Psychoactive Substances: Rolling UK Politics in The Neo-Con Era

is it widely accepted that things said at fringe meetings don't...count?

it's a safe space for thinking the unthinkable eh?

Dan Hodges ‏@DPJHodges 1 hr
I'm not going to join the Tories. But it may take me a while to come up with a coherent reason why.

We've got time.

interesting that the Tories seem to feel the need to move their rhetoric leftwards

Almost as if the centre ground had moved left, but that's crazy talk.

There was a decent piece by (I think) Jonathan Freedland who was saying that policies like the preposterously titled National Living Wage aren't really about winning the votes of the poor, they're about attracting the sort of voter who doesn't like to think of themselves as NOT caring about the poor. Hodges falls for this kind of bollocks time and time again.

In reality they think they can hoover up soft left Labour voters who feel imperilled by the madman, Corbyn.

Also amid all the fawning guff from 'centre-left' commentators, have they all forgotten that Cameron won't actually be contesting the next election?

Indeed. He might have got away with all sorts of plaudits for this conference speech but what about the ones three or four years from now, who will give a flying fuck what he has to say about anything then? Not that I expect him to stick around that long.

Jonathan Freedl @Freedland

Cameron has thrown down a challenge to liberal, even centre-left voters: what, besides habit, is preventing you backing me? #cpc15

Plenty of lib-dems vote Tory already, sheer greed of these ppl.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/11917236/David-Cameron-is-the-new-leader-of-the-British-Left.html

The state of this credulous cobblers. "It’s now impossible for anyone on the progressive Left to construct an intellectually coherent argument for voting Labour" - really? The paucity of vision in this sentence is astonishing.

It's possible he's trying to shit the PLP up to such an extent they start trying to oust Corbyn immediately, but I dunno, maybe he's just stupid.

Jonathan Freedl @Freedland

Cameron has thrown down a challenge to liberal, even centre-left voters: what, besides the pig-fucking thing habit, is preventing you backing me? #cpc15

Yeah, why aren't you backing Cameron, Jonathan?

Judging by the content, I think Freedland's talking about political positioning rather than giving a ringing endorsement?

By citing the longtime Labour voter who had written to him announcing his conversion to the Tories, and indeed with this entire speech, the prime minister was throwing down a challenge to liberal and even centre-left voters: What really, besides habit or ingrained prejudice, is preventing you from supporting me? There are plenty of answers to that question – his shameless branding of his Labour opponent as “Britain-hating” would be one, Theresa May’s assault on immigration would be another – but it is a sign of how much Cameron believes the landscape of British politics has been transformed, not least by Corbyn’s victory, that he feels he has every right to ask it.

I mean this is pretty much exactly what Cameron was surely going for? It's also basically the same trick he pulled from 2005 to 2010, so it's hardly new.

And Cameron is not only hardly new, he's on his deathbed, so to speak.

"It’s now impossible for anyone on the progressive Left to construct an intellectually coherent argument for voting Labour"

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-attempts-to-defend-squalid-deal-with-saudi-arabia-in-excruciating-interview-with-jon-a6684066.html

What has propelled Corbyn is that the holy 'centre ground' doesn't offer enough opportunities, affordable housing and is killing the poor and vulnerable. Cameron's question is to be waved aside as he leaves to begin the first draft of his memoirs in a couple of years.

Reckon the Tories take a chance and elect Teresa May for the real deal as they believe Labour is finished. Osborne won't connect with voters (nor would May but Thatcher Mk II etc) and Boris has too many skeletons.

Cameron has thrown down a challenge to liberal, even centre-left voters: what, besides habit, is preventing you backing me? #cpc15

just how oblivious to the amount of actual suffering this govt has and will cause the vulnerable do you have to be to make such a ridiculous statement?

oh okay, he was just reporting dcam's statement. well, okay, easy...

https://medium.com/@shirkerism/lots-of-political-commentators-are-making-lots-of-noise-about-how-cameron-s-conference-speech-has-32712cd67902

