To think there is some kind of weird push towards the far right?

[Checkcheckout]

I’m the first to admit that I am not the best informed - I prefer to keep my life stress free and simple as much as possible, and don’t have a TV, don’t read papers, and only listen to the radio when I’m driving (which is quite often). For my own mental health I prefer to live in my own little bubble.

But even with my limited exposure to media, I’ve noticed on Radio 2, both on the news and Jeremy Vine’s show, Reform are being given so much air time considering their paltry amount of MPs, the polls are being discussed regularly even though we’re years from an election. More than once listening to the radio I’ve thought the way they’re talking makes it sound like Reform winning the next election is a done deal, and thought to myself that this is how self fulfilling prophecies happen.

My algorithms on FB are seriously messed up. Despite having never been remotely interested in anything in the least bit right wing, all of a sudden I’m getting endless posts from knuckle dragging ‘patriot’ groups that I don’t even follow, with really horrendous and openly racist comments, thousands of them, which somehow FB are allowing to remain even though any kind of hate speech has always been censored on there. Why are these posts suddenly being allowed and pushed in my face?

Alongside this there seems to be a new story pretty much every day about the latest scandal involving Labour (again reported by the BBC), ok these things aren’t great although compared to the Tories’ rap list from their last spell in government, are fairly small fry really. It seems like there’s an active push for people to rebel away from the left just as the far right are gaining momentum.

Has anyone else noticed this or am I talking shite?

I suppose the poster did refer to walking in front of two men in 'London'.

This is a very sad story :

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c749znnxy9do

Our education system is paid for by taxation and free to all at the point of use, much like the NHS. That makes it a product of socialism and left-wing in nature, doesn’t it?

Given that the right are apparently so much more intelligent than the left, it's astonishing that the left have somehow managed to seize control of the education system. Surely the right could have just outsmarted them in order to take it back?!

No, it's a priority of a developed economy - to have educated citizens.

And that has been understood to be true by both left and right parties for decades.

The left-wing theory is that everyone should have the same access to the same education so everyone has an equal chance to succeed. As a result, we have ended up with the abolition of grammar schools and a hybrid system where the vast majority of the population goes to comprehensives and get a poor education, whereas the left-wingers in government send their kids to private/public schools (looking at you, Diane Abbot)

The right-wing theory is that people should go to schools best for them. This involves the stratification of education, with those demonstrating better ability go to schools with a more rigorous curriculum and those demonstrating a lesser ability would go to a school with a curriculum better suited to their ability.

The end result was that rich kids went to private/public schools, talented working class/middle class children went to grammar schools and everyone else went to other schools. .

Before Labour ordered me to resign, I was booted off their inclusive "listening to members" discussion forum. My crime was suggesting that the electorate had clearly demonstrated what they were most worried about, and [whichever name the Farage Party went by at that time] was hoovering up voter loyalties by addressing these points one by one and pretending to offer solutions.

Labour does, in fact, have longstanding and frequently-discussed policies on all the issues that bother Everyman and his wife; my suggestion was to be much louder and more positive about the fact that the party cares AND has expertise. My thread had only got about 50 posts when I found myself blocked. I was pretty shocked, actually. I hadn't even mentioned lady penises!

That was the Corbyn/Momentum version of Labour. Keir Starmer has been systematically slimming down the blue-hair, straggle-beard contingent, and been endlessly vilified for it. He's right to do this. But I don't know how much power those members still have: quite a bit, I should imagine, as the party needs union support. I sincerely hope he's got a strategy to make space for realistic, level-headed conversation with the people, as difficult as that's going to be while the grown-ups have as many enemies within as outside.

I think there could be a push from people funding it and other ways like Russia trying to cause divisions, however I really hate when people just assume people who don’t vote the way they do are mindlessly being told what to do. People do choose to vote different ways for a variety of reasons.

I think one reason is that a lot of people feel both Labour and tories have let them down so they look for an alternative. If they’re upset about immigration they’ll obviously go to Reform.

