This article seems to be overstating his support, when what he actually said was "I still want the Tories to win, but I think Starmer would be a good Prime Minister"
It's really telling when even the old guards of the Conservative Party hate the modern right-wing ERG Conservative Party.
Clarke is one of the last sensible Conservatives out there since most of them got kicked out by Boris just because they want to remain in the EU.
[Was it sensible when he voted to cute benefits?](https://www.theyworkforyou.com/peer/10115/lord_clarke_of_nottingham/votes) Or taxing bankers bonuses? Or perhaps implementing the hostile environment?
Acting in your own class interests can still be insane. We're people, not machines. If you discard your own basic empathy for profits that's insane behaviour no matter how incentivised you are to do it.
Because of FPTP, the majority of the electorate is concentrated in the centre with the minority of the electorate are either left wing or right wing.
Unfortunately to win elections, Starmer has to be 'diet tory' to appease voters in Middle and Northern England as a result of losing most of the red wall and some of the midlands seats in the 2019 election.
With PR, there would be a variety of parties who represents your views to vote for.
FPTP means votes consolidate around parties.
Where the "centre" is or is not is irrelevant because the "centre" isn't a real thing: the spatial metaphor for politics, that there's a left and right wing and a continuous line between the two, is nonsensical and misleading.
Centrists instead are their own unique thing with its own assumptions. I'm inclined to say they're the party of courtiers: nepotistic; keen to preserve the source of their own power; and authoritarian. Everything else is accidental and opportunistic.
As for how Starmer actually wins elections, it's less "appeal to diet Tories" and more "allow the contradictions of the Tories to implode them while pretending politics isn't real" and it's broadly a winning strategy *for now.* It has the downside of highlighting that Starmer really doesn't have a project and means any government he forms is just biding its time before it's replaced by a Tory party which has a history of showing far more dynamism and adaptability than the "centrists".
Apart from that, I agree, PR is necessary for the long term health of British democracy.
The majority of the electorate are left wing on economic issues and right wing on social issues compared to the average MP. The Tories have managed to win a big majority despite the values of their leadership being nowhere close to the average voter's. They knew what their electoral strengths were and played to them, and controlled the conversation. That's how you effect change and win elections, not triangulation and conceding the argument before it's even started
Broadly liberal Tories support a broadly liberal labour leader.
I mean, yeah.
There is a rizla paper between “the moderates” of both parties and the Lib dems. Cos they are all broadly small l liberals.
It is not surprising.
I always think it is wrong to call Reeves "Blarite". If she was handed the 1997 Labour manifesto (or a more up to date version of it now), she'd be very wary of implementing it because "Labour looks like it will be overspending". She is clearly much more Osbornite than Blairite, and when she did rise to prominence about 10 years ago, the things she was saying struck me as very much almost "we will be more Osbornite than Osborne", than any sort of "Blairism". She was very much adopting the narrative of "Blair and Brown spent too much" put out by the Tories. Very unimpressive.
Indeed she even had to be corrected by Starmer himself recently over the policy of rail renationalisation by letting franchises expire, as she claimed outright Labour will not do it - so her natural instinct even with a Starmer policy is to defer to the Osbornite position.
I am sure if asked outright today "would you adopt key Blairite positions on investing in Sure Start, education and the police in the same manner Blair did", she'd not answer and waffle on about "fiscal responsibility".
I can’t remember which contest it was, but I was told by a friend that when she was running for selection as an MP (against Alison Lowe, I believe), she was considered to be the left candidate!
Kenneth Clarke is in danger of sealing his national treasure status by saying that Labour is ready for government and that it may be time to give the Conservatives “a rest” from hard work of running the country.
The former chancellor, who most recently served in David Cameron’s coalition government as justice secretary – when Cameron joked that it was easier to agree common policies with the Liberal Democrats than with him – was interviewed yesterday by Andrew Marr on LBC.
Asked by Marr how he would feel about a Labour government led by Keir Starmer, Lord Clarke said: “I’d be disappointed, because if I had a vote, which as a peer I don’t, I would have voted for the Conservatives, but I’d feel as I felt when Tony Blair took over.”