"The “centre” of politics can only plausibly exist when certain material conditions are in place: in simplified terms, a decent level of economic growth and geopolitical stability. Then you get people voting for governments that can genuinely claim to pursue and sustain rising profits for the rich alongside rising living standards for the working class, in a secure and stable world.
When those things aren’t possible, you get political polarisation, which spills over into the kind of social and political instability that would make a mockery of Cameron’s claim to “security”. We don’t currently have decent and sustained economic growth — British GDP growth is currently a pathetic 0.7%, and the IMF says that the world economy is on the brink of another recession. And, with China, Iran, Russia and the US all militarily involved in Syria, we’re hardly looking at a decade of geopolitical stability either.
But most British journalists and politicians completely refuse to think on these terms: political dynamics to them are about the centre-left, the centre-right, and the centre, and their idea of politics is basically a small group of nerds manoeuvring a clunky and reluctant party apparatus around these three positions, in accordance with the views of an abstract “electorate” reduced to numbers on a screen by vacuous survey methods.
They consistently fail to predict or explain the things that don’t fit the model: the SNP, Corbyn, UKIP, Greece’s OXI vote, etc, are all explained away as vague and inscrutable sociopolitical pathologies, and yet these are precisely the things that provoke political change.
The centre ground is a fantasy, and the only people still there are the fantasists who won’t stop talking about it — the people whose careers and self-worth are wrapped up in an illusion: the permanent and (for them) lucrative stability of an inherently unstable capitalist world-system that they stubbornly refuse to even think about. Cameron’s speech was notable for its centrism, yes, in the sense that he’s performing a crucial social role: he’s reassuring a particular section of society that the the “centre” still exists, and with it, their future."

This is worth pasting it its entirety because it really is OTM.

nearly posted that exact section on Facebook, it is very otm

Very good.

Good stuff.

I like the idea of tossers like Andrew Rawnsley feeling the white heat of that last paragraph "people whose careers and self-worth are wrapped up in an illusion"

"This is a story about two men who tried to change the world. One of those men was Peter Mandelson. The other was Eric Pickles. One called himself centre-right, and the other centre-left. They believed that a better society could be forged by skullfucking the public and elevating financial firms to a position of dominance over governments and indeed the world. But this was an illusion."

https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtp1/t31.0-8/12087244_10156134112845475_4453828029966744823_o.jpg

hahahaha

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/16/tax-credits-question-time-labour-conservative

OwJo largely on point

Schama's elegant riposte to Liddle on QT last night, most of the audience were clapping every Lidl utterance on refugees.
"Do not presume to lecture me about the inadequacy of an emotional response. Go back to your journalistic hackery about outcomes and turn your suburban face away from the plight of the miserable."

so the tory apparently had no response to the woman with the tax credits question, do i have that right? i can't watch QT anymore.

none at all, nothing to see here next question

Security. Stability. Opportunity.

Schama's elegant riposte to Liddle on QT last night, most of the audience were clapping every Lidl utterance on refugees.
"Do not presume to lecture me about the inadequacy of an emotional response. Go back to your journalistic hackery about outcomes and turn your suburban face away from the plight of the miserable."

that really is elegant!

Could've gone to blows if they were sitting next to each other.

Don't know why I'm watching bits of QT again (*shakes fist at John McDonnell*) however wrt to that Owen Jones piece its more about educating rather than "love-bombing". Many of them are happy with benefit cuts as long as it doesn't impact on them.

http://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2015/oct/16/homeless-children-dying-at-the-sharp-end-of-the-housing-crisis?CMP=share_btn_tw

This link has the follow-up on the baby from Bournemouth. I posted a link about a month or so ago from the local press.

One thing I have noticed first hand in recent years is that on the road adjacent to mine are a couple of rows of 1 bedroom upper/lower flats which 8 years ago were mostly populated by marginal types - some criminal types, some working poor, oddbods that kept snakes + reptiles in tanks and some with obvious mental health problems. Just in the last 5 years the demographic has changed dramatically to mainly young families and some of them have 2 children. that a lot of these marginal/vulnerable types seem to be disappearing from social housing to god knows where (oblivian?) is just as depressing as young families taking their places in such cramped conditions.