But a lot.of.Tories are defecting to Reform so they are just getting a Tory party all.over again.

We have the same problem, but they've all come from London, and want to turn our town into a 24hr night life scene.

They've pushed house prices up so much, locals can no longer buy here.

Bloody Londoners.

😂

Grammar Schools haven’t been abolished… my Daughter sat her 11+ on Saturday and we have a choice of three schools close by (commutable on public transport) and there is no shortage of Private Schools either!

I don’t live in the ‘Shires’ I am within Birmingham Council!

I would add that there are also exceptional schools that are non selective.

That said, there is a brisk housing market locally as people move to my area for the schools! Property prices are high as a result… so I guess that there is selection by income across the country because of the housing market!

The top non selective school is actually a Catholic School that is in Edgbaston (and covers areas like Ladywood) which is considered the second most deprived area in the city.
www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/i-live-one-birminghams-most-29612867.amp

A newspaper isnt social media, and your comment is ableist and a bit fash.

Will you please not say that everyone waving the union flag is far right unless you qualify it by saying exactly what you think ''far right'' means?

It is a label intended to insult and cause conflict in modern times. Forget Oswald Mosely. Stop trying to resurrect the first half of the 20th century, unless you describe exactly what you mean and why.

What do you mean by 'the right' and 'the left'? Who has taken over what?

What is happening now that you do not agree with, as compared to what happened in the past?

Unless you explain what you mean by 'right' I cannot vote one way or the other.

Nobody has taken over anything as far as I'm concerned, but a pp believes that "the left" have somehow captured the education system. I was commenting on that.

The poster in question believes that, if people were only taught proper critical thinking skills - which is apparently being prevented by the left wing people in control of the education system - then we would all be right wing.

I think that's bollocks.

I want to know what people mean by left, right and fascist. There is a voting possibility, but unless I know what the OP means by the words they use, it is futile to vote.

Is it time for mumsnet to ban those words which are really just used to insult, hate and incite? We could have some sensible debating and a better understanding of what people actually want out of life?

TV channel 232 has Parliament debate for as long as Parliament is sitting. I find that more interesting than the radio commentaries.

It is the one place really that you get to know what the views of the different parties are, and the MPs. It isn't just what they say, or even the way they say it or the looks on their faces. It is interesting to see how they sit, how they stand - and how long they stay in their seats before getting fed up and going out.

Well, the terms are widely understood, but only the OP can comment on what she specifically meant by them.

As for banning the terms, no, I don't see why that's necessary. I would rather that they first ban the spreading of disinformation and the open expression of racism. Then perhaps we could start to have more meaningful discussions.

Npw. those working and passengers on ships are told they mustn't say 'man overboard', but 'person overboard' and while they are all falling about laughing, the poor s-- drowns!

I don't think the words are 'largely understood' and thereby lies a big problem.

Both terms were started in the last century. In the Russian Revolution before the great war had ended, the Czar and his family were killed and the revolutionaries took over the country. Their intention was to make all people equal if the wealth was shared out. The problem was that there wasn't enough wealth to share out. Nor were there enough grand palaces to house the peasants and a new kind of poverty took over. No industrialists to give jobs, so people starved. No money to grow crops, so people starved. No fuel, so those that did not starve froze to death. It was supposed to be communism. It turned out to be worse than socialism.

Then came another war - the flu epidemic which killed more than the war did. Then another - the inflation, strikes, followed by the Wall Street crash. Those all led to unrest and Hitler made the most of it and his nazi party took over. Fascism led the way, and all the wickedness that entailed.

They were the extremes. The Marxism of socialism which became worse, and some called far left (of socialism) when they saw what Hitler was doing and the extremes of fascism, he was called far right.

In the middle were countries with a very strong sense of nationalism, the desperate need to stay independent, and Britain was foremost in that. The British fought for their lives under the union flag, the Scottish flag, the English flag and the Welsh dragon. It is what they did, and the French, Dutch, Polish et al fought with Britain to be released from the bondage of fascism.