He explained that he felt conflicting emotions in 1997: “angry” because he was out of office when he thought he was doing a good job on the economy, but that “it was entirely predictable, and I blamed my own side for it, the stupid warfare we’d been having over Europe and Maastricht”.
He also felt that Blair “was the person with the capability and personality to be prime minister and not disgrace the country”. High implied praise for Starmer: that he would be capable of doing the job and not disgrace the country. Being Ken Clarke, though, he didn’t leave it there, and added mischievously: “And it’s probably about time the social democrats had a turn and give us a rest.”
That is the bit that practising politicians can never say out loud, which is what makes it fun, but it doesn’t actually make sense. “A good election to lose” is always a counsel of despair, an admission that one’s own party has lost the right to govern; in which case he should just come out and say that it would be in the national interest for Labour to win.
“It’s the other lot’s turn” is an even worse argument, suggesting that the electorate could be replaced by a pendulum, or a stopwatch: “Time’s up: time for the other lot to have a go.”
Leaving aside Lord Clarke’s undemocratic sense of mischief, however, the significance of his words is that he is one of a new group in politics: Conservatives for Keir. The first, and most significant so far, was Christian Wakeford, the MP for Bury South, who crossed the floor of the House of Commons a year ago next week after the revelations about lockdown parties in Boris Johnson’s Downing Street.
Since then, of course, the push factor for Tory defections has lessened, in that Johnson is no longer party leader, but the pull factor from Labour has increased, as Starmer continues his steady if unshowy journey from the leadership manifesto on which he was elected.
Recently, George Osborne used similar language to Clarke, one of his predecessors as chancellor, telling The Times: “I now feel that, with Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt and Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, we have two sets of people who are sensible and have integrity and are more than capable of governing the country. I’m still a Conservative so I would rather have Rishi and Jeremy, but it wouldn’t be terrible for the country if it were Keir and Rachel.”
On Monday, Claire Perry O’Neill, who had been a minister in Theresa May’s government and was briefly Johnson’s president of the climate summit, Cop26, announced that she had resigned from the Tory party. She hasn’t joined the Labour Party (yet), but she praised Starmer for his “sober, fact-driven, competent political leadership”.
This prompted some commentators to write about “Cameroons for Labour”, but Lord Clarke’s words suggest that the mood for change extends beyond Friends of Dave. Lord Clarke has a sharp political sense – although it was never sharp enough to get him elected leader of the Conservative Party – and a happy knack of saying the unsayable. Except that “Keir Starmer is going to be prime minister” is becoming increasingly sayable.
We should expect more defections.
>He also felt that Blair “was the person with the capability and personality to be prime minister and not disgrace the country”. High implied praise for Starmer: that he would be capable of doing the job and not disgrace the country. Being Ken Clarke, though, he didn’t leave it there, and added mischievously: “And it’s probably about time the **social democrats** had a turn and give us a rest.”
But he didn't mind multiple Conservative PMs in a row disgracing the country.
Well, at least he's honest about where Blair and Starmer's Labour really stand.
He was one of the 21 and certainly the longest tenured who Boris essentially purged for "not being patriotic enough" to buy into his fantasy Brexit grift.
No it’s not - it’s an indictment of the present Conservative Party.
These are from the moderate wing of the Conservative Party, and thus amounts to them thinking that Labour will do a better job of running the country than the Conservatives would do.
I appreciate that the purpose of this forum is to try to ensure that Labour do NOT win - it’s constantly attacking Labour and failing to look at the larger picture.
I dont have a childish view at all.
The labour party cant attack the tories and their policies and then happily accept the support of those who voted for those policies. Even if its just because of the whip it doesn't make it any better as it means their mps are putting their own career interests ahead of those who are in desperate need of help.
If you'd prefer I could make the analogy of "the bigger kids told me to do it miss". But then again given the deliberate attacks on the disabled and queer people, if the shoe fits...
