Politically Centre Left But Can't Bear Them

Someone described politics to me as being a bit like public transport. Very free people live right outside a station and have a train that takes them exactly where they want to go. Most hand to get the one that goes generally in the right direction and walk a bit to get the final bit. I am GC and was most comfortable politically during the coalition era, i think the Liberals are barking and more left wing than Davey portrays, and the Tories have gone too far right for me in places. Would love the boats stopped to neutralise Farage and maybe bring Tories back a bit more central.

Profoundly and utterly agree.

The 'they'? good question. The formless mass of the anonymous social media crowd it seems. The trouble with it is that then that bleeds into the 'real' media. If your sources are based on a people making a point in only a few bullet points then of course you are only going to get the extreme points of view. I have noticed that reporting that come from eg MN posts is considerably more nuanced and I wonder if that is simply thst people write in long form here and explain their position more redily.

Its much easier and more impactful to say 'you should be kind to everyone' then 'its actually a really complicated issue that we should discuss in detail' the latter invites questions and doesnt provide an in-built easy answer.

It remind me of religeous apologetics, 'Well if there is no God where did everything come from?' The argument from one side is quick and easy, you could put it on a bumper sticker or bill board. The answer is...well... long and complicated and we are still working on it. The easy answer is seldom the correct one (regardless of the existance of god).

Your point is absuloutly correct about the value of an in-person conversation. I do think that these conversations would be far less polorised if people wern't safe behind their keyboards and actually had to conform to normal social manners like being polite and being unable to run away/ignore inconvenient questions.

Ironically I don't engage much in these in-person conversations because I fear my own 'side' disagreeing with me, im conflict avoidant anyway and Im in a super liberal university town. My own sister is borderline a TRA and shes not the kind of person who you can have nuanced debate with at the best of times. For the sake of family harmony and not ruining christmas I avoid the topic. One day I might crack though!

She looked super twitchy when my BIL and I were discussing buying Harry Potter wands last time he visited but BIL is a 23yo gay lad from abroad and obvously some self awareness actually kicked in!

I saw some live footage of a protest recently where there was a really golden moment with two people from opposing sides suddenly realising what they had in common. Unfortunately, one of the people was visibly freaked out that he could suddenly see the other point of view. The other guy seemed quite pleased about it.

There's an old Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin's world suddenly turns neo-Cubist. He's been arguing with his dad, realises dad has a point, and suddenly finds that he can see the other side of everything. He's so freaked out by it that he has to struggle to eliminate all but one perspective.

FWIW, I have plenty of robust disagreements with my right wing friends, and we never let it get in the way of our friendships. With my remaining left wing friends I still find myself checking what I say before I say it, because people who I've known for years and supported during hard times have cut me dead because I don't 100% align with the tribe. Make of that what you will.

Actually I think the old categories of left and right have got so scrambled over recent decades that they aren't a useful guide any more. Christopher Lasch prophesied all of this.

Abstaining from voting is as good as voting for the opposing party in a close election so whilst you may consider yourself a social democrat you would be effectively supporting right wing politics which has taken a very decisive white nationalistic turn not just because it's what they believe but to exploit fears about immigration to win power.

It's in their interests to stir up racial animus by falsely blaming immigrants for loss of culture & the UK's economic woes. That's not to say concerns about immigration sustainability & process aren't legitimate but that's not what these people are about which is a willingness to trade economic suicide if it means less brown faces. They either don't understand the economic necessity for immigrants or don't care & that is a very dangerous trade off for them making all the right noises about a cause whose grievance is with 1% of the population that has no real impact on reducing sexual violence.

@Cerialkiller but who is throwing you out of the team?

I do understand what you mean in principle. I'm just asking because sometimes people feel this way after having discussions online and I wonder if those discussions would go better if they were with real people.

Someone else has expressed that exact problem to me and she was talking about it in generational terms. But she's working with young people and I can see how that would happen in a college or something, but I would hope not so much after that kind of age group.

I saw some live footage of a protest recently where there was a really golden moment with two people from opposing sides suddenly realising what they had in common. Unfortunately, one of the people was visibly freaked out that he could suddenly see the other point of view. The other guy seemed quite pleased about it.

