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[Loud Whispers]

Owlbread must be loving that map. Just look at Scotland.

devomax baby

Corbyn being the sort of man to say Osama Bin Laden's death was a tragedy

He specifically said it was a tragedy that he was killed rather than captured and put on trial, presumably Corbyn thinks that military action doesn't constitute justice the same way a prison sentence or execution would have, but I've not bothered to check.

I know right, what a joker

Also, all the other Labour candidates have been saying that Corbyn is too left wing and that they need to move further right as a party, which considering they're already centre-right and got demolished in the election, including a drastic loss of support to a left wing party in Scotland, is pretty odd to me.

Labour basing their swings off of Scotland would be a bit weird because the SNP are also a nationalist party, unless we can summon the Owlbread to clear things up I bet it's because Scots didn't feel Scottish Labour was Scottish, not that Scottish Labour wasn't left wing enough.
Also what you talking about, Labour's centre-left; where are labour candidates saying labour must swing right? That's not rhetorical, I'm actually intrigued

[Loud Whispers]

Liam Dutton nails pronouncing Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

[SirQuiamus]

*Schnipp*

AHAHAHAHA that Huffpo article is a barrel of laffs Ken Loach is totes adorbs

[Grim Portent]

Also, all the other Labour candidates have been saying that Corbyn is too left wing and that they need to move further right as a party, which considering they're already centre-right and got demolished in the election, including a drastic loss of support to a left wing party in Scotland, is pretty odd to me.

Labour basing their swings off of Scotland would be a bit weird because the SNP are also a nationalist party, unless we can summon the Owlbread to clear things up I bet it's because Scots didn't feel Scottish Labour was Scottish, not that Scottish Labour wasn't left wing enough.
Also what you talking about, Labour's centre-left; where are labour candidates saying labour must swing right? That's not rhetorical, I'm actually intrigued

Scotland usually polls as being significantly (30% last I checked) more inclined to left wing politics than England does, so the SNP success is as much a result of being much further left wing than Labour as it is being Scottish. A surprising amount of SNP voters are anti-independence, weird as that may be. Labour are being referred to as Tories by a large chunk of SNP voters in Scotland as well as the Conservatives these days, only distinguishing between them with the prefixes Red and Blue.

As for Labour being centre-right, it's been so roughly since Blair was first elected (basically since New Labour became a thing). It's been opposed to most left wing policies like nationalisation of public transport, water, electricity and so on (notably Blair stood on a platform that was in favour of nationalising the railways but then reneged on it), in favour of deregulating things like the banking industry, cuts to public services and support agencies for the poor, etc etc. They actually have very few major policy distinctions with the Conservatives these days.

There's a political graph calculator that was floating around the internet about the time of the independence referendum that scaled you according to authoritarianism/libertarianism and left/right based on your stance compared to the political parties on policy. Labour, Lib-Dems, Conservatives all sat in the centre-right, with the cons being furthest right, but mostly differing on the auth/lib scale. UKIP, BNP etc. sat on the farther right, SNP was centre-left and Greens were far-ish left. https://www.politicalcompass.org/uk2015 It's largely based on economic policy determining right/left axis, personal freedoms auth/lib axis, and a few of the more buzzword marxist/fascist idealogical concepts.

Essentially while Labour is the most left wing of the major parties in Britain aside from the SNP, they are still quite heavily to the right in the grand scheme of things, as are the Lib-Dems.

[Loud Whispers]

It's not weird that there are loads of no voters voting SNP since they want the union but they also want devolution of powers
Otherwise quite interesting

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

According to the test I align with the Welsh lefties or Norn Ireland lefties
How bout that

[Boksi]

So how about that Labour election and Corbyn victory?

[Loud Whispers]

It was inevitable

[Grim Portent]

It's hardly surprising, Corbyn is the only candidate that represented pre-Blairite Labour, and Blair is the man who managed to make something like a million Labour voters stop voting altogether, so him being popular with the silent majority of Labours core vote is to be expected.

Though some of Labour's higher ups alluded to staging a coup if he won, so things may be interesting in Labour news for a while.

[NJW2000]

So how about that Labour election and Corbyn victory?

Yay! We have a left-wing candidate! Actual labour, rather than Conservativised labour! People will bother to vote for him!

