Charlotte Church

[Louisa]

Celebrities are entitled to opinions, but when they use media to try and influence opinion that's when I think it's taking advantage of your position. I totally disagree with it. Especially when it involves them gaining publicity, keeping them in the papers/online. Sure, that's not gonna do them any harm at all. Maybe I'm cynical.

Louisa.

[DulwichFox]

Louisa Wrote:

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> I tore up my membership of the Labour Party when

> Blair went against everything the party stood for

> to gain power. The greatest leader we never had

> was John Smith in my opinion, a man of principle

> and stature. Accepted Labour needed to appeal to

> the centre but equally never took the party away

> from it's socialist roots. Everything since him

> and Kinnock has been 'champagne socialism' in my

> book. It goes against everything the party has

> historically stood for.

>

> I don't want to shut down debate, I want the

> Labour movement to stand up for the working

> classes, and I believe they no longer do that.

> Maybe the leadership debate will come up with some

> surprises. I doubt it.

>

> Louisa.

I totally agree Lou. Blair was a disgrace..

John Smith was indeed a great man of firm principle.

The likes of which we are ever likely to see again.

DulwichFox

[Henry_17]

Blah,

"It's totally hypocritical now to be telling us all that any kind of debt is bad." straw manning much?

[Loz]

Louisa Wrote:

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> I don't want to shut down debate, I want the Labour movement to stand up for the working

> classes, and I believe they no longer do that. Maybe the leadership debate will come up with some

> surprises. I doubt it.

Unless Corbyn gets in (which is highly unlikely), I doubt it too. Even Andy Burnham seems to be shifting slowly to the right of late. Kendall and Cooper will just be more of the Not-Quite-Tory party.

Labour can't win, really. If they return to their roots, they won't get elected. If they don't, they'll be constantly outmanoeuvred by the Tories, jeered by their 'own side' and only winning when the Tories do their occasional self-destruct thing.

[Blah Blah]

DaveR, it's such a lazy response to label something you disagree with as Liberal denial. You can look back to Ted Heath and James Callaghan and others to see the challenges are the same in all times of economic downturns, and solutions are more about timing than the solutions themselves.

You presume that those who didn't vote may have voted coservative? They didn't vote. They abstained. That can absolutely be taken as an anti any party vote.

Equally lazy is the champagne socialist label. As partisan as your 'all celebrities are in it for themselves' quote Louisa. Agree with rahrah. And Blair had to take the party where he did to make it electable. You are harking back to an era that no longer exists Louisa. And I hate that as much as you. But until we can make ordinary people put collective gain before individual gain, todays parties will continue down the path of giving selected groups of people what they want, rather than building a fairer economy for all.

Part of the problem is that government is now in the hand of the markets. Pretty much every avenue has been tried to increase productivity since the early 70's, and failed. One of the marvels of the modern economy is in how it manages to deliver growth without increased productivity. That's the downside of the success of the takeover era and the subsequent replacement of those raiders by the pension funds. The markets are not taking care of anyone but themselves and shareholders, they have no interest in regeneraton, but our economy it totally dependent on them. The left have to recognise that dependence.

So I totally agree with Loz that Labour now have a huge mountain to climb. If they don't regain those Scottish seats they will never have a majority again imo. The Labour party will become totally unelectable if say Corbyn becomes leader. All parties are up against strong market forces and billions spent on lobbying. Ordinary people can not compete with that.

[Dog duck]

My wife has been trying to get me to go to church on Sunday

[Jeremy]

Not sure what was worse... precocious 11 year old Charlotte belting out Pie Jesu, or 30 year old party girl Charlotte pretending to know about economics.

[ed_pete]

Well Billy Bragg seems happy enough.

[Jeremy]

That's alright then.

[Jah Lush]

Oh dear, not the Barking Toad, Foghorn Billy. At least Charlotte can hit a note.

[Blah Blah]

Economics isn't rocket science Jeremy. It's just politicians and bankers that like to pretend it is.

[JohnL]

Blah Blah Wrote:

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> Economics isn't rocket science Jeremy. It's just

> politicians and bankers that like to pretend it

> is.

She must be right in a way - if you can get a big bang for

your buck in the economy then why should the government

not spend that buck. That's all she seems to be saying.

It's just where are the big bangs :)

[Jeremy]

Blah Blah Wrote:

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> Economics isn't rocket science Jeremy.

Really? Not sure I agree with this implication that economics is simple and straightforward.

And while I could potentially find myself mentally nodding along with much of what Ms Church had to say, there was some pretty stupid stuff in there too (maybe the bits where she veered away from the script?)

[JohnL]

Jeremy Wrote:

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> Blah Blah Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Economics isn't rocket science Jeremy.

>

> Really? Not sure I agree with this implication

> that economics is simple and straightforward.

>

> And while I could potentially find myself mentally

> nodding along with much of what Ms Church had to

> say, there was some pretty stupid stuff in there

> too (maybe the bits where she veered away from the

> script?)

Maybe Gavin's back for a visit and wrote a little :)

[DaveR]

"DaveR, it's such a lazy response to label something you disagree with as Liberal denial."