It was really strange to watch in real time - seeing the agreement happen and then seeing somebody so unnerved by it that they wanted to walk away from it

But I really hope that they both went home and realised how much they had in common.

A lot of the division that's coming from social media trends is makingthe centre ground look empty - but I don't think it is empty.

Also, in real life, I think a lot of us will stay silent in debates. I joke with my mum about being called far right but I'd not really have a political discussion with many other people. So many people come preloaded with various ideas now. That's my experience anyway.

I suggest voting for your best local MP, rather than by party. Most of the parties have people in them who are better and those who are worse (from whatever viewpoints one has). And if there's nobody, consider standing yourself.

Politics is always compromise, always disappointing, always shifting. There's lots more.to it than just voting, too.

I think democracy is everybody's business, responsibility, and privilege.

Haha. It's a stupid thought. I think if it happened it would all hopefully end up in the national trust or similar so wouldn't be built on. Preferable to being owned by generations of a single family who may have profited off colonisation/slavery etc.

That's the thing. If you removed the royal family then reasonably then you should remove ALL titles, the dukes and counts and what have you. Then do you let them keep 'their' land. It's
legally their's after all? Can they keep one house? One acre?

It's complicated is the point. It's easy as a stupid teenager to say to remove the monarchy without realising the potential repercussions. Perhaps is IS worth it who knows. Perhaps not. Presumably some would resist, then what? The guillotine?

Exactly.

None of them are any better than the others.

OP, pick one or two issues that are really important to you and vote on that.

Yes it's interesting. I've have been watching a lot more right wing/center content personally as those are the people who aligned with me more on this one issue. Obviously these are not the extreme or religious right but I'm often surprised about how close the two sides are on many issues. Often it's just disagreement on where the lines are drawn.

I blame American politics mostly for how partisan things are now. The world has imported it now especially the English speaking world as so much of online discord is dominated by American voices.

There is little nuanced opinion anymore, just teams. If you deviate from your 'teams' position on a single position then you can't be in the team anymore. I hate it. It's so anti- intellectual. People are so easy to offend now, you can't just disagree with each other without it getting personal. I fall victim to this too and have had to pull myself out of a reactionary mindset. Self awareness is so important.

stately home gardens knocked down to turn into council flats.
@Cerialkiller

What size property would qualify were this to be put into effect?

I'm GC, I can't make my decision to vote on one subject. Labour have been shite on this but I think they're getting better, not least Wes Streeting. There's no way I'll vote for right wing parties just because they might say some things that sound GC.
Right wing parties are saying we should leave the ECHR, which quite frankly is ridiculous, especially as we decided quite a lot of it.

Threads is more gentle than X. Lots of people left when Elon musk was being very him ..

@Cerialkiller that was really interesting, thank you

I'm noticing a few people on these boards who have found that the talk on these issues has made them reassess other ideas.

I think the left we have in the UK is a false left.

Certainly Labour are not interested in things like improving the living conditions of the working class, improving public services, tackling solvency issues in pension funds, fighting the epidemic of violence against women, actively working against gender stereotyping, tackling the pollution of our natural resources, funding decent public transport outside of London, or reforming the tax system to reduce the tax burden on income from work and increase tax on wealth.

As a lifelong leftie, I look forward to a party that can offer progressive policies for the 21st century.

No neither. It's a keto reference (and a favourite book reference)

I'm not offended at all.
It's a difficult question to answer. I grew up in a labour voting house, one of my early memories is labour's 97 landslide and how happy my dad was. Probably as a result of this came the Tories= bad thing. It was never overt, we weren't a very political family and I was never very interested. Because of the timing, most of my childhood and young adult life we were under Blair and I had a the impression that we were a progressive liberal country. It was a bit of a shock when it went back to the conservatives and more or less stayed there since.

I still mostly disagree with UK right politics. I suspect if we had had a strong charismatic leader with some actual opinions on the left I might feel better about them. I'm shallow yes.

It isn't lost on me that the so-called liberal party has consistently elected white men while the so-called conservatives have elected several people who aren't!

I do just think this is part of growing up. Liberalism is in a lot of ways Idealism. You start to realise that things are more complicated then that.