[Sinistar]

A bit late replying to this, but I'd fell bad for not at least trying to end a conversation I too was involved in. Also, dayum, wall of text.

snip

snap

Well, I'll be brief anyways. See, the main thing that's causing a confusion, at least on my part and with your posts, is more or less semantics. Namely the usage of term "progressivism". When I think of "progressivism" I equal this with being a rational human being. My naive thinking, perhaps? So when you were branding people supporting the ISIS as progressives... yeah, this just doesn't make sense to me. Hey, I'm a simple man, to me someone conducting a systematic rape&pillage&enslavement can't really be an "alternative to western colonialism" or what was that thing? Then again, it's new to me that people would actually, publicly and en masse support Daesh or even just giving them the benefit of a doubt. Must be your (local?) thing? Anyways, if people like that are calling themselves progressives... please put your leg in their faces for me next time you meet them. If you yourself call them that, well, this is the point where I'd start to argue with you. But I do not see any point, and while we also seems to disagree on other points (your vision of future Europe seems a lot more grim than even my most pessimistic one, for example), we do seem to agree on others and stuff Nick K said was also cleared up so I'll just call it a day here.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

X marks the spot where I am

With X that big, you are either a space-time breaking entity or sentient London.

[SirQuiamus]

That term is a weird misnomer, anyway – what's so damn progressive about vouching for bog-standard mainstream ideas like human rights?

[Helgoland]

People will bother to vote for him!

In the general elections? I have my doubts, especially since they already reelected Cameron. Would you be interested in a wager?

[Sheb]

IIRC, the Conservative actually lost votes at the last elections, compared to the previous one.

[Helgoland]

Still won though. And now imagine those same Conservatives being able to claim that their policies are responsible for the economic recovery - they'll wipe the floor with an old-school socialist like Corbyn.

[Loud Whispers]

So how about that Labour election and Corbyn victory?

Yay! We have a left-wing candidate! Actual labour, rather than Conservativised labour! People will bother to vote for him!

Thankfully not enough, his policies to leave NATO, scrap Trident - even his position on the EU is costing him. Apparently also a russian shill, amongst other things. I love him flaws and alls, he is my shill too, don't see what the great big fuss is about the guy. Doesn't seem all that bad besides crippling naivety. His Corbynomics could work, shame I disagree on just about everything else as I'd like to like the guy. I think most of Britain would feel the same way.

Well, I'll be brief anyways. See, the main thing that's causing a confusion, at least on my part and with your posts, is more or less semantics. Namely the usage of term "progressivism". When I think of "progressivism" I equal this with being a rational human being. My naive thinking, perhaps? So when you were branding people supporting the ISIS as progressives... yeah, this just doesn't make sense to me.

Left-wing socialists with a keen edge for social justice that literally describe themselves proudly as progressive. What would you call them? Quacks like a duck, labelled a duck, looks like a duck, tastes like duck, is actually a duck - I'll call it a duck. Call it what you want. Not a bad song either. Rational means rational, progressive means progressive.

Hey, I'm a simple man, to me someone conducting a systematic rape&pillage&enslavement can't really be an "alternative to western colonialism" or what was that thing? Then again, it's new to me that people would actually, publicly and en masse support Daesh or even just giving them the benefit of a doubt. Must be your (local?) thing? Anyways, if people like that are calling themselves progressives... please put your leg in their faces for me next time you meet them. If you yourself call them that, well, this is the point where I'd start to argue with you. But I do not see any point, and while we also seems to disagree on other points (your vision of future Europe seems a lot more grim than even my most pessimistic one, for example), we do seem to agree on others and stuff Nick K said was also cleared up so I'll just call it a day here.

My local thing? If it was localized and not spread around Europe I'd be much less concerned. If I put a leg in all their faces I'd be left with no legs. I also do not see how my vision of future Europe is all that grim; my ideal hopes see national democracy and sovereignty restored, German hegemony broken, immigrant crisis over, prosperity of a Europe together in trade but not in power, and the UK departing grim Frankfurt for sunny Colombo. Even my grimmest, grimmest view of Europe's future is not the end of Europe; it will be the end of Europe as we know it, but not the end of Europe. Even the most Daily Mail-esque scenario of political Islam becoming the dominant force in Europe wouldn't change much except the colour of politics and architecture; and when all the old Europeans are dead no one will care about whose streets used to belong to who and business will thrive along the new silk road. Short of some civil war, I think I'd find Islamic Western Europe hilarious fun; the call to prayer 5 times a day would get grating but if needs be salam alaikum new overlords

With X that big, you are either a space-time breaking entity or sentient London.

Or I like walking on two axes, the vector kind not the painful kind

That term is a weird misnomer, anyway – what's so damn progressive about vouching for bog-standard mainstream ideas like human rights?

1. Not everyone agrees on what human rights entail or who they should protect; for example we cannot make any of our ISIS fighters stateless as that would violate their human rights or we cannot keep Adebolajo in solitary even after he keeps converting more prisoners to Sunni Islam.
2. Depends how you go about fighting for human rights too, since especially in Europe progressivism = EU

IIRC, the Conservative actually lost votes at the last elections, compared to the previous one.

Despite possibly losing millions of votes to UKIP the Tories still had a net gain in votes