This is opinion. So read it as such. But consider it please.
Obviously if you read this based on the title. I assume you oppose the Tories.
But if you are wondering why labour are so keen to manage expectations. There is a reason.
Campaign funding wise the Tories are estimated to be 19m ahead of labour. But honestly at the moment they are not spending a huge amount more.
We know the Tories are skilled at election manipulation. So there is genuine fear that the Tories plan to launch a campaign within the last few days.
I.E. when there is less time and funding to ensure fact checking is effective.
They know Starmer is more publicity aware then Corbyn was. He is able to play it in a way that dose not scare traditional Conservative voters.
They also know thanks to Boris, that the courts are unable to punish them for outright lies during any political campaign. And that Rishi is prepared to lie about and accuse civil servants of lying when challenged.
As huge as polling is against the Tories. All it would take is some dramatic claim against the party or Starmer. To convince Tory traditional voters to bite their tongue and vote Tory. While convincing left wing voters not to vote or to switch to 3rd party in seats where labour are the 1st or 2nd party.
The fact we know they have a huge amount of money unspent. Makes it clear they plan to launch something nearer the end of the election. And the only advantage of leaving it so late. Is it will limit the ability of the party to effectively react. Or fact checkers to be able to prove and distribute evidence of lies.
Please be prepared for this.
Tories are pretty boned, period, whenever they launch their last push - the actual threat are Reform, who will either form a coalition with whoever it takes to gain a majority in this election, or outright win next time after the PLP fundamentally change nothing.
I am old enough to have thought that in the past. The money that backs the Tories will not give up. Given how open the party has been about its extrean right over the last few years.
Honestly until the 5th July it is very dangerous to think that way. All these predictions are based on 65 to 75% turn out. That is high. The Tories do not need to convince folks to vote Tory. They are better off stopping folks voting labour. At least in seats where a 3rd party is not closer to Tory in polling.
If they reduce turn out for labour while increasing support for more left of centre parties. They can do to labour what Corbyn did to may. Create a weak minority party where the existing devisions in the PLP prevent the party achieving much.
If you’ve been voting for 30+ years you should have the experience to recognise how close in policy the current PLP are to the Tories. If you’re just talking about the last few elections you were naive and deserved to be surprised that the PLP would rather sabotage a left wing candidate than win an election.
The money that backs the Tories is not particularly attached to the Tories, and will move (has already been moving) to the PLP and any other sources of power it can find should the Tories lose. It does not have an ideology beyond constant growth, and is happy to pay members of any party for access.
I’m 53 so the former. But also experienced enough to have see your argument before. Because I was making them.
I and many my age said exactly the same thing about Tony Blair’s leadership of the party. And heck I have been making the argument for the last few years post Corbyn.
But I also have the experience to know how much better life under right wing labour is then even left wing Tories. So 10 days before the election. Fighting to change the options we have is a losing battle. The fight is instead between 5 years of a lesser evil. Or a much much greater one.
Because at the end of it. Right wing labour is not trying to start a war against the poor. Whereas the Conservative Party is very much built from a history of embedded privileged. It literally grew from the lords side of a fight between the house of lords vs the house of commons. I.E. feudalism vs commoners. The power of generational privileged wealth vs democracy. (As limited as it was in those days)
While since 1689 the structure of parliament has changed hugely. That is the historical predecessor to the Tories losing against the Liberals and Labour representing the rights of commons.
And any honest look at the ideology of the 2 main parties is still based on privileged wealth vs the early idea of the middle class. I.E. Earned wealth (although the far left would have issues with earned I agree with). The left wing of the labour party (that both started it and removed the Liberals from opposition. ) Cannot win this election. But we can sure as hell give it to the Tories unintentionally. Very like the right of the party did in 2019 (ill add intentionally here).
What I see very strongly is an attempt by Tories to blame the poor for poverty. As they always do. vs an attempt by Labour to turn what they call the centre. But in the feudal past our parliament grew in was referred to as the middle class. I.E. traders and business men not born into generational wealth.