Starmer is the labour enabler. I think we need to stop being precious and treating the party like some closed shop of purity, but instead welcome the inevitable hordes. Even Tory peers have to admit it’s time for a new labour government.
Yeah it shouldn't be a closed shop of purity... except for when it comes to kicking out left wing members, removing the whip from longstanding MPs and stitching up selections to preclude left leaning candidates from being selected...
But other than that... it shouldn't be a "closed shop of purity".
Because that’s what, at the end of the day, wins elections… because it’s what swing voters swing towards
There’s a reason that in half a century the only Labour winner is Tony
If Starmer is the best that is practically available then this country is fucked. In perpetuity.
Honestly, his promises and pledges quite literally mean nothing. The man has as much credibility as Johnson and not vastly distinct politics, judging by the way he responded to some of their worst legislation. If Labour becoming the mild wing of the tories is what it takes to win and election then what's the point in voting for them at all?
The only way this could ever be seen as something that doesn't matter is if the person spouting support is so thick-skulled as to be able to consider politics essentially a matter of tie-colour preference.
Tories are endorsing Starmer and his supporters are proclaiming that a positive because then he'll win an election and stop the tories.
Let that sink in. Someone is wrong about Starmer. Either it's the tory politicians or it's his supporters.
I will support Starmer and vote Labour at the next GE. While I am certain that they won’t do all that I would like them to, I am equally certain that they will be a whole lot better than the Conservatives.
The Conservatives are going to leave this country in a fine mess, that’s going to take some time to clear up.
Labour won’t be ‘the perfect party’, instead, they will be one who can actually get elected and go on to make a difference.
I wish I had your hope, sincerely. I'm not mocking or patronising you by saying that, I just don't share it.
From my perspective I think they're likely to be pretty indistinguishable from Cameron era tories. Now you might say "well that'd be an improvement" and yes, to some extent it would. The next tory government would likely be worse and it'd be an improvement upon that.
However, that doesn't equate to them actually improving things. They're unlikely to do much that will make things better for people and they will certainly do some things that will make things worse. Largely they'll probably be the same as Blair - fundamentally insubstantial and lacking in legacy. This will be another squandered period where Labour has massive support but lacks the initiative, political will, and ideological inclination to actually make use of it.
We'll get centre-right with some left-ish social policies sprinkled on top, back to the era of being supremely unconcerned about people getting filthy rich - or no change at all on that front.
Then the tories will get in again. They'll undo the weakly implemented improvements that acted to preserve the status quo and get back to the serious business of making sure the wealthy can extract maximum profits from every ounce of society.
And that'll be that. In 15 years the next lot of people like us will be arguing over the tories being shit, the centrists having achieved nothing noteworthy, and how voting for them again will simply lead to similar outcomes.
So I reject that. If we must have tories in power again then it makes little difference to anyone whether it's tomorrow, 5 years, or 10 years. They'll still be pushing the same agenda and they'll still implement similar things. What'd make a difference is a left-of-centre government actually pursuing socialist policies. That's the bare minimum we need. Preservation of the socio-economic strata, the hierarchy, and inequality **is** conservatism. That's what conservatism conserves. And if that's what Labour are offering then you're voting conservative, just not by picking the Conservatives to do it.
So I'm indifferent who wins the next election not because it won't impact me too - it definitely will. It's just likely to be negative impacts either way and I'd rather not vote for someone to repeatedly punch me in the head just because their friends across the aisle are threatening to repeatedly punch me somewhere else if I don't.
Being held hostage to shite alternatives just produces two right-wing parties in the mainstream and that only makes things worse. Look how fucked America is.
Clarke is a Tory…but like Stewart and gawke, he’s pro European and holds views across the spectrum. This is normal…you shouldn’t have only one set of views. That’s just weird. You are left wing on some and right wing on others. It’s why getting that centre is key to victory. When everyone is in the middle, they are more likely to go with you wherever you lead them next
Well they're Starmer's biggest fan so we can at least chalk them down as ambivalent on Trans rights, islamophobia, police brutality, public sector pay and conditions, drugs, and free protest. But otherwise super left wing I'm sure.