i feel like the former is pretty inarguably more depressing but idk

well it's directly due to the benefit cap right? plenty of housing association and private flats in hackney near where i used to live used to be occupied by people just barely getting by, but there's no way they can pay for those flats with whatever's left from £500 after their jobseeker's benefit, child benefit etc is taken out. the character of the neighborhood around well street for instance has just totally changed now.

would any ilxors join prince charles and snub xi jinping? when there's so little prospect having any positive impact on chinese affairs critics are in quite a tight spot. my chinese colleague has taken some holiday and will get up at 3am tmw to go down to see the leader, concerned that he won't have much support. I wonder how many britons abroad would get up at 3am for cameron

wrt to that Owen Jones piece its more about educating rather than "love-bombing". Many of them are happy with benefit cuts as long as it doesn't impact on them

I'm not sure many people struggling on low incomes are going to be particularly well-disposed to being "educated" by politicians right now - the left should really be able to talk to these people using the language of self-interest.

Well, surely even the dogs in the street could tell that the working poor, just getting by with help of in-work benefits, had nothing to gain and much to fear from a tory victory in may. Some people just would not be persuaded until they actually find themselves out of pocket, and it's far too late.

I think there is a certain 'they came for the unemployed/disabled, but i wasn't unemployed/disabled...' element to this, sadly.

Neimöller's words aren't a caution for Tories, ithey're a fucking blueprint.

Education needn't mean a lecture, top-down. One of the better things Corbyn has talked about is the need to make policy using consultation, certainly something more democratic than the leadership looking at results from polls and focus groups (that reflect attitudes shaped by the press in vicious circle) and formulating policy that will pander to people.

I've no clear idea to detail the inner workings of an "education" but attitudes on all sides have to change otherwise relying on people's selfish interest is a no-go. Vote Labour if I go hungry one min and Tories if I have a bit of money is not a strategy. A wider conversation has to be had.

today's LOL:

Nick Cohen ‏@NickCohen4

Has anyone had friendships break up or tested because of the Corbyn election? If so, please contact me

Tom Gann ‏@Tom_Gann

Hi, @NickCohen4, I've had a couple of strained conversations with anarchist friends over my not totally rejecting Corbyn, can you help me?

I've no clear idea to detail the inner workings of an "education" but attitudes on all sides have to change otherwise relying on people's selfish interest is a no-go. Vote Labour if I go hungry one min and Tories if I have a bit of money is not a strategy. A wider conversation has to be had.

It's also possible to over-rely on the empathy of the electorate, especially on that of people who are really struggling themselves. Some of these people are likely to be relatively uneducated and only engaging in the debate through the sort of media outlets that have deliberately let people think that 'benefits' are for the unemployed. If they are engaging at all. Some of these people will be doing more than one job and supporting families - how does 'consultation' reach people who are short on both money and time? But if the Labour Party can't talk honestly to working class people about advancing their interests then they're in more trouble than I thought.

Nick Cohen ‏@NickCohen4
Has anyone had friendships break up or tested because of the Corbyn election? If so, please contact me

Might have to start by explaining what a friend is to Nick Cohen.

I am not saying 'consultation' -- that was more around formulating future policies but yes Labour (or any party) members probably have a bit more time, or make that commitment. I used that to show that at least one of the parties are listening to more ppl/willing to have more open conversations, just a change in attitude I want see carried over somehow.

People have voted against their interests time and again which makes me think voting for your interest (and yours alone) is a problem. Don't feel its right to plug into their selfishness for some short-term votes. "Love-bombing" someone who was quite happy to see other poor disabled people being sacrificed is not an amazing approach.

Media obviously plays a huge part in the construction of self-interest or selfishness though. It's rarely 'let's f' the disabled' more an angle where 'scroungers' are vilified as part of an argument that supports policies, which also affect the disabled. Yes that may be obvious in one sense, but it's rarely presented that way. I'm not sure i want to see anyone love-bombed tho.

Nobody has mentioned that this woman was a voter in Thanet, where lots of people like her voted Tory so as not to elect Nigel Farage. I'm really not into that whole 'serves her right' cruelty, because the 2015 Conservative manifesto made a promise not to cut tax credits for young families, but as a result I think quite a few voters in precarious or low-paid work won't forget they were lied to.