ok lefties....does that mean I'm not then?

[Heathcliffscathy]

because alongside social justice I really really really care about civil liberties? because they are not 'liberties schmiberties' to me, but rather, 'there but for the grace go I'? Do you think that really leftwing stalwarts like Roy Hattersley would agree with you that civil liberties didn't count for shit compared with keeping unemployment down at all costs, however fake the stats are in real terms?

because although I believe in state intervention, in the state as a mechanism of a drive to redistribution of wealth and drive to granting opportunity to all i ALSO believe fervently in the individual, in empowering individuals to make their own destinies.

I am so fucking disheartened by the tribalism, pettiness and bloodymindedness that I've been reading on the leftie thread.

New Labour wasn't really socialist at all, rode roughshod over the rights of (the most vulnerable) individuals, decreased social mobility in this country. they needed a kick up the arse and got one. they need to reinvent and regroup and godknows they won't if David Milliband gets the leadership.

Maybe, even as a leftie you can see that to continue to attempt to spend our way out of trouble is fucked...we're in much worse trouble than we would otherwise be (and we'd be in deep shit anyway) because of this ostrich like way of governing.

coalition govt is so humanising of politicians: they can't strut about declaring how it needs to be, they just don't have the mandate...collaborative govt if that's what we have a chance of is so hopeful.

party politics is killing this country, I hope for it's swift demise. No one is all right or all wrong are they?

So stay in your red bunker, spitting on anything new, decrying and ranting about doom befalling before anything has fucking happened...but count me out for now.

sophable it's about respect. You can think they are all wrong, but you should still treat them with respect.

"In the meantime the labour party can get back to what it used to be about before all this 'new labour' bollocks."

So you must be delighted that gordon Brown has gone then? after all this is a former PM who brought back mandelson and campbell (basically the faces of new lab) and singularly failed to deliver anything that anyone seems to be able to cite that makes him some kind of antidote to new labour.

claig i think i can strongly disrespect some of their views and I do. doesn't mean I disrespect them.

I totally disrespect an attitude that civil liberties are a side issue/low on the priorities list/unimportant.

I couldn't disrespect it more.

lenin, they weren't sympathetic to mine so i started a new (apologies for ranty) thread.

if you read back through all my posts on those threads, I was dismayed and frustrated from the very start...I did not find a hub of left minded individuals, I found new labour supporters, calling themselves labour supporters, in mourning and asking me to put aside the issue of the iraq war (!)

so i left! if you read the title of this thread, it says it all: if that is leftie, then I'm not one!

I agree with you about civil liberties sophable, but some of the language in the OP was a bit disrespectful, as Stewie quoted "tribalism, pettiness and bloodymindedness". They don't all think that civil liberties is irrelevant and even the ones who do, only thionk that because they are unaware of the real issues, not because of bloodymindedness.

claig with all due respect, you're not being very respectful by being so patronising (oh, they just DON'T UNDERSTAND!). at least i assume a level of intelligence that means that they do!

ok put it this way lenin...would you agree that most of the posts on that thread were mourning labour losing the election? I am left wing and I didn't. does that make it any clearer?

claig - It think some do!

sophable - seriously, you can have that discussion re. New Labour. I, for one, would be up for it. But you have to take the heat out of it.

I don't think it's patronising. If you explained it to them, they would see things they weren't aware of. I know that you are a green. I think I know lots about greens that you are not aware of, but I don't think you are bloodyminded, petty or tribalistic.

why animula? i'm very hot under the collar about it!

Your main point (I think) is about the fact that we don't all go YAY! about the Con-LIb civil-liberties policy offer and look the other way about everything else.

And about the fact that I said that - of all the things I care about - that offer is pretty low on my list of things to assuage my terror of a Tory govt. It's - to be frank - precisely what I would expect for a first announcement.

Surely it's important to allow people to SCREAM their disappointment, if necessary. Just as you have been allowed to (fairly aggressively) state your contempt for the outgoing govt.

Could we not have dealt with this on the thread?

onebat, agreed, and if i'd had the bollocks to take the flak (more of it) as i had been all along on that thread, I would have. i would have got a fuck load of flak tho, and i bottled it over here. and then got loads and loads more flak for doing so!

so it's been a good day.

[i HATE arguing with you by the way]

can we bring fox hunting onto this thread too.

please.

fuck off strangelybrown. go and bother some gordon lovers why don't you?

And - totally simply - if you LOATHED the outgoing Labour govt as you profess, then your presence on a thread which is clearly going to be populated by many Labour supporters is really a bit odd/unpleasant/aggressive

Only if we're hunting Liam

it was a leftie thread wasn't it? i soon found out that it wasn't...that it was a new labour thread!

Ach, just seen your last post, Soph. I'm retiring on that basis, and will see you all shortly.

By last I meant that of Thu 13-May-10 22:58:38