The Independent Group for Change | Have decided to disband after ten months

Pogue Mahone said:
Ok, so we're getting on to the standard Corbynite bug-bear and how the press are so mean to poor old Jezza. Well I think the days of the MSM as the primary indicator of public discourse are long gone. Which brings me back to social media...
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You're the one who made the claim that the Overton window has moved equally in both directions, in part by posting a clip from 'the MSM' of someone saying they're a communist. Now the MSM isn't even the primary indicator of public discourse.

NinjaFletch said:
Well, glad you agree.

I think the whole thing is just sad. We both supported Corbyn because of what he represented, but we're at a point now where the only people who still defend him are people who make Trumpian feats of logical contortions to justify why Corbyn is always right, even when he's doing something completely incompatible with why they liked him in the first place.
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Sorry, are logical contortions bad or good? Because it seems like you're comparing me to Donald Trump.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I am. What part of the post you quoted contradicts this stance?
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The world that sees Nigel Farage not only have a radio show but near unlimited access to BBC programming. Same access to BBC programming goes for people who write for say... Spiked magazine like Brendan O'Neill or eugenics enthusiasts like Toby Young or James Delingpole, Trump apologists like Sebastian Gorka, Ann Coulter or Steve Bannon. And that's just on the channel whose output I'm forced to pay for to be able to watch the stuff I prefer.

But, as you say, Ash is literally a communist so all things equal.
 
Dobba said:
Sorry, are logical contortions bad or good? Because it seems like you're comparing me to Donald Trump.
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Well more specifically I was comparing your attitude towards defending Corbyn, and the tactics deployed by you and the dwindling number that still support him, to the tactics of Trump's supporter.

Honestly, I can understand it. I get why you support him (even now) and I get why you are reluctant to demand changes. I suspect you rightly fear that if the Corbyn project failed it would be seen as a rejection of left wing values and a centrist coup would be developed to try and take the party back to the right. But if the price for all that is Brexit facilitated by the (at best) incompetence of the man you've placed all your hopes in then it is so far from a price worth paying.
 
I see that a Labour MP said the group might be being funded by Israel today. Heh.
 
Dobba said:
The world that sees Nigel Farage not only have a radio show but near unlimited access to BBC programming. Same access to BBC programming goes for people who write for say... Spiked magazine like Brendan O'Neill or eugenics enthusiasts like Toby Young or James Delingpole, Trump apologists like Sebastian Gorka, Ann Coulter or Steve Bannon. And that's just on the channel whose output I'm forced to pay for to be able to watch the stuff I prefer.

But, as you say, Ash is literally a communist so all things equal.
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You've missed the point I was making in that post. The Overton window is about public discourse, in all its forms. Even if (and it's a big if) the poltics expressed in MSM has taken a big shift to the right then that still doesn't reflect the entirety of public discourse. I would argue that the vast majority of discussions around politics have moved online, where they're much more likely to happen on some random dude's Facebook page than they are on a platform provided by the BBC.
 
NinjaFletch said:
But if the price for all that is Brexit facilitated by the (at best) incompetence of the man you've placed all your hopes in then it is so far from a price worth paying.
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Sweet. So what's the plan from the People's Vote folks that I should be supporting instead? Brexit magically goes away and then...? What? Because it clearly isn't a general election, they've made that perfectly clear - so instead of 'facilitating something that will harm people', I should be getting behind a campaign filled with MPs who...were happily facilitating austerity that did harm to those people for years before Brexit came along.

This might come as a shock, but I don't look back at May 2016 as halcyon days. It might have been austerity, but it was good old fashioned British MP backed austerity, none of this Euro muck you get nowadays!

Give me literally anything for just the morning after Brexit disappears that that group can agree on and I'd be considerably more willing to back it than I am the utter bollocks its offering now.

Pogue Mahone said:
The Overton window is about public discourse, in all its forms. Even if (and it's a big if) the poltics expressed in MSM has taken a big shift to the right then that still doesn't reflect the entirety of public discourse. I would argue that the vast majority of discussions around politics have moved online, where they're much more likely to happen on some random dude's Facebook page than they are on a platform provided by the BBC.
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Glad you brought that up. So not only do they get more mainstream TV time than their left counterparts, but they get their own share of the online stuff too.
 