So what now is far left and far right? Why have we demoralised the living whose forbears died in two world wars and are now likened to Hitler if they salute the union flag?

What is the matter with people who keep dredging up words over a century old in a desperate effort to oppose, insult, denigrade? Is it because they don't have enough vocabulary to explain what they mean, or is it a deliberate attempt to reenact ww2?

I applaud whoever said on the news today that the UN must stop using the word 'genocide' because it is watering down the meaning of the word which was used to describe the horrors of WW2 and fascism.

No one in the democratic west is guilty of being fascist in the meaning of the word 100 years ago. I think the word should be banned.

That poster will clarify.
They are gullible because they want it to be true. A man comes along & weaves a tale of how awful their life is, whether it is or not, & tells them it because of the immigrants which it almost certainly isn't & Bingo! you've got a convert! Don't imagine that the convert will actually examine the story the the man tells them because they won't they'll pad it out with extra stories they find on Xitter & facebook.
I know a few of these guys. They've got solid well paid jobs & have somewhere nice to live, either their own house or social housing. They go on holidays. They've got two car h/holds because their wives/partners have got jobs too. Wtf have they got to be angry about? They don't like black/brown people, end of. The fact that they have absolutely no contact with them outside of the takeaway they buy on the way home or the luckless taxi driver who takes them home from the pub.
It's Refuk's only real policy & these kind of guys cream themselves at the idea that some poor bastard is going to have their miserable lives made even more wretched than they are for their entertainment. They don't think about what Refuk has in mind for public services, health or education & human rights (they're our human rights don't forget) I think a quick look at the shambles that they're making as Councils tells a story too. When it all goes wrong, Refuk will pick on another scapegoat & they'll fall for too because it will confirm their nasty little prejudices.
To those who think they can't be worse than Labour - darling, you know how grim the Tories were, how they lied to you about Brexit? It's the same people telling you the same old nonsense. And they will cause irreparable damage to this country, both it's fabric & it's reputation. At my age, I won't get to see much of it but I hope you all enjoy your Refuk paradise.

The thing that might push me towards the far-right is religion. The US far-right is very conservative Christian, but the UK far-right generally isn't.

I don't want religion in public life. I think Blair started off well as PM then as he became more powerful, he became more religious and got personally close to George W. Bush who was a born-again Christian. They ended up fucking up the whole Middle East because they thought they had the answers. I strongly suspect they believed that God gave them the answers.

Since then I've lived in two countries where Islam is the official religion and seen the good things about it, mostly the focus on community. I've also seen a side to Islam that made me realise it was genuinely as backward, regressive and illogical as its opponents had portrayed it. I was delighted to be able to come back to a country where we could say openly that this was all rubbish ... except that if the Labour government follows their stated policy to introduce a definition of Islamophobia that can be used in a legal context, pretty soon we won't be able to say it's all rubbish.

I went to a Christian school and I'm used to Christian nonsense so it doesn't bother me as much as it used to, and now we have equal marriage and the right to abortion it barely impacts anyone's life. I really do not want to have to pretend to respect Islamic nonsense and the desire of devout Muslims to have everyone live by their rules, and I fear that the far-right are the only bulwark against that.

yes I agree. The media always has an agenda and the media has always been used to manipulate the voting public. Russia has had a long term aim of disrupting stable democratic countries. America is now fairly right wing dominated and it is influencing other countries to become more right wing. Most of the tech media is owned by those mega rich from or in USA so expect to see right wing propaganda. The right wing makes the rich richer and the poor poorer - those in power do not want to distribute their wealth or power - so they support the right. It is always going to be that way due to human nature and the pull of greed and power. The only thing that flexes is to what degree it is right wing vs more liberal or left. The right wing popularist approach is to stir up discontent and blame a particular group for all that folk are unhappy about. It was the same tactic of the nazi's and its the same tactic from Reform / Farage. Its nothing new its an well known tactic - but many just go along with it rather than seeing through it.