UK and Europe World • Page 18

My response to that is really that there's just a time and a place. Yes, criticism is absolutely necessary, but does it come in as more important than bringing in a Labour government at the moment to you? Based on your claims, I'd assume it isn't but I may be wrong. Criticism can and should be public, absolutely, but it works counteractively during an election time, because the problems being addressed are a million times worse if the conservatives get in, from a Labour perspective- Yes, Dianne Abbott may be doing bad, but what is worse is a Tory government on the whole. It's why you see Conservatives as a united front in this election despite the many flaws their candidates are going through, because they know infighting damages them even worse than the criticisms themselves.
The reason I mentioned public forum rather than internet forum is specifically because I think this thread should be a safe space to criticise. As you pointed out there is a fairly left bias in this thread, so criticism doesn't harm the party here. The point I was making was more about why it's necessary to fetter criticism in public in my view because it ultimately working against the goal that you say you want to reach. It's why the Arsenal analogy doesn't really work for me, because a loss for Wenger doesn't result in a guaranteed 5 year relegation, and also isn't really indicative of the effects voicing this criticism actually has on the support they're trying to gain.
Avoiding the echo chamber is important, of course it is. But if you're doing that to the extent that you're not helping the cause you stand behind, are you really behind the cause at all? You can listen to dissenting views plenty- my twitter feed at this point is as much Telegraph and Times journalists as Guardian ones- but that doesn't negate the damage that these negative opinions can do if we allow them to fester at a crucial time like 2 days out from an election.

 

Yeah, I'm glad Labour are backing the EU referendum as it was a fair democratic vote (even based on "leave" lies) and it's best to get negotiations underway. Maybe Corbyn was the best pick at the time, but that wasn't saying much. Early polls still showed just how much turmoil Labour would be in. Just using J.K. Rowling as a simple but popular influencer with similar ideals:

But then with his campaign, he has rallied my support. Whether that means I was initially wrong to doubt him or it means he was inspired to step up his game, I'm pleased either way.

Cheers. I checked it out and I'll look up the topic some more. Some useful information though (ie international welfare states).

Well, she seems to never know her figures for a starter. But rather than admit that mistake, she always has a tendency to pretend she knows about the topic too. Like, with this new interview, does it really come across like she's read the anti-terror report? So why is she seemingly pretending she has? Is it not problematic that the potential Home Secretary hasn't read it? Now she constantly she seems to be forging 'illnesses' to avoid said debates. How is that a competent leader for her role? People ridiculise Theresa May for avoiding debates, why not Abbott too? A lot of her criticism is justified. Any racist trolling obviously isn't.

Then what's the point in campaigns? We can't just give them all a shot at government to see who does the best? Campaigns allow us to forsee the candidates capability at handling the role. Abbott consistently gets figures wrong, comes across as a liar that pretends to know the topic (ie constant guesstimates) and is missing debates. You also don't know if it hasn't had much effect because there's several factors at play for these votes. I can easily find messages/comments from people saying she's swayed their votes but even then I cannot verify if that's true. Regardless, she's at a top level, so she needs to conduct herself better. This is mistake-after-mistake. It's like a sports-player scoring own goals constantly. If you're a professional, that's not okay. If she can turn this around, then all the power to her. But constantly missing debates cos of "illness" isn't doing her any favours.

For starters, it's a nice balance to a thread that otherwise feels too biased to sometimes support. But foremost, I think the criticism [not the racist bs] is justified. I want her to step up and stop embarrassing my party. I will call out anyone in Labour who does that. If Corbyn was performing poorly (like before) I'd be saying a lot worse about him as he's the head of our party. I don't support any of the racist remarks. Nothing about her criticism should be about that. But she's not getting my support out of pity when she's in an important role that CAN influence votes which determine my future. I take anger in people representing the party badly. Don't worry about me criticising Theresa May, David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Philip Hammond, Amber Rudd, or any other Tories MPs because that goes without saying (in here).

As a person, sure. I have had to defend him a lot of times from the whole IRA support jibes, but I feel most of that is just the Tories intentionally trying to smear someone who they know is fundamentally just an overzealous peace campaigner who ultimately has good intentions for everyone. But a great person isn't always an electable one. But yeah, I agree that and the end of your comment. Hopefully, Jeremy continues to shine. This is their best chance. Labour has been the opposition party for 7+ years and can fight against all the cuts, plus May has half-arsed this campaign. Labour should be nailing this comeback.[/QUOTE]

 

Yeah, I have argued that same thing several times. It was a more devil's advocate comment, but I am slightly concerned about of the consequences. If I remember correctly, some of the most popular tax havens would be Ireland, Switzerland, Austria, etc. It also helped saved Ireland financially. Something about more tax receipts. Plus, other countries like the U.S. are going to reduce theirs down to 15% to also help compete. But take that with a pinch of salt, this is all of the top of my head from debates and I'm too tired to look it up again, lol. Thanks for the quote too.