It would be, if that's what I did. However, it is a fact that the increase in the Labour vote in London was wholly unrepresentative of the trend in every other region. It is, IMHO, a reasonable observation that many Labour voters in London are unrepresentative of Labour voters in other regions - better educated, wealthier, more likely to be drawn to so-called 'liberal' issues (it's certainly something believed by the Labour party itself). I was suggesting that those voters are particularly susceptible to denial about the reasonable, sensible considered views of other people (in particular outside London) who have just voted in a Conservative government. (They're also particularly prone to stereotyping the working class, whose interests they purport to have at heart, as ignorant, selfish intolerant proles who can be 'taken in' by Tory false promises - see Neil Kinnock on election night - but that's for another thread. And I am suggesting that that is the root of the utterly pointless posts on here trying to question the legitimacy of that elected government with spurious statistics (or to be more accurate, data).

Re Charlotte Church, I can't understand why anybody would take their political cues from her, but she's entitled to her opinions, regardless of how ill-informed, and we all know that there's a ready audience for celebrity stupidity.

[Loz]

I see Charlotte Church has been put on the bill for Glastonbury this year. The good news is she's not going to be singing. The bad news is that she is going to be talking.

[miga]

DaveR Wrote:

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> every other region. It is, IMHO, a reasonable

> observation that many Labour voters in London are

> unrepresentative of Labour voters in other regions

> - better educated, wealthier, more likely to be

> drawn to so-called 'liberal' issues (it's

> certainly something believed by the Labour party

> itself). I was suggesting that those voters are

I agree that Labour voters in London are different to the rest of the country, but for different reasons. I think the group you're talking about is probably overemphasised. For example, Lewisham East, one of the safer Labour seats in the country, is also one of the most deprived, encompassing Downham, Whitefoot and Rushey Green wards. The economic profile of these areas is similar to some of the economically dormant areas in the North. The social make-up is different in other ways (ethnic/racial composition), but Labour would always hope to win in areas like these, anywhere in the country. Even in Islington, the spiritual home of the group (I think) you allude to, I wouldn't be so sure that Labour's winning edge comes from the Manuka/champagne/gap yah socialists.

[Jeremy]

Yes there is a distinction in Labour voters between educated liberal left and traditional working class, but probably incorrect to summarise this as London vs rest of the country.

[DaveR]

Jez, Miga, can I suggest (humbly) that you read my post again - the single point that I am making is that there is a type of Labour voter that is disproportionately to be found in London (which I understand to be fairly uncontroversial) and I am arguing that certain features of those voters make them more likely to engage in the kind of denial seen here.

I'm not saying they're in the majority in London, or completely absent elsewhere, and, to be clear, I'm not saying either that they are some sort of Islington parody champagne socialists. And I'm not making this point solely because of this thread - in the aftermath of the election there was a massive outpouring of rage/grief from soi-disant liberal columnists wildly attributing Labour's electoral defeat to any reason other than the fact that the voters didn't want a Labour govt. It's just a more focussed manifestation of that wearyingly familiar cliche, the leftie who is constantly probing for the 'real' reason why someone else doesn't share their view - where do you stand to gain, what's your hidden prejudice, when did you first realise you were a fascist?

[miga]

No worries, DaveR, I didn't think you were saying that these people make up most of the Labour vote in London, FWIW.

But there is something that irks me, putting this thread aside; namely that this group of Labour voters (whatever you call them) is over-observed, and their numbers over-emphasised. This is probably down to the fact that within the group of people that make the debate (columnists, writers, public figures), these people are very well represented, but also down to the fact that they make for such good targets given the dissonance of wealthy individuals shouting for wealth redistribution. All of that is neither here nor there, but I think the typical Labour voter is not one of these, and in fact the typical "one of these" (well educated, urban, wealthy, fashionable) is probably not a Labour voter.

And the idea you're talking about, "false consciousness", is probably one of the harder to stomach about Marxism/socialism, because, yes, it can seem very patronising/missionary. Not that Labour is a socialist party by any stretch of the imagination....

[Otta]

Part of that could be because no tory voter that I've seen tends to actually set out for me why they hold their opinions. Instead they just belittle Labour. Both as bad as each other (the parties and their supporters) in terms of trying to 'win" arguments by putting the other side down, rather than actually... You know... Winning the actual argument.

And no one can deny that the Tories have the dosh to do a hell of a job at that during campaigns.

[Otta]

Sorry my post was response to DaveR's.

[red devil]

That sums up modern politics Ots, and why it puts a lot of people off, it's now all about negative campaigning...

[Blah Blah]

Gotchs Dave. Understand your point now and see what you mean.

Agreed Otta. That plus the endless haranging about post election deals and coslitions. Many decent policies were lost under that nonsense.

[Loz]

Otta Wrote:

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> And no one can deny that the Tories have the dosh

> to do a hell of a job at that during campaigns.

I saw on TV last night that during the last US Presidential election, Obama and Romney spent $2bn (!!!!) between them on campaigning.

That figure alone probably sums up a lot that wrong with the world.