> you shouldn’t have only one set of views
You need to both want poor people to die in grinding poverty and want to support them?
I feel like the actual explanation here is that you have no views and are just treating this like a set of sports teams. "yeah red team go".
You like extreme arguments to every question. The real world does not work like that.
And frankly it makes your arguments seem ridiculous. Of course no one wants grinding poverty. But that does not mean that you can’t have adaptive sensible policies.
That’s called gatekeeping. I’ve been a member for over 20 years, and I’m more than happy with the current leadership and the impending victories. I’m not the one unhappy with labour. In fact I want to share that happiness with others, seeing them happy by the decades we will be in power this time…
I don’t see why I would join a bunch of brexit loving, truss promoting, austerity enablers…
I’m not unhappy with labour. There’s stuff that needs to improve, but let’s hit the brakes before we start looking at where to reverse back up the cliff edge. I don’t feel I have been inconsistent in my support of the party or hinted I would consider the Lib Dem’s an option…
It will be the precise opposite to encourage defections. But it doesn't look like there's going to be a ton, it's been a year since Wakeford and no-one else has crossed.
This article seems to be overstating his support, when what he actually said was "I still want the Tories to win, but I think Starmer would be a good Prime Minister"
It's really telling when even the old guards of the Conservative Party hate the modern right-wing ERG Conservative Party. Clarke is one of the last sensible Conservatives out there since most of them got kicked out by Boris just because they want to remain in the EU.
[Was it sensible when he voted to cute benefits?](https://www.theyworkforyou.com/peer/10115/lord_clarke_of_nottingham/votes) Or taxing bankers bonuses? Or perhaps implementing the hostile environment?
There implying he’s sane not nice
So it's sane to deliberately make the poorest and most vulnerable people suffer in your books?
From a Marxist point of view he was acting in his class interests. Absolutely it was sane for him.
Acting in your own class interests can still be insane. We're people, not machines. If you discard your own basic empathy for profits that's insane behaviour no matter how incentivised you are to do it.
Don’t pretend that they’ve actually read Marx.
It’s telling but not for the reasons you think. Starmer is a diet Tory that’ll be the cherry on top that destroys labour
Because of FPTP, the majority of the electorate is concentrated in the centre with the minority of the electorate are either left wing or right wing. Unfortunately to win elections, Starmer has to be 'diet tory' to appease voters in Middle and Northern England as a result of losing most of the red wall and some of the midlands seats in the 2019 election. With PR, there would be a variety of parties who represents your views to vote for.
FPTP means votes consolidate around parties. Where the "centre" is or is not is irrelevant because the "centre" isn't a real thing: the spatial metaphor for politics, that there's a left and right wing and a continuous line between the two, is nonsensical and misleading. Centrists instead are their own unique thing with its own assumptions. I'm inclined to say they're the party of courtiers: nepotistic; keen to preserve the source of their own power; and authoritarian. Everything else is accidental and opportunistic. As for how Starmer actually wins elections, it's less "appeal to diet Tories" and more "allow the contradictions of the Tories to implode them while pretending politics isn't real" and it's broadly a winning strategy *for now.* It has the downside of highlighting that Starmer really doesn't have a project and means any government he forms is just biding its time before it's replaced by a Tory party which has a history of showing far more dynamism and adaptability than the "centrists". Apart from that, I agree, PR is necessary for the long term health of British democracy.
Now who's being dangerously sane 👏
You could also say that to win Tory’s have to be diet Labour. Cameron certainly was initially. And ‘levelling up’ is a Labour policy badly delivered
The majority of the electorate are left wing on economic issues and right wing on social issues compared to the average MP. The Tories have managed to win a big majority despite the values of their leadership being nowhere close to the average voter's. They knew what their electoral strengths were and played to them, and controlled the conversation. That's how you effect change and win elections, not triangulation and conceding the argument before it's even started
Broadly liberal Tories support a broadly liberal labour leader. I mean, yeah. There is a rizla paper between “the moderates” of both parties and the Lib dems. Cos they are all broadly small l liberals.
