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Tom Watson!
 

[Closed] Tom Watson!

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Labour are not focussing on it at all - its being used a stick to beat them with


 
Posted : 11/07/2019 11:06 pm
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Then say it. No one would condemn the labour party for speaking up against oppression. Find the language to expose it for what it is, take the initiative. Or say nothing and let dacre et al fill the vacuum, which is what Corbyn is doing.


 
Posted : 12/07/2019 12:05 am
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Read what Warsi has had to say about islamophobia in the torty party and look at the silence in the media

That is because the media is as best Tory and and worst islamophobic so will remain silent on it for one or both reasons.


 
Posted : 12/07/2019 8:56 am
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so you think labour should become pro isreal / anti palestine

One can very easily be pro Palestinian without being anti Semitic.   they aren't two sides of the same coin as your post seems to suggest you think they are.


 
Posted : 12/07/2019 9:01 am
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No - the point is that being pro palestinian / critising isreal is painted as antisemetic deliberately to conflate the two. Corbyn is being hounded as antisemetic deliberately because of his support for palestinians.


 
Posted : 12/07/2019 9:04 am
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 Del
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Where is Corbyn? They keep Boris out of interviews because of all the shit that falls out of his mouth when he opens it. What's Corbyn's excuse? He could be all over the media putting this thing to bed, and making capital on the disgraceful betrayal of darroch on this government's watch, to boot. Where the hell is he?


 
Posted : 12/07/2019 10:31 am
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critising isreal is painted as antisemetic

This is a the hole that folk on the left sometimes all into when discussing this issue. Just for funz, try to work out why what you've written could be viewed as anti Semitic.


 
Posted : 12/07/2019 10:35 am
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Where is Corbyn?

You see, comrade, you're falling into the Blairite trap of failing to recognise the new politics. Jeremy isn't a traditional leader of the opposition, as such. Think of him as a sort of omnipotent abstract concept. A form of deity, personifying all that is good and honest and proper about human values. Not a god, per se, but quite god-esque

As such, he cannot demean himself with the day-to-day policies of yesteryear like interaction with the media, as they all simply misrepresent his words and plot against him.

Better to float above the fray. Leave the hurly burly to lesser, mere mortals

Courgette?


 
Posted : 12/07/2019 10:44 am
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I'm a regular Lib-Dem voter, so my thoughts...
JC is unelectable and useless.
Tom Watson is between a rock and a hard place, but trying his best for the Labour Party and to keep them electable to those that haven't been brainwashed by JC/Momentum doctrine.
Kier Starmer and Andy Burnham I'd vote for if it meant getting the Tories out.


 
Posted : 12/07/2019 11:23 am
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^^^^^^ what he said ^^^^^^^


 
Posted : 12/07/2019 11:39 am
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As such, he cannot demean himself with the day-to-day policies of yesteryear like interaction with the media, as they all simply misrepresent his words and plot against him.

Wow, you have written something I agree with although not in the way you mean't. You also missed a Monty Python picture so minus points for that.


 
Posted : 12/07/2019 11:45 am
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Posted : 12/07/2019 11:48 am
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Corbyn is being hounded as antisemetic deliberately because of his support for palestinians.

I'm not sure that including a Zionist conspiracy theory in the body of a post attempting to debunk accusations of anti-semitism is a good idea. 😀


 
Posted : 12/07/2019 11:49 am
 SamB
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Aaaaanyway, back onto Watson: Formby has replied to his letter. Robust stuff, and I'm glad of it too.

https://twitter.com/DawnHFoster/status/1149414206174846976


 
Posted : 12/07/2019 12:37 pm
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Don't wish to be harsh, but if she is seriously ill, then she should perhaps take a break from the job to recover, with my & everybody's best wishes. If she is still fit enough to fill the role then why mention it?


 
Posted : 12/07/2019 12:51 pm
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Don’t wish to be harsh, but if she is seriously ill, then she should perhaps take a break from the job to recover, with my & everybody’s best wishes. If she is still fit enough to fill the role then why mention it?

I don't think she did mention it.


 
Posted : 12/07/2019 12:58 pm
 Del
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Said she couldn't retort publicly as she was undergoing chemo.


 
Posted : 12/07/2019 1:53 pm
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Errrr… That’s not strictly true is it?

The current iteration of the party may be about 33 years old… But the liberal party has existed in some form or other for about 300 years.

I thought I covered that, but yes, I mean errr... The Lib Dems have only existed for 31 years, they were formed when the Liberal Party, who actually held the last non-Tory/Labour Government almost 100 years ago, but were a spent force in the 80s Merged with the SDP who had splintered from Labour when it went further to the Left.

But my point is that Centric / Social Liberal Labour members and MPs have an idealogical link with the Lib Dems, it's the very reason the Lib Dems (and not the Liberal Party) was formed.

In the past if Labour Voters, Members and MPs who aren't Socalists they feel their Party is being taken that way, they will often move their alliances to the Lib Dems.

I guess we shouldn't use history as a road map of the future, but it gives us a good clue. (if the polls weren't proof enough).


