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?

I think it is worse that in times of rising food and energy prices so much money was wasted on the ridiculous statue in the first place. Dont support throwing eggs and the like but the installation of that particular statue at this oarticular time is pretty tone deaf.

Thatcher trashed whole communities and made life much, much harder than it needed to be for lots of people. I don't care what happens to her statue.

I am far right in my political leanings and I would never ever vote Labour but I am finished with the Conservative party as they are only just slightly better than the Labour Party nowadays and I regard both parties as both being detrimental for the U.K.

Yes to be fair that comment makes me laugh

And yes I do see that people are angry and frustrated,

Labour and the Lib Dems are a little bit left

At the last GE factions of the Labour Party, supported by their then leader supported a limit on personal lifetime inheritance of about 275k.

I'd call that a lot more than a little bit left.

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

This is a remarkable thing to say. I don't even know where to start with it. In short yabu.

I'm not sure how Jack Monroe is as equally culpable for poverty in this country as a tory MP whose party politics have caused the poverty.
That's why he's vilified for making the comments on how to eat for 30p - and why she shouldn't be!

JM is criticised as she's dared to point out how shit life can be sometimes for people who are poor and can't get out of that situation. Even though she's managed to improve things for herself.

The Left are generally held up to higher standards. See kier starmers one bottle of beer and a curry compared to about 15 parties in Downing Street and both being treated as if they are as bad as each other!
But some far left are as bad as far right. Antisemitism is rife in the far left.

I don’t know that the current iteration of the Conservative Party is more right wing than it’s predecessors in respect of, say, economics. What they have done (and it must be said, with a great deal of success) is shift from traditional right wing politics towards right-wing populism.

Right wing politics in the UK (and the US) are more about fighting culture wars than anything else these days (stoked or amplified by the press). That’s not to say the left does not engage in similar, particularly at the grassroots level, but it’s generally not driven by party leadership and the left wing elements of the press in the same way.

A good example of the shift is how the Tories used to cast themselves as the party of law and order…but now we have a PM who repeatedly broke the law and misled parliament. Johnson would not have survived an affair like Partygate if it happened 10 or 20 years ago and, while it did look for a moment like the press might turn on him, that quickly turned to aggressively pushing tribalist narratives about how the whole affair was actually somehow the fault of the left.

Personally I think

Extreme Left and extreme Right = Bad

and

People who can't respect or tolerate different opinions = Bad

To get a full picture you will have to read up on the history of the last 40/50 years. Anyone old enough to remember the 1979 election when Mrs Thatcher won. Remember the stranglehold the unions had on the country: the winter of discontent . Mrs Thatcher gave ordinary people the chance to own shares etc, to get on the property ladder . She created a lot of wealth. That was the good stuff, obviously bad stuff as well
Go back and revisit Jeremy Corbyns policies if you want to know the reason why there was such a landslide to the tories in the 2019 election!!

YABU and I say this as someone who used to lean to the right. I can’t believe how deluded I was.

Have we learned nothing from the inappropriateness of erecting statues to honour controversial people? It's inexcusable as Thatcher was a controversial figure during her lifetime, not with the benefit of hindsight. The money wasted could have been put to doing some good, making something useful or setting up a scheme to benefit people.
I imagine Thatcher will be hit with more than eggs as time goes on.

Yes, I know what you mean. I grew up in Brighton, where it was absolutely unthinkable to vote Tory (or tell anyone that you did). Perhaps there were people in Hove who sometimes did. Being told that "All Tories are evil scum" / "I've never kissed a Tory!" doesn't actually win over voters - it just makes them keep quiet.

The far right and the far left are as toxic as each other - they really are.

Most people sit some where in the middle and are shocked at both extreme sides.

Well I am.

Far right - 'You just need to work harder to feed your kids'
Far left - 'Be kind or I'll stab ya!'

This with bells on! Someone voted them in!

Same with Brexit. The loudest and most angry just assume that everyone feels like them.

until polling day tells a very different story and people are bewildered...

How does Jack have deep flaws?

I agree with this in part.

People expect the Tories to pull shit and it IS in large over looked.

Starmer got his arse kicked because he went on about how bad Boris was and why he should leave. Then it turns out he had done similar so he has got to fall on his sword.

No one said he should leave - he put that out there. No one is expecting Boris to leave either. If he goes - I hope he takes Raynor too.

Im not arsed if he goes to be honest - but I would love it if Raynor went. In fact I would really consider going back to labour if she went

I agree with OP. My politics has always been middle ground and I've oscillates between Conservative and Labour my whole life. I also feel that at the moment people think there's only ever one good decision to make. Yes, Maggie was controversial but most good leaders are. They have loads of difficult decisions to make all the time. The completely hopeless ones are the ones that never stick with a decision and never see anything through. Once a PM is in, they stop being interested in popularity and have to do what they think is right for the country.

Nobody on the far side of anything is particularly good. They care more about the fight than the issue. For some it feels a coin toss which side they ended up on.

Its all very clowns to the left of me jokers to the right….

Illustrating my point exactly. It was no where near similar behaviour.

KS had already been cleared once by the police for the meal in Durham.

Downing Street partied in full lockdown when people were dying alone and couldn't go to funerals. Several times they partied and gathered during the times there were restrictions.

KS ate a meal at the end of days election campaigning a year later which was allowed. Which I'm sure tories did too after campaigning days - they just weren't being stalked by a right winger with s camera.

KS has said he'll go if fined. BJ has been fined and gone nowhere.

Higher standards always required from the left.

The fact you've given a real and widely held view as an example for the right and an exaggeration for the left kinda contradicts your point that they're as bad as each

I’m absolutely left leaning but I have at least three friends who are extremely left wing. I find their treatment of anyone who even slightly disagrees with them as distasteful and downright nasty.

The fact the OP added that she is left leaning (and felt fine about doing so) speaks volumes. I rarely if ever see "I'm right leaning btw" on posts.

Very few people admit to being a Tory. That is because they are rightly ashamed of it. (And admitting to it on an anonymous site doesn't count).

Many people admit to/ boast about being left wing. That is because many of us enjoy virtue signalling, but at least being left wing is a virtue.