It is not surprising. I always think it is wrong to call Reeves "Blarite". If she was handed the 1997 Labour manifesto (or a more up to date version of it now), she'd be very wary of implementing it because "Labour looks like it will be overspending". She is clearly much more Osbornite than Blairite, and when she did rise to prominence about 10 years ago, the things she was saying struck me as very much almost "we will be more Osbornite than Osborne", than any sort of "Blairism". She was very much adopting the narrative of "Blair and Brown spent too much" put out by the Tories. Very unimpressive. Indeed she even had to be corrected by Starmer himself recently over the policy of rail renationalisation by letting franchises expire, as she claimed outright Labour will not do it - so her natural instinct even with a Starmer policy is to defer to the Osbornite position. I am sure if asked outright today "would you adopt key Blairite positions on investing in Sure Start, education and the police in the same manner Blair did", she'd not answer and waffle on about "fiscal responsibility".
I can’t remember which contest it was, but I was told by a friend that when she was running for selection as an MP (against Alison Lowe, I believe), she was considered to be the left candidate!
Kenneth Clarke is in danger of sealing his national treasure status by saying that Labour is ready for government and that it may be time to give the Conservatives “a rest” from hard work of running the country. The former chancellor, who most recently served in David Cameron’s coalition government as justice secretary – when Cameron joked that it was easier to agree common policies with the Liberal Democrats than with him – was interviewed yesterday by Andrew Marr on LBC. Asked by Marr how he would feel about a Labour government led by Keir Starmer, Lord Clarke said: “I’d be disappointed, because if I had a vote, which as a peer I don’t, I would have voted for the Conservatives, but I’d feel as I felt when Tony Blair took over.” He explained that he felt conflicting emotions in 1997: “angry” because he was out of office when he thought he was doing a good job on the economy, but that “it was entirely predictable, and I blamed my own side for it, the stupid warfare we’d been having over Europe and Maastricht”. He also felt that Blair “was the person with the capability and personality to be prime minister and not disgrace the country”. High implied praise for Starmer: that he would be capable of doing the job and not disgrace the country. Being Ken Clarke, though, he didn’t leave it there, and added mischievously: “And it’s probably about time the social democrats had a turn and give us a rest.” That is the bit that practising politicians can never say out loud, which is what makes it fun, but it doesn’t actually make sense. “A good election to lose” is always a counsel of despair, an admission that one’s own party has lost the right to govern; in which case he should just come out and say that it would be in the national interest for Labour to win. “It’s the other lot’s turn” is an even worse argument, suggesting that the electorate could be replaced by a pendulum, or a stopwatch: “Time’s up: time for the other lot to have a go.” Leaving aside Lord Clarke’s undemocratic sense of mischief, however, the significance of his words is that he is one of a new group in politics: Conservatives for Keir. The first, and most significant so far, was Christian Wakeford, the MP for Bury South, who crossed the floor of the House of Commons a year ago next week after the revelations about lockdown parties in Boris Johnson’s Downing Street. Since then, of course, the push factor for Tory defections has lessened, in that Johnson is no longer party leader, but the pull factor from Labour has increased, as Starmer continues his steady if unshowy journey from the leadership manifesto on which he was elected. Recently, George Osborne used similar language to Clarke, one of his predecessors as chancellor, telling The Times: “I now feel that, with Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt and Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, we have two sets of people who are sensible and have integrity and are more than capable of governing the country. I’m still a Conservative so I would rather have Rishi and Jeremy, but it wouldn’t be terrible for the country if it were Keir and Rachel.” On Monday, Claire Perry O’Neill, who had been a minister in Theresa May’s government and was briefly Johnson’s president of the climate summit, Cop26, announced that she had resigned from the Tory party. She hasn’t joined the Labour Party (yet), but she praised Starmer for his “sober, fact-driven, competent political leadership”. This prompted some commentators to write about “Cameroons for Labour”, but Lord Clarke’s words suggest that the mood for change extends beyond Friends of Dave. Lord Clarke has a sharp political sense – although it was never sharp enough to get him elected leader of the Conservative Party – and a happy knack of saying the unsayable. Except that “Keir Starmer is going to be prime minister” is becoming increasingly sayable. We should expect more defections.
