X201
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Post by X201 on Mar 21, 2024 17:53:24 GMT
Are we discussing Owen "I'm not guilty of work place bullying even though an independent investigator said my tweets were offensive, intimidating and insulting and that I was unprofessional and had breached Guardian guidelines" Jones?
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X201
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Post by X201 on Mar 21, 2024 17:54:20 GMT
Best new page ever 😀
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zephro
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Post by zephro on Mar 21, 2024 18:50:38 GMT
He's always struck me as someone who likes to throw out insults but can barely take a second of light piss taking, due to taking himself so incredibly seriously. Actually I have the same opinion of Corbyn having personally done some light piss taking with him as a random ice breaker.
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Post by Jambowayoh on Mar 21, 2024 20:23:48 GMT
He's always struck me as someone who likes to throw out insults but can barely take a second of light piss taking, due to taking himself so incredibly seriously. Actually I have the same opinion of Corbyn having personally done some light piss taking with him as a random ice breaker. He is this, top to bottom.
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Post by Danno on Mar 21, 2024 23:00:44 GMT
He's always struck me as someone who likes to throw out insults but can barely take a second of light piss taking, due to taking himself so incredibly seriously. Actually I have the same opinion of Corbyn having personally done some light piss taking with him as a random ice breaker. Oh, one of those snowflakes I've heard about?
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Post by stuz359 on Mar 21, 2024 23:01:08 GMT
However, if you actually listen to the content of what he says as to why he left the Labour Party, it's kind of hard to disagree with him.
I don't even like Owen Jones, but on the points he makes in this instance, even if he makes some of them in a student politics kind of vibe, he's not wrong.
I have no faith in Labour to provide a transformative agenda to fundamentally change the country, none. Through their actions or their words, they have given me nothing. Even the stuff that I could get on board with, they've rowed back on or abandoned entirely.
I fear they will have a massive majority after the next election and choose to do nothing of note with it. Danger is, that let's the Tories back a lot sooner than I would like.
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Post by simple on Mar 22, 2024 0:44:22 GMT
I guess having time to think and editors on hand with some guidance can count for a lot but I really liked Chavs and Establishment when I read them. Book Owen and Column Owen have quite different characters though. And Social Media Owen is even further out.
He still makes some good points along the way but over the last few years the obsession with internal party politicking seems to have driven him a bit loopy. Certainly being linked with a rumoured Clive Lewis leadership coup against Corbyn appeared to be a huge turning point for him. Maybe if he’s out of the party now he’ll go back to writing about society and politics more broadly.
It probably doesn’t help his brain that once Laurie Penny disappeared he was the only voice in the media from that side of the left for a long stretch so had to have opinions on everything all the time. Probably from Cameron’s resignation until Novara started getting its people on tv more regularly post-brexit.
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Post by puddleduck on Mar 22, 2024 1:09:54 GMT
For me, I can't really look past the fact that regardless of views, it's also a job for someone like Owen Jones.
Reality is, they need to generate the kind of content that keeps them relevant in some way. Unfortunately, that means ignoring that Labour are without any doubt the only chance of moving away from the current Tory stranglehold. Sure, I'd love current Labour to be further left, but, the truth is the majority of the country do not. At least, not yet.
It would be idealistic to assume that enough of the country would suddenly jump onto the same side as a proven minority, especially when the funnel of information is controlled to some degree. Idealistic is somewhat respectable, certainly when you mostly agree with the ideals...
I would however, cynically suggest that idealistic is in itself an idealistic view to have of someone else. That actually to circle back round, he knows full well the reality. But to keep himself relevant, he needs to keep finding a way to be someone who's views are wedges within the goldfish bowls he's already swimming in.
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Post by anthonyuk on Mar 22, 2024 3:09:30 GMT
Surely the hard left/socialists understand the majority of the country just isn't ready for such a hard switch to the left.
The most popular papers and news sources have always been right leaning and made sure of it.
Bizarrely though, there still seems to be this perception that the UK is this utopia that everyone else wishes to copy. If it just wasn't for immigrants, muslims and Europe itself holding us back.
I was over in Denmark over the weekend and I was blown away talking to a friend who'd moved there. Very little crime, superb public transport, most areas feeling extremely safe. No gangs of youths hanging about and just a general feeling of decency and respect.