 
Posted : 12/07/2019 2:22 pm
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Member

Corbyn is being hounded as antisemetic deliberately because of his support for palestinians.

I’m not sure that including a Zionist conspiracy theory in the body of a post attempting to debunk accusations of anti-semitism is a good idea. 😀

And I think that makes my point perfectly. Any critisim of Isreal and its policies gets you called antisemetic.


 
Posted : 12/07/2019 4:57 pm
 DrJ
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Don’t wish to be harsh, but if she is seriously ill, then she should perhaps take a break from the job to recover,

Well, maybe let her decide what is the best way to manage her situation.

Apart from that, it seems that some of what Watson said on R4Today was a bunch of porky pies. What possible reason for that could there be? Is that the person you want to take over leading the LP ??


 
Posted : 12/07/2019 5:45 pm
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Best to stay out of this…


 
Posted : 12/07/2019 5:46 pm
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Totally off topic but

Kier Starmer and Andy Burnham I’d vote for if it meant getting the Tories out.

Andy "I'm in it for the publicity" Burnham. Jesus H.

No doubt he'll go for the leadership after he solves homelessness.


 
Posted : 12/07/2019 5:52 pm
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He's certainly a man of many talents:


 
Posted : 13/07/2019 11:08 am
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Oh my god, he is one of _THEM!_*

No wonder he is against St Jeremey.

I _always_ thought his nose was too big.

.
.
.
.
* One of the je.. the je... an ISRAELI

Whew, I think I danced the extremist dance of semantics correctly.

anti-racist campaigner


 
Posted : 13/07/2019 4:49 pm
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Nice to see the Corbynites/PFJ/Momentum concentrating all their energy into addressing the most pressing issues facing the country today

Momentum announces drive to help Labour members deselect MPs

Maybe when they’ve sorted out completing the cult of St Jeremy and driving out Tom Watson and the other non-believers they could get round to maybe providing some actual opposition to the Tory’s

Just a thought

I won’t hold my breath, eh?


 
Posted : 13/07/2019 5:10 pm
 AD
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Well Len thinks he is a ****ing disgrace anyway 🙂
https://news.sky.com/story/labour-antisemitism-row-len-mccluskey-calls-tom-watson-f-disgrace-after-formby-attack-11762455


 
Posted : 13/07/2019 8:16 pm
 rone
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Maybe when they’ve sorted out completing the cult of St Jeremy and driving out Tom Watson and the other non-believers they could get round to maybe providing some actual opposition to the Tory’s

They could do a **** sight better job of dealing with the Tories if likes of your mate stopped giving them reasons to be in division.


 
Posted : 13/07/2019 8:59 pm
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Is his mate Len?


 
Posted : 13/07/2019 9:03 pm
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Speaking at Durham Miners Gala?

Are there any miners left in Durham?

Perfectly illustrates what page Len, Jezza and comrades are on really, doesn’t it?

1982, here we come!

I look forward to them unveiling the future of the UK car industry about to be decimated by the Brexit they’ve enthusiastically enabled...


 
Posted : 13/07/2019 9:15 pm
 Del
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They could do a **** sight better job of dealing with the Tories if likes of your mate stopped giving them reasons to be in division.

Oh yeah, it's definitely Watson stopping Corbyn from being on r4 at 8:10 am. Do leave off.


 
Posted : 13/07/2019 9:19 pm
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HEs a trouble maker 😁

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Watson_(Labour_politician)


 
Posted : 13/07/2019 10:28 pm
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Tom Watson will not be the next leader of the labour party.

Correct:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50325666


 
Posted : 06/11/2019 9:20 pm
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More moderates and centrists leaving front line politics.


 
Posted : 06/11/2019 11:30 pm
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More moderates and centrists leaving front line politics.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

There is no place for centrists in current British politics.

We have three right of centre parties in the Brexit Party, Tories and Lib Dems. Centrists are incapable of challenging such a shift to the right without travelling that way themselves (as the Lib Dems have done).


 
Posted : 07/11/2019 1:08 am
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There is no place for centrists in current British politics.

Then FPTP needs to go, because everyone should be able to expect to be represented in our parliament. Or are you suggesting their are no voters other than right wing and left wing ones?


 
Posted : 07/11/2019 1:12 am
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Then FPTP needs to go, because everyone should be able to expect to be represented in our parliament. Or are you suggesting their are no voters other than right wing and left wing ones?

Straight up commie/fascist play, claim that the center ground is obsolete or no longer existent and then try to encourage a big show down between two diametrically opposed forces that cannot co-exist.


