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.

I'll now go on the lefty thread and attack them for you Soph...

Really oojimaflip? What was good about it? It seemed bizarrely poor to me.

ooojimaflip, but loads of Tories are now angry at how bad the campaign was, even Lord Ashcroft has been reported as not being happy. Simon Heffer was on TV last night saying that Tories were unhappy and that many of them don't trust Cameron. Cameron let Brown off on so many things. Poor Brown didn't stand a chance with Labour's record on the war etc., even though the Tories were 100% behind it. Brown exited the debates with his pride intact, only a few percentage points behind the others, when it should have been very easy to defeat him easily in the debates.

Yes they are unhappy because they didn't do better and they expected too, mainly on the groundswell of opinion against Labour. So the right wing will say 'Well, we should have been more right wing' showing no awareness of how MUCH they are disliked, and that a lurch to the right would probably have produced worse results.

I don't see how you could go after his War record seeing as the Tories were 100% behind it - I just don't see a way Cameron could have done that. It wouldn't have mattered anyway - as the wiggly lines showed the responses to the debates were almost entirely down to what the audience thought of the speaker rather than what was being said. And I think debating against someone who had been in frontline politics for what, 20 years? might be a bit harder than you think.

Do we know WHAT some Tories are saying that should have been done better, or is this just people whining that they should have a majority because it is their turn?

I've always liked you, Fio.

All the faux-lefties on Mumsnet. "We like the NHS, but just not for w*gs with oil, we like bombing theirs back to the fucking stone age and kicking to their death hotel workers and promoting the man in charge, and rounding up 7000 ethnic Pasthtuns and massacring them, and covering up slush funds from arms dealers to fascist Saudi princes, and putting people under house arrest without evidence or telling them why, and banning demos near parliament, and letting police kill British citizens without conviction and letting the police kill Brazilian citizens without conviction, and using student dissertations as evidence for war (while adding a few choice lines), and picking the man who defended the miliatry at Bloody Sunday to head up an inquiry into our second war, and locking up Muslim boys for possession of offensive audio tapes and saying our schools are being "swamped by immigrants"...yeah we are lefties!"

Maybe he's known all along ...

Nelson Mandela, Joe Slovo, etc they killed people to achieve what they did. The MK were trained in Libya, Russia. They fought with arms to destabilise apartheid. They didn't sign online petitions and wring their hands about how much nurses were getting paid...

Oh cock off, coolfonz. We have a choice of three parties (or making a tiny protest with one of the others). We choose which we think is likely to be the least bad. Of course it doesn't mean we condone everything that happened under Labour. What do you want us to do? Blow up parliament?

Oh I see, you do want us to blow up parliament. As you were.

oh well if you think that's the best that Cameron could have done, then I think there are other Tories who have also been in politics who know that he could have done things better. For example, Cameron could have really challenged Brown on the lack of equipment for the troops, on their conditions, on hospital treatment and many other things that would have got the public on his side. It was not a matter of being right-wing, he should have questioned Brown on Chilcott, probed him much more on FSA regulation, their financial forecasts which were often wrong etc. The experienced politicians could find 100 other things to question him on.

"the wiggly lines showed the responses to the debates were almost entirely down to what the audience thought of the speaker rather than what was being said"

agree with the above but that was because hardly anything of note was actually being said. Clegg was telling us that we were the bosses and demanding a new fair politics, and that was about the level of it.

You aren't left wing. You are right wing. That's all.

All touchy feely bollocks when it concerns your own well being, but fuck that what can you do roll eyes attitude when it is brought to your attention that you aren't lefties...

I say to all Labour voters. Go live in Baghdad, after all you thought what you were doing was right...

Fiofio?? You mean i mean Mandela is a murderer? No, Mandela is a great man, a successful revolutionary, like Ho Chi Minh, Guervara, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness...or a much longer unsuccessful list...

The Labour party aren't fit to s their with a donkey and possibly while off their tits on .

Imo.

OK Coolfonz. Sorry it upsets you that we are using the word "leftie" Doesn't really matter what we call ourselves does it. I agree with you that our lives are built on the suffering and deprivation of others, and that our government has been responsible for some horrific acts. If my not becoming a terrorist in response to that makes me right wing, then fine, I'm right wing.

Coolfonz: I, personally, am very unhappy about the pursuit of political purity, which I think ledges into into Idealism and Utopic thinking. It also leads to never-ending fragmentation (Stuart Home's argument against the anarchist left, I think?). In that thinking, the attainment of th political absolute - a sort of radical openness - can never be achieved/embodied. But it acts as a kind of mystical guide. I love a bit of mysticism, but I'm not sure I'd like to found all my political engagement upon it.

On the other hand, the tendency to see politics only ever as what is embodied, rather than as what may be imagined, and perhaps never embodied, can lead to the worst sort of compromise, legitimised by a debased pragmatism.

I suppose, like many of us on here, I see it as a detente, or a constant tightrope walk between the two extremes - with each position balancing the other, and articulating the passage between them.

I think Sophable has brought this up, for me, anyway, partly because she has made me think about New Labour. Personally, 1992 changed my political activities quite a lot.

Coolfonz -

the wars in Iraq/Afgahistan - not a right/left issue a utilitarian one

Any atrocities that may have been committed - not a right/left issue, a criminal one.

covering up slush funds from arms dealers to fascist Saudi princes - not a right/left issue a ethics/realpolitic issue.

putting people under house arrest without evidence or telling them why - an authoritarian/libertarian issue

banning demos near parliament - an authoritarian/libertarian issue

letting police kill British citizens without conviction and letting the police kill Brazilian citizens without conviction - not right/left - a criminal issue.

using student dissertations as evidence for war (while adding a few choice lines) - Not a right/left issue an honesty and competence issue.

picking the man who defended the military at Bloody Sunday to head up an inquiry into our second war - Possibly an establishment honesty issue - not sure it is a right left one.

locking up Muslim boys for possession of offensive audio tapes - not sure that this is a right/left issue - maybe a criminal one?

Saying our schools are being "swamped by immigrants" - BNP are left of centre - traditionally a right wing view I suppose though.

You SHOULDN'T just gather together all the things you disagree with and slap them on a group of people 'that lot over there' label them right wing and forget about it. Obviously you CAN, but it's more often a trait of fascists and dictators, and frankly, not a good look.

People and their opinions are more complex and nuanced than that.

agree with aubergines I think. As someone who voted LD, and doesn't think the coalition is a complete disaster, I've felt that the lefty thread was becoming a place I could no longer post completely comfortably. Not that there's anything wrong with that - I wouldn't comfortably post on a Tory thread or a chicken-keeper's thread etc etc.