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Dobba said:
Glad you brought that up. So not only do they get more mainstream TV time than their left counterparts, but they get their own share of the online stuff too.
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Again. You're missing the point. This isn't about trying to assess what sort of ideas get the most airtime. It's about the range of ideas tolerated in public discourse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
 
Dobba said:
The world that sees Nigel Farage not only have a radio show but near unlimited access to BBC programming. Same access to BBC programming goes for people who write for say... Spiked magazine like Brendan O'Neill or eugenics enthusiasts like Toby Young or James Delingpole, Trump apologists like Sebastian Gorka, Ann Coulter or Steve Bannon. And that's just on the channel whose output I'm forced to pay for to be able to watch the stuff I prefer.

But, as you say, Ash is literally a communist so all things equal.
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Don't forget all those 'think tanks' with shady funding who seem to have free access to BBC programming
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Again. You're missing the point. This isn't about trying to assess what sort of ideas get the most airtime. It's about the range of ideas tolerated in public discourse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
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In that case, the only thing that moves the Overton window narrower is the banning of political parties. It hasn't moved outwards since people had the idea of holding meetings to discuss politics or hobbies, because (if mainstream recognition and time isn't important) it's always been as wide as people's imaginations.
 
Dobba said:
Sweet. So what's the plan from the People's Vote folks that I should be supporting instead? Brexit magically goes away and then...? What? Because it clearly isn't a general election, they've made that perfectly clear - so instead of 'facilitating something that will harm people', I should be getting behind a campaign filled with MPs who...were happily facilitating austerity that did harm to those people for years before Brexit came along.

This might come as a shock, but I don't look back at May 2016 as halcyon days. It might have been austerity, but it was good old fashioned British MP backed austerity, none of this Euro muck you get nowadays!

Give me literally anything for just the morning after Brexit disappears that that group can agree on and I'd be considerably more willing to back it than I am the utter bollocks its offering now.


Glad you brought that up. So not only do they get more mainstream TV time than their left counterparts, but they get their own share of the online stuff too.
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Don't worry Dobba, Derek Hatton's back on the scene.
 
Dobba said:
In that case, the only thing that moves the Overton window narrower is the banning of political parties. It hasn't moved outwards since people had the idea of holding meetings to discuss politics, because it's always as wide as people's imaginations.
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I think it's moved outwards since the advent of social media. Which allows much more diverse opinions to be expressed than was possible when the only content we could consume was via the MSM. Hence (IMHO) the growth of political extremism (to the right and to the left) Obviously, fuelled by people getting increasingly susceptible to the appeal of radical politics for a bunch of different reasons (global macroeconomic crises, technological advances killing off traditional job markets etc etc)

Anyhoo. We've gone on a tangent here. Interesting discussion but I should probably shut up now...
 
Dobba said:
So he's just going to be a member? Blimey, that's a bit anticlimatic isn't it? When you randomly brought him up I thought he was trying to run for office or something.
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I'd say it was too soon even in Jezzers plans to move him up the chain. But I'm sure he'll make some noise.

Wonder how the property development is going.
 
Honest John said:
I'd say it was too soon even in Jezzers plans to move him up the chain. But I'm sure he'll make some noise.

Wonder how the property development is going.
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Who knows, we might be able to hear him over the group of members who keep clamouring for Captain Extraordinary Rendition to return from his gap decade in the States.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Isn't it weird the way "centrist" has almost become a term of abuse? As though we have to hold extreme views, to the right or the left, or not be taken seriously.

Can I blame social media?
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You can blame the performance of the actual self-proclaimed centrists - Blair being the prime example.
 
Dobba said:
Who knows, we might be able to hear him over the group of members who keep clamouring for Captain Extraordinary Rendition to return from his gap decade in the States.
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:lol: The bitterness from the (currently) winning side is unreal.
 
Dobba said:
Who knows, we might be able to hear him over the group of members who keep clamouring for Captain Extraordinary Rendition to return from his gap decade in the States.
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Bigots and hypocrites are not what they used to be.
 
