In thinking that Left = Good and Right = Bad has gone too far?

[WilmaFlintstone1]

A few things have made me pause in the last few days and I realised I have become increasingly irritated by the Left vs Right discourse,

Take the recent spat between Lee Anderson and Jack Monroe. Now neither of them covered themselves in glory but I don’t think demonising him because he is Tory and praising Jack because she is a Lefty is right. They both have deep flaws and neither is getting it right.

The Margaret Thatcher statue is another thing. Why are people pelting it with eggs? Firstly in a country where there are food shortages it’s immoral to be doing this. Secondly I am not getting the wholesale glee with which certain commentators are reporting it. The very woke lot being all “hey, people are selling eggs by the statue” to wholesale amusement. I just keep thinking “FFS get over yourselves.”

Now I hated Margaret Thatcher BUT she was the first female PM which was in itself a massive step forwards. I am not about to go pelting her statue with eggs, yes I’d rather the investment has been put into local services in that community but pelting a statue with eggs won’t change that.

Its become as though some people will pass any behaviour because it’s Lefties sticking it to the Right.

For removal of all speculation I’d probably consider myself a Lefty and they tend to get my vote…for what that’s worth in my heavily Blue area

isn’t it possible that there are deep flaws both sides?

Yeah I agree. I don’t see why we can’t have some standards in political discussion too and actually discuss the issues instead of attacking the other side too.

I’d love an explanation of why there is equal guilt between Lee Anderson and Jack Monroe.

Totally agree and I wasn't keen on Mrs thatcher , but she was one of our PMs and part of history too. To egg statues is just childish.
I know that people won't agree with me or you op, but it is shameful what goes on and all the division around everything

I think the right could do something good and then we’d not have the opinion that right = bad.

Anything. Anything good. We are all waiting. Maybe start with the starving children in the 6th richest country in the world but I’m open to literally ANYTHING good.

'Left = good'? Lol at that. What newspapers do you read? Loony lefty liberal handwringers have been vilified for decades.

I think it's mad. A lot of the statements are used to shut down conversation.
Most people I know are quite central and just lean left or right but it seems that society are now screaming at them they must hate each other as they're probably fascists or uncaring or have any number of repugnant traits.

There was always the extremes on both sides but I think now it's impossible to be centre anything. You've got to pick your team and embrace it all without question or you are considered fake/inauthentic. It's hard to have your own opinion on different subjects without being labelled.

I think the issue with this whole left= good right = bad is that it completely skews polling day.

People are aware of this so when they do vite conservative they decline to answer generally, and then everyone is "surprised" when the election result is called.

It's completely stiffled debate and discussion, because all the conservative voters have gone to ground. So now all you have is the left screaming and everyone else is just silent. So then the left get a name for "being the loudest" but they aren't it's just nobody else is talking.

It depends on your bubble. Politics has become increasingly tribal. Go on some right wing media websites and, of course, there’s vilification of the left on every issue.

I agree that the polarization is undesirable in theory but equally I don’t think I’ve anything good to say about the Conservative politics these days (other than it being effective at winning votes).

There is a lot wrong with what Jack says and she is very economical with the truth when it suits her.

Have a read up about her.

He is no saint but neither is she.

Obviously it’s never that simple, but our right wing government isn’t exactly covering itself in glory at the moment.

What do posters think of Thatcher's role in Hillsborough, do you not think that it totally discredits her? Or the definite plan to put Liverpool in as much poverty as possible?

Do I think there are flaws on both sides? Yup. Definitely. If we had a perfect political party, well that would be great.
However I don’t buy into the “both as bad as each other” stuff either.

I agree it isn't that simple, and I agree that egging statues is childish, but we have an extremely right wing government at the moment and they are asking for vilification with everything they do.

For the longer term I would like to see voting reform to bring the UK proportional representation - that would bring the emergence of new political movements from across the political spectrum with a real chance of representation in Parliament, and hopefully the inevitable succession of coalition governments would bring compromise and take the heat out of the polarised situation we are currently in.

Yes, it would bring extremists into Parliament - but they would be in full public view, which can only be a good thing.

Now I hated Margaret Thatcher BUT she was the first female PM which was in itself a massive step forwards.
Nah, that’s Geri Halliwell feminism. “Woman = good!” She doesn’t deserve a statue but since there is one, it gets pelted with eggs.

Too far left or right is a bad thing. I wouldn't welcome either the Trump administration or the Chinese.

Brits have a nice way of tolerating politicians for only so long and then kicking them out when they get too mad. It's why we've never really had a revolution.

IMO you're not wrong OP but the whole right = bad, left =good rhetoric has been around for decades to my knowledge and probably much longer. Does anyone remember Ben Alton berating 'Thatch' in the 1980s ?

I think what has changed is the emphasis placed on the political divide fuelled by social media. Over the last few years especially, this has been picked up by the print/online media who want clicks by seemingly sowing division. For what purpose I'm not completely sure, but at rock bottom it's probably just money based I expect.

Right wing governments have been in power for years. Most of the press is right wing. I don't think we have to worry yet about them being oppressed.

Now I hated Margaret Thatcher BUT she was the first female PM which was in itself a massive step.

Im not sure it was a step forward. She didn’t exactly promote and support women. Villified single mothers for a start. She was one of those women who yank the ladder up behind her to stop any other woman getting on it.

Most people are 'centrists' - if Left and Right were a Venn diagram, there would be a lot of overlap

They have hearts, compassion and empathy.

They see the decline in education, society, health and the economy and feel it keenly.

However, at constituency level, political parties are hard to understand, hard to get into and require a lot of dedication, back scratching and suspension of disbelief. To get on in any party, one must support even the most extreme ends of the manifestoes.

We really don’t have an extreme right government, or right wing press. Our main parties are just a little to the left or right of central.

You are barking up the wrong tree if you think MN is some kind of lefty haven OP !
Most of the posters in the thread about Jack Monroe were firmly on the side of that w/c hero Lee Anderson (the one who dumped boulders at the entrance of a travellers site). Loads of MNetters are as anti woke as any daily mail reader nowadays although they all claim to be as lefty as anything, funny that ....

I think the definitions of Left and Right wing have become jumbled. In my mind if you are economically left wing and favour nationalization of industry etc you are left wing, but it seems to have been lumped in with social justice /anti-racism/climate issues. You can be right wing and anti racist, and left wing and racist.
I consider myself left wing but not sure I want to be lumped in with people who are in favour of the free market but will hassle people online for using doing things they deem unethical.

I have no words...

The Tories are not an extreme right government, but they are very, very right wing. The xenophobia, the prorogation of Parliament, the breaking of international law, the plan to ship asylum seekers to Rwanda - all those are very right wing things. Only a true fan of the current Conservatives could say otherwise.

And the majority of our press is also very right wing - all you need to do is compare it to the press elsewhere in Europe. What we don't have, or at least not represented in Parliament under FPTP, is the extreme right or the extreme left. Labour and the Lib Dems are a little bit left. The Tories are very right but not on the scale of the Front Nationale (yet) or the US Republicans (yet). We have no real centrists at present.

Mrs Thatcher said : there's no such thing as public money.
She was right.