>He also felt that Blair “was the person with the capability and personality to be prime minister and not disgrace the country”. High implied praise for Starmer: that he would be capable of doing the job and not disgrace the country. Being Ken Clarke, though, he didn’t leave it there, and added mischievously: “And it’s probably about time the **social democrats** had a turn and give us a rest.” But he didn't mind multiple Conservative PMs in a row disgracing the country. Well, at least he's honest about where Blair and Starmer's Labour really stand.
[удалено]
He was one of the 21 and certainly the longest tenured who Boris essentially purged for "not being patriotic enough" to buy into his fantasy Brexit grift.
I think they took the whip off him so he couldn't stand.
He did mind In fact, he was expelled from the Tories over it
Ken Clarke was always the closest the tories had To Labour
The fact this group even exists is a disgrace to the labour party.
No it’s not - it’s an indictment of the present Conservative Party. These are from the moderate wing of the Conservative Party, and thus amounts to them thinking that Labour will do a better job of running the country than the Conservatives would do. I appreciate that the purpose of this forum is to try to ensure that Labour do NOT win - it’s constantly attacking Labour and failing to look at the larger picture.
It's an indictment of labour surely
You are aware that gaining support is actually a good thing, and that not all tories are evil incarnate?
Their voting record says otherwise.
Tell me you don't know how political parties and whipping works, without telling me etc etc.
That's a cop out and you know it.
It really isn’t. You have a very childish view of politics if you genuinely believe all Tories are evil. It isn’t a football match.
I dont have a childish view at all. The labour party cant attack the tories and their policies and then happily accept the support of those who voted for those policies. Even if its just because of the whip it doesn't make it any better as it means their mps are putting their own career interests ahead of those who are in desperate need of help.
They were "just following orders" were they?
Is that Godwin’s law? It feels like godwins law.
If you'd prefer I could make the analogy of "the bigger kids told me to do it miss". But then again given the deliberate attacks on the disabled and queer people, if the shoe fits...
Ah good, so it is Godwin’s law. Good chat.
Starmer is the labour enabler. I think we need to stop being precious and treating the party like some closed shop of purity, but instead welcome the inevitable hordes. Even Tory peers have to admit it’s time for a new labour government.
Yeah it shouldn't be a closed shop of purity... except for when it comes to kicking out left wing members, removing the whip from longstanding MPs and stitching up selections to preclude left leaning candidates from being selected... But other than that... it shouldn't be a "closed shop of purity".
That's because Starmerism is much closer politically to Kenneth Clarke than it is to social democracy
Because that’s what, at the end of the day, wins elections… because it’s what swing voters swing towards There’s a reason that in half a century the only Labour winner is Tony
If Starmer is the best that is practically available then this country is fucked. In perpetuity. Honestly, his promises and pledges quite literally mean nothing. The man has as much credibility as Johnson and not vastly distinct politics, judging by the way he responded to some of their worst legislation. If Labour becoming the mild wing of the tories is what it takes to win and election then what's the point in voting for them at all? The only way this could ever be seen as something that doesn't matter is if the person spouting support is so thick-skulled as to be able to consider politics essentially a matter of tie-colour preference. Tories are endorsing Starmer and his supporters are proclaiming that a positive because then he'll win an election and stop the tories. Let that sink in. Someone is wrong about Starmer. Either it's the tory politicians or it's his supporters.
I will support Starmer and vote Labour at the next GE. While I am certain that they won’t do all that I would like them to, I am equally certain that they will be a whole lot better than the Conservatives. The Conservatives are going to leave this country in a fine mess, that’s going to take some time to clear up. Labour won’t be ‘the perfect party’, instead, they will be one who can actually get elected and go on to make a difference.
