Trump is back baby!

[Hallbopping]

The left is usually pretty uncomfortable wielding real power.


It's part of the problem Starmer is facing in Britain. He's making difficult decisions, but all too often, the Left compares offered solutions to theoretical perfect solutions, loaded with emotion ("How could you be so heartless to cut spending to <group>").

The right tend to row in behind the leader and just excuse tough decisions as "it's what needs to be done and people just need to get over it"

I think you’ve raised a good point here. The right value strong leaders. Unless a left leaning leader is incredibly charismatic like Clinton, Obama, Blair then they struggle.

Lenin and Stalin had no problem with it.
The problem lies within the massively fragmented 'left' movement itself.
Is it pro women or pro trans.
Is it against anti semitisim or against Israel.
Is it pro trade union or anti.
Is it pro nationalisation or anti.
Pro immigration or anti.
Etc etc on infinite issues it tears itself apart over.
The right has a much clearer idea in general what it does and doesn't stand for.

True but that more speaks to autocracy rather than political ideology. There are very few left leaning autocrats left. Xi Jinping is the most notable however arguing that China is a communist or socialist country today is a bit of a stretch.

 

[The High King]

I think you’ve raised a good point here. The right value strong leaders. Unless a left leaning leader is incredibly charismatic like Clinton, Obama, Blair then they struggle.

True but that more speaks to autocracy rather than political ideology. There are very few left leaning autocrats left. Xi Jinping is the most notable however arguing that China is a communist or socialist country today is a bit of a stretch.

Good few over the years in South America/Caribbean. Usually under strong external pressure from the USA which ends up with them being replaced by a autocratic left figure.

It tends to be mainly in the West that we have the Monty Python splitters version of the left

 

[How bad boy]

Lenin and Stalin had no problem with it.
The problem lies within the massively fragmented 'left' movement itself.
Is it pro women or pro trans.
Is it against anti semitisim or against Israel.
Is it pro trade union or anti.
Is it pro nationalisation or anti.
Pro immigration or anti.
Etc etc on infinite issues it tears itself apart over.
The right has a much clearer idea in general what it does and doesn't stand for.

On the hard left, yeah, you have the Tankies who don't give a shit so long as their flavour of whatever unworkable totalitarianism they're pushing is at the front.


Don't think it's quite so black and white, if you basically said the right is pro woman, pro israel, anti trade union, pro nationalism, anti immigration, anti abortion, anti UN, pro christian, etc, I think you'd quickly find most right leaning folks disagreeing with some or all of it.

It's that tyranny of small differences that seems to be so big on the left, rarely every fully embracing the front runner, because they don't quite represent your flavour of leftism, the right seems to be far more willing to unite behind leadership that's approximately correct, in order to defeat the left.

Right wing populism is currently in the ascendancy. There'll be a counter push with left wing populism, as you can see with the rise of the likes of Mamdani, Polanski and AOC. The militant left wing will reappear eventually if the right becomes too dominant.

Which will be fun.

 

[How bad boy]

The shit they're doing now, with soft launching budget changes does them no fucking good.

You want some stability, not a circus before every budget, this media spin about changes has been going since September, and it's not like there isn't other things to talk about.

I also can't see any progress in their initiatives, like cheap energy, or pro business changes that will encourage growth.

Left or right, the speculation is bad for business.

I'd be very, very surprised if that noise about the tax rises is from Labour.

There's a huge amount on cheap energy projects been approved to proceed:

UK green power surges with record approvals for new renewable energy capacity

Rise in planning permission for projects reflects growing momentum behind Labour government’s clean power push

www.ft.com

More than 16.1 gigawatts of new renewable energy capacity spread across 323 projects was given permission to start building during the quarter, according to Financial Times analysis of government data published on Wednesday. The figure for capacity represents a 195 per cent rise on the same quarter last year.



And they have a pretty massive target:
The figures will be welcomed by the government, which wants 95 per cent of Britain’s power generation to be carbon-free by 2030, to meet a flagship Labour party manifesto pledge.

But all the media blows on about is "will this tax or that tax go up?"

Media capture is a huge problem in the US and UK....

