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?

(could have done with a bit of punctuation there)
So:
There is no “landlord class” though.

I disagree. Not everyone...

Brefugee Presumably you only want a left wing dictatorship, not a right wing one

Presumtious of you. Personally? I am sometimes described as to the left of Trotsky. But that is by people who have no understanding of what he wrote. I believe fervently in social democracy, i (like Tony Blair before me) have no issue with rich people. I have no issue with businesses (like Marx before me) I do have a massive issue with private ownership of essential services (from water to transport to housing) and i do not believe that a monopoly (natural ones, usually) is a bad thing as long as there are checks and balances.

I believe in a free press and freedom of speech, universal socialised health care and so on.

I'm not Pinochet nor am i Pol Pot. But you go on and presume away.

So, so agree, OP. I'm interested in politics (and pretty knowledgable...sorry for boast!). I'm old enough to have a long perspective on UK politics from the 60s onwards.

BUT! I'm not party-political. How an intelligent person can really throw in their lot completely with one party baffles me. All the mainstream parties have something to offer. I don't engage now with anyone (except close family) in any political discussions because I'm completely sick of and bored by the 'left-wing= good, right-wing= bad' narrative. What I wouldn't dispute is that left-wing = chic, socially acceptable and fashionable, and that's the problem really.

When my children asked me about the 2 main parties in their teens I tried really hard to be scrupulously fair (impossible, I know) and this is how I summarised the difference between say, Labour and Conservative:

The Labour Party believes in more government spending on social provision and therefore higher taxation. They support state ownership of utiilities and generally more intervention.

The Conservative Party believes in less government spending on social and other provision and therefore lower taxation. They tend to want to reduce the intervention of the state in peoples' lives and promote free enterprise.

I did point out that both these approaches have their advantages and their drawbacks to citizens and that's where the democratic choice comes in. I think it's a fair summary and that there is no need for anyone to start frothing at the mouth about their political beliefs, or to insult other people who don't agree with them in this country. We are not North Korea or Nazi Germany, despite what some people believe. Under both the Tories and Labour we are a liberal democracy...sorry - but it's true.

I don't remember the vitriol either from the population or politicians themselves in my youth. That's a new thing. It used to be a feature of say, members of the Socialist Worker Party or National Front, but mainstream politics was much more courteous and civilised.

Me too!

Or starving the miners?

I don’t think many people would make such a facile argument. Saying right is bad because you dislike some people on the right doesn’t logically follow.

Many of them are Labour, too. The Conservatives, as you seem to have failed to notice, have made life much more difficult for landlords with recent changes in legislation and taxation. One example is that private landlords can no longer use the interest paid in their mortgages to offset the income from rent.

So no, it’s not tenable to claim that there is a “landlord class” or that the Conservatives have somehow been working to support landlords while they have been in power.

Read the thread about her then. Melissa (to use her real name) has rightly come in for very heavy criticism about her claims, actions, and stories, while her supporters seem to be happy to make up lies about Lee Anderson.

One fact that people seem determined to overlook is that she is from a rich family, was never actually unable to get by, and that he is an ex coal miner who grew up in a poor working class area.

So no, it’s not tenable to claim that there is a “landlord class” or that the Conservatives have somehow been working to support landlords while they have been in power.

But they are working hard to support landlords by the very simple expediency of not building social housing. Frankly landlords on the Labour benches is outrageous but then the Labour party now isn't the labour party that was set up to give the working classes a voice.

(side note while we're talking about Labour and the Munroe/Anderson convo is going on here too: he was a scab miner back in the day. He had a fucking brass neck to sit as a labour MP in the first place, IMO)

Centrist politics would probably suit the UK better. However, you can't simply cut benefits to the absolute minimum and make it exceedingly difficult to get them a) suddenly after 70 or so years of a welfare state (benefits not huge) and b) there are no jobs for people to go to.