I hate that FPTP is so shitty. And have seen how shitty since the 1980s. But again 10 days till the election. Its time to bite your anger down and choose the lesser evil. Because the greater evil knows how to use yours and my anger to gain power.
Well I am almost 40 and have seen the harm reduction argument lead the US right into Trump and now Biden who is nearly as bad. At some point you have to start to acknowledge that incrementalism is fuckin suicide.
Look, I know you’re very anti-Biden and everything, but we’re currently on year 14 of our Trump equivalents being in power. They’re lashing out harder and harder at vulnerable groups. Some harm reduction would be fucking great right now. On top of that, there is a real risk of an even worse party doing well in this election. We do not have the luxury of fucking about on principle this year.
What we do have is an opportunity to absolutely bury the party that has been in power and driving so much of the bullshit here, and we’d be damned fools not to take it. It is looking genuinely possible that this election actually displaces one of the two big parties in the UK. Let’s not replace it with the even worse lot, eh?
Agreed. But you also have to consider the timing. The only way to stop it is to change the voting system. As I am very vocal in trying to do between all elections.
Or to change the candidates. Again I have been trying that between elections.
At this point your faced with 2 options. Assassination or choosing the lesser evil.
Honestly the first choice just makes you the greater evil.
The most absurd false dichotomy I’ve seen in a while, nice.
“Killing Hitler just makes you worse than Hitler” – outstanding logic. Literally everyone outside of hardcore pacifists would agree there are certain politicians that it is OK to assassinate.
As dumb as that sounds. If someone killed Hitler after he was popular as a german politician. All it would do is create a marter. Hitler lead a political movement his actions were not that of an individual. The German people would not have changed direction if he was assassinated. That is why assassination is not how to solve political issues. And Fascism was a popular idea at the time. In Germany the US and the UK.
The old joke that killing Hitler is a common time travel error. As silly as it is meant to be. Is based on logic. It would need to be done before he has support. Or you just give that support an event to gain more support. If you do it before he has support. You better hope know one knows what you did when you get back.
in real life without time travel. Their are very few times a political assassination would not end up worse off. At least anywhere remotely democratic as Germany was. Politics means people choose a leader so assassination is just trying to use fear to change minds. Fear rarely leads to better results.
You are arguing against killing Hitler. You’re right that this sounds stupid, because it is.
But your whole post is really beside the point: there are absolutely, positively, beyond any doubt politicians who could justifiably be assassinated. Set aside guesswork about how such an act would have played out – the act itself would obviously be justified. It would in no way make you worse than Hitler, or even anywhere near as reprehensible.
*martyr
Hitler killed Hitler and he wasn’t any worse than Hitler.
That is horrible binary thinking. There is a world of action between voting for liberals (unscratched fascists) and assassination (which if your government is run by fascists, does not, in fact, make you the greater evil)
Why are you libs always like this? Oh if you kill the evil people then you’re just as bad as them!
Okay have fun with that pacifism fetish when it leads you in front of a firing squad (which is the ultimate destination of the trajectory both our countries are on)
Read This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed.
yeah you are talking about murdering politicians. this conversation is over.
A) No he isn’t, you made that up to have an excuse to retreat from the argument you’re losing
B) OH GOD NOO NOT THE GENOCIDAL POLITICANS NOOO
Good German.
And you are talking about voting for the people facilitating this: https://hexbear.net/post/2834712 CW SA And basically the most horrifying shit you’ve ever seen.
But sure take the moral high ground you freak.
Also, for the record I never stated support for political assassination. That is a strawman you made up to justify voting for these fucking monsters.
Is it really murder if they deserve it? Think for a moment if Hitler deserved it before he started enacting genocidal bullshit. Not even then? Was the line at the point where he had thugs in the street or only after he attained state power? There is a line somewhere, and I am curious as to where you think that line is. Because at a certain point a person is an existential threat to the marginalized and they must go away, as expediently as possible.
Removed by mod
I mean fingers crossed both Labour and Tories are
If Lib Dems get opposition it’ll hopefully give people the idea they can vote for who they want instead of tactically, so vote share of Reform, Lib Dem, Green and whoever else increases