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The reason why the left are in the political wilderness is because....

I wonder if the left's obsession with class isn't part of the problem. Many more people are working class than would actually identify with it politically. It may be useful for analysis and but the language is alienating. Key local issues like road safety, transport, greenspace and access to schools are common concerns regardless of class.
 
taffboy gwyrdd said:
I wonder if the left's obsession with class isn't part of the problem. Many more people are working class than would actually identify with it politically. It may be useful for analysis and but the language is alienating. Key local issues like road safety, transport, greenspace and access to schools are common concerns regardless of class.
Click to expand...

No it's not - it's the refusal to admit that class exists. You're going to get a BNP MEP in your seat and you can still say this middle class crap?
 
butchersapron said:
Where did i do that?
Click to expand...

I was asking if you were. It might seem like it.

"Developing an approach that is based on w/c own views on their own self identified needs and self formulated answers to them"

These views are very diverse and, as I said above, often knacker-all to do with class (at least from that individuals POV)
 
butchersapron said:
No it's not - it's the refusal to admit that class exists. You're going to get a BNP MEP in your seat and you can still say this middle class crap?
Click to expand...

Of course I recognise the working class exist, although Thatcher did a good job of convincing lots of them that it didnt.

And fascist support, historically and now, is often found in the lower middle class.
 
taffboy gwyrdd said:
I was asking if you were. It might seem like it.

"Developing an approach that is based on w/c own views on their own self identified needs and self formulated answers to them"

These views are very diverse and, as I said above, often knacker-all to do with class (at least from that individuals POV)
Click to expand...

That's the very opposite.
 
Smurker said:
As someone new to political thinking my first thought is a lack of cohesive policy. The left is too difficult to pin down, it's too fractured. I fully acknowledge that i know less than most on here, yet it seems those that have the most background in their respective fields are the ones that argue the most. From what i have read most questions posed in here decend into personal arguements, everyone speaks and few listen.


What he said!
Click to expand...
 
taffboy gwyrdd said:
I Key local issues like road safety, transport, greenspace and access to schools are common concerns regardless of class.
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You are right, these issues do exist regardless of class - and you could add the fact that the planet itself is being fucked over to that list. However, people's experiences of all these are massively class based. In fact you could go through the list - they are almost perfect examples of issues that play out along class lines.
 
butchersapron said:
What of Blanqui are you referring to that you've read? And why?
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You were the one who made a needlessly big issue out of something which wasn't even one of the more important elements of my argument - evidently it seemed an important enough contextual point at the time for you to make an issue of. So, I dunno - why am I referring to Blanqui?
 
taffboy gwyrdd said:
OK, but I think general talk of "the working class" this and "the working class" that can lead to that homogenisation and alienate the very same working class.
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Just saying that means nothing. There's two empty processes. Or results. Say something, argue why and how this happens or happened. It's meaningless without that.
 
Das Uberdog said:
You were the one who made a needlessly big issue out of something which wasn't even one of the more important elements of my argument - evidently it seemed an important enough contextual point at the time for you to make an issue of. So, I dunno - why am I referring to Blanqui?
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I couldn't care less.
 
lol - tonight's internet activism isn't going all too well for butchers. You can see him fraying at the seams.

1546923312_5d25fc857e.jpg


You should go to bed with some hot choccy. That'd be nice, yeah?
 
Bernie Gunther said:
Because the way the electoral system works...
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Doing a theoretical "what-if"...

...what if there were Proportional Representation and the parties won seats in the following manner:

30% Conservative
29% Labour
20% Lib Dem
7% UKIP/BNP & nationalist parties
7% NI/Scot/Wales parties
7% Green & Socialist parties

There would be various combinations of parties that could attempt to form a government and subsequent elections would see the voters and parties react to the shifted political landscape.

The most likely combinations would be:

29% Labour
20% Lib Dem
7% Green & Socialist parties
3% (half of scottish/irish/welsh)
= 59%

Or:

30% Conservative
20% LibDem
3% (half of UKIP/etc)
3% (half of scottish/irish/welsh)
= 56%

Although arguably a lot of the parties would split up and there would be a of of 'free agents' who would horse-trade votes for various things.

To answer the OP tho' the easiest answer is that radical parties are simply not in step with mainstream of public thinking, which is fairly (small c) conservative. In a PR system they have a role to play but in a first-past-the-post system they are more or less frozen out of things.
 
because the political system has never been anything but a series of concessions by the ruling class to the working class since the creation of parliment and any successes that the left have amount to nothing more than concessions

it's a bit like why charities will never solve africa's problems
 
I reckon it's the electoral system, personally.

To attain critical mass as a new party requires substantial financial and media backing. No way is any party going to get this by proposing to upset the status quo.
 
Citizen66 said:
...?

I have my theories. What's yours?
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They've become too obsessed with minority issues, too cultural relativist, and wanky slogans like "We are all hizbollocks now" don't exactly help.

The left has lost its connection with the working class (of all races) for the sake of promoting rather divisive multiculturalism. IMO.
 
RenegadeDog said:
They've become too obsessed with minority issues, too cultural relativist, and wanky slogans like "We are all hizbollocks now" don't exactly help.

The left has lost its connection with the working class (of all races) for the sake of promoting rather divisive multiculturalism. IMO.
Click to expand...


Labour have gone far more for multicuturalism than the left. They know there's votes in it. With the possible exception of the I/P thing I dont know anyone on "the left" who obssess on those kind of issues.
 
i'm a life long labour supporter and even I think there needs to be a change of government and for hte first time ever don't really give a fck if it's the tories.
 
RenegadeDog said:
They've become too obsessed with minority issues, too cultural relativist, and wanky slogans like "We are all hizbollocks now" don't exactly help.

The left has lost its connection with the working class (of all races) for the sake of promoting rather divisive multiculturalism. IMO.
Click to expand...

what he says.
 
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