High salaries with high tax pays for their well run health service, which also covers dental work. All education including university is also free. When you want or have to swap careers, everything from pay to accommodation it's offset by the government to allow you to retrain. If you're then unlucky to be out of work, you get 90% of your salary as unemployment benefit for up to 2 years.
Everything about Denmark was so much better than the UK it felt ridiculous at times, but switching a populations whole mindset to anything remotely like what they have, will require baby steps.
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X201
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Post by X201 on Mar 22, 2024 4:57:38 GMT
Surely the hard left/socialists understand No, they don’t. Could have saved yourself a lot of typing.
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Post by manfromdelmonte on Mar 22, 2024 6:09:20 GMT
However, if you actually listen to the content of what he says as to why he left the Labour Party, it's kind of hard to disagree with him. I don't even like Owen Jones, but on the points he makes in this instance, even if he makes some of them in a student politics kind of vibe, he's not wrong. I have no faith in Labour to provide a transformative agenda to fundamentally change the country, none. Through their actions or their words, they have given me nothing. Even the stuff that I could get on board with, they've rowed back on or abandoned entirely. I fear they will have a massive majority after the next election and choose to do nothing of note with it. Danger is, that let's the Tories back a lot sooner than I would like. Ultimately they're talking to more people than you. Not just the electorate either, they're talking to global financial markets and like it, or not. Those guys are neo-libs. They're exaggerating slightly to say the UK finances are the worst since the end of the war, but they are in a state. There's low hanging fruit to be had in just presenting themselves as pragmatic adults, willing to deal with the situation as is, rather than ideologues. There's room to shift the dial on bond yields and the value of Stirling, which will benefit people and free up resources. But it's a softly softly, catchy monkey situation. They know investment will yield growth and feed back into a virtuoso spiral, even the Tories know that. They're not going to not pursue those policies, out of spite.
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Post by Dougs on Mar 22, 2024 6:21:17 GMT
I was going to say, surely you can see why Labour are limited in what they can do - public finances are absolutely fucked. It's going to be like turning a tanker around. And any decent policy they have, is pinched and tweaked. They are far from perfect and some of the stuff coming from Rachel Reeves makes me shudder a bit. But equally things can't continue like this - I just think there's a bit of expectation management going on.
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Rich
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Post by Rich on Mar 22, 2024 6:57:51 GMT
This is very good from Starmer and Cole is just a fucking idiot. Bodes well for any debates. Would like to see Starmer give Sunak this sort of response in PMQs next time he raises this nonsense.
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Vandelay
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Post by Vandelay on Mar 22, 2024 9:08:29 GMT
This is very good from Starmer and Cole is just a fucking idiot. Bodes well for any debates. Would like to see Starmer give Sunak this sort of response in PMQs next time he raises this nonsense. It's proper lowest common denominator accusations that you just know any journalist or politician saying it is going with it despite having full knowledge it is nonsense (well, maybe Sunak is thick enough not to understand). In regards to Labour not being left enough, I think the simple fact of the matter is that the UK is, economically, a right of centre country*. As much as I would love us to move to a more Scandinavian approach, it isn't going to happen any time soon, especially when times are hard, as they are now. *I do believe we are fairly socially liberal though, which is why you won't see cultural war attempts really swinging the needle. People might be a bit squeamish about trans issues, for example, but most people don't really care what others get up to and we don't have the religious element infecting those sort of debates. There is always room for improvement, but compared to other countries, we do pretty well.
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Post by Jambowayoh on Mar 22, 2024 9:20:01 GMT
Yeah, we are very much a conservative country with a small "c". People aren't going to suddenly start changing their views suddenly. Like all things it takes genuine work and struggle to get people on board.
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Post by Whizzo on Mar 22, 2024 9:20:36 GMT
How Harry Cole went from being the teaboy at Guido to being the political editor at The S*n is an object lesson in how people who are completely shit at everything can indeed go far in this country, see also the government of it as well.
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Bongo Heracles
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Post by Bongo Heracles on Mar 22, 2024 9:21:36 GMT
Its hard to decide whether Harry Cole is such a cretin that he would even ask that question or whether he thinks his audience are so fucking dumb they don't understand everyone has a right to legal representation.