The capitalist society that the further right-wing members of the Conservatives would like to see (Rees-Mogg and so on) depends hugely on a fairly large number of unemployed who will take the low-status low-waged exploitative jobs if their current incumbents can no longer do them (or move out of them somehow). Otherwise they can't have a low-corporation-tax culture where the most profits go to shareholders (company owners).

From where I'm looking Labour seem to be aspiring more and more towards this too.

It's not about wealth - overall the UK is lovely and wealthy - it is about inequality and the gap between the haves and the have-nots. It is about a society where someone like Toby Young cocks up his A-levels but gets into Oxford because daddy called a pal there. It is about a society where those who benefitted from a free (at the point of use) university education drew up the ladder behind them. Where social housing is sold off and not replaced. Where if you can afford it, your healthcare is great but if you can't you have to wait and wait and wait for service from an ever increasingly pressured NHS. And yes, there are ways around all these things that don't involve going to the extremes of Neo-con capitalism or out and out communism or a North Korean type dictatorship.

Unfortunately, there is no consensus in the UK. The FPTP system entrenches one or other party into power and it is difficult to have balance for their most extreme policies. Other countries aren't perfect, but the FPTP system is the biggest hurdle, i think, in the ability to tackle inequality.

I don’t believe that for one moment. Not only is there a Morrisons two minutes walk from that statue but Grantham is grim and run down, there’s no way even the most dedicated egg thrower there would contemplate spending a tenner on an egg. I know someone who lives there and asked him if he was the egg thrower when I read the story.

There have been decent, upstanding Tory politicians in the past but Thatcher wasn’t one of them. She destroyed entire communities, ruined UK industry, sowed the seeds of our current housing problems, privatised everything in sight to its detriment and was as misogynist as any man. The damage she did this country is appalling.

Some people I know who are 'right wing' are also the ones who give a lot to charity/volunteer. They believe that the community/family should do more rather than rely on the government. I can kinda see that but I think UK society is too fragmented & people are too individualistic for that to happen.

I couldn't agree more about FPTP - it prevents a broad spectrum of political parties from blossoming and distorts elections.

I agree that putting more financial constraints on landlords in the way the Tories have doesn't help - but that doesn't alter the fact that the Tories voted en masse against legislation forcing landlords to provide housing that is fit for purpose. Two wrongs do not make a right. My DC live in rented accommodation and have been very lucky to have had good landlords who have done their property maintenance well, but the ones who operate in bad faith should be heavily penalised. Housing is a right, not a privilege. Anyone who thinks having a warm, safe roof over your head is some kind of privilege in a country as rich as the UK should be ashamed of themselves.

I completely disagree! The image of feckless parents really isn't invented by the Torys! I have been involved in a local foodbank and I personally know a very high percentage of the people using it. They all have drink or drug issues and openly admit that using the food bank saves their benefit money because absolutely none of them actually work for the drink and drugs. Even those who don't have drug problems happily use it because they can use their money for more fun things. The trouble is the bleeding heart liberal's don't want to hear this and point blank refuse to accept it. This idea that the state should provide everything started with Tony Blair et al and now we have a generation who have grown up expecting everything handed to them on a plate.

They believe that the community/family should do more rather than rely on the government.

This is a problem for so many reasons. It's a cliché but it would take us back to the Victorian notions of "deserving" and "undeserving" poor. People who need that kind of help shouldn't have to rely on a load of people with disposable cash deciding that, "why yes, you can eat this week Cratchitt family." dispensing largesse like Lord and Lady Bountiful.

There is a lot to be said for a Universal Basic Income. There is a lot to be said for a low tax burden. Each has their good points. But do we really want to take either of these ideas to the extreme? Where does public provision start and end? Roads? Schools? Fire service? do we really want to fervently hope that our poorer neighbours, or neighbours with different spending priorities, have taken out fire brigade insurance so that our house doesn't burn down (because we can't afford fire brigade insurance or have other priorities) etc.