One example. I used to be massively against the royals/aristocracy. I still think it's a stupid system but I've come to the conclusion that abolishing it all could have a lot of bad effects that we couldn't control. Buckingham palace and stately home gardens knocked down to turn into council flats (I know extreme example) While that would be great for people who need new homes I do feel we would lose something. I wouldn't trust a government to safeguard these things, we don't have anything better though do we? Perhaps it's just middle age setting in!

After working in local authorities, the idea of a benign dictator seems kind of appealing 🤣

Thank you for reading my incoherent ramblings.

@Cerialkiller "now 'woke' causes are now not a default agreement from me."

concerns me slightly when anybody goes for a default agreement. Can I ask why that was the way for things for you in the past?

I'm not trying to start an argument - I'm just curious about this approach

BTW, your username makes me wonder if I know you (long-standing joke with a US school friend, so it's only a possibility if you finished school about 30 years ago and are American)

I would say that I'm generally liberal but I think the whole GI issue has made me look at my own 'side' with new eyes and now 'woke' causes are now not a default agreement from me.

Wouldn't say I'm right wing now but I'm certainly more open to the arguments and perspectives. This bizarre issue has weakened the lefts positions to such an extent that it's disillusioned so many if us. I'm now so sceptical of everyone.

I don't trust the intentions of the right, they've jumped on the GI issue as it's can easy win for them but I'm not convinced that they genuinely give a shit about it beyond weaponizing if for gain. I just a bit disgusted with the left for being so bloody weak! Wtf do I vote for!!

@GenderCriticalParent how about

When there's an election, look at the manifestos - for whatever that's worth - and if you feel the need to vote then do

Don't worry about who's right and left and centre, these labels are usually wrong. I see it as being the horseshoe shape concept. Anyway, it doesn't really matter to me where I am on the horseshoe.

I hope you're not working with a massively out of date idea, seen some weird posts lately that haven't accounted for massive changes in politics in recent years

IMHO left right is mainly an economic thing

Pure free market capitalism > FMC with a small safety net > Social Democratic Capitalism with a proper safety net > communism

IMHO labour and tories have both been right or centre right FMC with a small safety net for decades (but, illogically, with some big loopholes that could be used to prove the safety net is far too big).

Separate to economics we have the democracy to authoritarianism spectrum, and the puritanical > conservative > progressive spectrum.

I am beginning to realize that as well as being a social democratic capitalist to the left of labour I am also as interested in democracy, freedom of speech and progressive (not regressive woke) policies.

I suspect that most of the main UK parties have things to offer me and things to despise. The closest thing I have ever had to a natural home is probably 20 years ago when the lib dems were a bit more left wing and not utterly insane

Right-left party politics are becoming nonsense. Which is great, because it’s senseless. The only issue is that the dying throes appear to be horribly destructive.

Lifelong lefty here. Ive got absolutely no one to vote for as things stand atm.

I think the left and right divide has become less and less relevant.
I know it's convenient to have a side, because it means fewer decisions, you just look up what your side thinks and all is right with the world. But it's become far more fractured than that.

examples to back my theory up:
Free speech is now a right wing position.
Being Green is the last thing on the mind of the Green Party.
The left are against racism unless it's anti-semitism, in which case they can't get enough of it.
The racist misogynist Tories now have a black woman as their leader.
No one is sure if they are pro or anti war any more because it's so fractured it's not clear if any side is pro or anti war.
Lefty women standing up for women's rights are dinosaurs hoarding rights like eggs according to the deputy PM of the UK.
Only women have cervixes is a tgerrible thing to say according to PM of the UK, only I think he changed his mind a bit on that after it turned out to be really unpopular. Polsters decide what he believes on a daily basis.
Farage is on track to be Supreme Leader and Dictator for Life according to the polls and every other party is shitting the bed on continuous loop trying to salvage anything.
Evil Orange Man Bad Tiny Hands just got a possible end to the death in the middle east, but he's still a very bad man. Maybe death is good?
Rapist is a gender from the party of WHITE! WHITE! WHITE! and that is pro women and anti-racist.

The whole rotten pile is fucked. We can no longer rely on left or right and now have to judge each issue on its merits.