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?

So I’m left wing, although I don’t always vote Labour and am in fact a member of another party. I quite like Starmer, but am not sure he’s the right leader to win Labour a GE. I want to flag this just to be open about my personal biases for the sake of facilitating conversation.

To me, it looks unlikely that “beer gate” was a breach of the Covid regulations in place at the time. As someone who often has to work late into the evening/night at the office, including through the pandemic, getting takeout and possibly having a beer with it is pretty typical. I suspect that the meal falls squarely within the exemptions to the rules (for work or political campaigning purposes) that were in place at the time. That said, we don’t have all the evidence that the police do, so there’s definitely a degree of uncertainty.

The narrative that you’re pushing, that is turns out that Starmer had done similar to Boris, is from the right wing press but isn’t really substantiated.

Even the right wing press seem very aware that ‘beergate’ was probably not offside of the rules, which is why they’re already practicing their excuses/narrative in the event that no penalties are issued (“the police are corrupt and favour Starmer, so they were never going to find against him” or “by saying he’d resign if fined, he put too much pressure of the police to make the correct decision” or “no matter whether he’s fined or not, by threatening to resign he has politicized the police, which is worse than beergate in the first place!”)

If Starmer/Labour are exonerated by the police, nobody on the right is going to accept that it’s because no rules were broken. The right wing press have already signalled what the new narrative will be at that time, and sure enough those who consume right wing media will buy in.

On the other hand, if fixed penalty notices are forthcoming, I won’t have any issue saying “well I guess I was wrong, he was hypocritical and needs to go” and I’d be pretty angry at him.

People have always been tribal about politics though. And centrist doesn't mean "meet in the middle". Plus throwing eggs at a Thatcher statue is fine : putting one up is a silly idea.

TOTALLY agree OP. This extreme dichotomy has been going on for far too long, and it’s really not the answer to anything. It’s so blind and short-sighted. There’s no nuance of thought or opinion anymore.

There’s apparently a chap selling eggs next to the Thatcher statue for £10 a go which I imagine she would have thought extremely enterprising.

Well I don't know where nuance will get us tbh. People are angry and scared and they're losing money. A lot of them are if not traumatised by the last couple of years then at a low ebb in terms of emotional energy. Even Actual Martin Lewis is worried about the prospect of civil unrest. We don't need nuance. We need meaningful action from politicians that actively supports working people and protects them from severe economic harm. And we certainly don't need statues of bloody Margaret Thatcher.

I always thought I was left leaning but it turns I'm more right wing these days. I'm against lockdowns and mandates, I like my politicians to know what a woman is and I think there should be less division in society and more integration across cultures. When I express these options, I often get ranted at. To me, it's common sense, but to some, it seems I'm a selfish, hateful right wing bigot who should not express any opinions.
This is why so called centre right and right stay quiet. They're not ashamed of their views, they know there's no point expressing them as people seem to get very emotional and even threaten violence. The 'be kind or I'll stab you' sentiment is prevalent.

If you judge by the old standards I would be a lefty, I come from a pit village, was at Orgreave and blame MrsT for many things. I wouldn't give her the steam off my pee nvm waste an egg on her, if that statue was put up here it would be weighed in within the hour.
I can't get excited about the existence of the statue though not when we've had vultures stripping the country for a decade.
There are things happening today that make me worry where we'll end up.

I am ideologically all other the shop really now that I think about it. An extreme leftrighter if you will.

Fundamental I believe we are all born equal. You and I do not deserve to live a first world life just because the country you were born into pillaged the world centuries before you were born or has an abundance of space and natural resources.

Someone living in Kenya, Iran, Peru or Afghanistan has as much of a right to a decent education, good job, safe home and a fully belly as someone living in America or the United Kingdom. The idea that because "I was born here" somehow grants me ownership or status over another human being is disgusting in my eyes. Even worse when what we think on as "our birth right" have come directly through the exploitation and oppression of those we now look down on.

Similarly, the level of inequality that our capitalist systems have allowed to perpetuate turns my stomach. The wealth some people have acquired and hoard is as obscene as it is reprehensible and what's worse is that this is held as the standard to aspire to in much of the world. (So that's the left)

The planet could provide for us all if we worked as one and shared resources equally, but unfortunately humanity by its very nature selfish, greedy and violent. As things are we are completely incapable of putting our differences aside and working together to better humanity and that will be our downfall. There is a looming ecological catastrophe that will cause resource scarcity unlike anything that has every been seen. Once land, food and fresh water are in short supply globally wars will rage across all continents and that will most likely be how this age comes to an end. This isn't new mind you civilizations have risen and fallen throughout history so no doubt those who remain will build from our ashes (although we've never collapsed global ecosystems before so maybe not).

What's needed imo, is some sort of overlord to shatter current systems through conquest and eradicate all dissent. Only when we loose the concept of national identity and class systems will humanity be able to advance itself further but that's as likely as Jesus popping up on BGT and telling us that actually the one true religion is scientology. (and that's the right)

TL:DR

I think all humans are equal and should be treated as such including access to resources and wealth, but would have no objection to culling billions if that's what it took to enact that vision.

Well it wasn't investigated was it as there were people there that denied they were. It was a bit of a 'no nothing going on here' investigation. Now they are having to re look at it as they have been caught out lying

Boris never said he would leave.
It was Keir that said he would.