 

[an liathroid beag]

The Oligarchs have taken over both in Russia and now in the US. Media capture by them has happened in Russia and now is happening in the US. This is essential for them to survive, and democracy must be subverted and and destroyed to ensure that they maintain control.

 

[dukeroyale]

heh heh

Well if anyone actually stopped for a second to wonder if FIFA had a shred of moral fibre, and hosting WCs in Qatar and Saudi wasn’t enough for you, or watching Infantino facilitating a fucking sheikh draping Messi in their garb whether he liked it or not at the defining moment of his incredible career… Infantino has invented a new award called the FIFA Peace Award and he will shamelessly present it to the Orange ape who will revel in accepting it because he hasn’t a shred of dignity, shame, or self awareness

It’s like something Ricky Gervais would have dreamt up as a piss take

 

[Happyhonkaman]

View attachment 45636

 

[How bad boy]

But all the media blows on about is "will this tax or that tax go up?"

Media capture is a huge problem in the US and UK....

Trump threatening to sue the BBC + the beheading of the BBC this week is potentially going to strengthen the right wing's control of it.

It's a messy story, but basically Boris Johnson put a few key loyalists on the board of the BBC with Ronnie Gibb being the most important.
He then ensured the appointment of a right wing chap to lead the standards committee, which is where all of this nonsense about a small edit to a clip for a documentary about the trump attempted coup comes in.

Gibb used to be Teresa May's director of communications, it'd be like Alistair Campbell being appointed to the BBC board. To say he's biased is an understatement.

Anyway, the board appear to be going along with Gibb, the plan appears to be to replace Tim Davie, a right leaning director general, with someone much more right wing.
The government can't remove Gibb until 2028, and the lawsuit is almost certainly a ploy to ensure that the "right" person gets appointed, if Trump likes them, then he'll back off.

It's exactly what has happened at the likes of Paramount in the US, resulting in someone that's....questionable...now heading up CBS news.

It's frustrating how naive folks on the left are being about this stuff. Kier Starmer getting a kicking from the left just opens the door to Reform taking over. Of course, it would also help if the current Labour leadership actually understood how badly they're being outplayed in the media and communications stakes and did something, anything, to fix it.

 

[KolaKubes]

Trump threatening to sue the BBC + the beheading of the BBC this week is potentially going to strengthen the right wing's control of it.

It's a messy story, but basically Boris Johnson put a few key loyalists on the board of the BBC with Ronnie Gibb being the most important.
He then ensured the appointment of a right wing chap to lead the standards committee, which is where all of this nonsense about a small edit to a clip for a documentary about the trump attempted coup comes in.

Gibb used to be Teresa May's director of communications, it'd be like Alistair Campbell being appointed to the BBC board. To say he's biased is an understatement.

Anyway, the board appear to be going along with Gibb, the plan appears to be to replace Tim Davie, a right leaning director general, with someone much more right wing.
The government can't remove Gibb until 2028, and the lawsuit is almost certainly a ploy to ensure that the "right" person gets appointed, if Trump likes them, then he'll back off.

It's exactly what has happened at the likes of Paramount in the US, resulting in someone that's....questionable...now heading up CBS news.

It's frustrating how naive folks on the left are being about this stuff. Kier Starmer getting a kicking from the left just opens the door to Reform taking over. Of course, it would also help if the current Labour leadership actually understood how badly they're being outplayed in the media and communications stakes and did something, anything, to fix it.

The left not even the far left are the nearest thing we have here to religious fundamentalists. There’s little enough I don’t agree with them on but there’s no nuance and no practicality on first steps and bringing people along with you. My own pet peeve is the insistence on electric when PHEV was a great way to get far more people out of petrol/diesel/methodone petrol and into practical electric. These are the same people who wanted us all driving diesel 20 years ago.

On the other hand, the centre left tend to be too soft and captured by conservatism tbh. I think the left is best led from the left tbh and let the centre left be a moderating influence pushing for practical solutions.

Conservatives are happy with stagnation sure so it’s easier for them to have a muddied consensus that goes nowhere because they don’t want to go anywhere.

 

[sigourney's knickers]