Again, one has only to review the titles/subjects of the videos and reflect on the name of the channel to understand that it is absolutely a right-wing channel.
I mean, if you’re right-wing, it’s going to look normal and innocent to you. I get that.
draxen
7515
… OK, but the clip (and interview) is from a Labour activist. He’s been in the Labour party for 25 years. He’s as left wing as they come. o_O
And Glenn Greenwald makes a living appearing on Fox News. So what?
I don’t care what this person has to say about the Labour Party. I’m just telling you that you’re hawking a right-wing channel, and if you don’t recognize that, maybe you’re more right-wing than you think.
This is one of the reasons I don’t really think the US would be improved by having more major political parties. Multi-party democracy seems to mean that the minority party with the largest base of support always wins, because ordinary voters can’t really bring themselves to vote strategically to prevent it. In a two-party election, this election is not the same landslide. The Conservatives pick up the Brexit party vote, Labour picks up much of the Lib-Dem vote and probably the SNP vote.
CraigM
7519
Cart: horse. To make multiple parties viable requires first ditching FPTP. Ranked choice, single transferrable vote, multi seat districts? All could contribute to making third parties not just viable, but beneficial (instead of spoilers). And we need to, as a nation, get rid of the utter shit FPTP voting.
That England has long had multiple viable parties with FPTP is an abberation, one only allowed due to smaller more local districting with greater regional identity.
Sure, but that isn’t going to happen, not anytime soon. It’s either a 50-state uphill battle opposed every step of the way by the two established parties, or it’s a Constitutional amendment to give the Feds authority to establish standards for state elections for national office, or it’s both.
Also, I confess my ignorance. Are there any multi-party democracies that use ranked-choice to elect politicians at the national level? I don’t really know.
CraigM
7521
Certainly! The big ones are Australia and New Zealand, but a majority of Canadian provinces, Ireland, Czech Republic, Estonia and several others do as well.
I’m sorry for you and people like you, but the Labour voters who voted for Conservatives instead genuinely deserved the fucking they’re going to get from Conservative government.
Aceris
7527
The idea that it is all the voters fault is exactly what is wrong with your politics.
draxen
7528
Good post.
I’m not convinced this graph tells the whole story and is perhaps even misleading. This indicates that if Labour simply replace Corbyn that will fix their problem but I think it’s far more complex than that.
Corbyn was unpopular undoubtedly but Brexit and the desire to uphold the referendum result is another. I also think that they have drifted too far to the left and that many of their policies are unpalatable to the majority of voters. I have no evidence to back this hypothesis up though and I realize I’m arguing in the face of your hard data.
It will be interesting to see more analysis in the weeks ahead to get a better understanding.
draxen
7529
Triggernometry do have a lot of controversial interviews, some with some extremely dubious people. I don’t mind that though. It’s interesting for me to see a wide range of views. There is definitely a very heavy slant toward freedom of speech as the creators are comedians.
They’ve discussed in the past how they find it difficult to book left-wing intellectuals to come onto the program as they are dismissed as a right-wing channel (much like is happening here). Unfortunately one right-wing interview begets another as they become seen as a right-wing channel or at the very least right-wing friendly even if their original intention is to be unbiased.
They do have some really good interviews with left wingers though. Their format is more of an interview with whichever guest they have on rather than promoting any specific agenda. I concede it is possible they have a right-wing bias but even so good content is good content regardless of its position on the political spectrum.
Last week they had a left wing Remain activist.
… but this kind of went way off track from the intent of my original post which was about Labour and their heartland voters.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to so forcefully hawk their channel - only that while I disagree with MANY of their guests - I do really like their style of content - long play political interviews.
Based on what? It looks like they surveyed actual voters and reported the results. So you say it is wrong, even misleading, based on…?
Edit:
That isn’t what it says.
wavey
7531
Agreed, apparently Opinium are preparing a full report on the data next week.
It would be interesting to see what the support was like for individual policies. I think some policies that might sound like they should have been popular (e.g. 4-day working weeks) were instead met with suspicion and scepticism. Maybe those kind of policies are best left to a second term, when hopefully you have earned some trust with the public on responsibly handling the economy.
It seems like every opposition campaign utterly dropped the ball on having credible sounding policies. Including the ‘when I’m PM’ Jo Swinson campaign.
draxen
7533
Unfortunately my opinion only at the moment. I can try to explain my reasoning though…
I think large swathes of the country are center-left on economics (lightly pro-nationalization of services) but center-right socially (lightly conservative, lightly nationalistic - read nationalistic not xenophobic). I think this makeup is especially evident in post industrial areas, e.g. northern former Labour heartlands.
My hypothesis is that while Corbyns unpopularity was the most evident problem Labour had a collection of issues which contributed to their defeat. In no particular order:
- Corbyn was unpopular
- Their attempt at a neutral stance on Brexit:
a) Their Remain stance was viewed as a betrayal by Leave supporters
They reneged on their promise to uphold the referendum result
b) Their inability to commit fully to Remain was viewed as a betrayal by their Remain supporters
Fence sitting got them the worst of both worlds
- They have become dismissive of their traditional base and view these voters as racist, reactionary, nativist and old-fashioned (see Paul Embry clip above). They **ignored them in favour of appealing to the more cosmopolitan Remain leaning areas (see Putney).
- Their manifesto was too far-left and they will need to move more toward the center to become palatable to the electorate at large
- I don’t even remember what their message was. “Change is good”, “Time for change” something like that.
EDIT:
** Ignored is probably the wrong term here. It’s almost as if they no longer understand their old base. Perhaps they’ve become too integrated into the Westminster bubble.