 
Posted : 07/11/2019 1:29 am
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Then FPTP needs to go

Yes but that doesnt seem relevant to the point they look to be making.
Which was more "centrists" currently seem to have a tendency to drift rightwards. It is a problem in the triangulation approach used by "centrists". Taking some of your opponents policies works okay in the first election but second one they have two options.
Either they can try the same trick back on you or they can try and separate themselves from you again by moving further to your side. If the latter then you either, effectively, abandon triangulation or once again choose some more policies to nick. Suddenly you have shifted the centre ground to their side.
One of the main problems with this triangulation model is you run a real risk of failing to represent your traditional voters and overemphasising the importance of the "centrists" since those are the swing voters. Then those traditional voters start looking for a change, any change.
So there should be a distinct centrist party rather than coopting the traditional left/right wing parties but currently that doesnt seem to be on offer. The answer though is to provide that and not take over one of the others.


 
Posted : 07/11/2019 1:42 am
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dissonance

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Yes but that doesnt seem relevant to the point they look to be making. Which was more “centrists” currently seem to have a tendency to drift rightwards.

I'm not sure that's completely true tbh. I think that "centrists" in the UK tend to actually just be right of centre in the first place. Theresa May's government was described as centrist ffs.

The trick is to convince everyone else that the centre is where you already are, rather than actually moving. Ed Miliband took one of the more genuinely centrist positions we've seen in UK elections for years and still got called "Red Ed" and buried under "Labour will give all your money away". And nobody knew what he actually wanted or stood for, by the end even he wasn't sure, because he'd chased the moving target of "the centre" while David Cameron just stayed exactly where he wanted to be and said "it's over here!"


 
Posted : 07/11/2019 1:48 am
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I’m not sure that’s completely true tbh. I think that “centrists” in the UK tend to actually just be right of centre in the first place. Theresa May’s government was described as centrist ffs.

It is of course, hard to be smack in the center - who described may as centrist though? She wasn't. The Lib Dems have a claim, even if it is to the right of it under Swinson.

If the center ground cannot find it's footing again though, we are ****ed - we'll end up in a ideologically reactionary spiral and the 2016 referendum will be judged by history as a quiet opening ranging shot followed by a series of increasingly violent broadside salvos.


 
Posted : 07/11/2019 1:51 am
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...claim that the center ground is obsolete or no longer existent...

So, who has the centre ground at the moment? Oh, and if you mention Lib Dems that is a hard fail.

The lack of truly centrist parties, in England at least, is pretty self-evident.


 
Posted : 07/11/2019 3:25 am
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So, who has the centre ground at the moment? Oh, and if you mention Lib Dems that is a hard fail.

The lack of truly centrist parties, in England at least, is pretty self-evident.

It's fairly hard to find yourself right in the centre, but yes the lib dems are right of centre right now.

You rightly point out that there are a lack of centrists in parliament, that is a huge problem though as polarised parties feed off of each other leading to a reactionary descent into extremism, the more radical one side gets - so the other does in response.


 
Posted : 07/11/2019 5:21 am
 rone
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There is no place for centrists in current British politics

I agree (for me) and I said a few months ago they were going to mostly fizzle away.

Voters are moving to more extremes to correct or support their political identity. Where did you think the Brexit came from?

'Extreme' perhaps not the perfect word as I believe Labours 2017 manifesto is not really an extreme but it has to correct Tory damage so therby swings more to the left.

Trouble is Centrists tend to be shouty as they're clinging to the bygone Blair era and might lose out a bit in their quest for bigger houses, nicer cars and cozy fringe Neolib benefits.

They will be back though - when the Political landscape swings in the opposite direction.

(Libdumbs aren't Centrists in my opinion - they are too market-orientated but are selling it as Centrism. There is no feel good factor with them.)

Centrism a la Blair is done for the time being in any substantial way. Not sure what Jonathan Freedland will do ...


 
Posted : 07/11/2019 6:58 am
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Labour is a little left of centre, lib dems a little right of centre. Tories are hard right wing. SNP are a little left of centre.

UK politics have moved one heck of a long way to the right to the point that the political centre of the UK is way to the right of the real political centre.

Look at the way corbyn is vilified for being some sort of hard leftie when labour does not have a single policy that is not mainstream social democratic as seen thru the mirror of european politics. Nothing that labour has as a policy would raise an eyebrow in most of Europe - indeed I had a series of political discussions with mainland europeans who were all astonished at the way Corbyn was portrayed in the media and they couldn't understand why he was attacked as he is because in their view he was nothing remarkable and came over very well on TV


 
Posted : 07/11/2019 8:48 am
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I think that “centrists” in the UK tend to actually just be right of centre in the first place.

True. I was trying to keep it more generalised and within that I think there is still a tendency to drift to one side or another once the triangulation policy has been adapted.
For the UK the centrists do seem to have a definite leaning. I am not sure how much it is driven by the need to kiss the hard right presses arse?
Ed Miliband is interesting. Definitely with left wing tendencies and towards the end of the campaign did try to show them but too little to late.

There also needs to be a recognisation that these "centrists" are often just as ideological driven as anyone else. Its just either they dont recognise it or dont admit to it.
Its reflected in comments like "ideologically reactionary spiral " which seems determined to ignore the fact that is precisely what we got from the "centrists" in the UK. The difference being the centrists seem to work on taking over all major parties and so removing choice that way.


 
Posted : 07/11/2019 8:52 am
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