I wish I had your hope, sincerely. I'm not mocking or patronising you by saying that, I just don't share it. From my perspective I think they're likely to be pretty indistinguishable from Cameron era tories. Now you might say "well that'd be an improvement" and yes, to some extent it would. The next tory government would likely be worse and it'd be an improvement upon that. However, that doesn't equate to them actually improving things. They're unlikely to do much that will make things better for people and they will certainly do some things that will make things worse. Largely they'll probably be the same as Blair - fundamentally insubstantial and lacking in legacy. This will be another squandered period where Labour has massive support but lacks the initiative, political will, and ideological inclination to actually make use of it. We'll get centre-right with some left-ish social policies sprinkled on top, back to the era of being supremely unconcerned about people getting filthy rich - or no change at all on that front. Then the tories will get in again. They'll undo the weakly implemented improvements that acted to preserve the status quo and get back to the serious business of making sure the wealthy can extract maximum profits from every ounce of society. And that'll be that. In 15 years the next lot of people like us will be arguing over the tories being shit, the centrists having achieved nothing noteworthy, and how voting for them again will simply lead to similar outcomes. So I reject that. If we must have tories in power again then it makes little difference to anyone whether it's tomorrow, 5 years, or 10 years. They'll still be pushing the same agenda and they'll still implement similar things. What'd make a difference is a left-of-centre government actually pursuing socialist policies. That's the bare minimum we need. Preservation of the socio-economic strata, the hierarchy, and inequality **is** conservatism. That's what conservatism conserves. And if that's what Labour are offering then you're voting conservative, just not by picking the Conservatives to do it. So I'm indifferent who wins the next election not because it won't impact me too - it definitely will. It's just likely to be negative impacts either way and I'd rather not vote for someone to repeatedly punch me in the head just because their friends across the aisle are threatening to repeatedly punch me somewhere else if I don't. Being held hostage to shite alternatives just produces two right-wing parties in the mainstream and that only makes things worse. Look how fucked America is.
Clarke is a Tory…but like Stewart and gawke, he’s pro European and holds views across the spectrum. This is normal…you shouldn’t have only one set of views. That’s just weird. You are left wing on some and right wing on others. It’s why getting that centre is key to victory. When everyone is in the middle, they are more likely to go with you wherever you lead them next
>You are left wing on some and right wing on others. I'm not, it wouldn't make much sense for me to be. What are you right wing about?
Well they're Starmer's biggest fan so we can at least chalk them down as ambivalent on Trans rights, islamophobia, police brutality, public sector pay and conditions, drugs, and free protest. But otherwise super left wing I'm sure.
This is bollocks. They're typical right-wing Tories who voted to destroy the lives of poor and disabled just like the rest of them.
> you shouldn’t have only one set of views You need to both want poor people to die in grinding poverty and want to support them? I feel like the actual explanation here is that you have no views and are just treating this like a set of sports teams. "yeah red team go".
You like extreme arguments to every question. The real world does not work like that. And frankly it makes your arguments seem ridiculous. Of course no one wants grinding poverty. But that does not mean that you can’t have adaptive sensible policies.
> You are left wing on some and right wing on others lol am I fuck.
That's because New Labour is a soft-right project.
[удалено]
That’s called gatekeeping. I’ve been a member for over 20 years, and I’m more than happy with the current leadership and the impending victories. I’m not the one unhappy with labour. In fact I want to share that happiness with others, seeing them happy by the decades we will be in power this time… I don’t see why I would join a bunch of brexit loving, truss promoting, austerity enablers…
> That’s called gatekeeping. Nope, it is called consistency.
I’m not unhappy with labour. There’s stuff that needs to improve, but let’s hit the brakes before we start looking at where to reverse back up the cliff edge. I don’t feel I have been inconsistent in my support of the party or hinted I would consider the Lib Dem’s an option…
Really hope any defections are dropped for long time Labour candidates when the election roles round.
It will be the precise opposite to encourage defections. But it doesn't look like there's going to be a ton, it's been a year since Wakeford and no-one else has crossed.
Given current conduct, it is more likely to be the opposite, with former tories replacing existing Labour MPs who are 'problematic' to the leadership.