To worry about the right wing?

There is no left and right anyway, all parties are practically the same. The right to protest has not been shut down, it was due to the coronation as a matter of security, you could go down with your placards now and start shouting "not my King" no-one would stop you.

If this is your main concern I suggest you give yourself a stern talking to.

This. Right and left are probably old fashioned ways of thinking now. For example DH and I were discussing only this morning how many environmentalists appear to use far right concepts in regard to climate change e.g. white people with 4 kids on iPhones can rail against birth rates and building factories in developing countries where entire villages use less resources. Or you can get lesbians and gays who take issue with trans now whereas back in the day all of those groups would be bucketed seen as ‘left wing’ causes. It’s not so clear cut these days.

@SoTired12 im quoting myself above as you seem to have got it into your head you need to tell me about the left. I invite you to analyse the Tory right wing government policies. They’ve been in power for 13 long fucking years and they are the ones shutting down the right to protest.

I agree with PP that rather than getting bogged down in left and right we should debate the diminishing rights. But that wouldn’t make such a good thread title, would it?

You are worried about the wrong thing. We should be concerned about authoritarianism not matter which direction it is coming from. Current agendas around identity and environment are regressive but not always seen as such due to being associated with left wing ideologies. Left and right are outdated terms and seem to stop people thinking for themselves.

From my experience it's 'the left' who don't agree with free speech, unless of course it suits them. If you have any opinion/thought that doesn't completely align with the one they've been fed, they will try and shut the conversation down by screaming things like "bigot" "racist" "transphobic" and in some cases would happily have a persons life destroyed for 'wrong think'.

Agreed.

Yep.

Like what?

Seriously?

The far right have never got far in the UK. France or Italy, however...

Not to mention you know where.

Honestly, we're a pretty centrist country.

But that's part of the debate . We have too many so-called vulnerable people who don't provide for themselves . The left will give whatever they want whereas the right want a level of social responsibility and are to a degree the main tax payers so want a say in where their taxes go .
I think things have gone too far for any party to be satisfied.

The Tory Party aren't right wing? My goodness I wonder what will happen to their diversity once they out of power?

@SoTired12 Jesus fucking wept.

If the Tories were right wing then we wouldn't have the most ethnically diverse cabinet we have now, nor the level of immigration we have. We also wouldn't have/celebrate things like black history month/pride.

”appropriate precautions” being rounding up people and gagging them? Do you know who else did this prior to visits? Some of the EE dictators. They admitted to hospital people with schizophrenia, known political dissidents, homeless people. All “just in case”. So yeah, not a path I thought we’d go down in this country. BTW those were left wing governments. Now this Tory right wing government is doing the same.

@ILikePizzas heh? I can argue whatever I want. The Tories are right wing. They are shutting down protest. What’s your problem with me pointing this out? I don’t care how they are on a global scale. I live in the UK and I care about my life and rights here.

I think that there are good social and cultural anchors in this country that keep most of the country oscillating in the center. At the moment, those people aren't well represented by the noisiest commentators on either side.

I do think there has been push back in response to the social - progressivists and when people look for an alternative voice, the ones waiting in the wings are bolder conservative voices. But people aren't passive sponges - they listen and evaluate opinions against their everyday lives. I think our common sense values about fairness, truthfulness and compassion exist even when the 'knowledge class' have lost their fucking minds.

I note these concerns suddenly seem to those on the right after it seems clear there will be a Labour government and the regressive agenda of the last five years, whooped on and encouraged in the mostly right wing press with Brexit, insulting our neighbours, cod racism in Home Secretaries, bullying civil servants and declaring the BBC as effective enemy, just might be waking up to the idea that this "vampires in charge of the blood bank" style of politics is not too pleasant if you don't agree.

I dare say it is. But since there's a right wing government that destroyed most of the conventions and rules to stop real abuse of power, you are going to have a left wing government that will enjoy power like this just as much. And on the way out, the Conservatives will try and reform the civil service to politicize it.

Wow, it's like they never thought they would lose. Yea, it will be a very nasty time to be a Conservative, and you can thank your own people for removing the boundaries in the last five years.

You are focussing on arguing what and who is right or left and how much.

It's irrelevant. It's a distraction.

Instead of trying to label a thing and then arguing about the label - just debate the thing.

We can't "go back" because nations across the west are no longer the cohesive entities that they once were. In the modern era we champion individualism and diversity and that means vast attitudinal and cultural gulfs between people occupying the same geographical space. It's the price we pay.

In the US there is occasionally talk of secession both from left and right but it's doubtful that will come to anything and of course it can't apply to us. I believe the polarisation is here to stay and we just need to get used to it and be as gracious as we can to eachother.