I find the lockdown/mandate bit of this post interesting.

Almost every country introduced policies along these lines, regardless of whether they were left or right. Obviously in the UK, it was under the watch of the Conservative Party.

The only European nation that did not lock down (Sweden) had a left wing government.

The level of support for lockdowns was essentially the same among Labour and Conservative voters (YouGov has it around 89% and 87% respectively).

So I guess I’m curious as to how being anti-lockdown/mandate is a particularly right wing position. It certainly wasn’t the position of our right wing government, yet the right does seem to have somehow had its cake and eaten it on this topic.

Far right - 'You just need to work harder to feed your kids'
Is this what majority of people would think far right is? To me it just sounds like common sense.

So I guess I’m curious as to how being anti-lockdown/mandate is a particularly right wing position.
I think this is more of an American thing, MAGA views seems to be very correlated to being anti-mask / anti-lockdown / anti-vax.

Forinborin so you think people who are struggling to feed their kids don't work hard enough?

Extreme left is Communism - so yes left isn’t always good

often the left try to achieve their means through dubious means

so I don’t think people do actually think the left are always good

its probably just that many people dislike the tories

Lee Anderson is a pretty awful person and I have no doubt that what he said about her earning more than BoJo is wrong.

However, she threw the first punch here, see the screenshot which was posted and then dirty deleted a couple of days later. She then cries victim when he responded to her, reposted his video to her 500 000 followers more than once and her followers also reposted making sure it got maximum views.

She has form for instigating pile ons on people, a few weeks ago it was Kevin the tory who said some stupid stuff about food and once her flying monkeys piled on telling him to drink bleach and calling him a cunt and he closed replies she boasted about breaking Kevin.

It's no as simple as tory= bad and JM=good.

😂

You might consider yourself a lefty but your opening post paints a different picture.

It implies the hundreds of thousands of people who are working low paid, often physically
demanding jobs aren’t “working hard”. Do you honestly think cleaners and labourers who are on the bones of their arses scraping by aren’t “working hard”?

But this is the narrative the nasty party shove down your throat, so it’s not your fault for gobbling it dow.

I suspect that I am “right leaning” - more so now that I am middle aged. I become more so whenever anyone says that anyone who doesn’t utterly hate the Tories should rightly be ashamed of themselves.

I don’t want to be in anyone else’s business. If they pay their fair share of taxes and don’t commit crimes (or make a horrific nuisance of themselves in other ways) then I’d like to leave them alone.

If you judge by the old standards I would be a lefty, I come from a pit village, was at Orgreave and blame MrsT for many things. I wouldn't give her the steam off my pee nvm waste an egg on her, if that statue was put up here it would be weighed in within the hour.
I can't get excited about the existence of the statue though not when we've had vultures stripping the country for a decade.
There are things happening today that make me worry where we'll end up

Im not sure she would. DH was born in a pit village in Rotherham. His constituency is part of the blue wall now.

Most sensible, intelligent people end up somewhere in the middle – either mildly conservative or mildly centre-left. On most issues there is something to be said for both.

There are really two kinds of Tory. On the one hand, the moderate, sensible type, who believe in progressive taxation and a welfare state. On the other, the Thatcherites, who wants to slash taxes and leave everything to the market. I intensely dislike the second type. Under Thatcherism, the worst sorts of people thrive and succeed: the greedy, selfish, ruthless and materialistic. It produces a horrible kind of human being.

But I also have little faith in socialism. My vision of pure hell would be some kind of communist state, with everyone living in worker's flats and eating their meals in communal dining rooms (because some prat has decided we must "nurture a sense of community"). I'm an introvert. What I really want is silence, privacy, green fields, a house filled with books and the nearest neighbours at least 200 yards away.

True AitCW people have short memories, Stocksbridge now has it's leisure centre open and looks very swish with the money from central.

Because Jack Monroe seems to have very much bent the truth with regards to her own story and Lee Anderson said some things which were worth saying, were true, and which might help with the solutions which are needed.

People have ignored his own history, accepted her rather fantastical telling of hers, and jumped straight to an over- simplified narrative.

I sort of agree ... but also: not!

So, I'm a lefty, speaking about economics, and also socially liberal/progressive. In that sense, I can get behind quite a lot (not all, and: "it's complicated"!!!) of current leftist thinking.

But I cannot and will not get behind populism and authoritarianism! And this is, indeed, the hill I shall die on if I must!

I'm an expat and have been for going on a decade, so: I've been watching from afar. The first time I felt uneasy was when I saw that video of a stadium full of people chant "oh, Jeremy Corbyn!". It genuinely sent chills down my spine! Because THIS is authoritarianism in its toddlerhood!

More recently, it's been "cancelling" people. Again, I am deeply uncomfortable with it, and I hate it because it has strange vibes of authoritarianism.

None of this makes me any more right-wing or socially Conservative than I used to be. It's just: I am deeply uncomfortable with authoritarian tendencies, including those from my "own" camp.

Before her reforms, I would have been expected to either live and die down a coal mine, or at best to have been a foreman in a factory. The changes she pushed through in Finance allowed me to go from a comprehensive school in a pit village to senior management in a global investment bank.

It seems to me that those who are angry at her closure of the coal mines never think that it’s their own children who would end up working down them, but instead they feel that there is some sort of working-class honour in other people’s children doing it.