(yes, I know, column A, column B)
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Tomo
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Post by Tomo on Mar 22, 2024 9:29:51 GMT
Agree with stuz and Dougs on the Owen Jones piece. If you read it, plenty of it is not unreasonable. For instance, shelving the green policy really sucks. Trouble is that unfortunately Jones' idealism is not the solution for everything at the moment and priority clearly has to be to just get back in power.
I'd not seen that Alistair Campbell video before. Excruciating how amped up and chummy Jones attempts to be.
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Post by manfromdelmonte on Mar 22, 2024 9:39:28 GMT
They've not shelved the green policy though. Just taken having a specific budgetary commitment away to reflect reality and blunt a Tory attack line.
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technoish
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Post by technoish on Mar 22, 2024 9:52:24 GMT
on the lawyer thing, aren't they not allowed to refuse to support somebody unless there is a good reason (which doesn't include "because they are a terrorist")?
He should have also said that to drive it home.
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Post by Jambowayoh on Mar 22, 2024 10:09:27 GMT
on the lawyer thing, aren't they not allowed to refuse to support somebody unless there is a good reason (which doesn't include "because they are a terrorist")? He should have also said that to drive it home. They'd cut that bit out of the Twitter clip. Also I don't think anything he could say would get past the idiotic talking point done in a disingenuous manner.
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Bongo Heracles
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Post by Bongo Heracles on Mar 22, 2024 10:19:41 GMT
You could tell by the way he persisted in reading the list out that he was just looking for sound bites to clip for the socials.
I really don’t know why he would even engage with the dirty bastards, they are never going to engage in good faith.
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Tomo
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Post by Tomo on Mar 22, 2024 10:22:50 GMT
They've not shelved the green policy though. Just taken having a specific budgetary commitment away to reflect reality and blunt a Tory attack line. Do you work in the Labour PR office?! "Taken a commitment away" lol Call it a shelving/U-turn/non-committal. It sucks whatever way you skin it.
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Tomo
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Post by Tomo on Mar 22, 2024 10:23:56 GMT
Hold on. Is that actually something Labour did say?
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Post by Dougs on Mar 22, 2024 10:24:11 GMT
1.5m reasons I guess.
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Vandelay
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Post by Vandelay on Mar 22, 2024 10:29:19 GMT
They've not shelved the green policy though. Just taken having a specific budgetary commitment away to reflect reality and blunt a Tory attack line. Do you work in the Labour PR office?! "Taken a commitment away" lol Call it a shelving/U-turn/non-committal. It sucks whatever way you skin it. But he is right... They will still have a large commitment to green policies in their manifesto. They just aren't committing to the £28 billion investment. Yeah, it is a bit shitty, but they should never have put a number on it in the first place. It is also a lot more being offered on green policies then the otherside.
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Post by Jambowayoh on Mar 22, 2024 10:35:00 GMT
You could tell by the way he persisted in reading the list out that he was just looking for sound bites to clip for the socials. I really don’t know why he would even engage with the dirty bastards, they are never going to engage in good faith. I could almost see the title for the clip. "Cole destroys Woke luvvie terrorist lover Starmer".
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Post by manfromdelmonte on Mar 22, 2024 12:08:37 GMT
They've not shelved the green policy though. Just taken having a specific budgetary commitment away to reflect reality and blunt a Tory attack line. Do you work in the Labour PR office?! "Taken a commitment away" lol Call it a shelving/U-turn/non-committal. It sucks whatever way you skin it. On the contrary, I'm more than happy to criticise Starmer for champing at the bit to wade in on flag shagger nonsense like this www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68632034But if your first example of Owen Jones being right, is something which is at best misleading, then I'm going to feel the need to point it out. They'll do some green investment. As much as they can get away with fiscally. Because not only is it popular with their base, it's a fiscally responsible thing to do and essential in the long term. What's shitty is the level of economic illiteracy amongst the electorate and the mendacious nature of the right wing press and Tory party, which forces Labour into pursuing such an unambitious line. But unfortunately, that's the reality we share.
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mcmonkeyplc
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Post by mcmonkeyplc on Mar 22, 2024 12:25:07 GMT
Reality seems to be a thing that neither side of the political spectrum seem to understand anymore. The far wings never did but it appears to have spread to the moderate area's too. Fuckwits. A nuclear war will fix all of this.
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zephro
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Post by zephro on Mar 22, 2024 12:46:16 GMT
BBC news alerts sending out the England shirt/flag bullshit to I assume the whole UK is just fucking annoying.
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