And sure, during the winter of discontent and just about the whole of the 70s the unions did have some odd priorities, and they didn't initially support women in the workplace (too busy protecting men in the workplace) but they also did a lot of good. It wasn't all strikes and rubbish piling up in the streets (but that should really have given people a better sense of who the actual key-workers are).

Moderation in all things is also a cliché - but it is true.

They all have drink or drug issues and openly admit that using the food bank saves their benefit money because absolutely none of them actually work for the drink and drugs.

hadn't seen this when i hit post. JFC. You do know that addiction is more about mental health? and that taking away the benefits directly harms any dependents these people may have? Those hoiked up judgy pants must be really painful sometimes.

And before someone says it: no. I don't want to infantalise people, but i don't want to starve their kids either. I want drug addicts and other addicts and people with other mental health issues to know that they can be helped and supported. And good help and support isn't chucking 3 days worth of baked beans at them now and again and job done.

Thank you for your anecdata. My experience is the opposite, so maybe you should Google the Trussell Trust and look at their data. It isn't a simple picture.

And there's also the complete absence of services for addiction in the UK. Treat the addiction, sort the problem - but of course it's easier to stand aside and just judge people.

That is a capitalist society where you are encouraged to work hard , improve yourself and your standard of living. A socialist society will drag you down to the lowest level. Remember back in the early 70s when the labour government decided that state Grammar schools should be abolished?.
Great idea, now everyone can have a crap education!!

@Georgeskitchen or there's the option of social democracy of the kind they have in places like Germany and Scandinavian countries. High taxes, high benefits, excellent schools and healthcare, far better pensions than the UK and less inequality.

This idea that the state should provide everything started with Tony Blair et al and now we have a generation who have grown up expecting everything handed to them on a plate

Blair’s a capitalist. We didn’t have food banks in his day because we didn’t need them. Put the blame where it belongs - ten years of austerity and rising child poverty have caused the awful mess we’re in now. I hope you’re lying about your involvement with a food bank @bloodyplanes because you shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near vulnerable people.

@Blossomtoes nope sorry im not lying, sorry to disappoint you. Why shouldn't i be allowed near a foodbank? Im only reporting facts often told to me by the users themselves! Blair made it far more comfortable to live on benefits and introduced more of them. I don't begrudge anyone who falls on hard times and needs help, i do however begrudge those who see it as a lifestyle choice and never ever attempt to better their situation. I myself have been a single parent on benefits.

Blair did not make it more comfortable to live on benefits. Quite the reverse, the first act of his government in 1997 was to cut single parent benefits. If you’ve lived on benefits as a single parent it should have given you a bit more empathy, it certainly did that for me after my experience in the 70s.

Well thats not the way I remember it, i was a single parent suddenly having money thrown at me left right and centre! No expectations to get a job as soon as the kids were at school ( like there is now) I could have stayed living comfortably on benefits. I didn't want to set that example for my kids so I didn't. As for addiction being mental health problems I completely agree, however making it easier for them to live that lifestyle really doesn't help the situation.

Brefugee
(side note while we're talking about Labour and the Munroe/Anderson convo is going on here too: he was a scab miner back in the day. He had a fucking brass neck to sit as a labour MP in the first place, IMO)

Seems unlikely he was scab miner - Anderson says he started working 'down the pits' in 1986 - the miners' strike was 1984 -1985. Anderson was born in January 1967, so just turned 18 when the strike ended in March 1985.

bloodyplanes you can't have it both ways. If addiction is a mental illness, or is (as is usually the case) comorbid to mental illness, then it's hardly a lifestyle choice, is it? I mean, it isn't as if working is magically going to make the mental illness/addiction go away, even if a person is capable of working.

Also life under Tony Blair was very different - we hadn't had 12 years of austerity with council funding being slashed, we didn't have inflation at eyewatering rates not seen for 40 years, we didn't have Brexit stifling international trade, especially for small businesses of the kind that people on benefits might have wanted to start up. The world is very different now - it's much tougher.

Totally agree. I'm far too old to believe in goodies and baddies.