the Greens would too but with 1 seat that is a bit pointless)
The independent party is full of tories - moderate tories maybe but still tories so don't trust them not to screw over the less privileged in society. Anyone who really cares about that stuff would never, ever join the conservative party. If they want middle ground they would have at least been in the Liberal party from the start.
They all did the right thing by leaving the parties they don't believe in but only an election will show if that is what people wanted, i.e. they could (and probably will) all get wiped out and replaced by another Labour or Tory MP in the constituency (which is probably why the leaders are not really bothered by it)
Did I hear Rudd is about to jump too??
All I ask is how far, and hope no safety nets in place.
bikebouy
Subscriber
Did I hear Rudd is about to jump too??
To be fair, this is Rudd, she could resign today and then come back tomorrow at lunchtime and everyone would forget how and why she resigned.
My guess is Brexit won’t be as devastating as a lot of you think, but is parceled up such a way that it will be difficult to extrapolate what caused what when you have a market driven government and economy … when and how exactly the shit hits the fan that is.
Brexit has already taken £bns from the economy, homelessness, kife crime are fueled in the end by austerity, Brexit means years more of it.
Look at the levels of business investment freeze since the vote, we've seen what the endgame of that means for the employees of nissan, honda etc.
Even the most right wing tigers if they are trying to stop Brexit, are doing more to protect those at the bottom than anyone blithely accepting (or even
embracing as a core of labour leadership does) Brexit in the end.
My guess is Brexit won’t be as devastating as a lot of you think
A Brexit with a sensible deal maybe but if No Deal means EU nationals are not allowed to work it will cut the J family income in half, not to mention where we will actually live. Thanks a lot, Little England.
shoulda probably done this from the start
https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1139276587352907776
Yep, the LDs were open to a chat from day 1.
Bit cheeky for him to be announced as the new leader?
Good news. Hopefully he can keep his seat now.