But yeah, I do think I agree more with hiking it back up to 26% (which is still -2% less than it was in 2010). Too many times people factor the consequences of taxing the rich but have little concerns for the welfare of the disabled when their benefits were cut, or potential student applications when they were hiking tuition fees, etc. etc.

Do you have thoughts on the minimum wage rise, however? Does that mean corporations will employ less and hike up prices to save profits?

 

I saw an interesting argument around the minimum wage yesterday that similar arguments were used when the minimum wage was introduced full stop. It was basically coming to the point that if a small business cannot afford to pay its employees a rather marginal increase relatively (it's looking to increase from £7.50 now to £10 in 2020, where inflation makes the value of that less anyway) then they shouldn't be a business full stop. If that makes a difference to the profit margins so significantly that a small business would struggle, then that business is failing whether or not the minimum wage goes up.

 

I'll be honest: I think J.K. Rowling is terrible. I mean, she's a neoliberal billionaire, it's pretty obvious why she doesn't like a politician like Corbyn. Also, she's a Blair apologist who regularly criticised Corbyn to her millions of young followers. Since Labour have been doing well in the polls, however, she's been silent. It would've been helpful to have her encouraging the millions of people who follow her to vote Labour, but clearly a Corbyn-led Labour government doesn't suit her. Shows you how much she really cares about helping ordinary people.

I personally think quizzing politicians on numbers is a worthless exercise. Imagine all the different figures politicians have to engage with on a daily basis, it's impossible to remember them all. Abbott's interview a few weeks ago was very disappointing, and she should have been prepared for that specific question, however I don't think that incident alone indicates that she would be incompetent as home secretary. Look at her background: she was the only black British student from a state school when she attended Cambridge University; her time in the shadow cabinet under Ed Miliband; and now her status as Corbyn’s closest political ally. Also, as I said earlier, she has an almost identical voting record to Corbyn. As far as politicians go, she is very good.

The "quizzing" style of questioning doesn't happen only to Abbott, but she definitely receives the most abuse for tripping up in such situations.

Also, I definitely think she has read the anti-terror report. Did Sky News inform her beforehand that they would be discussing the details of the report during the interview? I doubt it. They're just trying to catch her out. Imagine the number of reports that cross her desk every week. As I said before, it's impossible to retain that level of information at all times.

I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens on Thursday, but at the end of the day, Labour have polled at 40% during this election. Also, to close the gap so dramatically in such a short period of time is unprecedented as far as I'm aware. All of the accusations of "unelectability" that have been thrown at Corbyn over the last two years have been proven to be nonsensical. Imagine if the myth of Corbyn's supposed unelectability hadn't been circulated constantly for the last two years, maybe we'd be even higher in the polls.

 

But if someone seems inept to handle an important role in government, should that really be supported? Regardless of who's side you're on, does that not seem disastrous? I'm a Labour supporter but I'm not loyally bound to them by name. If this wasn't such a two-horse race, I'd consider third-party options more. I've voted Labour in previous elections and will again for this election because I want the Tories out. My father's a Tory but my mother's an avid Labour campaigner. So I hear both sides a lot. Frankly, I support the idea of a majority government switching back and forth as creating some balance. Because only then you can measure a party on the success of their actual record and not empty promises made in their manifestos.

But yeah, fair point with the Arsenal analogy. But ultimately, if someone was arguing about Abbott, then I could potentially agree and they'd find that I can argue rationally with them, therefore encouraging healthy debate. That's where I can then challenge their ideas. I'm tired of there being a silent majority voting things like Brexit/conservatives and that's because people can't find common ground to debate. If my only points on Labour were to address Abbott's failings, then I'd agree with that sentiment that it's damaging. But for every negative remark of Corbyn/Abbott, I can say about a dozen more on Theresa May alone.

 

Yeah, people are saying Yougov has it completely wrong but the reality is if it's outside of their 95% probability ranges nobody is ever going to fund them again. It's literally everyone there's jobs on the line. It means too much to them as people to be wildly over/under-predict results, no matter what their biases are. If we see a tory result of over 342 or a Labour result under 230 then Yougov will cease to exist by the next election. It's as simple as that.

 

Four million married couples could pay income tax if Labour wins the election, Tories say

'Up to four million married couples could pay higher income tax if Labour wins Thursday's general election, the Tories claimed today. The small print of Labour's manifesto shows four million couples face paying higher income tax, through Jeremy Corbyn's plans to scrap the Marriage Allowance. The Marriage Allowance, which was introduced by Theresa May’s predecessor David Cameron, allows someone to transfer £1,150 of their tax-free personal allowance to a partner.