That'sHernandez said:
:lol: The bitterness from the (currently) winning side is unreal.
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Who's bitter? If the Labour Party has room for people who want it led by a guy complicit in torture and covering it up, it's got room for anybody.

Honest John said:
Bigots and hypocrites are not what they used to be.
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Well Angela Smith certainly isn't. Hopefully she slept better last night.
 
That'sHernandez said:
What, like bringing in a national minimum wage and bringing equal rights to the LGBT community?
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No, like this:
Peter Mandelson, the party’s chief strategist: “We are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich as long as they pay their taxes.”

Gordon Brown has admitted he made a "big mistake" over the handling of financial regulation in the run-up to the banking crisis of 2008.

The former prime minister told a US conference he had not realised the "entanglements" of global institutions.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Inquiry

The recession of 2008 and the Iraq War are the defining domestic and foreign events of this century in the west especially, and centrists had a big role in both.
 
Honest John said:
Bigots and hypocrites are not what they used to be.
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True these days it's all about being institutionally antisemitic rather than a bigot
Corbyn has the hypocrisy on lock though... A new kind of politics... Listening to the members well except for when he thinks they are wrong about a second referendum

Quite looking forward to the meltdown in here when he leads labour to a Michael foot level of being raped the ballot box though...
 
sun_tzu said:
True these days it's all about being institutionally antisemitic rather than a bigot
Corbyn has the hypocrisy on lock though... A new kind of politics... Listening to the members well except for when he thinks they are wrong about a second referendum
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Or if they vote no confidence in a Labour MP. Or if they plan on voting for Corbyn at a leadership election (after you ignored their views at the last one and think you know better about who should lead the party) so you can stop them from voting and take them to court.
 
Dobba said:
Sweet. So what's the plan from the People's Vote folks that I should be supporting instead? Brexit magically goes away and then...? What? Because it clearly isn't a general election, they've made that perfectly clear - so instead of 'facilitating something that will harm people', I should be getting behind a campaign filled with MPs who...were happily facilitating austerity that did harm to those people for years before Brexit came along.

This might come as a shock, but I don't look back at May 2016 as halcyon days. It might have been austerity, but it was good old fashioned British MP backed austerity, none of this Euro muck you get nowadays!

Give me literally anything for just the morning after Brexit disappears that that group can agree on and I'd be considerably more willing to back it than I am the utter bollocks its offering now.


Glad you brought that up. So not only do they get more mainstream TV time than their left counterparts, but they get their own share of the online stuff too.
Click to expand...

I'm slightly confused as to why you think these are issues or difficult questions?

You can think austerity is bad, you can think Brexit is bad, you can think some of the people involved with the People's Vote are bad and you can think that the idea of the second referendum is itself bad (personally, I'm not a fan of referendums and think it's a dereliction of duty on the behalf of politicians) whilst also being pragmatic enough to realise that sitting around and doing nothing whilst we wait for May to blow our legs off is even worse.
 
berbatrick said:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Inquiry

The recession of 2008 and the Iraq War are the defining domestic and foreign events of this century in the west especially, and centrists had a big role in both.
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Having a go at centrists for errors in economic policy could be taken a lot more seriously if we hadn’t seen every far left economy ever end up completely bankrupt.
 
Politics has moved in a more left and right direction. But problem is that liberals have had a collective breakdown since 2008 which means the only people offering basic social democratic policies are the socialists and that one commie @Pogue Mahone is scared of.

So we are now at a point where the ideas of John Maynard Keynes give off the fear as that of Marx.
 
NinjaFletch said:
I'm slightly confused as to why you think these are issues or difficult questions?

You can think austerity is bad, you can think Brexit is bad, you can think some of the people involved with the People's Vote are bad and you can think that the idea of the second referendum is itself bad (personally, I'm not a fan of referendums and think it's a dereliction of duty on the behalf of politicians) whilst also being pragmatic enough to realise that sitting around and doing nothing whilst we wait for May to blow our legs off is even worse.
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Yep. So, anything approaching a plan from People's Vote from the day after Brexit goes away? Seriously, I'll take anything at all. Chuka and co cited the Brexit approach as a reason for this new 'not a party', so he must have something for us to rally around.