This is worth up to £230 a year for families – and is available only to people earning less than the higher rate of income tax. Labour’s funding document, which it published alongside the party’s manifesto, says that the party backed “scrapping the married persons’ tax allowance”. The Tories said the cut would hit working couples because it is only paid to couples where the higher earner is on less than £45,000 a year.'

 

I'm definitely not an expert haha, but I think raising the minimum wage is a good thing because then people will spend more money, businesses will therefore make more money, higher tax revenues then come in, etc etc. I don't see any reason why they would employ less people. Since 2010/11, when the economic recovery supposedly began, in-work poverty has increased by 1.1 million people. A total of 7.4 million people, including 2.6 million children, are in poverty despite being in a working family, according to this report. If raising the minimum wage, offering free school meals, etc can take some of the pressure off of families like this, I think it can only be a good thing for our economy, especially if it leads to a rise in productivity, a rise in living standards and a reduction in the reliance on benefits.

 

It's been interesting to see them really emphasis the probability ranges this time. Usually that's there in the small print but this time they want everyone to be clear. Before you'd only really here the poll data and this will mean roughly around X number of seats.

 

No, it shouldn't, and if that's how you feel then absolutely you should be supporting that. But if you don't see a better alternative on offer (i.e. you don't think Amber Rudd is good either), I'm not sure dissenting really solves that issue rather than undermines the party as a whole. Onlookers don't see it in the 'why don't we have better' way that you mean it, they see it as signs that the party isn't functioning as a whole.

I think this is where the issue comes in. It sounds like your primary goal is not to elect a Labour government but for the removal of the conservatives, so the question becomes reframed: Does criticism of Labour ultimately benefit that goal at this point? Providing a running commentary on what's happening is absolutely fine, but when you align that commentary to so-called party beliefs it makes it appear to onlookers as if that's the discourse that's taking place inside the party. To a certain extent I agree with you on the switching back and forth because it forces the government of the day to ultimately tune itself to the electorate more accurately, which should be the main goal of government.

Can't really argue with you showing one criticism out of many others of the opposing party honestly provided the criticisms are proportionate. I'm not sure about finding common ground on criticisms of one thing as a means of promoting more positive ideas elsewhere though, to me it feels like the effect of that is more one of appeasement than anything else, and I just can't see that resulting in anything other than enforcing in their minds that some toxic nuances to their arguments are widely agreed with. Using the Abbott argument again, even if you know that you aren't arguing against it on the basis of race or anything, to others that are critical they might see that as an opportunity to go open season on her and it almost legitimises that mindset. I'm not sure if I've explained myself well enough on this point, do you see where I'm getting at though?

 

Yeah, definitely! I think it's because it protects them just as much as commentators. I don't know if it should, but in this case it's making me feel much more confident about their results than other predictions that aren't offering ranges.

 

Is this actually real? Or has someone photoshopped that in? lol

 

Photo shopped I think, it looks like the text moving is ever so slightly out from the placard movement in general haha

 

Take into consideration that large businesses are making super profits. This is what they're trying to maintain. As such, when it comes to paying a minimum wage, the concern isn't about their ability to make profits. It's just to make enormous profits. As for small businesses, well, I think they tend to be reactionary, but there are things such as control of rents and land speculation that would cut down significantly on their expenditures.

 

Clive Lewis is absolutely fantastic. If pessimism in this election is indeed relative to the truth, I honestly think he'd be the best progression from Corbyn.

 

This is a bummer

 

This sucks

 

This is so, so scary. How people can see this and think voting Conservative is a good idea is beyond me. I'd be up most of the night for the election anyway, but now I don't think I'd be able to sleep for fear of the result.

 

Sadly this is what I've been expecting all along.

 

What do people think about this kind of video aiming to get people to vote?



Whilst it's funny, engaging and makes a good point, I feel as though this kind of 'you must get out and vote' statements appeal to a certain demographic. Yes, all my university educated friends will be sharing this post and saying things like 'I can't believe 47% of young people can't be bothered to vote - you can make a difference' but there are many different people with different experiences. Growing up in a post-mining poor community helped me to realise this. There's a reason a lot of people don't vote in those communities and that's because politics is so far removed from them.

I'm desperate to see politicians spend time talking and (more importantly) listening to these people. I was hoping the Brexit vote (the first vote where people could express their discontent with establishment and the disconnection) would lead to the major parties taking time to get alongside and listen and understand but I honestly haven't seen anything close to that from any of the major three parties.

A few thoughts from me - would be interested to hear what other people think.