It's probably not going to be like the end of an episode of Doctor Who where they stop the main bad guy and then everyone affected by them suddenly has amnesia regarding what happened. We've already ticked off 'Not anything in Labour's manifesto' on the plan.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Having a go at centrists for errors in economic policy could be taken a lot more seriously if we hadn’t seen every far left economy ever end up completely bankrupt.
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You seem to be using a definition of far left that is incredibly vague and useless if we are using it to talk about the current Labour party and its policies.
 
Dobba said:
Yep. So, anything approaching a plan from People's Vote from the day after Brexit goes away? Seriously, I'll take anything at all. Chuka and co cited the Brexit approach as a reason for this new 'not a party', so he must have something for us to rally around.

It's probably not going to be like the end of an episode of Doctor Who where they stop the main bad guy and then everyone affected by them suddenly has amnesia regarding what happened. We've already ticked off 'Not anything in Labour's manifesto' on the plan.
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Unicorns or forcing a general election... I mean why not... Corbyn has managed to waffle on about impossibilities in place of a coherent policy... And he's had years to prepare for it so why hold others to a higher standard
 
Dobba said:
Yep. So, anything approaching a plan from People's Vote from the day after Brexit goes away? Seriously, I'll take anything at all. Chuka and co cited the Brexit approach as a reason for this new 'not a party', so he must have something for us to rally around.

It's probably not going to be like the end of an episode of Doctor Who where they stop the main bad guy and then everyone affected by them suddenly has amnesia regarding what happened. We've already ticked off 'Not anything Corbyn' wants.
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I think you seem to be confusing the People's Vote with a political party. The plan is simple. If we vote to Remain then we revoke Article 50 and the unlikely coalition disbands.

Again, I'm not at all sure I can understand why you think that is particularly controversial. Nor can I really understand why you are conflating whether a second referendum is a good idea or not with whether the Independent Group is. Again, you can think that a second referendum is the least bad option without supporting, or even necessarily liking, all of the people involved with it.
 
Shamwow said:
You seem to be using a definition of far left that is incredibly vague and useless if we are using it to talk about the current Labour party and its policies.
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Fair point. It just seems very unscientific (and I know @berbatrick is a scientist) to put the 2008 recession down to “centrist economic policies” without any control group to give us an idea of how things could have turned out differently.
 
NinjaFletch said:
I think you seem to be confusing the People's Vote with a political party. The plan is simple. If we vote to Remain then we revoke Article 50 and the unlikely coalition disbands.

Again, I'm not at all sure I can understand why you think that is particularly controversial. Nor can I really understand why you are conflating whether a second referendum is a good idea or not with whether the Independent Group is. Again, you can think that a second referendum is the least bad option without supporting, or even necessarily liking, all of the people involved with it.
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So the campaigning to Remain at this second referendum will involve detailing absolutely no plans for any political projects beyond the day after Brexit goes away?
And you actually think that might win?
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Fair point. It just seems very unscientific (and I know @berbatrick is a scientist) to put the 2008 recession down to “centrist economic policies” without any control group to give us an idea of how things could have turned out differently.
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I'd be inclined agree with you there, just seems silly to go down the tit for tat route.
 
Dobba said:
So the campaigning to Remain at this second referendum will involve detailing absolutely no plans for any political projects beyond the day after Brexit goes away?
And you actually think that might win?
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And good, you've proved why you're not worth the effort of talking to by taking this conversation back to exactly where it started. Thanks for wasting both our afternoons.

Besides, it's not like there are any recent examples of a referendum being won by a side who didn't present a plan
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Fair point. It just seems very unscientific (and I know @berbatrick is a scientist) to put the 2008 recession down to “centrist economic policies” without any control group to give us an idea of how things could have turned out differently.
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Bank deregulation (which happened through Reagan/Thatcher and then Clinton/Blair) is supposed to have played a role in the crisis. The left opposed that deregulation, but as you say it could well have proposed other bad policies, I don't know.
I'm just replying to "why is centrist used as an abuse" not why the left is better, and the legacy of 2008 is part of the reason.
 
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